The following extract, though not very favourable to the literary and moral character of MOORE, is inserted here as a specimen of style, and as the frank, though apparently reluctant, opinion of one of his own countrymen. Our Wild Irish Boy's hypothesis, that the occasional levity of Mr. Moore's muse, renders her totally incapable of the highest flights of poetry, has already been abundantly refuted by the poet himself.

“A figure, very different from the last, now entered. A young man of diminutive stature, but of an intelligent countenance, and a most easy and felicitous address. I fear, said Bellamy, you can hardly bestow the praise of purity on the productions of your countryman, Anacreon Moore. I fear, said I, the want of that praise excludes him from more. The merit of a writer must be, in some measure, connected with that of his subject, and the subjects that writer has chosen are such as to exclude all praise, but that of brilliant levity of sentiment, and exquisite versification. By what evil genius his choice was directed I cannot conceive, but I lament its influence has been equally unfortunate for poetry and for himself. He was formed to enlarge the territories and honours of poetry; but, like Vasco, his expedition has terminated in being thrown away on the island of Love. A dull writer defeats the mischief of his own depravity, but the pointed and polished shafts of Moore, like those of his favourite Deity, tingle in the blood with delicious irritation, and convey sweet poison through the most balmy and seductive medium. I speak of him with real sorrow; he might have done much-he has done nothing, but what I hope he will yet wish undone. No writer I have ever read, possessed so much the power of picturesque and living description of nature, or of luscious and yet lively, and uncloying harmony of sound. He is a writer, of whose powers the world can no more form a just estimate, than we could of Pope, from his Paraphrase on the first Psalm, or of Homer, if we had read no more than his Loves of Venus and Anchises. Before the wreath of his Fancy had well bloomed, he hung their blushing honours on the image of the garden god. I fear no other power will now receive his vows. It is possible to injure the mind's eye, as well as the bodily, by a constant contemplation of one object: the object that Moore has contemplated, must of itself, give an obliquity to the intellectual sight. He has talked and written of love, till, I fear, he can no longer write of any thing else. His ideas, which, like those of every writer, must, in some measure, be supplied from external sources, do not appear to me to be drawn from sources either deep or various. I am afraid, like his own Little, he has only read what he pleased, as well as written what he pleased. If his reading has been extensive, the power of assimilation which his mind possesses must be amazingly strong. It is a perfect fountain of Salmacis, whoever enters it becomes voluptuous and debilitated. His language, which, at first, presents a

endless and unwearying range of diversified elegance, if closely examined, betrays repetition, artfully concealed, like the boundaries of the gardens of the Serail, it escapes the eye under a fence of roses.

"It is painful to speak with severity of a man, whose suavity of manner, facility of information, and easy dissipation of life, present a kind of innocent and infantile luxury. But we should remember, that the levities of a man are vices in the author. No one need publish the frolics of his intemperance, or expose the nudities of his indulgence. While Alcibiades riots in the recesses of his luxury, the injury is only done to himself; but when he sallies out to outrage sanctity, the offence becomes serious and cognizable. For a man, possessing so many powers of giving delight, between whose lips and whose pen, Harmony seems to have divided her existence, eminently skilled in pleasing those whom all are proud to please, capable of effecting the rare union of sentiment with sound; of being at once the poet of the senses, and the minstrel of the heart; for such a man there may be, there must be, a thousand excuses, if HE SINK INTO THE SOFTNESS AROUND HIM; but, for the attempt to communicate what he must have felt the injuries of himfelf, for the attempt to add seduction to pleasure, and teach Impurity a new species of sentimental Logic, to add an impulse to the lapse of vicious feeling, and modulate the death dance of vice with the harmony of a lyre strung by heaven; for this, there can be no excuse, even at the bar of literature; and if he carries the cause to a higher court, I doubt still more tremblingly, his acquittal there."

All this is an elegant exhibit of polished composition; nor are we at all disposed to molest our critic's morality, because it appears to be agreed on all hands, and, as we well know, acknowledged by Mr. Moore himself, that many of his juvenile poems are of a too ardent character. But when our Wild Irish Boy fancies, that because the poet's page sometimes reveals all the softness of SAPPHO, sometimes all the voluptuousness of MINNERMUS, now the indelicacy of CATULLUS, and now the license of OVID, the versatile MOORE is incapable of other and better things, we think the critic does the highest injustice, not merely to the man, but to Mind itself. Such is the astonishing pliancy of genius, so boundless its resources, so extensive in its flights, so unlimited in its operations, that an Alcibiades, a Julius Cæsar, a Picus Mirandula, or a Sir William Jones, can be considered as a phenomenon, only by a vulgar remarker. In fact, in the very volume which has been the most obnoxious to the fastidious severity of Criticism, and to the indignant reproaches of Morality, which has caused the monk to cower beneath his cowl, and the prude to bridle behind her fan, contains the most splendid proofs of consummate ability in the loftiest compositions of the lyric, and, above all, of the satirical muse.

own words.

What can be more impassioned, what more beautiful, what more sublime, what more allied to the very best manner of Juvenal and Persius, of Johnson and Churchill, than many of Moore's poetical epistles? We challenge the whole force of Criticism to bring any piece in her whole park of artillery to bear upon one of these points. Here the author is perfectly invulnerable. The writers in that highly respectable Journal, the British Critic, a large portion of whom are clergymen of the established church, men of the gravest character and the purest morals, associated with a stern severity of judgment, the stores of learning, the powers of genius, and the delicacy of taste, declared, in a strain of unexampled liberality, their favourable opinion of the talents displayed in Mr. Moore's earliest effusions, and when these critics officially advert to one of his latest productions, they offer to him, as a a piece of friendly advice," the following suggestion, which we publish in their "Let him republish, in a smaller size, all the poems in that volume, which are not morally exceptionable, and we will answer for an extensive sale. The author, we hesitate not to say, is, in many respects A TRUE POET; and we should be happy to praise his talents, and point out his merits, if he would give us such an opportunity." This is liberal and noble. Our judicious critics accurately draw the line of discrimination between the frolic Fancy, and the legitimate labours of Mr. Moore. They advise him as parents, and they praise him as judges. We hope he will richly profit by every hint from such wise and good men. In the giddiness of indiscreet days, stimulated by the fervour of fancy, and the force of feeling, mingling with the juvenes protervi of a dissipated metropolis, beguiled by Fashion, and seduced by Beauty, the modern Anacreon has, perhaps, made more than one sacrifice to that Venus, whose attribute is not wisdom, and whose epithet is not Uranian. But he has recognized his errors, and has not only traced the thorny path of Contrition, but has made rapid advances to those steeps of Fame, whence he may gaze, with a serene eye, upon every critic and every competitor. Let him persevere in this lofty purpose, let him court the Dryads of the country, instead of the dames of fashion, and it requires no prophet's skill to predict that his honoured name will be familiarly associated with the most classic authors of the Augustan age of his country.

LITERARY INTELLIGENCE FOR THE PORT FOLIO.

THORNTON ABBEY: A Series of Letters on Religious Subjects.

A scrupulosity of temper in the use of any lawful means to promote the Spiritual or Temporal welfare of mankind, receives no countenance either from Reason or Revelation, &c.

2 vols. 12mo. London, printed. Philadelphia, reprinted.

In the United States, the right of printing any book, not wicked, however foolish or insipid, is guarantied to any person disposed to pass it through the Press. Hence arises a kind of necessity for reviews: because, among the crowd of authors offering themselves candidates for public applause some of course must be undeserving of the wreath. But although the task of criticising is useful and laborious, yet it is invidious. He, therefore, who presumes to occupy the Bench in the Court of Criticism, in order to be completely qualified for his station, ought to be well versed in all the statutes of literature: and moreover, he ought to have the eyes of Argus, the patience of Job, the wisdom of Solomon, the meekness of Moses, and the strength of Johnson: thus fortified, he might undertake to pronounce judgment without fear, favour, or affection. Such are the desirable qualifications of this sort of High Chancellor. But a person less variously endowed, may be permitted to notice a book of minor pretensions; and, therefore, as I have not yet seen any remarks relative to the work named above, I take the liberty to offer some. Whatever may be your rules with regard to sectarian principles, the benign spirit of these Letters on Religious Subjects seems to entitle them to particular notice.

Opening the volume, THORNTON ABBEY caught my eye. Ho! said I, here's a novel; I never read such works; the world is inundated with as much trash of this kind as would require a lifetime to read. But proceeding, A Series of Letters on Religious Subjects—a novel on religious subjects! It must be something incongruous. To me, of grave, studious habits, the titlepage was repulsive. But I ventured to read the work, and can, as a Lawyer, though not as a Divine, from a perusal of the whole of the evidence, give my opinion, that the reader of these volumes will be both pleased and instructed. The author's style is perspicuous; and he has skilfully interwoven with the usual incidents, the common charm of novels, a theme of piety grateful to the Christian of whatever denomination. Several sects are mentioned, but so delicately, that no offence can be taken by the liberal, There is a sprinkling of the Divine Oracles throughout the work which renders it unique and valuable: it is free from asperity; inculcates the practice of the most beneficent precepts; exhibits the brightest examples; and is admirably adapted to those volatile beings who, considering divine subjects trite or abstruse, devote their time to reading light and frivolous books. It leads them gently by the hand

into the delightful fold of the Shepherd of Israel. The Infidel is reclaimed, and the parties are, finally, made Baptists; but this is no more than the winding up of the plan, no more than a necessary, and surely a happy catastrophe. We must be either of Paul, or Apollos.

In the Preface to the work, the publisher observes of the author:

"Having observed that much evil was conveyed to the rising generation by the enchanting works of fiction, it was his wish, to convey truth and godliness through that medium."

His attempt is praiseworthy, and will be no doubt attended with useful effects.

Mr. Neville, the careful father of the accomplished, amiable, and what is rarely associated with superior acquirements or beauty, the pious Eusebia, was of opinion "that the minds of youth uncultivated, may be compared to lands neglected by the husbandman, which receive all the seeds scattered at random by the winds," and spared no pains to enrich the minds of his children with useful learning, and to render them orthodox in religion. But Eusebia, meek, modest, and learned, inheriting a little of the perverse or curious spirit of her greatgrandmother, in despite of the admonitions of her parent, and her tutor Father Albino, strays from the Church of Rome, for a long time wanders about like a lost sheep, and continues to interest us to the end of the history, when she is unexpectedly married to Mr. Clifford, whom she had happily contributed to convert from Infidelity to a genuine belief and exemplary practice of the injunctions of a Christian Church.

The matchless Eusebia, disputing with Mr. Clifford and asked by him, "Whom do you call Christians?" thus elegantly replies: "those who imbibe the doctrine, the precepts, and the example of Christ. Did he, by any of these, teach his followers to destroy or injure those who believed not?"

If any there be, sufficiently captious, or cold to the precepts of the Gospel, to condemn the work without reading it, I would answer, read it—"Who art thou? O great mountain! Before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain."