emerging-which have so familiarized us with all shapes of evil and aggression, that the sense of their enormity has become blunted. Events which would once have filled the mind with consternation, have of late almost ceased to affect us in any powerful or lasting degree; and, as the last aggravation of War, with the remembrance of Peace the wish for her return has seemed to die away.

Breathe, breathe again, ye free,
The air of Liberty,

The native air of Wisdom, Virtue, Joy!
And, might ye know to keep
The golden wealth ye reap,

Not thirty years of terror and annoy,
Of mad destructive anarchy

And pitiless oppression were a price too high.

Vaulting ambition! mourn

Thy bloody laurels torn,

And ravished from thy grasp the sin-earn'd prize!

Or, if thy meteor fame

Yet wins the Fool's acclaim,

Let him behold thee yok'd with cowardice,

Then pass with a disdainful smile

The blasted, scorn'd poor man of Elba's rocky isle*.'

We purposely abstain from verbal criticism on these minor productions. There is, at least, poetical merit in the above extracts to redeem all the faults which the minuter eye of Critics less candid than ourselves might be able detect.

The Poem entitled 'Buonaparte' is by no mean practitioner: it partakes, however, too much of the stiff artificial manner of the Oxford school, which has sent out so many prize poems, but so few poets. In compositions of this class, every expression and every cadence appears to be modelled and measured in strict accordance with obvious rules of art, and the thoughts march on in even majestic tenour, but seldom swell or rise above the forms of language, with that repletion of feeling, or power of expansion, which characterizes the 'thoughts that breathe and words that burn.'-The following lines, however, are full of force and spirit. They appear to us strongly to resemble the style of Mr. Heber's Palestine.'

'But thee, base man, no generous warmth inspires!
No virtue mingles with thy raging fires!
In thee Ambition is a fiend-like vice:-
The brain of phirenzy, and the heart of ice.

*«The blind old man of Scio's rocky Isle."

Bride of Abydos.

Oh! bold in guilt-in havock undismay'd!
While circling hosts extend their guardian shade,
Tyrant! 'tis thine, with cool indifferent eye,
To range the field where mangled thousands lie,
And all untouch'd by Pity's softening ray,
There scheme the carnage of a future day:
But once if Danger pass th' allotted bound,
Bursting the living rampart fix'd around,

Then sinks thy soul! and as the storm rolls near,
Thy demons, Pride and Vengeance, quail to Fear :-
Sure, Heav'n in kindness arm'd thy rage with pow'r,
And turn'd thee loose to ravage and devour,
That slaves, who trembled at a Tyrant's nod,
Might learn how vile the worslrip and the god.

Well has thy course the high intent fulfill'd!
E'en atheists own 'twas more than man that will'd.
Blood has not stream'd, nor nations wept in vain :
The great example pays an age of pain!
Mean as thou wert on Egypt's burning strand,
The false deserter of thy helpless band,
And meaner still, when Russia saw thee fly,
With quivering lip, and fear dejected eye,
Glad to betray, at Fortune's earliest frown,
The lives of myriads to redeem thy own;
Yet could not hate itself conceive a close,
So lost, so abject as thy baseness chose.'

"Go then! poor breathing monument of shame!-
Immortal infamy shall be thy fame!

Live-while thou canst; the Muse recalls her pray'r:
Thy fate she recks not; 'tis beneath her care.
Too mean for vengeance, and for fear too low,
To thy lone isle, and cheerless mansion, go!
Yet think what dire attendants wait thee there :
Terror, Remorse, Derision, and Despair.
The veriest wretch, by chance-compass on fed,-
No mud-built roof to shade his weary head,-
Shall pass thee by with look of conscious pride,
And laugh to scorn th' unsceptred Homicide.
Another race, ere long, shall vainly seek
In thy wan beainless eye, and faded cheek,
One trace of him, whose fiery spirit pour'd

From realm to realm the deluge of the sword.' pp, 8-10.

Our attention was drawn to the third poem we have selected for notice, by the name of the author, the elegant translator of Wieland's Oberon.' But if it were a just canon of criticism,

To fame whate'er is due to give to fame,
And what we cannot praise, forget to name,
3 S

VOL. XI.

we should be induced to pass over this Song of Triumph' in silence. Conceiving, however, that the author is one whe least deserves mercy, because he offends, neither from ignorance of the laws of taste, nor from inability to comply with their exactions; because he has written badly when he might have written well; we deem it an act of public justice to take cognizance of his misdemeanour. Without further preamble, our indictment charges him with being guilty of a poem, bearing title A Song of Triumph,' which begins with the following lines:

Break into song, ye nations !-earth rejoice,
Lift unto heav'n the triumph of thy voice!

"Is this the vaunting Chief who, drunk with war,
Mid nations chain'd to his triumphal car,

Swept on from realm to realm, while earth around
Reel'd, as her tow'rs and temples smote the ground?
This the proud Chief, sole monarch of the globe,
Who died in blood of Kings th' imperial robe,
And thron'd on wreck of empires round him hurl'd,
Soar'd like a Demon o'er a ruin'd world,
Saw but the sun above his haughty brow,

And his colossal shade on earth below;

Save where stern Freedom in her strength, alone,
Tow'r'd o'er the deep on Albion's Island-throne,
At Gaul's gigantic host, her lightning hurl'd,

And held her Ægis o'er a rescued world." ' pp. 1, 2.

Now here are, certainly, some unorganized rudiments of poetical thought and diction: but to say nothing of earth reeling round the vaunting chief,' and empires hurl'd round' him too, what sort of an idea can we have of a throne made out of a wreck' (of empires), and of his soaring upon this throne? Then, after telling us that sole monarch of the globe' he soar'do'er a ruin'd world,' the Poet adds, that Freedom, seated upon another towering throne, holds her Ægis o'er a rescued world,'-another world, we presume; but still this were an awkward position for covering that other world with her gis. But lest we should be suspected to have selected this passage in very spitefulness, we are compelled to make a few more extracts.

6

But thou! thou yet art living; yet the tomb
Awaits thee: yet the impenetrable gloom
That rolls its darkness round each mortal eye,

And shrouds the secret of futurity,

Rests on thy brow! Oh Thou that tow'rd'st sublime,

Earth's gaze-earth's curse-earth's mockery-man of crime!'

p. 5.

This last line is admirably adapted to exercise the reader's powers of articulation.-Once more:

Oh Thou, who mindful of a nation's groan,
Didst sooth its pang, rdless of thine own ;

When, in her beauty, like the morning

r

Went the devoted bride, and clos'd the war;

Thou! whose mail'd strength, ere earth was bath'd in blood,

Lone mid the van of either army stood,

And when on doubtful poise the battle hung,

In Fate's suspended scale the falchion flung,

And turn'd the beam; lo, grac'd with spoils of war
Wreath'd peace o'ershadows thy imperial car,
And waves thy banner high, and wide displays
Thy eagles basking in the solar blaze.' p. 6.

Now if a gentleman, fired with the idea of writing a 'song of triumph' on so irresistible an occasion as the late events, and mistaking the bustle of gorgeous images and indistinct feelings, which filled his mind, for that genuine enthusiasm to which a Poet is bound to yield obedience, should, under the power of the first impulse, sit down to the composition of 2 or 300 lines like these, and think he had produced poetry, we could not blame him, nor would it be to us any matter of astonishment: the case is so very common.-But if, on his returning to his candlelight labours in the morning, and surveying them by the cool undeceiving light of day, they should still appear to him, from their retaining the power of exciting his own mind, to be what he intended and hoped to produce,-we suppose there is no remedy;he must publish them. If during the mechanical process of printing, however, the delusion is not dissipated, but his production appears only still more imposing, or attractive, as displayed by Mr. Bulmer's compositor, then it is high time for some friendly critic to interpose, and coolly to inform him of his mistake. It is not indeed worth while, in nine cases out of ten, to disturb the even current of an author's complacency, by so unwelcome remarks; but when a gentleman, who has some celebrity to lose, is visited with such a delusion, it is worth while to pull him by the sleeve, and just to say, 'My good Sir, you surely do not mean that for Poetry.' Mr. Sotheby,' we are informed in the Literary Advertiser,' will soon publish a volume containing five tragedies.'

We have an unfeigned respect for Mr. Sotheby. We only give him this gentle caution, in kindness, and entreat him to beware how he publishes any more songs of triumph.

Art. VIII. The Feast of the Poets. With Notes and other Picces, in Verse. By the Editor of the Examiner. Feap 8vo. pp. 158. price 6s. Cawthorne, 1814.

THIS is a lively litlu esprit, which made its first appearte Reflector. It now comes out with a long tail of criticism and literary gossipping. The leading idea, as the author observes, is not original: it was first borrowed from the Italians, and has already furnished two or three little pieces of wit and malignity in our own language. The one before us is distinguished from its predecessors by a playfulness of fancy, and an easy elegance of style, to which assuredly they never pretended.

T'other day, as Apollo sat pitching his darts

Through the clouds of November, by fits and by starts,
He began to consider how long it had been,

Since the bards of Old England had all been rung in.

• I think,' said the god, recollecting, (and then

He fell twiddling a sunbeam as I may my pen),

'I think-let me see-yes, it is, I declare,
As long ago now as that Buckingham there:
And yet I cant see why I have been so remiss,
Unless it may be-and it certainly is,

That since Dryden's fine verses and Milton's sublime,
I have fairly been sick of their sing-song and rhyme.
There was Collins, 'tis true, had a good deal to say;
But the rogue had no industry,-neither had Gray:
And Thomson, though best in his indolent fits,
Either slept himself weary, or bloated his wits.
But ever since Pope spoil'd the ears of the town
With his cuckoo-song verses, half up and half down,
There has been such a doling and sameness,-by Jove,
I'd as soon have gone down to see Kemble in love.
However, of late as they've rous'd them anew,
I'll e'en go and give them a lesson or two,

And as nothing's done there now-a-days without eating, See what kind of set I can muster worth treating. So saying, the god bade his horses walk for❜ard: And leaving them, took a long dive to the nor❜ard: For Gordon's he made; and as gods who drop in do, Came smack on his legs through the drawing-room window.' pp. 1–2. Here the poets come to pay their respects to their patrongod. Out of them, however, he finds only four who are worthy to be admitted to his feast,-Southey, and Scott, and Moore, and Campbell. The others are disposed of in different ways, according to their merit,—or according to Mr. Hunt's opinion thereof.