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tions of barley, sago, rice, Indian arrow-root, plantains, bananas, &c. Port-wine diluted with water may be used for ordinary drink.

To restore the lost vigour and tone of the system, astringent bitters, with chalybeates, myrrh, and such like tonics, may be used, as advised under the head of dyspepsia, together with such moderate daily exercise as the strength will admit of. If the patient's circumstances will allow of his removing to a cold climate where the air is dry, he should do it before the disease becomes inveterate.'

As the comprehensive nature of Dr. Thomas's plan has obliged him to treat many important subjects in a very brief manner, it would have increased the value of his work to young readers, if he had referred, at the close of each division, to the principal authors from which it was compiled.

ART. XII. Miscellanies, in Verse and Prose, English and Latin. By the late Anthony Champion, of the Middle Temple, Esq. Published from the Original Manuscripts by William Henry Lord Lyttelton. 8vo. 10s. 6d. Boards. White. 1801.

TH

HIS posthumous work contains many pieces which display considerable elegance of taste, and correctness of composition, though they do not exhibit a high degree of poetical genius. They are in general above mediocrity, and all evince the author's acquaintance with the best models. We extract, as a specimen, the subsequent elegiac verses:

STANZAS BY SEVERN-SIDE, Nov. 1788.

WRITTEN AT HAM-COURT, THE SEAT OF JOHN MARTIN, ESQ.
ONCE more my willing feet by Severn stray,

Through the soft meads and hospitable grove,
Where oft has gleam'd the mild autumnal day,
Still with calm leisure blest and social love.
Nor yet is wanting Friendship's cordial cheer,

Nor charm of female worth, serene and kind:
Ah! pleasing hours, ye speed your light career
Nor heed the gloom that rises thick behind!
For soon the wintry scenes of life must come,
Our genial spirits droop, and fancy fade;
Disease and death's inevitable doom

Too soon must whelm us in the general shade.
Nor thou, Sabrina, whose perpetual stream
With quick succession ceaseless seems to flow,
Nymph as thou art, thyself immortal deem,
Nor boast to 'scape the lot of all below.

Time was, ere huge Plimlimmon heav'd the breast,
Whose bounteous moisture feeds thy infant rill
Those vital springs shall time at length arrest,
And, slowly mining, sink thy parent hill.

Again perhaps, as change eternal sways,

By potent engines, moulding nature's frame,
Some lab'ring force profound the mount may raise,
Still fountful to revive Sabrina's fame.

Through virgin meads, new-clad in vernal pride,
Shall the young naiad draw her sinuous train,
By springing groves and rising turrets glide,
Then yield her bridal tribute to the main.
A second Thyrsis may invoke her aid *,

To free chaste beauty from th' enchanter's spell,
While warbled plainings fill the twilight glade,
And woo sweet Echo from her aery shell.
Then too some waning bard, in pensive vein,
May strictly meditate sage Spenser's lore ; †
Of time and mutability complain,

And life's brief periods, fix'd by fate, deplore.
Yet renovation still succeeds decay,

Alternate, as the flood and ebbing tide:
The muse, though mortal, hence forbids dismay,
Who, cheer'd with hope's bright genius by her side,

A glance through dim futurity shall dart,

Then breathe one last, but elevating strain,
Of solemn charm to calm the throbbing heart,

Which thought too curious would appal in vain.'

The Latin verses are fluent and chaste, but evidently not finished for publication. Should any of our classical friends have imbibed a partiality for spectres, they will be gratified by four lines, which occur in a poem composed to dissuade a friend from the study of the feudal system;

• Ultro crediderim tam tetrâ voce locutum

Attonita è lumulis Gothica spectra sequi

Hengistumque, Horsamque, et operta casside torvam
Haroldi speciem, Neustriacumque ducem.'

The operta casside torvam is correctly and happily descriptive. We shall conclude our quotations with Mr. Champion's epi gram on Vincent Bourne's Latin Poems:

• Antiquo mihi das nova carmina tincta lepore, ‡
Queis insunt lacrymą, gaudia, vota, sales.
Hec quoties recolam, dulcique in munere verser
Curole, qui possim non meminisse tui?
Nam lepidi ingenii est, et culta mentis imago

Hic liber; et Charites pagina quæque sapit.

Alluding to the invocation of Sabrina, and the song of Sweet

Echo, in the masque of Comus.'

The two cantos of Mutability at the end of the Faery Queen and the poem intitled the Ruins of Time,'

Vincentii Bournei poemata.?

The

The dates of several of these pieces are from 1743 to 1771; and, in their ease and polish, they remind us forcibly of the good old poetical School.

The noble editor of this handsome volume has prefixed a short biographical account of its deceased author, in which he speaks in the highest terms of the productions of his muse as well as of the qualities of his heart. If we do not unreservedly subscribe to the energy of Lord Lyttelton's praise on the former, we know not any reason for abating the strength of his eulogy with regard to the latter: though, as we had not the pleasure of being acquainted with Mr. Champion, we are equally unqualified to confirm it.

ART. XIII. La Bagatella; or, Delineations of Home Scenery. A Descriptive Poem. In Two Parts. With Notes, Critical and Historical. By William Fox, jun. 8vo. 5s. Boards. vingtons. 18or.

Ri.

WE are not disposed to treat with any severity the inoffensive lounges of this author, in the neighbourhood of Hackney; nor to disturb his enjoyment of the Venetian blinds in his library, which are here not only sung, but depicted in one of the pretty vignettes which adorn the book. No-we will not quarrel with his poetry, for it may certainly be read without dislike; witness the following lines:

Meek priests of nature! who with incense cull'd
From mountain air, in morning's early time,
"Twixt the soft rains of spring, full oft invite,
But vain, their fellow-men, their rites to share.
When, by the tender dawn light, the young lark
Wakes from his lowly bed, the bard walks forth
To greet the march of day; and when, at eve,
The plaintive nightingale her requiem chants,
He lingers fondly by the green-wood side,
Or on the river's banks, to watch the moon
Upon the water play-or in the dell
Alone, by some old abbey, will he sit,

"Till, by the midnight prayer-bell rous'd, he leaps
Forth, as from trance, and joins the holy choir

In strains more sweet, and heart more warm, than theirs.

Ah! who can speak the raptures of the bard
When forth, on his rich fancy, first awakes
The embryo colouring of his fairy forms.

How holy Milton felt, ah! who shall tell,

When he of Paradise so largely sang,
In strains that Paradise might love to hear?

Or Low great Shakspeare, when, from Nature's haud,
The keys of her exhaustless stores he took?

Or

Or frantic Collins, or diviner Gray,

When, with quick-trembling hand, they seiz'd the lyre?
Not common men were these, nor common track
Did they pursue unto their journey's end.
The low horizon that confines the crowd,
With noble daring, oft they stepp'd beyond,
And trod sublimer ground. With angel-light
Almost endow'd, they on the future glanc'd,
The present, and the past; and, eagle-eye'd,
From nature cull'd, with magic potency,
Each varied form-the flower, the shrub, the herb,
From forest wild, or the cool water'd vale,
The tempest and the calm, the western glow,
Morn's blushing tints, and evening's milder gray,
To grace the scenery they lov'd to paint.

Such are the sweets my letter'd bower supplies,
And such the fairty-treat my shelves afford.

• But when short truce th' exhausted sight requires,
And the rich banquet I awhile resign,

Sweet is the change, when forth, as now, allur’d
By summer scenes, to my lov'd walks I stray.

To Dorlestone's shaded path I turn me then
Across the brook, and by my favourite bench
Linger, to gaze upon the old gray tower,
By the red glare of setting-sun illum'd.'

We must, however, seriously complain of the quantity of notes and citations accumulated on this trifling subject *. There is a method of quoting any thing so as to make it relate to any thing. Mr. Fox, perceiving that there are fields, and houses, and brooks, in and about Hackney, has opened most unmercifully the torrent of quotations on these topics;-and the vicinity of London and the Thames unfortunately encourages him to spread his prospect like that of Dyer, and

"Add unnumber'd fields and meads."

He has, moreover, taken the trouble of informing the world which are his favourite authors, and has printed very long extracts from books which are in almost every man's possession. Against this practice, also, we must enter our protest; because, at this rate, the next Bagatelles which come before us may contain a republication of the British Poets. Indeed, if many readers, of Mr. Fox's standard, should exhibit their favourite passages, the result would perhaps resemble that of the story concerning Aristarchus's re perusals of Homer; and every line would be marked by the admiration of some individual or another. Neither can we admit that, with this display of reading, Mr.

* We could not afford room for the extensive notes affixed to the above passage.

Fox

Fox has afforded much evidence of real literature, either in the poem or the notes. He tells us, for example, that, after the death of Sappho, the inhabitants of Mitylene [classically speaking, Lesbos] went so far as to engrave her image upon their coins.' If Mr. Fox will consult any of the general books of Numismata, he will find that the Lesbians went so much farther in their medailic imagery, that the distinction was by no means enviable.

Voltaire, in a contest with a writer whom he supposed to be a German, wished him "more wit, and fewer consonants." When Mr. Fox appears again before the public, we shall be glad to see more verses, and fewer annotations.

ART. XIV. A Comment upon Part of the fifth Journey of Antoninus hrough Britain; in which the Situation of Durocobrivæ, the seventh Station there mentioned, is discussed; and Castor in Northamptonshire is shewn, from the various Remains of Roman Antiquity, to have an undoubted Claim to that Situation. To which is added, A Dissertation on an Image of Jupiter found there. By the Rev. Kennet Gibson, late Curate of Castor. Printed from the Original MS.; and enlarged with the Parochial History of Castor and its Dependencies to the present Time.. To which is subjoined, an Account of Marham, and several other Places in its Neighbourhood. 4to. pp. 300. 15s. sewed. Nichols. 1800. WHEN we attempt to penetrate the deep and obscure recesses of past times, objects must be expected to appear confused and indistinct; and often we shall be under the inevitable necessity of invoking the aid of conjecture, to supply the place of direct and positive evidence. Many ages have elapsed since Britain was occupied by the Romans; and though their public works were substantial and magnificent, there now remain comparatively but few traces of their conquest and dominion. The direction of the great military or consular Roman roads may yet be tolerably well ascertained: but in most places the roads themselves are so completely obliterated, that it is extremely difficult to fix with precision the Roman stations, as laid down in the Itinerary of Antoninus. This work, (generally attributed to Antoninus Caracalla, but by some supposed to be the production of a writer whose age is unknown,) being a mere list of names and numbers, unac companied by topographical or historical remarks, affords only a faint ray to the antiquary in his researches; yet patience, combined with fortunate discoveries, may sometimes superinduce a probability of conjecture; and when even this cannot be effected by such means, errors may be supposed to exist in the numbers

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