The perjured legend they have handed down,

And add new strength by fictions of their own.'

We are at a loss to guess where that author learned the meaning of the word Wisdom, who could thus write respecting the idea which it designates:

Where Wisdom, then,

Proud boast of human kind, where rest thy vaunts,
That thou alone art Virtue? Cast far back
Thy view unto past ages, and where once
Thou'st thrown a light on Virtue, for that once
Confess how often, for thy own base ends,
Thou hast encreased delusion, and abused
Thy godlike mission, by augmenting still
The errors of thy race. Short sighted once
But rendered blind by thee, Credulity,
Thy duty to remove, serv'd as a base
To raise thy fabric on-year after year
Tread on each other's heels-1ace after race
Sink down into the tomb-new errors still
Thy children teach, and those of fools believe.'

Art. 27. Equanimity: a Poem. By Mason Chamberlin.
Is. 6d. Clarke. 1800.

8vo.

Art. 28. Harvest: a Poem. By Mason Chamberlin. 8vo. 6d. Clarke. 1800.

The first of these poems is in fact a sermon in blank verse, on the text In patience possess your souls; and the latter may be considered as a composition of the same description, on the subject of grateful piety and trust in God. In the first poem, there is something to justify its title: but the second has little if any thing in it that is appropriate to its avowed subject. The season and labours of Harvest are not described; and if a reader of the poem were required to give it a title, that which it now bears would scarcely occur to his mind. Serious and pious sentiments are diffused through both of Mr. Chamberlin's poems; into whose blank verse, texts of scripture are very liberally interwoven, which often produce a prosaic effect, and give (as we have said) the idea of a sermon put into measured lines. It is impossible to object to the religious tendency of the remarks and observations: but we lament that they were not either exhibited in plain prose or in a diction more truly poetical. Let the reader judge by the following specimens from Equanimity:

Of blessings, which the truly wise alone

Are qualified to taste, who use the world
As not abusing it.-

• O confess

Your insufficiency, receive henceforth

The aid vouchsafed you, leave the devious paths
Of speculation, fruitless as 'tis vain,

And proving all things, seek the surer road.

Mark'd

Mark'd out by Revelation from above.
Soon shall the crooked paths be render'd straight,
The rugged places plain and God appear,
Directing each particular event

For final good, though often times by means
Inscrutable to man.'

• There imprint

The useful lesson, that the Great Supreme
Disposes all things, for the benefit
Of such as walk uprightly in his sight.'
The bliss of heav'n

Describ'd with all the simple eloquence
Of Inspiration's genuine oracle,

In such as mortal eye hath never seen,

As ear hath never heard, nor heart conceiv'd.'

In the poem called Harvest, the materials, structure, and merit of the verse are the same with those of the former. Thus we read, in a part most appropriate to the given subject:

For not alike in each succeeding year
Can the prolific earth yield her increase,
E'en with the utmost labour man can use.

Nor is a temporary scarcity

The certain sign of Heav'n's awaken'd wrath.
Let then frugality attend our use

Of the abundance sent from time to time.'

To enforce the practice of frugality, the poem thus concludes:
When to supply the famish'd multitude

He wrought a miracle, himself enjoin'd
To gather up the fragments that remain,
When all had eaten, that no needless loss
Might be incurr'd, but liberality
With prudent care be blended-pattern just
For all to follow, who have hope to taste
The better joys of an eternal world,

Which he hath promised to his followers.'

Dr. Johnson's remark on witty perversions of Scripture may partly be applied to poetry composed of scraps from the Bible: it is too easy to satisfy real genius. We allow such a mixture in prose-exhortations from the pulpit, but it will not be permitted by the genuine offspring of Parnassus.

Art. 29. Pizarro; ein Trauerspiel in Fünf Aufzilgen, &c. i.e. Pizarro, a Tragedy in Five Acts, represented at the Theatre Royal, Drury-lane, according to the German of Von Kotze bue's Death of Rolla, or The Spaniards in Peru, adapted to the English Stage, and enriched by R. B. Sheridan; translated into German by Constantine Geisweiler. 8vo. 2s. Robinsons. 1800. "Every dog has his day," says the vulgar proverb; and so has every novelty in the world of Letters: which holds especially true

with respect to dramatic compositions. It is with most modern plays as it is with pills, powders, and other quack medicines. Each is puffed, panegyrized, and has a temporary run; and then it falls into disrepute, to make way for another novelty, doomed in its turn to the same sublunary fate. Thus Anderson's pills, James's powders, and even Baume de Vie and the good Bishop of Cloyne's far-water, have all yielded the palin to Quassia. Quassia is the catholicon of the present day, the great panacea for every ailment !

What Quassia is in the Materia Medica, Pizarro, for some time past, has been in the Materia Dramatica. Pizarro! Pizarro! resounds from the counter to the palace, and all ranks are equally delighted with that motly incoherent importation: while the Germans laugh at our bad taste, and exclaim “O imitatores! servum pecus !”What will they say when they learn that this same metamorphosed English-German Pizarro has been re-metamorphosed into its original form? This is, however, the case; and we have now before us a German version of Mr. Sheridan's Pizarro, under the title above transcribed.

Our English readers will not expect that we should quote any part of this new Pizarro for their perusal; and the Germans would not thank us for specimens of it in their own language.-We trust, indeed, that our rage for German plays is nearly over; and that our play-wrights will henceforth have good sense enough to trust to their own native powers for the support of the English theatre.

POLITICS, &c.

Art. 30. Remarks on the Deficiency of Grain, occasioned by the bad Harvest of 1799; on the Means of present Relief, and of future Plenty. With an Appendix, containing Accounts of all Corn imported and exported, with the Prices, from 1697 to the 10th of October 1800; and also several other Tables. By John, Lord Sheffield. 8vo. pp. 120. 3s. 6d. Debrett.

Party declamation and narrow views ought studiously to be avoided in discussing the question of present scarcity. If the war blends. itself, as it necessarily must, with the consideration, it is not its principle but its wide extent and vast magnitude which must be put into the scale. We may say of it as Juvenal says of Hannibal, res humanas miscuit; and hence the difficulty of obtaining a foreign supply has been added to the circumstance of deficient harvests. It must also be observed, that the bad harvest of 1799 extended over a great part of Europe. Can it be matter of wonder, then, (to use Lord Sheffield's words,) that we are fallen into distress.' Europe, we are told, is nearly exhausted; and if this be true, it is evident that we must depend more on internal management than on succour from abroad.

6

Lord Sheffield is of opinion that an army and navy of 300,000 men do not consume more corn than they did as individuals, particularly in the instances of those individuals who were peasants. They may not devour more; though the circumstances under which they are fed require a greater quantity to be taken for them out of the common stock, than would be necessary to sustain them in their individual occupations.

10

tions. This, however, is a partial view of the subject. In proper tion as labourers are taken from the soil, its productiveness must be diminished; and in what are called catching harvests, the want of hands is a grievous evil. How far the extent of our levies has ope rated in diminishing the quantity of arable land, or in causing it to be sown in a less workman-like manner, we have never heard stated. This fact, if it be a fact, it may be difficult to ascertain.

Dismissing every surmise on the operation of the war, let us attend to other views of the subject. Supposing our annual consumption to be 8,000,000 quarters of wheat, and that communibus annis our produce is adequate to our consumption; and supposing the crop of 1799 to yield only two-thirds of the usual supply: there must be a deliciency of 2,666,666; and if we deduct from this deficiency, 1,200,000 quarters imported, there will still remain a deficiency of 1,400,000 quarters. If the stock in hand, at the commencement of the last harvest, was nearly exhausted, so that it was necessary to begin immediately on the new wheat, it must be admitted that pe euliar attention and economy will be requisite to carry us through the year. In the month of September, Lord S. observes, we gene rally have at least four months of supply in hand; consequently, we have anticipated four months of our usual stock; and, taking the crop of 1800 to be a fair one, we have yet four months' provision to obtain by importation and management. From his investigations, however, his Lordship is inclined to believe that the crop of 1800 is not a full average crop; and therefore our embarrassment is increased. This is certainly a calamity, which, Lord S. apprehends, is likely to be increased by indiscriminate clamours against dealers in corn; and he very judiciously exposes the practice of arguing, from the customs established in the early periods of our history, against the present system of trade. He is persuaded that corn cannot be monopolized* to any great and permanent extent in such a country as this; he maintains the national utility of the middle-man; and he cannot be lieve that the instance of a person dealing in hops, with a peculiar boldness of speculation, is sufficient ground for reviving the re pealed statutes. Some evils, he is aware, exist in the corn-trade; yet he would not encourage the populace in illiberal prejudices against the whole body of those who are engaged in this trade, because the imaginary remedies employed by incensed and misguided mobs, must tend to convert scarcity into absolute famine.

After having stated, in Part I., the nature, progress, and extent, of our present distress, Lord Sheffield proceeds to detail, in Part II., the Means of Relief; which, comfortable to relate, he says, are within our reach. He protests against a maximum, against public granaries, and against fixing the price of labour; and he recommends the liberal mixture of other grain with wheat, in making bread, the import ation and substitution of rice, which (he observes) pays no toll either to millers or bakers,—and the taking out of wheaten flour only the

*He observes that, in order to have monopolized only a month's Consumption in this last summer, a capital of nearly five millions sterling would have been requisite.

coarse

coarse or broad bran. By using no other bread than such as is made of this sort of flour, he calculates that a great saving would ensue, in as much as there would be then one-sixth or one-seventh more flour to be converted into bread.

The Third Part of Lord Sheffield's patriotic lucubrations, treating of the Means of future Plenty, is for the present postponed.

Art. 31. An Appeal to the good Sense of the higher and wealthier Orders of the People, on the high Price of Provisions and of Corn in particular. 8vo. 6d. per Dozen. Hatchard.

We fear that this penny worth of admonition will be thrown away; because it advises the rich and luxurious, with whom privation is no easy task, to cease to consume flour and bread in their families till the next harvest; and particularly to banish that stimulant to bread-consumption, cheese. The author reasonably apprehends that, in genteel establishments, there would be some difficulty in bringing servants, who feel not the pressure of the times, to subscribe to this selfdenying ordinance.

Art. 32. Letters to the Duke of Portland and the Earl of Liverpool, &c on the present high Price of Provisions. By P. D. Parquot. 8vo. Law.

When the hardships of the poor are daily augmenting by the high price of the necessaries of life, it behoves those who undertake publicly to discuss the subject, to avoid all expressions which tend to inflame the populace; and to refrain from detailing as facts the assertions of the inconsiderate and unexamining vulgar. The author of these letters does not appear to be aware of the consequences of such errors. He attributes the scarcity to Corn-badgers, who he says are called Corn-jews; and to whom he gives the additional title of Famine Mongers; and he tells us that it would be invidious to point out any particular places, but that an immense quantity, he is sorry to add, is daily spoiling by hoarding.' If he knows where immense quantities of corn are daily spoiling, and contents himself with being sorry, he is accessary to the wickedness of the famine-mongers: but we do not suspect him of knowing any such thing: we accuse him of pretending to know more than he does. His scheme of taxing corn with-holden from market, on a geometrical ratio of so much for the first week, double for the second, &c. is too absurd for comment. This gentleman may have seen sights, (as he tells us,) from a King's coronation down to a cottage:' but when did he see or read of farmers being formerly glad to swig their butter-milk? Persius mentions as a mark of the growing degeneracy of his times, that

"Fæniseca crasso vitiarunt unguine pulles :"

but we should not draw a proof of the farmer's luxury from his not robbing the pigs of their butter-milk.

Art. 33. War proved to be the real Cause of the present Scarcity, and enormous high Price of every Article of Consumption, with the only Radical Remedies. By Robert Waithman. 8vo. 28. Jordan. This writer in a great measure exonerates the dealers in corn from blame in the present trying period; and he believes that monopolies are the effects rather than the cause of scarcity, which must always Rev. DEG. $800.

Ff

exist