A higher bliss he sought, nor sought in vain
The lowly path which holy men have trod;
Thro' this wild wilderness of woe and pain,
Heaven his unchang'd support; his refuge God!

Death came not clad in form of fear, or pain,

But gently rose his mission to fulfil,
Soft as the shadow stealing o'er the plain,

Or as the night-breeze dying on the hill!
That evening cloud hath ever swept away

The insect fluttering on its purple wing,
Which rose to life with morning's fairest ray,

And wildly wanton'd in the breath of spring,

That chilling blast hath dimm'd the flow'ret's bloom
Which spread its opening beauties to the skies;
It withering sinks for ever to the tomb,

From earth's cold bosom ne'er that flower may rise.

But yon fair form of disembodied light

Hath but exchang'd a prison for a throne,

And soon from heaven will take its joyous flight
To claim the sleeping body for its own!

The third Canto, containing the "Dream," will give pehaps the best example of our author's powers. We take the following (although very brief) as a specimen :

""

High rais'd, was seen a shadowy semblance there
Of heaven's dread King; a human form he wore;
No starry thrones his dignities declare,
A gory cross the royal victim bore:

"A form of royalty adorn'd his brow,

'Twas not the thick-gemm'd crown by cunning wrought,
His honours to earth's pomp he scorn'd to owe,
A thorny diadem his foes had brought;

"His out-stretch'd hand, no regal wand might grace
But bleeding, torn, rude nails those hands divide;
No 'vengeful weapon went before his face,

A warrior's spear had pierc'd his wounded side!

"He dies!'- —a shout rose fearful from beneath,
"Twas not from friends those hoarse unholy cries,
'Twas like the triumph from the field of death,
When o'er the vanquish'd foe rude victory flies;

"Dark grew the scene, and thickly coming forms,
In countless hosts obscur'd the shining air,

It seem'd as tho' that burning sky had storms,
And brooding tempests hung in ambush there.

"On, on they came, a throng of greedy foes,
Like locusts thickening thro' the darken'd sky,
In form majestic still their leader rose,
Tho' fallen far from his high dignity;-

"A mighty wreck, that told its former pride.
Ere from the heaving billow it was cast,
A ruin wild, mid desolation wide,

Now shatter'd, shook, with every restless blast.

"Once from the host of morning stars he sang
His joyous hymn of gratitude and love,
Amongst that glowing choir his anthem rang,
Highest, and happiest, thro' the realms above;

"For loftier honours that proud seraph strove,
He sought to shun just homage to his Lord,
To claim the rapturous theme of bliss above,
That hallow'd name by heav'n and earth ador'd,

"Thro' shining ranks the treacherous poison flew,
And countless armies hail'd him as their own,
When to the heaven of heavens the rebels drew,
Where Godhead fills supreme his radiant throne;

"Th' Almighty spake, and terror shook his foes,
Swift from his face rude storms in vengeance sweep,
He blew, and fiery floods o'erwhelming rose-
They sank for ever in that mighty deep.

"Foremost of that innumerable host,
Prone from his height the arch-apostate fell;
In deeper woe than they, eternal toss'd-
'Tho' higher once, he found a lower hell!"

The opening of the fourth Canto is calm and refreshing, after the bustle and deep interest of the preceding stanzas, and to it we would specially direct the attention of our readers, as we would also to the beautiful account of the Fall and Redemption of our race, to both which passages we regret that it is impossible for us to give a place in our pages; though we hope our readers will repair the omission, by placing the entire poem on their shelves. There are two or three occasional poems at the end, from which we take the following specimen :

-

Then why this dread foreboding fear,
If death's cold hand, or sorrow's tear
Pass o'er thy cheek,

Darkness will but endure thro' night,

And joy returns, when morning light

That gloom shall break.

We have been so much occupied in culling the flowers from this little parterre, that we have not had either inclination or opportunity to notice the few weeds which here and there disfigure its surface. It is now too late; we have exceeded our limits too far to notice them more particularly, and we must conclude by reminding Mr. Roby, that if he

comes before us again, which from his success in the present instance, we make no doubt will happen, and we care not how speedily, we shall devote more room to what he may term a microscopical view, both of his beauties and defects, as each may present itself; and, perhaps, by this means render more equal justice to the author, and to our readers, than we have been able to do in this brief sketch, one of those compositions with our creditors, which we are hastening to pay, where books have unavoidably laid upon our tables long after their merits and demerits ought to have been noticed in our pages.

Memoirs and Select Remains of an only Son, who died November 27th, 1821, in his nineteenth year; while a Student in the University of Glasgow. By Thomas Durant, Poole, Dorset. 2 vols. 12mo. Poole, 1822. Longman. pp. 238, 284. THE close of a long war, and the prospect (we hope we may say the well-founded prospect) of a lengthened peace, have necessarily thrown into the learned professions a number of young men, who would otherwise have "sought reputation in the cannon's mouth." Of these, the greater proportion, perhaps, have turned their attention to the Bar; and as there is reason to apprehend that many parents will hereafter make the same election for children, to whom their partiality may allot a brilliant course, or their pride assign a wretched one, we cannot, perhaps, better improve the premature removal of a candidate pre-eminently qualified for the attainment of its highest honours, than by connecting with our notice of this most interesting youth, a contrast of the splendid allurements, and the scarcely surmountable difficulties, of his destined path.

That young men of aspiring dispositions should be attracted by the honours of this profession, we marvel not; nor that parents should have an eye upon its emoluments. For many years the Bar has been at least a by-road to the highest offices in the state. The talents and the daring of its members have often wrested the post, at once of honour and of danger in the cabinet, from patrician blood, and political influence. Pitt, Addington, Perceval, Vansittart, to say nothing of Bathurst, Croker, Grant, and a host of inferior members of the administration, were lawyers before they were financiers; and, with but one exception of great professional success, from briefless barristers, had the good

fortune to be metamorphosed into chancellors of the exchequer, and some of them into prime ministers of the country. If we look to the peerage, we shall find that it has been equally indebted for its augmentation to the gown, as to the sword, perhaps more so; and there have been ennobled lawyers, whose descendants need not to retire into the shade, when the pride of ancestry shall recount the exploits of a Marlborough or a Wellington, in the field; or of a Nelson on Britain's own element, the deep.* Such men were Clarendon, Somers, Hardwicke, Camden, Mansfield, Thurlow; the ablest of our judges, or some of the most enlightened of our statesmen. Humanly speaking, they have generally been the architects of their own fortune; and have owed to merit and to labour what many of their contemporaries, whom they have outstripped in the race of fortune and of fame, obtained by wealth, connections, influence, patronage; or inherited from their fathers with their estates. All this we admit is encouraging, exhilarating, alluring; but is it not also delusive? We read and hear of several distinguished individuals who have risen from the ordinary, some even from the lower walks of life, to the highest dignities

We give the following as a hasty, but tolerably accurate list of our existent military and naval, contrasted with our legal, peerages. It pretends not to be complete; but is in the lawyer's phrase cy près, as to evince, when it is considered that two professions are marshalled against one, that the assertion in the text is not unfounded.

MILITARY AND NAVAL.

Dukes-Norfolk, Somerset, Marlborough, Rutland, Portland, Newcastle, Northumberland, Wellington, Buckingham.

Marquises-Northampton, Hastings.

Earls-Derby, Pembroke, Suffolk, Denbigh, Lindsey, Sandwich, Essex, Berkeley, Plymouth, Rochford, Albemarle, Dartmouth, Stanhope, Effingham, De la Warr, St. Vincent, Cadogan, Craven, Clive, Nelson, Grey.

Viscounts-Hereford, Courtenay, Hood, Duncan, Anson, Lake, Keith, Gardiner, Torrington.

Barons-De Clifford, Dacre, Stourton, Arundel of Wardour, Byron, Ducie, Hawk, Amherst, Rodney, Howard de Walden, Dorchester, Howe, Abercrombie, Hutchinson, Barham, Gambier, Lynedoch, Combermere, Hill, Beresford, Stewart, Harris.

LEGAL.

Dukes-Manchester, Dorset.

Marquises-Winchester, Salisbury, Exeter, Camden.

Earls-Bridgewater, Nottingham, Shaftesbury, Coventry, Aylesford, Cowper, Macclesfield, Harcourt, Guildford, Hardwicke, Clarendon, Mansfield, Talbot, Rosslyn, Onslow, Harrowby, Eldon. Viscounts-Trevor, Melville, Sidmouth.

Barons-Clifford, King, Dinevor, Walsingham, Ashburton, Grantley, Kenyon, Thurlow, Auckland, Fitzgibbon, Alvanley, Redesdale, Ellenborough, Erskine, Ponsonby, Manners, Colchester, Stowell.