saving our race. Hence arises an eternal conflict, whence a happy imagination may elicit numberless beauties.

"This sublime species of the marvellous furnishes a second of an inferior order, that is to say, magic. This last was known to

the ancients, but under our religion it has acquired, as a poetic machine, higher importance and increased extent. Care must, however, be always taken to employ it with discretion, because it is not in a style sufficiently chaste; it is above all, deficient in grandeur; for, borrowing some portion of its power from human nature, men communicate to it somewhat of their own insignificance.

"A distinguishing feature in our supernatural beings, especially in the infernal powers, is the attribution of a character. We shall presently see what use Milton has made of the character of pride, assigned by christianity to the princes of darkness. The poet being, moreover, at liberty to allot a wicked spirit to each vice, may thus dispose of a host of infernal divinities: nay, he has then the genuine allegory, without having the insipidity which accompanies it, as these perverse spirits are in fact real beings, and such as our religion authorizes us to consider them.

But if the demons are equally numerous with the crimes of men, they may also be coupled with the tremendous incidents of nature. Whatever is criminal and irregular in the moral and in the physical world, is alike within their province. Care must only be taken when they are introduced in earthquakes and the gloomy recesses of an aged forest, to give these scenes a majestic character. The poet should, with exquisite taste, be able to make a distinction between the thunder of the Most. High, and the empty noise raised by a perfidious spirit. Let not the lightnings be kindled but in the hands of God; let them never burst from the storm excited by the powers of hell. Let the latter be always sombre and ominous; let not its clouds be reddened by wrath, or propelled by the wind of justice; let them be pale and livid like those of despair, and be driven by the impure blasts of hatred alone. In these storms there should be felt a power mighty only in destruction; there should be found that incongruity, that confusion, that kind of malignant energy which has something disproportionate and gigantic, like the chaos whence it derives its origin."

The spirits of light may be allowed to contrast these spirits of· darkness; and we know not for what reason M. C. has divided them by a chapter on the Saints.

"Among the Greeks, Heaven terminated at the summit of Mount Olympus, and their gods ascended no higher than the vapours of the earth. The marvellous of christianity, harmonizing with reason, astronomy, and the expansion of the soul, pe

netrates from world to world, from universe to universe, by successions of space from which the astonished imagination recoils. In vain the telescopes explore every corner of the heavens; in vain they pursue the comet through our system; the comet at length flies beyond their reach; but it cannot elude the archangel, who causes it to revolve on its unknown pole, and who, at the appointed time, will bring it back by mys terious ways into the very focus of our sun.

"The christian poet alone is initiated into the secret of these wonders. From globes after globes, from suns after suns, with the seraphim, thrones, and dominations that govern the spheres, the weary imagination again descends to earth, like a river which, in a magnificent cascade, pours forth its golden current opposite to the sun setting in radiant majesty. You then pass from grand to soothing images; in the shady forest you traverse the domain of the Angel of Solitude; in the soft moonlight you find the Genius of the melancholies of the heart; you hear his sighs in the murmur of the woods and in the plaintive notes of Philomela. The roseate tints of the dawn are the streaming hair of the Angel of Morning. The Angel of Night reposes in the midst of the firmament like the moon slumbering upon a cloud; his eyes are covered with a bandage of stars, while his feet and his forehead are tinged with blushes of twilight and Aurora; an Angel of Silence goes before him, and he is followed by the Angel of Mystery. Let us not wrong the poets by thinking that they look upon the Angel of the Seas, the Angel of Tempests, the Angel of Time, and the Angel of Death, as spirits disagreeable to the Muses. It is the Angel of Holy Love that gives the virgin such a celestial look, and the Angel of Harmony who adorns her with graces; the honest man owes his heart to the Angel of Virtue, and his lips to the Angel of Persuasion. There is nothing to prevent our assigning to these beneficent spirits attributes to distinguish their powers and their functions: the Angel of Friendship, for instance, might wear a girdle infinitely more wonderful than the cestus of Venus: for here might be seen, interwoven by a divine hand, the consolations of the soul, sublime devotion, the secret aspirations of the heart, innocent joys, pure religion, the charm of the tombs, and immortal hope."

We must now bring this article to a close; and perhaps we cannot do greater justice to the writer who has furnished the subject of it, than by quoting sentiments, which, though intended to apply particularly to the cause of the decline of taste, are of far more general application.

"In an enlightened age you will scarcely believe to what a degree good morals depend on good taste, and good taste on good morals. The works of Racine, gradually becoming more pure

in proportion as the author became more religious, at last concluded with his Athaliah. Take notice, on the contrary, how the impiety and the genius of Voltaire discover themselves at one and the same time in his productions, by a mixture of delightful and disagreeable subjects. Bad taste, when incorrigible, is a perversion of judgment, a natural bias in the ideas; now as the mind acts upon the heart, the ways of the latter can scarcely be upright when those of the former are not so. He who is fond of deformity at a time when a thousand master-pieces might apprize him of his error and rectify his taste, is not far from loving vice; and 'tis no wonder if he who is insensible to beauty should also be blind to virtue.

«Every writer who refuses to believe in a God, the author of the universe, and the judge of men, whose soul he has made immortal, in the first place excludes infinity from his works. He confines his intellect within a circle of clay, from which it has then no means of escaping. He sees nothing that is noble in nature; all her operations are, in his infatuated opinion, effected by impure means of corruption and regeneration. The vast abyss is but a little bituminous water; the mountains are small protuberances of calcareous or vitrifiable rock, and the heavens are but a petty vault, thrown over us for a moment by the capricious hand of Chance."

Vast indeed, is that idea, which beginning in time includes eternity. Calculation is lost in measuring the existence and the happiness of the christian hereafter: but loss of calculation is one principle of sublimity. It is the undefined and undefinable something which fixes the mind's eye, yet eludes its examination. It is the immensity of the firmament, in which none supposes he can distinguish the ultimate distance, or mark that star which fixes the limits of etherial space. And should such an idea be entertained by the ignorant, let those who have enjoyed the advantage of instruments, which form the glory of modern science, with no faltering voice declare their conviction to the contrary. They have penetrated, as it were, further and further" into the Heaven of Heavens;" yet have ended their weary scrutiny with the feeling of their own imperfection, and of the incompetency of their powers to accomplish that which to attempt almost implies presumption. Such is the philosopher contemplating the celestial firmament; and such the christian contemplating the spiritual heaven.

A Sequel to the "Rejected Addresses;" or the Theatrum Poetarum Minorum. By another Author.

12mo.

Ir is a very rare occurrence when the continuation of a popular book rivals the book itself in merit. We wish that we were able to promise our readers the gratification which arises from that rarity on the present occasion: but the Sequel to the (fictitious)" Rejected Addresses" proceeds from a very inferior hand. The first supposed candidate for the prize is Mr. Campbell; and although he certainly would have afforded a good subject for imitation in the former jeu d'esprit, yet we cannot understand the wit of his being classed among the Poeta Minores of Great Britain, in the trifle before us. His marked peculiarities of manner (taking them as they are displayed in "Gertrude of Wyoming") are grossly burlesqued in a vapid vulgarism called "Molly of Bridges Street." For the excessive refinement and laboured polish of the original, we have the wiredrawn want of thought and careless composition of a copyist, whose humour is without strength, and whose coarseness is unredeemed by vivacity.

The "Farmer's Boy's Address," ascribed to Robert Bloomfield, has no other resemblance than that of frigid and unmeaning verbiage, to the model from which it is imitated: while "The philosophical discovery, and Plebeian Talent," by Capel Lofft, Esq. endeavours in vain to amuse the reader, by making the pretended and very respectable author ridiculous. Both attempts are equally unsuccessful. The nonsense supposed to be spoken by boys of thirteen and fourteen years of age would disgrace the gambols of a nursery.

"Drury-lane; a Poem in two parts, by Lord George Grenville," with a minute argument prefixed to each part, is written (we conclude) in mimicry of the poem of that noble author, entitled "Portugal," which we had hoped ere now to have duly reported. The style of the original has nothing sufficiently marked for imitation; and as to the sentiments of piety which occur in Lord George's composition, we cannot discern the good sense which laughs at them in the burlesque. It is a sure characteristic of this species of witlings to smile when they should be serious:

"Gentle dulness ever loves a jest.".

"Sympathetic Adventures, by Yorick's Ghost," although tedious on the whole, have really some merit in detached parts. Yorick breakfasting in bed, after his exertions on the preceding

night at the fire, and the landlady helping him to tea and toast, have much of the particularized reality of Sterne, and do not fail to suggest other points of resemblance.

"Drury and Comedy," by L'Allegro, is below contempt. "A Spirited Address on Theatrical Reform," by Sir Francis Burdett, has no similarity to the manner, and even caricatures the sentiments, of the baronet. "Orchestraic Melody," allotted to Mr. Horace Twiss, might have been written by that gentleman, or any other gentleman, had it been more correct in language and versification:

"Avaunt fam'd Handel, Haydn, and Mozart!

Thy sounds hoarse rattling, like a drayman's cart," &c. &c.

"An Address for a Youthful Audience," by Mrs. Barbauld, may possess some occasional likeness to the productions of that accomplished friend of juvenile readers: but, if it does, what merit is due to such success? That judgment is sadly deficient which can so ill discern the proper objects of burlesque.

The "Burning," by Miss Holford, lashes the irregularity of that lady's measure with much justice, but entirely fails in transfusing her undoubted spirit. "The Battle of the Pit of Drura," by Ossian's Ghost, may be said to be nearly as good as the original, by those who entertain not very reverent ideas of the Gaelic Bard. "Sonnets on Theatrical Subjects," by the Rev. W. L. Bowles, are tolerably successful: but the " Managing Brewers," injuriously assigned to Mr. Hayley, is a perfect picture of St. Giles's;-and thus ends this doleful tragedy,