The black-bird and the fpeckled thrush,
Good-morrow gave from brake and bush;
In anfwer cooed the cufhat dove,

Her notes of peace, and rest, and love." P. 98.

But, with all this command of the verification he has chofen, the poet seems to have felt that it might want variety; for this reafon apparently it is, that he has begun each canto with a stanza or two of alternate rhyme in longer measure, and throughout the whole poem has fcattered lyric pieces, fome of them mere ballads, the chief advantage of which, in many inftances at least, is the effect of breaking the uniformity of cadence, which might otherwife hang heavy in fo long a narration. Some of them, undoubtedly, but for this confideration, might as well be abfent; though others have much beauty. From the whole contrivance arrives a fpecies of tale, which if it be not eafily arranged under any known clafs, has only the greater air of originality; and poffeffes eminently the qualities of fixing the attention, exciting curiofity, and repaying both, by pleafing images and fplendid pictures,

The tale is in itself extremely interefting, more fo perhaps than that of either of the author's former poems. But it poffeffes allo the powerful charm of painting real manners; and dif playing the character of an interefting because fingular people. The clan-fhip of the Highlands, the adherence of the people to their chiefs, the mode of calling them to arms, and other circumftances of their warfare, are all fo peculiar and fo remote from polifhed life, that they excite the frongeit cu riofity, when reprefented, as we have reafon to fuppofe, with truth as well as livelinefs. The following picture of the kind of ambush in which the Highland warriors could lie, among their mountains, is among the moft fingular and ftriking that poetry has ever sketched, The chief calls up five hundred warriors by a fingle signal, who appear, and then as fuddenly are loft again.

"Have then thy wish.' He whistled fhrill,
And he was anfwer'd from the hill;
Wild as the fcream of the curlieu *,
From crag to crag the fignal flew,
Inftant through copfe and heath arofe
Bonnets and fpears, and bended bows;
On right, on left, above, below,
Sprung up at once the lurking foe;

* Why not curlew? Rev.

From

r.

From fhingles grey their lances fstart,
The bracken-bush + fends forth the dart,
The rushes, and the willow-wand
Are brifling into axe and brand,
And every tuft of broom gives life
To plaided warrior armed for ftrife,
The whiftle garrifon'd the glen
At once with full five hundred men,
As if the yawning hill to heaven
A fubterranean hoft had given.
Watching their leader's beck and will
All filent there they ftood, and ftill;
Like the loofe crags, whofe threatening mafs
Lay tottering o'er the hollow pafs,
As if an infant's touch could urge
Their headlong paffage down the verge,
With ftep and weapon forward flung,
Upon the mountain-fide they hung.
The mountaineer caft glance of pride
Along Benledi's living fide,

Then fix'd his eye and fable brow,

Full on Fitz James-" How fay'st thou now?
Thefe are Clan-Alpine's warriors true,

And, Saxon,-I am Roderic Dhu !''

"Fitz James was brave: though to his heart
The life-blood thrilled with fudden start,
He mann'd himself with dauntless air,
Returned the Chief his haughty ftare,
His back against a rock he bore,
And firmly placed his foot before:

Come one, come all! this rock shall fly
From its firm bafe as foon as I.'
Sir Roderick marked-and in his eyes,
Refpect was mingled with furprife,
And the stern joy which warriors feel
In foeman worthy of their fte 1
Short fpace he ftood-then waved his hand;
Down funk the difappearing band;
Each warrior vanifhed where he flood,
In broom or bracken, heath or wood;
Sunk brand, and fpear, and bended bow,
In offers pale and copfes low;
It feem'd as if their mother earth
Had fwallow'd up her warlike birth.
The winds last breath had tossed in air
Pennon, and plaid and plumage fair,.
The next but fwept a lone hill-fide,
Where heath and fern were waying wide:

Fern. Rev.

A

Tho

The fun's last glance was glinted back,
From lance, and glaive, from targe, and jack,-
The next, all unreflected, thone

On bracken green, and cold grey tone." P.

202.

The tale is placed in the reign of James V. of Scotland, [1513-1542] a period when clanfhip was in its utmofl vigour, and when the principal events of it, if not hiftorically true, are yet in general confiftent with probability. We fay, in general, for in a few inftances the author has thought fit to venture on the preternatural, a licence which we will not difpute with him; but which certainly deftroys probability, and fo far injures the effect. In his language Mr. S. takes the liberty of interfperfing not only antiquated but Scottish terms, and fome of thefe without interpretation. In the above extract, bracken means fern, and had been explained; but glinted can only be conjectured from the context to mean glanced. Nor is it a common Scottish word, fince it is not noticed in the copious and excellent dictionary of Dr. Jamiefon t,

The characters of the poem are few, but they are truly interefting, particularly the Lady of the Lake herfelf; and the denouement of the tale was to us unexpected, though not unlike others that have been told. But this is furely conducted with fkill. Of the narrative the characteristics are gene, al cafe, and occafional vigour; and the fentiments introduced arife naturally from the incidents. The following is particularly beautiful.

"Some feelings are to mortals given,
With lefs of earth in them than heaven;
And if there be a human tear

From paffion's drofs refined and clear ;
A tear fo limpid and fo meek,

It would not ftain an angel's cheek;
'Tis that which pious fathers thed

Upon a dateous daughter's head." P. 73.1

In the concluding lines, after the tale is finifhed, Mr. S. feems to anticipate fomething of that cauftic criticisin which

So brakes in English.

The au.

Several other words of this kind are not explained. thor feems to think, and perhaps not without reafon, that they have been very extensively made known by his former Poems. But he should remember that knowledge fo picked up in accidental fcraps is cafily loft again, and that many memories are naturally

fhort.

is but too indifcriminately beftowed by the fashion of the pres fent day; a fafhion which he, as is reported, contributed to introduce; but he fupports himself by reflecting like a true poet, on the confolations he has often received from the Mufe.

"Yet, once again, farewell, thou Minstrel Harp!

Yet once again forgive my feeble fway,
And little reck I of the cenfure fharp,

May idly cavil at an idle lay.

Much have low'd thy ftrains on life's long way,
Through fecret woes the world has never known,
When on the weari'd nights dawned wearier day,
And bitterer was the grief devoured alone,

That I o'er live fuch woes, Enchantrefs! is thine own." Far be it from us to interrupt the confolations of the poet! and though we certainly could with that he would not always be quite fo much of the Minstrel, but would rife to fome higher and more regular ftrains of poetry, yet while he throws fo much of intereft and fo much of genius into the compofitions, which he apparently pours forth with extreme facility, we hall not with to ftand among his cenfurers, however small the credit may be which is attached to candid commendation:

ART. IV. The Eloquence of the British Senate; being a SeLetion of the beft Speeches of the most diftinguished Parliamentary Speakers, from the beginning of the Reign of Charles I. to the prefent Time, &c. By William Hazlitt. 2 vols. Svo. Murray. 1808.

T has not unfrequently been made a fubject of complaint, that the art of eloquence is now found in far lefs perfection than it exifted during the claffical ages of Greece and Rome: that the vigour of Demofthenes, and perfuafive elegance of Cicero, are no longer to be found either at the bar or in the fenate; and that no modern orator, however eminently he may have fhone above his cotemporaries, can come off with honour, when his compofitions are brought into comparifon with the productions of the most illuflrious competitors for rhetorical excellence among the ancients. Without denying that there is fome truth in this generally prevalent opinion, we may fill be allowed to affert that it is carried too far; and

The notes fubjoined to the poem are fufficiently illustrative both of the fictions and of the manners introduced, and are as ufual ·· written with fpirit.

that although our modern orators are, on the whole, inferior, to the ancient, in the graces and refinements of public speaking, they occafionally excel them in other qualities, which are fcarcely lefs effential to a perfe&t oration.

The orations of Demofthenes and Cicero, and of their ri vals for oratorial fame in Athens and in Rome, were addreff. ed to numerous and popular affemblies, whofe fuffrage they were intended to gain, and whofe conduct they were intended to direct. This is true not only of thofe orations which the ancients called deliberative, and which correfponded to our eloquence of the fenate; but applies alfo to the judicial orations, or those which were intended to influence the decifion of judges in the punishment of crimes, correfponding to our eloquence of the bar. The renowned tribunal of the Areopagus at Athens confifted fometimes of fifty judges. When Socrates was condemned to death, in the Court of Heliæa, no fewer than 280 perfons voted against him. In Rome, the Prætor, who was the proper judge, both in civil and criminal causes, named, for every caufe of moment, the Judices feletti, who were always numerous, and had the office both of judge and jury. Hence the eloquence of the fenate and of the bar had no difcriminating character among the ancients; they were always practifed by the fame perfons, were conducted upon fimilar principles, and admitted of like embellishments. Hence too the popular character of ancient public fpeaking, which, to be fuccefsful, had to addrefs the paffions as well as the reason of the auditors, and found it neceffary to engage the fancy, in order to govern the opinions of those to whom it was addreffed.

In modern times, the public fpeaker muft of neceffity alsume a feverer and more logical tyle of oratory. At the bar, it would be now altogether prepofterous to think of influencing the judges, or even the members of a jury, by thofe arts which Cicero and his cotemporaries employed with great fuccefs; fuch as the fhedding tears, or introducing the aceused person clothed in mourning; or his wife, or family. endeavouring to excite commiferation by groans and lamentations. A modern barrifter, as Doctor Blair justly remarks, who fhould adopt fuch expedients, or fhould even attempt to imitate Cicero in his exaggeration and amplifications, or in his diffuse and pompous declamation, would now make himself almost as ridiculous, as if he fhould appear at the bar, dreffed in a Roman toga.

Even in the cafe of modern deliberative eloquence, it is the reason, rather than the paffions or imagination that must be addressed; for though a Houfe of Commons or a House of

Lords