was announced in Paris by an eulogium delivered in the French institute. Mr. Robert Salmon, of Woburn, conferred also too many benefits upon the public, by his various mechanical inventions, to admit of his passing unnoticed to his grave.

But before we take our leave of our readers for the present, we would wish to supply a few deficiencies in our retrospect for the preceding year, arising principally from deaths happening towards its close, or in foreign parts.

66

66

Whilst we were recording the removal of our own venerable sovereign, we were not aware that some months after him, Kea Tsing paid the debt of nature, or, to avail ourselves of the flowery language of his court gazette, or rather that of his successor, departed on the 25th of the 7th moon, to wander among the immortals." He was the monarch of one of the most populous, most ancient, and most extraordinary kingdoms of the earth, and therefore he is mentioned here; but as we know no good of him, and are not aware of any advantage that could result from exposing his vices and his faults, we merely say, that he was a bigot and a despot, and so we pass him by. Another monarch had also been called to his account, without our being aware of it (as indeed we could not be) at the time we wrote. Perhaps we shall excite a smile as we name Pomare, king of Otaheite; but when we consider the changes wrought in his character, and the character, comforts, and institutions of his people, a moment's reflection should suffice to prove that he is as worthy of a place in the records of history, as half the names which occur in the early annals of our own, and of most European people. He was the first Christian king of a savage race, upon whom for eighteen hundred years the light of the gospel had never shone. He was the first half-civilized monarch of a people who had lived more like beasts than men, from a period too remote even for the wildest traditions to throw their glimmering light upon the cloud that involves it in obscurity. He will be the Numa of a people, who already seem to be diffusing around them the blessings of which they are themselves but beginning to reap the fruit.

In Christophe, the black emperor of Hayti, another extraordinary character remains also to be noticed; for though legitimate royalty may spurn such associations, he also was a king by the choice or assent of his people,—the foundation of all monarchy and government throughout the world. Born a slave at St. Kitt's, and sold as a slave to

another island, he exercised the vocation of a cook at the Cape, and passing, or rather being passed, like other goods, chattels, wares, and merchandise, into St. Domingo, a restless spirit and an active mind found fitter scope for its exertions, in the noble though sanguine struggle of his oppressed and degraded race, for freedom. At first, however, he took the side of the French, and, holding a military command under Le Clerc, betrayed him; when passing—for he now could pass at his own free will and pleasure—to the patriot side, he distinguished himself in the cause of liberty, and on the death of Dessalines proclaimed himself King of Hayti, and, as a military despot, became the Buonaparte of the new empire of his own foundation. It is needless, however, to add, that his usurped authority was resisted by the republican portion of the black population, which, waging a perpetual war against him, was eventually so successful, that, to prevent falling into their hands, his imperial majesty dispatched himself by his own. Another prince, though not a reigning one, should have been included in our list, Duke Augustus, of Brunswick, the last surviving son of the late gallant head of that illustrious, but unfortunate family, nearly related, as is well known, to the royal house of Great Britain.

In our list of peers we omitted Viscount Kirkwall, though in doing so we but left out a name, added here to show, by this augmentation of its amount, how great have latterly been the ravages of death amongst the noble and the rich. Truly indeed of this mighty leveller, did the heathen poet sing,

"æquo pulsat pede,

Pauperum tabernas regumque turres."

Amongst our legislators, the name of William Parnell should not have been passed by, for, from his unwearied exertions and statesman-like views for the relief of his unhappy country, it was not unworthy of being inserted in the same page with that of Grattan. However much our readers may differ from him in their sentiments upon the great question of Catholic emancipation, we are satisfied that none of those who have read his spirited tracts on "the Causes of the Popular Discontents of Ireland," and "the Apology for the Catholics," without having been powerfully struck by the nervous and simple elegance of their style, the vivid and genuine patriotism which they breathe in every sentencé, and the broad and liberal view taken in each of them, of the evils complained of, and the remedies proposed. In the

death of Grattan and Parnell in the same year, and on the eve of such events as are now unfolding themselves, Ireland sustained a loss not easily to be repaired. To his, we add a name worthy of being recorded not only with the benefactors of his country, but of the human race, in that of Sir George Onesiphorus Paul, bart., well known to the world by the zeal with which he promoted the general reform of prisons, by his writings and his personal exertions, and the success which attended his efforts.

To medicine, we should have added the name of Dr. Joseph Hopkins, formerly of Queen-square, whose practice as an accoucheur was more extensive perhaps than that of any other man in London. Beside his, we do not recollect any name omitted, but that of Professor Young, of Glasgow, a man who, to profound knowledge of the learning of this world, especially of the classics, added those wellfounded hopes of participating in the enjoyments of another and a better, of which the wisest and most enlightened of the philosophers and poets, in whose works he was deeply read, formed the most unsatisfactory conjectures, and but now and then could catch a glimpse,

"Like angel-visits, few and far between."

On the Literature of what is termed the " English Augustan Age," as compared with that of the Reigns of Elizabeth and the first James.

"We conquer'd France, but felt our captive's charms,

Her arts victorious, triumph'd o'er our arms;

Britain, to soft refinements less a foe,

Wit grew polite, and numbers learnt to flow;

Tho' still some traces of our rustic vein,

And splay-foot verse, remained, and will remain.

Late, very late, correctness grew our care,

When the tir'd nation breath'd from civil war;

Exact Racine, and Corneille's noble fire,

Shew'd us that France had something to admire."

Imitation of Horace, epistle 1st. book 2d.

SUCH is the judgment of one of the most elegant of English poets; and in passing it, he only echoed the general voice of his contemporaries, the wits and critics of the "Augustan age of English literature," and added the sanction of his name to opinions, which consigned to contempt and oblivion the productions of the "first school of English

literature." In the present day, among the various subjects of inquiry that have engaged the attention of the public, the long-forgotten writers of the reign of Elizabeth and the first James have been brought into notice, and their various productions, taken from the cobwebb'd recesses, where they had reposed in undisturbed security for more than a century, to compete the palm with their more polished rivals— the writers of Queen Anne's days.

To the merits of various writers, and to the claims of separate productions of our early literature, the public attention has of late been frequently called; but a general comparison of the peculiarities and merits of the writers of these respective schools seems still wanting. Let us, therefore, take a short view of the circumstances which preceded the rise of the second school, and comparing that in its general characteristics, with the first, endeavour to ascertain how far the adoption of the rules of French criticism, and the exercise of "the greatest art, the art to blot," rendered the latter superior to the former, which, unacquainted with the formal rules of criticism, and unblest with lordly critics, were

and would,

"Free as mountain air;"

"For no man's pleasure,

Alter syllable or measure."

and 2dly, inquire to what cause we must attribute the marked distinction which appears in the literature of their respective periods.

"In days of ease, when now the weary sword

Was sheath'd, and luxury with Charles restor'd,"

this revolution in our national literature first commenced. It was not surprising, that a monarch who had found in France an asylum so well suited to his love of pleasure, and in the French a servility and tameness which so favourably contrasted with the haughty independence of the people of England, should be anxious to banish, at least from his court, if he could not from the minds of his subjects, poetry, which could not but recall scenes which he must have wished for ever to forget; and names, which must have awakened recollections the most painful to one who held the crown by "divine right." His profligate courtiers willingly assisted in consigning to contempt and oblivion, literature which but ill suited their foreign taste and vicious prin

pro

ciples; and it well became a reign, which burnt by the hands of the executioner, the works of some of her first writers, and sold the last continental memorial of English prowess to France,—to subject the aspiring genius of England to foreign sway, and to patronize the sing-song of French poetry, and the manner and rules of French criticism. But notwithstanding the efforts of the court, very slowly did the nation give up its long cherished favourites; there remained yet enough of spirit to welcome Marvel's elegant works, and to pay some degree of homage to Milton's splendid epic; but fashion eventually prevailed, and after Roscommon had made his powerful, though unavailing appeal for "the comprehensive English energy," and tested against the exchange of the "sterling English bullion" for "French wine," the triumph of the court party was complete. Whatever had formerly been admired, was now censured; the wild range of the imagination was prohibited, and the narrow scope of classical fable, and the severity of classical diction, were alone permitted. Had these critics merely pointed out the delicate beauties, and the curious felicity of expression, of the classics, as examples worthy a general imitation, our prose might have been improved in its style, and our poetry in its versification, without the loss of that strength and spirit, which is a chief character of English literature; but not content with general laws, they took all and every portion of the "poetic art," as poetry was now termed, under their especial superintendence. Every point which should have been left to that genius which is a "law unto itself," was decided authoritatively by the critic: he gave both the subject and the manner of treating it; and the measure of a verse, the propriety of an epithet, the correctness of a simile, were discussed and decided with the solemnity of a case of conscience. The wand of the critic unpeopled the regions of imagination, and sent the poet from his gorgeous daydreams, and "bright imaginings," to sing the glories of great Cesar, or the virtues of his ministers. Labour, study, and an unquestioning submission to the canons of French criticism, were all that was requisite for the production of a great poet; and imagination, his very element, was said in lordly verse to be "but the feather of the pen. Lest, too, this excursive faculty should wander too far in the choice of figures and epithets, a neat portable collection, a kind of modern " Gradus ad Parnassum," duly "set forth * Buckingham.