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We see nothing of that strange irregular spirit which impelled Shakespear all round the world, and led Milton soaring to the stars; but a dreaming idleness, which fed on earthly beauty and earthly fortunes, and was contented to live for ever on haunted slopes, to thread the mazes of enchantment, and to repose in chambers of sensual delight.— Nevertheless, Spenser was a moral poet. He was the poet of moral romance. He aimed at being didactic (after a pleasant fashion)—yet he loved to loiter by the way, and give himself up to luxurious musings. He did not turn aside from love, or desire, or lust, or gluttony, or a revel; but met and enjoyed them all, or made them subservient to his main design. He steeped his mind in pleasure, and gave forth the result like a distillation-clear and refined; not stripped of its internal virtue or original colour, but merely with the husk and coarse deformity left behind. There never was a man who so revelled in description, or who lived so entirely out of the bustle and resort of the busy world, as Spenser. He is the poet of leaves and flowers. The forests and the fountains, and the smooth clear lakes, are his domain; and these he has peopled with a grotesque race, such as we look for in vain on the dusty and common road of life; creatures of fairy-land and of the muses whose lives, like their own laurels, shall flourish and look green for ever.'— We have only room for one more extract.

Andrew Marvell.

'Marvell was one of the truest men that ever stood up for the cause of liberty. We do not know that a finer or more inflexible spirit can be found either in our own or any foreign nation. He was a politician, a wit, and a poet. He stood guard over the people's rights with a firm hand, unseduced and unterrified. He lashed vice and folly with the whip of satire; and pleased himself, and did honor to his friends, by recording his attachments in much delightful verse. His verses indeed flourish equally in the green places of England, and in the dykes of Holland; among friends and enemies. He was the author of a certain phrase (he is speaking of a lady having been tutored

"Under the destiny severe

Of Fairfax, and the starry Vere")

which we might almost suppose was the origin of that famous line of lord Byron's

"The starry Galileo with his woes”

the same effort of the imagination being observable in both.-Marvell's lines are sometimes cramped, and he is, like many others, too fond of conceits; but he has many graceful, many piquant, and some very touching things in his poetry. The reader will recognize, in his open look and waving hair, it is to be hoped, something as well of the patriot as the poet.'.

It is very pleasant to have always at hand little notes of this kind, relative to every English poet who has acquired any name; and they are peculiarly fitted to accompany and illustrate the portraits which, in their turn, illustrate them.

6.-A ride of Eight hundred Miles in France; &c., by James Paul Cobbett, Student of Lincoln's-Inn. 12mo. 1824.

THIS is a very amusing little book, and possesses most of those claims on our attention, although in an inferior degree, which characterize the writings of the author's eminent father. The style is of the same plain and unaffected kind; the opinions usually taken up with the same haste and inconsiderateness; the same prejudices and the same goodsense; in short, we miss little of the father but that confident tone of dogmatism which gives that air of originality to his most trivial observations, and that force and flavour to his remarks, which have long rendered him the most popular of periodical writers.

We recommend those of our readers who have not read the book before us to purchase it forthwith; and we guarantee them a good return, in amusement and instruction, for the half-crown which it will cost them. Mr. Cobbett's chief attention during his tour was bestowed on the state of the lower orders. For this he was peculiarly qualified; and we are most happy to lay before our readers the following result of his inquiries.

I remark, as I go along, that the common people are very civil and obliging, whenever I ask them any questions about what I do not myself understand. There is nothing uncouth, nothing boorish, in their manners. They explain to you, as well as they can, what you want to be made acquainted with; and, when they do not instantly comprehend your meaning, they seem as anxious to anticipate it, as if you were not a stranger, but rather one to whom they have been used to talk. This is a great merit, and a mark of intelligence in the French people. It enables you to get along with them, which they cannot well do with us in England. A Frenchman is most completely out of his element in England; while an Englishman in France, though the country may appear very strange at first, finds, in the courtesy of the people, a great deal to reconcile him to the strangeness of their customs.'

p. 40. Having made some judicious observations on the effect of the abolition of the game-laws, in France, more especially as they regard the lower orders, he says,

A French labourer would be a fool if he could find any delight in prowling about in a coppice, at a time when he might be sleeping at home in such a house as is the habitation of a labouring man at Briarre. There are cottages, or small houses, separate from the farmhouses, all over the estate of Beauvoir. A labourer, employed by the year, has one of these houses for his family to live in, with from twelve to fifteen acres of land, fire-wood, and two cows allowed him; a little piece of vineyard, and apple-trees and pear-trees, to make wine, cider, and perry for his drink. For this little estate he pays 150 francs a-year. And he earns by his labour, from 15 to 30 sous a-day, according to the season of the year; which would leave him upon an average, after he has paid the 150 francs, more than as much as that sum in clear money. The labourers who live under these circumstances cannot, generally speaking, be otherwise than happy. They have every thing that they can want; every thing, in fact, that a labourer ought to have. If they like to have beer to drink, they have land on which to grow the

materials for making it; and they may grow the hops and make the malt, without fearing the interference of the Exciseman. There is no need of "pot-houses," here: and, consequently, there are no such things in France. The labourer can sit at home in the evening, because in his house there is enough of plenty to give content; and, for the same reason, he can go to bed without being afraid of awaking in misery. The state of the French labourer forms, in short, a perfect contrast with that of the poor ragged creature of the same class in England, who, after a hard day's work, slinks into the "pot-house," to seek, in its scene of drunkenness and degradation, a refuge from the cheerlessness of his own abode'-p. 80. Again;-p. 159. Some people that have been travellers in this country, exclaim, "how many beggars there are in France!" There are, to be sure, a good many beggars here; but, I have not seen more of them in the country parts of France, than I should have seen in England had I been travelling in England along the same distance of high road. I certainly did not see so many beggars in Paris as I have seen in London; and, there is this important difference between the individual appearance of the beggars in France, and that of English beggars: a very large portion of our beggars are persons neither aged nor infirm, while, in France, there is scarcely any object of this description that is not old, or, in some way, incapable of earning a living. The greater part of the beggars in England beg because they cannot get employment; and the beggars in France beg because they are not fit to be employed. It is the state of society in England which causes the beggar, while, in France, it is his inability to render society any service which causes him to beg. I do not mean to say, that there are no objects of charity in France except those who are bodily infirm; for, there must, in all countries, be some persons, who, although capable of exertion, have, owing to peculiar circumstances, no means of existence at their command. There are, of course, some persons of this description in France; but, the sturdy beggar is not common in this country.'

This is a gratifying statement, although we do not go so far as to admit with Mr. Cobbett that the French labourer "has every thing that a labourer ought to have", or to attribute his comparative prosperity to precisely the same causes.

Mr. C. has taken a very rational view of many of those differences between French and English manners, which some prejudiced persons of our own country are constantly crying up as defects of moral character. Our traveller's language is far more just and accurate :—

The honesty of the French in all their dealings; their punctuality in paying their debts; their great dislike to be in debt: these are acknowledged by all who know them, and who are just and these make up for many and many little faults.'

The book abounds with passages well-calculated to dissipate the absurd national dislikes and jealousies, which the sinister interest of governments has so long endeavoured to perpetuate, between two countries, whose real advantage would be found in an interchange of each other's habits and opinions, as well as of cotton and claret.

We can only afford room for another extract: it is written at Calais on the author's return from his tour.

Here I am again, with the white cliffs of England once more in my sight, after having been seven weeks and two days in France, and having travelled over much about eight hundred English miles. Let me, then, look at my purse, and count the cost of this most agreeable and instructive ride. From my landing at this place, on the 9th of October, to my entry into it again this day, my whole expenditure has been £16 10s. 94d. or 396 francs, 181 sous; or, six shillings and sevenpence a-day for me and my horse; including, however, nearly a pound sterling on account of my horse's cutting of his foot. I have not tried to be saving. I have lived very well; always put up at the best inns; eaten and drank as others did; have been rather liberal than otherwise to servants and have a horse full as fat as when I landed him. These expenses, per day, for myself and horse, are not much more than the amount of the day's wages of a labourer at New York. When we look at these expenses, we cannot wonder that so many English people are now in France; indeed, the wonder is, that thousands more are not here.'

7.-Rosaline de Vere. 2 Vols. Treutel and Würz. 1824.

THIS book comes some quarter of a century too late. It belongs to a class of works which can never obtain popularity but under favour of circumstances of rare occurrence, which prepare a public of partizans, or in the hands of transcendent talent, which is able to subdue popular antipathy. In a word, it is a metaphysical or philosophical novel, composed for the sake of introducing certain doctrines which nobody here cares or knows anything about. It is written like Clarissa and the new Heloïse, in letters, and like them, has barely incident enough to throw the characters into the situations requisite for the display of their peculiar qualities. The heroine, Rosaline, aged twenty, addresses her Italian friend Clorinda on her arrival in England, and lectures her as a female Mentor on the incidents of both their lives-Clorinda is persecuted by the addresses of a servile suitor, but fixes her affections on one of the victims of Austrian despotism in Italy: her lover flies, and is heard of no more, but is supposed to be entrapped by some of the members of the Holy Alliance, and Clorinda loses her senses. In the mean while, Rosaline attaches herself to an Irish patriot, a sort of spiritualized or ennobled Captain Rock, a genuine Milesian. He proceeds to France where he meets with the friend of his mistress in a state of convalescence; is innocently involved in a duel in protecting her; and mortally woundedat least the wound becomes mortal, for Clorinda in a fit of jealousy having written him an angry epistle, he tears open his wound, and dies; and at the receipt of this news, Clorinda dies too-not, however, without recording the chief dogmata of her creed at the moment of her departure.

And after all, what is this creed then? We would much rather let our author speak for himself, than pretend to give any summary of his - doctrines. In a note we read, "Our heroine having been the pupil of Pietro Perruvino, a mathematician, who was probably a Spinosist, immediately establishes a mixed system of realism and idealism, which

without going so far as Kant, is at once simple and easy of comprehension, and which any young person of talent could acquire."

And there is at least as much of the Kantian speculation, as consists in the refutation of the theory of Locke concerning the origin of ideas, though the author ventures on the use of a terminology, altogether exploded by the philosopher of Königsberg.

But on this foundation is raised a sentimental theory, full of mystical passion, which forms even a ludicrous contrast to all that was characteristic of the author of the critical philosophy. Rosaline is in religion a Quietist and a superstitious believer in fatalism. She thus endoctrinates her friend when on the brink of insanity :

:

'Let this notion of the irrevocable, absolute, irremediable, and unavoidable decree of fate instil itself into every particle of your soul, and strike every nerve of your frame, "What will be shall be:" Engrave these words on your heart. Fix your mind on certainty-the eternal series of successive causes bears down upon all human events. Calm the phrenzy of your maddened brain: but still indulge in the soft melancholy of a wounded heart.'

There was at least good faith in this counsel, for she preached no other doctrine to herself than to her friend; for under her own intense affliction, her philosophy did not abandon her. Though her death was more decidedly a case of broken heart than any we are acquainted with-ushered in, too, by a highly-impassioned scene, yet at the very last calling forth the rich mellifluous accents of her silver-toned voice, as if to do its last duty, as the echo of her sublime ideas, without one twinkling in her steady eye, or a quiver in a single tone of her voice-she spoke thus

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'Death, according to my doctrine, is the passage of our being from a state of mixed realism and idealism into a state of pure idealism-a problem which I am shortly about to solve. God and the soul are incapable of demonstration, but both are capable of being felt, which is more powerful than demonstration. Immortality, such as I feel it, is pure sentiment. The moment you desire to prove or demonstrate it, the whole fabric of your reasoning falls to the ground, for you then confound essences out of time and space, with things in time and space; Our soul is never in time or space, hence it is immortal. Now can that absolute substance which has no property that can confine it, be mortal?" And having thus spoken, for five pages and a half, she drank, bowed her head and died.' Thus (concludes our author) fell Rosaline de Vere, a peerless maid. Who, now, can repine at cruel Fate?' As Dryden says after Lucretius,

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However unable our readers may be to follow the dying philosopher into these heights of speculation, some of them will cordially sympathise in her practical notions. Our author is a proof that there is at least no necessary connection between a mystical, dreaming philosophy or superstition, and acquiescence in the mass of evil, which under the established systems of government and religion, is allowed to flourish and increase. The book is written in a tone of well-sustained indig

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