But from delay the fummer calms were paft.
On as we drove, the equinoctial deep
Ran mountains-high 'before the howling blast.
We gazed with terror on the gloomy fleep
Of them that perifhed in the whirlwind's fweep,
Untaught that foon fuch anguifh muft enfue,
Our hopes fuch harvest of affliction reap,
That we the mercy of the waves should rue.
We reached the western world, a poor, devoted crew.

Oh! dreadful price of being to refign

All that is dear in being! better far

In want's most lonely cave till death to pinė,
Unfeen, unheard, unwatched by any star;

Or in the streets and walks where proud men are,
Better our dying bodies to obtrude,

Than dog-like wading at the heels of war,

Protract a curft existence, with the brood

That lap (their very nourishment !) their brother's blood.

The pains and plagues that on our heads came down,
Difeafe and famine, agony and fear,

In wood or wilderness, in camp or town,
It would thy brain unfettle even to hear.
All perished-all, in one remorfelefs year,"
Husband and children! one by one, by fword
And ravenous plague, all perished: every tear
Dried up, defpairing, defolate, on board

A British fhip I waked, as from a trance restored.

Peaceful as fome immeafurable plain
By the first beams of dawning light impress'd,
In the calm funfhine flept the glittering main.
The very ocean has its hour of reft,

That comes not to the human mourner's breast.
Remote from man, and ftorms of mortal care,
A heavenly filence did the waves inveft;
I looked and looked along the filent air,
Until it seemed to bring a joy to my despair.

Ah! how unlike those late terrific fleeps!
And groans, that rage of racking famine fpoke,
Where looks inhuman dwelt on festering heaps!
The breathing peftilence that rofe like fmoke!
The fhriek that from the diftant battle broke !
The mine's dire earthquake, and the pallid hoft
Driven by the bomb's inceffant thunder-stroke
To-loathifome vaults, where heart-fick anguifh tofs'd,
Hope died, and fear itself in agony was loft!

Yet does that burft of woe congeal my frame,
When the dark streets appeared to heave and gape,
While like a fea the storming army came,
And fire from hell reared his gigantic fhape,
And murder, by the ghaftly gleam, and rape
Seized their joint prey, the mother and the child!
But from these crazing thoughts my brain, efcape.!
--For weeks the balmy air breathed soft and mild,
And on the gliding veffel Heaven and ocean fmiled.
Some mighty gulph of separation past,

I seemed transported to another world :

A thought refigned with pain, when from the maft
The impatient mariner the fail unfurl'd,

And whistling, called the wind that hardly curled
The filent fea. From the fweet thoughts of home,
And from all hope I was forever hurled.

For me fartheft from earthly port to roam

Was belt, could I but fhun the fpot where man might 'come.

And oft, robb'd of my perfect mind, I thought

At last my feet a refting-place had found :

Here will I weep in peace, (fo fancy wrought,)
Roaming the illimitable waters round;
Here watch, of every human friend difowned,
All day, my ready tomb the ocean-flood-

To break my dream the veffel reached its bound:
And homeless near a thousand homes I ftood,
And near a thousand tables pined, and wanted food.'

P. 74

Admirable as this poem is, the author feems to discover ftill fuperior powers in the Lines written near Tintern Abbey. On reading this production, it is impoffible not to lament that he fhould ever have condefcended to write fuch pieces as the Laft of the Flock, the Convict, and most of the ballads. In the whole range of English poetry, we fcarcely recollect any thing fuperior to a part of the following paffage.

So I dare to hope

Though changed, no doubt, from what I was, when firit
I came among these hills; when like a roe

I bounded o'er the mountains, by the fides.
Of the deep rivers, and the lonely streams,
Wherever nature led: more like a man
Flying from fomething that he dreads, than one
Who fought the thing he loved. For nature then
(The coarfer pleasures of my bayi days,

And their glad animal movements all gone by,)
To me was all in all.-I cannot paint
What then I was. The founding cataract
Haunted me like a paffion: the tall rock,
The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood,
Their colours and their forms, were then to me
An appetite: a feeling and a love,

That had no need of a remoter charm,
By thought fupplied, or any interest
Unborrowed from the eye.-That time is paft,
And all its aching joys are now no more,
And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this
Faint I, nor mourn nor murmur: other gifts
Have followed, for fuch lofs, I would believe,
Abundant recompence.
For I have learned

To look on nature, not as in the hour

Of thoughtless youth, but hearing oftentimes
The ftill, fad mufic of humanity,

Not harsh nor grating, though of ample power
To chaften and fubdue. And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of fomething far more deeply interfufed,
Whofe dwelling is the light of fetting funs,
And the round ocean, and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man,
A motion and a fpirit, that impels

All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still
A lover of the meadows and the woods,
And mountains; and of all that we behold
From this green earth; of all the mighty world
Of eye and ear, both what they half-create,
And what perceive; well pleased to recognize
In nature and the language of the sense,
The anchor of my pureft thoughts, the nurse,
The guide, the guardian of my heart, and foul
Of all my moral being.' P. 205.

The experiment,' we think, has failed, not because the language of converfation is little adapted to the purposes of poetic pleafure, but because it has been tried-upon uninterefting fubjects. Yet every piece difcovers genius; and, ill as the author has frequently employed his talents, they certainly rank him with the beft of living poets.

A complete Syftem of Aftronomy; by the Rev. S. Vince, A. M. F. R. S. &c. 4to. 11. 4s. Boards. Wingrave. 1797.

ASTRONOMY is a fubject which has employed the pens of elegant writers as well as profound mathematicians. The grandeur and variety of the appearances of the heavenly bodies intereft all claffes of men. From them fuperftition derived a ftrong fupport; and many ages elapfed before the prejudices arifing from apparent motions could be overcome by the deductions of reafon. To explain fome of these appearances, the imagination of the poet has employed itself; for others mathematical fubtilty was required. To fome, the elegance of compofition might be applied: with regard to the others, we may obferve, ornari res ipfa negat, contenta doceri. But no difcrimination of this kind is made in the work before us. The author feems to think it ufelefs to attend to arrangement, or to style; and, as his mind does not appear to be elevated by the contemplation of nature in her moft ftupendous operations, he does not attempt to imprefs the reader with the grandeur of the fubject, or to lead him from the works of nature. to nature's God. But, though he fails in this refpect, he makes ample amends in the other.

The work begins with the usual definitions. The following is the definition of argument.

The argument is a term used to denote any quantity by which another required quantity may be found. For example, the argument of that part of the equation of time which arifes from the unequal angular motion of the earth in its orbit about the fun is the fun's anomaly, because that part of the equation depends entirely upon the anomaly; and the latter being given, the former is found from it. The argument of a ftar's latitude is its distance from its node, because upon this the latitude depends.' P. 6.

But equation of time, anomaly, and nodes, are not yet defined in the work. In the fame manner, in calculating the time of the fun's paffage over the meridian, we are brought to an expreffion of " the time which the fun is in rifing," to be corrected by a terin for the horizontal refraction; but the nature of refraction has not been explained, nor is it examined within several fucceeding chapters. Other terms are mentioned long before the fubjects are difcuffed; and, to perufe the work with any degree of fatisfaction, the reader must be previously acquainted with the definitions and common demonftrations of aftronomical topics.

Cagnoli's demonftration of the time of fhorteft twilight is judiciously introduced; but the accurate mathematician will not be very well pleased with the conclufion.

is

Because PZ is always lefs than 90°, and Zy9°, therefore Py is always lefs than 90°, and therefore its cofine is pofitive: alfo uy is always greater than 90°, therefore its cofine is negative; hence cos. Pv (=cos. Pyx'cos. vy) is negative, confequently Po greater than 90°, therefore the fun's declination is fouth.' P. 18. The terms pofitive and negative are unneceffarily introduced, as, without fuch an ideal multiplication, the nature of the angle from its co-fine is determined by the queftion.

None but mathematicians and practical aftronomers will derive pleasure or profit from this work; and for them, indeed, it was chiefly intended. The demonftrations are in general good; and the tables are numerous and useful. If we cannot recommend the book as worthy of a place in the library of a scholar, its utility will be acknowledged on the table of the obfervatory.

Sketch of Democracy. By Robert Biffet, LL.D. 8vo. 6s. Boards. Matthews,

"THE object of this effay' (Dr. Biffet obferves) is to exhibit from hiftory, to thofe of my fellow-countrymen, whofe time and opportunities may not have admitted of extenfive reading, the real nature of democracy, and the real effects which have proceeded from that form of government. I flatter myself, that a plain statement of the actual fituation of the inhabitants of democratical countries, may, in fome degree, tend to remove the mifapprehenfions, to which the prefent opinions of fome of our countrymen are owing.

I fhall confider democracy in its various appearances, in the moft noted states of ancient and modern times. I fhall view it both fingly and in its combination with other principles. I shall, from the particular experience of hiftory and the general knowledge of human nature, attempt to fhew, that when folely or even principally prevalent, it is not fitted to render man happy. I fhall contraft it with a mixed government, and try to prove that a contitution in which the parts mutually fupport and reciprocally check each other, is the best for men; and I fhall endeavour to convince thofe of my countrymen, who are deluded by democratic theories, or enamoured of fanciful innovations, that the happiest of all lands

is the land we live in.'

P. xxiii.

We give the author due credit for the patriotifm of his prine