But Thou, alone eternally sublime,

Thou rolling mystery of Might and Power!
Rocking the tempest on thy breast of waves,
Or spread in breezy rapture to the Sun,-
Thou daring Ocean! that couldst deluge worlds,
And yet rush on,-I hear thy swell of wrath
In liquid thunder laughing at the winds
Resoundingly, and from afar behold

Thine armed billows, heaving as they roar,
And the wing'd sea-foam shiver on the gales.

'Swell on, ye waves, and whirlwinds, sweep along,
Like the full breathing of Almighty ire,
Whose sound is desolation!-where the sail
Of yon lone vessel, as a shatter'd cloud,
Is moving, let the surges mount on high
Their huge magnificence, and lift their heads,
And, like Titanic creatures, tempest-born,
In life and fury march upon the main !—
Rave on, thou Tempest, on thy reckless wings;
To me thy warring mood is fearful joy,
A faint memento of that mighty day,

When proud rebellion shook the walls of Heaven,—
Till, charioted by Thunder, forth He came,
The Lightning of the Lord, and blazed revenge,
Hurling us downward to the deep of Hell,

That madden'd wild as billows in the storm,

When rushingly we met her roaring flames!'-pp. 20-22.

We had intended to direct those lines and expressions which are most outrageous in their fury, to be printed in italics; but we found so many of both entitled to that type, that it would have ceased to be a distinction. We have therefore left the passage as it is in the original, commending it as a proof of Mr. Montgomery's "wonderful powers," of the "sublime tenor" of his poem, and of that magical genius which "consecrates the ground."

After soliloquising in this style for some time, and admiring every thing around him, Satan commences his tour, in the course of which he visits Jerusalem, Bagdad, Damascus, and all the famous cities of the East; proceeding by way of Hindostan to China, thence to America, and across the Atlantic to Europe, where, of course, in compliment to his patron and friend, Robert Montgomery, he pays marked attention, and, indeed, devotes a great part of his precious time, to England. It will not be in our power to attend him in all his excursions, or to give the reader an idea of the many sage reflections which he makes upon human life and manners. We have said, however, that Mr. Montgomery's Satan was a "good sort of a person, with whom any body might spend an hour without danger to his morals," and we now produce the proof.

'To the vast silence of primeval gloom
On wings of Mystery may Spirit roam,
And meditate on wordless things, whence comes
A glorious panting for a purer state.-
True sadness is the soul of holy joy;

And such feel they, who fashion brighter worlds
But martyrs to diseased thought abound,
Who out of earthly elements have sought
To reap a happiness, whose home is heaven,
And failing, sunk to profitless despair.

Thus Learning, Luxury, and Fame,—these three
Vain phantoms, what a worship have they won!
The first, a shallow excellence; the next,
A malady of brutish growth, debased
And most debasing, turning soul to sense,
Till Nature seems unspirited; the last,
Magnificent betrayer! while afar

Beheld, the crown of heaven itself is thine;
When won, oft unavailingly enjoyed.

Oh! many an eye, that in the glow of youth
Hath brighten'd as it gazed on pictured worth,
Or linger'd in the lone and princely fanes

Where tombs have tongues, by monumental piles,

Where great inheritors of glory sleep,

:

Hath wept the laurels that it once adored !'-pp. 80—82.

Certainly there is not a word in this passage which at all betrays the Tempter. It is delightful to hear him talk in this way of a 'purer state,' 'holy joy,' 'brighter worlds,' and of those human phantoms, Learning, Luxury, and Fame.' We know of no old woman in England who might not be trusted near such a proper devil as this.

We have said that the new Satan" often speaks like a polished gentleman." Behold him in that amiable character.

The atmosphere that circleth gifted minds

Is from a deep intensity derived,-
An element of thought, where feelings shape
Themselves to fancies,—an electric world,
Too exquisitely toned for common life,
Which they of coarser metal cannot dream:
And hence, those beautifying powers of soul

That arch the heavens more glorious, and create

An Eden wheresoe'er their magic light

Upon the rack of quick excitement lives;

Their joy, the essence of an agony,

And that, the throbbing of the fires within!'-pp. 82-83.

Is not this language exquisite? We almost imagine that we hear it fall trippingly from the lips of a fashionable lecturer. We have said that Mr. Montgomery's friend is "sometimes a very learned and even an eloquent philosopher."

Beyond the Libyan wild,
Where hot suffusion suffocates the winds,
Lo, wond'rous Egypt lies!-Come, royal heirs
Of Ptolemy, and patriarchal kings,

And see the shadow of your once sublime
And storied Egypt !-True, her fostering Nile,
That flowing wand'rer of mysterious birth,
Her annual life-flood generously yields?

But where the soul of Science? where the fount
Of Wisdom, from whose deep and dateless spring
The Greek and Roman drank?

*

'So sink the monuments of ancient might,
So fade the gauds and splendors of the world.
Her empires brighten, blaze, and pass away,
And trophied fanes, and adamantine domes,
That threaten'd an eternity, depart.

Amid the dying change, or lapse of things,
Enthroned o'er all, a desolation frowns,
Save mind, omnipotent, surpassing mind!
One scintillation of a soul inspired,
Though kindled in an atmosphere of gloom,
Or loneliness, will strengthen, glow, and live,
And burn from age to age, till it become

The sun and glory of a thinking world,

When thrones are shatter'd, and their kings forgot!'

pp. 30-32.

Indeed, a few lines farther on, Satan becomes quite ethical, and claims to himself the honour of having been the original founder, not only of philosophy, but of poetry.

''Tis human actions stamp the chart of Time,
And wrap a shadow round departed years;
And he who marks mere havoc, not the tides
Of passion, and inclining will,—but prates,
Drowning his moral in a dream of words!
Let him who muses on the awful wreck
Of empires, wailing in the dust,—of thrones
Reversed, or titles ruinously vast,

Where silence and the solemn feelings dwell,
Dive deeper, till he stretch a thought to me!
Ere man was fashion'd from his fellow dust,
I was, and since the sound of human voice
Has echoed in the air, my darksome power
Hath compass'd him in mystery, and in might :
Upon the soul of sage Philosophy

And Wisdom, templed in the shrines of old,
Faint shadows of my being fell; a sense
Of me thus deepen'd through the onward flood
Of ages, till substantial thought it grew ;

A certainty sublime, in that great soul,
The epic God of ancient song, who down
The infinite abyss could dare to gaze,

And show imagination shapes of Hell!'-pp. 33, 34.

We have at hand abundant proofs of Satan's love for the picturesque, but we shall content ourselves with a single specimen ; admitting, at the same time, that there are other passages of very considerable merit in this style of writing to be found in the poem under our consideration.

" 'How rich

The wooing luxury of floral meads,
Reposing in the noon; where scented winds
Exult, and many a happy brooklet sings;
Sure Admiration might romance it here!
Tall mansions, shadow'd through patrician trees,
Those brown-spread farms, grey villages and cots,
With castled relics, and cathedral piles
Where dreaming Solitude may muse and sigh,-
Enchant dead ages from their tombs, or hear
The dark soliloquy of ancient Time,—
Adorn the landscape, and delight the view:
While haggard rocks, and heaven-aspiring hills,

Balking the ocean, here and there create

A mountain charm, to solemnize the scene.'-pp. 239, 240. Of the other novel features of character which we have ascribed to Mr. Montgomery's Satan, we might furnish the most complete evidence from the pages before us. This, however, would be to many of our readers, we fear, a tedious operation, and we shall therefore close the book, after extracting from it the commencement of a sermon, with a regular text, which is really too good to be omitted. To induce Satan to preach against Carlile, is one of the triumphs of poetry which has been reserved for the present author.

"What Understanding cannot grasp, Belief

Can never claim," a wisdom most divine!
Why, all around him, from the race of flowers,
That woo his unadoring gaze, to hosts
Of sphery wonders that pervade the sky,
Is Myst'ry, robed in her material pomp;
Then why should mysteries of awe within
Resolve themselves, to charm a sceptic mind?
Religion proves-but is not all explained?
The beatings of the heart resemble this,

And men may wonder, but it still beats on!'-pp. 36, 37.

It is not to be doubted that the observations we have made on the poems which form the subject of this article, will be ascribed to personal feelings, either against the authors, or the booksellers who have published their works. Such imputations are always the resource of empirics in every art. Those who make them, must

well know that the conductors of this journal have no reason to entertain personal feelings against any of the parties here alluded to, and if they had, that they would disdain to express them in an indirect and unmanly manner. Instead of throwing out charges of this description, the flatterers and friends of the two authors here reviewed, would be much more usefully employed in defending the criticisms by which they have endeavoured to palm upon the world, as true poetry, the tinsel and the bombast which we have been obliged to quote, in order to justify the judgment which we have now pronounced.

ART. II. A Treatise on Atmospherical Electricity; including Lightning Rods and Paragrêles. By John Murray, F.S.A., &c., &c. 1 vol. 8vo. pp. 149. London: Whittaker, Treacher, and Co.; Edinburgh: Daniel Lizars. 1830. WHEN we consider how extensively amongst all classes the fear of the effects of lightning prevails, and particularly when we remember how reasonable are the grounds on which, to a certain extent, this apprehension is founded, we are at a loss to account for the apathy so generally to be found amongst the public, respecting the means by which life and property may be protected from so fearful a visitation. But though we cannot find a motive for this indifference, we cease altogether to wonder at its existence, since we know that week after week, human beings are consumed in their beds by nocturnal fires, and yet not a single effective movement is made either by the Government or the public towards preventing such calamities. We hear indeed of a project of one of the members for the county of Surrey, for regulating the construction of houses in and near London, with the view of checking the progress of a conflagration, in case it commences in any part of a building. But this measure, supposing it to be capable of answering its professed object, can of necessity be only prospective, and must leave the inhabitants of the actual metropolis in the same state of dangerous liability as that to which they are exposed at this very hour.

That a ready and effectual means of protection from each of the dreadful casualties to which we allude may be provided, we have not the slightest hesitation in affirming. At all events, we can boast that the wonderful element-Electricity, to whose power the heavens and the earth bear witness, has so far submitted to the importunate curiosity of man, as to yield, at length, a knowledge of those laws by which its malignant fury and its arbitrary caprice may be controlled. Ever since the illustrious Franklin practically established the theory, which was first advanced by the ingenious Abbè Nollet, namely, that the lightning of the heavens and the electricity excited by the hand of man here on earth, are identical, -philosophers are enabled to maintain with that astonishing agent