dernefs rather than enthufiafm, and a fort of contemplative morality, fomewhat ficklied o'er with the pale caft of thought,' inftead of the frong emotions and lofty conceptions of the bolder lyric. The author holds dalliance with the Mufe, but is not poffeffed by her; he rather guides his genius, than is impelled by it; and ftands too much in dread of faults, to attain many of the greater beauties. There is nothing of narrative, and very little of character or manners in his volume. It is made up of diffections of the finer feelings, reflections on innocent unhappiness, and allegorical sketches of the paffions by which life is governed. The compofition is fometimes enlivened by the beautiful workings of fancy, and fometimes debased by the affectation of unneceffary refinement. In fhort, if the reader can form to himself the idea of a middle style, between the capricious prettinefs of Shenftone, and the bold and abftract perfonifications of Collins, he will have attained a very juft conception, we think, of the style of Mr Smyth's English Lyrics.

It was a bold attempt to inscribe an 'Ode to Pity,' after the author we have just mentioned; yet the following stanzas are elegant.

O Pity! all my fighs are thine,

My follies paufe," my bofom warms,

My mufing griefs to blifs refine,

Whene'er I mark thy forrowing forms ;
The love-lorn maid that long believed.
Now finking lone, now undeceived,

-Or him, 'mid fortune's gathering gloom,
Condemned the fmile of blifs to wear,
While baffled hope, and rankling care,
His generous heart consume.

The exile grey, when start to view

The tears, that speak the exiled foul;

The mother, as fhe bids adieu,

And turns, her anguish to control;
The hectic form, the beauteous maid,
That juft as life its charm difplay'd,
To death devoted, glides away,
With brilliant eye, that watery gleams,
While ftill the rofy spectre dreams

Of many a morrow gay.' p. 67, 68.

The following lines exprefs a common thought; but express it, we think, with great tenderness and beauty.

Ah Julia! muft that morrow come,

When I in anguish shall behold

That cheek with animated bloom

No longer warm-pale, fhrunk-and cold—

Thofe

Pip brow, with tremning hand,

Serrame Death's tremors creep,

Rue a thinking run tand,

A u ve te gef that cannot weep. p. 26, 27-
The next snore and familar tone.
e. Lair the. awn with pain,

That yes it nut in sail,
Tiv Xantenas : arge, the orphan maid,
But il a care paid;
How could the daplets tant dee
From peace, and innocence, and thee?
Ctt as we drav mis ottae nigh,
I see how ut my pall; iga

• Theu cant not 5m this scene below,
Chate every vice and every we;
Thou cant act wave a far wand,

Nor nature charge ser tue command;

Oh! faster will the ed appear,

潔

Than art of thine tower can rear,
Yet fowers by thee may harm to bicw,
And weeds leis raak, is widely grow.

• Look round, my lore, this hamlet fee,
Its virtues all are reared by thee;
From thee its follies would retreat,
Its vices fear thy glance to meet ;
To thee the young for learning bend,
The poor have marked thee for their friend;
And every grief to the appeals,

Which pity foothes or bounty heals.

See,

• See, as we pass, each peafant's eye
Gives thee a praise no gold can buy ;
Yon rofy child at distance view,
Preparing all in order due,

With courtfey grave to stop thy way,
And it fhall look fo proudly gay,

Soon as thy foft falute it hears,

Soon as thy fmile its homage cheers.' p. 76-78.

The following is quite lively; and is the only gayety, we believe, in the volume.

"The Soldiers are coming," the villagers cry,

All trades are fufpended to fee us pass by;

Quick flies the glad found to the maiden up stairs,
In a moment difmifs'd are her broom and her cares;
Outftretched is her neck, till the Soldiers fhe fees,
From her cap the red ribbon plays light in the breeze,
But lighter her heart plays, as nearer we come,
And redder her cheek at the found of the Drum.

The veteran half dozing awakes at the news,
Hobbles out, and our column with triumph reviews;
Near his knee, his young grandfon, with ecftacy hears
Of majors, and generals, and fierce brigadiers;
Of the marches he took, and the hardships he knew,
Of the battles he fought, and the foes that he flew ;
To his heart fpirits new in wild revelry come,

And make one rally more at the found of the Drum. p. 1oz-3. There are fome things finical, however, and fome unmeaning, in these poems. In fome verfes on the Liverpool Afylum, the fimple circumftance of the blind being led about by children, or obliged to grope their way with sticks, lofes all its pathos by an attempt to exprefs it with dignity.

Helplefs, as they flowly stray,

Childhood points their cheerlefs way;

Or the wand exploring guides

Falt'ring fteps, where fear prefides. p. 29.

In the delineation of fuch objects, we are perfectly fatisfied, that the school of Southey and Coleridge is right, and that the whole effect of the reprefentation muft depend on the humble fimplicity of the statement.

The following ftanza seems rather to have been formed on the model of the love fong by a perfon of quality.

Soft Cherub of the fouthern breeze,

O if aright I tune the reed

Which thus thine ear would hope to please,
By fimple lay, and humble meed. p. 2.

The

The concluding verfes of this poem, however, are pretty; and with them we fhall finish our extracts.

• I court thee, thro' the glimmering air,
When morning fprings from flumbers ftill,
And waving bright his golden hair,
Stands tiptoe on yon eastern hill.

I court thee, when at noon reclined,
I watch the murmuring infect throng
In many an airy spiral wind,

Or filent climb the leaf along.

I court thee when the flow'rets close,
And drink no more receding light,
And when calm eve to foft repose,
Sinks on the bofom of the night.

And when beneath the moon's pale beam,
Alone mid fhadowy rocks I roam,
And waking vifions round me gleam,
Of beings and of worlds to come.
Smooth glides with thee my penfive hour,
Thou warm'ft to life my languid mind;
Thou cheer' a frame with genial power,
That droops in every ruder wind.

Breathe, Cherub! breathe! once foft and warm,
Like thine the gale of Fortune blew,

How has the defolating ftorm

Swept all I gazed on from my view!

Unfeen, unknown, I wait my doom,
The haunts of men indignant flee,
Hold to my heart a listless gloom,

And joy but in the muse and thee.' p. 3, 4.

་

Upon the whole, we think these English Lyrics very amiable and innocent. The author does not perhaps poffefs any extraordinary vigour or originality of genius; nor are his images delineated with that pencil whofe colours are the light of setting funs; but they have great harmony and grace of difpofition, and are finished with all the softness and tenderness of a moonlight landscape. The author repeatedly expreffes an ambition to be popular among the ladies; and we think he is well qualified to fucceed; at any rate, we can confcientiously recommend his, book to all our fair readers, as fully better fuited for their perufal than the Lyrics of Mr Moore.

ART.

ART. XIII. The Life of Thomas Dermody: interspersed with Pieces of Original Poetry, many exhibiting unexampled prematurity of genuine poetical Talent; and containing a series of Correfpondence with feveral eminent Characters. By James Grant Raymond. Two Volumes 12mo. pp. 600. London, 1806.

TH HERE is a celebrated fort of fnuff, the name of which, we think, conveys a pretty exact idea of the hero of this extraordinary biography: but it is more polite to his patrons and admirers to fay, that thefe volumes contain the hiftory of another Savage-born in a lower rank of life, and earlier fet loofe from the restraints of difcipline and morality.

It is lamentable to think how little the treatment of perfons who labour under the complicated difeafes of poverty, poetry, and want of principle, is yet understood in this country. The common method has hitherto been, to encourage the immorality by indulgence, to reprefs the poetry by extravagant and pernicious applauses, and to exafperate the fymptoms of poverty by thoughtless and unmeafured profufion, fucceeded by defertion and neglect. The cafe of the unhappy patient before us, appears indeed to have been very defperate; and it is but juftice to his patrons to fay, that many of them appear to have followed a very rational fyftem of cure: it failed however entirely, partly through the original bad conftitution of the fubject, and partly through the mifmanagement of certain of his romantic admirers. We look We look upon the publication of these two thick volumes (with the threat of as many more), and the ftyle of bombaftic encomium in which they are written, as a confiderable impertinence in relation to tafte, fenfe, and morality but the story they contain is curious, and not altogether uninftructive. The fymptoms are common enough in forward and ill educated youth; but they are fo unusually violent in this particular cafe, as to render it an object of intereft.

Thomas Dermody was the fon of a tippling schoolmaster in the weft of Ireland; and copied all his father's accomplishments with fo premature an alacrity, that, before he was ten years of age, if we are to believe this minute chronicler, he was an excellent claffical scholar-and a confirmed drunkard. At this early age, he is faid to have compofed a monody on the death of a brother, which is inferted in this work, and certainly indicates an astonishing prematurity in the arts of compofition and verfification, although, in fubftance, it is little more than a cento from the Lycidas and other minor poems of Milton. As we think this nearly as good as any of the productions of his maturer age, we fhall infert a few lines as a fpecimen of his infantine powers.

Ah!