strong muscle in the thumb, and by this improved use of the sense of touch, they acquired clear ideas, and gradually became men. On this enncoling account of the origin of the human species our author makes the following wise remark. "Perhaps all the productions of nature are in their progress ❝to greater perfection." In an additional note on the formation of a new sex he insinuates, that the Mosaic history of paradise and Adam and Eve may be a sacred allegory, which originated with the philosophers of Egypt, with whom Moses was educated; and that this part of the history, where Eve is said to have been made from the rib of Adam, was intended to show, that mankind was originally of both sexes united, but afterward divided into males and females. This opinion, the Doctor thinks, must have arisen from profound inquiries into the original state of animal existence. There is much simplicity and familiar description in the following lines on poetic melancholy. cant. 2. l. 185. "With pausing step, at night's refulgent noon, "And moon drawn spectres dance upon the ground; "And bend in silence o'er the countless dead; "And wring their pale hands o'er their mother's grave; In justice to our author we must allow him to possess some consistency in admitting consequences, however absurd and unphilosophical. The following extract contains a bold position of atheistical tendency. "Urania paus'd, upturn'd her streaming eyes, cant. 2. L. 205. The following account of a cock fight is dressed in language, sufficiently elevated to describe a battle of the gods. "Here cocks heroic burn with rival rage, cant. 2.1. 313. In page 62 the Doctor describes a carriage, in which his loves and cupids would undoubtedly find good accommoda tion. cant. 2.1.397, "The silver wheels with snowdrops deck'd, 66 Bright daisy links the velvet harness chain, "And rings of violets join each silken rein; The third canto is entitled the "PROGRESS OF THE MIND." Our author has in this canto drawn a very outrè portrait of man. He bewails his want of those powers, which the brutes possess, though he allows him superiority in the possession of a hand. « Proud man alone in wailing weakness born, "Untipt with claws the circling fingers close, "Trace the nice lines of form with sense refined, cant. 3.1.117. Doctor Darwin's theory of the moral virtues is thus ex pressed in rhyme. "Hence, when the inquiring hands with contact fine, cant. 3.1. 279. "Trace on hard forms the circumscribing line, "Which then the language of the rolling eyes "From distant scenes of earth and heaven supplies; "Those clear ideas of the touch and sight "Rouse the quick sense to anguish or delight; 66 "Last, as observant imitation stands, "The seraph, sympathy, from heaven descends, "And showers affection from his sparkling wings." cant. 3.1. 461, In a note upon the above our author has attempted to elucidate his theory. He says, that sympathy arises from our aptitude to imitation; and that" the effect of this powerful agent in the moral world is the foundation of all our intel"lectual sympathies with the pains and pleasures of others, "and is, in consequence, the source of all our virtues. For "in what consists our sympathy with the miseries, or with "the joys of our fellow creatures, but in an involuntary ex"citation of ideas, in some measure similar, or imitative of those, which we believe to exist in the minds of the per66 sons, whom we commiserate, or congratulate." From this it appears, that sympathy is the foundation of all our moral virtues; and sympathy is an involuntary excitation of ideas. What then is virtue? Where is its praise or blame? If an aptitude to imitation be the remote cause of all moral virtue, our divines may as well lecture parrots, as men. To the fourth canto our author has prefixed 66 OF GOOD AND EVIL." Great men sometimes slip from their elevated station, as appears by the following couplet. "The brow of man erect, with thought elate, Gant. 4.1.67 The reader will hardly be able to pass the above lines without representing to himself the awkward figure of a large man, six feet high, dodging the beam of fate, as it passes over his head. The following lines on the protection of science and the freedom of the press are just and highly animated. "Ye patriot heroes, in the glorious cause cant. 4. l. 273. Rouse the dull ear, the hoodwink'd eye unbind, While rival realms with blood unsated wage "And future bards, with voice inspired, prolong The Doctor seems to have been much pleased with the sentiments, contained in the subsequent extract; and wishes some ingenious writer would undertake to calculate the sum total of organic happiness. "Thus the tall mountains, that emboss the lands, cant. 4.1.447 In a note on the continuance and increase of organic life and happiness by reproduction our author says, " all the suns "and the planets, which circle round them may again "sink into one central chaos; and may again, by explosion, "produce new worlds, which, in process of time, may re"semble the present one, and at length again undergo the "same catastrophe." Thus have we presented our readers with various specimens, by which the general character of the work may be known. Having intermixed our observations with the extracts, further remark is unnecessary. "AN UNDEVOUT ASTRONOMER IS MAD.” THE seal of Deity is stampt on all, The clear expressions of the Great, First Cause. And calls on man to acknowledge and adore. Had been too small, Omnipotence displays |