a

6

property, in general, againít arbitrary invafion; more than this, it is a tribute due to degraded virtue, and the violated decency of national taste. I shall foon expect to see the tremendous “ History of Raw Head and Bloody Bones" in print, accompanied by a molt inftantaneous profufion of Tales of Terror," in imitation of so dreadful an original. Indeed, the “ Ægri Somnia” of Horace, that is to say, the extravagancies of a fick imagination, could Lever be more properly applied thari to those unnatural labours, which prefent us with nothing but skeletons and distortions; and lead us to believe the universe itself, which we inhabit, 10 be no other than a great charnel. house, crowded with apparitions, hobgoblins; and spectres. Nay, human nature, on the whole, is a mere

« Monstrurn horrendum, informe; ingens, cui lumen ademptum.” The design is laudable ; of the ability with which it is executed we shall enable our readers to form some opinion, by laying a passage or two before them,

i Thee, now, let poignant pleasantry affail,
Thee, too tenacious of thy nurse's tale;
Thee, Lewis, I devoie to Satire's shrine;
Tho' pert facility, perhaps, is thine,
Thine quick conception, of the quainter kind;
And taste, to trifles aukwardly inclin'd.
But why, to více, bestow a pander screen?

.
Why, with thy monstrous birihs, deform the scene !
Why, build on blockheads an inglorious fame?
Who merely guess thy Merity by thy ---Name ;

go
Who pass no further judgment; when they see;
'Those all-suficient vouchers,--M* and P:
Go to:—as well grave John's funeral croak
Might strive t'impart the spirit of a joke,
Or CLAREMONT personate the God of Wine,
CLAREMONT, who looks as he did never dine t,'
As thou, by such vile trick, aspire to raise

A splendid monument of deathless praise !"
The Bard declares that he can read with pleasure the fabled griefs of a
Dante or an Ariosto;

* But, when those fatal fantasies pervert
The wayward sense; not meliorate the heart,
When the numb'd soul is steep'd in ftupid trance;
And ev’n the Scriptures dwindle to romance,
I curse the madness of a guilty taste,
By thee, with more than vulgar glory, grac'd;
Avert

my

fondness, from such nauseous whims, Preferring to Child Waters J, David's Hymns.

130 Like conj’rer's bag, how many a maniac's scull; İs with newts, toads, and asps, completely full!

* " There is a most marvellous spell in the two, apparently, simple letters, M. P. For M. P stands for Member of Parliament, and P. M. for Paymafter." -Cornelius Agrippa, Jun. i ii Vide Speicer."

" A celebrated old ballad of that title."
NO, XXXIV. VOL. VIII.

Sure

a

Sure that the horrid medley will go

down,
He fpews his various garbage on the town,
"Till sprightly belles are frighten'd into fits,

And beaux, if bleft with any, lose their wits." He criticises, with feverity, the dramatic production of his brother bard, ycleped the Lafle Spectre, and, moreover, accuses him of plagiarism, foreign and domeftic.

" In pity I forbear, as catrion prey,
To taint my nostrils with thine hideous Play;
Where incident, and language, point and plot,
And all, but loathsome spectacles forgot ;
Draw.bridge, and dungeon, knight, and trusty squire;
Squalid consumption, spectre cloath'd in fire,

150
Illumin'd altars, and chimæras dire.'
Smit with the frenzy of a foreign race ;
Who all their beauty in distortion place ;
Who couple contraries, with equal ease,
As Taylors munch their cucumbers with peas;
Was't not enough to filch their flimsy style,

But thou must rob the Worthies of Our Ille ?"
He thus fubftantiates his charge of plagiarism.

« When ev'ry sense by pow'rful Sleep was seal'd,
And o'er the brain his poppy-dews prevail'd,
In my love Study, lo! methought, 1 sat,
:

I

240
Grave as an Owl, and pensive as a Cat;
Before my fight, in pompous garment gay,
Fresh from the Press, thy“ Tales of Wonder's lay
And much I gloated, with lascivious eyes,
On its white form, gilt edge, and comely fize;
When, sudden, from the lab'ring shelves around,
I heard, at first, a small, ftill, folemn sound,

That louder wax'd anon :--and, now, I view'd,
Descending from their cells, the motley brood,
An animated host of various hue ;

.250
Pale yellow, chesnut brown, cærulean blue,
And glowing red, as if inflam'd by rage ;
All cover'd with the rev'rend duft of age !
Fierce they approach'd, and (oh ! extremeft grief,)
Each from the stranger. volume tore a leaf,
Indignant tore ; and while my anxious mind
Quick doubts involv'd, scarce • left a wreck behind ;'
Then, to their fev'ral feats, alertly fled,
Mutt'ring low curses on thy fated head.
Curious to know, what lucubration rare

266
Those vellum-vefted knaves would deign to spare,
Thy Tome, all tatter'd as it was, I took :
Good Heav'n*! how much unlike the former book!
For they had pick'd the meat, but spurn'd the bone,
And, only left thee, sy's, and-Thy own.

Pleas'd by the civil censure of the joke,

I shook my fides with laughter, and awoke." The ode is more spirited and correct than the Bard's bag of Wonders. He condemns flippancy of abuse in other writers, and, yet in his own pert com. ments on the Author of the Pursuits of Literature he is not only flip but unjuft. He magnifies his faults, and is blind to his merits. Whatever de. fects that writer may have displayed, they are greatly counterbalanced by his beauties, and it is our serious opinion, that he deserves the thanks of all friends to religion, morality, and social order, in the defence of which he has exerted his ability with success.

In describing the qualifications of a man of virtue and independence, whom be reverences and admiress he introduces one; which we certainly have never considered as a characteristic of either.

"Who, from the plenteous store of knowledge, flings

On peasant's honour, or contempt on Kings." From the construction of these lines the idea is conveyed that to honour peafants or to despise Kings, is a mark of virtue and independence. If he had really said, what we hope he meant to say, but what he certainly has naj said, that an honourable mind would honour virtue though found in a cottage, and hold vice in contempt though seated on a throne, every heart would have beat in unison with the feeling, and every voice have re.echoed the sentiment. As it stands, the latter part of it seems to reverse the scriptural precept HONOUR THE KING. Unio five Lamentatio Hibernica Poema Macaronico-Latinum. And an Ode

to Peter Pindar. 4to. Pp. 16. IS. Wright. London: 1801. THIS

whimsical medley has one great advantage over the notable production of Dr. Geddes *; in the poffeffion of humoter without falsehood. It exhibits an odd mixture of Latin and English, interspersed with some fair ftrokes of fatire and of wit. The invocation at the beginning will afford a tolerable specimen of the poem.

« Vos, patriæ invoke pia numina, Nymphs of the Poddle +,
Vos Libertatis Pueri, cum Smock-alley Wenches,
Fibwomen et Ferrymen, precor aspirate canenti;
Flebilibus mea Musa modis miserabile carmen
Integrat, indignos mecum pityate dolores.

O, fi præteritos teferat mihi Jupiter annos,
Qualis eram! magnum cum Grattanus ante fenatum
Lætus barranguabat Volunteeros, Militiamque,
Grandiloquens, verbisque sonoris Speechificabat.
“O, Patria, exclamans, Hibernia, maxima tellus,
“ Lo, fperata diu clarè latèque triumphat
“ Hâc quæfita manu Libertas! Do tibi Free-trade,
“ Do majestatem populo, populoque falutem.
“ Credo equidem, haud fallor, tali pro munere noftrum

* See the Anti- Jacobin Review for February. P. 193.

+ «. Poddle, vel Puddle, fic dictum â vicino flumine, quo magna pars Dublini persæpe inundata eft. Hanc regionem habitant Liberty Boys, Decanus etiam atque Archiepiscopys-cum multis aliis."

« Nomen

G&%

*

« Nomen naftra ferent generi serique nepotes,
“ Et nati natorum, et qui nascentur ab illis."

Quinpuaginta fimul nummorum millia grafpanse
Out-fealkat, parvo cum corpore, just like a Pigmy,

Quis tamen illius celeberrima gaudia noctis
Expediat verlu! quot Fire-works, quot Luminations,
Quam multæ ardenti fulgebant lampades vilà !

Vidit et obticuit cum inurmure Liffius amnis;
Audivere Lacus fonitum, shoutofque frequentes.
Ipse etiam ripæ confidens margine Dermot,
Conjuge cum Sheelah, audito line fine tumultu,
Startat, et bungreyos, bawlantes undique Brattos
Deferit, inceptum fir-about, carolque potatoes-
Quos ego!* fed motam præstat componere mentem.
Scilicet, ah, milero cruciantur pectora luctu,
O Socii, O Comites, Cromaboo, Macnevin, O'Connor !
Venit summa dies et ineluctabile tempus
Hibernis; fuimus Patriots, fuit Erin, et ingens
Gloria Dublini ; ferus omnia Pitius ad Anglos

Transtulit-en noftrâ Britones dominantur in urbe.” The manner of that low dealer in Doggrel, who assumes the appellation of Peter Pindar, is not badly imitated in the following ode, annexed to the poem.

“ Ode to Peter Pindar in his Own Itay. “ ARGUMENT.— The Poet complaineth of Peter's odes-adviseth him to defift--compareth him to a Laureat and Mistress More---grumbleth in the gizzard against Royal Chat-talketh of Mister Death, and Madame Schwel. Jenberg, of Gifford, and fallen Ministers-likeneth Peter to a penny Pufprophefieth no good to him, and compareth him to another Puff of a different flavour...

Ope. 66 PETER, I've had of thee

my

Belly-full-
Thy Odes and Epigrams give o'er,
Tame as a Laureat, and almoft as dull,

Gentle as Mistress More.
I'm sick of Courts and Royal Chat,
Of Kings and Queens-Ha! Ha! What! What!

Peter, 'tis very flat,
Since Mifter Death; rude Porter, and all that,
Gainst Madame Schwellenburgh hath shut the door.

Of Gifford I have had enough,

* “ Quos ego, sed motos præftat componere fluctus.”

Æneid. Lib. 1.
6 Venit summa dies et ineluctabile tempus
Dardaniæ ; fuimus Troes, fuit Ilium, et ingens.
Gloria Teucrorum ; ferus omnia Jupiter Argos
Transtulit--incensâ Danai dominantur in urbe."

Æneid. Lib. 2.

And

And fallen Ministers, and such like stuff,

Peter, thou art a very Puff,
A penny
Puff, bak'd in a pan

of tin;
With swelling outside, little good within ;
Not very sweet, nor very tart,

Of Pastry-cooks the standing joke.

Peter, thy wit will end in imoke,
Just like that other Puffmma F--t.”

NOVELS.

The two Princes of Perfia. Addreified to Youth. By J. Porter. 12mo,

35. Crosby and Letterman, 1801.
HE Princes, Omra and Behauder, are brothers, whose characters, tho"

,

1

tively corrected by the admonitions and inftruction of Sadi, their preceptor. The author informs us that, for the tales with which Sadi lessons the Princes,” he is “indebted to a philofopher of that name, who really conposed, and recited them to the youih of Persia, How" he " came by them," he has “ not obtained permission to repeat,"

The principal subjects treated in this little volựme are—Pride, Personal Defect, Vanity and Idleness, Ancestry, Justice, and Mercy, Procrastination, Government, Credulity and Culumny, Honour, Death, Diguities. In his introduction, the author fays--

“ A celebratud Moralist has observed, that be who sets out in life, with moral principles deeply fixed in his heart, though a deceiving and deceived world should neglect hiin, will find, in his heart, a source of joy, which the world, with all its riches and honours, cannot bestow.

“ Thus, holding religion as the batis of that independence of mind, which is the best guardian of virtue ; on this rock I erect the morals of my book. I have drawn its principles from the greatest philosophers of the world, and from the source of all truth, the Holy Scriptures.”

A book, fo constructed, claims our mite of approbation, and we recommend it to those who are solicitous for their offspring to profit by the dictates of virtue.

MISCELLANIES.

Observations on the Account of a Plan for the better supplying the Cities of Edinburgh

and Glasgow with Coals; by Henry Șteuart, Esq. LL. D. F. R. Ș. and 4. S. E. By an Old Coal Master, $yo. Pp. 64. Hill. Edinburgh. 1800.

AD we not rashly promised in our review of the pamphlet to which

. to arguments of both parties in this canal controversy, we should hardly have Gg3