Bright as the blush of rifing morn, and warms
The dull cold eye of midnight with her charms.
There to the fkies fhe lifts her pencil'd brows,
Opes her fair lips, and breathes her virgin vows;
Eyes the white zenith; counts the funs that roll
Their diftant fires and blaze around the pole;
Or marks where Jove directs his glittering car
O'er heaven's blue vault-herself a brighter far.
There as foft zephyrs fweep with pausing airs
Thy fnowy neck, and part thy fhadowy hairs,
Sweet maid of night! to Cynthia's fober beams
Glows thy warm cheek, thy polish'd bofom gleams.
In crouds around thee gaze the admiring fwains,
And guard in filence the enchanted plains.
Drop the ftill tear, or breathe the impaffion'd figh,
And drink inebriate rapture from thine eye.
Thus, when old Needwood's hoary fcenes the night
Paints with blue fhadow, and with milky light;
Where Mundy pour'd, the liftening nymphs among,
Loud to the echoing vales his parting fong;
With measured ftep the fairy fovereign treads,
Shakes her high plume, and glitters o'er the meads;
Round each green holly leads her fportive train,
And little footsteps mark the circled plain.
Each haunted rill with filver voices rings,

And night's fweet bird in livelier accents fings."

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30

35

140

Though we have made very free extracts from this valuable and entertaining performance, we shall not fcruple to obtrude the conclufion of this canto on fuch of our readers as have a tafte for the elegancies of poetic fancy:

A hundred virgins join a hundred swains,
And fond Adonis leads the fprightly trains;
Pair after pair, along his facred groves
To Hymen's fane the bright proceffion moves;
Each fmiling youth a myrtle garland shades,
And wreaths of rofes veil the blufhing maids;
Light joys on twinkling feet attend the throng,
Weave the gay dance, or raife the frolic fong;
Thick, as they pafs, exulting Cupids fling
Promifcuous arrows from the founding string;

390

395

expands a most exquifitely beautiful corol, and emits a moft fragrant odour for a few hours in the night, and then clofes to open no more. The flower is nearly a foot in diameter, the infide of the calyx of a fplendid yellow, and the numerous petals of a pure white; it begins to open about feven or eight o'clock in the evening, and clofes before fun-rife in the morning. Martyn's Letters, p. 294.'

Adonis, 1.388. Many males and many females live together in the fame flower.

On wings of goffamer fwift whifpers fly,
And the fly glance fteals fidelong from the eye.
As round his thrine the gaudy circles bow,
And feal with muttering lips the faithless vow,
Licentious Hymen joins their mingled hands,
And loofely twines the meretricious bands.
Thus where pleafed Venus, in the fouthern main,
Sheds all her fmiles on Otaheite's plain,
Wide o'er the ifle her filken net she draws,
And the Loves laugh at all, but Nature's laws.'

Here ceafed the goddefs-o'er the filent ftrings
Applauding zephyrs fwept their fluttering wings;
Enraptured fylphs arofe in murmuring crouds
To air-wove canopies and pillowy clouds;
Each gnome reluctant fought his earthly cell,
And each bright floret clos'd her velvet bell.
Then, on foft tiptoe, Night approaching near
Hung o'er the tunelefs lyre his fable ear;
Gem'd with bright ftars the ftill etherial plain,
And bad his nightingales repeat the strain.'

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405

410

415

A few notes are fubjoined, too long to be introduced in the body of the work; among which is the natural hiftory of the poifon-tree of Java, which fome of our readers may think wants further confirmation. We wait with much impatience for the firft volume of this agreeable and novel performance; and doubt not but the fuccefs of the prefent publication will encourage the author to persevere with spirit and industry.

ART. XII. The Life of Frederick the Second, King of Prussia. To which are added, Obfervations, authentic Documents, and a Variety of Anecdotes. Tranflated from the French. 8vo. 2 vols. 14s. boards. Debrett. London, 1789.

ΤΗ

HERE is no fpecies of writing fo agreeable and alluring in its form as biography. While hiftory undertakes to unfold the great chain of human affairs, to trace through a long fucceffion of events the remote relations of cause and effect, to mark the different gradations in the progrefs of fociety, and to follow the courfe and tides of national viciffitude, biography is ftudious of finding out the paths that lead to our finest fenfibilities; and, by acquainting us with the domeftic tranfactions, introducing us at the private hours, and difclofing to us the fecret propenfities, enjoyments, and weakneffes, of celebrated perfons, increase our fympathies in proportion to our intimacy, and inflame our curiofity by engaging our affection and intereft. Even in the contemplation of characters eminently flagitious, from this close infpection

inspection afforded us by the minutenefs of biography, we feel fome fatisfaction in witneffing their moments of remorfe and forrow; and, as the heart is feldom abandoned to total depravity, in tracing out thofe folitary features of humanity which prevent complete depravity, and fave the abfolute extinction of virtue; or, if the whole character be perfectly depraved and hopeless, we contemplate, with mixed fenfations of fatisfaction and terror, the difconfolate picture, and, by an involuntary comparison of our own state with that which is prefented to our view, we feel in fecret a a fort of proud fatisfaction in the fenfe of our own fuperiority and advantages. But if the character held up to our view at the fame time excite our esteem and admiration, our fympathies are inftantly awakened, and with fo much the greater vehemence as they are accumulated upon one object; and the ardours of the mind, like the rays of the fun, by being as it were collected into a focus, become fo much the more intenfe and powerful. It is impoffible, therefore, not to fubfcribe to the fentiment of Cicero, in his famous letter to Lucceius: Etenim ipfe ordo an'nalium mediocriter nos retinet, quafi enumeratione faftorum at viri fæpe excellentis ancipites variique cafus habent admirationem expectationem, lætitiam, moleftiam, fpem, timorem.' Nothing is more pleafing than thus to gain a distinct and steady view of thofe of whom we have hitherto caught only a tranfient glympfe through the medium of hiftory amidst a crowd of contending objects; to be able, as it were, to erect for our favourite hero a feparate altar, and to offer up at his fhrine peculiar adoration and appropriate honours. The advantages to be derived from biography in a moral view, are very apparent; for as our fympathies are more ftrongly excited when our attention is fixed upon a fingle object, than in the more curfory and crowded profpects of human actions, in the fame proportion is the fimple and narrow tenour of biography more capable of aiding the cause of virtue, than the more extended and oftentatious plan of hiftorical compofition. Our refpect for biography is ftill further increased when we confider that a prevailing tafte for it is fome indication of the good difpofitions of an age, as it argues a fpirit of emulation and a general admiration of virtuous excellence: Virtutes iifdem temporibus optime eftimantur quibus facillime gignuntur*. But thefe advantages do not of neceffity arife out of biography, but depend upon its proper cultivation and management. Its faireft opportunities and nobleft defigns may be loft and defeated by a neglect of those rules and principles to which it should ever conform, or without a competent share of genius and penetration.

*Tacit. in vit. Jul. Agr.
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The choice of incidents, the delineation of character, the arrangement of matter, and the harmony of colouring, the feafonable introduction of actors, and the due gradation of confequence bestowed upon them, are effentials, in thefe fpecies of compofition, greatly beyond the reach of ordinary capacities; and the delicacy and difficulty which attends it have been fignally proved in the difappointment the public have received in the many unfuccefsful attempts which have been made to mould into an interefting and impreffive form, the memoirs of a very virtuous and wife, though partial and auftere, character of the prefent age. What at firft view may appear a confiderable advantage in the nature of biographical writings, may ultimately prove a fource of much danger and embarraffinent. The exemption to which it feems entitled from the graver and chafter rules of history, has caufed many to abuse this indulgence, and fall into the extreme of irregularity and licentioufnefs. They have thought it enough to fcrape together a loofe and indigefted mafs of anecdotes, without attending to that harmony and consistency which depends upon arrangement and colouring; they have heaped together facts, without caring whether or not they united in their conclufions; fo that the reader is at last abandoned to his own unaided judgment and undecided opinions, unable to reconcile the multifarious collection of contradictory elements and incongruous parts. The varieties of every man's conduct, at different times and under different circumftances, present an unaccountable medley to the fuperficial obferver; but those who study human nature attentively, and examine deeply into the motives and fpirit of human actions, discover an order and analogy at the bottom of thefe contradictory appearances, and perceive that the fame paffions of the human breaft produce very different effects and phenomena in different fituations, but that the springs and principles are ftill the fame, and that we ftill propose to ourselves the fame ends and the fame gratifications, while we frequently change our modes of purfuit, and adopt various and oppofite means as expediency or humour directs. To make up a perfect whole, and to afford the mind an opportunity of deducing those general conclufions on which it ever is fond of reposing; to unfold the leading principles of action in the character under contemplation, and to fingle out thofe facts and circumstances which ferve to exhibit the principal object in the fullest and clearest point of view, is the task and duty of biography, for which we feel our refpect increased by thus confidering its extent and importance, while we are forced to allow that it exercises no mean portion of tafte and imagination, and combines the excellencies of robuft and folid parts with thofe which fpring from brilliant capacities and delicate perceptions. In proportion, therefore, as

the

the delicacies of taste gain introduction into this form of compofition, the office of the biographer becomes extensive and difficult; and indeed the fhare it occupies in the graver and more comprehensive plan of history, fufficiently proves its dignity and importance. The moft animated and attractive parts of the beft hiftories are thofe peculiar and partial delineations of felect and favourite characters, where the vehemence of admiration overcomes the general fobriety and equable tenour of historic reprefentation, and the heat of the writer's thoughts prevails above the ceremony of rules, and fhews itself in bold and enthusiastical touches of extraordinary splendour.

We have offered thefe few general ideas upon biography to gain, if poffible, fome little credit with the reader, and to prepare our way to the work itself. This cuftom of prefacing our criticisms we are particularly fond of, as it ferves to erect them upon a fure and impartial bafis; for by thus laying down the laws by which we propofe to try the different fpecimens which come under our obfervation, we bind ourselves in a manner to do them juftice, and place ourselves in the predicament of judges, whose business is firft to expound the law, and then to apply it to the particular cafe in question, leaving others to determine the innocency or guilt of the party. We fhall first give an account of the book, and then confider the merits of the translator,

What we could understand of the preface appeared to us to be neither new nor juft. The author feems to be arguing upon the impolicy or impoffibility of writing the hiftory of times, removed but at a little distance from us, on account of the partial medium through which they are viewed, and the danger of giving umbrage to living characters; and indeed one would conclude, from his preface, that he himself was ftrongly impreffed with the truth of this obfervation, as his own fentiments are wrapt up in a very cautious and comfortable obfcurity. We do not exactly perceive why the hiftorian fhould be liable to give greater offence than the collector of anecdotes and memoirs; or why it should be a task of greater obloquy to write the truth concerning living characters, in the fuperficial view which history takes of particular men, than in the clofe and circumftantial de tail of biographical relations.

The work before us is divided into eight periods, each clofing with some remarkable event, and reprefenting the hero in the different lights in which his character is capable of being viewed. In the tender and opening season of infancy, and in the full and florid vigour of youth, in the turbulent career of military glory, and in the peaceful occupations of literature and science; as a conqueror, as a mediator, as a philofopher, as a politician, as a friend, as a king, and as a man. The first period commences

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