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With his rapt spirit round the ecliptic glow,
Or freeze beneath the bears, in polar snow;
Delighted, through the boundless realms of space,
The great Creator's varied power to trace;
Where gravitating worlds umuumbered sweep
In beauteous order through yon azure deep;
While rapid comets, with their burning trains,
Attend their progress through those distant plains;
Their wasted ardours with new fires supply,
And light the fanies that blaze through all the sky.
• How vigorous Genius, on its eagle-wings,
Above terrestrial bonds triumphant springs!
All the dire rage of adverse fate defies,
And to its native spheres for refuge flies.
Mark! on yon northern hills, her darling child,
Wand'ring o'er many a bleak and barren wild;
Around him howls enraged the wintry gale,
And driving sheet the illustrious youth assail;
Yet neither driving sleet nor blasting wind
Damp the keen fervour of his active mind,
That scorns the limits of this nether sphere,
And bends to distant worlds its bold career.
Now, with the pastoral crook, his skilful hand
Draws heaven's vast circles in the drifted sand:
Now, with a string of threaded beads, he shows
Where each bright star that gilds th' horizon glows;
Here the broad Zodiac darts its central rays;
Here gleams Orion; there the Pleiads blaze:
There myriad suns their blended beams combine,
To form the Galaxy's refulgent line :

And, as one dazzling flood of light they pour,
Bid wondering mortals tremble and adore.

6

• Doom'd still to be the sport of adverse fate,
Severer ills his ripening manhood wait:
Lo! at the milt, a servile drudge, he toils,
In tasks at which the high-born mind recoils
Exhausted through the long laborious day,
His mightier labours of the night survey;
Those weary lids no balmy slumbers close,
No pause that active, ardent spirit knows;
But now, upborne on lightning pinions, flies
Where tempests gender, and dark whirlwinds rise:
In metaphysics now sublimely soars,

Aad wide the intellectual world explores;

Or with great Newton in mechanics towers,

Invests their secret laws and wonderous powers;
Fathoms the billowy ocean's bed profound,

Weighs the vast mass, and marks its mighty bound.
At length thy brows the well earned laurels crown,
And bright, as lasting, spreads thy just renown.
The friend of Genius and its hallowed flame
Devotes this temple to thy towering name;

That

That long as stars shall shine, or oceans roll,

To kindred zeal shall rouse the aspiring soul."

The APIARY, which follows this article, is described with much poetical imagery :

• Reflected from Augusta's glittering spires,

The sun darts fiercely his meridian fires;

With brighter splendor shines each glistening stream,
While Nature pants beneath the fervid beam.
For shelter, from the sultry dog-star's heat,
To the deep glen the fainting herds retreat;
Listless repose beneath the gloomy brake,
Or headlong plunge amid the cooling lake.
Mark how intensely, while the blazing day
Pours on their glowing hives its fiercest ray,
Yon buzzing tribes pursue their ceaseless toil,
Loaded with all the garden's fragrant spoil;
Darkening the air, behold the unnumbered throng,
In driving swarms, harmonious, glide along;
All in strong bonds of social union join'ð,
One mighty empire, one pervading mind:
No civil discords in that empire rage,

Save when on idle drones dire war they wage;
No tyrant's thundering scourge, nor rattling chain,
Disgrace the regent-mother's gentle reign;
Eternal laws to industry incite,

All, all to swell the pablic stores unite.

Oh! would the mighty states, whose thunders hurl'd

O'er ravaged Europe, awe the astonished world,

Oh! would they imitate the blameless race,

Whose numerous hives their names conspicuous grace;
Their vigorous industry, their loyal zeal,

Their generous ardour for the public weal;
Be firmly bound by one grand social chain,

And bid through earth eternal concord reign!'

There seems a small inaccuracy, which we did not expect from so orthodox a writer as Mr. M., in saying, p. 3, that Adam led by his Maker. (before the fall) tasted every fruit that decked the paradisaical bower.'

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At pp. 7 and 8, the words bound and bounded seem rather too near neighbours. Pope's objection to "the repetition of the same thymes within four or six lines of each other, as tiresome to the ear through their monotony," is equally cogent with respect to blank verse, and to prose; where an important word continues vibrating on the ear during the perusal of at least five or six lines.

Of MITHRA we have formerly spoken with partiality, in vol. xii. p. 251. of our New Series. In this revival of the poem, there is a considerable addition, between the IV th and Vth Stanzas.

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At p. 63. a small typographical error seems to have escaped the author's care and correction: Diapasan for Diapason and in another place, the word recanted, for rechanted, seems an unusual acceptation. Though to recant comes from recanto, and originally implied a palinody, no one now thinks of singing who recants an opinion.

Besides the uncommon beauty of the engravings, this publication does honour to the typography of our country, by the perfection of the letter-press and paper.

ART. XIV. The Pleasures of Hope; with other Poems. By Thomas Campbell. Small 8vo. 6s. Boards. Edinburgh, printed; and sold by Longman, in London. 1799.

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T would be unreasonable to expect, in a poem on this subject, the same exactness and method which occur in the Pleasures of Memory, or perhaps in the Pleasures of Imagination. All that can be done, in delineating the effects of the passion here described, is to form pleasing groupes, and to combine them by natural transitions. In one transition, we think, the present author has been too abrupt: namely, in passing from the subject which introduces the Episode, to the Sorrows of Conrad and his daughter. The characteristic style of the poem is the pathetic, though in some passages it rises into a higher tone.-It opens with a comparison between the beauty of remote objects in a landscape, and the anticipation of remote futurity:

At summer eve, when Heav'n's aerial bow

Spans with bright arch the glittering hills below,
Why to yon mountain turns the musing eye,
Whose sun-bright summit mingles with the sky?
Why do those cliffs of shadowy tint appear
More sweet than all the landscape smiling near?
'Tis distance lends enchantment to the view,
And robes the mountain in its azure hue.
Thus, with delight, we linger to survey
The promis'd joys of life's unmeasur'd way;
Thus, from afar, each dim discover'd scene
More pleasing seems than all the past hath been;
And every form, that Faney can repair
From dark oblivion, glows divinely there.'

Though there seems to be no settled mode of arrangement adopted in disposing of the successive pictures which consti tute the poem, yet there is an evident climax followed out. The march-worn soldier' entering the field of battle is the first description; to which succeeds an allusion to the situation of

the

the celebrated Commodore Byron *; who, actuated by the influence of anticipation, encountered so many difficulties With exemplary fortitude. A domestic scene is then naturally introduced, in which the influence of Hope on parental affection is well pourtrayed. We give the following specimen of this part of the poem:

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Lo! as the couch where infant beauty sleeps, T
Her silent watch the mournful mother keeps;
She, while the lovely babe unconscious lies,
Smiles on her little son with pensive eyes,-
And weaves a song of melancholy joy—
"Sleep, image of thy father, sleep, my boy;
No lingering hour of sorrow shall be thine;
No sigh that rends thy father's heart and mine;
Bright as his manly sire, the son shall be.

In form and soul; but ah! more blest than he.
Thy fame, thy worth, thy filial love at last,
Shall soothe this aching heart for all the past.
With many a smile my sorrows shall repay,

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And chase the world's ungenerous scorn away. Dura 2"And say when summoned from the world and thee

I lay my head beneath the willow tree,

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Wilt thou, sweet mourner! at my stone appear, moi gan
And soothe my parted spirit ling'ring near?

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Oh wilt thou come? at evening hour, to shed gods
The tears of memory o'er my narrow bed;
With aching temples on thy hand reclin'd,
Muse on the last farewell I leave behind,

Breathe a deep sigh to winds that murmur low,
And think on all my love and all my woe?"
So speaks Affection, 'ere the infant eye
Can look regard, or brighten in reply;
But when the cherub lip hath learnt to claim
A mother's ear by that endearing name;
Soon as the playful innocent can prove
A tear of pity, or a smile of love,

Or cons his murm'ring task beneath her carei

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Or lisps with holy look his evening pray', fi.

Or gazing, mutely pensive, sits to hear

The mournful ballad warbled in his ear;

How fondly looks admiring Hope the while,

At every artless tear, and every smile;
How glows the joyous parent to descry
A guileless bosom, true to sympathy!'

The pictures of the Maniac and the Wanderer are in the same style, but our limits do not permit us to transcribe them.

*For his Narrative, see M. R. vol. xxxix. p. 319.

From

From seenes of private life, the writer then passes to nobier subject, viz. the prospect of the amelioration of the human race, and of their progress in science, liberty, and virtue. He has selected the partition of Poland, to illustrate a period at which every well-wisher to mankind entertained sanguine hopes of the emancipation of millions of the human species; and he concludes with a poetical prophecy that the day of Polish freedom may be yet expected. In all his allusions to politics, Mr. Campbell takes no notice of the French Revolu tion; a circumstance which at least argues that he regards the revolution of Poland and that of France in a different light. In fact, we are by no means inclined to suppose, from the tenor of Mr. C.'s writings, that his admiration of Brutus and Kosciusko have tinged his mind with improper principles; and from his silence on the subject of French Liberty, we argue his disapprobation of its horrors and excesses. In his allusion to the partition of Poland, he describes the last fatal contest of the oppressors and the oppressed, the capture of the city of Prague, and the massacre of the Poles at the bridge which crosses the Vistula:

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Warsaw's last champion from her height survey'd,

Wide o'er the fields, a waste of ruin laid,

"Oh! Heav'n! (he cried,) my bleeding country save!
Is there no hand on high to shield the brave?

Yet, though destruction sweep these lovely plains,
Rise, fellow men! Our country yet remains!
Dy that dread name we wave the sword on high,
And swear for her to live! with her to die !"
He said, and, on the rampart heights, array'd
His trusty warriors, few, but undismay'd;
Tirm paced, and slow, a horrid front they form,
Still as the breeze, but dreadful as the storm;
Low murm'ring sounds along their banners fly,
Revenge, or death, the watch-word and reply,
Then peal'd the notes, omnipotent to charm,.
And the loud tocsin toll'd their last alarm.

In vain, alas! in vain, ye gallant few!
From rank to rank your volley'd thunder flew;
Oh! bloodiest picture in the book of time,
Sarmatia, full, uwept, without a crime;
Found not a generous friend; a pitying foe,
Strength in her arms, nor mercy in her woe!
Dropt from her neveless grasp the shatter'd spear,
Closed her bright eye, and cub'd her high career;
Hope, for a season bade the world farewell,
And Freedom shrick'd as Kosciusko fell!
The sun went down, nor ceas'd the carnage there,
Tuniukuous murder shook the midnight air-

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