"Where'er the human race, in social bands,
Can till the plain, or tend the swelling fruit,
Her plant, the Goddess, whom the seas obey
And teeming shores, hath scattered wide: where'er
The climate cursed forbids the labouring hind
To cull the profits of his healthy toil,

No roses bloom to grace the barren waste,
Blasted by nature, and by man abhorred.
No roses bloom, where Arctic seas invade
The rocks primeval of the frozen world;
Where Proteus' monstrous herd, with horrid yells,
Rush through the tempests of their foul domain:
No roses bloom in Zaära's flying sand,
Nor central Afric, where the lion guards
His blood-stained litter, or the gasping snake,
Rolled in unwieldy masses, licks the dust:
Nor, where the solitary condours wind,

1

O'er Andes' cloudless snow, their patient flight." P. II.

"But who shall trace the ever-varying tinge

That paints the glossy petals, or define
The mingling colours, that from virgin white
Glow into purple blushes, and eclipse
The crimsoned splendour of the velvet robe?
Now, with loose streaks, and now,
with faint approach,
Vermilion sports with white, now, yellow dyes
Contrast the brighter pink or fading red.

"O'er many climes, the scented eglantine
Uncultured waves her fragrance, and the briar,
With hooked thorns encircled, smiles diffuse
O'er many a tufted hedge or village path." P. 13.

The apostrophe to domestic retirement is highly poetical.

"Oh happy! who can lead

The docile twigs, and teach the clustering buds
To adorn the summer seat, where solitude
And peace can fearless catch the morning breeze,
And listen to the murmuring stream beneath!
Oh more than happy! whom domestic love
Culls from the restless crowd, for whom he strew's
A thornless bed, and shelters from the world!"

P. 15.

We

The practical directions for the cultivation and pruning of roses are less prosaïc than such pieces usually are. prefer, however, the author's moral allusions.

"And be it thine, O lovely Rose! with all
Thy sister flowers, to blaze the theme of truth
And order: say, why o'er thy armed stem
Has Providence dispersed the varied thorn?
Or on thy leaves the downy vesture spread?
Or raised a hispid fence beneath thy buds ?

Or clad thy hairy seeds? In vain, the worm
Devours the bud; in vain, the aphis drops
Her daily progeny: each form retains
Its station, and its use: the destined guards
Temper the chilling of the eastern blast;
Arrest the ravages of insect tribes;

Or bid them range innocuous: here, bask
Their tender brood: here, courtiers of the sun,
The radiant beetle and pellucid fly

Lave their rich armour in the spangled dew.

Here, the black bee prepares, with tender care,
The leafy circles of her procreant bed,

To line her arched chambers, scooped, with pain,
Through oak or sallow, or, beneath the earth,
Mid secret passages, unaided, frame

The labyrinth and verdant wall. This when
The rustic sees, amazed he turns, and flies
Far from the enchanted spot, fearful to touch
The charm supposed, and the revenge incur
Of sorceress or fairy. With alarm

More just, the panting damsels tried the wreath,
Or magic flower, that, with a fading form

Mourn'd o'er the faithless nymph and conscious wife;

But, with resplendent tints reanimate,

Breathed heavenly odours o'er the matchless brow
Of constancy; which twice, in legend tales,
Was found; perhaps, in legend tales alone.'

P. 22.

The superstition of the "Popes, who used every year to consecrate a golden rose, which was usually sent to some favourite prince as an holy present," is happily satirised. "Thee, Amarantha, let the muse record Indulgent, and no other wreath I seek, Than flowers entwined by thy inspiring hand; More precious, than the Golden Rose, that crowned Toulousian bards, amid the floral feast;

Or those, which, in the prostituted name

Of heaven, the Sovereign Pontiff blessed, to swell
The pride of kings, or bribe Loretto's shrine."

P. 37.

The concluding stanzas of this canto discover an amiable and enlightened mind.

"First ruler of the human mind, to thee
The humble muse her earliest homage owes.
Be gentle in thy course, pure in thy wish,
And soothing in thy soft control: or else,
Far let us fly, and fire the eager soul
To deeds of high emprise; to raise the spear
In patriot armaments, at her command,
Who bears the OAKEN wreath of civic worth,
Enchanting LIBERTY: or sink, retired,

In FRIENDSHIP's more indulgent arms, and, with
Her social VINE, o'ershade the tranquil bower
Of Fancy; sheltered, from the ruder blast,
And scattering of thy light-winged flowers, O Love!
"And it is theirs, to rouse the mortal thought
Above all low affections, and the vile

Bent of the selfish intellect; yet all

Are vain, with mightier energies, to clothe
The panting soul, and, with ethereal fire,
Repurify the essence, still, immersed

In sublunary darkness, chained to earth;
If mild RELIGION, with her charms unveiled,
Effect no miracle, nor strew with PALMS
The way to immortality. For her, should rise
The poet's latest theme, and melt these songs,
Of wayward lore, and various texture wrought,
Into one just, premeditate design." P. 38.

We observe in the 36th page of this canto, for the sake of quantity, the word consecrate used instead of consecrated. In the same page there are two similes, or comparisons, accompanied with a reflexion on them; these greatly impair the perspicuity of the sense. The author's memory and imagination in this case were both too fertile; although he may plead the example of Milton for such things. We mention these trivial errors, however, because we are persuaded he is perfectly capable of avoiding them in future.

The second canto celebrates the Oak much in the same manner as the Rose. After invoking his Muse to reward "the patriot warriors who have bled in British arms," he delineates the progress of British navigation.

"Thou followest the Hero's track, and seest
From thy retired grove his gleaming sword
Flash terror o'er each sea, each hostile shore,
From ice-bound Baltic to the isles of Ind:
Or where the tributary Ganges yields

:

His willing waves to spread the conquering name
Of Britain while the towers of Agra sink
In dust, and from their ashes rise, to seek
Their vassal crowns and safety from her hand,
The obedient thrones of Delhi and Mysore:
Or where the mouldering Ptolemaïs * found
Salvation in one British arm more strong

"Ptolemaïs. Acre. Anciently Ace, or Acon: under the Romans, it was called Ptolemaïs, and was a colony of Claudius Cæsar. Plin. H. N. v. 19. 'Since which time it has been twice the scene of British heroism.

Than citadels, or all the Othman host:
Or where the wondering Egypt heard the crash
Of Hyperborean arms: the Gothic flags
Catch the fell blasts of Afric, and around
Sweeps loathsome pestilence, prepared to check
The furies of barbaric war with fiends

More horrid than his own. Ye parching winds,
Breathed from the centre of the burning sand,
Ye faithless coasts, ye deserts, tracked by men
More savage than yourselves, say, with what fear
Unknown before, when Macedonian arms,
Roman or Persian, chased your flying hordes,
You saw the British chief than Ammon's son
More terrible, engirt with flames and death,
Ride o'er your boiling strands, upon your shores
Come thundering, and all the Gallic flags,
And from their moorings in one fiery grasp
The grappled navy tear? What though your sands,
Your plains accursed, your blasted hillocks (where
Bleak Despotism sits enthroned by Fate
On monuments of slavery) can rear
No freeborn chaplets of enduring Oak,
No civic crowns to shade a patriot brow;
Yet must some tears of admiration fall
On Abercrombie's grave, and, all ye can,
Your ever-verdant palms shall strew the spot,
Where for mankind a British Hero died!

"In milder climes, beneath her oaken shade,
Shall Freedom raise the hymn of victory:
The healthy zephyrs playing round her neck
Shall float her tresses wild, and airy vest;
Her fair arm balances the guardian spear;
Her hand she rests upon the shield of peace,
And smiles o'er British waves: the pendent cliff,
The forest unconfined, the scented heath,
The living fount that scoops the polished rock,
Are cherished by her smile: her oaken shade
She celebrates with joy; with joy contemns
The gorgeous prisons of the sceptered East,
The spoils barbaric, and the studded thrones
Where Justice never sat; mean contrasts all
To her enlivening beams and genial day!" P. 72.
"And should again the prostrate liberties
Of Europe wither in the ruffian grasp
Of tyranny, more base than ever Rome
Pressed on her plundered provinces, the sons

Of Freedom o'er the Atlantic waves shall bear

Their spotless virtues to a kindred world." P. 75.

Mr. Tighe has used the metaphoric language of some of the prophets with considerable effect in the following animated and poetical address:-

Daughter of Albion, empress of the main,
Turn to thy God!--for He hath set a crown
Of gold and pearls upon thy favoured front,
And covered thee with more than Tyrian robes.
Thee the unceasing currents of the Cape,
The storms of Mozambique, the dark monsoons
Obey, and waft the wealth of Serica,

Of Taprobane and golden Chersonese,

(Known by new names) to heap thy envied mart!
Daughter of commerce, empress of the main,
Turn to thy God ;- For He hath girt thy breast
With iron ramparts, and thy loins with strength:
By Him the perilous shoals, by Him the rocks
Were laid, that circle thy embattled shore :
He wings His storms around, and on thy flanks
Hath circumfused the currents of His sea.
Turn to thy God, oh Albion!
- For He gave
The patient Oak to waft thee to renown,
And eternise thy freedom in His love!

P. 78.

The political allusions blended with the description of Windsor forest and the British oak, evince the taste and skill of the poet.

... the British Oaks, in looser groups,
Surround with native majesty the hall
Or ancient mansion, where the joyous song
Of hospitable harmony collects

The Arts, and sister Graces: where the Muse
Strays unconfined, and to the Naïad chants,
Beside the trickling fount, the tale of
The tale of arms, of victory, or fame.”

yore,

P. 85.

"She sings Porphyrion, and his serpent crew,
Who tore the ancient forests from the earth
Convulsed, and hurled them, in invading storms
Of roaring fire, against the throne of Jove:
Amid the desolation, unappalled

Stood Hercules; and with one giant branch,
Rived from a flaming Oak, dashed Eurytus
Blaspheming from the clouds: so shall the fiends
Of Gaul in vain their poisoned serpents writhe,
in vain a thousand armed hosts,

And urge

Rapacious to devour the verdant isles

Of Britain; who unaided guards the rock

Of Freedom, and alone sustains the world.

The Dryads and the Fauns repeat the strain." P. 87.

Those who have read the narrative of Cook's last voyage, will feel the justness of this tribute to his memory.

" 'Tis then she heaves the recollective sigh,

Melting in softer notes the broken lay. -
For after all thy patient labours done,