One like a nymph in shape, yet darkly tinted,
Sit on the shady shore. She wove a crown
Of starry flowers, and twined it gracefully
Over her locks of jet; then to the east
She turned, and sung her hymn.

"Forth from thy mountain throne Advance along thy starry-vaulted way, Thou burning Lord of day!

Thou holdest on alone,

And all the gods of darkness steal away.
Before thy luminous ray

Night and her shades are flown.

Forth from the Swerga's bowers

Thou issuest in thy robe of flame;

And over heaven's blue lotus flowers
Rush the wild steeds, no other hand can tame.
They champ, they snort, they blow;
They heave their winnowing manes;
And round thy wheels, in sparkling showers,
Perpetual streams of lightning flow,
And fill yon azure plains.

Thy beamy car descends,
And gliding o'er the forest trees,
To the still river bends,

Up-curling with the newly wakened breeze.
Over its bright expanse,

Thy bounding coursers dance,

And sweep the rolling foam before thy path.
They hurry, hurry by;

I hear the chariot's thunder nigh:
I see the radiant God;

He lifts his golden rod—

How terrible the flashing of his eye!

SUYRA, Lord of day, restrain thy wrath

Send forth thy light to bless, and not to scath."

Her song had ceased,
Its magic ended; but another spell

At once was on me. Then, methought a garden
Spread out its avenues, o'erarched with planes,
And filled with citron flowers. One ancient tree
Towered over me, and threw its shadow broad
And deep below. Beneath it flowed a fountain
Hewn from a natural rock, and by it rose
A tomb, plain wrought in marble, turban-crowned,
And on it carved, "GULGHESHTI MUSELLARA."
This was the tomb of Hafiz-these the walks
Of roses, by the fountain Mosellay,

Dearer to him than bowers of Paradise,

The eastern heaven of love. Far round me lay
One harvest of ripe roses, sending out
Their vaporous dews in one invisible cloud
Of odorous bliss. The silence and the calm,
The coolness and the shade, the sweet low sound
Of the still flowing fountain, and the breath
Of a faint wind that panted through the thickets,
Were beautiful. They sank upon my soul,
Like dews on withering flowers. They quickened me,
And freshened all my thoughts-and then a voice
Came from the garden, silver-toned and clear,
But melancholy sweet, and often choked
By stifling sobs, as if the bulbul wooed
And languished for his rose, or as the dove
Gurgles around his mate, or sadly mourns
His widowed nest, and makes the twilight wood
Responsive to his sighs. Slowly it came
On through the vaulted alleys, till a group
Of maidens, veiled and fearful, from the bowers
Stepped cautious forth."-pp. 123–126.

The last specimen we select, is in quite a different style and

measure.

There is nothing can equal the tender hours

When life is first in bloom;

When the heart, like a bee in a wild of flowers,

Finds every where perfume;

When the present is all, and it questions not,

If those flowers shall pass away,

But, pleased with its own delightful lot,
Dreams never of decay.

O! it dreams not the hue, that freshly glows
On the cheek, shall ever flee,

And fade away like the summer rose,
Or the crimson on the sea,

When far in the west the setting sun
Goes down in the kindled main,
And the colours vanish one by one,
But never revive again.

O! life in its spring-time dances on
In smiles and innocent tears;
It casts not a look to the moments gone,
But hails the coming years;

They shine before its fancy's eye,
Like eastern visions, bright,

Gay as the hues in the western sky,
At the coming on of night.

Thus happy in all their bosoms feel,

And in all their fancy dreams,
Their quiet moments onward steal
Like the silent flow of streams,
Gliding through tufted flowers away
To the far and unknown sea;
So on with a flight that cannot stay
Their days of innocence flee.

But soon-too soon their hearts shall know,
The future was falsely bright,
And its gay and far-deluding glow

Shall change to the gloom of night;
O! then with a fond and lingering eye
They shall turn to the early hours,
When life, as their moments hurried by,

Was a wild of sweets and flowers." pp. 143-144

The preceding extracts are favourable specimens of the poetry of this little volume-but even they are far from being exempt from the prevailing blemishes of Mr. Percival's style-want of perspicuity and distinctness, of condensation and simplicity.

ART. VII.-The Life of Hugo Grotius, with brief Minutes of the Civil, Ecclesiastical, and Literary History of the Netherlands. By CHARLES BUTLER, Esq. of Lincoln's Inn. London. 1826.

MR. Charles Butler, of Lincoln's-Inn, is sufficiently known in this country by his "Reminiscences." The generality of our readers are perhaps less familiar with his previous works, and particularly his controversies with the British Laureat. It is enough for our purpose to mention, that he is less distinguished as an able conveyancer, than an ardent and intrepid volunteer in the battles which are still fought for Papacy in England; and we may add that he is not likely to yield to the reasoning of an opponent who treats of theology like a mere dilettante-who is, besides, a poet-and moreover, so little disposed to reconciliation and tolerance, that he could not refrain from thundering VOL. I.-NO. 2.

58

against Catholicism, even in the 'Carmen Nuptiale' of the Heiress of the British crown, in such strains as the following:

Think not that lapse of ages shall abate

The inveterate malice of that harlot old.

A biography of Hugo Grotius, from Mr. Butler, and not at the head of a new edition of any work of that great man, but in a separate composition of 259 pages while there existed already a Life written by a member of the French Academy, of which an English translation had been published as early as 1754, not to mention several biographical sketches that bear the recommendation of such names as Barbeyrac, Bayle and Chalmers, and a vindication of Grotius in two volumest-would seem naturally to create an expectation that Mr. Butler's little volume should contain more, and tend to more than its title page purportsand so it does. For although the extraneous historical matter which fills a large part of this publication, may be imputed as much to haste and carelessness in the composition as to a disregard to the true character and province of biography; yet, it may be remarked, that much of this matter-the whole documentary part, and almost all the quotations, though they have but a remote connexion with the personal history of Grotius, yet bear very directly upon the religious questions in which Mr. Butler takes so lively an interest. We think, however, that even supposing him to have some covert design of this sort in the present publication, he might as well have omitted his epitome of history, from the times of Charlemagne to the year 1815. We admit, however, that it was indispensable to such a design that he should comment upon the controversies of Arminius with Gomarus-give an account of the proceedings of the famous synod of Dortenlarge more upon Grotius' religious works than upon those on which his enviable fame is, at least, as much founded-introduce St. Vincent de Paul-lay much weight upon the Jesuit Patau's opinion, in regard to Grotius-refer to his own previous publications; and lastly, give, in an Appendix, an "Account of the Formularies, Confessions of Faith or Symbolic Books of the Roman Catholic, Greek and principal Protestant Churches,”—and a sketch "of the attempts made for a re-union of the Calvinistic Churches to the See of Rome." Under this latter head are brought forward Bossuet's correspon

* Mr. De Burigni

Hugonis Grotii Manes, ab iniquis obtrectationibus vindicati, vol. ii. 8vo. 1727, said to be published by Mr. Lepman. The biographical notice of Barbeyrac is in the edition of the Treatise on War and Peace, with notes of Barbeyrac. London. Folio.

1738.

dence with Leibnitz, touching the re-union of the Lutheran Protestant to the Roman Catholic Church, and the opinion of the faculty of theology of the Helmstadt University, in regard to the marriage of a Lutheran Princess with a Catholic Archduke, together with an account of the correspondence which not long afterwards took place between the Archbishop of Canterbury and Dr. Dupin, and which is recorded in the English translation of Dr. Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History. This is, indeed, any thing but biography, according to Dryden's definition of that species of writing-and we know of none that comes more nearly up to our own opinion of it. "Biographia, or the History of Particular Men's Lives," says Dryden, "comes next to be considered which, in dignity, is inferior to the other two (Commentaries or Annals and History, properly so called) as being more confined in action, and treating of wars and counsels, and all other public affairs of nations, only as they relate to him whose life is written, or as his fortunes have a particular dependance on them, or connexion to them. All things here are circumscribed, and driven to a point, so as to terminate in one; consequently, if the action or counsel were managed by colleagues, some part of it must be either lame or wanting, except it be supplied by the excursion of the writer. Herein, likewise, must be less of variety for the same reason; because the fortunes and actions of some man are related, not those of many.' Mr. Butler has surely taken the license of "excursions" in a very unlimited sense. He may plead that his title-page announces, along with a biography of Grotius, "Brief Minutes of the Civil, Ecclesiastical, and Literary History of the Netherlands." But he reduces the literary part to nine "negative" lines, at the conclusion of his work; where he says that "after most diligent and extensive searches, both in British and foreign markets, he has not been able to discover materials for it."t

But we have not taken up our pen to find fault with Mr. Butler. We have the best feelings, and a respect approaching to veneration, for his great age, for the comparatively mild disposition which he has almost universally displayed in his controversial writings, and for his rare toleration, united as it is with an unalterable attachment to his religion. We confess ourselves awed into an unwillingness to discover any latent foible, such as self-complacency or self-praise in a writer who brings forward the testimony of a man like Dr. Parr, who, in a letter addressed to him, says-"I know, and I shall ever be ready to admit, and even to maintain, that your talents are of a very * Life of Plutarch. Walter Scott's edit. of Dryden: vol. xvii. pp. 58-59. + Life of Hugo Grotius. p. 189