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lightful cottage ornée, or one of their " picturesque résidences," on the banks of an Irish bog. But with this perhaps we have nothing to do; and, with this exception, we have not of late been more gratified with a trifle, than in the perusal of this little work. The description of evening, with which it opens, exhibits at once a very high poetical ability in the author. The sun has

just set.

"Each summer cloud that slowly sails away,
Bears a light lovely gladness from his ray;
The sea still glows in all his golden pride,
As if the sun had melted in the tide;

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Thus at some moment, when our joys are bright,
We look on pleasure as a form of light;
And when the brilliance of the time is past,
Still on the mind the recollections last;
And memory's tint, unwilling to depart,
Casts a warm, mellow lustre o'er the heart.”

This is equally just and elegant.

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From what we can collect from scattered notices, Mr. Reynolds is a very young man; of his ultimate success as a Poet, a great deal will depend on himself: he has many of the requisites of a fine one; but study, and true study, is absolutely necessary to excellence. Art and nature must be alike within the grasp of a Poet. In the course of reading therefore to which Mr. Reynolds must of necessity submit, we would earnestly recommend to him a higher school than the modern: in his "Library" we regretted to find him speaking of Milton and Spencer in mere regular common place commendation; this is the consequence of a superficial knowledge of their extraordinary excellence: we hope some day to find him discriminating, and dwelling with enthusiasm on their beauties, not, as now, giving pages to modern Poets, and clubbing these masters of the divine art into one line, and shuffling them off in another as if uneasy under their weight. We have some confidence that this will be the case from the spirit in which he selects, and the spirit with which he commends Mr. Wordsworth, and from that truth with which he himself seems capable of examining nature. Our readers will discover in the concluding extracts, with which we shall now present them, that he has something congenial in feeling even with that extraordinary Poet.

"I'll tread the mazes of the winding way,
Breathe o'er again the pleasures of the day,

Twine the young shrubs that need the fresh'ning shower,
And read a moral in the smallest flower;

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There

There view the linnet, startled at the breeze,
On wing of wildness, flutter through the trees;

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And dearer are these lonely walks than all
The heartless pleasures of the crowded ball,
Where heated hands meet hands, to press and part,
Where silence shews the coldness of the heart,
Or nonsense flits from lip to lip with ease,
In gilded lies, and jaded repartees.

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These these are joys surpassing human art,
Which cast a ray of sunshine on the heart,
Which hush each ruder passion in the breast,
And breathe of innocence, and whisper rest;
These give a pleasure of the purest kind,

And form at once the banquet of the mind.”

ART. XII. An Ode. Martin. 1815.

IF we allowed our feelings as reviewers in the slightest degree to influence our judgment, we should of all men be the most certain enemies to the general dissemination of education; not that we could object to men merely being taught to read and write, but for the intimate connection which seems to exist be tween writing and printing: the moment a young gentleman or ady can string together a few sentences, out they must come ; and we have of late years had such an overflowing of these "laborious effects of idleness," that with nerves, from custom, something less tremblingly alive than they were wont, we can not but confess we are sometimes terribly shaken at the sight of a new novel; and that a promised treat of hot pressed Fugitive Poetry, requires an extra cup of bark and port wine before we can venture to contend with it. An ode it is true is something less alarming; it shews an honest aim at something creditable, and is less likely to be made the channel of that mawkish sentiment, or the still more offensive ribaldry, which so frequently disgraces the publications we have alluded to. But anonymous poetry of any sort has nothing in it prepossessing to a reviewer.

We know not well how to describe the work before us. If the reader will call to his recollection the unsubstantial beings that pass before Bradamant, in the third book of Orlando Furioso, it in, the third boo or, to come more home, the shadows that appear to Macbeth at the command of the witches; or indeed, and the resemblance

VOL. IV. JULY, 1815.

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is closer, the visions that disturb the repose of Richard in the 5th act, he will have a tolerably clear idea of the groundwork of the Ode before us, which is the personification of the passions that might be supposed to have agitated the mind of Buonaparte immediately after his abdication passing in succession before him; and it is a melancholy evidence of the eventful period in which we live, that before our poets can celebrate the deliverance of mankind from this dreadful scourge, he is again on the scene of action, and again abdicates his usurped dominion.

The prototype however of the present work is unquestionably Collins's exquisite Ode on the Passions; and though it is not borne up by that poetic enthusiasm which delights and astonishes us in the original, there is sufficient feeling and passion to elevate it much above the common poetry of the day. It may somewhat startle the reader perhaps to find Love among the number, alighing too on the broken sceptre of Buonaparte to cheer his solitude, and calm his agonized brain. That the man is capable of feeling a pure and disinterested affection we should not be easily convinced; nor is there a single anecdote in his life that will justify even a poet's supposition. This description indeed, which, taken by itself, is devoid neither of elegance nor spirit, beconies absurd only by its application.

"To save the monarch, Anger now was maddening,
To cheer a breast tormenting thoughts were saddening,
Soft music breath'd-an angel's sigh

Just melted from the morning sky,

And heaven's own light beam'd cheerfully.

Gay from above,

With laughing heart, and all enamouring eyes,
Descended Love!

His airy wings were of the sweetest dies,

Rich as the rainbow of the summer skies;

Or the bright tints that play'd upon the wing
Of bee that hover'd, lightly murmuring,
O'er flowers of Paradise!..

His ringlet cluster'd brow

Shone in its whiteness like the mountain snow
On which the moonbeams rest;

Oh! it was clear as the wild sparkling stream,
That runs with morning rays upon its breast;
And light as childhood's dream."

The author has managed with considerable address not to

allude to his hero by name.

ART.

ART. XIÍÍ. An Outline of Mineralogy and Geology. By W. Phillips. 193 pp. 5s. 6d. Phillips. 1815.

As an elementary treatise upon mineralogy, we have not seen a book that has given us so much satisfaction. The arrangement is good, the explanations clear, and the descriptions sufficiently copious for the beginner.

The following is the description of salt deposites:

"Clay, sandstone, and gypsum, almost invariably accompany rock salt, either above or below it; sometimes both above and below it.

"The countries in which large deposites of salt are found, are For the most part flat; they do not often exceed that elevation which is termed hilly.

"In Germany, but few instances of the rock salt formation occur; but it is said that an uncommonly great deposition of it may be traced with little interruption from the Black Sea nearly, to the Alps. It abounds in Spain; but is not very common in Russia or generally in northern countries. Nevertheless there are said to be two whole mountains in Astracan entirely composed of it. It is abundant in Persia; the isle of Ormus in the Persian Gulph almost wholly consists of rock salt. Whole mountains of it also occur in Tunis and Algiers, in Africa. It is found in New South Wales; and not long sinée a mountain of salt of an im mense height was discovered near the Missouri river in America, eighty miles long and forty-five miles wide, the surface of which is barely covered with earth; neither tree nor shrub is growing upon it.

"But many countries are nearly without salt. At Delhi and Agra, the capitals of Hindustan, its price is 2s. 6d. per pound: and it is said to be so scarce in the interior of that country, west of Thibet, that the natives used cakes of salt, sealed up and bearing the stamp of their prince, as money.

"Perhaps the most extensive deposition of rock salt in the world occurs in Wielitska, near Cracow in Poland, at the northern extremity of a branch of the Carpathian mountains. It has been worked as a mine since the year 1251, and its excavations are said to extend more than a league from east to west. The salt is of an iron grey colour, in which are found cubes of a pure white.” P. 153.

The following description of the salt mines at Northwich, in Cheshire, may prove interesting to some of our readers.

"These beds are known to extend one mile and a half, north east and south west, and are upwards of three quarters of a mile wide: there are two beds, lying one beneath the other. « The

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"The strata above the upper bed, consist of gypsum, and of alternating beds of variously coloured marl, red, blue, and brown; some of them are so porous as that it has been ascertained that 360 gallons of water rise through them in a minute; a circumstance that greatly impedes the sinking of the pits. It is remarkable, but it is well ascertained, that the various strata above the upper bed of rock salt contain no marine fossils. These strata are from 105 to 120 feet thick; they repose on the first bed of salt which is from sixty to ninety feet thick: between the first and second beds of salt lies a stratum of indurated marl, thirty-fix to forty feet in thickness. So that the surface of the second or lower bed of rock salt is about 220 feet from the surface of the land. Into this second bed of salt they have sunk 132 feet, without having found the bottom of it.

"The salt of these mines is for the most part of a reddish hue, arising from some admixture of iron; and it is generally so hard, that the blast by gunpowder is employed in breaking it down. The lower part of the lower bed is the purest; and in it there are considerable cavities about 16 feet in height; in which, occasionally, pillars of salt are left, six or eight yards square, which form the supports of the roof. The cavities are worked into aisles or streets; which, when illuminated by candles fixed to the sides of the rock, give a brilliancy of effect that is singularly striking; and, it is said, almost appear to realize the magic palaces of the easterna poets.

"Some idea of the vast magnitude of the Cheshire salt de posites may be formed, when it is mentioned that its many mines yield 16,000 tons for home consumption annually, and that 140,00 tons more are annually exported from Liverpool." P.157.

We strongly recommend this little work, as a most useful and cheap companion to the young mineralogist.

ART. XIV. Researches about Atmospheric Phænomena. By T. Forster. F.L.S. 8vo pp. 271. 10s. 6d. Plates. Baldwin

1815.

MR.FORSTER appears to be a gentleman of an ardent, though somewhat of a positive turn of mind, devoid neither of ingenuity or science. Various readers will be amused in various ways by the perusal of this volume. The plates are very pretty, and in no small degree illustrate the observations of the work. Our author treats of the origin, the modification, and the peculiarities of clouds; indications of future changes of the wea

ther;

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