operation, is here, indeed, the sole but powerful appeal to that reader's attention. This, of itself, gives indication of strong poetic powers, and of a mind capable of becoming fully and deeply absorbed in its subject. However easy of acquirement this last quality may appear, it is of rarer occurrence than persons may at first suppose; and the want of it gives rise to much of the idle and superficial rant that disgraces the literature of the day. Were it more frequent, it would check some of that egotism and affectation, which now leads our imaginary geniuses to reflect more on themselves than on the themes which professedly employ their pens. Ample genius and spirit, we are happy to say, are displayed in the poems before us, to save them from such an imputation, and from any danger of being confounded with the strains of so spurious and despicable a race.

It is not conferring meagre praise to admit that the author manifests some originality of thought and vividness of feelings; with a power of directing them to kind and useful purposes, and drawing out of the incidents and events opinions and maxims of a moral nature: at once succeeding in touching the heart and playing with the imagination. We could quote several examples, in which a portion of real fancy, eloquent appeals of passion, and earnestness of heart, are expressed in no unpoetical manner. The same kind of peculiarity is manifested in this lady's writings as in those of the poet Crabbe, which gives a sort of novelty and dramatic interest to the scenes and passions that they describe, and to the truths that they would enforce. We do not compare these authors in extent of genius, but mean to say that the power of their writings to please the reader is derived from the same source; viz. a deep feeling and participation in the individual character, and in the joys and sorrows of lowly domestic life.

The Widow's Tale' is the simplest possible story, and constructed out of the slightest materials, but very naturally and beautifully told. A degree of interest is awakened, which gradually absorbs the reader's attention in the progress and result of the story; though it displays no more incident or adventure than many old soldiers or sailors could furnish, with natural eloquence, if not quite grammatical, nor dressed " in a wardrobe of rich words." Two or three characters taken from humble life, and destined to encounter the common lot and common casualties that give interest to "the short and simple annals of the poor," and sufficiently probable, (especially in an agricultural point of view,) with the help of a few marriages and deaths, form the whole of the materials employed. The moral views and tendency of the story are equally simple, and perfectly unexceptionable and true. To shew the value and almost indispensable necessity of religious hopes and consolation among all classes, but particularly among those who are often destitute of every thing except resignation and confidence in the will of God, and to exhibit the healing power of religion over the keenest and most lasting wounds of the heart, in the wreck of this world's fondest treasures, the ornament and the supports of existence, as they drop one by one

away,

away,

is the single and beautiful truth to which the whole of this story, and the whole of the little volume, has been devoted. The pieces that follow, though of an inferior character, are not destitute of poetical merit; particularly one or two of the dra matic scenes, borrowed, also, from some of the commonest but touching incidents of private life. We must beg leave to select the conclusion of one which strikes us as very beautiful and pathetic in its a dramatic sketch, intitled Editha,' simply way; founded on a few circumstances and feelings connected with the affections, decline, and death of a young lady, at the moment of the return of her lover, after an absence of six years.

6

SCENE V. Editha's dressing-room. Evening. Edmund laying down a book he had been reading to her.

Edm. Shall I leave off, my Editha,

you're tired ;

The book has wearied your attention, love?

Edi. No, Edmund, but my mind had wandered from it

To you, and to myself to many things.

I heard the words you uttered not their sense

Dear Edmund! I'm too happy for attention

My heart's too full, full of the past and present.

Edm. And of the future, love! the happier future ! Is there no room for that, Editha?

Edi. Oh, yes

there has been and will be again;

And now, I'm almost sick with happiness;

I feel as if I could not bear the weight

Of half another grain. And you are here!
And have been here, since yesterday at noon!
Have slept again under this very roof!
Have sat at meals in your old place again!
Have walked in our own garden

yours and mine
And brought me flowers thence—this very rose !
Your old accustomed tribute. You are here,
And will be here to-morrow, and to-morrow,
And all this happiness is not a dream!

Edm. A blest reality, beloved creature! That time will stamp with still increasing bliss. Oh, Editha! how much I have to tell you! How much to hear when you are well enough To stroll once more in our old fav'rite haunts, Arm within arm, and heart in heart, my love! Is the old tree,

The oak-tree, standing yet, whose hollow trunk
We used to call our house, when we were children?

Edi. Standing and well; but the wild honey-suckle You taught to climb its branches is quite dead;

Yet not for want of care, but we believed

The lightning struck it. Do you remember, Edmund,
That little mountain-ash you planted for me,
The day of your departure?

Edm. Oh, yes, yes!

I set it by the meadow-brook, and bade you,

If

If the tree grew and prospered, look upon it
As a good omen of the wanderer's fate.

Edi. And it has grown and prospered; it is now
A stately tree, casting its chequered shadow
To the opposite margin of the meadow-brook ;
Hung every autumn with such beautiful tassels
Of scarlet berries! -I grudged them to the birds.

Edm. Not to our robin? —but he must be dead!
Edi. I found him dead last winter in the green-house,
In the hard frost. Look, Edmund! Oh, look there!
The moon's at full to-night, and she is rising ! -
Help me to reach the sofa by the window,
That I may gaze on the full-moon once more.
Edm." Once more," life!
my
Together look upon the lovely moon?
Edi. Oh, often, often, I believe
I hope-
I've heard 'tis wrong to be afraid of death.
I know we should not love this world too much,
And yet I feel that I do love the world-

shall not we often thus

This beautiful world! with all its fruits and flowers,
Its dews and sunshine. And with those about me,
In whom I live-you and my father, Edmund, -
Is not this Paradise! I feel, I fear,

I could not bear to die and leave it all!

Yet surely, surely, in a future state

There may be pleasures perfected from those
That constitute our best enjoyments here.
The innocent affections of the heart-

Edmund!

Edm. My dearest! you exhaust yourself;
I must not let you talk so much. Come, come;
Martha has charged me to take absolute rule,
As in old times, over my little cousin.

Edi. And so you shall; but if I'm tired to-night,

I shall but sleep the sounder. What's the hour?

Edm. The church-clock answers you. 'Tis striking nine.
Edi. See! the bright moon is just withdrawing there,

Behind the steeple. Now-how dark it is!

Edm. Still light as day, love; though the moon is hid. Edi. No-very dark, pitch dark. Where are you, Edmund ? Come to me don't let me go don't leave me,

Edmund!

[Dies.'

MISCELLANEOUS.

Art. 19. Original Miscellanies, rens Bicknell, F. A. S. An interesting part of the present olio is the short introductory biographical sketch of the late Dr. Charles Burney, of whom Mr. Bicknell, it appears, was one of the pupils. That very eminent scholar must for ever claim the respectful remembrance of

in Prose and Verse, by John Lau. 8vo. pp. 470. Cadell.

the

the learned; and all his friends will be pleased with the warm and grateful tribute which is here paid to him, though it does not pretend to be any thing like an adequate memoir of his career in life. At some period, no doubt, we shall be more amply supplied with such a document.

The first composition in this volume is A Burlesque Novel,'a species of writing of which the success depends, among other essential qualities, on its brevity. The present tale is too long, both as a whole and in many of its parts. The butterflies are thirteen times racked on the same wheel; and the drivelling idiotism of modern novels is too fully, and too repeatedly, exposed. Yet it is a good contrast to the mismanagement and extravagant incidents of the multitudinous " spawn of the Minerva press;" and the sentiments and manners justly ridicule the affectation and the vice of the contemporary Pathetic and Sublime.

This story of Miss Sarah Lloyd is followed by an Analysis of the Play of Hamlet,' in which considerable talent is indicated, but a due portion also of prolixity. Next comes The Siege of Troy;' and here we really grieve to see the poor spirit of humour, which dictated the travesties of Homer and Virgil, again revived in a dramatic form, and with still feebler effect. Among the miscel-lanies of a shorter description, we meet with some little pieces which are happy enough, and others (as is usual) which are not so successful. We give an example, or two.

Lines on seeing the London Museum.

Whilst, with a reverential awe, I trace
Thy hand, O God, in each created race;
My busy thought, from passion's fetters free,
Flies from myself, and centers all in Thee.

• Thou, whose almighty word gave nature birth,
Fix'd yon bright orbs, and fram'd this solid earth,
Mak'st the minutest seed, the leaf, the flow'r,
E'en life's last speck to vindicate thy pow'r.

What then, shall man, with vain presumption fraught,
Unknowing whence his motion, life, or thought,
Shall man alone, proud, fleeting, foolish man,
Still dare to cavil at thy mighty plan,
Disown thy laws, neglect thy sacred word,
And scorn the solace which thy truths afford?
Here let the mind thy wondrous works explore,
And, as it wondering contemplates, adore;
Burst to the realms of light as yet untrod,
And humbly seek its parent and its God.'

• Lines written at Dover, August 8. 1816.
The sun, upon the broad expanse

Has flung the morning ray,

And gaily do the vessels dance,
In Dover's circling bay;

And

And bursting through the dashing spray,
As if impatient of delay,

On rides our bark, and ev'ry sail

Is set to catch the swelling gale,
And waft us o'er to France.

To France! Good Heaven, and is at last
The cause of separation past,

Which shut us from the social land,

And arm'd with steel each hostile band,
And bade the jealous Briton know
A Frenchman only as a foe;
Has peace, at length, a chaplet wove
Of friendship, harmony, and love?
Not few the melancholy years
Nor few, alas, the widow's tears,
Nor check'd the parent's sigh,
Since first, upon thy native ground,
We heard the voice of mourning sound,
We saw the soldier die.

When constant to the ear would come

The measur'd beat of muffled drum.

But thou, most welcome, white-robed peace,
Shall bid these sad reflections cease,

And bind our union stronger;

Henceforth we'll pledge our friends of France,
We'll join her daughters in the dance,

But fight her sons no longer.

For foes and strangers now no more,
We seek again thy hospitable shore.'

If the former quotation be censured by the fastidious as commonplace, will not the latter be confessed by the candid to be quite stale? Besides, as to the expression!

And gaily do the vessels dance.'

To France! Good Heaven!'

-Friendship, harmony, and love.'

No hackneyed transparency at an illumination can be more clear and tedious than this.

We come now to Mr. Bicknell's classical imitations; and here, while we do justice to his knowlege of the originals, we cannot admire the manner of his representing them in English. Let us take the little complaint of Catullus, properly altered in its direction by the imitator, but how delivered!