they threaten agitation to effect a repeal of the legislative union— if they are gratified, they will be placed in a condition_eminently calculated to render the project for repeal successful. In point of expediency, is it better to give them power, or to encounter what would be now their (comparatively) impotent agitation? In point of expediency, would it be better to encourage and strengthen the Roman Catholic party by continued concession, or to make a stand against violence, and expose to the honourable and uninformed members of the party the real character of the Church they countenance and strengthen? And, in point of expediency, is it better to abandon a million and a half, or perhaps two millions of Protestants, tried friends of England, to persecution which must waste or change them, or to give them the protection which in the year 1799 we solemnly promised?

But we have done with questions, and conclude with a counsel from a speech which we have already quoted—

Again it is asked, "Will the Catholics be content with a limited franchise?" But I say, it is not what will content them, but what ought to content them, that we ought to consider. I am willing to give them everything, except what will terminate in our own destruction. In some things I would even go farther than the bill, though in the franchise I would not go so far. The misfortune is, that the right honourable gentleman who has negociated it does not understand the internal state of the country, and is ignorant of its interests.'

This was the advice of Sir Laurence Parsons. We wish the truth of his prediction, the wisdom of his warning, so painfully confirmed, could ensure its adoption.

ART. V.-1. Winchester, and a few other Compositions, in Prose and Verse. By the Rev. Charles Townsend, Winchester. 4to. 1835.

2. Epistle to the Right Honourable John Hookham Frere in Malta. By William Stewart Rose. Brighton. 8vo. 1834. THE

HE circulation of Mr. Townsend's Miscellanies has, we believe, been hitherto confined to Winchester and his own intimates: Mr. Rose's Epistle to Mr. Frere has been only privately printed; but we are happy in being allowed to consider it as publici juris, both because we regard it as among the best of his compositions, and because Mr. Townsend may be said to be its hero. Few persons of literary taste, who have had occasion to visit Brighton of late years, can have failed to hear something of that gentleman: there is, we believe, no settled inhabitant of that neighbourhood who will not acknowledge the discriminating

accuracy

accuracy of his friend's description of him; and so well do the Miscellanies of 1835 illustrate and confirm the Epistle of 1834, that we are glad of this opportunity to place them together, as the materials of one complete and charming portraiture.

We heartily wish Mr. Rose would write many such rhyming letters as this to Mr. Frere. It is very lightly and elegantly versified; its transitions are at once easy and rapid; and with much knowledge of society, and playful sarcasm on its follies, there are mixed up a thorough candour and good sense, and here and there such a vein of true feeling for the beauties of external nature, that, on the whole, our moral and critical tastes have been equally gratified in the perusal. It is delightful to find the poet surviving to grace the retirement, and mellow the retrospect, of the man of the world. The Epistle opens thus:

That bound like bold Prometheus on a rock, O
Self-banished man, you reek in a Scirocco,
Save when a Maëstrale makes you shiver,

While worse than vulture pecks and pines your liver;-
Where neither lake nor river glads the eye

Seared with the glare of "hot and copper sky;"

Where dwindled tree o'ershadows withered sward,

Where green blade grows not; where the ground is charred :-
Where, if from withered turf and dwindled tree

You turn to look upon a summer sea,
And Speronaro's sail of snowy hue,

Whitening and brightening on that field of blue;
Or eye the palace, rich in tapestried hall,
The Moorish window and the massive wall;
Or mark the many loitering in its shade,
In many-coloured garb and guise arraid;
Long-haired Sclavonian skipper, with the red
And scanty cap, which ill protects his head;
White-kilted Suliot, gay and gilded Greek,

Grave, turbanned Turk, and Moor of swarthy cheek ;—
Or sainted John's contiguous pile explore,
Gemmed altar, gilded beam, and gorgeous floor,
Where you imblazoned in mosaic see

The symbols of a monkish chivalry;

The vaulted roof, impervious to the bomb,

The votive tablet, and the victor's tomb,

Where vanquished Moslem, captive to his sword,
Upholds the trophies of his conquering lord ;-
Where if, while clouds from hallowed censers ream,
You muse, and fall into a mid-day dream,
And hear the pealing chaunt, and sacring bell,
'Mid the drum's larum and the burst of shell,
Short time to mark those many sights which I
Have sung, short time to dream of days gone-by,

Forced

Forced alms must purchase from a greedy crowd,
Of lazy beggars, filthy, fierce, and loud,

Who landing-place, street, stair, and temple crowd :-
Where on the sultry wind for ever swells
The thunder of ten thousand tuneless bells,
While priestly drones in hourly pageant pass,
Hived in their several cells by sound of brass;-
Where merry England's merriest month looks sorry,
And your waste island seems but one wide quarry ;—

I muse-and think you might prefer my town,

Its pensile pier, dry beach, and breezy down.'-Rose, pp. 1-3. A description of a ride by the Devil's Dyke introduces to Mr. Frere the usual companion of Mr. Rose's rambles on the Brighton downs-the same to whom he once sent, by post, a letter, with this epigraph

'The Reverend Charles Townsend, (best on

The list of Sussex parsons,) PRESTON.'

These breezy downs,' with their endless variety of sea-view and land view, constitute the great charm of a residence at Brighton; but no visitant can have forgotten the delightful contrast afforded, on descending from their heights to the rich soft pastures, the ancient groves, and the modest little hamlet of Preston. All this Mr. Rose paints with a truth and lightness of touch which recalls the better day of English rhyme.

Upon this rumpled bed of thyme and turf

I loiter, listening to the rumbling surf;

Or idly mark the shadows as they fly,

While green Earth maps the changes of the sky;
When, at the passing of the summer cloud,
The frighted wheatear runs in haste, to shroud
Its body in some sheltering hole; and there
(Poor fool!) is prisoned in the fowler's snare.
So may not I-to moralize my verse-
Shun paltry perils, and encounter worse!
Here, gladdened by pure air and savour sweet
Of wild herb crushed beneath my pony's feet,
I rove, when, warmed by softer wind and shower,
They show their little blue or crimsoned flower.
Here, when the sun is low, and air is still,
And silence is upon the sea and hill,
Well pleased I view the rampant lambs unite
To race, or match themselves in mimic fight,
Or through the prickly furze adventurous roam;
Till by the milky mothers summoned home,
They quit their game, and ply their nimble feet,
In quick obedience to the peevish bleat.

• Here

'Here oft, descending through a double swell,
I dive into a little wooded dell,

Embosoming a hamlet, church and yard,
Whose graves, except some few of more regard
(Where wood a record of the dead preserves,
Or harder stone) are ridged with humble turves.
O'ergrown with greenwood is THE CURATE's rest;
So screened, it might be called the parson's nest.
The chancel of the church in ochry stain
Shows Becket's death, before the altar slain:
And here, in red and yellow lines we trace,
As in Greek fictile vase, an odd, wild grace;
Though in the knightly murderers' mail we read
The painter's toil coeval with the deed *.
Much joys THE CURATE to have first displaid
This rude design, with roughcast overlaid.
Simple are all his joys; books, garden, spaniel!
Yet lions he for Truth would dare like Daniel.
Keen in the cause of altar and of throne,
My peerless parson, careless in his own,
Says in his heart, (what poets do but sing)
"That a glad poverty's an honest thing.
Dear is his dog, whom mouth of darkest dye
Makes dearer in a tory master's eye.
Such is the pair: I to the man demur
But on one point; which is, he calls me Sir.
This priest and beast oft join me, where no harrow
Has raked the ground, by bottom, hill or barrow;
Or, since new path and place new pleasure yield,
We rove by sheep-walk wide, and open field,
Where the red poppy and pale wheaten spike
Are mingled, to that ridge miscalled the dyke,
Deemed by our clowns a labour of the devil;
A height whose frowning brow o'erhangs a level,
Where the glad eye field, farm, and forest sees,
And grey smoke curling through the greenwood trees:
Or measures coast which fronts the middle day,
Walled with white cliffs that rise from beach, by bay
And bight indented, with arms opening wide,
As if to woo or welcome back the tide.

Here busy boats are seen: some overhawl

Their loaded nets: some shoot the lightened trawl ;
And while their drags the slimy bottom sweep,
Stealthily o'er the face o' the waters creep:

*Though plate-armour had soon after that event been introduced, we do not find any admixture of it-not even in the helmets of the assassins-while we may conclude from their rank and station that they would have adopted it if already

used.'

While some make sail; and singly or together,
Furrow the sea with merry wind and weather.

'I love smooth water and blue sky; vext sea,
Loud wind, and scowling heaven, delight not me,
In spite of painter's and of poet's spell;
Yea, his who gilds a selfish thought so well:
Who says that, "looking from the land, 'tis sweet
To view the labouring barque by billows beat;
Not that we're pleased by others' pain; but see
With pleasure ills from which ourselves are free."
My gallant friend and I need no such measure

Wherewith to guage a doubtful good or pleasure.'-Rose, p. 7. The evening scene is not unworthy of the morning one. We are sorry to omit some fine lines on Mr. Frere's literary character which the passage introduces-but must adhere to the Brighton friends.

'Often this ready friend with whom I roam,
-Our morning ramble done-escorts me home;
And sometimes (would I oftener were his host!)
Partakes of my rice-pottage and my roast:
When rambling table-talk, not tuned to one key,

Runs on chace, race, horse, mare; fair, bear, and monkey;
Or shifts from fields and pheasants, fens and snipes,
To the wise Samian's* world of anti-types:
And, when my friend's in his Platonic lunes,
Although I lose his words, I like his tunes;
And sometimes think I must have ass's ears,
Who cannot learn the music of the spheres.
But oft we pass to Epicurean theme,
Waking from mystic Plato's morning dream;
And prosing o'er some Greek or Gascon wine,
Praise the rich vintage of the Rhone and Rhine;
Gay Garonne's growth: the liquid ruby, Tavel;
The juice of paler grape which loves the gravel; t
Or that which runs in purer stream, which gushed
From clusters richer, riper, and uncrushed; ‡
Or what the Florentine's light flagon fills,
Cheap but choice produce of Etrurian hills;
Which warmed him with the lyric fire of Flaccus,
That tells the praises of the Tuscan Bacchus ;

Whose godhead, while the gadding vine shall climb
Those sunny hills, will live in Redi's rhyme.

'Yet that old saw, great talkers do the least,
Is proved in me and in my sober priest;

*Pythagoras.'

Vin de grave, or gravel wine.'

Vin de paille, so called from the juice of which it is made running spontaneously from grapes laid upon hurdles and straw.'

Who