contain: prettily executed views of an Arabian banditti în sight of a caravan; the Ruins of Palmyra; a Karmanian waiwode, (or market); a Turkish burying-ground; Smyrna; and a portrait of Hassan Pasha, in his full costume. William Barlow, A Sketch from Life. By Esther Hewlett, Author of Eliza Harding, Legend of Stutchbury, &c. 18mo. London, 1823. pp. 226. Holdsworth. THIS little tale for youth, is, as will be perceived from the title page, another production of the useful and judicious pen of Mrs. Hewlett, of whose Eliza Harding we spoke, with merited commendation, in a former number of our journal. Its object is to state and to refute the popular objections to the truth of revelation in such a form, as to render them attractive to the young and unexperienced, who in these days, in which such extraordinary efforts have becn made for the spread of infidelity, are the most exposed to its open or more subtle attacks upon the sublime truths of our pure and holy faith. This she has accordingly done, in a very simple story, of a pious family in humble life, whose happiness is attacked by the son being tempted by wicked companions, to quit the path of his fathers for their new ways of the despondence and despair which followed a conviction of the gloom and uncertainty of his sceptical notions, from the reasonings of his faithful pastor with his infidel companions, (taken chiefly by the way from Leslie, Paley, Gregory, and other popular writers on the evidences of Christianity, though clothed for the most part in the language of the authoress,) his horrible apprehensions, that as an apostate, he could never be received again into the fold of Christ, and the removal of his fears on witnessing the peaceful departure of his father, in the faith once delivered to the saints. On the whole, we can confidently recommend the tale, of which we have thus given the outline, (though we should add, by the way, that the infidel perverters of the hero meet with their deserts,) not only to our young readers, but to those who have the superintendence of their education, as a very useful antidote to the mischiefs it is intended to prevent. We could not, however, avoid smiling at the incongruity into which most writers of fiction seem destined more or less to fall, in making the minister engaged in refuting the advocates of infidelity, who had seduced from his fold one of the younglings of his flock, appeal to two journeymen watchmakers, as having fagged over Virgil and Horace, as conversant with the precepts of Plato, Lycurgus, Solon, Socrates, Seneca, and as being so well acquainted with classical authors, that they were familiar with the indirect confirmation afforded by Juvenal, Longinus, Diodorus Siculus, and others, to the truths of some parts of scripture history; though these learned men maintain the infidel side of the argument with infinitely less ability than many of their less gifted associates in impiety have done. POETRY. THE DEATH OF MUNGO PARK, BY J. H. WIFFEN, Esq. (Concluded from Vol. III. page 406.) XXXV. 'Tis day-what sounds at so serene an hour The' adventurer looked, and saw with careless eye Drawn from the golden-tissued clouds, might charm The portals are unbarred; they haste-and now * We remember to have stated, that part of the MS. of this poem was lost by accident: it is only of late that it has been recovered, and the lost passages supplied.-ED. XXXVI. Superior was his mien, his brow austere, Spake in the shining of his lion-eye; Was hush'd, as swift the crowd's raised murmurs fall, Then to the strangers: "Who and whence ye are, "And at whose bidding, if for peace or war "Your visit is-resolve me hastily;" The monarch thus: the envoys make reply: "Ourselves his bark have seen; on wings that bind Furrowing the river into gold, it bore, "At twilight near our village;-the throng'd shore "Meanwhile we filled with spearmen, but the morn "Hath spread its wondrous wings and it is gone"In most admired presumption! with what aim "The audacious stranger to these deserts came, "In sooth we know not; but of this be sure, "He courts not thine, in his own strength secure: "Nor tribute-gift he sends;—the coral-tree "Blends with his spoils, but blushes not for thee; "Nor think the golden product of the mine "Shall gem thy brows or on thy turban shine. "Thus unpermissioned through these realms to go, "A trustless friend or an insidious foe, "Ill with a monarch's greatness can accord, "Whilst waves around him one revenging sword. "Already distant, and-but why delay? "Thy glory he defrauds, and scorns thy sway." "Quick! seize your oars-your fleetest camels rein, "And be his doom the prison and the chain." XXXVII. Slant shines the Sun; beneath his fiery wing, Swift, furious, in tumultuous foam it flies Through its dark arch-impatient for the skies. Strong are the oars which breast that eddying tide, The force that wings it on its idle way. Now full in view the yawning pass appears; Nears but that victim-bark the fatal flood, XXXIX. It came! O never yet its chieftain knew One prayer to Heaven he speeds, one secret sigh "And since you cannot shun him, you must slay; "Bethink you of each dear domestic tie, "Homes-altars--wives beyond that rock they lie; “The refluent billows should you cease to stem, "What agony to you-what grief to them! "That shrill barbarie signal do ye know? "Glory to Haoussa! to the White Man wo. XL. These dauntless words his flagging crew provoke, But the warped floods flow back: tis vain! unwon- |