The various powers of that mufic, whereby the Ifraelitish Shepherd charmed his unhappy Prince, Dr. Brown has attempted to express in this facred Ode. Some of its beauti s and defects (for both beauties and defects it has) we shall lay before our Readers. And feas of horror overwhelm his foul. In this ftanza the dreadful images of terror and distraction are well fuftained, and the measure of the verfe happily corresponds with the imagery; but we cannot approve the last line: what propriety is there in feas of horror? might not the Poet as well have faid, mountains, or pits, of horror? The bold, the inflated expreffion, no doubt, deceived him. Sunk on his couch, and loathing day, The heaven-forfaken Monarch lay : To the fad couch the Shepherd now drew near; Thy pitying aid, O God, impart! For lo! thy poison'd arrows orink his heart. We are pleased to find the divine Mufician fo affected with the miseries of the Monarch, as to "drop a generous tear:" and his ready addrefs to the Almighty is well conceived; but is "thy poifon'd arrows drink his heart," properly expreffed, even allowing that poifon'd arrows might come from the benevolent Being whom we ferve? We fuppofe, our friend Scriblerus would have called this a Catachrefis. The mighty fong from chaos rofe. But, why? was it only because Virgil made one of his Singers commence at Chaos? Hark! loud Difcord breaks her chain: The hoftile atoms clash with deafening roar : Her hoarfe voice thunders thro' the drear domain; All this is adequately expreffed, except the laft line, which is too feeble. The fpeech of the Almighty follows. "Tumult cease! "Let there be light," th' Almighty faid. REV. Mar. 1763. P Indeed! Indeed! would the Almighty utter Lilliputian verfes, infantine rhymes, and pleonafms? No. This must be a mistake. After "Tumult ceafe,"—" Sink to peace," is a feeble redundancy; and thefe pigmy verfes are fo far from expreffing the fublime in an adequate degree, that they are fuitable to nothing but the trivial train of fome hornpipe or country dance. Dr. Young, as we have once before obferved, fell into the fame error; and, because Dryden had made his Hero nod in fuch dwarfish rhymes, conceived that this measure was certainly calculated to exprefs the fublime. Ye planets, and each circling conftell-tion, To heavenly founds; And footh his fong-inchanted ears, With your celeftial chime. "In fongs harmonious tell your generation," cannot boaft much poetry, whatever becomes of the philofophy. As to the Seraph's ftanding on the pole-ftar, and turning the. spheres, the Author, no doubt, meant it for a fublime image, and we dare fay, many of his Readers will accept it as fuch; but really we loft the pleasure of confidering it in that light, by catching from it the unlucky idea of a Savoyard's grinding mufic, or a Mechanic working at a lathe. The harmony and imagery of the following paffage are equally beautiful, and to us it appears to be faultless throughout. Ocean haftens to his bed, The lab'ring mountain rears his rock encumber'd head: ́ The torrent rolls his thund'ring tide. Then imooth and clear, along the fertile plain The lark, high-foaring, hals the morn. · Peace on Nature's lap repoles; Link'd with innocence and love. Hail happy love, with innocence combin'd! The The paffage that follows this, and, for the inftruction of the Monarch, represents the miseries of our first parents as the consequence of their guilt, has likewife many beauties: Wake my lyre, can pity fleep, When Heaven is mov'd and angels weep! Flow, ye melting numbers, flow; "Till he feel that guilt is woe. The unhappy King, who could not but apply this part of the fong to himself, With pride, and shame, and anguish torn, Shot fury from his eyes and fcorn. The glowing youth, Bold in truth, (So ftill should virtue guilty power engage) And, while the doom of guilt he fings, Nothing can be more happily expreffive than the laft line, Shakes horror from the tortur'd strings! we almoft tremble while we read it. The following invocation to Repentance is pretty, to fay the leaft of it: Come fair Repentance from the skies, See the figns of grace appear! Catch it, angels, ere it fall! 1 Signs of grace is, perhaps, too trite an expreffion; as well as Vifit him with thy falvation, page 16. Some other exceptionable paffages might be pointed out, but they are excufable--ubi plura nitent. P 2 La. An An Aufwer to the latter Part of Lord Bolingbroke's Letters of the Study of Hiftory. By the late Lord Walpole of Woolterton. In a feries of Letters to a noble Lord. 8vo. 3s. 6d. sewed, Whilton. IT were a T were not unreafonable to imagine, that a fubject so often difcuffed as the demerits of the adminiftration during the four laft years of Queen Anne, might have been by this time fully illuftrated; and that people in general might have entertained an uniform opinion of the tranfactions of that period. Perhaps alfo, this is really the cafe, notwithstanding fome few individuals, of fingular difpofitions, and exploded principles, occafionally ftand up, in defence of the most notorious mifcondust of a deluded or corrupt miniftry. It is true, that, from a late paradoxical revolution in the state of parties, we might be tempted to conceive fome refemblance between the complexion of the prefent times and that of the period above-mentioned. If we judge, however, folely from real facts, and not from reports and appearances,-from the more important tranfactions of the State, and not the difparaging representations of a difcontented faction, the moft ftriking features of this fuppofed refemblance will probably vanish. That the terms of the prefent treaty of peace are inadequate to our fucceffes, and fo far make it refemble that of Utrecht, is pretty generally admitted: but, whatever might have been done then, that we could now have procured a better, either by prolonging the war, or employing different Negotiators, is, at beft, problematical; and might, for ought we know, very reafonably be thought too hazardous an experiment in our present circumftances. For, notwithstanding the validity of fome few exceptions, and the violence with which the tide of popularity ran at first against both the peace and the peace-makers, the more confiderate part of the people are daily falling into the notion, that the definitive treaty has, on the whole, concluded a very advantageous peace. Some of them, indeed, admitting all this, look into things. more narrowly, and carry their views much farther. These very juftly conceive domeftic freedom to be as effential to their country's happiness, as national glory; and, judging rather from their fears than their feelings, are as much alarmed at wrong men as wrong measures. Neglecting, therefore, the refemblance between particular features, thefe political Phyfiognomifts examine the fymmetry of the general face of things, and je of the teaser of the times, not from its flattering appearring a tanfient fmile, but from that permanent, state of a the To the countenance, which truly indicates the difpofition. fuch men a Tory Adminiftration would appear equally obnoxious, whether it might have reduced us by a war to the lowest ebb of poverty and contempt, or raised us by a peace to the highest pinnacle of wealth and glory: nay, the circumstances of its having merited the national confidence by its fuccefs, might make it feem ftill more dangerous. We hope, however, that the alarms which thefe Sons of Liberty have lately taken, will be found, in a great meafure, groundlefs. The idea of a patriot King being realifed, may have blown up the fmothering embers of an expiring fyftem into a temporary blaze; they are too far exhausted, however, and have loft too much of their political phlogifton, to communicate a flame to any thing but the light ftubble with which venal incendiaries keep it alive. At leaft, we hope, the nature and end of government are now fo much better and more generally known in this country, than when paffive obedience and non-refiftance were in fashion, that we are under no danger of feeing thofe abfurdities revived. There are, indeed, but two forts of men who are ever likely to adopt such principles, viz. the knaves of the higheft, and the fools of the loweft, clafs; the fcum, and the dregs, of the nation; those who are fo intimately acquainted, or clofely connected, with the administration, as to fhare, or hope to fhare, in the fpoils of the people, and thofe who are fo ignorant and fo far removed from it, as to conceive their Governors to be fomething more, though in reality often lefs, than men. Of the latter, it is to be hoped, there are in this country but few; and as to the former, we muft not judge of their number by the herd we fee gathered about the feat of government. The air of a-court is their native element, and they follow the Minister, as a certain voracious quadruped is faid to attend the lion, in order to feaft on the offals of his luxurious banquet. We have been led to make these reflections, on a fuppofition, that the Editor of the Letters before us may have published them at this juncture, with a view to an invidious parallel, that may be thought a proper antidote to the fuppofed-increafing effects of Toryifm. We do not fee the neceffary confequence, however, that every peace made by a tory adininiftration, must be a bad one, because that of Utrecht was fuch: nor that its having made a good one, is any juflification of tory principles. For these reasons, if fuch, indeed, was the Editor's view, we think the publication of thefe Letters might have been spared, efpecially as they are written with too much acrimony, to give the world an high opinion of the Writer's candour; and as neither the matter nor manner of them is fo new or curious as to do him any great honour, either as a Politician or as an Author. Not P 3 |