THE UNIVERSE, A POEM. BY THE REV. C. R. MATURIN. We do not believe that this poem will add much to the reputation of the celebrated author of Bertram, butasits tone of reflection is philanthropic and elevated, and as it possesses some passages of merit, we give some quotations from it, a place among our leading articles. We own that the subject strikes us as too vast and vague to be a happy one. The Universe! What a trackless theme for the imagination; absorbing the mind at once in ideas of infinity and abstraction; prescribing no visible boundaries, either of beginning or end, to the poet's course; and leaving his planless and fortuitous progress without the power of exciting curiosity or anticipation. To two out of the three books of this poem, Mr. Maturin prefixes an analysis of his topics. In the third, he leaves the clue of his contemplations to be discovered by the reader's own sagacity. The first part opens with an address to nature :--- “Nature-Ethereal essence, fire divine, ། ་་།།་ . 1 Brief pensioners of Spring, that deck Earth's wilds-buk ་་ In manifold radiance, Earth's primeval spring. From flower-zon'd mountains, wav'd their odorous wings Serene above all creatures--breathing soul- J then, Of those sweet thoughts, that with life's earliest breath, // To watch the times and seasons, and preserve The circling maze, exact. Pure minister 7 יד After descanting on the inscrutable nature of the divine Author of the Universe, the poet, contrasts the magnitude and durability of his works with the narrowness and uncertainty of human designs : "All that is human fleeteth-nought endures, " This truth has been so often endited, both in prose and poetry, that it now begins to lose the gloss of novelty. Bowzebeus* himself could sing how "the corn now grows where Troy town stood," and we have been so often assured of Babylon, Memphis, and Tadmor being now little better than piles of rubbish, and of the generations that inhabited them having passed away like the beings of a dream, that it baffles all ordinary powers of verse to give an air of originality to the fact. We remember a Presbyterian preacher, who enlivened this solemn truism by a rhetorical hypothesis peculiar to the Calvinistic pulpit-Where," said he, "my friends," (astonishing the audience by an unexpected display of his erudition), "where are all your "great men of antiquity--your Hectors, and your Homers, and Alexanders, and where is Pontius Pilate, and Epicurus the great "stoic, and all your Greek and Roman heathens? They are all dead, my friends, and what is worse, I am afraid they are all "damned." 66 66 Amidst a good deal of common-place matter, however, we were struck by the beauty and spirit of the following description of Pompeii "Thus deep, beneath Earth's bosom, and the mansions of the graves Such of late, From its long sleep of darkness disinterr'd, Pompeii, with its low and buried roofs, Rose dark upon the miner's progress, like Where living Men were buried!-Tyrant Death ! In Gay's Pastorals. How didst thou triumph then!-thou us'd'st to steal Or take thine open and determinate stand In battle's ranks; with Danger at thy side e But there thy spectral visage darken'd forth, From its invisible ambush! There-it found With action and contrivance, through the streets Of bustle and magnificence,--and all Life's thousands were abroad, and the high sounds But louder rose the terrible voice of ruin Over their mirth," BE STILL" and all was hush'd! Of agitated Nature ;--and beneath, Ten thousand victims turn'd to die:- Bright sunbeams lit the plain-a nameless tomb!" In the second part the poet apostrophizes the morning-star, and fondly dreaming that it is a world of unprophaned luxuriance, makes a natural transition to the possible amelioration and happiness of the beings who inhabit our own planet:→→→→ "Star of the brightening East!-Thyself most bright,- Shedd'st thy lone love-beams down!-'Tis sweet to think Tired of my woes, I mount upon the wing-bo To seek forgetfulness of storms that rend A turbulent and transitory world!" "For in that blessed noon of time, the world -or man's. Then, from their tombs of time restored, shall they From Ganges westward to the Nile: Then, proud, "Till then to sleep in fate!--Nor far from these, Sung to its wizard lyre,-metropolis And palace of Almansor shall be seen, Hold commerce with all earth! For then shall be A highway through all nations, and a bond Re-echoed with glad notes; for in that time V1 But with its silver mounting lay sublime, We take leave of Mr. Maturin, wishing to see his agreeable genius exercised on wieldier subjects than the Universe, and objecting to that theme, to borrow two of his own expressions, "most chiefly" on account of its "vastitude." IT PARRY'S EXPEDITION.* IN proportion to the disappointment which the public felt, with respect to the comparative failure of Captain Ross's expedition, in 1818, for the purpose of discovering a North-west Passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific, have been the fresh hopes excited by Captain Parry's appointment to a similar destination. It was reasonably enough to be expected that the lights, feeble as they were, which Captain Ross had thrown upon the track prescribed, as far as he had proceeded on it, would at least teach his followers what to avoid; and in the same manner it was hoped, that all the errors of judgment manifested by one party, would tend to the sharpening of it in another. The Admiralty sufficiently shewed how well satisfied it was with the conduct of Lieutenant Parry, whilst he was with Captain Ross, by appointing him to the command of the Hecla, for the further prosecution of those important enquiries, in which for nearly three centuries all the maritime nations of Europe have been deeply interested. In consideration of the lively interest felt in all ranks of society who have been enabled to hear of this second Expedition, for the success and welfare of the individuals who composed it, we hasten to lay before our readers a detail of their proceedings, as far as the general interests which they set out to promote may be considered to have been served. In this "brief chronicle and abstract," however, we must premise, that we give a biographical, if we may so term it, rather than a scientific sketch of their proceedings want of room obliging us to forego any account of the experiments and observations made during the voyage, and which are in themselves important enough to form the subject of a separate and most interesting article. THE Hecla, Captain Parry, accompanied by the gun-brig Griper, commanded by Lieutenant Matthew Liddon, under the orders of Journal of a Voyage for the Discovery of a North-west Passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific; perforined in the years 1819-20, in his Majesty's ships Hecla and Griper, under the orders of William Edward Parry, k. N. F. R. S. |