What worth attends it? but if found perchance,
The Artist's hands the sparkling gem enhance.
So let our Genius ever be display'd,

When Application lends its firmer aid.'

Art. 29. Sonnets and other small Poems. By T. Park. 12mo. 69. Boards. Sael. 1797.

Mr. Park excited our attention and our expectations, by the fol lowing information in his Preface: By the counsel of Mr. Cowper, these poems were first encouraged to solicit public notice. By the comments of Miss Seward, they have been rendered less unworthy to do so.' How far the hopes thus awakened were gratified, the following specimens will probably enable the reader to deter

mine :

SONNET Ì.

Muse of the Landscape! that in sylvan shade,
With meek simplicity, thy handmaid, dwells:
Oft hast thou led me through sequester'd dells,
O'er airy heights, and down the sunny glade,
Where vernant wreaths for thee I sought to braid
Of wild-blown roses, or of azure bells

Cull'd by some limpid fount that softly wells *;
And hast thou no return of kindness made?
Yes, thou hast sooth'd my heart in sorrow's hour,
And many a wayward passion oft beguil'd;
Thy charms have won me to Reflection's bower,
When Folly else, with visions faise and wild,

Had lur'd my footsteps, by her witching power,
From thee, enchanting Nature's loveliest child.'

We must nevertheless remark that this elegant tribute to rural pleasures is liable to censure: that for who in the first line is incorrect; dwells for dwellest, ungrammatical. Vernant is a term with

which we are unacquainted.

The following Sonnet (xvi.) is another of the best specimens of Mr. Fark's collection:

Written in an Alcove, where Thomson composed his Seasons.

Aerial Spirits, who forsook your sky

To whisper charmed sounds in Thomson's ear,
Or shaded from the ken of grosser eye,
Did to the Bard in holy trance appear;

Still guard the sacred grove which once was dear,
On every leaf enweave a druid spell,

And say to the profane, should such come near,
Here did the Woodland Pilgrim' form his Cell;
The Priest of Nature here his temple plac'd,
And rais'd the incense of his song on high;
With sylvan honours was his altar grac'd,
His harp was tun'd to heavenly psalmistry:

* Flows, an old word.

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Here

Here did he pour to Nature's God the strain!

And should you scorn the worship, shun the fane.’

6

We were surprised to find the following words used by a writer who is for the most part correct, and in many passages elegant and poetical: Inspirative; troublous; ardency; confessial; academe; hyemal-Such attempts at rhyme as the following are preposterous: dry beards, five years; vicarage, puckeridge; doublet, couplet; pass, verse; verbum, interdum; Flora, Laura.- Correctness in Poems of which the highest merit is elegant trifling must be deemed indispensable, and we wish to press this caution on an author who seems capable, with adequate exertion, of agreeably amusing the public as a Poet.

Some pleasing engravings accompany this volume.

Art. 30.

The College; a Satire. Cantos I. and II. 8vo. 35.

Cawthorn. 1797.

The contests of grave and learned bodies have always been thought fair game for ridicule : but, în order to succeed with the public in a topic of so confined a nature, no inconsiderable portion of wit and humour is necessary, joined with that easy playfulness which can scarcely be expected from one who is seriously interested in the event of the dispute. We cannot deem the writer before us qualified, either by wit or indifference, to entertain his readers on the topic which he has chosen; and if he intended to produce more serious effects, he would probably have succeeded better in plain prose. Amid some vigorous and even elegant lines, we observe an unaccountable mixture of incorrect versification and prosaic and vulgar expression; while the personal satire is equally flat and illiberal.

Art. 31. Fugitive Pieces. By Frances Greensted. 8vo. 3s. Printed at Maidstone. Wilkie, London. 1796.

When our readers are told that this collection of verses is the composition of a female in the humble station of a servant, whose pious endeavours to assist an infirm parent at the age of eighty-two have been approved by a most respectable list of subscribers, we presume that they will not so much regard the intrinsic merit of the poetry, as the intention of the writer; and will be satisfied with the sentiments of a well-disposed and not uncultivated mind, displayed in correct language.

Art. 32. The Will; a Comedy, in five Acts. By Frederick ReyRobinsons. 1797.

nolds. 8vo.

2S.

The account of any one comedy of this author is so applicable to the rest, that it might, with no injury to writer or reader, be left as a sort of standing character. In short, unless Messrs. King, Bannister, and Suett, and Mrs. Jordan, consent to go about from house to house reading his plays, he cannot expect a particle of that applause in the closet which he has obtained on the stage. His Realize and his Veritas do indeed make a most awkward figure in print; and all his striking situations and droll incidents are turned into mere puppetshow farce.

Art.

Art. 33:
The Poetical Works of Thomas Gray, translated into
French Prose. By Mr. D. B. 12mo. Dulau, De Boffe, &c.
1797.

This literal translation of the poems of Gray into French prosc is executed with considerable neatness; it was undertaken as a schoolexercise by the author, and is now offered to the learners of either language. It is honourable to the poetry of Gray that, deprived of the charms of metre, and of its peculiar euphony, it should yet retain so much power of pleasing.

Art. 34. A Trip to Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight, from London, in Rambling Verses. By a Friend to Britain. 8vo. pp. 52. Edinburgh, printed for the Author, and sold at No. 12 in Ave-Maria Lane, London. 1797.

If this Friend to Britain' travels to no better purpose in other respects than in his attempt to write verses, his friends, his real not his complaisant friends,-should advise him to remain at home.

Art. 35. Lyric Poems. 4to. pp. 109. Com. Paper, 6s. Boards. Fine Paper, 10s. 6d. Robinsons 1797.

These compositions are not all possessed of equal merit, nor are they equally interesting in respect of their subjects: but there is much of case and of nature in the versification;—and a moral tendency, with a pleasing air of pensiveness, generally prevails throughout the whole. The piece entitled 'The Evening Walk' will give an idea of the author's talent at Poetic description:

O thou! to pity's kind affections true,

Of VARRO thou hast heard, the good, the wise!
Onward, my EMMA-and the spot we view
Where his foresaken seat in ruin lies.

• How dead the path! across the bord'ring woods,
On brushing wing, no active breezes play;
O'er the dank soil the heavy vapour broods,
And nature's wild luxuriance choaks the way.
By well known scenes that sooth'd my youthful mind,
Through fields that in the pride of culture shone,
Sorrowing, I pass; and in my progress find

The fence demolish'd, and the vista flown.

But lo! the solitary castle nigh,

Whose halls nor inmate hold, nor guest invite ;
Save yon ill-omen'd birds that perch on high,

Or round the turrets wheel their clam'rous flight.
The parting roof that loads these mouldering walls,
Scarce yields a shelter from the drizzling show'r;
In at the shatter'd pane the ivy crawls,

And through the waste apartment weaves her bow'r.
Where peace, where pleasure dwelt, destruction prowls ;
Where mirth was heard and music wont to chime-
Hark! how with sudden gust the tempest howls,
And flaps the jarring doors, unlock'd by time.

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• How

'How chang'd th' abode where VARRO lov'd to rest!
When, by his happier stars, from courts remov'd,
He liv'd, of fortune, kindred, friends, possest,

By men applauded, and by Heav'n approv❜d.
Blest in himself, his bounty's warm embrace
Diffus'd the blessing o'er his wide domain;
For one was he of that primeval race

Whose splendour shone propitious on the plain
The hopes that cherish age were all his own;
The happy sire his gen'rous sons survey'd,
Who, to the blooming verge of manhood grown,
His worth reflected, and his love repaid.
Fall'n with the parent tree, in dust they lie—
This mutilated mansion why explore?
Where Fancy rivets her distemper'd eye

On joys for ever past, and friends no more!
As through the storms of life our course we steer,
Still some lost comfort down the current goes—
Turn, EMMA, turn! suppress the fruitless tear,

And reap the present good that Heav'n bestows.'

There is in this collection a poem entitled The Pastime, containing an Old Man's Apology for his continued and innocent Attentions to the Fair Sex; with which being much pleased (for we, too, as Dryden said, have not yet forgotten the power of beauty,) we were inclined to enrich our miscellany,--but room is wanting for its insertion. Art. 36. Wives as they were, and Maids as they are, a Comedy, in Five Acts, as performed at the Theatre Royal, Covent-Garden. Second Edition. By Mrs. Inchbald. 8vo. 2S. Robinsons. The general style and spirit of Mrs. Inchbald's dramatic writings, and the merits of her own personal character, are so well known to the public, that we shall not very critically enlarge on the present composition but, as the Prologue has glanced, with no violation of propriety, at both the Authoress and her literary productions, particularly this her present adventure on the stage, we shall give a transcript of some of the lines ;-with which no good-natured reader can be dis pleased:

*

I come not to announce a bashful maid

Who ne'er has try'd the drama's doubtful trade,
Who sees with flutt'ring hope the curtain rise,
And scans with timid glance your critic eyes;
My client is a more experienc'd dame,
Tho' not a Veteran, not unknown to Fame,
Who thinks your favours are an honest boast,
Yet fears to forfeit what she values most :
Who has, she trusts, some character to lose,
E'en tho' the woman did not aid the Muse
Who courts with modest aim the public smile,
That stamp of merit, and that meed of toil.

At Athens once (our au bor has been told)
The Comic Muse, irregularly bold,
With living calumny profan'd her stage,
And forg'd the frailties of the faultless sage.
Such daring ribaldry you need not fear,
We have no Socrates to libel here.

Ours are the follies of an humbler flight,
Offspring of manners volatile and light;
Our gen'ral satire keeps more knaves in awe,
Our court of conscience comes in aid of law.
Here scourg'd by wit, and pilloried by fun,

Ten thousand coxcombs blush instead of one.

The want of due attention to probability in the fable and business of the play is the general and most prominent defect of our modern comic writers; and it has been that of Mrs. I. in the present case, to such a degree that even the spirit, ease, and sprightliness of the dialogue can scarcely make reparation for the writer's disregard of the laws of the drama, in this respect.

RELIGIOUS and POLEMICAL. Art. 37. Claude's Essay on the Composition of a Sermon, formerly translated from the French by the Rev. Robert Robinson, with an Appendix; containing One Hundred Skeletons of Sermons; several being the Substance of Sermons preached before the University, by the Rev. Charles Simeon, M. A. Fellow of King's College, Cambridge. Large 8vo. PP. 374. IOS. Boardз. Mathews,

Dilly, &c. 1796.

With

Mr. Robinson's translation of Claude's Essay, with a Life of Claude, many ingenious and curious notes, and a Dissertation on preaching, passed under our notice in Rev. vol. Ixi. p. 100. all the singularities of that publication, we cannot persuade ourselves that many readers will think that Mr. Simeon's edition, which omits almost every thing that was properly Mr. Robinson's own, is preferable to the former. Mr. Robinson was often eccentric, and sometimes coarse and rude: but he was a writer of too much native genius, as well as too honest and worthy a man, to deserve to have his works curtailed in the manner in which they are treated in this publication. It did not become this editor, while he was taking the liberty of reprinting Mr. Robinson's translation entire, to depreciate the merit of the translator as capable of writing notes replete with levity, and teeming with acrimony, and to make a merit of publishing the translation without the encumbrances with which the translator had loaded it.

Our present chief concern, however, is with the hundred skeletons of sermons annexed to the Essay. By a skeleton, the author understandsnot merely a sketch or outline, but a fuller draft, containing all the component parts of a sermon, and all the ideas necessary for the illustration of them.' He seems to have borrowed the idea from Bishop Beveridge's four volumes of skeletons under the title of Thesaurus Theologicus, written solely for his own use; and he has pursued the plan, with some varieties of method, but very much in the spirit of that celebrated divine. Two full pages are devoted to each

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