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commerce and fettlements; and, if fanctioned by government, as an outrageous violation of public faith, for a century and a half folemnly plighted to the colonies, that the fugar trade fhould be exclufively confined to them, in return for the reftrictions under which they are bound to the exclufive purchase of British commodities. The Eaft Indies take few of our commodities, but rather burden us with manufactures and luxuries, as ill calculated for our climate as our health. One precious article of barter, indeed, they do take from us; that is, our bullion, which we can leaft fpare. This goes to diffeminate perfidy in the courts of Indian princes, and to inflame the avarice of insatiable defpotism: but let impolitic Britain beware:-while fhe deprives her cherished, her chartered iflands of their grand staple, in queft of imaginary mines across the great Indian ocean; while the devotes to difgrace and ruin her Weft Indian fubjects, who, relying on her plighted honour, have embarked, at every hazard, the extenfive property of themselves and families; let her beware left the bubble of her eaftern grandeur and more than Peruvian wealth, in the rapid whirl of things and the ceaseless revolution of empires, should burst, and fome political hurricane, more terrific than any that ravage the western world, fhould tear up by the roots her infant plantations in the caft. Then will fhe, in vain, turn her eyes to the iflands which fhe fo cruelly deferted, in order to gratify a few interested monopolifts, for thofe fupplies which they can no longer afford. She may lament her ill-judged reftrictions when even magnificent bounties will be of no farther avail; and, exiled from her rich oriental domains, fhe may also have the mortification of finding her once flourishing poffeffions in the west reduced to their original defolate condition ;-that of a barren "wilderness, the haunt of favage animals, and of human cannibals ftill more ferocious.

ART. XIII. Tears of Affection; a Poem, occafioned by the Death of a Sifter tenderly beloved. By the Rev. James Hurdis, B. D. Profeffor of Poetry in the Univerfity of Oxford. 8vo. pp. 90. 2s. 6d. Johnfon. 1794.

ALTHOUGH the prefent is the first poetical publication to

which this author has ventured to affix his name, the public is not unacquainted with that literary merit which has procured him the honourable diftinction of the Profefforship of Poetry in the University of Oxford. To Mr. Hurdis's genius and taste the world has already been indebted for several poetical works, of confiderable though various excellence; namely, The Village Curate, Adriano, Poems, and Sir Thomas More a tragedy, which have all, in their due places, come

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under our inspection. If, in those pieces, we have met with fome occafion for critical animadverfion, we have alfo found much to admire and to commend; and the poem which forms the principal part of the volume before us is not, to say the least, inferior to any of the author's former works.

The poem entitled the Tears of Affection,-which, as the title indicates, is a tribute of fraternal love,-expreffes, in eafy and pathetic ftrains, every variety of fentiment which nature dictates on fuch an occafion. As the fubject varies, the poet diverfifies his expreffion from the softeft and lowest notes of tender forrow and humble refignation, to the fuller and more varied tones which are suitable to defcription and panegyric, or to the elevated emotions of religious hope and joy. Of the fweet fimplicity with which the mourner pours forth his complaints, the reader may form a conception from the following pathetic lines:

• Eternal God, muft I no more enjoy
The genial comforts which thy liberal hand
Once fhed about me? Muft yon lonely cot
Know me no more? yon wood-besprinkled vale
Echo no longer to my careless fong?
No! my fweet treasure Ifabel is gone,
And in yon rural mansion lives no more
The village Curate. To fome ftranger's eye
Muft it unfold its bloffoms, the fweet buds
Which art has taught its windows to furround.
To mine they give no pleasure, nor to me
Smiles, as it did, the valley or the brook,
The wood, the coppice, the paternal oak,
Or village fteeple ftationed on the hill.
No! my fweet treasure Isabel is gone.'

Then follows an image which, though beautifully poetical, has too much prettiness to harmonize with the feelings of grief which the whole paffage is intended to express:

• Some meffenger of God my door has pafs'd

From earth returning, faw the beauteous flower,
Tranfported gather'd it, and in his hand

Bore it to Heav'n rejoicing.'

The amufements of their childish days are defcribed with exquifite imagery:

• Then sported they together, from the world
Long time remote, where yon enormous downs
Shoulder the eastern mocn. The mountain's fide
They fcal'd together, on his airy brow
Together loiter'd, and together bowl'd
The bounding flint into the vale below.
Together flood they trembling on the cliff
To view the wide unlimited expanse

Of

Of ocean green beneath, what time the ftorm
His azure realm had troubled, and at large
The tempeft-loving porpoise thro' his waves
Flounder'd unheeding. On the pebbly beach
With painful step they travell'd fide by fide,
Shrunk at the thund'ring downfall of the furge,
And chas'd the flying foam !'

The reader will not overlook the bold image fo happily expreffed at the beginning of the preceding quotation.

The progrefs of the Spring, and the fimple labours and innocent pleasures of rural life, are defcribed with great beauty; while the idea that those labours and pleasures are paft diffufes an inexpreffible tendernefs over the representation. In this, as well as in many fubfequent descriptions, we particularly obferve the propriety, and even originality, with which the poet ufes epithets. To give an example or two;

• With joyful heart

Noted the progrefs of the gradual vale
Slowly reviving, faw the op'ning bud
Spread its incautious bloffom to the breeze,
The tender leaf for its protection fpring,
And gloried to behold the lonely oak
In tardy foliage cloath'd.'

With thy arm in mine

I shall no more the fober walk enjoy

In the ftill ev'ning vale, what time the rook
With whifp'ring wing brushes the midway air
To the high wood impatient to return.'

The diftin&t charms of the country in fpring, fummer, and autumn, are reprefented in a pleafing fucceffion of picturesque fcenes, all rendered peculiarly interefting by being connected with the melancholy fubject of the poem ;-we muft copy the following beautiful lines:

With thee have I delighted ftill to rove
At morn, at eve, in twilight and at noon,
Long as fweet Summer lafted. Chiefly then
When tufts of primrose fmil'd upon the bank,
Gracing the verge of fome tranflucent ftream
Or glaffy lake, whose mirror their foft flow'rs'
Reflected fofter to the loit'rer's eye.

Or when the ftrawberry with ruddy cheek
Provok'd the finger to be plucking ftill,
When fragrant honey-fuckle his fweet flow'r
Along the hedge-row fcatter'd, and the breeze
Of ev'ning freely his perfume difpens'd;
When bloffom'd clover, or the martial bean,
The hay-rick newly built, or bitter hop
Emitting from the oaft a grateful fteam,
Fill'd all the vale with odors. Arm in arm

Have we the dews of ev'ning often met,
And the pale ray of the September moon,
What time afcending with difcoloured cheek
She peer'd above the cloud or highland wood,
And filently improving as the rofe

Hung o'er the faded landscape full of light;
A glorious lamp to cheer a boundless hall
Floating across the living dome of Heav'n
Sufpended upon nothing.'

The fublimity of this laft image will not fail of commanding the reader's admiration.

The poet proceeds to pay a tribute to the merit of his de parted fifter, by celebrating her amiable virtues and her intellectual attainments. Her knowlege of hiftory and chronology, her acquaintance with antient and facred learning and feveral branches of science, her familiarity with English poets and moralifts, and her fkill in mufic, are, perhaps fomewhat too minutely, but very poetically, defcribed. The characters of most of the English poets are fketched in a few expreffive terms. In this lift, we are furprized to find Milton and Thomfon barely mentioned by name, without a fingle characteristic epithet. Sufficient merit is not given to Pope, when his poems are described as gems not seldom luftrous, fometimes tinfel-ray'd. Young is very happily appreciated :

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Young, in whofe tedious and protracted fong,

Still gleams and fill expires the cloudy day

Of genuine Poetry.'

Through the reft of the piece, the poet indulges himself in ftrains of pathetic lamentation, chaflized by fentiments of pious fubmiffion. From this part, at well as from the former, it would be easy to cull many beauties:-but we must content ourselves with another fhort quotation, from a ftriking paffage; in which the author, placing himself at the tomb of his fifter, after the interval of twelve months, burfts open her filent manfion :

Thou tenant of the gloomy vault,
Whom thefe dark boards have prifon'd from my fight,
Thou fleeping angel in a treble chest

Thrice lock'd and bolted, let me the harsh fcrew

- Which thy fweet fmile confines, from its firm hold
Wrench hatefully away. Let me the seam,
Which o'er thy filent innermoft recess
Strong cement clofes, refolutely burit
To view thy welcome countenance again.

Where are the lips which mine fo oft have prefs'd
In joyous welcome and in fad adieu ?

Where are the eyes, which ne'er encounter'd these
But to relate, in eloquence how fweet,

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In poetry how charming, the foft tale
Of daughterly affection? Where, oh where
Is the fweet voice that charm'd my foul to rest,
And made my cottage but a step from Heav'n ?
Where is the hand fo welcome to my touch,
So fkill'd to gratify my thirsting ear
With harmony's full measure of delight?
Obstruction hence, impediment away.
Tho' univerfal Hell my arm oppose

I will again behold her. Lend me, Death,
Lend me, grim monfter, thy eternal bar,
Thy maffy lever that upheaves the lid
Of the mephitic marble jaw'd abyss,
And I shall all prevail. Lo! it is done.
Ah me is this my Isabel !

After having prefented our readers with the above extracts, it is wholly unneceffary to offer any thing farther in commendation of this poem. Of the reft of the pieces, of which fome are sportive, fome tender, and fome defcriptive, we shall only obferve, in general, that they are written with that peculiar caft of eafe and freedom which diftinguifhes the preceding poem; and that they contain evident proofs of correct taste and fuperior genius. An addrefs to the Moon, and another to Happiness, deserve to be particularly mentioned. The following pleasant trifle may be added;

To A LADY,

Who drew the Pins from her Bonnet in a Thunder-form.
CEASE, Eliza, thy locks to defpoil,

Nor remove the bright steel from thy hair,
For fruitless and fond is the toil

Since nature has made thee fo fair.

• While the rose on thy cheek fhall remain
And thine eye fo bewitchingly fhine,

Thy endeavour muft ftill be in vain

For attration will always be thine.'

ART. XIV. The Hiftory of the Campaign of 1792, between the Armies of France under Generals Dumourier, Valence, &c. and the Allies under the Duke of Brunswick; with an Account of what paffed in the Thuilleries on the 10th of Auguft. By J. Money, Maréchal de Camp in the Service of Louis XVI. 8vo. pp. 303. 75. Boards. Harlow. 1794.

THE

"HE author of this work, who is also a Lieutenant-colonel in our service, labours in his preface to fhew that it was not an attachment to the principles of the Jacobins, but a defire to improve himself in his profeffion, that made him take a command in the armies of France; and he vindicates his conduct

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