But fond enthusiast! can thy magic art
Erase the "written troubles" of the heart?

Was life's long voyage e'er pass'd with guiltless ease,
With skies unclouded and unruffled seas?
Does recollection leave no sting behind,
Nor sad associations cross the mind?
No secret pang the afflicted bosom rend,
When memory speaks of a departed friend?
The obdurate heart no deep-felt sorrow move,
When snatch'd by cruel fate from those we love?
No fond regrets, no sigh unbidden rise,
To think how fast life's envied morning flies?
Could man reject from memory's crouded page,
The crimes that sully each succeeding age;
Blot from the tablet many a mournful tale,
And draw o'er sorrow's form oblivion's veil ;
From memory's fount revolving hours to cheer,
Or stay the thought that woke the latent tear;
Then would I dwell with thee, mysterious Power!
In lonely vale or pleasurable bower;

And backward oft would turn my anxious view
To youth's blithe hour, and all its scenes renew;
Muse o'er the happy past with careful eye,
And hail thee, source of bliss, O! pensive Memory!
But fond enthusiast! on this earthly vale,

Youth's adverse hours what countless thousands wail?
And ah sweet bard! it is not theirs to sing
The sunny hours of youth's delightful spring;
No more for them hope's renovating power
Gladdens the morn, or gilds the evening hour:
To them the forms of other times appear
Dark as the storms of the departing year:
Hence then, loath'd Memory, to thy secret cell,
There bound in chains eternal ever dwell:

Oh! may some dim horizon intervene,

And close with thickening clouds the backward scene;

Nor more the records of the past renew,

Lost in the gulph of time for ever from my view.'

Cadell jun.

Art. 40. Poetry Miscellaneous and Dramatic. By an Artist. 8vo.
pp. 144. 3s. 6d. sewed. Printed at Edinburgh.
and Davies. London.
A poet and an artist are supposed to be alike susceptible of the
beauties of nature: but every artist is not a poet, nor every poet an
artist; and it requires very different talents to represent a landscape
on canvass, and to write a descriptive poem.-Painting, in its imita-
tions of nature, makes a direct appeal to the senses, and may in
general be exact: but it is confined to one moment of Time.-
Poetry has the advantage of viewing objects in succession, and, above
all, of animating almost every part of the creation with passion and
sentiment. Of this distinction, the writer now before us appears to be
sensible; and he has adorned his poem on Esk water (in Scotland) with

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moral

Ban?

moral sentiment and historic narrative :-but, unfortunately, his ver-
sification is tame and prosaic; and, although he is not destitute of
feeling, he seems not to possess that vigour of thought, and that
quickness of discernment, which enable the true poet to catch every
beauty of nature and art, and by the magic of his numbers to fill
us with admiration and delight.-The following lines will perhaps
please more from the moral truths which they convey, than from
their poetical beauties :

Know, young enthusiast! tho' thy bosom beat
With strong emotions, in the green retreat,
Tho' transport smiling hover o'er the scene.
Thy lasting pleasure must be sought with men.
False is the craz'd imagination's strife,

To shun in shades the common cares of life.
False is the hope the landscape's charm will last,
If pride, or sloth, enerve the glowing breast.
False to extol the hermit's holy bed;

For ends more sacred man was social made.
To him alone, who, with industrious aim,
Pursues an useful art, and honest fame;
To him, who seeks his fellow's wants to know,
Who feels a brother's bless, a brother's woe;
To him, alone, does nature bounteous reign,
And smile eternal o'er the wide champaign;
And thus, in grotto, or in green abode,
To relish nature is to walk with God.'

We suppose that the word bless, in the above extract, is an error of the press; or a Scotticism.

The dream of St. Cloud, a dramatic Poem, is a very singular com. position. Nearly all the persons introduced into it are shades,-spirits, fairies, &c. :-but this may suit the modern taste for spectres and supernaturals. The conduct of the drama, though peculiar, is uninteresting; and its chief characteristic is a wildness of imagination, with its usual concomitant, a confusion of ideas.-The other poems have little to recommend them, if we except one intitled the Prostitute; which seems to have been written with a good intention, and probably contains too just a description of the situation of many unfortunate females in the metropolis. Ban Art. 41. Opuscules Poetiques, par l'Auteur de l'Epitre à mon Père. 8vo. pp. 48. Chelsea. 1797.

As far as our duty to the public would allow, we have hitherto been willing to receive with indulgence the literature of the French emigrants, to assist the multitudinous subscriptions which they have announced, and to facilitate the advertizement of talents which were seeking in honest industry a refuge from want, and a consolation in adversity. By this time, the unfortunate fugitives must generally have chosen their destination: those who persevere in leaning on the public benevolence have no longer a right to class a contribution from their friends with those fair barters of money for books, which imply no obligation and infringe no independence. If they continue the trade

8

trade of authorship, they ought to deliver works that are worth reading an eleemosynary levy would be more efficient to them, unincum bered with the expences of paper and printing. We shall in future scan with a severer eye. In this short collection of mediocre poems, we see little to praise, even in the parallel translations. The Unfortunate Pair is the longest and the best.

Art. 42. Trifles of Helicon. By Charlotte and Sophia King. Svo. 35. Ridgway. 1798.

We would not by any means say that these young writers are destitute of poetical talents, yet we certainly wish that they had suffered their productions to be more matured, or had been solicitous to render them more correct, before they had presented them to the cold and fastidious judgment of the public.

Art. 43. Thalia to Eliza: a Poetical Epistle from the Comic Muse to the Countess of D. In which various eminent Dramatic and Political Characters are displayed. 8vo. 15. Richardson. 1798.

The comic muse writes to the Countess of D, as to an old friend who now wears a new face, and displays new manners, and a change of disposition,-with which Madam Thalia is not altogether well pleased. Accordingly, she reminds the lady of past times and quondam connexions, and talks of short memories, &c.-but the worst part of the story is the charge of ingratitude; for which we hope there is no real foundation.-The poetry of this familiar epistle is not, in general, contemptible: but we observe some incorrect lines, and here and there a little prosing.

HISTORY, BIOGRAPHY, &c.

Art. 44. An Account of the Life of Muley Leizit, late Emperor of Morocco. Written by a Spanish Agent at the Moorish Court, who witnessed the Events of Leizit's Reign, and who, by his Intrigues, accomplished that Emperor's Fall. Translated from the original French. To which is prefixed (subjoined), A short Review of the Moorish History, from the earliest Times to the Accession of Muley Leizit; with a philosophical Inquiry into the Causes which have hitherto retarded the Civilization of the Moors. By Robert Heron. 8vo. pp. 246. 35. Ogilvy. 1797;

The history of Mula Al Yezid is connected only by a tissue of crimes. This barbarous prince was born in 1748. His mother was of a Hessian family, and the favourite Sultana of the Emperor Mula Mohammed. The profligate conduct of young Yezid compelled that monarch to banish him from court; and with this view, he was deputed on three pilgrimages to Mecca. On his return from the last, he sought refuge in a sanctuary hallowed by the superstitions of the Moslems; and during his protracted residence there he contrived, notwithstanding his vices, to acquire so universal a popu larity, that a formidable body of troops was collected to place him on the throne, and to depose the old Sultan, whose administration was distinguished by justice, beneficence, and clemency. This venerable monarch took the field in April 1790, to subdue his rebellious son:

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but,

Tay

Smyth, & G.2.

but, exhausted by age and still more by grief, he died, a few leagues from Sallee. Two days subsequent to this event, Mula al Yezid ascended the throne of Morocco, to the exclusion of his brothers. It is not our design to sully our pages with a detail of the atrocious cruelties and unnatural debaucheries, which (excepting his unsuccessful attempt against Ceuta) constitute the sole annals of his reign. Against Spain he nourished a singular animosity: but the cabinet of that country, by means of a secret agent, (the author of this work,) excited a conspiracy against the tyrant, in conjunction with a military commander named Ben Naser. The latter, at the head of a powerful army, penetrated, in February 1792, to the vicinity of the capital, where Mula al Yezid received his death wound in leading on his troops to the assault. His reiga lasted only two years; a short period, but replete with horrors. For the sake of humanity, however, it must be remarked that, from the pen of a partizan, like the author of this tract, impartiality cannot be expected; and that the popularity of Yezid is scarcely compatible with the infamous actions ascribed to him while a prince.

To a translation of the foregoing work, Mr. Heron has subjoined a convenient epitome of the blood-stained annals of Morocco, compiled from D'Herbelot and others. The family now seated on the throne of that empire, however degenerate they must be thought, was originally raised to it by the virtues of their ancestor, Mula Ali, a descendant of the prophet, about the middle of the last century. From Ali, Al Yezid was the eighth in succession.-The causes to which Mr. Heron attributes the permanent barbarism of the Moors are, some of them at least, common to nations which have attained, nevertheless, a high state of comparative refinement. We will only enumerate, and leave them to the reflection of our readers: 1st, the Mohammedan religion; 2dly, despotism; 3dly, original ignorance and barbarism; (Were the Moors derived from a peculiar stock?) 4th, the warmth and fertility of the climate; 5th, their vicinity to savages; 6th, the mutual hatred between them and the Christians; (Is this the cause, or an effect?) 7th, the servile state of the female sex.

MILITARY.

Art. 45. A Treatise on Military Finance; containing-I. The Pay, Subsistence, Deductions, and Arrears of the Forces on the British and Irish Establishments; II. The Allowances in Camp, Garrison and Quarters, &c. &c. III. An Enquiry into the Method of Clothing and Recruiting the Army; IV. An Extract from the Report of the Commissioners of Public Accounts, relating to the Office of the Pay master-general. With an Appendix, comprising the Regulations for the Home Encampment; new Daily Rate of Consolidated Allowance; Addition to the Pay of non-commission Officers and Privates, made 25th May 1797. Establishment of the Volunteer Companies, and Corps of Yeomanry Cavalry, &c. A new Edition, corrected up to the present Time. 12mo. 3s. sewed. Egerton, &c.

In our Review vol. lxviii. p. 362, we noticed the first edition of this work, and suggested its utility to gentlemen of the military pro

fession.

Ham....n.

fession. The title-page of this edition informs us that it is corrected to the present time; and the editor observes, in his prefatory advertisement, that he has procured every information from the public offices; and hence he justly appears to have flattered himself that the present edition (which is almost an entire new work) will be found still more useful to agents, pay-masters, and army officers of every rank, than those which preceded it.'

RELIGIOUS and POLEMICAL.

Art. 46. Three Sermons on a Future State. By the Rev. R. Shepherd, D. D. Archdeacon of Bedford. 8vo. 2s. 6d. Nicol. The subject of these sermons cannot but entitle them to the notice of serious and well-disposed minds; especially at a period in which so much speculative discussion of the immortality of the soul has been indulged.

In the first discourse, Dr. Shepherd advances arguments in favour of a future state of rewards and punishments, drawn from the attributes of the Deity, the unequal distribution of happiness and misery in this world, the wonderful power of the human intellect, its restless inquiries into Nature, and above all from our dread of annihilation, and longings after immortality.-In the second sermon, he considers the nature of our happiness in a future state; and on this subject he speaks with becoming modesty. His opinion seems to accord with that of Dr. Scott, and other learned and pious divines, in supposing that our virtuous attachments will not be extinguished by death, but that the ties of parent, child, husband and wife, relation and friend, will exist under certain limitations in a happier and better life. This doctrine is extremely consolatory, and may be supported by very strong arguments. The following extract, we believe, will be read with pleasure:

If this doctrine, saith the Sceptic, so important in itself, and so conducive to the comforts of the human mind, be true; why is it so faintly delineated? why shaded to us in the dark ground of conjecture, rather than painted in the glowing colours of incontrovertible truth?

Why, it is farther urged, hath even Christianity, whose boast is to have brought truth and immortality to light, afforded us no information of the nature of such a state?

As to the first exception, the arguments advanced in the preceding discourse prove it, I think, to be not sufficiently founded. I do not conceive the doctrine of a future state to be faintly adumbrated. The arguments, indeed, which reason supplies in evidence of this truth, may some of them be of such a nature, as the gross of mankind, unused to abstruse speculations, are not able to comprehend or pursue. But without those arguments, the doctrine is generally admitted. Nations unrefined by science, untrained to the subtieties of argumentation, especially as employed on abstract subjects, with universal consent acknowledge it. It is an opinion natural, congenial to the human mind; no matter whether with philosophic acuteness unlearned men can give reasons, why it must be so: God

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is