Who, as the sea-born gale with frequent sighs
Chills his cold bed upon the mountain turf,
With hoarse, half utter'd lamentation, lies
Murmuring responses to the dashing surf?
In moody sadness, on the giddy brink,

I see him more with envy than with fear;
He has no nice felicities that shrink

From giant horrors; wildly wandering here
He seems (uncursed with reason) not to know
The depth or the duration of his woe.'

In the preface, Mrs. S. intimates that she may probably never again address the public. Why has this idea been formed? The world has not been inattentive to this lady's compositions.

A portrait of Mrs. Smith, and several pleasing illustrative engravings, accompany the volume.

For our account of the preceding volume of Mrs. Smith's Sonnets, see our General Index, vol. iii. p. 148.

Art. 34. Ode to General Kosciusko. By H. F. Cary, A. M. 4to. Is. Cadell jun. and Davies. 1797.

The author of this Ode appears to be much and laudably struck with the noble character of Kosciusko, and to have formed very exalted ideas of the late projected constitution of Poland. To give freedom, and its consequent blessings, to so great a number of our fellow-creatures, is a pleasing exercise of the imagination, and highly gratifying to a benevolent heart: but the best planned schemes of reformation are generally rendered impracticable by the folly or the vices of mankind; and perhaps the Poles, from their long habits and patient endurance of subjection, were become incapable of enjoying the sweets of liberty and equal laws. Certain it is that no part of that extensive country is in so flourishing and cultivated a state, as that which is in the possession of the Russians; although Mr. Cary, with too much general justice, calls the late empress the foul Harpy of the North.'

The following extract may enable the reader to judge of Mr. C.'s talents for poetry:

Or fraught with Ceres' yellow hoard,
Returning clasp his blue-eyed dame

In their low hut, where round the board
By industry and plenty stor❜d,

The babes are taught to lisp their Stanislaus' name.

But Tyranny with envious glance

Withers all good that blooms around,

Sudden the fiend beheld askance
The joys that grac'd the favor'd ground,
And call'd her regal minions forth,
The faithless prince, that holds the helm
Of Prussia's poor and upstart realm,
With the foul harpy of the North,

* In allusion to the subsidies by which the arms of Prussia are purchased by other states, and to the short time that it has been erceted into a kingdom.'

Ii2

Whose

Art. 35.

Whose talons, darting on her prey,
Marr'd all the blessings of the feast,
And bore it to her den away.

While more to stretch their greedy sway
They bound the captive limbs so late releas'd,
O Providence! thy ways are dark,
And beyond reach of mortal eye:
Nor may he hope to hit the mark,
Who shoots conjecture's shaft so high,
Vainly the dauntless hero strove
To stem Oppression's whelming tide,
To snatch the land from despot pride,
And guard the monarch of his love,
See him uprear the faithful shield,
And prodigal of warrior blood,
Unwearied the keen falchion wield,
Till dragg'd reluctant from the field;

As if a lion fought to save his darling brood.'

Poems By T. Townshend, Esq. of Gray's Inn. Small 8vo. pp. 112. 7s. 6d. Boards. Harding. 1797:

If we could persuade ourselves to believe that an assemblage of splendid imagery, involved in turgid, affected, and obscure language, Constituted the essence of poetry, we might be inclined to think fa vourably of Mr. Townshend's genius: but we have always considered poetry as a happy vehicle for conveying instruction, by engaging the imagination and passions in the cause of truth and virtue; and while we retain this opinion, it will not be expected that we should applaud poems of which we cannot comprehend the meaning. The volume before us contains three Elfin Eclogues, and Odes on various subjects, printed in an elegant manner, and adorned with vignettes. The peronages introduced into the Elfin Eclogues are fairies, whose freaks, tricks, and midnight gambols, are at best unsuitable to the taste of the present age; in which no trace remains of that Gothic superstition to which these ideal beings owed their imaginary existence, The following is a specimen of the author's Fairy dialogue:

Round the honeysuckle sweet
Brisk we go on nimble feet;
Waking there the glutton bee
As we wander merrily.
O'er the sheety lake we go
Revellers with unwet toe.

Beauties such as here display'd
Clust'ring deck this lovely maid.
All my virgin elves away,

Cull me visions light and gay;
Soothing dreams light-handed spread

Softly o'er this beauty's head.'

In the following Ode to Music, the author seems to exert his utmost powers:

6

'Twas when the blazing beam of light,
Burst dazzling from the void of night,
That o'er the rosy realms of day,
Th' immortal glance did pleas'd survey
The spheres thro' pathless circles hurl'd,
And the swift whirl of this pendant world.
While smiles of life around him gleam'd,
And heav'n in quenchless splendour beam'd,
Of pow'rs divine young joy alone,
With him possess'd th' eternal throne;
When he in glee creative thought,

And lo! the wond'rous vision wrought.

Bright clouds of silv'ry ether round

In breathed slowness from the gemmy ground
Mounting in thicken'd lustre rose,

And waving soft in light repose

Seem'd o'er the gold-pav'd space to stand;
Settling they roll in volumes bland.
Now gently fall the flakes of light;
The tinsel mists slow-curling bright,
A virgin form in part conceal.
The thinning clouds her charms reveal.
Her luscious locks of orient hair
Float on th' ambrosial-scented air;
In vermeil life th' immortal rose
O'er her soft cheek ecstatic blows;
Her eyes emit th' inspiring ray,
More livening than celestial day;
A white robe flung in careless fold
Helf wraps her rosy-beaming mould;
Around her waist a lucid zone
Of bluey-sparkling radiance shone;
Her sapphire buskins laced with light,
Pour mild effulgence on the sight;
And in her pearly hand a lyre
She held of golden-glowing wire.
• Moveless and fair she lovely stood:
Of grace diffus'd a living food
Immensely spreading, to life she sprang.
She smote the chords with frantic hand;
With praise the brilliant concave rang,

And Music sweet was hail'd by ev'ry goddess band.

• The

The newly-utter'd sound

The mad enthusiast dasht around;
And dropping tears of rapture wild,
Rav'd, and laugh'd, and wept, and smil'd.
Now rapid pours the deaf'ning flood of song,
Roaring it falls and tumbling foams along;
Now the soft strains in loosen'd sweetness play,
Melt as they breathe and ravish as they stray,
As to the sire of all the hymn she rais'd.
And while she grateful prais'd

Entranc'd then stood the prince of day;
The fond earth round him wheel'd her way;
And nature smiling spoke her steady law.
Th' infolded spheres then to the measur'd sound,
She bade their trackless orbits ever draw,

In sweet compulsion thro' the bright profound.'

This passage, with the greater part of the Ode, is to us perfectly unintelligible: but amid the gloom and darkness with which we are encompassed, we think we discover traces of an ill-judged imitation of Collins's famous Ode to the Passions.

The Ode to War is certainly less obscure than the Ode to Music: but the poetry is not such as we can admire. As Mr. T. appears by his quotations to be well versed in the Greek poets, we cannot but express a wish that, before he attempted to write on the subject of war, he had studied the admirable Ode to Mars in the third act of the Phenisse of Euripides. It might have improved his taste, though we cannot flatter him so far as to suppose him capable of emulating the sublime spirit which animated that great tragedian.

Mr. T., it should be added, is not very happy in his compound epithets :-death-illumined, bat-winged, slyly-aiming, soul-impris’ning, &c. &c. are certainly ungraceful; and it might be difficult to reconcile some of them to strict propriety; emblissed is likewise a word, we believe, peculiar to this author.

We cannot dismiss this volume without lamenting the mistaken notion of the greater part of our modern poets, in supposing obscurity to be a necessary ingredient in the composition of an ode. Ho race, who was always considered as the first of Roman lyric poets, has been as much admired for the purity and clearness of his expressions, as for the wonderful magic of his poetry, by which he ennobles every topic on which he writes. The flights of Pindar are more bold: but, amid his quick transitions and long digressions, he never loses sight of his subject, and charms his reader by animated description, and a flow of moral sentiment. Even in our own language, what can be more simple than the construction of Dryden's admirable Ode on St. Cecilia's Day? The diction in every part is easy and unaffected. Men of judgment have condemned the obscurity of Gray, but his defects are lost in the blaze of his splendid genius.

Art. 36. Lord Mayor's Day. An Heroic Poem. 4to. IS. Jordan. 1797.

If this city bard means to excel as a mannerist, there can be no doubt

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