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triotic gentlemen who, in the ruler of their country, can see only an object for the shafts of calumny and malice. "Peace to all such-if for such there can be any peace. They are welcome to our hearty contempt; and so we leave them. The Address to the Duke of Wellington we will extract. What strain will be found worthy to praise the hero, now that he has consummated his glory, and that of his country, by the decisive day of Waterloo!

"GREAT SPIRIT! rais'd to crown thy country's fame;
To make her praise on earth and sea the same;
With soul prophetic and all daring heart
What yet remain'd of glory to impart!

:

Such lofty fate high Heaven reserv'd for one;
The deed was THINE; the splendid deed is done!
Thy Victor sword is sheath'd, thy standard furl'd
Amid the blessings of a rescued world.
'Tis seal'd! a Treasury of honour there,
Not Time, nor Chance, nor Envy can impair!
'Twas said, the Age of Chivalry is o'er
That word, once haply true, is true no more.
For lo, where'er thy marshall'd lines advance
Through the far-famed realms of old romance,
From Lisbon's towers to Pyrennean France,
Thy magic falchion bids that age revive!
And EDWARD's perish'd hosts are found alive!
VICTORIA'S waking plain can scarcely know
If WELLINGTON or EDWARD dealt the blow;
The arms are British, and can Fate ordain
Two British Conquerors on the self same plain?
"O! deeply drink the transport of thy breast,
While Peace adds honours to thy Martial crest;
While circling years thy triumphs past renew,
Recal thy fields and trophies to thy view;

And grateful Britain, grateful Europe, tell

What dire alarms their harass'd realms befel,

Till WELLESLEY's sword unsheath'd on Lisbon's strand,
Sent beams of hope through every Christian land !”.

MAY 1814.

We regret that our limited space does not allow us to insert in our pages the "Lines to Harold," which are in the stanza of Spenser, and are as pious in spirit as they are musical in their numbers. They were written under the first impression produced by the perusal of the Poem of Child Harold, and were immediately sent to the noble author of that poem. Mr. Penn augurs well from the kind and courteous manner in which they were received from a stranger," and we sincerely hope that his auguries will not be falsified by the event.

The

The remainder of the original lines are not less worthy of perusal than those which we have mentioned.

Of the translations, the principal is a version of the fourth Eclogue of Virgil. "This poem, which has perplexed the judgments and divided the opinions of the learned world in all ages as to its specific and true object," Mr. Penn maintains to be "a simple, beautiful, and unobscure Birth-day Poem, written by Virgil, in the year of Rome 715, in honour of Octavius, then denominated C. Julius Cæsar Octavianus, upon occasion of his having acquired, in the preceding year, while Pollio was Consul, the sole supremacy of Rome, Italy, and the Western Provinces, by the partition of the Roman world with M. Antony in the treaty of Brundusium, which partition was afterwards confirmed in the peace of Puteoli, at the beginning of the year 715." This theory Mr. Penn has explained and defended in a separate volume. Without giving any opinion on this theory, further than that it cannot be denied to be highly plausible, we must pronounce, that the version of the Eclogue is executed in a masterly manner. Here again the length of the piece precludes us from justifying our opinion, by the best of all possible ways, that of extracting the poem..

The rest of the translations are "close" ones from Anacreon, They are not, however, so close as to be ungraceful, which the reader will readily perceive from the following ode;

TO THE SWALLOW.

"Gentle swallow! thou each year.
Tak'st thy roving journey, here
To build thy summer nest, and then
Art fled to Egypt's coasts again.
But Love has built a constant nest,
And broods for ever in my breast:
And one is hatch'd, and one is just
Escaping from its brittle crust,
And one is waiting in the shell;
So that no power of words can tell
The chirpings, till my heart doth ach,
These callow, gaping lovelings make!
And then the elder ones with food
Supply the younger ravenous brood;

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And no sooner are they grown,

Than all begin to breed their own.

And now, what hope remains for me!

For no rescue can I see,

Who have not power to expel

The swarms of loves that in me dwell!"

ART.

1

328

ART. XI.

Conversation. A Poem.

"

Conversation: A Didactic Poem, in three Parts. By William Cooke, Esq. of the Middle Temple, Barrister at Law, &c. &c. The fourth Edition, revised and enlarged, with Poetical Portraits of the principal Characters of Dr. Johnson's Club. Small 8vo. pp. 136. Un

derwood.

THE author of the volume before us, as will be seen from his title page, is not a new and trembling candidate for public favour. He has already been well received; and it must be owned that he is not undeserving of the reception which he has experienced. His work will occupy a respectable place among didactic poems. Not that we believe it to be practicable by any rules to teach the nice and difficult art of conversing with propriety and elegance. To shine in conversation, requires a rare union of talents, taste, knowledge, and judgment. Still, though rules must be inadequate to confer the power of attaining excellence, they may be so far useful as to prevent the commission of glaring faults. In this point of view, Mr. Cooke's poem may be of service to its readers. His precepts are sound, and the characters by which he illustrates them are drawn with a considerable share of spirit. The following specimen will give a tolerable idea of the general tone of the volume:

"Press none to contest on his favourite art,
Nor in your own assume the critic's part.
The first is rude, and fruitful of disgrace,
For who with skill the several arts can trace?
The last is flippancy's perpetual sign,
And shows the pedant in the lowest line.

"Nor turn from him whose habit and address,
No modish forms, no brilliancy express;
To science bred-perhaps no grace was there,
To mould his form, or give the polished air,
The soft assenting look, the yielding head,
Which nods alike to every thing that's said;
Yet far superior to the outward show,
He claims the higher privilege to know-
To know, and act in virtue's honour'd cause,
The guardian and exemplar of her laws.
Such claim respect-hence, let discretion guide,
And spite of fashion's undiscerning pride,
Glean from his mind whate'er that mind will lend,
Exchange your knowledge, and engage a friend.
"To such, behold, how cool Sir VAPID shews!
Who measures man by feather, hat, and clothes.

See

1

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Conversation. A Poèm.

See how he eyes him with forbidding stare!
Then, indolently turning on his chair,
Retails some trash, the last new batch of plays,
Or, what's still worse, the little wits who praise,
What nymph's best practised in the mazy dance,
Where vicious attitudes her charms enhance ;
What philosophe religious duty flouts,

And braves the Sabbath with her crowded routs;
What peeress opes her gates for midnight pay,
To aid some new-blown bubble of the day,
Or introduce some demirep of fame,

To prove that virtue's but an empty name;
What coxcomb, void of true poetic fire,

Prowls through the wards of Bedlam for his lyre,
Makes demons, goblins, sprites, converse in rhyme,
The very mania of the false sublime;

Or who retails the poison of his muse,
In novels worthy the Italian stews.
What does Sir VAPID get by this? disdain,
From all beside the profligate and vain.
What does he shew? a slavish itch to chime

In all the modish vices of the time."

$29

Should this volume reach another edition, Mr. Cooke will do well to correct many slovenly lines, which are so many blots on his composition. The following lines, among others, have no further pretensions to the name of verse than that which they derive from being composed of ten syllables. A very slight degree of trouble will remove this defect.

"How now inelegant they wound the ear."

**

"Where pleasure and religion are combined.”

*

"And pupil to the sage he scoff'd became."

**

"Who must as often as he's nam'd have praise.”

**

"And to communicate the same around.”

We must also once more enter our protest against the vile practice of cutting out the vowels, in places where it is impossible to read the verse without either pronouncing them, or rendering it completely ridiculous. Do those who write T'embase, and dangʼrous, mean that we should pronounce Tembase, dangrous? If they do not, on what ground do they defend their practice?

ART.

ART. XII. Sir Wilibert de Waverley; or, The Bridal Eve. A Poem. By Eliza S. Francis, Author of "The Rival Roses," &c. Small Svo. pp. 87.

THIS tale is an amplification in verse of a romantic sketch in one of the first chapters of "Waverley." Sir Wilibert, in early youth, loves a lady, who, as ladies sometimes will do, proves false to him, and marries another knight. The knight is slain, and his wife dies of grief, leaving a daughter, for whom she implores the protection of the deserted Sir Wilibert, As this daughter, Lady Geraldine, grows up, she becomes so like her mother, in person, that her guardian falls in love with her; and as he has always been her friend and companion, and she, having been "immured as in a convent's cell," has seen few men, she innocently believes that she loves him with equal fondness. The author, however, judiciously declares, and we are rather of her opinion, that

I

"He was not a lover meet,

His

For one so young, so gaily wild ;
age her father's years might greet,
And she appear his blooming child."

Besides, which was still worse, though not unnatural,

"He was grave-aye, jealous too!"

4

At length arrives the time which is to be the source of ail Sir Wilibert's trouble and disappointment, He is summoned to join the red-cross bands, under the gallant Edward; and he departs, leaving Lady Geraldine and his mother in heavy sorrow, which, however, the lady gets over, and grows not only composed, but gay and frolicsome. After three years battling with the paynin, Sir Wilibert sails for England. But now his evil genius begins to bestir himself. The Knight is taken prisoner, and carried into slavery, in Africa, where he remains for years. Having contrived at last to recover his liberty, it would, we should think, have been most proper for him to hasten home to lus Geraldine, especially as he was of a jealous disposition. But, instead of this, he ungallantly turns his back upon home, and resolves to perform a pilgrimage through the holy land. At a shrine he meets Sir Ronald de Merton, who has just con cluded his penance, and who very sensibly urges him to be his companion to England. Sir Wilibert, however, obstinately per sists in his design of visiting the desert lake," and sundry other interesting places, and contents himself with sending a small token of remembrance to the Lady Geraldine. Against such conduct as this, the author enters her protest; in which protest,

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