they excuse the blemishes. But the public taste would receive no benefit from a detail of mediocrity, relieved only by the censure of faults uncompensated by excellencies. We have great pleasure in calling the attention of our readers to the beautiful poem before us, which we believe to be the work of the same lady who last year put her name to the second edition of another poem on a kindred subject, "The Restoration of the Works of Art to Italy," namely, Mrs Hemans of North Wales. That the author's fame has not altogether kept pace with her merit, we are inclined to think is a reproach to the public. Poetry is at present experiencing the fickleness of fashion, and may be said to have had its day. Very recently, the reading public, as the phrase is, was immersed in poetry, but seems to have had enough; and excepting always that portion of it who are found to relish genuine poetry on its own intrinsic account, and will never tire of the exquisite enjoyment which it affords, the said public seldom read poetry at all.

It was very natural for poets in their finer sympathies, to be lured into the mistake that, like themselves, "the million" loved " music, image, sentiment, and thought," with a love never to die." They did not observe that the attachment was greatly too sudden to give reasonable hopes of constancy. For more than two hundred years the best poetry in Europe was to be found in our own country; yet a very small portion of the edu

cated classes seems ever to have taken any warm interest in these treasures. How few have read Chaucer or Spencer, or studied Shakspeare, except in the theatre. Upon what multitudes has Milton thrown away his lofty strain-Dryden his fire-Pope his exquisite polish-Thomson his music and grace and his exquisite and impassioned descriptions of nature. Poetical excellence addresses itself to higher tastes and finer sensibilities than are bestowed on the bulk of mankind; and to all who are not so endowed, it is a very tiresome sort of pastime.

An era however approached. "The Lay" converted thousands, and "Marmion" tens of thousands, and the whole world read poetry. Had Mr Scott given out the same quantity of poetical thoughts and images, in poems constructed like "The Task," or "The

Pleasures of Hope," his readers would not have numbered one for a hundred; yet the accessary ninety-nine, attract ed by the seductive form in which he has actually appeared, firmly believe that they have all been regularly im bued with a taste for genuine poetry. The whole secret is, that Mr Scott gave to the world a series of brilliant romances, and turned into this newmade channel all who ever in their lives read and relished fictitious compositions. All the poets, good and bad, forthwith wrote metrical romancesfrom the time of Gertrude of Wyoming to that of Lalla Rookh; and to the exhibition of human passion and action in well-conceived plots and catastrophes, more than to any change in their mere poetry, is to be imputed that powerful stimulus which several of the masters of the present day have succeeded in applying to the formerlyrather-languid feelings of the public. There needs not the fine imagery, the exquisite metaphors, the delightful allusions of genuine poetry to do this. There is no want of excitability in the multitude, by pathos skilfully administered;-the electrical effects of sympathy in the theatre prove it: but these emotions are not imputable necessarily to the poetical form in which the popular sentiments are conveyed. A justly admired author has lately shewn, that this can be done in a very powerful manner in a prose narrative. It is impossible to work such effects by mere song, with all its imagery and all its eloquence.

But so little is that excitement which the bulk of readers covet necessarily connected with poetry, that these readers have tired even of romances in a metrical form, and are regarding all their late rythmical favourites alike, with that sort of ingratitude with which repletion would lead them to regard a banquet when the dishes are removing from the table. But this is no proof that these great poets have forfeited their title to be admired. They are fixed orbs, which stand just where they did, and shine just as they were wont, although they seem to decline to the world which revolves the opposite way. But if the world will turn from the poet, whatever be his merit, there is an end of his populari ty, inasmuch as the most approved conductor of the latter is the multitude, as essentially as is the air of the

sound of his voice. Profit will also fail, from the lack of purchasers; and poetry, high as it may intrinsically seem, must fall, commercially speaking, to its ancient proverbially unprofitable level. Yet poetry will still be poetry, however it may cease to pay; and although the acclaim of multitudes is one thing, and the still small voice of genuine taste and feeling another, the nobler incense of the latter will ever be its reward.

Our readers will now cease to wonder, that an author like the present, who has had no higher aim than to regale the imagination with imagery, warm the heart with sentiment and feeling, and delight the ear with music, without the foreign aid of tale or fable, has hitherto written to a select few, and passed almost unnoticed by the multitude.

With the exception of Lord Byron, who has made the theme peculiarly his own, no one has more feelingly contrasted ancient with modern Greece. The poem on the Restoration of the Louvre Collection has, of course, more allusions to ancient Rome; and nothing can be more spirited than the passages in which the author invokes for modern Rome the return of her ancient glories. In a cursory but graphic manner, some of the most celebrated of the ancient statues are described. Referring our readers with great confidence to the works themselves, our extracts may be limited.

The Venus restored to Florence is thus apostrophized:

"There thou, fair offspring of immortal Mind!

Love's radiant goddess, Idol of mankind! Once the bright object of Devotion's vow, Shalt claim from taste a kindred worship

now.

Oh! who can tell what beams of heavenly light

Flash'd o'er the sculptor's intellectual sight; How many a glimpse, reveal'd to him alone, Made brighter beings, nobler worlds, his

own;

Ere, like some vision sent the earth to bless, Burst into life, thy pomp of loveliness!".

Ancient Rome is addressed with much sublimity, and the Laocoon most feelingly pourtrayed. The Apollo, however, is very unjustly dismissed with six of the most indifferent lines,

in the poem. Many of the Louvre statues being Roman worthies, the poem concludes with the following striking allusion to their restoration: VOL. I.

crown,

Lift her dread Ægis with majestic frown, Unchain her Eagle's wing, and guide its flight, To bathe its plumage in the fount of light."

The poem more immediately before us is of much greater length, and, we are inclined to think, of higher merit than its predecessor. The measure is like the Spencerian, though different. The experiment was bold, but it has not failed in the author's hands; and the music is upon the whole good. We would willingly quote largely from this poem, but have already outwrit ten our limits. We have seldom been more delighted than we were with the first nine stanzas, and cannot resist giving the 8th and 9th.

VIII. "Where soft the sunbeams play, the zephyrs blow,

"Tis hard to deem that misery can be nigh; Where the clear heavens in blue transparence glow,

Life should be calm and cloudless as the

Once proud in freedom, still in ruin fair, Thy fate hath been unmatched-in glory and depair."

After the same manner, and in the same strain of allusion, are stanzas 28th and 29th. Athens is thus beautifully apostrophized:

LXX.

"But thou, fair Attica! whose rocky bound All art and nature's richest gifts enshrined, Thou little sphere, whose soul-illumined round

Concentrated each sunbeam of the mind; Who, as the summit of some Alpine height,

Glows earliest, latest with the blush of day,

Didst first imbibe the splendours of the light,

And smile the longest in its lingering ray; Oh! let us gaze on thee, and fondly deem The past awhile restored, the present but a dream."

The reader must have recourse to the poem for much that follows in the same strain. The following description is not exceeded in that force and brilliancy of poetic painting which sets the object before us, by any poetry of the age; the passage is introductory to some fine allusions to the Elgin Marbles, which adds much to the elegance of the poem.

LXXIV.

The harmony of grace, the beauty of repose. LXXV.

And lovely o'er thee sleeps the sunny glow, When morn and eve in tranquil splendour reign,

And on thy sculptures, as they smile, bestow Hues that the pencil emulates in vain. Then the fair forms by Phidias wrought, unfold

Each latent grace, developing in light, Catch from soft clouds of purple and of gold,

Each tint that passes tremulously bright; And seem indeed whate'er devotion deems, While so suffused with heaven, so mingling with its beams. LXXVI,

But oh! what words the vision may pour

tray,

The form of sanctitude that guards thy

shrine ?

throws."

The following lines touch with a glowing pencil the frieze of the Parthenon now so well known:

XCII. "Mark-on the storied frieze the graceful train,

The holy festival's triumphal throng, In fair procession to Minerva's fane, With many a sacred symbol move along. There every shade of bright existence trace, The fire of youth, the dignity of age; The matron's calm austerity of grace, The ardent warrior, the benignant sage; The nymph's light symmetry, the chief's proud mien, Each ray of beauty caught and mingled in

the scene.

The other Elgin Marbles are alluded to as follows:

XCVI.

"Gaze on yon forms, corroded and de

faced

And still those shattered forms retain their godlike mould."

The poem then gives a prophetic vision of the future trophies of our own country in the fine arts-the sole wreath yet unwon by her and con cludes with the following lines:

"So, should dark ages o'er thy glory sweep, Should thine e'er be as now are Grecian plains,

Nations unborn shall track thine own

Ewing's Geography, 12mo, pp. 300; and Ewing's New General Atlas, roy. 4to. Edinburgh, Oliver & Boyd.

THE attention paid to the study of Geography is one of the greatest im provements in the modern system of education. Children are now acquaint ed with the names and positions of the different quarters and countries of the globe, at an age when their parents had scarcely learned to read. It is a study in which they generally take pleasure. Their imagination delights to expatiate over distant regions, and their curiosity is naturally excited by whatever is peculiar to climates and countries different from their own. To give to this curiosity its due di rection, and to impart such information as may at once interest and improve the juvenile mind, is a task which requires considerable judgment, and to facilitate which, should be the principal object in elementary systems of geography.

This object Mr Ewing professes to have had in view in the system now before us; and for the manner in which he has pursued it, he is entitled to the gratitude both of the students and teachers of that useful science.

His plan we think judicious; and the information which, with much industry, he has collected in his notes, cannot fail to be extremely useful, both in fixing the names of places more deeply on the pupil's memory, and in storing their minds with useful knowledge; while, by directing their attention to the proper objects of curiosity, it lays a broad foundation for their future improvement. The account of the Solar System, given in the Introduction, is correct and perspicuous, and is well elucidated by the accompanying notes. This part of the work we think particularly valuable. We know the difficulty of imparting to young pupils any accurate idea of the relative magnitudes, distances, and revolutions of the planets; yet, with out some knowledge of these, geography cannot be properly understood. We know, too, that many who under take to teach geography, are nearly as ignorant of the planetary system as their pupils; and to such persons the short but clear account of it given by Mr Ewing cannot fail to be extremely acceptable.

To remove every difficulty out of

the way of teachers who may not have had much experience, Mr Ewing has sketched out a method of instruction, which, being varied of course according to circumstances, may be found of considerable advantage. We approve highly of the plan of having a vocabulary at the end of the work, comprehending such names as are liable to be erroneously pronounced, divided, and accented, according to the usual mode of pronunciation. We should have liked, however, to see this vocabulary more copious:-in one or two instances the accent is improperly placed.

In a work which comprises within so narrow a compass such a variety of materials, it is difficult, if not impossible, to avoid defects. There are some things of importance omitted which should have found a place, and some things inserted which might have been left out. These imperfections may be amended in a future edition.-As it is, the work is highly creditable to the industry and judgment of its author.

A New General Atlas has been published by Mr Ewing to correspond with his Geography; and we can very confidently recommend it as by far the most elegant and accurate which we have seen on a similar scale. One decided advantage it possesses over all other atlasses now in use-the advantage of having the boundaries of the European territories accurately deline ated, as settled by the Treaty of Paris and the Congress of Vienna.

Harrington, a Tale; and Ormond, a Tale; in 3 vols. By MARIA EDGEWORTH, &c. London, Hunter, &c. 1817.

It is a very common opinion, that when an author has continued to write long, he must either vary the nature of his subjects, or exhaust his invention; and be reduced to the necessity of repeating, in different forms, what he has said before, or of tiring his reader by dull and meagre productions, in the hope that his former celebrity may give them currency. We have heard fears expressed that Miss Edgeworth might have written herself out; and that even her fertile pen might be able to produce nothing in future worthy of her well-earned reputation. For our own parts, we must take to ourselves the credit of saying, that we never en

tertained such fears. The resources of real genius we believe to be inexhaust ible; and if any kind of writing affords an unlimited variety of subjects, it is that in which Miss Edgeworth so eminently excels. The endless diversity of human life and manners, will always save from the danger of tire some uniformity the writer who can observe them with accuracy, and delineate them with effect.

Of the two tales with which she has recently favoured the public, the merits and the faults are diametrically opposite. In the one we have a welldevised story, the interest of which is sustained to the conclusion-but have comparatively little variety of character: in the other, the story is less ably digested, while the exhibition of character is more ample and masterly. The one is a fancy-piece, in which the powers of the artist are evidently exerted to impart to her figures a magnitude and colouring beyond the reality of life;-the other is a study from nature, in which the portraiture is in general correct, but in which the pencilling is perhaps too minute, and some things are brought forward to view, which might have been more discreetly thrown into shade.

The motive which induced Miss Edgeworth to write the tale of Harrington, does honour to her candour and humanity. She had received a letter from an American Jewess, complaining of the illiberality with which the Jewish nation had been treated in some of her former works; and feeling that the censure was merited, she adopted this public method of doing them justice. The prejudices which are still cherished, we fear to a great extent, against that unhappy race, may be regarded as the greatest reproach on the liberality of this enlightened age. A people, so long the special objects of the Divine dispensations, with whose history our earliest and most sacred associations are interwoven, on whose religion our own was ingrafted, whose country was the scene of all its most interesting events, and who, even in their dispersion, afford the most striking illustration of that superintending Providence by which they are to be finally restored-might well be regarded with a degree of veneration-did they not occur to our memories as the obstinate and merciless persecutors of Christ and of Christians, rather

than as the once favoured and peculiar people of God. Nor is it to be denied, that the violent persecutions to which throughout Christendom, they have been exposed in their turn, the disabilities under which they labour, and their complete separation from the rest of the community, have kept alive their spirit of hostility to the professors of the Christian faith, and engendered habits which may warrant, in some measure, the opinion generally entertained of their character. Were the representation given of them by Miss Edgeworth to obtain general credit, that opinion would speedily be changed. We regret, for the sake of this oppressed and injured people, that her zeal has in this case rather outrun her judgment; and that, by representing all her Jewish characters as too uniformly perfect, she has thrown a degree of suspicion over her whole defence.

But it is time to give our readers some account of the tale. The hero of it, Harrington, had been frightened at a very early age into a horror of the Jews, by the dreadful stories told of them by his nursery-maid, who employed their name as a bugbear to reduce him to obedience, whenever he was inclined to be refractory. His aversion to them was afterwards increased by many incidental circumstances, and in particular, by the prejudices of his father, who, in his capacity of Member of Parliament, had taken a decided part against the famous bill for the naturalization of the Jews. It was not till the sixth year after he had been at school, that an incident occurred which led him to regard the Jews with less dread, and was the commencement of that intimate acquaintance with some individuals of that race, which gradually converted his antipathy against them into respect and affection. We shall relate the incident in his own words.