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a school committee, consisting of the mayor and aldermen, ex officio, and one gentleman chosen annually by each ward. They are required by their own rules to examine the schools once a month, and, by a law of the

state, once a year.

But one objection can possibly be urged against any part of these institutions. Perhaps the system of animating the pupils into industry by the principle of emulation, and rewarding them by medals, cards, &c. of which the object is to distinguish them from their fellows, is carried too far. Emulation easily becomes envy, and it is obviously better to make the love of doing well the ruling principle of a boy's activity, rather than the love of doing better than

66

This passage exhibits a striking instance of the blending of various images into one, and thus presenting a picture entirely new. Though Anacreon says of Cupid,

Ρόδα παῖς ὁ τῆς Κυθήρης

Στέφεται καλοῖς ἰούλοις,
Χαρίτεσσι συγχορεύων.
Lo the son of Cytherea

emptity." Whitehead was poet laureate. | loveliness, like a new creation. I cannot All new poetry was submitted to the judg- better exemplify my meaning, than by ment of Johnson's powerful but prosaic tracing to its possible originals the following intellect; Pope and Young were in full beautiful picture of Collins'. vogue, Thompson was sneered at,-Gray Love framed with Mirth a gay fantastic round ;ridiculed,-Collins utterly neglected,-and, Loose were her tresses seen, her zone unbound,to crown the climax, the Reviewer of And he amid his frolic play, Goldsmith's Traveller "in sad and sober As if he would the charming air repay, earnest criticised it as a pamphlet in verse, Shook thousands odours from his dewy wings. on political economy." This state of things could not last; but it is with the literary taste of a nation, as with the natural taste of an individual; when it has been pampered with high-seasoned sauces till the appetite is jaded, it craves not nor relishes substantial food, and can only be restored This by a course of the simplest diet. book therefore seems to have been necessary to the English nation, before it could be prepared either to produce, or to receive and relish such poets as Crabbe and Joanna Baillie and Wordsworth and Southey; poets, whose style, simple in artificial ornament, yet not utterly rejecting it, is the vehicle of such poetry as would have been sufficient, had they only written, to have "Thus we have endeavoured to give a view of raised this age of English poetry to a fair We the means, provided at the public expense, for the comparison with that of Elizabeth. gratuitous instruction of the children of all classes mention these four poets, because, perfectof the citizens of Boston. They are offered equally distinct as they are, from each other, ly to all. The poorest inhabitant may have his the style of them all is less ornate than that children instructed from the age of four to seventeen, at schools, some of which are already equal, of most of their contemporaries, and seems if not superior to any private schools in our coun- more deeply imbued with the colouring of try; and all of them may be so. an earlier and severer literature.

another.

We close this article with stating one fact; that the whole expenditure of Boston, city and county, for 1823, was $197,977.60, of which $48,611.10 were expended for the schools;-and we will add to this fact, the last paragraphs of this pamphlet, which state strongly, but truly, the effect of this liberality.

"Indeed if a child be kept at a Primary School from four to seven, and then at one of the Gram

mar schools until nine, and from that time till sev

enteen at the Latin and the English Classical school, there is no question but he will go through a more thorough and complete course of instruction, and in reality enjoy greater advantages than are provided at many of the respectable colleges in the Union."

are found. These are not however servile
imitations, but are evidently the essays of
powerful intellects, trying their strength
in short, low flutterings, and thus imping
their wings for a bolder flight.

Hath his locks y'crowned with roses,
While he dances with the Graces;
and though Fairfax, in his translation of
Tasso, says of the angel Gabriel,

He shook his wings with rosy May-dews wet; and though Milton says of the angel Raphael,

He shook his plumes, that heavenly fragrance filled

The circuit wide;

yet the imagery of Collins does not appear the less original; for he has compounded it from all the others, and taking something from each, has produced a new image of his own.

Every great poet has founded a school; but as each succeeding copy lost something It is not often that we are admitted to of the freshness of the original, at length the workshop of genius, but we know that the samness began to pall upon the reader's men of the most exalted powers must have ear, until some youthful aspirant, warned by materials to work upon; we know that the utter failure of his last predecessor, writers must form their style both of lan- perceived that he must cast his projected guage and thought upon the models of work in a new mould, and make a hazarothers. If the first essays of any of the dous experiment to reform the public living English poets were to be published, taste. Look at the History of Poetry ;Reliques of Ancient English Poetry; con- I doubt not that we should find among them the names of Homer and Virgil and Tasso sisting of old Heroic Ballads, Songs, and many imitations of the ballads which Percy long kept alive the hope that successive other pieces of our earlier poets, together has collected; indeed Scott and Southey generations might be blest with a successwith some few of later date. First Amer- and Byron have published their boyish ion of Epics; but Milton's was the last ican from the fifth London edition. Phil-poems, and among them such imitations Epic,* and he dared to wander so far from adelphia, 1823. 3 vols. 8vo. the beaten track, that his Hero cannot be MANY critics of the present day, acknowlnamed. Look next at the Romances;edge that the superiority of Modern Engthey had their day, but they had become lish poetry over that of the age of Queen tiresome in the time of Chaucer, who callAnne, is mainly to be attributed to this ed in the aid of Italian literature, and work. It may seem surprising, that a book It is not by direct imitation of one par-founded a new school having him for its so unpresuming in its appearance, as Per- ticular model that excellence can be at- master. Lydgate and Hawes and Gower cy's Reliques of Ancient Poetry, should tained; but the course which these poets wore out the style of Chaucer. Allegories have helped to produce so wonderful a rev-pursued was that which has been taken by and Madrigals were popular from the time olution in the public taste, as has evidently of Spencer and Withers, down to the days occurred since the time of its publication. of Henry More and Waller. Then indeed But the poetry and criticism of that day it was time to stop allegorizing in verse, were at a very low ebb; Pope and Addison when an elegant scholar like More, and were gone; they had themselves been serone whom a competent judge (Southey) vile imitators, and the still more grovelling herd of their imitators, wrote as if smooth metre and ambitious ornaments alone constituted poetry; no matter how trite the thoughts, if the lines were exactly balanced, nor how prosaic the subject, if an epi

all truly great writers-to imbibe the spirit of those who had gone before them, to select the peculiar excellence of each great master of their art, to melt down and amalgamate their several beauties in the alembic of their own minds, and, out of all, produce one harmonious form of elegance that should ever thereafter be exclusively theirs. As with their style, so with their subjects. They made their minds the storehouses of beautiful images, gathered from all quarters—from nature and from books, and | Whoever has the patience to examine brooded over them till they had analyzed the Magazine poetry of that day, will find them, and combined and remoulded them that the only quality for which the popular into perfect form, and could produce them poetry was then remarkable, was what a to the world, apparently the work of their critic has well expressed in one word-own imaginations, and gleaming in virgin

thet were crowded into each hemistich.

*We say the last Epic, because we conceive Voltaire's Henriade to be slumbering with Blackmore's Eliza and her brothers (whose numbers and names are forgotten), Wilkie's Epigoniad, Cumberland's Calvary, Glover's Leonidas, Hole's Arthur, Southey's Joan of Arc, and many more; Πάνθ ̓ ἅμα ταῦτα τίθνακι, καὶ ὤχετο κοινὸν ἐς

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Αδαν.

All together they perished, and went to the trunkmaker's workshop ;"~ and because the narrative poems of the present day alike disclaim the laws and the name of Epic.

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Amoret, as sweet and good

As the most delicious food, &c. &c. &c. &c. Dryden is a reverend name; but though Pope contrived to keep the runnings of his style sprightly, by mingling it with that of Boileau; yet from the hands of Darwin the public found that the draught was too vapid; it was become like the milk that Bloomfield tells of in his "Farmer's Boy,"

Three times skimmed-skyblue.

It is needless to pursue the history to our own times, seeing that none of the styles since Pope's can be said to be worn out, though Rogers has made that of Goldsmith a little too drawling. Neither do we think it necessary to trace the similar mutations

Reginald Dalton. By the author of Valerius, | ed the corner from the street, some retreating, ap-
parently, and others following; for, though none of
and anger in the tones of the voices.
them were moving at speed, there was opposition

and Adam Blair. 12mo. 2 vols.
THIS work is altogether inferior to Valerius,
but it is inferior, as it is produced by a less
powerful and sustained exertion of the same
talents. It does not, like that admirable
tale, stir up the spirit with the solemn and
magnificent picture of scenes and charac-
ters and ages, invested with an almost sanc-
tified interest;-but it is a very pleasant
and interesting novel, which no one could
write without the aid of brilliant and varied
talents, and few can read without pleasure
if not profit. The hero is a young man,
who leaves his father in a country vicarage,
goes to Oxford, becomes dissipated, spends
more money than he should, falls into many
difficulties, and among others, into love; and
after much distress extricates himself by
good fortune and good conduct, marries his
mistress, and recovers the family estates
which had been iniquitously withheld from

his father.

This novel is of very equal interest throughout, and almost any extracts would be fair specimens; but the living and moving picture of Oxford entertained us more than any other part of the book, and we present to our readers some of its principal features.

“A very prosaic animal must he be, who for the first time traverses that noble and ancient City of the Muses, without acknowledging the influences of the GENIUS LOCI; and never was man or youth less ambitious of resisting such influences than questered province, he had never seen any great Reginald Dalton. Born and reared in a wild, setown of any sort, until he began the journey now just about to be concluded. Almost at the same hour of the preceding evening, he had entered Birmingham; and what a contrast was here! No

Say the word, then; speak it out,' cried one

voice. Say Town, d- ye, or I'll floor your

carcass.'

'Gown or Town? roared another; speak, or by jingo

Stand back, stand back, I say; halt, you knaves,' shouted a third- I am a clergyman.'****

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"Reginald could no longer be mistaken: He seized the poker, got out upon the balcony, and dropt on the pavement in a twinkling.

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'Gown or Town? Gown or Town?'

Cowards! rascals! back, you scoundrels!Mr Keith, Mr Keith, here stand beside me, sir.'

"A violent tussle ensued: one fellow aimed a

blow at the priest's head, which he parried secunthat attacked Reginald, one got a push in the midriff dum artem, and returned with energy. Of two that made him sick as a dog; the other, after inflicting a sharp cut with his stick, was repaid by a crashing blow that might have shivered the scapula of a Molineaux. The priest and another fellow, getting into close embrace, rolled down together, town uppermost, in the kennel. Black eyes and bloody noses were a drug. Reginald broke a bludgeon; but the poker flew from his grasp in doing so. Fists sounded like hammers for a few seconds; and then Town, first retreating for a few paces in silence, turned absolute tail, and ran into the street screaming and bellowing, Town! Town! TOWN!"

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The priest is a little injured in the scuffle,-Dalton waits upon him home, and there catches a glimpse of the heroine, who is indeed most delightfully conceived and drawn; she has almost all the delicacy and innocent purity and fortitude of the all her spirit and life. Athanasia of Valerius, and much more than

66

A soft female voice said from within, Who's there?'

which the poetry of France and Italy has dark, narrow brick lanes, crowded with wagons in her hand, appeared in the entrance, and uttered

no flaring shop-windows, passed and repassed by
jostling multitudes-no discordant cries, no sights
of tumult, no ring of anvils-every thing wearing
the impress of a grave, peaceful stateliness-hoary
towers, antique battlements, airy porticos, majestic
colonades, following each other in endless success-

It's me, my darling,' answered the old man, and the door was opened. A young girl, with a candle something anxiously and quickly in a language kind,' he answered-my bonny lassie, it's a mere which Reginald did not understand. 'Mein susses scart, just a flea-bite-I'm all safe and sound, thanks to this young gentleman. -Mr. Dalton, allow me to have the honour of presenting you to my neice, Miss Hesketh. Miss Hesketh, Mr. Dal

I trust.'

64

But we shall be better acquainted hereafter,

undergone. We believe however from this hasty survey, that we may safely pronounce it to be a dangerous thing for a young man, who is ambitious of becoming a poet, to study his cotemporaries; he will be temption on either side-lofty poplars and elms ever ed to admire one more than another; this and anon lifting their heads against the sky, as if exclusive admiration will lead him to direct from the heart of those magnificent seclusions-ton. imitation of his favourite; and thus he will wide, spacious, solemn streets-every where a become the copyist of another's style, in- monastic stillness and a Gothic grandeur. Except-ly by the hand, and repeating his request that he The old man shook Reginald most affectionatestead of being (according to the first mean- ing now and then some solitary gowned man pacing of the name he seeks) the Maker of his ing slowly in the moonlight, there was not a soul should go instantly home, he entered the housein the High-street; nor, excepting here and there the door was closed-and Reginald stood alone own. But he may fearlessly ponder over a lamp twinkling in some high lonely tower,' upon the way. The thing had passed in a single the works of his predecessors, for common where some one might, or might not, beunspher- instant, yet when the vision withdrew, the boy felt sense will teach him to avoid the reviving ing the spirit of Plato,' was there any thing to show as if that angel-face could never quit his imaginaof an antiquated style. that the venerable buildings which lined it were tion. So fair, so pensive-yet so sweet and light a smile-such an air of hovering, timid grace-such a clear, soft eye-such raven, silken tresses beneath that flowing veil-never had his eye beheld such a creature-it was as if he had had one momentary glimpse into some purer, happier, lovlier world

Therefore are we glad to see Percy's Reliques republished in this country; the simplicity and elegance of many of the songs and ballads cannot fail to please, and their day of dangerous popularity is gone by. Of the numerous imitations which followed their first publication, few have survived, and of these, few that we have seen are worth reading except those of Lucius Junius Mickle. He was a genuine poet, whose works have been too much neglected; but he translated, and he imitated, and he is almost forgotten.

actually inhabited.”

Dalton is shown to a tavern, and is soon induced to leap from the window thereof, by an assault on Mr Keith, a Catholic clergyman, with whom he had become acquainted, and who is quite an important personage in the story.

than this."

where this beautiful vision had gleamed upon him. "He stood for some moments riveted to the spot He looked up and saw, as he thought, something "The bed-room, to which Betty Chambermaid white at one of the windows-but that too was conducted our young gentleman, was in a part of the gone; and, after a little while, he began to walk house very remote from their supper-parlour. It is back slowly into the city. He could not, however, one of a great number situated along the line of an but pause again for a moment when he reached open wooden gallery, and its windows look out up- the bridge;-the tall fair tower of Magdalen apon a lane branching from the street that gives en-peared so exquisitely beautiful above its circling trance to the inn. Reginald, seeing that there was groves-and there was something so soothing to We shall in our next number proceed to still fine moonlight, went to the window to peep out his imagination (pensive as it was at the moment) examine somewhat more closely, the char-threw up the sash, and was leaning over the balco-him within its fringe of willows. He stood leanfor a moment, ere he should undress himself. He in the dark flow of the Cherwel gurgling below acter and uses of the work, whose title we have prefixed to this article.

ny, contemplating a noble Gothic archway on the ing over the parapet, enjoying the solemn loveli- . other side of the lane, when severd persons turn- ness of the scene, when, of a sudden, the universal

stillness was disturbed once more by a clamour of rushing feet and impetuous voices."

Then follows the story of an Oxford row, told at some length and with infinite humour and vivacity. We can extract only its closing scenes.

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the

night-cap to the alarum of-Town! Town!' Long | and loud the tumult continued in its fearful rage, and much excellent work was accomplished.' * * * fellow, broad in the chest, narrow in the pelvis, Reginald, although a nimble and active young thick in the neck, and lightsome in the region of the bread-basket, a good leaper, and a runner “In short, by this time the High-street of Oxford among ten thousand, was not, as has been formerly exhibited a scene as different from its customary mentioned, a fencer; neither was he a wrestler, nor solemnity and silence, as it is possible to imagine. a boxer, nor an expert hand at the baton. These Conceive several hundreds of young men in caps, were accomplishments of which, his education or gowns, or both, but all of them, without excep- having, according to Mr Macdonald's taunt, been tion, wearing some part of their academical insig-negleckit,' he had yet received scarcely the slightnia, retreating before a band rather more numerous, est tincture. The consequence was, that upon made up of apprentices, journeymen, labourers, whole, though his exertions were neither few nor bargemen-a motley mixture of every thing that, far between, he was, if mauling were sin, fully in the phrase of that classical region, passes under more sinned against than sinning. The last thing the generic name of Raff. Several casual disturb- he could charge his memory withal, when he afterances had occurred in different quarters of the ward endeavoured to arrange its disjecta fragmentown, a thing quite familiar to the last and all pre- ta,' was the vision of a brawny arm uplifted over ceding ages, and by no means uncommon even in against him, and the moon shedding her light very those recent days, whatever may be the case now. distinctly upon the red spoke of a coach-wheel, Of the host of youthful academics, just arrived for with which that arm appeared to be intimately the beginning of the term, a considerable number connected." had, as usual, been quartered for this night in the different inns of the city. Some of these, all full of wine and mischief, had first rushed out and swelled a mere passing scuffle into something like a substantial row. Herds of town-boys, on the other hand, had been rapidly assembled by the magic influence of their accustomed war-cry. The row once formed into regular shape in the Corn-market, the clamour had penetrated walls, and overleapt so for perhaps a quarter of an hour, without taking battlements; from college to college the madness any further notice of Reginald's presence. The had spread and flown. Porters had been knocked boy, meanwhile, full of serious thoughts and high down in one quarter, iron-bound gates forced in resolutions, perused the chamber of the learned another, and the rope-ladder, and the sheet-ladder, hermit round and round, as if he had expected the and the headlong leap, had all been put into requi- inspiration of lore to be breathed from its walls. sition, with as much eager, frantic, desperate zeal, The room was part of a very ancient building, and as if every old monastic tower had been the scene every thing about it was stamped with antiquity. of an unquenchable fire, every dim cloistered quad- tall, narrow window, sunk deep in the massy wall The high roof of dark unvarnished oak-the one rangle of a yearning earthquake. **** the apartment were every where clothed-the bare -the venerable volumes with which the sides of wainscot floor, accurately polished, but destitute of carpeting, excepting one small fragment under the table-the want of furniture-for there were just ed, ere he himself could occupy one of them-the two chairs, and a heap of folios had been dislodgchilliness of the place too, for, although the day was

"He began writing eagerly, and continued to do

5

plump pet poodle upon the hearth-rug-these were among the by no means curta supellex,' of this more mundane thinking shop.'-A gay-looking junior the Head himself, a rubicund old gentleman in fellow and chaplain was caressing the poodle, and grand canonicals and a grizzle wig, was seated in a dignified posture in a superb fauteuil, while a padded footstool sustained in advance his gouty left leg." A dinner in the college hall is circumstantially and somewhat temptingly set forth.

"The external features of an old English monastery are still perceived in our academical hospitio, but, alas! a dinner there is now shorn of much of its fair proportion, and presents, at the best, but a faint and faded image of the 'glories of eld.'

66

Enough, nevertheless, of the ancient form and circumstance is still preserved, to impress, in no trivial measure, the imagination of him who, for the first time, is partaker in the feast-and it was so with our hero. The solemn bell, sounding as if some great ecclesiastical dignitary were about to The apartments of a learned and labori-bule-the wide and lofty staircase, lined with servbe consigned to mother earth-the echoing vestious Fellow of the College, are contrasted ing-men so old and demure that they might almost with those of its indolent and luxurious have been mistaken for so many pieces of grotesque Head, who had obtained his office by means statuary-the hall itself, with its high lancet winnot altogether the most honourable. dows of stained glass, and the brown obscurity of its oaken roof-the yawning chimneys with their blazing logs-the long narrow tables-the elevated dais-the array of gowned guests-the haughty line of seniors seated in stall-like chairs, and sepa rated by an ascent of steps from the younger inmates of the mansion-the Latin grace, chanted at one end of the hall, and slowly re-chanted from the other-the deep silence maintained during the repast-the bearded and mitred visages frowning from every wall-there was something so antique, it was no wonder our youth felt enough of curiosiso venerable, and withal so novel in the scene, that him for once from being able to handle his knife ty, and withal, of a certain sort of awe, to prevent and fork quite a la Roxburgher.

"A terrible conflict ensued-a conflict, the fury of which might have inspired lightness, vigour, and elasticity, even into the paragraphs of a Bentham, or the hexameters of a Southey-had either or both of these eminent persons been there to witness-better still had they been there to partake in, the genial frenzy. It was now that The Science, (to use the language of Thalaba,) 'made itself to be felt.' It was now that (in the words of Words-frosty, there was no fire in the grate-all these, toworth,) the power of cudgels was a visible thing. It was now that many a gown covered, as erst that of the Lady Christabel,

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half a bosom and a side!

A sight to dream of, not to see.'

It was now that there was no need for that pathetic apostrophe of another living sonneteer

'Away all specious pliancy of mind
In men of low degree!'

For it was now that the strong bargeman of Isis,
and the strong bachelor of Brazen-noze, rushed
together like two clouds with thunder laden, and
that the old reproach of Baculo potius,' &c. was
forever done away with. It was now that the
proctor, even the portly proctor, showed that he had
sat at the feet of other Jacksons besides Cyril;—
'For he that came to preach, remained to play.'
In a word, there was an elegant tussle which last-
ed for five minutes, opposite to the side porch of
All-Souls. There the townsmen gave way; but
being pursued with horrible oaths and blows as far
as Carfax, they rallied again under the shadow of
that sacred edifice, and received there a welcome
reinforcement from the purlicus of the Staffordshire
canal, and the ingenuous youth of Penny-farthing
street. Once more the tide of war was turned;
the gowned phalanx gave back-surly and slow,
indeed, but still they did give back. On rolled the
adverse and swelling tide with their few plain
instincts and their few plain rules.' At every col-
lege gate sounded, as the retreating band passed its
venerable precincts, the loud, the shrilly summons
of-Gown! Gown!-while down cach murky
plebeian alley, the snoring mechanic doffed his

66

by the rest of the company, least of all, by the "These feelings, of course, were not partaken at The High Table' of ***, was as usual an acsenior and more elevated portion of it. The party tive, and, as it happened on this day, it was by no means a small one. Red faces grew redder and tenance of the solitary tenant, and the fire of necks were seen swelling in every vein, and ears gether with the worn, emaciated, and pallid coun- redder as the welcome toil proceeded-short fat learned zeal which glowed so bright in his fixed half-hid by luxuriant periwigs could not conceal and steadfast, but nevertheless melancholy eye, their voluptuous twinklings; vigorously plied the impressed Reginald with a mingled feeling of sur- elbows of those whose fronts were out of view; prise, of admiration, of reverence, and of pity. * * the ceaseless crash of mastication waked the endThe apartments of the Head of the Society less echoes of the vaulted space over-head; and presented a very different sort of appearance from airy arches around mimicked and magnified every those of the recluse and laborious senior fellow of gurgle of every sauce-bottle. The stateliness of ***. Reginald was conducted, in short, into a the ceremonial, and the profoundness of the generstyle of profuse modern luxury, such as perhaps more than a dinner, something of the dignity of a very handsome house, furnished in every part in a al silence all about, gave to what was, after all, no did not quite accord either with the character of festival-I had almost said something of the solemthe edifice to which it belonged, or with the form nity of a sacrifice. A sort of reverend zeal seemand structure of the different apartments them-ed to be gratified in the clearing of every platter, large and lofty room, where chintz curtains and the majesty of a libation. selves. After waiting for a considerable time in a and the purple stream of a bumper descended with ottomans, elegant paper-hangings, and splendid "In the under-graduates' part of the hall, the pier-glasses, contrasted strangely enough with a feast was, of course, less magnificent; and among great Gothic window, of the richest monastic them the use of wine is altogether prohibited--a painted glass, a roof of solid stone, carved all over distinction, on this occasion sufficiently galling, with flowers, mitres, shields of arms, and heads of considering how incessantly they were passed by martyrs, and a fire-place, whose form and dimen- the manciple bearing decanters to the superior resions spoke it at least three centuries old-they gion. But the dinner itself was no sooner over were at last admitted into the presence of the pro- than the fellows rose from their chairs, and another vost. He received them in his library-what a different kind of library from that which Reginald scended in solemn procession from their pride of Latin thanksgiving having been duly chanted, dehad just left! New and finely bound books, arrang-place, and followed the guidance of the manciple, ed in magnificent cases of glass and mahogany- who, strutting like a Lord Mayor's beadle, marthe Courier, a number of the Quarterly, and a nov-shalled the line of march to the common room. el of Miss Edgeworth, reposing on a rose-wood Thither no non-graduate eye might follow the table covered with a small Persian carpet-some of learned phalanx-there, might no profane ear Bunbury's caricatures, coloured and in gilt frames catch the echo of their whispered wisdom. -a massive silver standish, without a drop of ink npon its brilliant surface-deep soft chairs in red morocco-a parrot cage by the window-and a

reach of ear-shot, there arose as loud a gabble as "The moment they were supposed to be beyond if publicans and sinners had, by a coup-de-main,

aken absolute possession of The Temple-leaping, dancing, shouting in every direction-whistling, sparring, wagering, wrestling-a Babel of Babels!"

2 vols. 12mo.

The Pilot: a Tale of the Sea. By the author of the Pioneers, &c. &c. New York, 1823. MR COWPER has one valuable faculty, which is generally an endowment of the finest intellects, but seems to be sometimes withheld, when almost every other talent and power is given;-the faculty of improvement. Precaution was a poor book; the Spy was a very good one, though not so good as the Pioneers; and the Pilot we think better than either. It was prophesied in some of our newspapers and literary journals that this last production would disappoint the sanguine and impatient expectation raised by its predecessors;-but the Pilot has appeared, and every pledge, which the previous works of Mr Cowper had given, is fully redeemed.

light upon their motives, purposes, and Randolph-a Tale. By the author of Logan
characters. Many novels, and pretty good and Seventy Six. 2 vols. 12mo.
ones too, are written as if interesting situa- Errata, or the Works of Will Adams-a
tions or incidents must be introduced by an Tale. By the author of Logan, Seventy
array of very dull ones, and the bright and Six, and Randolph. 2 vols. 12mo.
stupid chapters alternate with considerable THE first of these books is remarkably fool-
regularity. It is, perhaps, no slight proof fish and impudent. It pretends to be a nov-
of the extraordinary talents of Mr Cow-el, and the various incidents have about as
per, that he has skill enough to lead his much coherence as the thoughts of a ma-
heroes and heroines from circumstances niac. It is absurd, unnatural, impossible;
which strongly excite the imagination, into and could not be endured, but that the
others of equal interest immediately and author has made it the vehicle of much im-
yet naturally.
pertinence about living men and passing
events, and occasionally scatters through
the dreary expanse of its intolerable folly
some passages of great power and elo-
quence, and a few good thoughts well ex-
pressed. In general, he talks about every
thing like a madman or an ideot, but some-
times utters observations and criticisms, re-
markably original and just, and throughout
the book seems frequently assailed by an
uncomfortable conviction, that he is play-
ing the fool.

It has been said of the works of this author, as a reproach, that many pages are usually occupied in detailing the occurrences of a short period. Novel readers may be displeased with this, because they are accustomed to find in their favourite works, a history of the hero's life and conversation during his youth at least, if not his manhood; but we are not disposed to find fault with Mr Cowper's fashion of managing this matter. A novel is something beThe scene is almost always on the ocean, tween a poem and a drama, and is not alto- There exists some question about the and the principal characters are seamen; gether without the jurisdiction of the laws, authorship of Randolph. We do not know, of course a very large and valuable part of which should govern them. Upon the ques- but we confidently believe, that John Neal, the book must lose much of its charm with tion of the unities, we are more persuaded of Baltimore, was guilty of this work. He those who have no acquaintance with sea by Dr Johnson's arguments than by Shaks says, at the end of the second volume, in a terms or sea manners. From this circum-peare's example; that is, while we admit sort of appendix, that he did not write the stance, it may not be universally preferred that good poems and plays have been writ-book, and assumes a very lofty and rather to the Pioneers or the Spy; but we think ten without much observance of the unities threatening air about it. Something more, it richer than either in passages of original of place, time, or action, yet we think any however, than his bare assertion is necessaand true humour, of genuine pathos, and of work of the imagination may be the better for ry to rebut the internal evidence, which just and natural eloquence. The language some regard to them. Of our author's prac-identifies Randolph with other works, acis uniformly good, and suited in its charac- tice in this particular, it will be enough to knowledged by Neal. Besides, no one ter to the occasion, and few books exhibit say, that to the last chapter of the second would have thought the works, person, hismore accurate and felicitous sketching of volume, the story has advanced but very tory, character, and habits of John Neal human character and conduct, or more few days, and the characters scarcely wan-worthy of such repeated and elaborate nographic pictures of the beauty or terrors of der out of sight of the spot where they are tice, but John Neal. We understand he inanimate nature. "Long Tom" is perfectly first introduced. The last chapter goes on has been much beaten in Baltimore by genoriginal, and is drawn to the life. He is for ten or twenty years, and conducts to tlemen, who felt themselves outraged by one of a class of men who are peculiar, not their last rest, the Pilot and many of his some parts of Randolph; and an opinion merely to this country, but to a very small subordinates. has gained ground there, that William B. part of our country; who leave the little We think Mr Cowper fails most in the Walter, of Boston, recently deceased, left island, which cradled them amid the waves, management of the Pilot's historical char- this work among his papers, and that Neal and wander over the ocean, until it is to them acter. If he intends him to be Paul Jones has been only its editor. This may be so, as a home, and dry land becomes a strange indeed (which we infer from the preface but we do not believe Walter, by any effort thing; and his person, habits, tastes, and and not from the work itself), more should for discipline, could have enabled himself to thoughts are portrayed with great power have been said of his origin, connexions, reach certain passages of Randolph. We and success. The evolutions on shipboard and early history, that the personal identity happen to know that Neal wrote, as his in storm and danger, and the appearance of of the character might be more obvious. own, in the album of a lady in Portland, the sea, convulsed and foaming under the If this was impracticable, we think it would some poetry which is printed in Randolph, lash of the tempest, are all described with have been better to have omitted all allu- and we have heard him relate, with great the same remarkable skill and effect. sion to this remarkable name. emphasis, as a circumstance which mortifiThere is a striking difference between There is nothing new in the female char-ed him exceedingly, an incident told, pages this novel, and the other works of the same acters; the soft sweetness of one is con-256, 7, and 8, vol. 1, as befalling the hero of author in one important particular; the skill trasted with the fire and vivacity of the the novel; and the initials of the true names which constantly sustains the interest we other, but there is little in either, which are given. feel in the story from the first to the last novel-heroines have not almost worn out. page. In the Spy and the Pioneers passa- It is rather a prevailing folly among livges of great power and beauty are separat-ing writers of note, to be vain of writing ed by rather dreary intervals. In the Pilot the attention is kept awake and constantly fixed upon the story. Excepting a few too long conversations, which, occuring at very interesting moments, we are too impatient to read very carefully, there is scarcely a paragraph in either volume that does not help forward the story, or bring out into stronger relief the scene described, or exhibit the persons of the drama so circumstanced and occupied as to throw a vivid

"Errata" is not so impertinent as "Randolph," and contains more passages of good wit and humour. As a story, it is about as easily and rapidly; and we are glad to find feeble and incoherent as the other, but may some reason for thinking our author ex- be considered, on the whole, as the most empt from this delusion. The whole work tolerable book which Neal-or the author has the appearance of having benefited some- of "Seventy Six" has written. At the what by careful revision. There is little close of this work also, there is a long apindication, in the story or the languege, of pendix about Neal, containing, among other the foolish haste and negligence, which things, a denial of his having been thrashhave left much imperfection in the best ofed, and a copy of the card or handbill which the lighter works of these days. In this respect the Pilot is better than its predccessors.

Mr Pinkney posted up in various parts of Baltimore, and which speaks most contemptuously of Neal. We applaud Mr

Neal for refusing to fight with Mr Pink-
ney, but neither his own statement nor Mr
Pinkney's character, make it probable that
he used all proper means to avoid the al-
ternative of refusing a challenge or fight-it to be now ascertained, and admitted by
ing a duel.
all geologists, that America offers upon and
within her surface, far more abundant and
decisive proofs of primitive formation, than
the other continents.

that of rain. Ocean would have gone up | It embraces all that can be fairly con. in one wave, and rolled the mountains be-densed into the small compass of an elefore it, as a gushing rivulet plays with its mentary treatise, and experience has provpebblestones. Moreover, we understand ed that the arrangement and the style are uncommonly well adapted to interest the scholar, and render the science easy of attainment. We think this book decidedly better than any other school book upon the same subject, and are disposed to award to Mr Wilkins, the fullest measure of commendation; but the nature of his work does not require nor even permit us to give an analysis of it, with extracts. We have noticed but one error of any consequence; in No. 114, page 60, of the second edition, the author gives the reason why the warmest weather does not occur when the days are longest, and why the middle of the day is not the warmest part of it.

As a systematic view of the action of a central fire in the formation, destruction, and reproduction of the earth, this New Theory is decidedly inferior to several, which have grown out of the opinions first advanced by Hutton.

We think Mr Neal a man of unquestionable and inexhaustible resources. We know him personally, and have wondered at his energy and power of achievement. We always believed him possessed of a moral and intellectual nature, which, with due culture and discipline, might have borne most rare and valuable fruits. But it is too late; it is certain that he cannot be now, all he might have been; and his faults and follies, and the ruin, to which they lead, have been shown him so plainly, with so little good effect, we cannot resist the conChurch in Boston. Boston. 1824. 18mo. viction, that either from some inherent defect in his disposition or faculties, or from FEW pamphlets of such small size and prethe irresistible dominion of confirmed hab-tensions as this, contain as much good sense it, he never will be other than what he is- and just reasoning, clothed in language at a man whose talents are various and pow- once so chaste and beautiful. It is certainly erful, but perverted and worse than useless. an able and interesting, and ought to be a very useful work.

An Abstract of a New Theory of the For-
mation of the Earth. By Ira Hill, A. M.
Baltimore. 1823. 12mo. 211 pp.
MR HILL supposes, that the eastern conti-
nent was all the land appropriated to the
use of mankind, until the days of Noah.
At that time the central fire urged with
excessive heat, exploded, and raised the
best part of America above the waves;
thence the universal deluge. Four hundred
and fifty-two years afterwards, the lands
now covered by the Mediterranean sunk,
and caused the flood of Ogyges. One hun-
dred and eighty-eight years after this, New
Holland came up; many vapours arose,
were driven upon the mountains of Africa,
there condensed into rain, and caused the
flood of Ethiopia, mentioned in the Chroni-
cle of Axium. Eighty-six years after this
flood, that part of Africa, which was be-
tween capes Bon and Razat, descended;
the waters were repelled and flowed in a
direct line to Thessaly, deluged that coun-
try, and caused the flood of Deucalion;
and finally, at the crucifixion of our Sa-
viour, the northeast part of America came
forth, and poured a deluge over the remain-
der of the continent. It will be observed,
that the author is very particular in his
dates and localities,—and that he has had
the good fortune to ascertain with exact-
ness, facts and periods about which the
learned have hitherto doubted.

The merits of this New Theory are not very obvious to us, but we are not disposed to discuss them at much length. We would suggest to the author, that there is no direct and distinct evidence of an universal deluge, except in the Scriptures, and they do not assert more plainly, that a deluge covered the earth, than that the deluge was caused by forty days' rain. Now if we can imagine America thrown up from the roots of the deep, surely the multitudinous waters must have recoiled upon the opposing shores of the old world in a shape very different from

Hints on Extemporaneous Preaching. By
Henry Ware, Jr. Minister of the Second

"The atmosphere derives heat chiefly, if not entirely, by reflection from the earth; so that when the earth is warmest, the atmosphere is warmest, and when the earth is coolest, the atmosphere is coolest; but the earth continues to accumulate heat for some time after the sun's rays are most powerful."

Now a heated substance radiates heat, Mr Ware states with great force the but no more heat is reflected from the same arguments in favour of extemporaneous surface when it is warm, than when it is preaching, but seems perfectly aware of all cool. The truth is, that the atmosphere is the objections, which are or can be urged not heated principally by reflection from against this mode of pulpit address, and the earth, nor by the rays as they come he meets them all candidly but victoriously. through the atmosphere from the sun;He does not wish that habits of written that is, neither by the reflected nor by the composition should be abandoned by minis- incident rays. It is heated almost entirely ters of the gospel; on the contrary, he re- by coming in contact with the earth. gards frequent, careful, and laborious writ- There is a constant circulation between the ing as the most efficient and most necessa-higher and lower strata of the atmosphere; ry means of creating a power of preaching for, while the earth is growing warmer, the extempore with care, accuracy, and im- air which touches it, thereby receives heat, pressiveness. The rules laid down by Mr and being expanded and so rendered lightWare appear to be well calculated to give er, ascends; of course that which is specifthis powerful and therefore important facul-ically heavier descends and is in like manty. We shall not make extracts from his ner heated. By this constant circulation pamphlet, nor attempt to give a minute ac- the atmosphere is warmed; the heat thus count of his course of reasoning. The ar- received from the earth not being commuguments could not be condensed into brief-nicated from one particle to another, since er space than that they now occupy without each one must come in contact with some doing them an injury. more solid body, or its temperature will be We will add that we perfectly agree little raised. The remainder of the parawith the reverend author, in thinking that graph quoted, is correct, and by the princia change in the customs of our preachers ples we have stated explains the phenomin this respect is very desirable,—and in enon. We will fully discharge our task of resting our preference of extempore preach-faultfinding, by suggesting that the paraing chiefly upon the truth, beautifully ex-graph, explaining the aberration of light, pressed by Milton. may not be perfectly intelligible to a young reader.

46

We must be indulged in a few remarks upon the science, of which this book would teach the elements, however trite the sub

True eloquence," says Milton, "I find to be
none but the serious and hearty love of truth; and
that whose mind soever is fully possessed with a
fervent desire to know good things, and with the
dearest charity to infuse the knowledge of them
into others,—when such a man would speak, his|ject,-
words, like so many nimble and airy servitors, trip
about him at command and in well ordered files,
as he would wish, fall aptly into their places."

-or what we have to say upon it, may seem. They who have little knowledge of astronomy are apt to think it of no practical importance; little connexion is seen between the ordinary duties of life, and a knowledge of other worlds and of the relations which exist Elements of Astronomy, illustrated with between them and our own. We are not Plates, for the use of schools and acade- about to declaim against this ignorance and mies, with questions. By John H. Wil-stupidity, but would show them, who have kins, A. M. Second edition. Boston, it yet to learn, that this science is eminently calculated to effect important practical uses.

1823. 12mo.

THIS work has been before the public long
enough to have its merits attested by very
general approbation, and an extensive sale

We would not open too wide a field, and therefore stop not to show how much the

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