serviceable to his friend. What were Mr Hole's other contributions, I have now no means of ascertaining; but, at no great distance of time, he engaged in another review, where he presided for many years in the poetical department with great spirit and ability. To point out the articles which he contributed, and to discriminate their peculiar merit, is scarcely at this time in my power, and would certainly extend this sketch too far, were it attempted. We must return to the hymn and the translation.

Whether the hymn to Ceres be the work of Homer, or of a later author, is a question not yet decided, and which, at least, makes no part of our present subject. It was found in the same volume with the other poems of the immortal bard; is of high antiquity, and of peculiar simplicity and beauty. It is the legendary tale of Ceres wandering in pursuit of Proserpine; and though not a hymn, according to our ideas, is such when compared with other poems of antiquity, announced and quoted by the same title. The translation was executed very rapidly, but it betrays few marks of taste. The language has an epic dignity; the pauses are judiciously varied; but a faulty rhyme may sometimes be found, and, as perhaps the easier task, we find occasionally a few paraphrases, instead of the simple terseness of the original. The following description of Ceres in her disguise is highly picturesque, and happily finished.

"Beside a path, while o'er her drooping head His grateful shade a verdant olive spread; As by her feet Parthenius' waters flow, She sits, a pallid spectacle of woe. Her faded cheeks no more with beauty bloomed,

But now the form of wrinkled age assumed. She seemed like those whom each attractive

grace

Forsakes, when Time with wrinkles marks

the face;

From whom the Cyprian pow'r indignant flies,

Her gifts refuses, and her charms denies ; Who, in some regal dome, by fate severe, Are doomed to nurse, and serve another's heir."

"Four gentle nymphs, light, moving o'er the plain, Approach; four brazen urns their arms sustain

Great Celeus was their sire-he bade them bring

The limpid water from Parthenius' spring.

ed;

Or the sleek fawn, when he at first perceives Spring's genial warmth, and crops the budding leaves;

Thus joyful through the beaten road they past,

With robes collected to promote their haste.
Their tresses, like the crocus' flamy hue,
In waving radiance round their shoulders
flew."

The notes are short and explana

tory. Mr Hole points out many apparent defects in the copy, and particularly in that part where the lines quoted by the scholiast on Nicander would probably have appeared. Not finding these lines in the present poem, has furnished some critics with an argument, that this is not the hymn originally attributed to Homer. Mr Hole possessed sufficient merit to enable me, without injury to his fame, to add, that the very elegant emendation of raga for was suggested by archdeacon Moore, and the note on the Eleusinian Mysteries in part furnished by Mr Badcock. Seven years elapsed before Mr Hole appeared again as an author, in his own name. In this interval, however, he was not wholly idle. In the year 1782, Mr Badcock was engaged as an occasional contributor to the London Magazine, a very early rival of the Gentleman's, which for a time shared with it the public favour and encouragement. It had, however, been gradually sinking in both, when to raise this publication to its former Mr Badcock's abilities were expected rank. Major Drewe and Mr Hole promised their aid; and the former was a very liberal and lively coadjutor. A paper called The Link-boy was begun with some spirit, and a welldrawn character, the member of a supposed club, if I remember rightly, was communicated by our friend-a little Jeu d'Esprit on the recovery of a young attorney, of little practice, from a dangerous indisposition, we shall transcribe from this collection.

It is signed H. O. our friend's usual signature:

"On his sick-bed as Simple lay,

A novice in the laws,
The hapless youth was heard to say,
How cruel to be snatched away

And die without a cause.
Jove wondering hears; his gracious nod
The youth from death reprieves;
Yet, with submission to the god,
His cause is still extremely odd,
Without a cause he lives.

The principal and most important part of Mr Hole's communications, consisted of a series of dialogues between ideal personages. The beings who "hold converse sweet" had " a name" only without "local habitaa tion," or indeed an existence but in the eye of poetic phrenzy or superstitious ignorance. Yet, as having affixed characters, these may be, at least, supported in a dialogue, and become a vehicle for remarks of dif ferent kinds-the characters introduced are Belcour and Serjeant Kite, the Serpent of Regulus and the Dragon of St George, Mr Shandy, senior, and Matthew Bramble; Don Quixote, Sancho Panza, and Parson Adams. There are some others of which I cannot ascertain the titles, but they may be perhaps found among his manuscripts, which are yet untouched, The conclusion, which contains a slight defence of the plan, I have happily recovered, and shall add a short extract from it:

"If the locality of abode, and reality of those dialogists should be enquired after, and lest any of my readers should suspect that they never had, or deny that they now have, any kind of existence, (for some malicious critics will suspect every thing, and say any thing) I do upon the honour of a gentleman and an author, most seriously assert, that this race of beings possesses the same kind of existence, and inhabits the sensorium of thousands, in the same manner as Pompey, Cæsar, or the greatest heroes of antiquity; and I defy Priestley himself to prove the contrary. The idea of Parson Adams is as much an inmate of the mind as of Alexander the Great, and may, for aught I know, go hand in hand with him to the latest posterity. His unaccomplished journey to London, and his Judicrous adventures on the road, maintain there as firm a possession as the hero's battles and heroic progress through Asia; and his hat, which had every colour but the original one, is as much remembered, and possessed of the same reality, as the eagle-plumed helmet, which the

latter wore at the river Granicus. I cannot conclude without expressing the satisfaction that glows within my breast, at thus finding out, and exhibiting to the world what a wonderful piece of thoughtism, as well as mechanism, man is. Let the phraze animated nature be appropriated to him alone, he may contain continents of animacula; his mind may be peopled with inhabitants ad infinitum, as they cannot crowd one another in regard to space. It might be mathematically demonstrated, that myriads may be contained in less than a needie's point; but I hate an ostentatious display of erudition. I leave it to future Priestleys to reduce them to materialism, and future thinkers to dissect them if they can."

The idea of conveying critical or satirical remarks, by dialogues between imaginary characters, was too happy to be overlooked, and some imitations of inferior execution appeared. There were two, however, which merit an exception; the author's of a dialogue between the Theseus of Corneille, and the Hamlet of Shakspeare; and of one between Clarissa The Harlowe and Sophy Western. former was published, but the latter, the production of a lady of peculiar delicacy and distinguished abilities, was, I believe, never sent to the collection for which it was originally designed.-Other communications from our friend to this work, but of no particular importance or value, I could point out. They were humorous descriptions of the follies of the day, and satirical hits in his grave or ironical style. To conclude his monthly connexions, we may just mention the British Magazine, a more recent attempt, which owes some valuable communications to his pen; and the Gentleman's Magazine, to which he was a long but not a very frequent contributor.

In 1789, "Arthur, or the Northern Enchantment," which Mr Hole calls a poetical romance, appeared. This is a poem from the School of Ariosto, and probably begun in his more ardent, youthful days.-He declares it to be an imitation of the old Metrical Romance, with some of its harsher features softened and modified.-It is, indeed, too desultory to be considered as a regular epic, and too well connected, as well as too important in its action, to deserve the humbler title of a romance. The events and manners of the actors most

nearly resemble those of the Italian school, while the correcter imagery, and the uniform loftiness of the style, shew the author to be no mean proficient in that of Homer. The fable is artfully involved, and the catastrophe developed with peculiar skill. The third book, which relates the landing of Arthur in Solway Frith, is particularly interesting. It is full of romantic incidents; spells, prodigies, and enchantments attend us in every step; and it is more extravagantly, perhaps more pleasingly wild than any other part of the poem; yet few of the incidents appear to be new. We shall select two specimens; one of horror, another descriptive of elegance and beauty:

"Their voices well the British hero knew, And in his eyes swell'd pity's pearly dew. Their chains unbound, he led them to the light,

But ah! what horrid objects met his sight! Their hair, like elf-locks round their shoulders clung,

Each limb was weakened, every nerve un

strung.

Pale meagre famine sate in either faceExtinct the manly form, and martial grace. In hollow sockets dimly rolled their eyes, Their lab'ring bosoms heaved with frequent sighs

With staggering steps they totter o'er the ground,

And gain at length their prisons utmost bound;

Then dropping on the verdant turf, inhale The long-lost sweetness of the fresh'ning gale."

"Oft as beneath their shade deep musing strayed

At night, or dewy eve, the British maid, When the bright moon adorned Heaven's spangled plain,

Before her sight arose the fairy train, In white plum'd helms, and vests of splendid hue, Cloud-formed, and deck'd with quivering gems of dew.

And while, to crown the revels of the night, Obedient glow-worms lend their living light, Their sweet-tuned lyres the little minstrels

mer productions; the language is more bold and energetic, the lines less monotonous; the measure more varied in its pauses; yet the minuter critic has discovered, that the variety is sometimes carried too far; and that the attempt to avoid an uniformity of cadence, too often interrupts the harmonious flow of the verse.-The periods it has been also said, sometimes run over a couplet into the third line. It may be admitted also, for our friend was not ashamed of confessing it, that the verses were not polished with the care which distinguished the version of Fingal; that the lines are not always sufficiently energetic, or the rhyme faultless. The lines which relate to "liberty" are highly animated and poetical. The poet is peculiarly happy in styling gray-hairs the "Wreath of honoured age," and the following line, in the description of the introduction of christianity from the north, is truly sublime: "And Sion's sacred song burst from the Celtic lyre."

The notes display copious and exmythology, and were, I believe, wholtensive knowledge of the Scandinavian ly his own, without any assistance whatever. The Celtic and Gothic customs are carefully and ably discriminated, though so often confounded by authors even of distinguished reputation.

In a collection of miscellaneous

poetry, by gentlemen of Devon and Cornwall, the communications of Mr Hole The tomb of Gunnar, imitated from an are exclusively lyric. ancient Islandic fragment, preserved by Bartholine, is the first; the Ode prefixed to Fingal; Odes to Melancholy; Terror and Stupidity, follow in order:

We must revert to the institution of this society in the year 1792. In its first outline, the number of members twelve. Mr Hole was one of the "muses" was nine only, afterwards increased to of the first institution, and I need not recall to your recollection the various modes in which he has repeatedly entertained and instructed us. Sindbad, Shylock, and Iago, are well known; dern dress of the Exmoor scolding, but the voyages of Ulysses, the mowith various slight occasional communications, in the style of dry humour, in which he peculiarly excelled, must rise to the recollection of every one