England will soon be worthy of figuring in the British constitution.' We feel all the weight of this compliment from this benevolent and very intelligent stranger; and may these and all such auspicious prophecies be verified!

We have, indeed, many reasons for believing that the late discussions in Parliament produced a very general sensation; and that several intelligent and benevolent persons have taken a great interest in the present subject, and are desirous that the investigation of it should be prosecuted. We hope that this valuable class is not small, and that those who rank under it are to be found in every part of the kingdom. To them we recommend the most sedulous attention to the grave questions which are involved in that discussion, and the careful study of the volume before us. We address ourselves to those persons whose primary wish is for the well-being of the society which they uphold and adorn. The recent increase of crimes presses the subject on their consideration, and strongly corroborates the proofs in argument which demonstrate the imperfection of the present system. Let wisdom, virtue, and independence, in respectable private stations, assume this direction, and we shall expect the fulfil ment of M. Dumont's cheering prediction which we have just transcribed.

We intend to conclude our view of this publication in our next number.

[To be continued.]

ART. VII. The Tyrolese Villagers; or a Prospect of War. An Epistolary Tale. With other Poems. By T. Robinson, Esq. late of Seaford, Sussex. Crown 8vo. 6s. Boards. Pannier,

&c.

WE

WE were led to imagine, from the title-page, and other equivocal marks about this volume, that Thomas Robinson, Esq., late of Seaford in Sussex, had been "gathered to the tomb of his fathers ;" and our sympathies were strongly excited in favour of the unfortunate defunct, whose executors would not permit him to rest in quiet, but had unwarrantably raked together the literary follies of his life in order to asperse his memory. Under this impression, we had nearly finished a critique "more in pity than in anger," when an advertisement at the head of a long list of errata attracted our attention; and we discovered that the said Esquire was not only alive, but the father of a young and numerous family. Persons less inclined to charity than ourselves might have considered this partial show

12

show of death* as a kind of ruse de guerre to disarm criticism of its severity by awakening its compassion: but we now feel convinced that it was wholly unintentional, and originated in that confusion of ideas and that vagueness of expression, which render the poetry of this gentleman equally obscure and doubtful in its construction.

The volume is miscellaneous; containing one epistolary tale; three tales not epistolary; three ballads; five odes, translated, most miserably, from Horace; one epitaphium; and a dozen verses to a portrait-painter. The first tale (from which the volume receives its name) opens with the praises of Charles Verral, Esq. to whom Mr. Robinson, having nothing better to do, as he informs us, than

Sit still, and tag full many a sleepy rhyme,

To fill the dull vacuity of time,'-p. 12.

was accustomed to transmit his sleepy rhymes,' after he had tagged them.' Mr. Verral, as far as we can judge from his friend's account, seems to be a respectable gentleman, resident at the aforesaid town of Seaford, and serving Apollo in the double capacity of poet and apothecary. After very liberal encomiums on this brother Esquire, and on his physic, the author touches on the afflictions of one Damon; and the whole passage really deserves transcription. We particularly invite the attension of our readers to the simile of the gin-barrels:

< Angry, I Damon's hapless fate bemoan,
For candour punish'd, and by truth undone !
Ye pow'rs! why not upon his shoulders place
A head, whose dull nonentity of face,

Whose solemn nods, and speech of grace, and Paul,
Display the godly workings of the soul,

As letter'd butts, outside the shop of gin,
Announce the spirit that is sold within ?”

The elegant writer proceeds in his song for seven or eight pages, chatting about the Ouse, the Wolga, the Garronne, and Boreal climes, and Folly, and Mr. Verral, till he arrives at length

"Where the rough Tyrol spreads its viny plain,

(which we were not aware that this mountainous tract was very apt to do,) and begins his story. A tragical story it is! for, from commencement to end, we hear of nothing but terrors, war, death, marriages, and conflagration. - Allan and Agnes, a newly-wedded pair, dwell contentedly in the Tyrol with the bride's father. The old man

* In the notes, the following remark (p. 97.) occurs: - The author must have meant essence of mustard!' Editor.

• Lived

Liv'd his few years, rejoicing in her doom,

Then found a better Sabbath in the tomb.'

In the next couplet, Agnes (in the language of Douglas and the newspapers) feels herself "as ladies wish to be who love their lords," and is delivered of two sweet boys. The author here kindly allows us four lines of rest and happiness, while he collects his rage for storms and battles, which are delayed no longer than the ensuing distich:

At length, resounding from Italia's shores,

The furies storm, and harsh the battle roars:

Gaul's vet'ran bands, inur'd to deeds of blood,

Cross the rough Rhine,-and-brave the Mantuas flood." We know not where to find a nobler specimen of the bathos, even among our contemporary poets. It is like that sublime passage in the " Propria quæ maribus," in which, after we have been expecting some description of the Tiber, as the king of rivers, Fluviorum Rex, &c.) the line abruptly ends with the mention of another stream

"Fluviorum Tybris!

Orontes,"

The alarm of war is increased by a tempest; and Allan leaves his house to save (if possible) his harvest, which lay fit for the barn,' from the rage of the torrents. Agnes waits at home; -night comes on; — and, as her husband returns not, her terrors momentarily increase. It is midnight when Allan arrives; pale, trembling, and his lips quivering as he urges her to instant flight; the enemy having surrounded the cottage.In spite of Mr. Robinson's prosaic manner of relating the story, we really began to be interested in the fate of Agnes and Allan; when the author broke the bubble, by informing

us,

Alas! how vain! the fatal bullet fed

Swift as ethereal fire, and pierced his head!"

The Catastrophe is even worse than the beginning. The cottage is set on fire; and Agnes, with her two children, takes a flying leap into the flames!-Thus ends by far the best story in the collection. The rest are beneath notice. To judge what the Translations from Horace (which sometimes make a page out of three lines) must be, it is only necessary to learn that Mr. Robinson calls the following trash an Epitaph seldom equalled for pathetic simplicity :'

Elizabetha vale! mea lux, mea vita quosque

[Quousque, we suppose,] “Jungitur in Calis, filia chara, vale!" p. 236.

Of

Of this barbarous nonsense we have more than suspicions that Mr. R. himself is the author; for we conclude, by his subjoined translation, that he fancies he can construe it; and we are convinced that no person but the author could entertain so preposterous an imagination. Yet he professes to have taken it from a Magazine. The old adage of those who hide know where to find," coarse as it may be, is too applicable to be omitted in this place. We see, from the last page of this volume, that Mr. Robinson is on the point of publishing A Didactic Poem intwo Parts !!" We advise him, in the most earnest and friendly manner, instantly to withdraw the copy from the hands of the publisher, and to commit it to the flames. It is justice, it is kindness, to admonish him that, in order to overcome the natural dullness of a didactic poem, abilities more extraordinary are required than those which we are willing to conceive that Mr. Robinson might display in a different occupation.

ART. VIII. General View of the Agriculture of the County of Cornwall. Drawn up and published by Order of the Board of Agriculture and Internal Improvement. By G. B. Worgan. 8vo. pp. 192. 129. Boards. Nicol and Son. 1811.

TH

HOUGH agriculture is in Cornwall a secondary object of pursuit, greater riches being torn from the bowels of the earth than can be reaped on its surface, the cultivation and improvement of the soil cannot be a matter of indifference, nor could this county be overlooked by the Board of Agriculture. It is satisfactory to find that this survey has been conducted by a person so well attested as Mr. Worgan, and that his papers have undergone revision by such respectable and well informed inhabitants as Messrs. Walker, Trist, and Penrose. These gentlemen, however, while they speak in high terms of the ability of Mr. Worgan, mention the unfortunate circumstance that he was obliged to perform the greater part of his survey during winter, by which he not only endured much hardship, but was also forced to take many things upon trust, of which, at a more favourable season, he might have been an eye-witness.' Winter surely, of all seasons, was most unfavourable to an agricultural survey; and why Mr. W. was 'obliged' to prosecute his task at such an inauspicious period, we are not told. Could he not have waited till "the sun had chased the mountain's snow, and kindly loosed the frozen soil?" This question is not answered: but the reporter is very modest in the exhibition of his own services, and candidly owns (in the preliminary observations) that whatever merit may appear in the following attempt to draw up a state

ment

W

ment of the Agriculture of the county of Cornwall, must be attributed to the very liberal and ready communications which he has universally met with in collecting the information and

facts contained in them.'

This testimony of the communicative spirit, which the Surveyor experienced in the gentlemen of the county, redounds highly to their praise; and we find, from the letter addressed by the persons above mentioned to the President of the Board, that they took the pains of carefully examining Mr.W.'s MS., making erasures, alterations, and additions. We may conclude, therefore, that the Report before us is as correct as the circumstances of the case would admit; and we shall proceed, as we have done with other publications of this nature, to notice some of its prominent features. Before, however, we enter on the professed object of this work, we must transcribe the interesting Introduction:

The writer of the following work requests the reader will have the goodness to bear in mind, that it is confined to "a general View of the Agriculture of Cornwall." Thus, how the Cornish till their grounds, meliorate their soils; the seeds and plants they cultivate; the herds and flocks they feed; their opinions on the rural arts, and peculiar practices therein, are simply detailed. Other subjects not immediately connected with agriculture, are but slightly noticed. Of the great variety of mineral and fossil productions for which - Cornwall has from time immemorial been so famous, a few only are enumerated, Professor Davy having undertaken to draw up in a distinct work, a Mineralogical Survey of his native County.

The writer sincerely wishes its agricultural history had been drawn up by a man of equal abilities, for certainly, Cornwall is in many respects a highly interesting county; its inhabitants, renowned as a brave, loyal, and public spirited people; shrewd, sensible, and intelligent. No county has produced more eminent characters, either in the polite arts or the learned professions. The women are amiable, for the most part accomplished, and make excellent wives. If Lancashire has its witches, Cornwall has its diamonds, and those too of the most beautiful lustre. From the peer to the peasant there is a mildness and complacency of temper, an urbanity, hospitality, and courteousness of manners, a noble frankness and liberality of heart, extremely conciliating to the stranger; and what is peculiar to the Cornish, morning, noon, or night, they greet the traveller with an. appropriate gracious salutation.

This is no novel character of them, but stands recorded as anciently as the times of Augustus Caesar, and is attributed by Diodorus Siculus, to that frequent intercourse with merchants of foreign countries, which the traffic for their tin could not but occasion. This account, it is hoped, will retrieve the lower orders of people in

• * Queen Elizabeth used to say, " that the Cornish gentlemen were all born courtiers, with a becoming confidence." ►

Cornwall