I was a timid one, when life was green, Who hath not realiz'd the Poet's dream, Love's first illusion-Fancy's first-born theme? Who hath not hop'd, whate'er the mind imbued, The love of fame-wine-wealth-a solitudeWhen buoyant youth should sink to calmer bliss, That happiness might seal the nuptial kiss; Thus Fancy pictur'd the delightful day, While on the hour with summer sunbeams gilt, As youthful suckers clasp the parent vine; End of Canto Ninth. LINES The gewgaws of the present scene, And seize on happiness. Oh! grasp with ardent, fierce desire, And take all heav'n by storm; With manful strength resolve and fight, And loudly claim your purchas'd right, Secure your promis'd home. Believe 'gainst hope, by faith, unseen, O'erlook the clouds which lie between, Direct your wishful eyes To hidden scenes divinely bright, 90 We see our promis'd rest,- Wherefore let time, its toils and pain, I'll count the world as dross; SONNET, MENTOR. That with a pleasing scent perfum'd my seat, And contemplation stole the hour away. On the First Epistle of St. John, Chap. ii. "Tis thus, thought I, that virtue scents the song 15th Verse. Of Poets, to a thoughtful reader's mind, When they infuse the lovely theme among Their rising numbers, glowing and refin'd. Ev'n thus it doth their troubled cares allay, And, for a while, chase sorrow far away. Stepney, near Newcastle-upon- G W. V. 91 Poetry-Review: Miller's Guide. VERSION OF AN ADDRESS TO THE EVENING STAR, From the Songs of Selma, in the second volume of Ossian's Poems. HAIL! fairest star of the descending night! Now from the west thou shew'st thy beaming light, From pitchy clouds thou wav'st thy radiant head; Thy march majestic o'er the hills is led. J. R. 92 When the once blooming count'nance is cover'd with wrinkles, And all feeble and weaken'd man's frame does appear, And the once sparkling eyes can perceive but faint twinkles, When the loud thrilling blast of the trumpet is sounding; Then 'tis certain-approaching are War's dire alarms. Then 'tis certain-for ever, Woe on him attends. REVIEW.-The Miller's Guide, &c. By John Miller. 12mo. pp. 80. Dublin, Nolan, Suffolk-street, 1820. We IT is scarcely possible for any person unacquainted with the subjects of which this volume treats, fully to appreciate its merits, or to do justice to its author. Written by an experienced miller, and addressed to men engaged in the same profession, it abounds with names and expressions, which must be as unintelligible to common readers, as they are to ourselves. are not, however, disposed to insinuate any thing that wears the appearance of censure, because we happen to be ignorant of the manner in which a mill should be constructed, and how the various branches of its apparatus should be arranged, so as to produce the most beneficial results. Those parts, which to us appear obscure, may to others be perfectly luminous; and calculated to convey information, at once valuable and perspicuous, to "the Gentlemen Millers of England and Ireland," to whom the work is dedicated, and for whose use it is evidently intended. On some parts of this work, however, which treat of the qualities of wheat, the manner of drying it, and of cleaning the grain previously to its being ground, no such obscurity can be said to rest. On these and other subjects, which do not require the terms of art to be introduced, Mr. Miller has shewn himself to be a man of much observation; and a friend to experiment in his own department of philosphy. On the quality of wheat necessary for a miller to purchase, for making good flour, Mr. M. speaks as follows. 93 Review Discourse by the Rev. R. Blacow. 94 being tempered with moderation, or regulated either by common prudence or common sense. polled wheat, if grown on limestone ground, comes next to white in quality. This species can be easily distinguished, by the roundness, plumpness, and bright gold-colour of its grain. Wheat, grown on limed or clayey soil, after The author's political opinions seem potatoes, (unless the soil contain a great quan- to have so completely supplanted his tity of calcareous earth,) is neither plump nor theological creed, that, forgetting the good-coloured; but mixed with small and sickly grains, that have not filled, and are lite- respect which was due to his own charally nothing but bran. This wheat is also de-racter, and the sanctity of his office, ficient in many qualities necessary for produ cing good bread. "Spring wheat is also bad for producing a large quantity of prime flour. It does not contain as much starch as winter wheat, but more he mounted the pulpit to scatter around him firebrands, arrows, and death, Unhappily this discourse, instead of deriving dignity from the appellation which it bears, confers degradation on the title which it assumes, and is better calculated to bring public worship into contempt, than to make proselytes, or to allay public ferment. mucilage. Buck or cone wheat, recently brought from America, is the worst of all kinds, for fine or white flour. It contains less starch or fine flour than any of the former, and more mucilage than some may think. This wheat was some years ago much grown in the southern parts of Ireland, and near Liverpool, in England; but We may give to Mr. Błacow credit is now almost entirely exploded, the Millers for the sincerity of his intentions; but finding, to their serious loss, that it was not fit from the envy, hatred, malice, and for making fine flour. Notwithstanding this uncharitableness, which his discourse. disadvantage to the Miller, the produce it contains, we must be as much ingives the Farmer is certainly great some assert, sixteen barrels per acre. It is easily debted to charity, if we compliment known by its round back, quite prominent be-him on the purity of his motives, as if yond any other wheat, and has more bur on the we were to congratulate him on the beend of the grain.-pp. 7, 8. neficial tendency of his pamphlet. Remarks and observations, equally discriminative with the preceding, run through the chapter. On the drying of the grain, in the following chapter, his observations appear to be equally instructive and judicious; and in those which succeed, he traces the whole process of cleaning and grinding the wheat, dressing the fine flour, managing the manufacture of what called whole meal and sharps, and the making of oatmeal; concluding with Remarks on the baking business, and the best method of bringing starch to perfection. the are To those who are engaged in any of numerous branches connected with the corn or flour trade, we have no doubt that the Author's Remarks will prove advantageous: but we cannot avoid thinking, that a volume of this description, might be put into their hands at a much lower price than ten shillings. "Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free." Mr. Blacow's text is Gal. v. verse 1. tions of this passage; but until the We have perused several exposiRev. gentleman's discourse appeared, we had no conception that it sanctioned a liberty in ministers, either to traduce others, or to turn their pulpits into ve hicles of abuse. To deter those who denominate themselves Radicals, from demolishing constituted authorities, and unhinging the state, Mr. B. does not hesitate to bear false witness against his neighbours; without reflecting, that if those into whose hands his discourse may fall were to copy his example, they would violate those sacred commands, the observance of which he officially recommends, and introduce that anarchy and those convulsions, which he foolishly imagines he has been endeavouring to avert. Although the vindictive spirit by which this angry divine appears to have been actuated, is professedly dilitics, the earlier sallies of its venrected against his antagonists in pohe is pleased to denominate Dissenters, geance are poured out on those whom and whom on this account he views as enemies of both church and state. "They are not satisfied," he tells us; "they are ever aiming at an extension of their liberty; they are ever 95 Review-Stanzas by George Milner, Jun. grasping at political power, and never cease to claim the right of being placed upon an equal footing with ourselves as churchmen, and are ever ready to join themselves to any party, or second any measure, by which they can cripple the energies of the state, and further the attainment of the object they have always had in view."-p. 5. Such are the sentiments avowed by this clerical declaimer, respecting the Dissenters at large. But it is not all that are suffered thus to escape. For the Wesleyan Methodists, he has a dreadful peal of thunder in reserve, which he thus rattles over their heads; though, fortunately for them, it is only Mr. Blacow's thunder, which is very rarely accompanied with any lightning. "The Methodist Ministers, at their late Conference, it is true, drew up, and afterwards presented, a loyal address to the Throne; but this, it should seem, has given grievous of fence to the great body of their people, who, I well know, are, in the mass, particularly in this, and the adjoining populous county of York, as much disaffected, at the present crisis, as any other body of Dissenters in the land. The frame of their Society, too, is so eonstructed, as to make them, by their classmeetings, love-feasts, &c. &c. a completely organized body, capable of throwing an immense weight into any scale they may wish to. preponderate. And it is my decided opinion, that if not checked in their career, they will soon attain such a degree of influence and numerical strength, as to have a political fulcrum of sufficient power to overturn the whole fabric of our present establishment in Church and State. "Their Ministers may write loyal addresses; but in the democratic form of their Society, and dependent as they are upon the people for their daily bread, their opinions will not weigh a feather, when opposed to that Radical spirit of innovation, which is interwoven in the very texture of Methodism; and, indeed, of every other class of Dissenters among us." " Having blackened with slander various denominations of professing Christians, Mr. B. proceeds to identify them with those turbulent characters with which the country has of late been agitated; and, mounting his Clerical Pegasus, he thus brandishes the sword of his spirit in the suburbs of royalty. The French Revolutionists, he informs us, "fell down and worshipped the Goddess of Reason-a most respectable and decent sort of Being, compared with that which the Radicals bave set up, as the idol of their worship. They have elevated the GODDESS of LUST, on the PEDESTAL of SHAME-an object of all others, the most congenial to their taste the most deserving of their homage-the most worthy of their adoration. After exhibiting her claims to their favour in two distant quarters of the globe-after compassing sea and 96 land with her guilty paramour, to gratify to the full her impure desires, and even polluting the holy sepulchre itself with her presence, to which she was carried in mock-majesty, astride upon an ass, she returned to this hallowed soil, so hardened in sin, so bronzed with infamy, so callous to every feeling of decency or of shame, as to go on Sunday last, clothed in the of that God, who is "of purer eyes than to mantle of adultery, to kneel down at the altar behold iniquity;" when she ought rather to have stood bare-foot in the aisle, covered with a sheet as white as "unsunned snow," doing penance for her sins. Till this had been done, the sacred symbols in her's; and this, she I would never have defiled my hands by placing would have been compelled to do, in those good old days, when Church discipline was in its pristine vigour and activity."-p. 9. We had marked several other passages for insertion; but for an article which its own vindictiveness has rendered contemptible, we can allow no more room. It is happy for those whose mouths are not sufficiently wide, to receive from Mr. Blacow's hand, the drenching horn of ecclesiastical authority, that his power to do mischief is more circumscribed than his disposition; they might otherwise expect to see the long-extinguished fires of Smithfield again rekindled, while Mr. Blacow 66 stood fast in his liberty," to drag them to the stake. It is always a fortunate circumstance, when wicked cows have short horns. REVIEW.-Stanzas written on a Sum- Ir is scarcely possible to look on this The first article (Stanzas written on and is certainly of more importance a Summer's Evening) is the longest; than those Odes and Sonnets which bring up the rear. The following Stanza, with which the Poem com 97 Review Essay on Politeness. A calm, that looks into futurity. The air is throng'd with songsters, and the bee We cannot, however, think that all the lines which follow, are equal in merit to those which we have given. The seventh stanza contains expletives which enervate the lines, and display a deficiency in poetical vigour. In the second line Mr. M. says, "And joy, and full delight—and these do flow;" and in the fourth we have, The blossoms of a feeling all do know.” He looks around him, and his spirit seals "He loves to gaze upon the ocean-counting The distant surges as they sink and swell; He loves to people every hill and mountain With fairy beings, which no tongue can tell: For him each flow'ret blossoms-and to dwell Beside the bubbling of some winding stream To him were happiness, that like a spell Biads his affections, till such scenes will teem With images divine of some immortal dream." The greater part of the stanzas in this poem, which are twenty-four in number, are not inferior to those we have inserted; and that criticism must assume a gloomy character, which can find more occasions to censure than to applaud. The minor poems are not destitute of merit, but we have no room to give any extracts. The lines throughout, are in general smooth and harmonious, although the metre is much diversified. In several places we discover a fine range of thought, accompanied by a correspondent diction; but instances may be found, in which-" 'tis Homer nods, or we that dream." 98 more found a double comparative, But notwithstanding these trifling blemishes, the work is well executed; nor should we have presumed to notice them, but for the splendid dress in which it appears. We scarcely conceive that these comparatively insignificant imperfections, can be said to diminish the real excellencies of the poems. In another edition, the author may avail himself of our hints, and easily remove the local occasions of that acquaintance with the Muse which complaint. We congratulate him on he has already cultivated with so much success, and which we view as a presage of more familiar intimacy. REVIEW.-An Essay on Politeness, in which the necessity and benefits of being polite are clearly proved from Reason, Religion, and Philosophy: to which is prefixed, an Allegorical Description of the Origin of Politeness. By a Young Gentleman. Revised and improved by James M'Kown, Third Edition, pp. 56. Jones, 40, South Great George's-street, Dublin; and Kaye, Liverpool. 1820. The title of this pamphlet so fully expresses its general character, that our attention is rather directed to the manner in which the author has executed his task, than to a development of the principles which it contains; and even on this point, the reader his own judgment, from the following will have a fair opportunity of forming specimen. "Politeness is that regulation of our conduct, which makes every thing decent, respectable, and becoming. It is more easily felt than understood. It is not so difficult to perceive and point it out in the characters of other people, as either to copy their pattern, or describe its beauties. "It flows from an evenness of soul, unruffled by the tempest of cares, unmoved by the tide of guilty pleasures, not injured by the bleak winds of envy and malignity, and unshattered by the storms of calamity. which, in its degree, like charity, suffereth "It is the offspring of a renewed mind, long, is kind, envieth not, vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, and endureth all things. "It makes every motion graceful, every look tender, every expression elegant, and In the fifth line of page 43, we have every action generous. It renders instruction |