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fully than in any former metrical essay, to develope his system of zoology, and enliven it by all the variable graces and polished beauties of sweet persuasive numbers. With this system few of our readers are unacquainted, and we need not therefore unfold it in detail. The poem, by its plan, is divided into four parts or cantós, of which the first treats of the production of life; the second of its reproduction; the third of the progress of the mind; and the fourth of good and evil. In its structure and diction it combines all the common excellencies and defects of this celebrated writer; its versification is polished, but its pauses monotonous; its images are splendid, but they are generic and general; every thing is personified, and moving; but while all is alive, all is, at the same time, alike. We have two other objections, moreover, to advance, of considerably more moment; the one is, that the poem before us makes by far too free a use of that which its author has formerly published-we mean the Botanic Garden; and the other, that the writer `has intermixed, in the most incongruous manner, the dogmas of different creeds and systems: here Moses concurs with Buffon, and Ovid with St. Paul. All are represented as possessing an equal authority, and inculcating the same sublime and important truths.Here, and here alone, Dante and Camoens are completely put to the blush.

Mr. Good's exquisite version of the "Song of Songs," as a translation of a part of the Bible, we have already noticed in our first chapter, under the head of Biblical criticism, to which we refer the reader of taste and feeling.

"Poems Lyrical and Miscella neous: by the late Rev. Henry Moore, of Liskeard." Again are we compelled to make our annual register of worth and genius an obituary: the author of these excellent compositions is also no more, They were written at different periods of his life, and in all proba bility would have been earlier cir culated among the public, and have acquired for him that meed of approbation for which he seems to have been ingenuously panting, and of which he was unquestionably deserving; but that his retired situation, as the dissenting minister of a congregation in a very remote part of the country, gave him no opportunity of mani festing, till towards the common verge of life, the sprightly and poetic powers with which he was gifted. At this period, fortunately for him, a manuscript copy of his productions fell into the hands of Dr. Aikin, who, with his usual taste and judgement, conceiving highly of the merits of the poems transmitted to him, liberally undertook to superintend their publication and usher them into the world. The success they met with was in proportion to their de sert; and we understand that the hoary bard lived just long enough to be enraptured by the intelli gence. He died in the full and consoling consciousness that the world was at length just to his merits. The poems of which the volume consists, are, as the title imports, for the most part lyrical; we can add, that they are uniformly musical, and moral, or de votional. They display a tasteful ear and an accurate judgement, much warmth of imagination and poetic imagery. Their chief failure is in a want of characteristic, discriminative

discriminative painting: every thing is here equal; and, as we have just observed of Dr. Darwin's Temple of Nature, while every thing is alive, every thing is alike.

"Scottish Scenery, or Sketches in Verse; descriptive of Scenes chiefly in the Highlands of Scotland." This quarto volume, the production of Dr. Cririe, is a poetical tour through the country described in the title. It is sufficient to say, that he might have been more elevated in prose, more entertaining, more eloquent. He is, nevertheless, sufficiently free and easy; and the numerisque fertur lege solutis is so generally adhered to, that we are at times compelled to search for a foot-rule, and notice the adjusted capitals of every line, before we have been able to ascertain whether the reading has been prose or poetry. The work is accompanied with notes and illustrations, and ornamented with engravings, neither of which detract from the general value of the performance.

Mr. G. O. Cambridge has published, in a large quarto volume, an entire collection of the "Works" of his deceased father, which, as they are chiefly poetical, require a notice in this place. Of these works the Scribbleriad, a poem long since published separately, is the most important. Its merit has been established by the award of the public. An agreeable life of the author is prefixed, and does credit to the filial piety of the edi

tor.

Of the smaller poetical contributions, we have to remark a version of select "Poems from the Portuguese of Luis de Camoens, by Lord Viscount Strangford;" possessing very considerable merit of

every kind, but rather too paraphrastic and luxuriant: " "Rhapsodies, by W. H. Ireland, author of the Shakesperian MSS." which remind us of a transaction that would prevent the possibility of our praising them, if they were entitled to more praise than they can lay pretensions to: "Narrative Poems, by Mr. D'Israeli ;" highly laboured, but often loaded with affected phraseologies: "Scottish descriptive Poems," edited by Mr. Leyden, but whose taste is capable of improvement, if we may judge from the selections before us, and especially from his own versions : The Picture, by the Rev. W. L. Bowles, being Verses suggested by a magnificent Landscape of Rubens:" "Nuga Poetice, by Dr. Sayers," possessing the usual taste and elegance of this accomplished scholar: "The Defence of Order, by Jos. Walker, A. M.," a poem better intended than executed, clear in its language, but seldom animated with the living fire of the muses: "Select Poems, by the Author of Indian Antiquities;" being the best of Mr. Maurice's poetic effusions, and consequently those which contain most of his refulgent iniagery, and full-resounding diction:

The Enquiry," being the first and, from the degree of merit it possesses, we suppose the last part of a larger work which the anonymous author appears to have in safe custody in his escrutoire: "Epigrams, in Two Books; by W. B. Rhodes," in which the wit is often so concealed as to render them rebuses, rather than any thing else: "The Voyage Home from the Cape of Good Hope, by, H. W. Tytler, M. D.;" which may afford amusement to the Hottentots, but ought to be below the X 4

notice

notice of English readers: "Poems on various Subjects, by Mrs. Grant, of Laggan," evincing a very creditable portion of poetic animation, a refined taste, and a feeling heart: "Scenes of Youth, or Rural Recollections, with other Poems, by Wm. Holloway;" to which a second volume has since been added, and which is not unworthy of the public favour that it hence appears to have acquired: "Society, a Poem in Two Parts, with other Poems, by James Kenney;" to whose society it is enough for us to have had the honour of having been once introduced, and which we found intolerably dull and monotonous : "Poems by Peter Bayley, jun. Esq.," which prove that though the writer has no pretensions to the character of a poct, he has to that of a poetic reader; and which prove also that in his own person he is as little acquainted with honesty as with the muses; for the sum and substance of almost every piece here presented to us is outrageously pillaged from other writers, without the least acknowledgement or reference: Clifton Grove, a Sketch in Verse, with other Poems, by H. R. White," the whole of whose productions are matured beyond his years, and many of which are exquisitely tender, pathetic, and polished:-Mr. White appears in deed to have first fallen in love with the Muses when a boy of thirteen; he is now not more than seventeen or eighteen years' old; "Scenes of Infancy; descriptive of Tiviotdale, by John Leyden;" smooth, level, correct; but unanimated, uninteresting, and unpoetical: Calista, a Picture of modern Life, a Poem in Three Parts, by Luke Booker, LL. D.;" a name well known in the middle

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regions of Parnassus, and for whom, if this effusion do not obtain a more exalted post, it will not displace him to an inferior.

The dramas of the present day are worked up like spruce-beer at the demand of the moment, and are designed for immediate use alone. The fame of the greater part of those which belong to the period before us has already fleeted by, and it is scarcely worth while to stop the peritura charta. Mr. Reynolds has contributed two plays, of which the first is entitled "Delays and Blunders, a Co. medy in Five Acts;" and the second "The Caravan;" which is called a serio-comic romance, in two acts: Mr. Boaden has produced two also-" The Voice of Nature, a Play in Three Acts;" and "The Maid of Bristol," of the same description and length: Mr. Allingham has also contributed two; "Hearts of Oak, a Comedy in Five Acts," and "Mrs. Wiggins, a Comic Piece in Two Acts." Besides these, Mr. Holcroft has produced "Hear both Sides, a Comedy in Five Acts;" Mr. H. Siddons " A Tale of Ter ror, in Three Acts;" and Mr. Kenney "Raising the Wind, a Farce in Two Acts."

The old romance of Amadis de Gaul has had the distinguished honour of being, either in whole, or in part, twice naturalised in our own language in the course of the current year. Mr. Southey has rendered it entire, and with interesting effect, from the Spanish version of Garciordonez de Montalvo: the translation is in prose, and occupies four volumes in twelves. Mr. Rose has rendered the first book into Iambic verse. It occupies one volume octavo and, from the spirit it manifests,

ве

we trust the rest will speedily follow.

The most popular novels are versions from the French; of which we may first mention "Delphine, by Madame de Stael-Holstein;" which has been translated by two different hands, and amidst a prodigious quantity of the common jargon of sentimental love, is laudably designed to prove the superiority of deism over revealed religion. "The Depraved Husband and the Philosophic Wife" is an original production of madame Genlis, and is little calculated, by the possession of intrinsic merit, to add to her fame either in France or England. We have also had

the "Estelle" of M. Florian, translated by Mr. Maxey.-Of those which are best entitled to notice, as the original productions of our own country, are Mr. Pickersgill's "Three Brothers;" " Leopold;""Thaddeus of Warsaw, by Miss Porter;" "Very Strange, but Very True, or the History of an old Man's young Wife, by Francis Lathom;" "Letters of Miss Riversdale ;" and Mrs. Helmes's "St. Clair of the Isles ;" to which we may add, as not possessing a more definite place for their classification, "The Wanderer, by Mr. Fothergill;" and Dr. Cowper's "Tourifications of Malachi Meldrum, Esq.”

FOREIGN

FOREIGN LITERATURE

Of the Year 1803.

CHAPTER I.

BIBLICAL AND THEOLOGICAL.

O foreign people have so vological criticism and polemics as the Germans, and on this account we commence with their productions. It is impossible, indeed, to notice the whole, but we shall endeavour to give a brief sketch of the chief of those which have reached ourselves. In the protestant church, for it is necessary to make a division, we perceive with much pleasure that the late M. Rosenmüller has a son worthy of being his successor in the province of sacred literature; and who, in imitation of his father's "Scholia" upon the New Testament, has just brought forward his own "Scholia" upon the Old. The system chalked out by the former Rosenmüller is here pursued to its utmost latitude; the same views, the same feelings, the same imaginations. Perused with hesitating scrupulosity, it will be found a valuable work in any country. The termination of the "Philosophical, critical, and historical Commentaries of Professor Paulus on the Evangelists," we noticed in our last volume; and in the "Erläuterungen zum neuen

Testamente (Illustrations of the

Bremen," we perceive a critic worthy of treading in his steps. We are compelled to remark, however, that M. Stolz, like Paulus, appears to us to indulge by far too largely in conjectural criticism. We can by no means always approve of the proposed emendations.

Professor Vater, of Halle, has published a commentary on the Pentateuch, to which the same observations will apply, and which is accompanied by a sort of abridge. ment of the critical and explanatory notes of our own countryman Dr. Geddes, whose Biblical labours have long been received with more warmth of approbation in Germany than at home. Professor Smidt, of Giessen, in conjunction with his learned colleague, continues his elucidation of the New Testament, and the most ancient history of the church, in a work entitled "Bibliothek für Kritik und Exegese der Neuen Testaments, und die älteste Kritengeschichten." This plan we need not, at this period, point out; the ability with which it is conducted

evinces

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