congenial with Indian despotism? but, above all, did they not know that French popery is very different from English, Irish, or even Spanish popery, and that a Frenchman never makes a convert to his religion without at the same time making a partisan to his country? The opposers of protestant christian conversion may answer these questions if they can; if not, they must stand convicted of inconsistency, or of a gross and criminal neglect of their duty. If Englishmen possess superior rectitude and honour in their conduct, as we would willingly believe, the Hindus should be rendered familiar with their manners, language, and consequently religion. But if it is designed to compliment the French character, and to prejudice the natives in favour of that country, it would be difficult to conceive more effectual means of producing such a laudable object, than the measure of suffering the missions of French Papists. It is from these men we apprehend danger to British India, and not from the allied armies of Russia and France which may traverse the Deserts of Asia. A domestic enemy, aided and supported by the French emissaries at the courts of the different native princes, will answer the double purposes of destroying our power, and rendering us odious. in the estimation of the Hindu people. Already have they heard the French extolled as gods, and the English execrated as demons; yet no measures have hitherto been adopted to obviate the necessary consequences of such impressions. We have now to proceed to Mr. Chatfield's "Historical Review;" but as we have detained our readers so long with his "Introduction," we must defer the farther consideration of the work till our next. (To be continued.) The Remains of Henry Kirk White, of Nottingham, late of St. John's College, Cambridge, with an Account of his Life by Robert Southey, Esq. 2 vols. 8vo. pp. 347, and 314. Third Edition, with 4 Plates. 14s. Dunn and Tupman, Nottingham; Vernor and Co. London. 1808. WHEN genius, sensibility, purity of heart and conduct, tenderness and piety, unite in one object, cold must be the heart, and rigid the judgement, that feels not much more disposed to admire and to sympathise, than to criticise or condemn. ́ Recollection does not present to us, of its size and kind, a more interesting work than the Remains of Henry Kirk White by Robert Southey. It consists of his life, neatly and feelingly drawn up by the editor; a number of letters to different relatives and friends; many poems and fragments, and some prose compositions. Much praise is due to Mr. Southey for the selection now published, since nothing appears but what will add to the tender sympathy which every feeling mind must experience for so amiable a being. Embued with the most susceptible and energetic mind, the most ardent thirst for knowledge-there wanted but the influence of a true religious principle to restrain and regulate the effusions of his genius, and the movements of his heart; and happily for his peace and for his fame, it was not long wanting. How touchingly does he, in a letter to a friend, describe his first inward conviction of the true religion, from the perusal of Scott's Force of Truth. "It had," (he says,) "convinced him of his error; and so thoroughly was he impressed with a sense of the importance of his Maker's favour, that he would willingly give up all acquisitions of knowledge, and all hopes of fame, and live in a wilderness unknown till death, so he could insure an inheritance in heaven." To the gay, the prosperous, and the healthy; to those who seem to tread upon adamant, and to fear no changes; this, and many subsequent expressions, may appear strongly to savour of what is termed methodism: but to those who have, with mute and unavailing anguish, seen youth and beauty sink into an early grave, their dearest hopes torn from them, this glowing testimony to the triumphant superiority of pure religion, in such a mind, will be truly valuable. With a soul too ardent and powerful for the tender frame it animated, an habitual conviction of his very fragile tenure of existence, seemed to be gradually detaching him from this world, and purifying his heart for a more exalted state. His mind and body being so unequally matched, it cannot be sufficiently lamented, that some kind friend had not exerted his influence to check, rather than to stimulate, his exertions; to have drawn him occasionally to a little easy relaxation and amusive trifling, instead of aiding him to make the last effort of exhausted No. 130. Vol. 32. April. 1809. 2 A powers; for he appears to have fallen a sacrifice to such ardent and excessive application. Of the letters, those to Mr. B. Maddock are in general the most interesting, as being to his most intimate friend. The following will find its way to the heart. * Perhaps it may be, that I am not formed for friendship; that I expect more than can ever be found. Time will tator me; I am a singular being, under a common outside. I am a profound dissembler of my inward feelings, and necessity has taught me the art. I am long before I can unbosom to a friend; yet, I think, I am sincere in my friendship. You must not attribute this to any suspiciousness of nature, but must consider that I lived seventeen years my own confidant, my own friend; full of projects and strange thoughts, and confiding them to am habitually reserved, and habitually cautious, in letting it. be seen that I hide any thing. Towards you I would fain conquer these habits; and this is one step towards effecting the conquest." no one. I To those who require an explanation of this, we are unable to give it; it may be felt, but cannot be demonstrated. The mind that has no feelings but in common, loses much of its inward worth. The great Bacon says, "it addeth no small reverence to men's manners and actions, that they be not altogether open." One long letter to Mr. Charlesworth must, we imagine, prove highly acceptable to every serious mind. Perhaps it may be deemed high treason against the majesty of Apollo, to acknowledge ourselves more interested by the letters, than even by the poetry of this young genius; and for this reason, that, written in easy confidence to his intimate friends, they exhibit, as far as it is possible to do, the heart of this truly amiable young man; a heart of purity, piety, and affection; such a one as may be laid open without hurt to any one. The following remarks, so just and so important, we cannot deny ourselves the indulgence of transcribing. "If polite letters were merely instrumental in chearing the hours of elegant leisure, in affording refined and polished pleasures, uncontaminated with gross and sensual gratifications, they would still be valuable; but in a degree infinitely less than when they are considered as the handmaids of the virtues, the correctors as well as the adorners of society. But literature has of late years been prostituted to the purposes of the bagnio. Poetry, in particular, arrayed in her most bewitching colours, has been taught to exercise the arts of the Leno, and to charm only that she may destroy. I call to witness Mr. Moore, and the tribe of imitators which his success has called forth, that my statement is true. I hope, for the credit of poetry, that the good sense of the age will scout this insidious school; and what may we not expect if Moore and Lord Strangford apply themselves to a chaster muse?—they are both men of uncommon powers. These sentiments, from a very young man, of great glow of imagination, are highly commendable, and may be adopted with advantage by his elders. Of poems, numbers of which were written at the early age of fourteen, it would be folly to speak in the terms of cold criticism; and it is greatly to be lamented, that, after the modest and feeling manner in which he deprecates such criticism in his early preface, that his susceptible mind was not spared that pang by a Review of the day*. Of his early productions, one styled The Dance of the Consumptives has a touching wildness in it: who can read the following lines without an inward shudder? "Consumption. "In the dismal night-air drest, Flush her cheek and bleach her skin, *The cynical illiberality of the Monthly Review to young poets has long been proverbial; as if the reviewer, conscious of the im→ becility of his own judgment, felt it impossible to conceal his weakness in any other manner, than affected severity and contempt for all modern poetical effusions. In no instance, however, was this ignoble disposition more strikingly evinced than in the critique on Mr. White's "Clifton Grove," in which the Monthly reviewer, with all the plausible professions of a French despoiler, exerted his utmost powers to wound the feelings of the author, and "barb the pangs of piercing penury." If a work contains bad principles, they certainly form a just subject of animadversion; but no apology can be offered for reflecting on the poverty of an innocentauthor; none for wanton cruelty to a youth, whose only fault was that of having written a defective rhyme. Whenever a critic condemns such things with asperity, it is a convincing proof of his want of judgment. The fastidious abuse of Mr. White, and other young poets, by the Monthly Review, was very happily satirised in a sketch of the Art of Damning," Vol. 17. P. 441, et seq. of the Antijacobin Review; the first and only work which has uniformly admitted the appeals of injured cr condemned authors. -Rev. Father, do not strive to save her, On heavenly diet, When death has deflower'd her eye." The latter part of The Eve of Death is highly beautiful and touching, and well worked up. Can any one peruse The Ode to Genius, wherein the sufferings and painful struggles of his own refined mind are so feelingly pourtrayed, without the tenderest sympathy? Exquisitely touching are the lines To a Friend in Distress, beginning "Do I not feel?"-every syllable makes its way to the heart. The last two stanzas in the book, pointed out by Mr. Southey, are indeed affecting. The unfinished poem of Time has many beauties. "Oh! it is fearful on the midnight couch, To steer the mind, in deadly solitude, Up the vague stream of probability; To wind the mighty secrets of the past, And turn the key of time! Oh! who can strive Of the eternity that hath gone by, And not recoil from the dismaying sense He hath no end!" In short, to speak generally, these compositions contain a poetic warmth, a tender melancholy, an affecting presentiment of his own early fate, which deeply interest the feeling reader; and we will not hesitate to acknowledge, that we rose from their perusal (more than once) oppressed by a softening melancholy, which would for the time have disabled us from the discussion of his merits; but which we would not have exchanged for the most animated social intercourse.-Peace to thy manes, gentle shade! We venture earnestly to recommend these little volumes to lie on the table of the young student; at intervals of |