ceive that we have been doing some her little lay by beautifully saying of service to the cause of piety—and pomp and splendourpoetry-by thus attempting to widen " Yet could they no more sound content. the sphere of their circulation. They ment bring, seem to be fast going through editions Than star-light can make grass or flowers -the Christian Psalmist having reach spring !” ed a fifth-nor is there any person of any persuasion—if he be a Christian And can, he asks, the very humble -who will not be the better of having stanzas of poor Anne Askew, made and such volumes often in his hands. sung in Newgate, while waiting for Mr Montgomery's critical remarks, her crown of martyrdom, be read withit will have been seen, are often emis out emotions more deep and affecting, nently beautiful, and very profound. and far more powerful than poetry His common-places are always those could awaken on a subject of fictitiof a poet, whose genius is ever felt to ous woe? be in subservience to his piety. The “ Not oft I use to wryght simplest of his sentences has often the deepest meaning; and though he In prose, nor yet in ryme; Yet wyl I 'shewe one syght, sometimes loves to diffuse himself over That I sawe in my tyme. a subject that is dear to him, he often says much in few words. There may to “ I sawe a royall throne, some--nay to many minds, be some- Where Iustyce shulde have sytte ; thing startling in his sentiments-ex. But in her steade was One pressed as they often are, with no de Of moody cruell wyute. ference to the authority of old opi. nions, or of new, come from what “ Absorpt was ryghtwysness, quarter they will; but there is never As by the ragynge floude ; any thing-judging by our own feel. 'Sathan, in his excess ings on certain occasions when we Sucte up the guiltlesse bloude. could not entirely sympathize with “ Then thought I,-lesus, Lorde, them-never any thing repulsive; and When thou shalt judge us all, if there be any differences in his creed Harde is it to recorde from ours--so fervent and sincere is On these men what wyll fall. every word and every look of the man, (we speak of him, from his writings, “ Yet, Lorde, I Thee desyre, as if he were a personal friend For that they doe to me, though we have never seen his thought Let them not taste the hyre ful face but in a picture,) that we Of their iniquytie.” trust these differences are neither many nor great-for we should suspect In like manner, can any of the our own Christianity, were it not, Thomas More's, Sir Walter Raleigh's, “ Prison Poems” in the volume-Sir in essentials, the Christianity, which, Sir Thomas Overbury's, Sir Francis in much noble verse, and much plea- Wortley's, George Wither's, John sant prose, has, for twenty years past and more too, been issuing from the Bunyan's--can any of them be read pure spirit of the Bard of Sheffield. with ordinary sympathy, such as the There is a fine humanity in all his cris verses themselves, if written in other ticism. Thus, in alluding to the rough circumstances, would have excited ? style and harsh metre of some ancient “ Surely not; the situation of the unpoems-or verses rather, in the Chris- fortunate beings, who thus confessed on tian Psalmist to their forbidding as. or in the immediate prospect of eternity, the rack of personal and mental torture, pect—he says that every piece has gives intense and overwhelming interest some peculiar merit and interest of its tolines, which have no extraordinary poe. own—and he asks, who would think tic fervour to recommend them. With his time misemployed in conning over what strange curiosity do we look even eleven dull lines by Anne Collins, for on animals driven to the slaughter, which the sake of meeting, in the twelfth, we should have disregarded had we seen an original and brilliant emanation of them grazing in the field! Who can fancy? Anne Collins, in one of her turn away his eyes from a criminal led Divine Songs and Meditations (1653), to execution, yet who can fix them on in telling us that happiness is not to his amazed and bewildered countenance? be found in the creation, concludes The common place,' of the gallows, his last dying speech and confession,' spare minutes they are peculiarly adapt. though consisting of a few hurried, bro- ed. They will not glide over a vacant ken words, which almost every felon mind, as sing-song verse is wont to do, repeats, and hardly understands their like quicksilver over a smooth table, in meaning himself while he utters them, glittering, minute, and unconnected glo. may produce feelings which all the bules, hastily vanishing away, or when breath of eloquence, from lips not about detained, not to be moulded into any fixed to be shut for ever, would fail to awa- shape. They will rather supply tasks and ken. But a good man struggling with themes for meditation; tasks, such as adversity, which even the heathen deem- the eagle sets her young when she is ed a spectacle worthy of the Gods to teaching them to fly; themes, such as contemplate with admiration, becomes are vouch safed to inspire poets, in their an oracle in his agony; and to know how happiest moods. Nor can the inexpert he looked, and spoke, and felt, for the reader be aware till he has tried, how last time, does literally elevate and pu. much the old language improves upon farify the soul by terror,--terror in which miliarity; and how the productions of the just so much compassion is mingled as old poets, like dried spices, give out their to identify him with ourselves in sensi. sweetness the more, the more they are bility to suffering, while we are identi- handled. The fine gold may have befied with him in exaltation of mind above come dim, and the fashion of the plate the infirmity of pain and the fear of may be antiquated, but the material is fine death. No eccentricity or perversity of gold still, and the workmanship as pertaste, manifested in literary effusions un- fect as it came from the tool of the artist; der such circumstances, can destroy the nor is it barbarous, except to eyes that force of nature, or render her voice un- cannot see it as it was intended to be intelligible in them, though speaking a seen, in connexion with the whole state strange language, provided it be the lan- of human society and human intellect at guage of the times, and not the affected the time. Changes have taken place, style of the individual, assumed to ex- within the last century, in the style of repress sentiments equally affected.” ligious poetry, which formerly was too How much of the pleasure which much assimilated to the character of Sowe derive from poetry does indeed de- lomon's song, — portion of Scripture ofpend upon contingent circumstances, ten paraphrased, and, it may be added, which confer on the writer or the sub- always unhappily. In judging of our ject a peculiar, local, personal, or lem poets of the middle age, from Elizabeth porary interest and importance! Such the same allowances which we do natur to James the II., we are bound to make interest and importance, says Mr Mont ally, in reading the works of our divines gomery, belong to all the subjects of of the same period, who, with many exthis small volume,-for all the writers travagances, have left monuments of geare dead! nius and piety in prose, unexcelled by “ These thoughts, then, of the depart- later theologians, in powerful argument, ed, expressed in their own words, and splendid eloquence, and learned illustrabrought to our ears in the very sounds tion. With such a preparation of mind, with which they uttered them, and affect the reader, sitting down to this volume, ing our hearts even more than they affect- will find every page improve to his taste, ed their own, by the consideration that in proportion as his taste improves, to they are no longer living voices, but relish what is most råre and exquisite in voices from beyond the tomb, from in- our language,—the union of poetry with visible beings, somewhere in existence, at piety, in the works of men distinguished, this moment, these thoughts, thus aw- in their generation, for eminence in the fully associated, will prove noble, strength- one or the other of these, and frequently ening, and instructive exercises of mind, for pre-eminence in both. It is, howfor us to read and to understand ; for the ever, greatly to be lamented, that the heapplication required to comprehend them terogeneous compositions of the most duly, will heighten the enjoyment of the popular of the Authors, even in the prepoetry when it is thus understood; the sent muster-roll, (with few exceptions,) obscurity and difficulty, not arising from cannot be indiscriminately recommended. the defects of the composition, but from Few, indeed, of the poets of our Christian the unacquaintedness of the reader with country, previous to the era of Cowper, the models in vogue, when the author have left such manuscripts of their waywrote. These specimens of 'pious verse' ward minds, as would be deemed altowill not be idle amusements for a few gether unexceptionable, even by men of spare minutes,—yet for the delight of the world, who had no particular rere INDEX TO VOLUME XXIV. Affairs, on the present state of, 475. Eng. the Edinburgh Review combated, 14 lish policy as it was and as it is, ib. Casuistry of Dr Milner, 23-Mr Burke's Cruelty to Animals, remarks on, 834 Darkness, Court of, 481 No. xxxviii.512-No.xxxix. 640_No. the state of Ireland, 412 Dead, the message to the, 333 Delta-Summer morning landscape, by, 103–To lanthe, in absence, by, 176 — zas by, 498 Duellists, the, a Tale of the “ Thirty Duncan, Dr Andrew, senior, death of, 408 Elements of Rhetoric, Review of Whatca ly's, 885 Execution in Paris, an, 785 First Play of the Season, the, 557 Good Works, on the Nothingness of, 870 Goode Manne of Allowa, the, 561 Review of, 155 Cardo's Legend, 715-Chap. iii. 717- Hieroglyphics, Marquis Spineto on, 313 Golden Fleece, 155 oath in reference to the, 1-On a late and treuthfulle ballande, made be, 561 Inglis, Sir R., substance of his two speeches 583 Intrading Widow, the, a dramatic poem, 765 -State of the Ministry, ib.--Catholic tem of conciliation” upon the Catholics, claims on the ground of right and jus- tice, 421_The removal of their disabi- 192 Value of the securities offered by the nals, 699_Catholics of Ireland, 781- to be adopted to quiet the country, 434 tion, 87 in his sporting jacket, Speech of, on proposing Notes on the United States of America, Notices, travelling and political, by a sociation, 186_Lord Eldon, 188-Coun. tol to London, 191_London ; Whigs and Liberals, ib.—House of Commons, Ode to Tan Hill, 762 the, 469 on the, 370 Old maid's story, an, 835 Paris, an execution in, 785 Phillpotts, Dr, and Mr Lane, remarks on their pamphlets on the coronation oath, I Poetry—The Tour of Dulness, 29—To folk Punch, an incantation, 101—Sum- -To lanthe, in absence, by Delta, 176 lande, compylit be Mr Hougge, 177– Elegiac stanzas, by Delta, 217– The by Delta, 362_Court of darkness, 481 sian and Turkish war, ib.— The Greeks, Tasso's Coronation, 614-The voice of The 912 |
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