elegant taste-though on the occasion there | but of the native simplicity and amiableness mentioned, the flowers were aided by a less of this Eastern highlander. delicate sort of excitement.

"My solicitude to visit my western dominions is boundless, and great beyond expression. The affairs of Hindustan have at length, however, been reduced into a certain degree of order; and I trust in Almighty God that the time is near at hand, when, through the grace of the Most High, every thing will be completely settled in this country. As soon as matters are brought into that state, I shall, God willing, set out for your quarter, without losing a moment's time. How is it possible that the delights of those lands should ever be erased from the heart? Above all, how is it possible for one like me, who have made a vow of abstinence from wine, and of purity of life, to forget the delicious melons and grapes of that pleasant region? They very recently brought me a single musk-melon. While cutting it up, 1 felt myself

"This day I ate a maajûn. While under its influence, I visited some beautiful gardens. In different beds, the ground was covered with purple and yellow Arghwân flowers. On one hand were beds of yellow flowers in bloom; on the other hand, red flowers were in blossom. In many places they sprung up in the same bed, mingled together as if they had been flung and scattered abroad. I took my seat on a rising ground near the camp, to enjoy the view of all the flower-pots. On the six sides of this eminence they were formed as into regular beds. On one side were yellow flowers; on another the purple, laid out in triangular beds. On two other sides, there were fewer flowers; but, as far as the eye could reach, there were flower-gardens of a similar kind. In the neighbourhood of Pershawer, during the spring, the flower-plots are ex-affected with a strong feeling of loneliness, and a quisitely beautiful." sense of my exile from my native country; and I could not help shedding tears while I was eating it!"

We have, now enabled our readers, we think, to judge pretty fairly of the nature of this very curious volume; and shall only present them with a few passages from two letters written by the valiant author in the last year of his life. The first is addressed to his favourite son and successor Humâiûn, whom he had settled in the government of Samarcand, and who was at this time a sovereign of approved valour and prudence. There is a very diverting mixture of sound political counsel and minute criticism on writing and composition, in this paternal effusion. We can give but a small part of it.

"In many of your letters you complain of separation from your friends. It is wrong for a prince to indulge in such a complaint.

"There is certainly no greater bondage than that in which a king is placed; but it ill becomes him to complain of inevitable separation.

On the whole, we cannot help having a liking for "the Tiger"-and the romantic, though somewhat apocryphal account that is given of his death, has no tendency to diminish our partiality. It is recorded by Abulfazi, and other native historians, that in the year after these Memoirs cease, Hûmâiun, the beloved son of Baber, was brought to Agra in a state of the most miserable health:

while several men of skill were talking to the em"When all hopes from medicine were over, and peror of the melancholy situation of his son, Abul Baka, a personage highly venerated for his knowledge and piety, remarked to Baber, that in such a receive the most valuable thing possessed by one case the Almighty had sometimes vouchsafed to friend, as an offering in exchange for the life of life was dearest to Hûmâiûn, as Humaiûn's was to another. Baber, exclaiming that, of all things, his

in compliance with my wishes, you have in-him, and that, next to the life of Humâiun, his own was what he most valued, devoted his life to Headeed written me letters, but you certainly never read them over; for had you attempted to read ven as a sacrifice for his son's! The noblemen them, you must have found it absolutely impossible, around him entreated him to retract the rash vow, and would then undoubtedly have put them by. I and, in place of his first offering, to give the dia contrived indeed to decipher and comprehend the mond taken at Agra, and reckoned the most valu meaning of your last letter, but with much diffi-that it was the dearest of our worldly possessions able on earth: that the ancient sages had said, culty. It is excessively confused and crabbed. Who ever saw a Moamma (a riddle or a charade) in alone that was to be offered to Heaven. But he prose? Your spelling is not bad, yet not quite persisted in his resolution, declaring that no stone, correct. You have written iltafat with a toe (in-his lite. He three times walked round the dying of whatever value, could be put in competition with stead of a te), and kuling with a be (instead of a kaf). Your letter may indeed be read; but in prince, a solemnity similar to that used in sacrifices consequence of the far-fetched words you have and heave-offerings, and, retiring, prayed earnestly employed, the meaning is by no means very intel-to God. After some time he was heard to exclaim, ligible. You certainly do not excel in letter-writing, and fail chiefly because you have too great a desire to show your acquirements. For the future, you should write unaffectedly, with clearness, using plain words, which would cost less trouble both to

the writer and reader."

The Mussulman historians assure us, that Humâiûn I have borne it away! I have borne it away!' almost immediately began to recover, and that, in proportion as he recovered, the health and strength of Baber visibly decayed. Baber communicated his dying instructions to Khwâjeh Khali eh, Kamber Ali Beg, Terdi Beg, and Hindu Beg, who were The other letter is to one of his old com- then at court commending Humaiûn to their propanions in arms;-and considering that it is tection. With that unvarying affection for his written by an ardent and ambitious conqueror, of his life, he strongly besought Hûmaiûn to be family which he showed in all the circumstances from the capital of his new empire of Hin-kind and forgiving to his brothers. Humâiun produstan, it seems to us a very striking proof, mised-and, what in such circumstances is rare, not only of the nothingness of high fortune, kept his promise."

POETRY.

(March, 1819.)

Specimens of the British Poets; with Biographical and Critical Notices, and an Essay on English Poetry. By THOMAS CAMPBELL. 7 vols. 8vo. London: 1819.

We would rather see Mr. Campbell as a If he were like most authors, or even like poet, than as a commentator on poetry:-be- most critics, we could easily have pardoned cause we would rather have a solid addition this; for we very seldom find any work too to the sum of our treasures, than the finest or short. It is the singular goodness of his critimost judicious account of their actual amount. cisms that makes us regret their fewness; for But we are very glad to see him in any way: nothing, we think, can be more fair, judicious --and think the work which he has now given and discriminating, and at the same time us very excellent and delightful. Still, how-more fine, delicate and original, than the ever, we think there is some little room for complaint; and, feeling that we have not got all we were led to expect, are unreasonable enough to think that the learned author still owes us an arrear: which we hope he will handsomely pay up in the next edition.

would generally be found wanting, especially | bell was himself a Master in a distinct scnoo. in a work of the large and comprehensive of poetry, and distinguished by a very pecu nature of that now before us-we mean, in liar and fastidious style of composition, withabsolute fairness and impartiality towards the out being apprehensive that the effects of this different schools or styles of poetry which he bias would be apparent in his work; and that, may have occasion to estimate and compare. with all his talent and discernment, he would Even the most common and miscellaneous now and then be guilty of great, though unreader has a peculiar taste in this way-and intended injustice, to some of those whose has generally erected for himself some ob- manner was most opposite to his own. We scure but exclusive standard of excellence, are happy to say that those apprehensions by which he measures the pretensions of all have proved entirely groundless; and that that come under his view. One man admires nothing in the volumes before us is more adwitty and satirical poetry, and sees no beauty mirable, or to us more surprising, than the in rural imagery or picturesque description; perfect candour and undeviating fairness with while another doats on Idyls and Pastorals, which the learned author passes judgment on and will not allow the affairs of polite life to all the different authors who come before him; form a subject for verse. One is for simplic--the quick and true perception he has of the ity and pathos; another for magnificence and most opposite and almost contradictory beausplendour. One is devoted to the Muse of ties-the good-natured and liberal allowance terror; another to that of love. Some are all he makes for the disadvantages of each age for blood and battles, and some for music and and individual-and the temperance and moonlight-some for emphatic sentiments, brevity and firmness with which he reproves and some for melodious verses. Even those the excessive severity of critics less entitled whose taste is the least exclusive, have a lean-to be severe. No one indeed, we will venture ing to one class of composition rather than to another; and overrate the beauties which fall in with their own propensities and associations -while they are palpably unjust to those which wear a different complexion, or spring from a different race.

to affirm, ever placed himself in the seat of judgment with more of a judicial temperthough, to obviate invidious comparisons, we must beg leave just to add, that being called on to pass judgment only on the dead, whose faults were no longer corrigible, or had already been expiated by appropriate pains, his temper was less tried, and his severities less provoked, than in the case of living offenders,and that the very number and variety of the errors that called for animadversion, in the course of his wide survey, must have made each particular case appear comparatively insignificant, and mitigated the sentence of individual condemnation.

But, if it be difficult or almost impossible to meet with an impartial judge for the whole great family of genius, even among those quiet and studious readers who ought to find delight even in their variety, it is obvious that this bias and obliquity of judgment must be still more incident to one who, by being himself a Poet, must not only prefer one school of poetry to all others, but must actually belong to it, and be disposed, as a pupil, or still It is to this last circumstance, of the large more as a Master, to advance its pretensions and comprehensive range which he was obabove those of all its competitors. Like the liged to take, and the great extent and variety votaries or leaders of other sects, successful of the society in which he was compelled to poets have been but too apt to establish ex- mingle, that we are inclined to ascribe, not clusive and arbitrary creeds; and to invent only the general mildness and indulgence of articles of faith, the slightest violation of his judgments, but his happy emancipation which effaces the merit of all other virtues. from those narrow and limitary maxims by Addicting themselves, as they are apt to do, which we have already said that poets are so to the exclusive cultivation of that style to peculiarly apt to be entangled. As a large which the bent of their own genius naturally and familiar intercourse with men of different inclines them, they look everywhere for those habits and dispositions never fails, in charac beauties of which it is peculiarly susceptible, ters of any force or generosity, to dispel the and are disgusted if they cannot be found.-prejudices with which we at first regard them, Like discoverers in science, or improvers in and to lower our estimate of our own superior art, they see nothing in the whole system but their own discoveries and improvements, and undervalue every thing that cannot be connected with their own studies and glory. As the Chinese mapmakers allot all the lodgeable area of the earth to their own nation, and thrust the other countries of the world into little outskirts and by-corners-so poets are disposed to represent their own little field of In this point of view, we think such a work exertion as occupying all the sunny part of as is now before us, likely to be of great use Parnassus, and to exhibit the adjoining regions to ordinary readers of poetry-not only as under terrible shadows and most unmerciful unlocking to them innumerable new springs foreshortenings. of enjoyment and admiration, but as having With those impressions of the almost in- a tendency to correct and liberalize their evitable partiality of poetical judgments in judgments of their old favourites, and to general, we could not recollect that Mr. Camp-strengthen and enliven all those faculties by

happiness and wisdom, so, a very ample and extensive course of reading in any depart ment of letters, tends naturally to enlarge our narrow principles of judgment; and not only to cast down the idols before which we had formerly abased ourselves, but to disclose to us the might and the majesty of much that we had mistaken and contemned.

There was great room therefore, and, we will even say, great occasion, for such a work as this of Mr. Campbell's, in the present state of our literature ;-and we are persuaded, that all who care about poetry, and are not already acquainted with the authors of whom it treats

and even all who are-cannot possibly do better than read it fairly through, from the first page to the last-without skipping the extracts which they know, or those which may not at first seem very attractive. There is no reader, we will venture to say, who will rise from the perusal even of these partial and scanty fragments, without a fresh and deep sense of the matchless richness, variety, and originality of English Poetry: while the juxtaposition and arrangement of the pieces not only gives room for endless comparisons and contrasts,-but displays, as it were in miniature, the whole of its wonderful progress; and sets before us, as in a great gallery of pictures, the whole course and history of the art, from its first rude and infant beginnings, to its maturity, and perhaps its decline While it has all the grandeur and instruction that be longs to such a gallery, it is free from the perplexity and distraction which is generally complained of in such exhibitions; as each piece is necessarily considered separately and in succession, and the mind cannot wander, like the eye, through the splendid labyrinth in which it is enchanted. Nothing, we think, can be more delightful, than thus at our ease to trace, through all its periods, vicissitudes, and aspects, the progress of this highest and most intellectual of all the arts-coloured as it is in every age by the manners of the times which produce it, and embodying, besides those flights of fancy and touches of pathos that constitute its more immediate essence, much of the wisdom and much of the morality that was then current among the people; and thus presenting us, not merely with almost all that genius has ever created for delight, but with a brief chronicle and abstract of all that was once interesting to the generations which have gone by.

which they derive pleasure from such studies. | being a mere bookseller's speculation.-Ag Nor would the benefit, if it once extended so we have heard nothing of it from the time of far, by any means stop there. The character its first publication, we suppose it has had the of our poetry depends not a little on the taste success it deserved. of our poetical readers; and though some bards have always been before their age, and some behind it, the greater part must be pretty nearly on its level. Present popularity, whatever disappointed writers may say, is, after all, the only safe passage of future glory; and it is really as unlikely that good poetry should be produced in any quantity where it is not relished, as that cloth should be manufactured and thrust into the market, of a pattern and fashion for which there was no demand. A shallow and uninstructed taste is indeed the most flexible and inconstantand is tossed about by every breath of doctrine, and every wind of authority; so as neither to derive any permanent delight from the same works, nor to assure any permanent fame to their authors;-while a taste that is formed upon a wide and large survey of enduring models, not only affords a secure basis for all future judgments, but must compel, whenever it is general in any society, a salutary conformity to its great principles from all who depend on its suffrage. To accomplish such an object, the general study of a work like this certainly is not enough:-But it would form an excellent preparation for more extensive reading-and would, of itself, do much to open the eyes of many self-satisfied persons, and startle them into a sense of their own ignorance, and the poverty and paltriness of many of their ephemeral favourites. Considered as a nation, we are yet but very imperfectly recovered from that strange and ungrateful forgetfulness of our older poets, which began with the Restoration, and continued almost unbroken till after the middle of the last century.-Nor can the works which have chiefly tended to dispel it among the instructed orders, be ranked in a higher class than this which is before us.-Percy's Relics of Antient Poetry produced, we believe, the first revulsion-and this was followed up by Wharton's History of Poetry.-Johnson's Lives of the Poets did something;-and the great effect has been produced by the modern commentators on Shakespeare. Those various works recommended the older writers, and The steps of the progress of such an art, reinstated them in some of their honours ;- and the circumstances by which they have but still the works themselves were not placed been effected, would form, of themselves, a before the eyes of ordinary readers. This large and interesting theme of speculation. was done in part, perhaps overdone, by the Conversant as poetry necessarily is with all entire republication of some of our older dra- that touches human feelings, concerns, and matists and with better effect by Mr. Ellis's occupations, its character must have been im Specimens. If the former, however, was pressed by every change in the moral and rather too copious a supply for the returning political condition of society, and must even appetite of the public, the latter was too retain the lighter traces of their successive scanty; and both were confined to too narrow follies, amusements, and pursuits; while, in a period of time to enable the reader to enjoy the course of ages, the very multiplication the variety, and to draw the comparisons, by and increasing business of the people have which he might be most pleased and instruct- forced it through a progress not wholly dis ed.-Southey's continuation of Ellis did harm similar to that which the same causes have rather than good; for though there is some produced on the agriculture and landscape of cleverness in the introduction, the work itself the country;-where at first we had rude and is executed in a crude, petulant, and super-dreary wastes, thinly sprinkled with sunny ficial manner, and bears all the marks of spots of simple cultivation--then vast forests

several pages of Butler, Mason, Whitehead, Roberts, Meston, and Amhurst Selden. We do not think the specimens from Burns very well selected; nor those from Prior-nor can we see any good reason for quoting the whole Castle of Indolence, and nothing else, for Thomson-and the whole Rape of the Lock, and nothing else, for Pope.

and chases, stretching far around feudal cas- has complied perhaps too far with the popular tles and pinnacled abbeys-then woodland prejudice, in confining his citations from Milhamlets, and goodly mansions, and gorgeous ton to the Comus and the smaller pieces, and gardens, and parks rich with waste fertility, leaving the Paradise Lost to the memory of and lax habitations and, finally, crowded his readers. But though we do not think the cities, and road-side villas, and brick-walled extracts by any means too long on the whole, gardens, and turnip-fields, and canals, and we are certainly of opinion that some are too artificial ruins, and ornamented farms, and long and others too short; and that many, cottages trellised over with exotic plants! especially in the latter case, are not very But, to escape from those metaphors and well selected. There is far too little of Marenigmas to the business before us, we must lowe for instance, and too much of Shirley, remark, that in order to give any tolerable and even of Massinger. We should have idea of the poetry which was thus to be rep-liked more of Warner, Fairfax, Phineas resented, it was necessary that the specimens Fletcher, and Henry More-all poets of no to be exhibited should be of some compass scanty dimensions and could have spared and extent. We have heard their length complained of-but we think with very little justice. Considering the extent of the works from which they are taken, they are almost all but inconsiderable fragments; and where the original was of an Epic or Tragic character, greater abridgment would have been mere mutilation, and would have given only such a specimen of the whole, as a brick might do of a building. From the earlier and less familiar authors, we rather think the citations are too short; and, even from those that are more generally known, we do not well see how they could have been shorter, with any safety to the professed object, and only use, of the publication. That object, we conceive, was to give specimens of English poetry, from its earliest to its latest periods; and it would be a strange rule to have followed, in making such a selection, to leave out the best and most popular. The work certainly neither is, nor professes to be, a collection from obscure and forgotten authors but specimens of all who have merit enough to deserve our remembrance;-and if some few have such redundant merit or good fortune as to be in the hands and the minds of all the world, it was necessary, even then, to give some extracts from them,-that the series might be complete, and that there might be room for comparison with others, and for tracing the progress of the art in the strains of its best models and their various imitators.

In one instance, and one only, Mr. C. has declined doing this duty; and left the place of one great luminary to be filled up by recollections that he must have presumed would be universal. He has given but two pages to SHAKESPEARE and not a line from any of his plays! Perhaps he has done rightly. A knowledge of Shakespeare may be safely presumed, we believe, in every reader; and, if he had begun to cite his Beauties, there is no saying where he would have ended. A little book, calling itself Beauties of Shakespeare, was published some years ago, and shown, as we have heard, to Mr. Sheridan. He turned over the leaves for some time with apparent satisfaction, and then said, "This is very well; but where are the other seven volumes?" There is no other author, however, whose fame is such as to justify a similar ellipsis, or whose works can be thus elegantly understood, in a colle etion of good poetry. Mr. C.

Next to the impression of the vast fertility, compass, and beauty of our English poetry, the reflection that recurs most frequently and forcibly to us, in accompanying Mr. C. through his wide survey, is that of the perishable nature of poetical fame, and the speedy oblivion that has overtaken so many of the promised heirs of immortality! Of near two hundred and fifty authors, whose works are cited in these volumes, by far the greater part of whom were celebrated in their generation, there are not thirty who now enjoy any thing that can be called popularity-whose works are to be found in the hands of ordinary readers-in the shops of ordinary booksellers or in the press for republication. About fifty more may be tolerably familiar to men of taste or literature:-the rest slumber on the shelves of collectors, and are partially known to a few antiquaries and scholars. Now, the fame of a Poet is popular, or nothing. He does not address himself, like the man of science, to the learned, or those who desire to learn, but to all mankind; and his purpose being to delight and be praised, necessarily extends to all who can receive pleasure, or join in applause. It is strange, then, and somewhat humiliating, to see how great a proportion of those who had once fought their way successfully to distinction, and surmounted the rivalry of contemporary envy, have again sunk into neglect. We have great deference for public opinion; and readily admit, that nothing but what is good can be permanently popular. But though its vivat be generally oracular, its percat ap pears to us to be often sufficiently capricious; and while we would foster all that it bids to live, we would willingly revive much that it leaves to die. The very multiplication of works of amusement, necessarily withdraws many from notice that deserve to be kept in remembrance; for we should soon find it labour, and not amusement, if we were obliged to make use of them all, or even to take all upon trial. As the materials of enjoyment and instruction accumulate around us, more and more, we fear, must thus be daily rejected, and