A congratulatory Poem on the Escape of Sir Sydney Smith fronta

France, and his happy Arrival in England. 4to. 25. Hatchard. 1798.

A high strain of panegyric pervades this poem, which is the production of one who is well acquainted with fir Sydney. The exploits of that gallant officer are recounted with spirit; and illus trative notes are subjoined.

The encomiast thus speaks of the fame acquired by his tero in the Swedish service:

• Hark! how the Swedish Thrilling trumpets swell
O’er Wyburg's and Biorko's blood-stain'd sound,
And bid the genius of Gustavus tell
Their British champion's deeds, by vict'ry crown'd!
The grateful monarch, whose congenial breast
Glow'd with heroic ardour for renown,
His tutelary hero's worth confest,
And haild the guardian of his menac'd crown:
O'er his bright helm the plume of glory rais'd,

And Scandinavia's star upon his breast emblaz'd!' P. 5. The confinement of fir Sydney in France leads the writer to some reflexions, not unpoetical, on the conduct of the rulers of that country.

How long, insatiate and remorseless land !
For ever hostile to the world's repote,-
How long shall discord's all-consuming brand
The reign of order and of peace oppose?
Deaf to each proftrate nation's piteous moan,
But vers'd in artifice and serpent guile,
How long Mall violated freedom groan,
And curse thy proffer'd friendship's hollow smile?
Her heart with anguish and with madness wrung,
Seduc'd by thy base wiles, thy fiatt'ring fraudful tongue.

• The tree of liberty !-behold iis fruits,
On ev'ry recking subjugated fhore,
Where'er its deleterious blood-steep'd roots
Thy plund'ring legions in their inroads bore !
Beneath its leaves lurk anarchy and strife,
And rapine's brood usurp the with’ring ground;
Spurning the gentle charities of life,
And mild religion's heav'n-erected mound,
With--fresh from gloomy scepticism's school-

Delirious reason's fect, wild riot, and misrule!'' P. 16.
Various imitations appear in this poem : but most of them are
acknowledged.
Ode to Lord Nelson on his Conqueft in Egypt. By Harmodius. 410.

15. Egerton. 1798.
This writer, while he pays a just tribute of applause to the merits

P. 12.

of the noble admiral (noble in a double sense), laments the continuance of the calamities of war, and turns his eyes from “ scenes of carnage and dismay' to a prospect of peace. If that bleffing should speedily follow, the victory which he celebrates will not, he thinks, have been useless.

• Then, not in vain will Nile's affrighted food
Have blush'd with torrents of heroic blood;
Then, not in vain will victory have crown'd
Her Nelson's head with laurels, o'er whose bloom
Sublimely graceful waves ev'n glory's brightest plume.'

P. 11. The termination of the ode is pious as well as energetic :

• If He * but speak, War rushes forth, pale Fear
Quakes in the van, Death thundering in the rear !
If He but speak, War's wildest rage Mall cease,

And all again be joy, and all again be peace !'
Elegy on a much-loved Niece, with a Hymn, from the Ethiopic. Ry

Eusebio. 4to. Is. Egerton, 1798. The elegy is not without merit; and the hymn breathes all the fervour of piety,

DRAM A. Arminius; a Tragedy. By Arthur Murphy, Esq. a 8vo.

Wright. 1798. Arminius, the deliverer of Germany, has been made the subject of a contemptible epic poem in his own country, by baron Schöniach. This is another unfortunate attempt to celebrate the German hero, whose fate it has been to meet with the best historian and the worst poets. The plan of the tragedy is as follows:

Segestes, a German chief in the service of Rome, is befieged by Inguiomer and the Germans. Cæcina raises the fiege, and, immediately after the victory, restores Veleda to her husband Armini. us, from whom she had been separated by Segeftes her father. Arminius drives the Romans into a marshy situation, where he prepares to attack them by night. As a specimen of the poetry, we give the song sung by the bards to animate the troops.

• Hark, warriors, hark !--That voice again!
A warning voice! heard you the found?
To arms, it cries, to arms ye freeborn men;

To arms the woods,

To arms the floods,
To arms, to arms, the echoing hills rebound.
The thunder rolls; the light’nings glare ;
The gods are rushing to the plain;
Their chariots glitter in the air ;

28.

* The Almighty, C&IT. Rev. VOL. XXIV. Nov. 1798.

P. 61.

Death in his shroud

Rides in a cloud,
And liberty calls forth her martial train.
Ye warriors seek th' e'mbattled throng;
For freedom who'his zeal displays,
His fame shall live, in facred fong;

And tuneful rhyme,

To latest time

The bards of Gerinany shall found his praise.
- The women come forward, finging; Veleda, in the centre.

Yes, go, ye gen'rous band,
Firm champions of the land,

O'er all the field

Your javelins wield;
Where'er you rush, still in the rear
Your wives and daughters you shall hear;

Our war-songs, and our cries

Shall rend th' astonishid Asies,
Till
you

unsluice a crimson flood, And stretch th' invaders weltring in their blood.' Dumnorix, a Gaul in the German army, repairs to the camp of Cæcina, and offers to assassinate or poison Arminius; but the Roman general rejects the proposal with indignation. In the attack, Segeftes is killed by his own son, who destroys himself on recognising his father; and the Germans are repulsed. Cæcina fends to warn Arminius against the Gauls; but in vain; the poisoned arrow strikes him. The scene that follows suns up the moral or political design of the drama.

• Veleda. Is there no help to save so dear a life?
Bring ev'ry aid - a pale, a livid hue
Spreads o'er his features ; --- see, --his eyes are fix'd.
• Arminius. Raise me once again: Now, mark my

words;
Should the ambition of aspiring Rome
Muster her legions; should her arms prevail,
And leave no spot, where freedom can reside;
Bear to my Saxon friends my last advice.
Let them embark for Britain; there they'll find
A brave, a hardy race, who by their valour
Made Cæsar from their coast unfurl his fails,
And save' his legions by inglorious flight.

• Inguipmer, Your orders ihall be faithfully perform’d.
6. Arminius. Yet more; when landed on that happy

Thore,
Let my friends join in union with the natives.
Britons and Saxons there may form one people;

And never,

And from the woods of Germany import
A form of government, a plan of laws
Wife, just, and equitable ; laws of force
To guard the gen’ral weal, and on the base
Of public liberty, of social order,
And equal justice, raise the nobleft fabric
Of civil union, like their own proud cliffs
'Midít wild commotions still to stand unthaken,
And be in time the envy of the world.
"Peleda. My spirits fink; I faint; fupport me --

[Learis on a woman's armi, Inguiomer. Ev'n now, When Autt'ring life is on the wing to leave him, The safety of his friends claims all his care. • Arminius. [Raising himself.] Another word; it is my

warning voice.
Let Britons guard their coast against the Gauls,

never let that treach rous race,
Nor their descendants to the latest time,
Obtain a footing on their fea-girt isle.
Let Britons seize the trident of the main,
And plunge th' invaders in the roaring surge;
A band of Naves, who would reduce mankind
To their own level, and enslave the world:
An horde of savages, freebooters, murderers,
Who trample on all laws; who own no gods ;
Whom in a mass their country disembogues,
By depredations to lay waste their neighbours,
And spread rebellion, anarchy, and ruin.

• Veleda. Alas! these strong exertions are too much; They waste his vital spirit :--- See behold him ; He faints; he dies; and oh! must I survive him ? • Arminius. I burn; I burn; that pang; 'tis palt; and

yet,
Thus' ling'ring on the margin of both worlds,
A ray of light perhaps breaks in upon me,

A time may come, when Germany hall send
A royal race, allied to Britain's kings,
To reign in glory o'er a willing people.

I see the radiant æra dawn; I see
The great event, when in a diftant age
A monarch sprung from that illustrious line
Shall guide the state, give energy to laws,
And guard the rights of man; his throne encircl'd,
Adorn’d, illumin’d by a train of virtues,
That win all hearts, and arm each honeft hand
In the great cause of freedom, and the laws,
For which their ancestors in ev'ry age

Toil'd, fought, and bravely conquer'd; then bequeath'd
Seald with their blood a glorious legacy,

A facred trust to all succeeding times. P. 87. Thus, because Dumnorix, a Gaul, affaffinates Arrninius, a German, about eighteen hundred years ago, England ought always to hate France. With the same reason might a foreign critic despise the plays of Shakspeare, because Mr. Murphy has written a bad one called Arminius. The dullness of the poet appears in the drama; and, in a political preface, the virulence of the partisan is equally discernible. Comus, a Mask presented at Ludlow Castle 1634, before the Earl of

Bridgewater, then President of Wales. By John Milton. With Notes Critical and Explanatory by various Commentators, and with Preliminary Illustrations. To which is added a copy of the Mask from a Manuscript belonging to kis Grace the Duke of Bridgewater. By Henry John Todd, M. A. &c. 8vo. 6s. Boards. Rivingtons. -1798.

In this re-publication of Milton's beautiful masque, the critical erudition of the editor is conspicuous.

12 mo.

Ν Ο Υ Ε L S, &c. Deloraine, 4 Domestic Tale.

2 Vols.

1 2 mo. 75. fewed.

Lane. 1798. We concur with the author of this novel in his remark, that it contains no intricate series of improbable incidents, no descriptions of impossible paffions, no artful contrivances of iniquitous fraud (except.in one instance), and no deep-laid stratagems of insatiable revenge.' 'All this, and much more, might be said of it negatively; but, positively, we have little to offer in its favour. It never rises above mediocrity; the incidents are of the conmon kind; the characters are imperfectly and feebly sketched; and those from which we expected noft, are left unfinished. Clermont, A Tale. By Regina Maria Roche, 4 Vols.

14. Jewed. Lane. 1798. This tale reminds us, without any great pleasure, of Mrs. Rada cliffe's romances. In Clermont, mystery is heaped upon mystery, and murder upon murder, with little art, and great improbability. This writer, indeed, claims murders as her forte; for, nor content with such as are connected with the story, fhc details three instances at considerable length as episodes. We have also the usual apparatus of duageons, long galleries, clanking chains and ghosts, and a profusion of picturesque description which, though it displays fome merit, serves only to interrupt the narrative. The New Monk, a Romance. By R. S. Elg. 3 Vals.

10s. 6d. Jewed. Lane. 1798. The Monk of Mr. Lewis has been assailed in various ways, and,

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