and fervid imagination; and his numbers are, for the most part, harmonious. Sometimes he gives us a faulty line, and a bad rhyme; but we can eafily forgive little defects, for the fake of his good fentiments, and the general merit of his compofitions. His firft four pieces are Eclogues, formed on a very extensive plan. No. 1. is styled American: in this piece, a Negroe flave bewails his hard fate, from the lofs of his liberty, and his being fubjected to a cruel tafk-mafter. In the 2d, which is an Afiatic Eclogue, two young ladies of rank lament the defolation of their country, by the rapacity of thofe ruthlefs robbers, the Chriftians. The 3d is European, fcene Ireland: the subject is, the poverty and wretchedness of the oppreffed natives, in confequence of which they are driven to emigration. The 4th defcribes two African lovers, deploring the mifery and horrors brought on their country by the flave trade. After thefe Eclogues, we have a variety of poetical pieces, among which, are Six tinted Sketches' of the months of February, April, June, Auguft, October, and December. In thefe defcriptive pieces, we meet with agreeable sketches [juftly fo entitled] of the natural productions, rural amufements, and various employments, by which the different feafons are diftinguished. We are next prefented with feveral lyric compofitions, the laft of which is An Ode to Fancy; and this we have selected as a specimen :

Delufive Fancy! whither, fay,

Haft thou thine artlefs vot'ry led,
What romantic pleasures spread,
To force a feeling heart aftray?
Deaf to wifdom's facred lore,
Leagu'd with thee, we leave the shore,
Among poetic ifles we sweep,
Then plow the rude Atlantic deep;
Beneath the Equinox we glow,

Or freeze 'midft frigid Zembla's snow;
Thou canft waft the willing foul

Quick from Indus to the Pole;
Well we mark thy mazy round,

Now we tread enchanted ground.

High hold'ft thou up thy glow-worm torch to folly
Or giv❜ft a pleafing gloom to melancholy.

Heard'st thou not the voice of anguish
Echo from yon brazen tow'r?
There, what captive damfels languish
In a ruthless tyrant's power;
And noble dames, whofe radiant eyes
Might challenge love-fick Petrarch's fighs;
And hapless knights, in dreary cells
Confin'd by necromantic fpells;
Till within helm and hauberk bright,
Virtue's champion braves the fight.

Mark

Mark each bold, each manly deed.
Monster, thou unmourn'd fhalt bleed!
Solemn founds affail the ear;

Now lighter airs float on the gale,
Such as bards were wont to hear
Near each haunted hill and dale.
Fairy gambols now are seen
On the dew-befpangled green,

Quaintly there with fports and pleasures,
Tripping to fantastic measures;

While the regent of the night

Pours full-orb'd her borrow'd light:
Rob'd in gay clouds, behold thy courtly train
Majestic move, and brighten all the plain.

Big with feats in days of yore,
Thou unfold'ft thy fabled ftore;
Whilft upon thine ample ftage
Chiefs and demigods engage.
Soft as Philomela's ftrain,

Hark! thy love-born nymphs complain;
Near yon ftreamlet's fedgy fide,

Shepherd fwains increase the tide;
Or by falls of waters meeting,
Sweetest madrigals repeating.

Now fee Gothic domes arife,

Puiffant knights in armour fhine!
Glitt'ring turrets meet the skies,
Surry boafts his Geraldine,
Hark! the filver trumpets found,

Each bestrides his foaming feed;

Shouts of victory astound!

Beauty now is valour's meed.

Thou giv'ft the charge, and Arthur cries to arms,
Or great Godfredo half the world alarms.
Borne on thy gilded plumes, the mufes fing

Of youthful graces, join'd with fmiling love;
For thee the fwains their blooming chaplets bring,
With fatal lures thou deck'ft each fhady grove.
Let thy fprightly troop advance;
Now they join in feftive dance,
Beating brifk the daifey'd ground
To the flute's and hautboy's found.
Lo! they wander thro' the glade,
Bleft each with his bright-ey'd maid,
Or in aramanthine bow'rs

Reft on beds of new-blown flow'rs.
Laughing Love with rofy wings,
And Friendship glowing by his fide,
Ply the oars and filken ftrings,
As down life's ftream we gently glide:

1

Still'

Still before the ravish'd fight

Skim ftrange profpects of delight;
But foon we find thine airy form deceive;
And wretched they who in thy wiles believe.
What then avails the Poet's lay?
Say, can it happiness bestow?
Or can imaginary woe

A moment's poignant grief betray?
When o'er thy panfy'd paths I've ftray'd,
Or figh'd beneath the woodbine fhade,
Whofe branches wantonly entwine
The blushing rofe and eglantine;
When all around, and all above,
Seem'd like my Fair to whifper love:
Thy flatt'ring pencil drew each grace,
Her temper heav'nly as her face;
Pure as the fountain's limpid ftream,
Gentle as Cynthia's filver beam.
When rous'd by Friendship's gen'rous name,
I at thy magic call appear'd,

My foul, unfpotted, felt the flame,

And ev'ry with with Friendship fhar'd.

No more thy tranfports, or thy charms, I'll prove,
Fickle alike in Friendship, and in Love!

In days of funfhine, days of ease,

'Tis then thou'rt dreft in all thy pride,
"Tis then thy gaudy phantoms pleafe,
And ev'ry fear and care deride:
But when tempefts rend the breast,
And the mind with madness boils,
Or defp'rate love the reafon foils,
Thou leav'ft us lonely and oppreft.
From forrow's thorny couch thy pleafures fly,
As the gay vifion fhuns approaching day;
Nor Love nor Friendship's lenient hand apply,
At last too fure thy vot'ries to betray.

No more, no more, thou fafcinating pow'r!
Delufive meteor of an idle hour!'

To the poems are added many notes, collected from various authors, and chiefly tending to illuftrate the local and circumftantial allufions in the Eclogues: thefe illuftrations will add confiderably to the reader's entertainment.

ART. VII. The Abbey of Ambrefbury. A Poem. Part I. By Samuel Birch. 4to. 25. Cadell. 1788.

ONDEMNED to wade through a quantity of wretched rhime, with which many, vainly ftyling themfelves Poets, are inceffantly peftering us, we receive a pleafure (not unlike that experienced by a traveller, who, after paffing over a long,

difmal,

difmal, barren track of country, comes on a fudden to some rich and beautiful profpect,) when a work which difplays any of the charms of true poetry claims our attention. We then feel no difpofition to be niggards of our praife, but are rather in fome danger of lavishing more than is confiftent with the character of cautious critics to bestow. Were we to exprefs the fatiffaction we have, on the whole, received from the perufal of the poem before us, it might probably be deemed exceffive encomium. To avoid this, we will let it fpeak for itself, perfuaded that its own voice, unfupported by the pleadings of any counsellor in the court of Apollo, will gain it a verdict of approbation. Our quotation fhall be what the poet has advanced on the fatal effetis of monaftic feclufion:

O! were thefe walls permitted to rehearse,

Or might our retrospective vifion pierce
'Time's facred volume, thro' each crowded page
Dark with the annals of thine iron *
age,
What monuments of blind, mistaken zeal,
The faithful record would at once reveal!
Myriads of youth by thy deftructive spell
Sent living fun'rals to the cloifter'd cell;
Condemn'd the wretched penance to abide
Of foul hypocrify and monkifh pride;
Each warm affection and paternal care
Left unrequited for the pomp of pray'r;
Each focial duty, each endearing tye,
The foul's beft bond, its native fympathy,
And those few virtues which our natures own
Alike forgotten or alike unknown.

There the pale veftal to thy fhrine betray'd,
Her fpirits wafted, and her bloom decay'd,
All melancholy mourns the ling'ring day,
Forbid to feel and tutor'd how to pray;
Taught to confefs thro' the unblushing + grate
Thofe fins (if fins) the dark fome walls create,
While foft confefiion and reluctant pray'r
Follow the bead lefs frequent than the tear:
And from the lonely midnight couch arife
The lovely captive's ineffectual fighs.'

The reader will perceive that Mr. Pope is a favourite author with Mr. Birch, and that he has imitated, with confiderable fuccefs, the harmonious verfification of that delightful poet. Were we to object to any parts of this poem, it would be to the faulty. rhimes we here and there observe, and to the obfcure manner

The epithet iron, applied to the age of fuperftition, is a very happy one; but the repetition of it, a few lines after, might have been avoided. We could have wifhed, for the fake of variety, that the author had found fome other for the hand of Papal power. + Unblushing does not altogether fatisfy us.

in

in which the mode of Clifford's death is related, and to the following couplet:

Firm was the prop, and hewn from heart of oak,

And on its top the Saviour's image spoke *.'

But its merits far outweigh its defects, and we have no doubt but the author will meet with encouragement fufficient to induce him to continue his poetic labours on thofe manuscripts that, as he informs us, are in his poffeffion, which may probably fupply more incidents of the fame affecting nature with thofe that are related in this first part of the Abbey of Ambrefbury.

There is a vulgarity in the phrafe heart of oak, which fhould exclude it from an elegant poem; and its conversion into our Saviour's Speaking image is too much for a stroke of the imagination, though not for a miracle.

ART. VIII. The Life of Scipio Africanus, and of Epaminondas; intended as a Supplement to Plutarch's Lives. Now first tranflated into English, from the original French of the Abbé Seran de la Tour. By the Rev. R. Parry, Rector of Kemerton, Gloucefterfhire. 8vo. 2 Vols. 10s. Boards. Richardfon. 1787.

TH

HE original publication of thefe Lives was in the year 1739; and the reafons for now tranflating them are given in an Advertisement, viz.

The book was put into my hands fome years ago, and recommended to me by a friend whofe judgment I refpected, as a well written, entertaining, and inftructing performance. I gave it an attentive reading, which afforded me much pleafure and fatisfaction; and induced me to amufe myfelf and beguile many heavy hours in tranflating it.

The era of hiftory it takes in, is perhaps the most interesting of any in the annals of Greece and Rome; from which we derive almost our whole knowledge of antiquity: the perfons who are the leading fubjects of it, perhaps the two moft extraordinary great men of the vast number thofe countries, fo fertile in heroes, have produced.

The one by the force of immenfe talents and the inexhaustible refources of his own mind, without practice, without experience, became, even when advanced in years, the moft able statesman, the, moft expert general. He did not barely redeem his country from the most abject ftate of dependance; but by the most glorious victories raised her to be not only the admiration, but the arbitress of Greece. And this he effected with men who were become a proverb for dulness and ftupidity.

The other, when he had hardly arrived at the ftate of manhood, roufed the fpirits of his fellow-citizens, chafed defpair away, and faved Rome from being abandoned after the dreadful defeat at Cannæ; and by the moft patriotic exertion of the most extensive abilities, and the most brilliant talents, in the space of fourteen

years,