has, however, failed in satisfying us, that the excellent Rector of Weston Favel had sufficient force of mind to enable him. to elucidate the depths into which he plunged, by any novelty. of reasoning or illustration. There are many incidental passages in this biographical memoir, far more effective than any thing furnished by Hervey's own papers or publications. In reviewing this volume, we have no alternative between extreme brevity, and extensive detail; and for various reasons we choose the former. The " Memoirs" have been long before the world; and though this edition (the third) is greatly enlarged, we still do not deem it necessary to occupy our pages with analysing or criticising a book on the substantial merits of which the public has long since determined. It is, however, but just to Mr. Brown, to say, that we have derived much pleasure from our perusal of his work. It contains much that is both valuable and interesting, and it will repay the reader by communicating considerable information on points by no means destitute of importance, though now less frequently mooted than they were in the days of Hervey. It is a singular circumstance, and one which seems to argue some defect in Mr. Hervey's system of preaching, that he seems to have been so little useful as a preacher. We are not sufficiently acquainted with Mr. H.'s modes of address from the pulpit, to hazard assigning any reason for this failure. We shall only venture on the remark, that where preaching is plain and fervent, blending practical application with doctrinal exposition, and urging with Scriptural simplicity and energy the sanctions of the Gospel, such instances of entire want of success are, happily, rare. Art. VIII. A Historical and Topographical Essay upon the Islands of Corfu, Leucadia, Cephalonia, Ithaca, and Zante. With Remarks upon the Character, Manners, and Customs of the Ionian Greeks; Descriptions of the Scenery and Remains of Antiquity, &c. Illustrated by Maps and Sketches. By William Goodisson, A. B. Assistant Surgeon in H. M. 75th Regiment. 8vo. pp. 268. Price 12s. London. 1822. THIS HIS book is confessedly, for the most part, a compilation; but the Author has described the character of the Ionian islanders, such,' he says, as an acquaintance with them for more than five years has warranted him to do.' He has moreover endeavoured to render the work as useful as he could, by 'diligently collating the different authors, and comparing their accounts with things as they actually are.' With the same laudable view, he has procured a map of each of the four prin cipal islands, compiled chiefly from the plans of the Venetian and French engineers,' but with the corrections of the late Lieut. Scott of the British Engineers. Besides these four maps, there are eight other lithographic plates, of very indiffe rent execution, but sufficiently good for the purpose, and not to be complained of, except as they appear to have been made a pretext for fixing an enormous price on the volume. Upon the whole, to those of our readers who may wish to acquaint themselves with the topography and history of these interesting is lands, we may safely recommend Mr. Goodisson's book as containing more information in a small compass than any other on the subject. The character he gives of the Islanders, is by no means pleasing; but we have little doubt of its being substantially just. Every circumstance has conspired to debase them; and the Venetian character grafted on that of the bastard Greek, could not be expected to produce a better result. " The morality of the Greeks has been proverbially bad, and they still retain their character for cunning and duplicity. The corruption introduced by the Venetians, in the exactions of the needy proveditori (governors) and their followers, has not a little tended to fix the demoralization of this people: the excesses committed by those gave rise to a regular system of plunder, peculation, and deceit amongst them; money was borrowed of the Jews at Venice, for the purpose of traffick by these merciless usurers: fifty per cent. was the interest ex acted at the end of the year, and the sum remaining unpaid was doubled each succeeding year. These affreux excès," as a French writer calls them, were denominated, prostichii; every thing was venal, and nothing could satisfy their avidity: the hiring of assassins was sanctioned as a means of filling their coffers. Such a system of depravity prevailing in the government of a people naturally prone to deceit, it may well be imagined, that centuries will not suffice to assimilate their morals to those of other European nations. Nothing sets in a clearer point of view the dereliction of every thing virtuous and honourable amongst them, than the total disregard to truth, in which they are brought up; they seem to take as much pains to discourage ingenuousness and candour, as a people of more elevated principle would, to detect and punish prevarication and falsehood: the probability is, that a young Greek will deceive you, even in matters of the greatest indifference; although he gains no immediate advantage by this sacrifice of candour, yet he considers that, by holding you in ignorance, he is ready to profit by his craft at some future emergency. Calumny and detraction are extremely common amongst them, nor is it at all unusual to see two persons, apparently on the most friendly terms, who, when separate, will mutually accuse cach other of every thing that is base and dishonourable; but, as a just value is generally fixed upon this friendship reciprocally, neither party incurs much risk from yielding too much to the weakness of self-love; a delusion which, with a people of more simplicity, is always a dangerous tool in the hands of the de signing. The means of directly prosecuting their revenge being removed by the complete extirpation of the knife and stiletto, that dreadful passion to which they are so prone, must be gratified by other means; hence the many criminal informations and prosecutions, the various perjuries and prevarications, and the never-ending disputes at law. pp. 194-197. Each island has its tutelary saint, besides innumerable others that preside over cities, mountains, woods, and waters. There is no church,' adds our Author, which is not dedicated to 'some saint.' Does he mean to say that this is a proof of idolatrous superstition? He must be a rigid Presbyterian. We make no doubt, however, that the religion of these lonians is, in fact, heathenism. The state of morals may be estimated from one circumstance, if we may rely on the statement, that the in famous practice of parents' prostituting their children for money, is common in these Islands. Conjugal infidelity, it is said, is as general as every other breach of morals and good faith; a natural result of the mode in which marriage is contracted. It would appear from these considerations,' says our Author, that the government of these islands will require a tighter, * rather than a more lax rein.' If so, from all accounts, they have in the present Lord High Commissioner, a governor of precisely the right kind. But while we doubt not our Author's veracity, we are somewhat suspicious of the impartiality of his opinions, as well as of his competency to prescribe, in moral and political matters, the best mode of treatment. He is evidently for the free use of the knife and the lancet. Art. IX. 1. The Tour of the Dove, a Poem; with occasional crown 8vo. pp. 152. Price 7s. 6d. 2. The Banks of Tamar, a Poem, with other Pieces. By N. T. Carrington. 12mo. pp. 160. Price 6s. Plymouth Dock. 1820. THESE two volumes, though they have been sometime pub lished, have but recently fallen into our hands; and we feel ourselves imperiously called upon to apologise to all the rivers of England and Wales,-to -Usa golden-haired And Alain bending o'er his crystal urn, Swift-whirling Abra, Trent's o'ershadowed stream, Tamar's ore-tinctured flood,' and wild romantic Dove, for the light and seemingly irreve rent remarks ventured on in a recent review of the Rev. W. B. Clarke's River Derwent." In expressing our apprehensions that we were likely to be inundated with a library of rivers, we certainly were not conscious of exhibiting any symptoms of a literary hydrophobia; we intended no disrespect to either the Duddon or the Derwent; nor did we mean to intimate that every river was not fully entitled to have its poet, and every poet his river, till we should have all England delineated,' in the shape of a metrical hydrography. We are sorry to find; from a private secretary to one of the offended Naiads, that we have been so completely misunderstood as to be supposed inimical to the celebration of Water, the elder born of the elements, as Dan Pindar singeth. Our design was merely to prevent a general rising, a rush of rivers, a battle among the urns. Nor was it less our object, to protect their nymphships from unhallowed liberties, to warn off the profane from prying into their mysteries, to prevent small poets from dabbling in their waters. To the friendliness of our feelings towards the aquatic sisterhood, the Duddon will bear witness; Mr. Wordsworth's Duddon, we mean. And indeed, though ourselves neither water-drinkers nor anglers, we will not yield to Walton himself in our affectionate predilection for the whole family of streams, from the majestic estuary or the wide-spread lake, up to the shallow, pebbled brook which has just volume enough to swim a trout, or the nameless rill that tumbles down the mountain side. Having said thus much in vindication of our taste, which might justly have been called in question, had we interdicted the subject of rivers altogether to our poets, we proceed to notice the works before us. And we are happy to say, that the Dove has certainly been more fortunate in her bard than the Derwent. Mr. Rhodes will recognise in John Edwards an able coadjutor in the graphical illustration of Peak Scenery. Our Poet has chosen an appropriate motto from Numbers xxi. 17. "Spring up, O well: sing ye unto it ;" and he thus begins his song literally at the beginning. sang • Thou eldest of the elements that Having made his choice, among the innumerous waters, of the Dove, the Poet proceeds to describe the nuptials' of the Dove and the Trent, at which point he commences his topographical sketch, tracing the river upwards to Dove Head. He then launches into the following apostrophe. ' Wast thou, fair Dove, a stream when Paradise Before the Peak beheld yon summits rise, And Dovedale's portal arch high-roof'd with towers? And flung in steam condensed through fissures forth, Dark as the hidden fountains of the Nile, O river of the mountain and the mead! In whose.vast home of waters ends thy course; Not thy famed wealth, that tempts the fisherman, Than gold or silver fish that love the tropic beam.' pp. 8, 9. 113 After sailing on very quietly for a few stanzas, our Poet leaves the river, to pay his respects to a venerable millenarian oak, which, had he told us where to find it, we should have been glad to visit some day ourselves. |