placé. Les talens de l'esprit que tu dispenses s'affoiblissent par le cours des ans; la voix perd sa frâicheur; les doigts se glaçent sur le luth; mais les nobles sentimens que tu inspires peuvent restes quand tes autres dons ont disparu. Fidele compagne de ma vie en remontant dans les cieux, laisse moi l'independence et la vertu. Qu' elles vienneut, ces Vierges austeres, qu'elles viennent fermer pour moi le livre de la Poesie, et m' ouvrir les pages de l' Histoire. J'ai consacré l'âge des illusions à la riante peinture du mensonge, j' em ploierai l'âge des regrets au tableau sévère de la vérité.".

f Having thus given a sketch of the story, and extracted a sufficient number of passages to give the reader a correct, though rather a favorable idea of the work, we shall now make a very few observations on the plan, in its divisions of fable and character, and on the style and execution.

It is not expected that the story in a work of this kind should possess the interest of the narrative in a novel. The only requisite is, that it should present favorable opportunities for sublime and beautiful description, and afford a display of interesting and exalted character. In the first particular, the story of the martyrs is remarkably happy. The author has so contrived it, that he has been enabled to introduce into the compass of his work, almost every thing interesting in antiqui

O Muse, who hast deigned to sustain me in my long and perilous career, return now to thy celestial abodes. I discern the limits of my course, I am about to descend from my car; and I have no more need of thy assistance, to sing the hymn of the dead. To what Frenchman is the funeral song unknown? Who of us has not gone to mourn around a tomb,· and uttered his cries for the dead? O muse, I have finished, and it is forever that I abandon thine altars. I shall no more sing of love, and songs which seduce the heart. Youth and the lyre must be left together. Adieu, consoler of my days!——————————O Muse, I shall not forget thy lessons; I shall not let my heart fall from the elevated regions, where thou hast placed it. The talents of mind which thou givest are weakened by years,' the voice looses its freshness, and the fingers are stiffened on the lute; but the noble sentiments which are inspired by thee may remain, when thy other gifts have disappeared. Faithful companion of my life, when you return to heaven, leave me independence and virtue. May these austere virgins come, may they come to shut from me forever the book of poesy, and to open the pages of history. I have devoted the age of illusions to the smiling pictures of falsehood. I shall employ the age of sorrows on the

severe tablet of truth.

No, 1. Vol. III.

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ty for sublimity and beauty, either natural or moral. His work is an extensive canvass, on which we see, in different groups, the transactions of every part of the world at that period, and every group depicted in its peculiar costume and with its proper accompaniments. Beside the pleasing variety that this circumstance occasions, it gives the book the additional value of being a repos itory of vast stores of knowledge in antiquities, arts, and literature; and who knows but the Martyrs may be in time to the French, what Homer was to the Greeks a general text book of art and science; a sort of compendious Encyclopædia? To avoid the appearance of patch-work, it was incumbent on the author so to connect these various descriptions with his plan, that they should appear to come in naturally and of themselves; and this he has done or attempted to do, by giving them all a relation to the Christian religion. My plan, says he, includes the description of the rise of Christianity throughout the world. His elegant and accurate descriptions of natural scenes constitute, in our opinion, the principal beauties of the work.

The machinery has the merit of being inseparable from the rest of the story, and of being founded on points of popular belief, in a Roman catholic country. The connecting link between the celestial and terrestrial actions is the notion, that God required a second expiatory victim for the sins of the Christians, and that a mere mortal was competent to effect this atonement. We pretend not to determine whether this notion be or be not flattering to the justice of the Deity, or whether in a Roman catholic it be reverential in its analogy. The Deity is made to be satisfied for the sins of the Christians, by the sufferings of Eudorus; but Eudorus is entirely ignorant that he is to procure the general pardon of the Christians, and supposes himself all the time a common martyr: he is even made to apply the efficacy of his sufferings to the relieving of his mother from purgatory. The Christians are equally ignorant that Eudorus is suffering on their account. The doctrine of atonement, in this form of it, is certainly too little reconcileable to our natural feelings, to constitute a good ground for the introduction of the machinery of a poem. But having introduced his su

pernatural personages in this far from prepossessing manner, we think he fails of his usual ability in the management of them. We do not agree with him in thinking the books of heaven and of hell the best parts of the work; we think even that his extreme solicitude to defend and celebrate his machinery, displays a consciousness that this is his weakest part. We think also that with the best intentions in the world, the author has been unfortunate in the view that he has presented of our religion. We see here but little of its divine doctrine, and its pure morality; but we see enthusiasm, superstition, bigotry, and intolerance, dignified throughout with the name of Christianity. Our religion wants no such auxiliaries as Paul the Hermit, St. Antony, the Solitary of Mount Vesuvius, or the soldier of the Theban legion; and to our shame be it spoken, we have but little respect for St. Eulalia, St. Perpetua, St. Aglae, or even the empress Helen herself. We regard with a very doubtful eye the zeal, with which some of the ancient Christians rushed forward to seize the crown of martyrdom; and we question that morality, which could make Eudorus assist Constantine in escaping from the hands of the emperor, and yet compel him to submit and suffer himself. The author expresses both in his text and notes the opinion, that Christianity is a religion of gloom and melancholy. We conceive on the contrary, that nothing is so well calculated to inspire cheerfulness and serenity, as the certainty it gives us of our noble nature and destination, and the purity that it ought to create in thought and action.

We shall now say a few words on the characters. The only ones in which the reader feels much interest are Eudorus, Cymodoce, Demodocus, and Velleda. Many others are introduced, but they are slightly sketched. Of these, Velleda is a copy of Dido, with great alterations. She is somewhat interesting, but very extravagant, and entirely out of nature. The character of Eudorus is as good, we think, as the author could make it; but after all, the character of a Christian martyr does not appear to its best advantage, in a work of imagination. What is the part that Eudorus plays in the poem, setting aside his recital? He pays his addresses to Cymodoce, and is be

trothed to her; goes to Rome, pleads for the Christians, is condemned and executed. The best characters are Demodocus and Cymodoce, and both of them are excellent. The author has found the secret of making them very interesting, and they have also the merit of novelty. Demodocus breathes the very soul of Homer, not unfrequently however in his own words.

With regard to the style of the Martyrs, as foreigners, we shall not be expected to speak with much understanding; but having made this acknowledgement, we shall say what we think with freedom. Under this head, the first question is, whether the work be poetry or prose. This has been considerably agitated, but is only a dispute about words. It obviously can make no difference in the merit of the Martyrs, whether we call it one thing or another; so that the question resolves itself into what is the meaning of the word poetry. There can be no doubt but that universal custom, which alone settles the meaning of words, has determined the word poetry to mean, not merely the language of excitement and passion, but that language metrically arranged. The works that have been thought exceptions to this usage are very few; so much so, that perhaps there is no instance of note, except the Télémaque. There is a whole army of prose translations of poetical works, which some have said must at all events be considered poetry; but the same reasoning would convert an engraving of the Venus de Medicis into a piece of statuary. If then poetry does include metre, this work is not poetry; but as it has every other constituent of poetry but metre, it is rather nearer to it than it is to prose. If ever there should be works enough of the same class to require it, this style will perhaps receive a separate name; till then it may be ranked by courtesy with verse. It is a more important question, whether the author was judicious in choosing this style, by whatever name it may be called. Johnson, though he disliked blank verse, said that he could not have wished Milton to have written in rhyme, for he should be sorry to see the Paradise Lost differ from what it is: but we freely confess that we think the effect of the Martyrs would have been greater, if its fine descriptions and poetical thoughts had been dressed in the garb of verse,

On the whole, we have perused the Martyrs with pleasure; and can recommend it with confidenee to such persons as have a tincture of classical learning: without which it cannot be relished. It will probably never be very extensively read; but that is no certain proof that it is not good. Milton is a greater poet than Scott, though the latter has vastly more readers; and neither are inferior in genius to Bunyan, who has had ten times as many readers as either:-A translation of the Martyrs has recently appeared at New York; but we earnestly advise all, that have it in their power, to peruse the original.

ARTICLE 4.

Essays on the nature and principles of Taste. From the Edinburgh edition of 1811. By Archibald Alison, LL.B. Prebendary of Sarum, &c. 8vo. pp. 434. Boston, Cummings & Hilliard, 1812.

THERE are few subjects on which so much has been written that seem to be less understood, than the nature, the principles, and the objects of taste. There has been much fine writing concerning them, and much loose statement and inaccurate reasoning. There have been some metaphysical speculations, which have had every quality of poetry, except that of being entertaining; and some poetry and eloquence, which have borrowed little from metaphysics except its obscurity. Indeed the first advance into the subject may plunge an inquirer into uncertainty and doubt; for on the question, what taste is, writers have been as little agreed, as upon any other. Instead of its being considered (as seems to us correct) a faculty of justly estimating beauty and deformity in the works of nature and of art, as a mere modification of judgment, some writers have defined it, a capacity of receiving pleasure and pain from these qualities. Into this mistake indeed, one is very naturally led by the ambiguous expression, the pleasures of taste, an expression of which we shall hereafter state what we consider to be the meaning. Of the origin of these pleasures opinions have been