respect to the latter objection, which has been no slight favourite among criticks, I can offer no better apology than a denial of the fact. I have carefully considered every expression and every action of his toward Ophelia, and I cannot trace the slightest mark of cruelty, or unkindness. Neither can we draw such a conclusion from the impressions which his conduct leaves upon her mind. Although she expresses herself" most deject and wretched," her sorrow proceeds not from her being sensible of unkindness fron him, but from her witnessing the estrangement of his reason: from her perceiving

"his noble mind o'erthrown:

his noble and most sovereign reason,

Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh.

"Had she felt any cause of complaint towards him, she surely would have betrayed it, at the moment, when her own wandering of miud exposed her most secret sentiments. But not a word of accusation does she utter against him. Her loss of reason in fact arises from her father's death, and on him alone her thoughts appear to be fixed. In the scene between these unfortunate lovers, where she returns him his "remembrances," which I suppose to be that on which the accusation of cruelty is founded, his words are meant to bear the appearance of insanity; and that they leave such an impression on her mind is evident from her observations throughout the scene. But even had he treated her with some degree of harshness, it would not have been difficult to account for, and to excuse his conduet, It would have been considered in a great measure provoked by herself: by her returning his letters so causelessly and capriciously; by her joining in the general plot against him, and consenting to become a spy upon his sentiments; and particularly by her doing so at a moment when his opinion of the sex had fallen to the lowest ebb, from the degrading conduct of his mother." P. 395.

In Section V. the author considers, in the last place," the language and sentiments" of poetical composition. Two chapters compose this section; in which he investigates the licences, which may be taken by the poet, in deviating from the strictness of grammatical and rhetorical rules. We have hitherto beheld the author taking those comprehensive views, which embrace the more commanding parts of the subject of poetry; we now behold him displaying that minute accuracy, which descends to the consideration of verbal niceties. In the course of this curious investigation, the author sustains the high character, which he has hitherto supported. All those verbal inaccuracies which please by some grace in the expression, though transgressing critical rule, are justified by the authority of the purest writers, ancient and modern, and illustrated by examples carefully selected from

the

the vast range of ancient and modern literature. Each anomaly is resolved into its first principles, and the source of the pleasure which it imparts is ingeniously explored and revealed. It is not possible to convey an idea of the art which is displayed in this minute and laborious investigation, unless by ample extracts adduced from the work itself. In the first chapter, the author considers the licences which may be taken by the poet, in the choice, the structure, and metrical disposition of the words. On the licence of converting an adjective into a substantive, he delivers himself in the following terms :

"This licence imparts an expressive grace to poetical language by conspicuously marking out the distinguishing quality in any object.

σε Δως αγαθη ΑΡΠΑΞ δε κακη θανατοιο δοτειρά.

Psyche.

"And through the palpable obscure find out
His uncouth way, or spread his airy flight

Over the vast abrupt.

Par. Lost.

ཎྞ་་

"With lonely steps to tread

The unfounded deep, and through the void immense.

"Magnum per inane.

Ib.

Virgil.

"In the first of these examples the reader immediately perceives that the quality of the objects is more striking than the objects themselves, and is therefore appropriately substituted for them:

in

in the last the objects themselves are indistinct while the quality is conspicuous. The nature of the firmament itself we cannot well ascertain, but we readily distinguish its azure colour, its clearness, or its obscurity. We therefore naturally, and justly, substitute the adjective expressing this quality for the substantive expressing the object." P. 426.

In the second chapter, the author investigates the rhetorical licences, as they regard the signification of the words, the signification of sentences, and the construction of sentences. As illustrative of this part of his subject, we subjoin his remarks on the figure Synecdoche, by which the species is substituted for the

genus.

"This licence of employing a particular term to denote a more general one is among the most striking liberties which the poet takes with his language. He thus creates the most distinct image of the object which he means to represent, and brings it home immediately to our observation. Almost all our first ideas are derived from the presentation of particular or individual objects to the senses: they are consequently more distinct and clear, in being more simple and more sensible, than those which are reduced to a general and complex form by a mental operation. When the poet therefore substitutes a particular for an abstract term, he paints the object in its truest and most vivid colours, in appealing directly to the senses. Our ideas of the colour of a rose, are more exactly defined than our general ideas of redness. The expression, rosy fingered morn*, therefore, substituted for red fingered, not only adds to our gratification by presenting us with a delicate and beautiful object, but impresses us with the most distinct and accurate view of the image which the poet means to pourtray. The terms rose and lily, substituted for the red and pale colour of the complexion possesses the same effect." P. 514.

Having entered thus minutely into the detail of the author's enquiry, it now merely remains that we should pass a summary judgment upon the work. With little hesitation do we pronounce it the production of a mind, which is elegantly turned, and highly improved; which is not less distinguished by the accuracy of its discrimination, than the comprehensiveness of its views. By enlarging the limits of that art, which the author has so highly cultivated, he has drawn within its circle the marvellous creations of the poet. It would be detracting from his praise to place him merely at the head of the commentators of Shakspeare, having proved himself the most successful advocate of nature and of fancy. We are indeed of opinion, that the critical catalogue of

* ARISTOT. Rhetoric. Lib. III. cap.

VOL. II. AUGUST, 1814.

L

ii.

any

any library would be defective which wanted this ingenious vou. lume; and that the furnisher even of a book-case, in omitting it, would convey no idea of the extensiveness of his reading, or the justness of his taste.

That we expect to see every maxim of the critic pass into a law, to which the public will yield its assent, or the poet extend his acquiescence, we are far from asserting. In many of the positions which he has laboured to establish, there will be readers found to think for themselves, and disposed to form conclusions different from those which he has so ably maintained. However impregnable we may believe him on the subject of "Hamlet," the plan of "Orlando Furioso," and the machinery of the “ Midsummer Night's Dream," will, we fear, be still considered indefensible, after all that he has advanced in their behalf. Opinion may be likewise divided on the inequality of the style of the author's work, as exhibiting some obscurities to be cleared away, some redundancies to be pruned, and some asperities to be softened down. But this objection, if made, must be urged with great limitations. Innumerable passages occur, in which the beauty of the sentiment is equalled by the felicity of the diction As some corrective of the "faint praise" which we may be now thought to convey, we select the following passage, which appears to us eminently beautiful, not merely on account of the knowledge of nature which it displays, but the variety of the expression, and the justness of the allusion, in which it is conveyed. The author is employed in vindicating the mixed metaphors used in Macbeth, after perpetrating the murder of Duncan, which have been frequently censured.

"He issues forth from the chamber where he has murdered his sovereign and his benefactor, with a full consciousness of the atrocity of the crime. His mind not as yet fully deprayed, is haunted; by the image of horrour which he there surveyed, and he endeavours by employing his thoughts on indifferent subjects to escape the scene of terrour which still floats before his senses. How often, when pursued by any distressing remembrance, do we fly to the same refuge, and endeavour to divert our thoughts from the subject of our concern, into a more pleasing, or at least an indifferent, channel! How often, when presented with an image of fear or terrour, do we cling to any object which may withhold us, for a moment, from the vortex of apprehension that would absorb us! This is the refuge to which the mind in a state of distraction uniformly resorts: it seeks to fly away from the sense of its miseries, by pursuing a thousand incoherent fantasies.

"Better I were distract; [says Gloucester,]

So should my thoughts be severed from my griefs;

And

And woes, by wrong imaginations, lose
The knowledge of themselves.

King Lear.

"It seems as if the wounded imagination fondly hoped by the impetuosity of its flight to outstrip the anguish that rankles in the remembrance. In the precipitation of its progress it seeks for means more suited to the velocity of its desires than its common movements; it calls out for the wings of a dove that it may flee away, and be at rest.”” P. 529.

On the whole, we accept the work, and we recommend it, as the production of a professed apologist of poetry, from whose decisions the severer reader will deem it necessary to deduct something, on the score of the allowances to be made for a professed admirer. In that happy mean in which nature has determined (not merely in arts of utility, but of ornament and design; in criticism as well as religion and jurisprudence) that vacillating opinion shall ultimately settle by balancing between extremes, it forms a just counterpoise to the works of those formal artists who would bind up art in the fetters of science. The tendency of critical dogmatism towards this point, as it must have struck the observation, must have pained the sensibility of every person of taste. We therefore hail the author's labours, as opposing a barrier, if not to withstand the progress, yet to arrest the tendency, of this evil, which, if left unopposed, must ultimately terminate in extinguishing the true spirit of poetry among us, and in destroying our relish for the irregular beauties of our inimitable bards.

ART. II. A Letter on the Corn Laws, by the Earl of Lauderdale.

The Speech of the Right Hon. George Rose in the House of Commons, on the 5th of May, 1814, on the Subject of the

Corn Laws.

Observations on the Effects of the Corn Laws, and of a rise and fall in the Price of Corn on the Agriculture and general Wealth of the Country. By the Rev. T. R. Malthus.

1814.

NO subject at once so interesting and so complicated has at any time engaged the attention of the legislature and of the country at large as that of the Corn Laws. It has become involved not only from the nature of the Corn Trade itself, which is admitted by all to have something peculiar in it, but also from the numerous interests which come in competition with a high L 2

state