but when they saw my Laurel crown, they made way for me, and let me in!

• But I had entrance through that guarded door,

In honour to the Laureate crown I wore.

When he gets in, he finds himself in a large hall, decorated with trophies, and pictures, and statues, commemorating the triumphs of British valour, from Aboukir to Waterloo. The room, moreover, was filled with a great number of ladies and gentlemen very finely dressed; and in two chairs, near the top, were seated the Princess Charlotte and Prince Leopold. Hitherto, certainly, all is sufficiently plain and probable ;-nor can the Muse who dictated this to the slumbering Laureate be accused of any very extravagant or profuse invention. We come now, however, to allegory and learning in abundance. In the first place, we are told, with infinite regard to the probability as well as the novelty of the fiction, that in this drawing-room there were two great lions couching at the feet of the Royal Pair; the Prince's being very lean and in poor condition, with the hair rubbed off his neck as if from a heavy collar-and the Princess's in full vigour, with a bushy mane, and littered with torn French flags. Then there were two heavenly figures stationed on each side of the throne, one called Honour, and the other Faith ;-so very like each other, that it was impossible not to suppose them brother and sister. It turns out, however, that they were only second cousins; or so at least we interpret the following precious piece of theogony.

Akin they were,-yet not as thus it seemed,

For he of VALOUR was the eldest son,
From Areté in happy union sprung.

But her to Phronis Eusebeia bore,

She whom her mother Dicé sent to earth;
What marvel then if thus their features wore
Resemblant lineaments of kindred birth?
Dicé being child of Him who rules above,

VALOUR his earth-born son; so both derived from Jove.' p. 29. This, we think, is delicious; but there is still more goodly stuff toward. The two heavenly cousins stand still without doing any thing; but then there is a sound of sweet music, and a whole heavenly company' appear, led on by a majestic female, whom we discover, by the emblems on our halfpence, to be no less a person than Britannia, who advances and addresses a long discourse of flattery and admonition to the Royal bride; which, for the most part, is as dull and commonplace as might be expected from the occasion; though there are some passages in which the author has reconciled his gratitude to his Patron, and his monitory duty to his Daughter, with singular spirit and delicacy. After enjoining to her the observance of all public du

ties, and the cultivation of all domestic virtues, Britannia is made to sum up the whole sermon in this emphatic preceptLook to thy Sire, and in his steady way

learn thou to tread.'

Now, considering that Mr Southey was at all events incapable of sacrificing truth to Court favour, it cannot but be regarded as a rare felicity in his subject, that he could thus select a pattern of private purity and public honour in the person of the actual Sovereign, without incurring the least suspicion either of base adulation or lax morality.

When Britannia has delivered her lecture, she is succeeded by another venerable personage, whose lineage and office are thus loftily described by the sleeping Laureate.

Of Kronos and the Nymph Mnemosyné

He sprung, on either side a birth divine;
Thus to the Olympian Gods allied was he,
And brother to the sacred Sisters nine.
They called him Praxis in the Olympian tongue,

But here on earth EXPERIENCE was his name. p. 35. This Praxis, it seems, is a bookmaker by profession, like the Laureate himself; and contents himself, accordingly, with depositing a presentation copy of his work before the Royal Pair, and only pronouncing, after the manner of the said Laureate, a long eulogium on its beauty and use.

To this succeeds a most clumsy apparition of the Angel of the Church of England,' attended by a considerable party of Saints and Martyrs,-who also pays his compliments to the Princess, and entreats her, in plain and distinct terms, to take care of the English Church, and preserve it from decay;-for which purpose, he is pleased to add, Providence had on former occasions, and

In perilous times, provided female means,

Blessing it beneath the rule of pious Queens.'

It is another proof of Mr Southey's singular liberality, and disdain of courtly prejudices, that he has been at pains, at such a moment as the present, to profess his utter abhorrence and detestation of the Catholic religion, and made his Lutheran angel warn the young Princess against any toleration of its monstrous abominations. Think not,' says he

'Think not that lapse of ages shall abate
The inveterate malice of that Harlot old, &c.

For her fierce Beast, whose names are Blasphemy,
The same that was, is still, and still must be.

After the Church party have taken their leaves, another celestial monitor advances, who, though he is not directly named

by the author, appears very plainly by his discourse to be none other than the angel of the British School Society. He makes a still better speech than his brother of the Church of England, and recommends the interests of education to the Royal Pair, in several very moving, though rather tedious stanzas,—which terminate in the following harmonious distich

6

The heart of man is rich in all good seeds;

Neglected, it is choked with tares and noxious weeds. '

We are next recreated with the presentation of Hope and Charity, who seem upon this occasion to sustain the character of the angels of the Missionary and Bible Societies, and exhort the Princess to spare no pains for the conversion of the Heathen. Speranza is the prolocutor, and ends her address, by repeating these two lines in small capitals.

THY KINGDOM COME! THY WILL BE DONE, O LORD!

AND BE THY HOLY NAME THROUGH ALL THE WORLD ADORED! -at which words the roof of the drawing-room opens, and a bright Cross is seen far up in the sky. The poet shuts his eyes on the splendour; and, on opening them again, sees the last of the allegorical company,-a dim, dreary looking figure, but with divinest beauty in his awful face." He makes his compliment and speech like the rest; and the Dream ends with his last words, in which he announces to the bridal party

'My name is DEATH-the last best friend am I.'

The Epilogue need not detain us very long.-It consists almost entirely of an apology for, or rather a zealous encomium on the flat stupidities of that part we have now hastily gone over. The poet ingeniously supposes that some frivolous reader

may say

Are these fit strains for Royal ears to hear?' and sets himself accordingly to show that they are the fittest and the worthiest, and the most precious that could possibly have been employed on the occasion. We have not patience to go over the dull prosing of this panegyric on his own genius and judgment. He has touched indeed, he confesses, upon awful subjects

Yet surely are they such as, viewed aright, Contentment to thy better mind may bring.' Lighter themes, he candidly admits, might have been more amusing-but then their delights would soon wither like spring flowers;-whereas his sublime strains are evergreens, and moreover of sovereign virtue

Yea, while the Poet's name is doomed to live,

So long this garland shall its fragrance give.'

and so on in the same vein of high poetry and lowly modesty, through some dozen stanzas.-The work ends with one entitled,

L'Envoy '-which breathes the very soul of silliness and selfcomplacency.

Go, little Book, from this my solitude, ..

I cast thee on the waters: ..

go thy ways!

And if, as I believe, thy vein be good,

The world will find thee after many days.

Be it with thee according to thy worth:..

Go, little Book! in faith I send thee forth.' p. 69.

It is impossible to feel any serious or general contempt for a person of Mr Southey's genius;-and, in reviewing his other works, we hope we have shown a proper sense of his many merits and accomplishments. But his Laureate odes are utterly and intolerably bad; and, if he had never written any thing else, must have ranked him below Colley Cibber in genius, and above him in conceit and presumption. We have no toleration for this sort of perversity, or prostitution of great gifts; and do not think it necessary to qualify the expression of opinions which we have formed with as much positiveness as deliberation.-We earnestly wish he would resign his livery laurel to Lord Thurlow, and write no more odes on Court galas. We can assure him too, most sincerely, that this wish is not dictated in any degree by envy, or any other hostile or selfish feeling. We are ourselves, it is but too well known, altogether without pretensions to that high office-and really see no great charms either in the salary or the connexion-and, for the glory of writing such verses as we have now been reviewing, we do not believe that there is a scribbler in the kingdom so vile as to think it a thing to be coveted.

ART. IX. A Letter to a Member of Parliament, on the Slavery of the Christians at Algiers. By WALTER CROKER, Esq. of the Royal Navy. London, Stockdale. 1816.

WE rejoice very sincerely in observing the disposition at length evinced by the Legislature, to urge the government towards the performance of a duty imperative upon this country, if all regard to character and consistency has not departed from among us. The discussion which took place at the close of last Session, upon Mr Brougham's motion, clearly evinces, that the day is not far distant, when the ignominious license, too long indulged to the Barbary Pirates, will be numbered, with the Slave Trade, among those monstrous departures from publick justice and policy, to which nothing but length of time could ever have reconciled the feelings of men, and in

the existence of which it will be difficult for them to believe, after they have once awakened to a sense of duty, and looked back, at the distance of but a few years, to the disgraceful usage of past

centuries.

Already, indeed, it is little less than incredible, that the civilized nations of Europe should so long have endured the piracy of those bloody and despicable Barbarians, who ravage the fairest coasts of its southern regions, and daily commit with impunity outrages, the least of which, if offered once in twenty years, by one great power to another, must have proved the cause of instant war, and only been repaired by a prodigious waste of blood and treasure, almost all over the civilized world. The law of nations has seemed hitherto to visit with its penalties only the more rare and trivial breaches of its enactments; while, towards the constant perpetration of the blackest crimes in the catalogue, it has held forth the sure encouragement of a previous pardon,--not by connivance, for it took notice of the offences,but exhibiting the mock figure of perverted Justice, with her eyes open, her balance reversed, and her sword flung away.

It is scarcely possible to account for this anomaly. If we say that the law of nations is a Christian code, and has no sway over Infidels, the fact refutes us presently; for we maintain all the usual relations of political intercourse with the Turk; nay, we have consuls and vice-consuls in the dominions of the piratical States themselves. If it be pretended that the Barbarians never came into our notions of right, and have in all ages exercised the trade of spoliation; the answer is, that, beyond all memory, it has been the universal practice of nations to regard pirates as enemies of the human race, and to inflict summary punishment upon them whensoever they were caught; so that the right of the one party to punish, rests on the same prescriptive title behind which the other shelters his offending. If, again, an exception be alleged, by suggesting that the Corsairs are not lawless pirates, but vessels bearing a national flag, and recognized by their own government, which authorizes their proceedings; then we reply, that this only shifts the crime from the agent to the principal, or rather gives us a right to visit with punishment both the subject and the power which protects him. But we are wasting time in contending with such fanciful arguments. The true reason of that forbearance so long shown towards the Robbers, has been the mutual jealousy of the powers who should have united to extirpate them. There was always some notion of interest, either present. or expected; some preposterous and shameful project of turning the friendship of the Barbarians to account, in a quarrel or a.