The blind as well might doubt of sense and sight; Of all your arguments ye can't dispute 'Gainst facts, ye, self-convicted, must be mute. Who its existence, as a faith, embraced ? That the heart's treasures there should first be placed. To thee, with spiritual glories, to be graced. Easy, to him who always ridicules We know all this; but we know also well, In virtue, and in happiness. Since bless'd desert. Among these are "Fate, free-will, foreknowledge absolute," the theories of manners and morals-the doctrines of expediency and self-interest-with many speculations relating to the imaginative parts of literature, and the influences of religion upon them-all of which are grasped by the hand of a master. The whole range of controversial writing scarcely affords an example of propositions stated so lucidly, qualified so craftily, and urged with such exemplary fairness and candour as in this work. It must, indeed, be admitted, that the admirable qualities of the argument render it somewhat unfit for marriage "with immortal verse." Philosophical poetry, when most attractive, seizes on some grand elemental truths, which it links to the noblest material images, and seeks rather to send one vast sentiment to the heart through the medium of the imagination, than to lead the mind by a regular process of logic, to the result which it contemplates. Mere didactic poetry, as Pope's Essay on Man, succeeds not by the nice balance of reasons, but by decking out some obvious common-place in a gorgeous rhetoric, or by expressing a familiar sentiment in such forcible language as will give it a singular charm to all who have felt its justice in a plainer garb. In general, the poet, no less than the woman, who deliberates, is lost. But Mr. Lloyd's effusions are in a great measure exceptions to this rule;-for though they are sometimes" harsh and crabbed," and sometimes too minute, they are marked by so hearty an earnestness, and adorned by such variety of illustration, and imbued with such deep sentiment, that they often enchant while they convince us. Although his processes are careful, his results belong to the stateliest range of truths. His most laborious reasonings lead us to elevated views of humanity-Hear what the wrapped, transfigured Guion says to the sense fa might above reason itself-to those objects which have inspired the most glorious enthusiasm, and of which the profoundest bards have delighted to afford us glimpses. It is quite inspiring to follow him as he detects the inconsistencies of worldly wisdom, as he breaks the shallow reasonings of the advocates of expediency into pieces, or as he vindicates their prerogatives to faith and hope. He leads us up a steep and stony ascent, step by step; but cheers us by many a ravishing prospect by the way, and conducts at last to an eminence, not only above the mists of error, but where the rainbow comes, and whence the gate of heaven may be seen as from the Delectable Mountains which Bunyan's Pilgrim visited. We scarcely know how to select a specimen which shall do justice to an author whose speculations are too vast to be completed within a short space, and are connected with others by delicate links of thought. We will give, however, his vindication of the enthusiastic and self-denying spirit, which, however associated with absurdity, is the soul of all religion and virtue. Reasoners, that argue of ye know not what, God is their rock, their fortress of defence, In time of trouble, a defence most holy; His pride, a bubble; and his wisdom, folly. Life's gauds to them: the unseen they explore: Rooted in heaven, to live is-to adore ! With ills of body such as few have known ; Tedious imprisonment; in youthful days To luxuries used, they all aside are thrown ; To poverty devoted, she defies Was e'er an instance known, that man could taste True peace of mind, and spurn religion's laws? Condition indispensable, whence draws Of sight, because the experience of each day And was confounded? cover'd with dismay ? And pains of flesh seem ministers of grace, He had before renounced; thus he can trace He too as much enjoys the spectacle Loses he fame? the honour he loves well Is not of earth. but that which seraphim Might prize! Loses he liberty? his cell, And all its vaults, echo his rapturous hymn: He feels as free as freest bird in air! His heaven-shrined spirit finds heaven everywhere! Which maketh him impassive to the test Is not, ought not to be, man's primary rule; To do those things which e'en our reasons fool. God, and he only, sees the consequential; The mind well nurtured in religion's school Feels that He only-to whom all's obedientHas right to guide itself by the expedient. Duty is man's first law, not satisfaction! That satisfaction comes from this perform'd Had Regulus reason'd, whether on the scale Their country's cause, had never been her boast. Yet had it not these self-doom'd heroes seen, Rome "the eternal city," ne'er had been! Shall Christ submit upon the cross to bleed, Of this enlighten'd age! Take off the mask! Thy name, Thermopylæ, had ne'er been heard, A theory for a declining race! No, let us keep at least our lips from lies; If we have forfeited Truth's soaring grace, Let us not falsify her prodigies. We well may wear a blush upon our face, From her past triumphs so t' apostatize In deeds; but let us not with this invent An infidelity of argument. Go to Palmyra's ruins; visit Greece, Behold! The wrecks of her magnificence The following is only a portion of a series of reminiscences equally luxurious and intense, and which are attended throughout by that vein of reflection which our author nevez loses : Oh, were the eye of youth a moment ours! When every flower that gemm'd the various earth Brought down from Heaven enjoyment's genial showers ( And every bird, of everlasting mirth Prophesied to us in romantic bowers! Love was the garniture, whose blameless birth Caused that each filmy web where dew-drops trembled, The gossamery haunt of elves resembled! We can remember earliest days of spring, When violets blue and white, and primrose pale, Rising like incense from the breathing world, When a soft moisture, steaming everywhere, To the earth's countenance mellower hues imparted; When sylvan choristers self-poised in air, Or perched on bows, in shrilly quiverings darted Their little raptures forth; when the warm glare (While glancing lights backwards and forwards started, As if with meteors silver-sheathed 'twere flooded) Sultry, and silent, on the hill's turf brooded. Oh in these moments we such joy have felt, When shapes, and sounds, seem'd as but modes of Thee!) Oft in the fulness of the joy ye give, Oh, days of youth! in summer's noon-tide hours, Did I a depth of quietness receive From insects' drowsy hum, that all my powers Would baffle to portray! Let them that live In vacant solitude, speak from their bowers What nameless pleasures letter'd ease may cheer, Thee, Nature! bless'd to mark with eye and ear! Who can have watch'd the wild rose' blushing dye, And seen what treasures its rich cups contain; Who, of soft shades the fine variety, From white to deepest flush of vermeil stain? Who, when impearl'd with dew-drop's radiancy Its petals breathed perfume, while he did strain His very being, lest the sense should fail T' imbibe each sweet its beauties did exhale ? Who, amid lanes, on eve of summer days, Which sheep brouse, could the thicket's wealth behold In every satin sheath that helps to raise The daisy, cowslip, each have to them given- I had a cottage in a Paradise! 'Twere hard to enumerate the charms combined Within the little space, greeting the eyes, Its unpretending precincts that confined. Onward, in front, a mountain stream did rise Up, whose long course the fascinated mind (So apt the scene to awaken wildest themes) Might localize the most romantic dreams. When winter torrents, by the rain and snow, Surlily dashing down the hills, were fed, Its mighty mass of waters seem'd to flow With deafening course precipitous: its bed Rocky, such steep declivities did show That towards us with a rapid course it sped, Broken by frequent falls; thus did it roam In whirlpools eddying, and convulsed with foam. Flank'd were its banks with perpendicular rocks, So many voices from this river came In summer, winter, autumn, or the spring; So many sounds accordant to each frame Of Nature's aspect, (whether the storm's wing Brooded on it, or pantingly, and tame, The low breeze crisp'd its waters) that, to sing The listener's feelings from their viewless spell. Yes,-in such hour as that-thy voice I've known, The breeze that bore it)-fearful as the groans Thy voice I've known to wake a dream of wonder! Of audibility, one scarce could sunder Its gradual swellings from the influence Of harp Æolian, when, upon the breeze, One might have thought, that spirits of the air Warbled amid it in an undersong; exhibits the same great intellectual power and ceaseless activity of thought, which characterize the Thoughts in London. Mr. Lloyd has taken the common incident of one lover re signing his mistress to another, and the names of his chief characters from Boccaccio, but, in all other respects, the poem is original. Its chief peculiarity is the mauner in which it reasons upon all the emotions which it portrays, especially on the progress of love in the soul, with infinite nicety of discrimination, not unlike that which Shakspeare has manifested in his amatory poems. He accounts for the finest shade of feeling, and analyzes its essence, with the same care, as though he were demonstrating a proposition of Euclid. He is as minute in his delineation of all the variations of the heart, as Richardson was in his narratives of matters of fact;-and, like him, thus throws such an air of truth over his statements, that we can scarcely avoid receiving them as authentic history. At the same time, he conducts this process with so delicate a hand, and touches his subjects with so deep a reverence for humanity, that he teaches us to love our nature the more from his masterly dissection. By way of example of these remarks, we will give part of the scene between a lover who long has secretly been agitated by a passion for the betrothed mistress of his friend, and the object of his silent affection whom he has just rescued from a watery grave-though it is not perhaps the most beautiful passage of the poem: He is on land; on safe land is he come : Sophronia's head he pillows on a stone : A death-like paleness hath usurp'd her bloom; Burst from her livid lips, and then the word "Titus" he heard, or fancied that he heard!— Where was he then? From death to life restored! And oft one might have thought, that shrieks were there Issuing from thence, he drank with ecstasy. Of spirits, driven for chastisement along The invisible regions that above earth are. But when the heavens are blue, and summer skies (Or any wondrous spell of heaven or earth, The tale of Titus and Gisippus, which fol¡ows, while it is very interesting as a story, very Still were they cold; her hands were also cold; He grew, he kiss'd those pale lips o'er and o'er. Nay, to revive in their most perfect mould Their wonted rubeous hue, he dared do more ;He glued his mouth to them, and breathed his breath To die with her, or rescue her from death. Thou art undone, mad youth! The fire of love She feels the delicate influence through her thrill, And with seal'd eye lay in a giddy trance, Scarce dare she open them, when had her will Their lights on him. No, with a lingering skill— On this been bent, she felt the power to glance Oh, blame her not!-she did awhile enhance The bliss of that revival, by a feign'd At last, she look'd!-They looked!-Eye met with eye! Never till then experienced-swiftly proved!- They were forgotten! Transport unreproved, Then all the world was lost to them, in one Unbound whence Venus sheds upon a kiss To frame such joy, these things are requisite ; And antecedent sorrows doubly bless; And a conjuncture, whence no longer press This could not last! Not merely would a word ;- At last a swift revulsion through her frame O'er her fine face! Titus knew well the cause Of this so sudden change: he dared not speak ; He dared not move; dared not its reasons seek! Some minutes they were silent. Night advanced; No longer was happiness her guest. They rose and crept along in silentness- Her threshold past not Titus-Thence he fled, Like to a madman madden'd more with dread! Nor ever of this night, or of its spell Of mighty love, did he breathe a syllable! We now take leave of Mr. Lloyd with pecu liar gratitude for the rich materials for thought with which a perusal of his poems has endowed us. We shall look for his next appearance before the public with anxiety;-assured that his powers are not even yet fully developed to the world, and that he is destined to occupy a high station among the finest spirits of his age. MR. OLDAKER ON MODERN IMPROVEMENTS. [NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE.] MR. EDITOR:-I trust that even in this age of improvement you will suffer one of the oldest of the old school to occupy a small space in your pages. A few words respecting myself will, however, be necessary to apologize for my opinions. Once I was among the gayest and sprightliest of youthful aspirants for fame and fortune. Being a second son, I was bred to the bar, and pursued my studies with great vigour and eager hope, in the Middle Temple. I loved, too, one of the fairest of her sex, and was beloved in return. My toils were sweetened by the delightful hope that they would procure me an income sufficient for the creditable support of the mistress of my soul. Alas! at the very moment when the unlooked-for devise of a large estate from a distant relative gave me affluence, she for whom alone I desired wealth, sunk under the attack of a fever into the grave. Religion enabled me to bear her loss with firmness, but I determined, for her sake, ever to remain a bachelor. Although composed and tranquil, I felt myself unable to endure the forms, or to taste the pleasures of London. I retired to my estate in the country, where I have lived for almost forty years in At the society of a maiden sister, happy if an old friend came for a few days to visit me, but chiefly delighting to cherish in silence the re membrance of my only love, and to anticipate the time when I shall be laid beside her. last, a wish to settle an orphan nephew in my own profession, has compelled me to visit the scenes of my early days, and to mingle, for a short time, with the world. My resolution once taken, I felt a melancholy pleasure in the ex pectation of seeing the places with which I was once familiar, and which were ever linked in my mind with sweet and blighted hope. Every change has been to me as a shock. I have looked at large on society too, and there I see little in brilliant innovation to admire. Returned at last to my own fire-side, I sit down to throw together a few thoughts on the new and boasted Improvements, over which I mourn. If I should seem too querulous, let it be remembered, that my own happy days are long past, and that recollection is the sole earthly joy which is left me. My old haunts have indeed suffered compa ratively small mutation. The princely hall of the Middle Temple has the same venerable as pleading-now whispering a joy past joy in a stumble of the Lord Chief Justice himself, among the filmy cords drawn about his path! When the first bottle was despatched, arrived the time for his wary host to produce his papers in succession, to be drawn or settled by the joyous pleader. The well-lauded inspi with which he then was gifted. All his nice discernment-all his vast memory-all his skill in drawing analogies and discerning principles in the "great obscurity" of the Year Books-were set in rapid and unerring action. On he went-covering page after page, nis pen "in giddy mazes running," and his mind growing subtler and more acute with every glass. How dextrously did he then glide through all the strange windings of the case, with a sagacity which never failed, while he garnished his discourse with many a legal pun and learned conceit, which was as the light bubble on the deep stream of his know pect as when, in my boyish days, I felt my | chuckling over the fall of a brother into a trap heart beating with a strange feeling of mingled set artfully for him in the fair guise of liberal pride and reverence on becoming one of its members. The fountain yet plays among the old trees, which used to gladden my eye in spring for a few days with their tender green, to become so prematurely desolate. But the front of the Inner Temple hall, upon the terrace, is sadly altered for the worse. When I first knew it, the noble solidity of its appear-ration of a poet is not more genuine than that ance, especially of the figure over the gateway, cut massively in the stone, carried the mind back into the deep antiquity of the scene. Now the whole building is white-washed and plastered over, the majestic entrance supplied by an arch of pseudo-gothic, and a new library added, at vast cost, in the worst taste of the modern antique. The view from the garden is spoiled by that splendid nuisance, the Waterloo Bridge. Formerly we used to enjoy the enormous bend of the river, far fairer than the most marvellous work of art; and while our eyes dwelt on the placid mirror of water, our imagination went over it, through calm and majestic windings, into sweet rural scenes, and far in-ledge! He is gone!-and I find none to reland bowers. Now the river appears only an oblong lake, and the feeling of the country once let into the town by that glorious avenue of crystal, is shut out by a noble piece of mere human workmanship! But nature never changes, and some of her humble works are In the greater world, I have observed, with ever found to renew old feelings within us, not-sorrow, a prevailing disregard of the past, and withstanding the sportive changes of mortal a desire to extol the present, or to expatiate in fancy. The short grass of the Temple garden is visionary prospects of the future. I fear this the same as when forty years ago I was accus- may be traced not so much to philanthropy as tomed to refresh my weary eyes with its green- to self-love, which inspires men with the wish ness. There I have strolled again; and while I personally to distinguish themselves as the bent my head downwards and fixed my eyes teachers and benefactors of their species, inon the thin blades and the soft daisies, I felt as stead of resting contented to share in the vas* I had felt when last I walked there-all be-stock of recollections and sympathies which tween was as nothing, or a feverish dream is common to all. They would fain persuade and I once more dreamed of the Seals, and of the living Sophia!-I felt-but I dare not trust myself on this subject farther. The profession of the law is strangely altered since the days of my youth. It was then surely more liberal, as well as more rational, than I now find it. The business and pleasure of a lawyer were not entirely separated, as at present, when the first is mere toil, and the second lighter than vanity. The old stout-hearted pleaders threw a jovial life into their tremendous drudgeries, which almost rendered them delightful. Wine did but open to them the most curious intricacies of their art: they rose from it, like giants refreshed, to grapple with the sternest difficulties, and rejoiced in the encounter. Their powers caught a glow in the severity of the struggle, almost like that arising from strong exertion of the bodily frame. Nor did they disdain to enjoy the quaint jest, the far-fetched allusion, or the antique fancy, which sometimes craftily peeped out on them amidst their laborious researches. Poor T-Wwas one of the last of the race. He was the heartiest and most romantic of special pleaders. Thrice happy was the attorney who could engage him to a steak or broiled fowl in the old coffee room in Fleet-street, were I have often met him. How would he then dilate, in the warmth of his heart, on all his professional triumphs-now semble him in this generation-none who thus can put a spirit into their work, which may make cobweb-sophistries look golden, and change a laborious life into one long holiday! us that mankind, created "a little lower than the angels," is now for the first time "crowned with glory and honour;" and they exultingly point to institutions of yesterday for the means to regenerate the earth. Some, for example, pronounce the great mass of the people, through all ages, as scarcely elevated above the brutes which perish, because the arts of reading, writing, and arithmetic, were not commonly diffused among them; and on the diffusion of these they ground their predictions of a golden age. And were there then no virtuous hardihood, no guileless innocence, no affections stronger than the grave, in that mighty lapse of years which we contemptuously stigmatize as dark? Are disinterested patriotism, conjugal love, open-handed hospitality, meek selfsacrifice, and chivalrous contempt of danger and of death, modern inventions? Has man's great birth-right been in abeyance even until now? Oh, no! The Chaldæan shepherd did not cast his quiet gaze through weeks and years in vain to the silent skies. He knew not, indeed, the discoveries of science, which have substituted an immense variety of figures on space and distance, for the sweet influences of the stars; yet did the heavens tell to him the glory of God, and angel faces smile on him from the golden clouds. Book-learning is, perhaps, the least part of the education of |