fing of his notes; that he had attended more to the accuracy of his Author's language; and not, for instance, have fuffered fuch grofs imperfections as a caufe-fatal to the destruction of the bailey, to have efcaped.-Giborne was blameable for hur. rying Ellis; but who hurried his Editor?

↑ Vol. ii. p. 77•

ART. XI. Poems. By Mifs Aikin, concluded: See our lal Month's Review.

E now refume the pleafing task of reviewing the remainder of thefe excellent poems.

WE

Though the volume is not divided into books, yet the pieces feem to be claffed; and, in the former part of this article, we ftopped at The Origin of Song-writing, as introductory to a fpecies of compofition different from thefe which had hitherto engaged us. We hoped the Woman was going to appear; and that while we admired the genius and learning of her graver compofitions, we fhould be affected by the fenfibility and paffion of the fafter pieces. Mifs Aikin, like most female writers, has, in fome meafure, difappointed us on the fubject of Love. That pleafing paffion, hy which the ladies rule the world, and which they are thought fo perfectly to understand, is but feldom attempted in their writings. How delighted should we have been to have received from fuch a hand as Mifs Aikin's the peculiar traits of this paffion in a female mind! If we could have found that her heart had ever betrayed her, and that she had marked, from her own feelings, the particular diftreffes of fome female fituations! If fhe had breathed her wishes, her defires, and given, from nature, what has been hitherto only gueffed at, or fancied by the imagination of men ;-we should have fallen in love with her in our dotage (for all Reviewers. are greybeards) and the public would have been more indebted to her than the may be aware of. Setting afide, however, all confideration of fex, the merit of the following lyric compofitions is very confiderable. The origin of fong writing is an elegant and fanciful introduction to fix fongs +; the first of which we shall give the Reader as a fpecimen of Mifs Aikin's talents in this branch of writing:

Addressed to the Author of Efays on Song-writing. See Review, vol. xlvi. p 538. Number for May, 1772. This Author, as we have learnt fince we commended his ingenious work to the notice of our Readers, is a near relation of Mifs Aikin's.

Thefe fix Songs were first printed among the Original Pieces added to the mifcellaneous volume mentioned in the preceding note; and for which the Author acknowledges himself indebted to a Friend.

K 3

Coms

Come here fond youth, whoe'er thou be,
That boafts to love as well as me;

And if thy breast have felt so wide a wound,
Come hither and thy flame approve;
I'll teach thee what it is to love,

And by what marks true paffion may be found.
It is to be all bathed in tears;

To live upon a fmile for years;
To lie whole ages at a beauty's feet:
To kneel, to languish and implore;
And still, though she disdain, adore:

It is to do all this, and think thy fufferings fweet.
It is to gaze upon her eyes

With eager joy and fond furprize;

Yet temper'd with fuch chafte and awful fear
As wretches feel who wait their doom;
Nor must one ruder thought prefume

Though but in whispers breath'd, to meet her ear,
It is to hope, though hope were loft;
Though heaven and earth thy paffion croft;
Though the were bright as fainted queens above,
And thou the leaft and meaneft fwain
That folds his flock upon the plain,

Yet if thou dar'ft not hope, thou doft not love,
It is to quench thy joy in tears;

To nurfe ftrange doubts and groundless fears:
If pangs of jealousy thou haft not prov'd,
Though the were fonder and more true
Than any nymph old poets drew,
Oh never dream again that thou hast lov'd.
If when the darling maid is gone,
Thou doft not feek to be alone,
Wrapt in a pleafing trance of tender woe;
And mufe and fold thy languid arms,
Feeding thy fancy on her charms,

Thou doft not love, for love is nourish'd fo.

If any hopes thy bosom share

But thofe which love has planted there, Or any cares but his thy breaft enthral Thou never yet his power haft known; Love fits on a defpotic throne,

And reigns a tyrant, if he reigns at all.

Now if thou art fo loft a thing,
Here all thy tender forrows bring,

And prove whofe patience longeft can endure:
We'll strive whofe fancy fhall be lost
In dreams of fondeft pallion moft;

For if thou thus haft lov'd, oh never hope a cure.

It is well for this lady that we cannot be ground young, and admitted at the Warrington Academy; we should perhaps with to make her fmart for thus playing with edge tools.

All the other fongs have nearly the fame degree of merit with the foregoing fpecimen. The numbers are harmonious, and the images juft and claffical; but they want that pathos which cannot be imitated by a heart at ease.

DELIA, an elegy, is a charming little poem, and does great honour to the taste and fenfibility of the Writer. The imita tions from feveral parts of the Triftia of Ovid, are very happily executed. The Verfes to a Lady with fome painted Flowers, are extremely pretty: and the Ode to Spring' is exquifite: Thee, beft belov'd! the virgin train await With fongs and feltal rites, and joy to rove Thy blooming wilds among,

And vales and dewy lawns,

With untir'd feet; and cull thy earlieft sweets
To weave fresh garlands for the glowing brow
Of him, the favour'd youth

..That prompts their whisper'd figh.

The Verfes on Mrs. Rowe' are a proper tribute from one amiable mind to another. Thofe to Mifs B, on her Attendance on her Mother at Buxton,' do honour to the duteous and fond attachment of that lady to an infirm parent; as thofe on the death of Mrs. Jennings do honour to the piety and goodnefs of Mifs Aikin.

We are now going to tread on facred ground, led on by a conductress, whofe devotion is rational as well as fublime; and whofe Hymns are worthy of a Watts or an Addifon. The firft indeed of thefe pieces may be objected to, on account of the double rhymes at the conclufion of every ftanza; and it is pity there fhould be any objection, where the fentiments are fo pure and noble.

The Hymns are followed by an Addrefs to the Deity, in the Spirit and manner of the 23d Pfalm; and the whole is clofed. by a Summer Evening's Meditation; which is pious, philofophical, defcriptive, and pleafing, beyond most things of the kind that we have feen. Every reader of taste will be charmed by the following paffage, which yet is by no means the most Striking in the poem :

1 We do not observe, in this collection, certain verfes entitled, Fragment of an Epic Poem, written by a young Lady, who had loft a Game at Chefs, by being fleepy:' nor an Epistle to her Brother;' with one or two other pieces, which we remember to have feen in manufcript.

K 4

"Tis

'Tis paft! The fultry tyrant of the South
Has spent his fhort-liv'd rage; more grateful hours
Move filent on; the skies no more repel

The dazzled fight, but with mild maiden beams
Of temper'd light, invite the cherish'd eye
To wander o'er their sphere; where hung aloft
Dian's bright crefcent, like a filver bow

New ftrung in heaven, lifts high its beamy horns
Impatient for the night, and feems to pufh
Her brother down the fky. Fair Venus fhines
Even in the eye of day; with fweetest beam
Propitious fhines, and fhakes a trembling flood
Of foften'd radiance from her dewy locks.
The fhadows fpread apace; while meeken'd Eve
Her cheek yet warm with blushes, flow retires
Through the Hefperian gardens of the Weft,
And huts the gates of day. 'Tis now the hour
When Contemplation, from her funless haunts,
The cool damp grotto, or the lonely depth
Of unpierc'd woods, where wrapt in folid fhade
She mufed away the gaudy hours of noon,
And fed on thoughts unripen'd by the fun,
Moves forward; and with radiant finger points
To yon blue concave fwell'd by breath divine,
Where, one by one, the living eyes of heaven
Awake, quick kindling o'er the face of ether
One boundless blaze; ten thousand trembling fires,
And dancing luftres, where th' unfteady eye
Reflefs, and dazzled wanders unconfin'd
O'er all this field of glories: fpacious field!
And worthy of the master: he, whofe hand,
With hieroglyphics, older than the Nile,
Infcrib'd the myftic tablet; hung on high
To public gaze, and faid, Adore, O man,
The finger of thy God. From what pure wells.
Of milky light, what foft o'erflowing urn
Are all thefe lamps fo fill'd? These friendly lamps,
For ever ftreaming o'er the azure deep

To point our path, and light us to our home §.

There is, in this poem, a flight mark of feeming inattention, where the ingenious Writer fpeaks of Saturn in the feminine:

Where cheerless Saturn 'midft her watry moons

Girt with a lucid zone, majestic fits

In gloomy grandeur; like an exil'd Queen

But for this offence against ancient mythology, and a few other faults of equal importance, we leave her to the mercy of the Minor Critics.

But

But we muft forbear, though we know not well how to ftop when invited onward by fo amiable a guide. We congratulate the public on fo great an acceffion to the literary world, as We very feldom have the genius and talents of Mifs Aikin.

an opportunity of beltowing praise with fo much juftice, and fo much pleasure. What we have hinted, in the ftyle of criticifm, and bordering on difapprobation, was extorted from us by a real difappointment. The true critic is fuperior to the popular notions which have fo long been humiliating to the fair fex. We profefs the moft fincere admiration of the excellencies of our female authors; but the time is not come when the fex is to be difcriminated. There is a fex in minds as well as in bodies; and the conteft for fuperiority arifes from an ignorance of this truth, and is managed on both fides by a mongrel breed of difputants, who are neither male nor female. A inferior woman is as perfect in her kind as a man: fhe appears only when the quits her ftation, and aims at excellence out of her province. This is true, not only in common life, but in all the branches of the arts, and of philofophy. We fee by the fpeculative turn of the man, for what fciences he is defigned. We fee by the conversation of a woman, in what kind of knowledge fhe would excel.-There may be exceptions to this rule, as there may be fomething like a mistake of fex, in fome inftances, among all creatures: but a juft obferver fees the uniformity of nature, and attends to her defigns.

A lady of Mifs Aikin's genius and candour cannot be difpleafed at what we thus advance, on general principles. If the,, as well as others of our female writers, has, in pursuing the road to fame, trod too much in the footsteps of the men, it has been owing, not to a want of genius, but to a want of proper education. If the amiable Writer of these poems had been educated more under the direction of a mother, than of a father if he had taken her views of human life from among her female companions, and not altogether under the direction of men, either living or dead, we fhould have been as much enchanted with her feminine beauties, as we are now pleafed and aftonished by the ftrength of her imagination, the variety of her knowledge, and the goodness of her heart.

ART.