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what would be the result, could we all chuse our own wea ther. Happily, we have not the power; if we had, scarcely a shower would refresh the earth, till famine made us all of one mind.

In the "Apocryphal Chapter in the History of England," we are presented with a supposed picture of the state of the country, for a year; during which time the influence of the Christian religion was wholly suspended. This we think the author has treated too lightly; his canvass is not coloured suffi→ ciently strong. He has indeed depicted a mass of error and folly, but his tints are much too soft, which, considering his sentiments, we are the more surprized at. Folly! alas the consequences would not be confined to folly! nor can it enter into the heart of man to conceive the crimes—the horrors that would result from such a tremendous infliction. Remove the dread of futurity, from the generality of men, and they would be worse than the untamed beasts of the forest.

The following is a happy hit at some recent decisions, in cases of literary property.

"I refuse the injunction; and being perfectly certain that no court of law will grant the plaintiff redress, I strenuously advise him to seek it in which soever he pleases forthwith."

We can only afford space for a brief notice of two or three other subjects. The one entitled "An African Valley," is a very delightful narrative of an early attempt to convert the Hottentots to the Christian religion. George, a German peasant, who had retired to Saxony to escape the persecution of Austria, inspired with the most ardent philanthropy, and the purest piety; departs singly, and unaided, for the wilds of Africa. He erects his lonely cottage in the wilderness; having torn himself from all the joys of home and friendship, to associate with the most degraded and ignorant of his fellowcreatures. By dint of kindness and perseverance, he succeeds în making some converts, and sees the fairest prospect of success opening around him; when he is compelled, by a persecution similar to that which has destroyed the missionary Smith, to quit the country, and mourn the blighting of his pious hopes and benevolent intentions. The scene of his labours is, however, visited about fifty years afterward by some of his countrymen, under more favorable auspices: the ruins of his dwelling, in the forest, are discovered, and one aged convert is found, ho has cherished his memory, and preserved his gift of a Testament, (for he had taught them to read,) during that long period: and we are left in hope that his good work is consummated. This piece is one of the most pleasing and interesting in the work.

The paper entitled "Old Women," is written with much

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truth and pathos: the author feelingly describes the forlorn and destitute condition of that class of society; who, after having reared sons to serve the state, are left to pine in want and solitude, neglected or forgotten. Let us hope, however, that the case is not so general as he deems it. Let us hope that many, very many, find love to soothe, and gratitude to support them that they have kind daughters to smooth their pillow, and affectionate sons to scatter some flowers along the dim and chill path of declining age.

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There are two poetical pieces, and they are among the best, with a brief notice of which we shall close our remarks. One is entitled, "A Tale without a Name." It describes the wanderings of a fratricide, who flees his country, and after an absence of twenty years, returns home only to meet the punishment due to his crime. But the tale is chiefly interesting from the devoted attachment of the partner of his fate, whose love never wavers throughout that long and painful pilgri mage; whose bosom is his pillow at night, and whose affection is his solace by day. In battle on land, and in tempest at sea, he courts death in vain. Still there is one true to him, though all beside have abandoned him-and that one is a woman; woman--in whom man generally finds his best-and often his last friend. The author's style is mostly perspicuous, and sometimes elegant; and the moral and religious tendency of his work unexceptionable.

We notice, in conclusion, the other poetical production, "The Voyage of the Blind," which is a favorite with us. It is founded on the disastrous fate of two slave-ships, which are so infected by ophthalmia, that in one, the whole crew (to say nothing of the slaves,) became blind; and in the other, one only retains his sight till the vessel reaches the destined port. The former is the Leon, a Spanish vessel; and the latter, Le Rodeur, from France. The horrors of this most execrable traffic are forcibly described; and the author is justly severe on the cold-blooded indifference, which, at the treaty that followed the restoration of Louis XVIII. so needlessly signed away the happiness and the hopes, and the blood, of thousands of our fellow-creatures, because they were

"Guilty of a skin,

Not coloured like our own."

And who but will-but must deplore-the apathy that bowed and smiled away, not only the peace--but the lives of myriads of human beings: and that too at a time when France had not (as our author says) a foot of ground on the habitable globe, to be cultivated by the toil and blood of a single negro, nor one farthing embarked in that commerce of human misery. Truly does our author say" Indifference is conni

vance in such a case; every man, therefore, with a voice and a pen, who has heard of this evil under the sun, ought to express his detestation, or be considered an accomplice." With which opinion we heartily coincide. We let our author take leave of our readers in his own character-that of a poet. The quotation, we are sure, will be acceptable.

"That pestilence no power could check;
Uuseen its withering arrows flew;
It walk'd in silence on the deck,
And smote from stem to stern the crew :
As glow-worms dwindle in the shade,
As lamps in charnel-houses fade,
From every orb, with vision fired,
In-flitting sparks the light retired:
The sufferers saw it go;

And o'er the ship, the sea, the skies,
Pursued it with their failing eyes,
Till all was black below.

A murmur swell'd along the gale ;
All rose, and held their breath to hear;
All look'd, but none could spy a sail,
And yet they knew a sail was near:

"Help! help!' our beckoning sailors cried;
"Help! help!' a hundred tongues replied:
Then hideous clamour rent the air,
Questions and answers of despair:
Few words the mystery clear'd;

The plague had found that second bark,
Where every eye but his was dark
Whose hand the vessel steer'd.

He, wild with panic, turn'd away,
And thence his shrieking comrades bore;
From either ship the winds convey
Farewells, that soon are heard no more:
A calm of horror hush'd the waves;
Behold them!-merchant, seamen, slaves,
The blind, the dying, and the dead,
All help, all hope, for ever fled,
Unseen, yet face to face!

Woe past, woe present, woe to come,
Held for a while each victim dumb,
---Impaled upon his place."

Reullura. By T.

434

By T. Campbell. New Monthly Magazine,
No. XLVI. Oct. 1, 1824. London.

MR. CAMPBELL made his appearance in the poetical world at a time when the disciples of the romantic school of poetry increased and multiplied, and brought forth abundantly.

The luxurious genius of Dr. Darwin, and the delicate exquisiteness of his taste, had refined the manners of the English Muse to a dainty and fantastical dandisettism, which was inimical to all freedom of action, dignity of movement, variety of expression, beauty of sentiment, and nobility of thought, It was not surprising that this extreme should be followed by another. Excess and abuse of refinement have a tendency to produce barbarism. Nations have been ruined by luxury, when confined in its objects, and limited in its application to the purposes of selfish indulgence, rather than extended according to the true Epicurean principle, which, in its universality, embraced virtue as the sublimest means of happiness, and knew no luxury so great as that "of doing good. But, unfortunately, so prevalent have frequently been the antisocial over the social tendencies of national institutions, that the higher aims and attainments of pleasurable desire, and the instinctive yearnings after happiness in the immortal spirit of man, have been subjected and subordinated to the more immediate, but less honorable, demands of individual excess and inglorious ease. Hence, the general good is sacrificed to particular advantage, and the general interest weakened by the division into its component parts. This is the decline, and then cometh the decay and fall of empires.

"First freedom, and then glory,-when that fails,
Wealth, vice, corruption, barbarism at last."

These effects are not owing to luxury, but to the error of expending it upon an improper object. It was not the Epicurean principle which was to blame, but its application. Men placed their happiness in indolence, not industry,-in vice, not virtue. The capabilities of men were not exhausted; they mistook the proper object, and paid the forfeit of their

error.

Thus, the poets of the Darwinian school sacrificed all that was great in conception, and sublime in execution, to that foppery of verse which was but a sublimation of those petty niceties of metre, observed by the imitators of Pope. Sound was preferred to sense; high words to high thoughts. Too indolent to think, they contented themselves with selecting phrases, rather than with collecting ideas; they luxuriated in the splendor of the ornaments, and the sweetness of the music; but of the virtue which gave substance to the embellishment,

and expression to the numbers, they were regardless. They were educated-not born poets. They did not write poetry, but poetically.

To this frippery of diction, so gratifying to their own peculiar vanity, they prostrated thought, and limited the exertions of the more intellectual muse. Mechanism was substituted for mind, and manner for genius, which was antecedent and superior to the habit it had acquired, and the medium it had adopted, but independent of which its ebullitions seemed abrupt, and its boldnesses unpleasing "to ears polite." These writers civilized their language, without cultivating thought. No wonder that the reaction should be equally violent, and that the manifestations of intellect should be opposed to the civility of diction, and that the public mind should have been easily directed to the contemplation of the ruder models of ancient minstrelsy, in which it as easily overlooked what pleased in the discord, roughness, and redundancy of those peripatetic harpers, pleased rather in despite than by favor of the diction. Uncouth expression generally accompanied the most beautiful poetry of those "olden times." Was it to be marvelled at, that it should be involuntarily fancied, that where uncouth expression was, there also beautiful poetry must be? From the rugged north a mountain flood descended upon the plains of taste. Then Campbell appeared, and with his poetry, pruned as it was in expression, smooth in versification, and regular in metre, opposed a barrier to the impetuous torrent. A revolution, at the same time, was commencing in the public taste. The lovers of poetry had perceived that this barbarian muse, arrayed in all her savage finery, thus introduced into the politer circles of literature, by art, indeed, scarce less than magical, and skill worthy of all admiration, though she for a brief period attracted more attention than the most elegantly accomplished, yet was not therefore the best attired. As the restorer of the classical dynasty, Campbell was welcomed by 'men of taste. His Pleasures of Hope, and Gertrude of Wyoming, chaste in expression, pleasing in subject, picturesque in illustration, justified the praises which were awarded to them; and unambitious in their end, and modest in the employment and adoption of the means, prevented jealousy and anticipated prejudice. Hence he, with Rogers, has enjoyed the reputation due to his merits, without dispute and without interruption, escaping alike the shafts of envy, and the fangs of malevolence.

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We have neither time nor space to distinguish the peculiar features of Mr. Campbell's genius, or we might institute a comparison between him and Mr. Rogers, delineating each according to the peculiar characteristics of their respective identity, either by the force of contrast or of comparison.

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