The Address to the Princess breathes a warm, but as it appears to us, a misguided attachment, to the hierarchical scheme of ecclesiastical policy: the reference to the influence of personal piety in a monarch, is, however, both correct and elegant.

The angelic visitant that succeeds, is one of the guardians of the rising human race'.

Our readers will appreciate the beauty and pathos of the following stanzas.

'Somewhile he fixed upon the royal Bride

A contemplative eye of thoughtful grief;
The trouble of that look benign implied

A sense of wrongs for which he sought relief,
And that earth's evils which go unredrest
May waken sorrow in an Angel's breast.

I plead for babes and sucklings, he began,
Those who are now, and who are yet to be;
I plead for all the surest hopes of man,
The vital welfare of humanity:

Oh! let not bestial Ignorance maintain
Longer within the land her brutalizing reign.
O Lady, if some new-born babe should bless,
In answer to a nation's prayers, thy love,
When thou beholding it in tenderness,

The deepest, holiest joy of earth shalt prove,

In that the likeness of all infants see,

And call to mind that hour what now thou hearest from me.

Then seeing infant man, that Lord of Earth,

Most weak and helpless of all breathing things,

Remember that as Nature makes at birth

No different law for Peasants or for Kings,
And at the end no difference may befall,
The "short parenthesis of life" is all.

But in that space, how wide may be their doom
Of honour or dishonour, good or ill!
From Nature's hand like plastic clay they come,

To take from circumstance their woe or weal;
And as the form and pressure may be given,
They wither upon earth, or ripen there for Heaven.
Is it then fitting that one soul should pine

For lack of culture in this favoured land?..

That spirits of capacity divine

Perish, like seeds upon the desert sand? . .
That needful knowledge in this age of light

Should not by birth be every Briton's right?' pp. 46-49.

He ceased, and sudden from some unseen throng
A choral peal arose and shook the hall;

**

As when ten thousand children with their song
Fill the resounding temple of Saint Paul; ..
Scarce can the heart their powerful tones sustain;
"Save, or we perish!" was the thrilling strain.
"Save or we perish!" thrice the strain was sung
By unseen Souls innumerous hovering round,
And whilst the hall with their deep chorus rung,

The inmost heart was shaken with the sound:
I felt the refluent blood forsake my face,

And my knees trembled in that aweful place.' p. 51. Two female forms, emblematical of Hope and Charity, then' present themselves, and unrol before the throne

"Earth's melancholy map," whereon to sight
Two broad divisions at a glance were shown,..
The empires these of Darkness and of Light.
Well might the thoughtful bosom sigh to mark
How wide a portion of the map was dark.'

The high obligation of England, to diffuse the Scriptures through all the region of her trusted reign,' and to win in peace, by a warfare against moral evil, a nobler name than that acquired by Victory, is energetically and feelingly descanted on. • Speed thou the work, Redeemer of the World! That the long miseries of mankind may cease! Where'er the Red Cross banner is unfurled

There let it carry truth, and light, and peace!
Did not the Angels who announced thy birth
Proclaim it with the sound of Peace on Earth?"

As Speranza ceases, the vaulted roof expands and exhibits a Cross of light, and the voice of an angelic multitude is heard renewing the prophetic anthem, " Peace upon Earth, Good will "to men." 29 The Poet falls prostrate with awe and trembling

joy.

The following stanzas close the Vision.

Gone was the glory when I raised my head,
But in the air appeared a form half-seen,
Below with shadows dimly garmented,

And indistinct and dreadful was his mien :
Yet when I gazed intentlier, I could trace
Divinest beauty in that aweful face.

Hear me, O Princess! said the shadowy form,
As in administering this mighty land
Thou with thy best endeavour shalt perform

The will of Heaven, so shall my faithful hand
Thy great and endless recompence supply; ..

My name is DEATH: THE LAST BEST FRIEND AM I!' p.60. The Epilogue' apologizes to the Princess, for the severe VOL. VI. N.S.

R

solemnity of the Nuptial Song, and invokes Heaven's best blessings on the royal head.

It was perhaps unnecessary to give these copious extracts from a poem which will obtain so general a perusal, but it is the only way in which, without employing the commonplace language of panegyric, we could do justice to poetry like Mr. Southey's. Productions of this kind are judged of, not so much by their real merit, as by the first impression which they may accidentally make: we have therefore endeavoured to secure for the present poem that effect which the taste and feeling it displays are calculated to produce, apart from all those lowering associations which are inseparable from the occurrences and interests of the day.

We cannot wholly pass over, however, what appear to us to be defects in the poem. Stanzas 24 and 25 are, we think, disfigured by that mixture of mythology and pure allegory, to which not even the examples of Spenser and Milton can reconcile the mind. We have alluded to some objectionable parts of the address of the Angel of the English Church: but our exception lies principally against what appears to be conveyed in the following stanza. After alluding to the papal power,

it is added:

The stern Sectarian in unnatural league
Joins her to war against their hated foe;
Error and Faction aid the bold intrigue,

And the dark Atheist seeks her overthrow,
While giant Zeal in arms against her stands,

Barks with an hundred mouths, and lifts an hundred hands. We say, what appears to be conveyed in these stanzas, for we cannot persuade ourselves that the Author really meant to intimate by this allegorical representation, that he believed in an actual conspiracy between different and mutually contending parties for the overthrow of the Establishment. We confess that the language is too equivocal, and that even supposing that it was designed merely to point out the concurrent tendency of various opposite causes to effect the downfall of the hierarchy, there is not truth in the representation. The whole body of Protestant Dissenters are subjected to incapacitating laws, similar to those which exclude the Roman Catholics. The same Church, by virtue of its connexion with the State, accomplishes the exclusion of both; but this exclusion proceeds, in the two cases, upon very different grounds in the one, it is founded on grounds simply religious, on the charge of schism; in the other, on the political complexion of the Romish creed. The Dissenters have on more than one occasion, consented to waive their claims, rather than favour, even indirectly, the introduction of the Roman Catholics, to secular power';

We

and so far from being disposed to league with the members of a Church, the tenets of which are so abhorrent to every principle they cherish, they are regarded by the Roman Catholics themselves less as fellow-sufferers in a civil respect, than as determined opponents from conscientious principles. How far the Dissenters generally may, or may not, as individuals, rejoice in the prospect of concessions being made to the Roman Catholics of Ireland, as the triumph of the principles of an enlightened policy, we do not pretend to say; but not the shadow of evidence can be adduced to shew that such an opinion has led to any practical combination of whatever kind either among themselves, or with any foreign body. The supposed league is a pure creation of fancy. Are Grattan, Wilberforce, and Lord Castlereagh, we would ask, the representatives of Faction, Error, and Atheism? or are the hundred hands of Giant Zeal typical of the increasingly numerous minority within the House of Commons, that support the claims' of the Catholics? are sorry to be compelled to make these remarks on any passage in the production of a man cordially attached, as we believe Mr. Southey to be, to civil and religious liberty. Since he has alluded, however, to two queen-mothers of the English Church, we must be allowed to refer to a third-not to Queen Mary the First, but to Queen Anne-and to remind him, that in her reign the dark Atheist'* was exhibited as the most zealous abettor of the arbitrary claims of the Establishment. Between the Atheist, who employs religion as a mere engine of state policy, and the intolerant ecclesiastic, there is a natural tendency to union. But Mr. Southey is perhaps the first who has ventured to designate Zeal as a giant rebel, and a rebel in arms, with which the Hercules of the State has to combat. The name of virtue, for surely zeal is a virtue, is not to be given to the personification of vice, whatever vice be intended. Southey has explained himself as to the means by which alone he would have the Church defended and upheld: but still such representations as these are calculated to inflame and to mislead; consequences, which Mr. Southey would deprecate equally with ourselves.

Mr.

We were about to notice another passage in Mr. Southey's poem, as liable to misconstruction, but the subject is too delicate for us either to suggest, or to require an explanation. It is obvious that the Poet's allusions to certain distinguished personages, are confined to those public measures with which the public character of the sovereign is identified. Regarding that firm adherence on the part of the monarch to constitutional

* Bolingbroke.

principles, and that gracious solicitude, personally expressed, for the universal enjoyment of religious knowledge and religious liberty, which have characterized the present reign, we do not hesitate to applaud the cautious counsel which our poet offers to the Royal Lady:

Look to thy Sire, and in his steady way,

As in his Father's he, learn thou to tread.'

In proportion as Mr. Southey despises the clamours of partyspirit, and the invectives of impotent envy, let him be careful to guard against the appearance of a feeling tainted by the Court, or darkened by bigotry. He may then in perfect faith, cast his book upon the waters.

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

The conclusion of the Article on Dr. Clarke's Travels is unavoidably deferred till the next Number, which will also comprise Articles on Lavallée's History of the French Factions, Adams's Journal of a Residence at Tombuctoo, Memoirs of the early life of Wm. Cowper, Esq. Essays in Rhyme by Miss Taylor, &c. &c.

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