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stantly living in the midst of them,and incessantly keeping them in view. "11th. To pay a sum of money for every one who dies under his care, taking thereby upon himself the insurance of their lives for an ordinary premium; and that at a rate, grounded on the average of the number of deaths, nt among imprisoned felons, but among persons of the same ages in a state of liberty within the bills of mortality.

"12th. To lay for them the foundation-stone of a provision for old age, upon the plan of the annuity

societies.

"13th. To insure them a livelihood at the expiration of their term, by setting up a subsidiary establishment, into which all such as thought proper should be admitted, and in which they would be continued in the exercise of the trade in which they were employed during their confinement, without any farther expense to Government.

"14th. To make himself personally responsible for the reformatory effi cacy of his management, and even make amends, in most instances, for any accident of its failure, by paying a sum of money for every prisoner convicted of a felony after his discharge, at a rate increasing according to the number of years he had been under the proposer's care. "15th. To present to the Court of King's Bench, on a certain day of every term, and afterwards print and publish, at his own expense, a Report, exhibiting in detail the state not only moral and medical, but economical, of the establishment; shewing the whole profits, if any, and in what manner they arise, and then and there, as well as on any other day, upon summons from the court, to make answer to all such questions as shall be put to him in relation thereto, not only on the part of the court, or officer of the crown, but, by leave of the court, on the part of any person whatsoever; -questions, the answer to which might tend to subject him to con

viction, though it were for a capital crinie, not excepted; treading under foot a maxim invented by the guilty, for the benefit of the guilty, and from which none but the guilty ever derived any advantage.

"16th. By neatness and cleanlimess, by diversity of employment, by variety of contrivance, and, above all, by that peculiarity of con struction, which, without any unpleasant or bazardous vicinity, enables the whole establishment to be inspected at a view from a commodious and insulated room in the centre, the prisoners remaining un conscious of their being thus observed, it should be his study to render it a spectacle such as persons of all classes would, in the way of amusement, be curious to partake of; and that not only on Sundays, at the time of divine service, but on the ordinary days, at meal times, or times of work; providing thereby a system of superintendance, universally unchargeable and uninterrupted, the most effectual and indestructible of all securities against abuse."

This splendid project Mr. Bentham proposed to conduct under his own immediate superintendance, taking upon himself all the odium attached to the situation of a gaoler, and all the discredit connected with that of a contractor, for the sake of the good he flattered himself he should infallibly become the instrument of producing, not only to the individuals placed under his inspection, but to the community at large. But although he voluntarily loadedhimself with so many obligations,and subjected himself to so many abate ments of emolument; although his fortune, his rank in life, and his known respectability of character, entitled him to the fullest confidence; be was an unsuccessful suitor to Government for permission to put: his plans and principles to the test of experiment. We shall not cease to lament this issue as a real misfortune to the community. Nor is our view of the matter at all affected by

the ridicule which a writer in the last Number of the Quarterly Review has affected to throw on Mr. Bentham's plan; with which, however, it is evident he had not chosen to make himself properly acquaint

ed. "France under Bonaparte," he tells us, "is a practical exemplification of Mr. Jeremy Bentham's pantoptical prison, in which the gaoler (the most unhappy wretch of all) sits in the center of his transparent dominion, and sees, to the utmost recesses of its crimes and its filthiness, all the proceedings of his aggregation of slaves. The poets give us a terrible idea of eternal solitude, but eternal solitude is paradise to society under such everlasting inspection. The paatopticon would soon become bedlam, the keeper going mad first." This is an example of that inconsiderate and unholy raillery from which the most sacred of all causes has, un happily, not always been exempted in this country, and which scruples not to put to hazard the hopes and happiness of thousands, rather than lose the credit of a smart or witty saying. We do not wonder, indeed, at finding this weapon employed, in the Quarterly Review, on such a subject as that of Christian Missions; but we confess we were somewhat surprised, in this age of political economists, to meet there with an attempt to direct the public scorn against the principles of Mr. Bentham's benevolent scheme; and we can hardly help attributing the paragraph to some individual who had a hand in procuring its rejection, and whose conscience has goaded him to this epigrammatic defence. We trust, however, that, notwithstanding the Reviewer's unfair attempt to depreciate this admirable system, the return of peace, which may now, thank God, be confidently anticipated, will witness the adoption of some such plan for the employment and reformation of our numerous convicts; whose amount, be it remembered, is not likely to be les sened when our powerful armies CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 148.

shall be disbanded, and our fleets, which now cover the ocean, shall be laid up in ordinary.

The Corsair, a Tale. By LORD BYRON. 2d Edition. London: Murray. 1814. 8vo. pp. 100. HAVING, by our former critiques upon the works of Lord Byron, acquired some pretension to a literary acquaintance with his lordship, we cannot divest ourselves of a sense of obligation to pay him the customary tribute of friendship on extraordinary occasions. Such an occasion now presents itself. In the Preface to the Corsair, we are informed, that this is the last demand he proposes to make upon the public attention for some years to come. Consequently, we behold him in the light of a friend retiring from the scene where we had been accustomed to meet in no uninteresting converse, and where we had been acting together, though, doubtless, different, yet perhaps equally perilous, parts, before the same severely-scrutinizing public. We seize the first, lest it should be the last moment for wishing him a hearty farewell. And whilst he is employed in busily packing his little all (for authors travel light) into "one carriage," we are anxious to detain him with a few impertinent questions as to the why and the whither of the journey; and, with something of the " confusion," we could almost wish to offer him the congratulation, of "the friend," on his temporary escape from the smoke and noise of the city, and his early determination to "give to Cambria one true Briton more."Could we succeed in detaining him a few moments longer, by some hearty expressions of the loss which will be severely felt by the world of poetic taste and feeling during his absence, we might, perhaps, use the favourable season of address for a few humble words of advice on parting. Interested as we are in the employment of his sacred hours

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of leisure, we might offer some hints for their improvement. And having already felt the impression made by the first entrance of his lordship on public life, we might attempt to throw in a little bias to act on the direction of his future influence, when he shall re-appear the finished literary hero-"le vainqueur des vainqueurs de la terre."

In paying, however, the last offices of a friendly acquaintance, we must not forget our immediate business as critics with the noble author; nor that we have his last words to comment upon with our accustomed freedom for the benefit of our readers, before we offer our own for the benefit of his lordship. We shall proceed, therefore, in the first instance, to consider the present effort of his lordship's genius; informing our readers, by the way, that it is dedicated to no less considerable a personage in the poetical department than Thomas Moore, Esq. the translator of Anacreon, the reputed author of poems bearing the name of Little, the author of a still larger volume of poems bearing his own name, also of Words to certain Irish Melodies, &c. To this person, whom we consider as, perhaps, more deeply responsible than any writer now alive, to the Great Author and Giver of all intellectual endowments, for the pernicious use hitherto made of his powers, Lord Byron yields the following remarkable tribute of friendship and respect for his known social and convivial, as well poetical, resources :

as

"While Ireland ranks you amongst the firmest of her patriots-while you stand alone the first of her bards in her estimation, and Britain repeats and ratifies the decree, permit one, whose only regret, since our first acquaintance, has been the years he had lost before it commenced, to add the humble, but sincere suffrage of friendship, to the voice of more than one nation." p. vi.

This is something, it must be owned, above the standard of common friendship. Surely we are catching the author of Childe Ha

rold in a momentary enthusiasm of
benevolence. We hail the emo-
tion, directed to whatever object.
Yet, perhaps, in reference to such
an object of youthful and romantic
attachment, a grave director of the
manners and morals of mankind
might whisper to his lordship's
faithful ears,

Ah miser!
Quantâ laboras in Charybdi,

Digne puer meliore flamma!

The Dedication proceeds to inform us of the reason why the noble author has selected for the metre "the good of his present poem, old and now neglected heroic couplet," which are the excessive slowness and dignity of the Spenser the fatal facility of the stanza; octo-syllabic verse, though so hap pily triumphed over by Scott; and

all the nameless horrors of blank

verse, in which "Milton, Thom-
son, and our dramatists, are the
beacons that shine along the deep,
but warn us from the rough and
barren rock on which they are
kindled." With by no means an
entire assent to the justice of these
reasons, more especially in the case
of his lordship himself, we cannot
resist, however, some little swelling
of satisfaction in having anticipated,
we presume not to say dictated,
such a change of measure, as being
suited to the stately and heroic
Our re-
scale of his own mind.
marks on this subject will be found
in our Review of Childe Harold:
after which, it only remains for us
to give our opinion of the execution
of this new attempt; which we
shall do in the course of our very
short analysis of the adventures
of the Corsair.

The poem, on the principle of
first impressions, opens, we think
unfortunately, with
one of the
worst applications of the heroic
couplet which occurs in the whole
volume. If ever the extravagant,
though now common, licence, as-
sumed by his lordship in this very
work, of inserting irregular lyric

effusions in the midst of an orderly poem, had been allowable, or even necessary, we cannot but think it was so in the jovial ribaldry of a savage piratical crew. For want of a measure somewhat suited to the low mood of these merry-making freebooters, we find ourselves labouring for breath and almost aground in every line of the following introductory passage:—

"O'er the glad waters of the dark-blue sea, Our thoughts as boundless, and our souls as free,

Far as the breeze can bear, the billows foam,

Survey our empire and behold our home! These are our realms, no limits to their

sway,

Our flag the sceptre, all who meet obey. Ours the wild life, in tumult still to range, From toil to rest, and joy in every change."

We think the regularity of these measured lines in the mouths of a lawless banditti, by no means compensated by the accidental carelessness of the fourth and eighth lines, which leave us in some uncertainty respecting the nominative case to" survey," and the construction of the word "joy." And again in line 30,

“Ours the fresh turf and not the feverish bed."

We should imagine the crew, if sober, would bave substituted "wave" for "turf," as affording the only appropriate grave to a daring and defunct Corsair. Soon, however, we receive ample amends for these petty delinquencies in the commencing action of the piece; the description of THE CHIEF; the arrival of a ship with news; the equipment of a secret nightexpedition; the parting scene between Conrad (the chieftain's name) and the beloved and faithful partner of his heart, Medora; and the arrival of his vessel within sight of "the Pacha's galleys;" itself

"Screened from espial by the jutting cape, That rears on high its rude fantastic shape," with which ends canto I.

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On him-but not the passion nor its power, Which only proved, all other virtues gone, Not guilt itself could quench this loveliest one!"

In other words, he was a villain; but capable of love, and firmly attached, in the ties of a reciprocal affection, to his "bird of beauty," "high latticed" in his favourite rock, "his own Medora." That a hero can be in love is a position strongly combated by Lord Bacon: that a villain should be so, we think is still more problematical and the really touching and romantic strains which pass between Conrad and Medora in this canto, make the fact utterly incredible; and we can only account for it, by supposing that his lordship had originally intended some improvement in the character of his hero; and that it was the inveterate habit of calling his great men by ill names, which induced him, unawares, to load Conrad with so many unmerciful epithets, when really his piratical habits seem to have been his only necessary poetical crime. For the feats recorded in this tale, it is sufficient that we know him, in the energetic language of our poet, as

That man of loneliness and mystery,

Scarce seen to smile, and seldom heard to sigh

Whose name appals the fiercest, of his crew, And tints each swarthy cheek with sallower

hue;

Still sways their souls with that commanding

art

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What should it be that thus their faith can
bind?

The power of Thought-the magic of the
Mind!

His lone, but lovely dwelling on the steep, That hailed him first when homeward from the deep:

And she-the dim and melancholy star,

Linked with success-assumed and kept Whose ray of beauty reach'd him from afar,

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"was not then by nature sent To lead the guilty-guilt's worst instrument." Much less can we reconcile such monstrosity of character with his affectionate adieu to the amiable

Medora, and the soft sympathy of love which beats mutually in their breasts, whilst,

"

From crag to crag descending swiftly sped Stern Conrad down, nor once he turn'd his head;

But shrunk whene'er the windings of his way Forced on his eye what he would not survey

On her he must not gaze, he must not think, There he might rest-but on Destruction's brink

Yet once almost he stopp'd-and nearly
gave

His fate to chance, his projects to the wave;
But no-it must not be-a worthy chief
May melt, but not betray to woman's grief."

The second canto relates the warlike prowess of our hero; and pre-. sents him to us in the fourfold character of a spy, under the guise of a dervise,penetrating into the midnight carousals of the yet-unlaunched pacha; the dauntless and infuriated leader of a chosen band into the heart of the seraglio; the gallant deliverer of its female contents, and especially of the ill-fated Gulnare, the wedded slave of the three-tailed Seyd; and finally, the conquered and incarcerated victim of the ty rant, with Gulnare weeping at his side. It is needless to inform the readers of Lord Byron, that, in detailing the hurried progress of these events, he has found the happiest opportunities for displaying his peculiar talent in the description of rapid and forceful action. We shall not easily forget our surprize, when, after the quiet though mysterious discourse between the dervise and the pacha, the burst of light suddenly proclaims and hurries us along the flaming battle-tide, with alarms scarcely less than those of the astonished Seyd himself.

"Well as thou wilt-ascetic as thou art
One question answer; then in peace depart.
How many?-Ha! it cannot sure be day?

Whar star-what sun is bursting on the bay?
It shines a lake of fire !-away-away!
Ho! treachery! my guards! my scimitar!
The galleys feed the flames-and I afar!
Accursed Dervise!-these thy tidings-thou
Some villain spy-seize-cleave him-slay
him now!'

Up rose the Dervise with that burst of light,
Nor less his change of form appall'd the

sight:

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