His playful boy. And now the sails appear Poor human life, comes rolling o'er the surge. The mother strains her infant to her breast, And weeps to think her eldest-born has reached Those years, which, tender though they be, provoke The white man's thirst of gain: more dreadful far The white man's scowl, than the couched lion's glare! Fiercely the mid-day sun beat overhead; scare Should cease to be the instrument of woe. The weary eyelids of a favoured few.- Again the father fancies that he's couched arms To stretch; roused by the galling iron, he doubts, He fears; the dread reality he feels; Despair, despair comes rushing on his soul, The plundering birds, he sought the neigh Like the dread cataract's din to one en bouring wood To drink the water from the chaliced herb;- To reach the friendly grove; when deep, a The thunder of the new-waked lion's mouth, Comes full upon his ear: the oppressor's hand With fetters loaded, or the lion's paw,— Such is the dire alternative he views;-Forward he flies and darts into the wood." p. 60-62. Fain would we transcribe the truly charming episode of the "youthful mariner" in the second canto; but, with its context, it would be too long for our limits. Towards its close it somewhat drags; but parts of it are exquisite, and the whole most affecting. Indeed this canto, which is devoted to the Middle Passage, seems to us supenor to all the rest; and it often discovers a strength and grandeur of style, not common to Mr. Grahame. The reader must be content with the following account of the hold of a slave-vessel. "Night comes apace, but darkness is forbid The view of misery from itself to shroud. A glimmering lamp's dim beam faintly displays The rows of living corpses to the sight, if the white men grudged that even one barked Upon a peaceful river, who forgets,- Of the smooth flood that bears him to his fate, Forgets the thundering precipice of foam "But mental anguish is ere long absorbed In hideous pangs that rack, excruciate, Begin to heave and shew their distant crests; The frame corporeal; for now the waves The gathering clouds in meeting currents Contracting heaven's expanded canopy For air; and in their various languages Breaks o'er the bow, and boils along the deck. Foaming, and gnaws and champs his twisted arm; Dire trismus bends his victim on the wheel Of teeth, delirium's fitful song, now gay, That here can quench the fever's fire, unloose The knotted tendon; he alone restores « One endless day, one night that seemed a year, The billows raged; so long the slaves, immured, Struggled 'twixt life and death. At last the winds Abate; subside the waves; the fastened boards Unfold, and full o'erhead the hopeless eye Sees, from his wooden couch, once more the sun And with redoubled thunder stunned the ear Of Murder as he aimed the fatal blow. Hail! Africa, to human rights restored! Glad tidings of great joy to all who feel For human kind! to him who sits at ease And looks upon his children sport around In health and happiness, even him ye bring Delight ne'er felt before: the dying saint, And bursts into a louder strain of praise: arm The Lord delivered Israel from his bonds; Then kneeling blesses God that now the curse Of guiltless blood lies on this land no more. Even they who ne'er behold the light of heaven But through the grated ir'on, forget awhile Their mournful fate; and mark a gleam of joy Dim through the cloud that to the topmast Pass o'er cach fellow captive's clouded brow.” The house of God with odours passing far Sabean incense, while combined with notes Most sweet, most artless, Zion's songs es cend, And die in cadence soft; the preacher's voice The third canto of the poem is devoted to the West Indies. The Succeeds; their native tongue the convenia fourth proclaims the glad tidings of the Abolition; "Hail! Africa, restored to human rights! Blest be the hand benign of him who stretched The royal sceptre forth, and, with the touch scathed! And blest, Columbia, be thy distant shores! For they the peal with joy and freedom fraught Re-echoed, till it reached the coast of blood, hear In deep attention fixed, all but that child Who eyes the hanging cluster, yet with holds, In reverence profound, his little hand." p. 87. The imagery here is extremely sweet, though bordering on the fan tastic. We cannot look with equal delight on the prophecy of the astronomical proficiency of the negroes. It not only occupies a space disproportionately ample, but runs iate quaintness. We the rather quote it, because this is exactly the fault of which, as we conceive, the marked sort of style which our au thor so much affects, is in danger. "No more the negro dreads the white man's eye; No more, from hatred to the teacher, spurns Even the groundwork of this description is exceptionable. Before the Africans can be expected to turn our pupils in astronomy, they must, it may be presumed, have become too familiar with the sight of "a ship full sail dashing the brine," to shudder on beholding it. We were somewhat disappointed by Mr. Grahame, when he had conveyed us to the West Indies. The slave system, though not a topic very appropriate to his powers, furnished interstices for all the characteristic excellencies of his poetry, of which he has not, in our humble judgment, fully availed himself.This remark we would also extend, in a degree, to his account of the comparatively happy state of Africa, previously to the introduction of the Slave trade. In that account, the natural beauties of the inhabited parts of that continent are well represented; but the domestic tranquillity of the savages is drawn with a tameness which, on such a subject, we should not have expected from this author. Mr. Grahame concludes with -enconiums on some of the most conspicuous advocates of the aboli tion.- CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 98. Of Sharpe arraigned the pestilent response A Clarkson's every thought, and word, and deed, Devoted in humanity's behalf, His watchings, perils, toils by night and day, By Grenville on the side of Justice ranged; smile; Unyielding in the cause of God and man, He rose o'er Afric like the sun in smiles, The new Las Casas of a ruin'd race, With angel-might oppos'd the rage of hell, And fought like Michael till the dragon fell : When Pitt supreme amid the senate rose, The negro's friend among the negro's foes; Р breath He broke the spell of Africa in death.” pp. 40, 41. It will be seen, that into Mr. Grahame's list of worthies the name of Mr. Pitt is not admitted, and that, in the catalogue of Mr. Montgomery, it is celebrated in lines that seem to convey a covert sarcasm on the sincerity of that statesman in the cause of the Abolition. On the subject of Mr. Pitt's exertions in this cause, our poets have perhaps received their impressions from a certain periodical work, which has itself always lent a strenuous and most honourable aid to the abolitionists, but of which it may not, we hope, be libellous in us to observe, that, after having generally appeared during the life-time of Mr. Pitt to support him unequivocally in his political character, it has lost no opportunity since his death of vilifying his memory in the grossest and most blackening terms. With what propriety the charge of inconsistency or insincerity proceeds from mouths that can breathe a breath so different from itself, let the reader judge. was, under divine Providence, the preserver, at some most critical sea sons, of the best interests of this na tion, and whom we believe to have ardent as ever swelled the heart of a been animated with a patriotism as human being, we earnestly wish that he had placed this matter out of all doubt; that either he had somewhat altered his conduct, o that, if it was right, he had, lay ing aside his disdain of popular opi nion, condescended publicly to ex plain it. But in thus questioning his conduct, it is highly necessary to mention that we are trying this great man by a far higher standard than that of those who commonly urge the charge which we are con sidering. For it is vain to deny it Mr. Pitt, at the worst, did nothing in this instance, which was not fully justifiable according to the ave rage political morality of the day. At the worst, we have as good evi dence of his sincerity, as of that of those more ostensibly zealous abolitionists, who hazarded nothing by the part that they acted in the bus ness. It will be recollected that Mr. Fox, after his accession to power, made, with respect to some alleged abuses in India, a compromise exactly similar to that which has been charged on Mr. Pitt respecting the Slave Trade; and this too, it might easily be shewn, with some circumstances of aggravation. But if, from an unwillingness to devote himself to the cause of Africa at the risk of sacrifices which no other parliamentary supporter of it was called to make, from a fear of disgusting faithful and tried political associates, of dividing his caWe can, we trust, conscientious- binet, of shaking his parliamen ly say, that, with respect to the tary power,-if from a false princiquestion of the slave trade, we have ple of delicacy with regard to feelfeelings entirely paramount to all ings and wishes entertained in personal prejudices and attachments quarters highly to be considered,whatsoever. Whether Mr. Pitt duly or if from any other similar motive, estimated the predominant and al- Mr. Pitt entered into compromost incalculable importance of mises which greatly crippled his this question, we feel a degree of usefulness in this cause, let it never painful doubt. Sincere friends as be forgotten that he still retains we are to the fame of a man who sufficient pretensions to be number ed among its most valuable patrons. It will not be supposed that the object of any of the foregoing observations is to disparage the services of Mr. Fox in this arduous struggle. On the contrary, so highly do we estimate those services, that they were alone, in our opinion, sufficient to make it almost incumbeat on all the lovers of justice and of mercy, however at variance with that great man in politics, to attend his funeral, and to weep over the grave that entombed one of the most memorable benefactors of the human race. This digression, if indeed a tribute of justice to the memory of the departed can ever be considered as a digression, has greatly contracted the limits which we might otherwise have afforded to Mr. Benger, the last of this trio of poets. Indeed, his poem is not, by many pages, so long as that of Mr. Montgomery, nor quite so long, we believe, as that of Mr. Grahame. Mr. Benger's poetry, like that of the former, has very good points with considerable faults. He is not, indeed, often turgid, but he is often extremely obscure, and too often tame and inclining to the prosaic. But he has many good lines, and some that are excellent; his selection of topics is just, and his versification generally harmonious.Without farther preamble, we will let the reader judge for himself. "All human archives in this truth accord, The been, scene. drama constant, tho' transposed the Thus in those isles where, gazing with delight, Columbus first repos'd his aching sight; ous land Approach'd, the younger world of nature's hand ;) On the same sod, where (Rapine's helpless The plumed Indian pin'd his life away, chain, |