Hence he had many a courtly play,
And jeerings and gibes in plenty,
And he wrote more rhymes in a single day
Than Byron or Bowles in twenty.`

"He clasped to his side his sword of pride,
His sword, whose native polish vied
With many a gory stain;

Keen and bright as a meteor-light,
But not so keen, and not so bright,
As Moultrie's jesting vein.

And his shield he bound his arm around,
His shield, whose dark and dingy round
Nought human could get through;
Heavy and thick as a wall of brick,
But not so heavy and not so thick

As Roberts's Review.

With a smile and a jest he set out on the quest,

Clad in in his stoutest mail,

With his helm of the best, and his spear

To flay the Dragon's tail."

in the rest,

P. 17.

Sir Eglamour blinded his winged adversary with a pepper-box, and lopped his tail, and wore it as a baldric. The Headless Lady was struck by its beauty, and bound it round her breast by its touch the charm which oppressed her was dissolved, and her awakening to Reason is thus vividly described.

"Gone is the spell that bound her!

The talisman hath touched her heart,

And she leaps with a fearful and fawn-like start
As the shades of glamoury depart,-

Strange thoughts are glimmering round her

Deeper and deeper her cheek is glowing,
Quicker and quicker her breath is flowing,

And her eye gleams out from its long dark lashes,
Fast and full, unnatural flashes;

For hurriedly and wild

Doth Reason pour her hidden treasures,

Of human griefs and human pleasures,
Upon her new-found child.

And

Oh!' she saith, " my spirit doth seem
To have risen to-day from a pleasant dream;
A long, long dream,-but I feel it breaking!
Painfully sweet is the throb of waking!'
And then she laughed, and wept again:
While, gazing on her heart's first rain,
Bound in his turn by a magic chain,

The silent youth stood there:
Never had either been so blest ;-

You that are young may picture the rest,
You that are young and fair.
Never before, on this warm land,

Came love and reason hand in hand."

P. 23.

If there is no very extraordinary ingenuity in the developement of the plot of this little tale, and in its adaptation to the thesis on which it is founded, there is at least a good deal of spirit and playfulness in its execution. The young author has already given proofs of a well-tuned ear, an extensive command of metrical expression, and a quick imagination; besides these, there is a delicacy of tone running throughout his poem, which is not often kept up in light compositions, and which reflects great credit on the soundness of his taste. It is upon the last of these merits that we chiefly augur his future success whenever he enters upon a field more adapted to call his powers into fuller action.

ART. VIII. A View of the Past and Present State of the Island of Jamaica; with Remarks on the Moral and Physical Condition of the Slaves, and on the Abolition of Slavery in the Colonies. By J. Stewart, late of Jamaica. 8vo. pp. 380. 10s. 6d. Whittakers. 1823.

ART. IX. A Letter on the Means and Importance of converting the Slaves in the West Indies to Christianity. By the Right Hon. Sir G. H. Rose, M.P. 8vo. pp. 92. Murray. 1823.

ART. X. Seventeenth Report of the Directors of the African Institution, read at the Annual General Meeting, held on the 16th Day of May, 1823. With an Account of the Proceedings of the Annual Meeting, and an Appendix. 8vo. pp. 168. Hatchard & Co. 1823.

FROM each of these publications valuable information may be derived. Mr. Stewart furnishes an ample collection of facts, and reasons upon them with impartiality and discretion. Sir George Rose gives an erroneous, but a very candid opinion respecting the best method of converting Negro Slaves. The African Institution Report, with its Prefaces and Appendices, with the orations of Mr. Buxton and Mr. Stephen, and with the vignette of a French Slave Ship, and its accompanying horrors, affords a specimen of the manner in which such a Society ought not to act, and points out the

quarter from which the cause of colonial improvement is menaced with the greatest danger.

The general result of Mr. Stewart's statements corresponds closely with an opinion which we urged and defended some months ago, and which is confirmed by every thing that we have since heard upon the subject, namely, that the State of the Negroes in the West Indies is improved and improving, but is capable of much farther amendment. Sir George Rose assures us, that such amendment may be secured by an increased supply of Methodist teachers; and the Institution re-asserts the thrice told tale of its conductors, that no assistance must be expected from the planters in the West -Indies.

This assertion, and some others to which we shall advert, are contained in the account of the proceedings at the last Annual Meeting, and they are the only part of the publication which has the slightest claim to attention. The Report is a piece of pure humbug. It details the contents of certain parliamentary papers, which have been long before the public, tells us what Mr. Canning wrote to the Duke of Wellington, and what the Duke of Wellington said to the Clongress of Verona; and what the Congress of Verona repeied to the Duke of Wellington. And it is impossible to read this solemn mockery, without wishing, that when ministhrs treat with the allies of Great Britain, they would drop te character of agents to the African Institution. The farce is as well understood at Verona, as at Downing-street. Nobody supposes that the British government, or the British nation, are identified with Mr. Stephen. Nobody denies that this bustling diplomacy has done more harm than good. Every body can see that it threatens greater mischief.

The principal object of the Report is to censure the government of France. When Mr. Canning tells the Duke of Wellington, partly on his own authority, and partly on that of the French government, that there is no public feeling on this subject in France (Report, p. 3.) the reporters subjoin a note, in which the fact is flatly denied, and the blame is transferred by these infallible judges from the people to the minister of France; and because the minister refuses to adopt Mr. Stephen's propositions, the reporter exclaims, "What expectation after this of any good from that quarter can be indulged!" The Spaniards who are, at least, as great slave traders as the French, are in much better odour with the African Institution; and although they have done nothing towards the suppression of the traffic, our wise Directors graciously let them off, by "deeming it probable, that the ex

traordinary circumstances in which that kingdom has been for some time placed, may have prevented such attention from being given to the subject as it would otherwise have received." It is impossible to justify such partiality and such nonsense as this. It is equally impossible to say where it will end. And the smoothness and civility with which the Emperor of Russia assures us that his subjects shall not deal in slaves, nor his flag protect their tormentors, leads us to suppose, that his Majesty is currying favour at Freemason's Hall, against the time at which he will be required to enfranchise his miserable serfs, and relieve them from the punishment of the knout.

But we return to the more important part of the publication. Mr. Buxton and Mr. Stephen were the principal orators at the last General Meeting. Departing from the temperate and practical line of argument which had been chalked out with his usual judgment by the Marquis of Lansdowne, these gentlemen entertained the company with the following assertions. First, for Mr. Buxton-He assures us that

"For many years past we have, as it were by mutual consent, agreed, that we are the most honest, virtuous, moral, conscientious people on the face of the earth; and if any sceptic demands a reason to justify the eulogium, our answer is ready-only look at our conduct relative to the Slave Trade; our magnanimous conduct relative to the Slave Trade being this: we ceased to steal men-but we retained the men we had stolen. We detained the unhappy victims over whom we had not the least vestige of honest title, whose liberty we had stolen from them. I never could join in this eulogy upon our humanity: I never could think of the Slave Trade, without recollecting the existence of the Slavery which survived it, and remembering that though we had abandoned one part of the crime, we retained the other, and by violence and cruelty, usurped the natural rights of millions of human beings.Seventeenth Report, p. xiv.

He adds that,

"There was no wish more dear to his heart, than that all who had been engaged in the traffic should receive Ben Johnson's reward for their services; that every white man in Europe, who had for the last ten years contributed to the maintenance of that traffic should be kidnapped and sent to the coast of Africa in return. True, this might thin the cabinet of France: it might even inconvenience some of the patriots of Spain and Portugal; but we can spare them. Europe could spare them well; and he heartily wished that the slave captains had a ship load of them." Ibid. p. xviii.

Mr. Stephen refers with parental partiality to his favourite bill for the registry of slaves-informs us that he put a period to his parliamentary life, because the Ministers with whom he acted, refused to press this great measure-and proceeds in his usual strain of unmeasured invective against the Colonial Legislatures.

"He certainly felt that there was much ground for joy and thankfulness, in those fruits of his honourable friend Mr. Buxton's labours; for it was a great point gained, to have the duty of miti-t gating and gradually terminating slavery, acknowledged by his Majesty's Ministers; and a pledge given, in which he doubted not they were perfectly sincere, that those just and necessary reformations should be made. It was still more satisfactory that specific measures of an excellent kind had been the express subjects of these engagements. He must frankly declare, however, that his own satisfaction was greatly diminished, nay nearly destroyed, when he heard the Right Honourable Secretary of State add, that the plan of Government was to recommend those measures in the first instance, to the Colonial Assemblies; and not to interpose the authority of Parliament, unless in the event of the contumacious refusal of those bodies to introduce the proposed reformations by laws of their own." Ibid. P. xlvi.

"The Government, he doubted not, was sincere in its professions; but he must say, that after all our experience, not only in the case of the Register Bill, during seven years past, but for thirty years during which the effectual mitigation of slavery had been in vain recommended to the Colonial Legislatures, by Parliament and by the Throne, and even by their own leading partizans in this country, the claims of justice and humanity, and national honour, ought not again to have been referred to those Assemblies, by which the very oppression to be corrected, the opprobrious slavery of the West Indies, had been built up, and who, from their prejudices, passions, and supposed self-interest as slave owners, are inexorably bent to maintain it." Ibid. P. xlviii.

"He might naturally be suspected of some partiality to the plan of Slave Registration; but he hesitated not to say, that if the British Government and Parliament should think fit longer to persevere in their unbounded complaisance to the Assemblies, by still leaving this important work in their hands, the sooner the whole plan was expressly laid aside the better The Slave Registry in England, established by Mr. Goulburn's bill, had also better in that case be abolished at once, as a useless incumbrance; and it would be well for the character of the country, if its laws and state papers on this subject could be not only cancelled but forgot." Ibid. P. xlv.

We shall not attempt to expose this most objectionable method of proceeding by any observations of our own, but