When Shenftone, nay, when SHAKSPEARE prefs'd the tomb,
The fhrubs that faw their fate maintain'd their bloom;

Clear ran the ftreams to their accuftom'd shore,

Nor gave one bubble lefs, one murmur more;
Nor did a fingle leaf, a fimple flower,

Or fade or fall to mark their mortal hour.'

It was, furely, needless thus gravely and formally to tell what every body must know. The two laft paffages that have been quoted might, we should apprehend, have been omitted, without breaking the chain of the argument, or interrupting the connexion of the Poem. But it is time we turn to a less exceptionable part.

Our Readers will not be displeased with the manner in which the Poet has managed an argument that feems, at the firft view, not incapable of being turned against his own position.

'Yet more; e'en WAR, the fcourge of human kind,

But ferves more close the focial links to bind;

Confed'rate courage forms th' embattled line,
Firm on each fide connecting paffions join;
"Tis focial danger either troop infpires,
"Tis focial honour either army fires,
'Tis focial glory burnishes the van,

'Tis focial faith spreads on from man to man:
As front to front the warring parties meet,
For focial ends they dare the martial feat;
As breaft to breast, and eye to eye they fix,

For focial ends they separate or mix.

King, country, parents, children, prompt the fight,
For thefe alone they bleed, refift, unite;

And, haply, firft hoftilities arofe

From nice diftinctions made of friends and foes;

Some fcornful flight where nature moft can smart,

Some stinging infult foreft to the heart,

Some wrong detected, forfeited fome truft *,

A treaty broken, or a barrier burft,

Bade Sympathy call vengeance to her aid,

Till where the laws avail'd not, wars were made:

To make truft and burft rhyme, the latter word must be pronounced, as none but the loweft of the vulgar pronounce it, bruft. Owing either to inaccuracy, or to an ear vitiated by a provincial pronunciation, many inftances might be produced of rhymes in which confonance has not been duly attended to. For example; come, home; begone, alone; fowl, foul; on, fun; flow, bough; tread, mead; brow, below; peal, farewell.

In the following lines the concluding fyllables are identically the fame.

The focial paffion turns the foot afide,

And prompts the swains to travel fide by fide.

Affection

Affection fought from arms the wish'd relief,
And bore them 'gainst th' affaffin and the thief;
Eager o'er those who faith's fair league invade
With focial zeal to lift th' avenging blade ;'
Or from the fpoiler's hand to fence the flowers
That fweetly bloffom round life's private bowers:
'Tis thus, the steady eye of Reason finds

What feems to fnap the chain, more closely binds;
And thus each peril like each pleasure try'd'
Unites the rofy bonds on either fide.'

He then takes notice of the influence of fympathy on the arts; and, more than commonly animated by his fubject, proceeds— All, SYMPATHY, is thine; th' Immortal trung For thee that more than golden harp, the tongue: The fphere's beft mufic taught it to impart, W. And bade each foft vibration ftrike the heart. Thine too, the varied fruitage of the fields to The clustering crops that yonder valley, yields, That moffy down which feeds a thousand sheep, This bower umbrageous, and yon cultur'd fteep; } The ftill fmooth joys that bloom o'er life's ferene, And all the bustle of the public fcene. Thefe feveral efforts flow or rapid rife...

ار

As men are good, or bad, or weak, or wife;
Here quick, there flow the impulfe, but the whole
Points to this centre, fympathy of soul.'

J

Had the four laft lines been omitted, all had been well. By what figure of fpeech, varied fruitage, clustering crops, moffy down, bower umbrageous, cultured steep, &c. can be filed efforts is not very apparent; nor is it apparent how efforts can rife. This, perhaps, is not the only inftance in which the Poet may be fufpected to labour with ideas he is fometimes unable to exprefs, or to make ufe of expreffions without having any correfpondent ideas. Under which of thefe predicaments does the following paffage fall?

The bias SOCIAL, man with men must SHARE
The varied benefits of earth and air ;

The Author has enlivened his piece by the introduction of two episodes; to both of which, particularly this first, much may be objected.

In life's fair morn, I knew an aged feer, '
Who fad and lonely paft his joyless year;
Betray'd, heart-broken, from the world he ran,
And hund, oh dire extreme, the face of man';''

Humbly

Humbly be rear'd his hut within the wood,.
Hermit his garb, a hermit's was his food,
Nitch'd in fome corner of the gelid cave
Where chilling drops the rugged rock ftone lave;
Hour after hour, the melancholy fage,
Drop after drop to reckon, would engage
The lingring day, and trickling as they fell,
A tear went with them to the narrow well;
Then thus he moraliz'd as flow it past,

"This brings me nearer Lucia than the laft;
"And this, now ftreaming from the eye," said he,
"Oh, my lov'd child, will bring me nearer thee."

When first he roam'd, his dog, with anxious care,
His wand'rings watch'd, as emulous to fhare;
In vain the faithful brute was bid begone,
In vain the forrower fought to weep alone.
The pilgrim paus'd, th' attendant dog was near,
Slept at his feet, and caught the falling tears
Up rofe the pilgrim, up the dog would rife,
And every way to win a mafter tries.
"Then be it fo. Come, faithful fool," he said:
One pat encourag'd, and they fought the shade;
An unfrequented thicket foon they found,
And both repos'd upon the leafy ground;
Mellifluous murm'rings told the fountains nigh,
Fountains, which well a pilgrim's drink fupply.
And thence, by many a labyrinth is led,
Where ev'ry tree beftow'd an ev'ning bed;
Skill'd in the chace, the faithful creature brought
Whate'er at morn or moon-light courfe he caught;
But the fage lent his fympathy to all,
Nor faw unwept his dumb affociates fall.
He was, in footh, the gentleft of his kind,
And though a hermit, had a focial mind:

"And why, faid he, muft man fubfift by prey,
"Why ftop yon melting mufic on the spray?
"Why, when affail'd by hounds and hunter's cry,
"Muft half the harmless race in terror fly?
"Why must we work of innocence the woe?

Still hall this bofom throb, thefe eyes o'erflow.
"A heart too tender, here from man retires,
"A heart that aches, if but a wren expires,"
Thus liv'd the mafter good, the fervant true,
'Till to its God the mafter's fpirit flew ;
Befide a fount which daily water gave,
Stooping to drink, the pilgrim found a grave;
All in the running ftream his garments fpread,
And dark, damp verdure ill conceal'd his head;
The faithful fervant from that fatal day
Watch'd the lov'd corple, and piteous pin'd away :
His head upon his master's cheek was found,
While the obftructed waters mourn'd around.'
Rev. Sept. 1781.

The

The opening of this tale reminds us of Ambrofe Philips, when the goodly fimile came in the way.

So have I feen, in Araby the bleft,

A phoenix couch'd upon its funeral neft.

In like manner, in life's fair morn, our Author, as he tells us, knew an aged Seer, notwithstanding fo many ages have elapfed fince the existence of the very laft of thofe venerable perfonages. But, what is more wonderful, this feer is at one and the fame time both a pilgrim, a religious vagrant, and a hermit, a religious reclufe: a commodious kind of Being it must be confeffed. But we might have even overlooked the inconfiftency of his triple character, had there been lefs of that naufeating fentimentality, as it is called, in the composition of it, which, while it infults the common fenfe, difgraces the tafte of the age. How much preferable to all this nonfenfically unnatural jumble of a feer, and a pilgrim, and a hermit, and a hut in a wood, &c. would have been a fimple ftory of a beggar and his dog! The ftrokes, of which it might have admitted, both of nature and the true pathetic, are many and various. The other episode has alfo, like this we have quoted, a watery catastrophe. A female maniac, terrified at the fight of a young man, whom the miftakes for the ghost of her father, plunges into a river; in which The and the person who had occafioned her terror, and who had leaped in to her affiftance, are drowned. The maniac, who is the daughter of a peasant, is driven to infanity by the apprehenfion of poverty and the lofs of her relations, particularly her father. That the death of a parent should drive a young woman distracted is not very probable; it being an event which, in the regular course of nature, the muft know would unavoidably happen. Equally improbable is it, that poverty, either real or apprehended, could effect the overthrow of reafon in one who can hardly be fuppofed born to any other expectation or inheritance. Our objections, however, to the want of invention, which we have pointed out in this little tale, are fufficiently overborne by the manner in which it is told. Now, that the pilgrim, a character which English manners are unacquainted with, and fome few grammatical inaccuracies are removed, it is not unworthy of a Goldfmith, an Author whofe ftyle of compofition feems in this poem to have been particularly imitated.

Notwithstanding the ftrictures we have paffed on this performance, we are by no means blind to its merit. The fentiments it contains are liberal and juft, and the verfification is easy, flowing, and poetical. The part which is added in the prefent edition †, is intended to point out the connection of fympathy with our fenfes, with our natural infirmities, and with the proper use + The 3d.

See the former editio

of

of money. This, perhaps, is the most valuable part of the poem in imagery and diction it is of uniform texture with the reft of the piece; while, in the diftinct discrimination and methodical arrangement of ideas, and in logical deduction of argument, it is evidently fuperior. Ct-t,

T

FOREIGN LITERATUR E.

SWITZERLAND.

ART. VIII.

PABLEAU de Paris. The Picture of Paris. 2 Vols. 8vo. Pages 750. Neuchatel. 1781.-This lively performance is afcribed to M. Mercier, Author of the Hiftory of the Year 2444. The fubject is Paris; but the Writer's defign is not to give a topographical defcription of the streets, fquares, churches, and monuments of that immenfe capital. He confines himself to the moral picture of his fellow citizens, and informs us, that those who are defirous to supply the defects of the prefent work, may have recourfe to M. Moutard, bookfeller to the Queen, where they will find four enormous folios, containing a copious and circumftantial hiftory of every castle, college, lane, and cul de fac of Paris; fo that fhould the monarch ever be difpofed to fell his capital, this voluminous dictionary would afford an ample inventory of effects and materials:

At a time when the fubjects of France, and particularly the citizens of the metropolis, have begun to refume that tone of national vanity, and to talk of their fleets and armies in that ftyle of fuperiority which diftinguished the proud reign of Lewis XIV. it muft affect them with no fmall degree of furprife, to find a Writer, nourished in the bofom of the capital, dexterously pointing the fhafts of ridicule against these vain glorious pretenfions, and expofing, with just severity, the deceitful ambition of the court, and the defpicable frivolity of the people. In England, fuch a work, published under fuch circumstances, would probably be received with filent contempt. The love of fatire, indeed, carries us far; we can read with pleasure the smart farcafms of Smollet against the light-hearted merriment of the French we can bear, without difguft, the ponderous invective of Johnson against the poverty and patriotifm of the Scotch; but we have too much good fenfe, or at least too much prudence, to endure, notwithstanding our fondness for ridicule, such treatment as M. Mercier beftows on his countrymen. It is otherwife in France. "La medifance," as the Marquis d'Argens fays, "eft la foible de la nation; and fuch is their propenfity to fatire, that they are ever ready to indulge it even at their own expence. We are not furprised to hear, therefore, that the

Q2

Tableau

and