harmonious diction of Great Britain.

It is to

be lamented however that no version of the Messiah at all adequate to the merit of its celebrated author has been yet introduced into our island. Blank verse, cast in the Miltonic mould, would be the only suitable vehicle for the bold and beautiful imagery of this poem, which, when thus clothed, could not fail of exciting the admiration of the public.*

*It is remarkable that the third book of the Messiah opens with an invocation to Light; it therefore immediately courts a comparison with the celebrated address of Milton, in his third book, to the same element: both poets have traversed the infernal world, and are approaching the confines of the terrestrial globe. The parallelism will confirm the opinion of Herder with regard to the superior sublimity of the English bard, who in this passage certainly excels himself, and when lamenting his deprivation of sight, an adjunctive circumstance which Klopstock fortunately for himself had it not in his power to introduce, is more pathetic, perhaps, than any other poet. The German is tender, elegant and impressive, the characteristics of his style, according to the critics of his country, throughout the whole of his elaborate work.

For the following translation of the commencement of the third book of the Messiah I am indebted to my friend Mr. Good. Every reader will recollect the parallel invocation in Milton, *" Hail holy light" &c.

&c.

Once more I hail thee, once behold thee more,
Earth! soil maternal! thee, whose womb of yore
Bore me; and soon, beneath whose gelid breast,
These limbs shall sink in soft and sacred rest.
Yet may I first complete this work begun,
And sing the covenant of th' ETERNAL SON.

From the brief mention of these three divine bards we pass on to the immediate subject of our paper, The Calvary of Mr. CUMBERLAND, a work imbued with the genuine spirit of Milton, and destined therefore, most

O! then these lips, his heavenly love that told,
These eyes that oft in streams of rapture roll'd,
Shall close in darkness!—o'er my mouldering clay
A few fond friends their duteous rites shall pay,
And with the palm, the laurel's deathless leaf
Deck my light turf, and prove their pious grief.
There shall I sleep, till o'er this mortal dust,
Springs, long announc'd, the morning of the just;
Then, fresh embodied in a purer mold,
Triumphant rise, and brighter scenes behold.

Then! Muse of Sion! who, with potent spell,
Thro' hell hast led me, and return'd from hell,
Still shudd'ring at the voyage:—thou whose eye
Can oft the thoughts of God himself descry,
And, thro' the frown that veils his awful face,
Read the fair lines of love, and heav'nly grace,—
Shine on this soul! that trembles at the sight
Of her own toils, with pure celestial light;
Raise her low powers, that yet, with loftier wing,
The best of men, the Saviour God she sing.

In a letter addressed to the Princess Royal of England in 1797 by the Rev. Herbert Croft, he announces a version, line for line, of Klopstock's Messiah in English hexameters, a specimen of which he has given in this epistle. The completion of this undertaking is the more desirable, as he enjoys the advantage of a personal and intimate acquaintance with the German Homer, and can consult him on the meaning of every bscure passage.

probably, to immortality. On this, the latest effort in sacred poetry, and which has not yet met with the attention it so justly merits, we propose offering some general observations, as relative to fable, character, language, &c. and shall, afterwards proceed to notice the particular and more striking beauties of each book; a review, which, from the passages adduced, will assuredly tempt the reader to peruse the whole, and probably to place this performance. among the choicest products of the Muse.

It has been objected to Milton that in his Paradise Regained he has taken too confined a view of the subject, and by restricting the theatre of action to the Temptation in the wilderness, attributed solely to that event the redemption of mankind. To this Milton was probably induced by the charm of contrast, by the desire of shewing the world that in the preceptive and moral as well as in the grand and sublime epic, he was equally pre-eminent; and it must be confessed he has happily succeeded, for the mild yet majestic beauties of the Paradise Regained, its weight of precep and exquisite morality, its richness of sentiment and simplicity of diction, call as loudly

for approbation and applause as the more splendid and terrible graces, the whirlwind and commotion of the prior poem.

What the critics have very unjustly blamed Milton for not effecting, Mr. Cumberland stretching a more ample canvas, has performed, and given to the Crucifixion and Resurrection of our Saviour, the importance and the consequences they demand.

That the action should be one, entire and great, has been repeated, and approved of, from the days of Aristotle to the present period, and no argument human or divine. could better adapt itself to the axiom than the one we are now considering, pregnant as it is with the greatest events, and terminated by a catastrophe, beyond all comparison, to man the most interesting and propitious; for, in strict adhesion to the simple narrative of the Evangelists, the last supper and the resurrection. form the limits of the work, and produce the requisite unity. On a subject whose basis is truth itself, and involving the whole compass of our religion, any the smallest deviation from scriptural fact had been injudicious in

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the extreme, and even disgusting. La bowallet resources of the poet, therefore, the materials. of fiction and imagination, were to be drawn sto aid from that mine which Milton had so fortunately opened, and which Mr. Cumberland has proved to be still productive of the finest ore, not less rich, nor of inferior quality to that which we have been accustomed so highly and so judiciously to value. The agency of angels and demons, the delineation of the regions appropriated to the blessed or the damned, give ample scope to the genius of the poet, and spring as it were from the very nature of the theme. The term fable, therefore, as applied to a poem founded on the religion of Christ, can only with propriety be affixed to the conceptions of the poet, the rest being established on facts which ought to admit of no obliquity or modification. Taking it however as a whole, the result of truth and fiction, it will appear to possess every requisite for epic action, unity, integrity and magnitude. After an assemblage of the devils to conspire the destruction of Christ, and the delegation of Mammon as the tempter of Iscariot, the Last Supper takes place in strict conformity to the relation of St. John, and which is immediately