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My equal he will be again,

Down in that cold oblivious gloom,
Where all the prostrate ranks of men
Crowd, without fellowship, the tomb.

My equal in the judgement day,
He shall stand up before the throne,
When every yeil is rent away,

And good and evil only known.

And is he not mine equal now?
Am 1 less fall'n from God and truth,
Though "Wretch" be written on his brow,
And leprosy consume his youth ?

If holy Nature yet have laws
Binding on man, of woman born,
In her own court I'll plead his cause,
Arrest the doom, or share the scorn.

Yes, let the scorn that haunts his course,
Turn on me like a trodden snake,
And hiss and sting me with remorse,

If I the fatherless forsake.'

J. Montgomery.

As it is not our wish to exhaust by our extracts the interest and novelty of the work, we refrain from making any other citations, but cordially recommend the purchase of the volume, the profits of which will go in aid of a small fund for bettering the condition of Climbing Boys.

Philanthropy is sometimes not a little capricious. People claim the right, and it seems reasonable, to be benevolent and charitable in their own way. And never had they so many and various ways afforded them, from which to choose the least troublesome, most reputable, or most pleasing method of doing good. Schools, prisons, Bible societies, missionary societies, hospitals, asylums, the Greeks, the Irish, the Jews, the Gipsies, the Negroes, the Hindoos-how, it may be said, can a man attend to them all? A feeling of this kind has sometimes, we are afraid, led persons to shut their hearts and their purses against the claims of bounden duty. And they have almost been afraid to listen to any fresh appeal, lest it should force its way to their sympathy. But, with regard to that long neglected and injured class of infant bondsmen for whom this volume eloquently pleads, these English negroes, we were going to call them, there is no possibility of remaining neutral. Every man must take part, practically, either for them or against them. Every housekeeper, at least, has a chimney or chimneys which require to be swept. By what means are they swept? There are machines by which the employment of these poor little VOL. XXI. N. S. 2 T

children may be superseded in nine cases out of ten: are they in such cases employed? Is it made an object, to discourage as far as possible the inhuman degradation of children? We put the question to the conscience of every reader. If any one has any specious argument to urge in defence or extenuation of his connivance at the evil, short of absolute necessity, it is at least his duty to read this volume, if not for the poetry, for the facts.

Art. IX. Conversations on the Bible. By a Lady. 12mo. pp. 438. London, 1824.

TO talk of Scripture doctrines in our social circles now,"

we are told in the Preface to these "Conversations," is just as fashionable as it is to be a member of a Bible Society; for in our age of wonders, we are all philosophers and philanthropists. From this we are to infer, we presume, that to talk of Scripture doctrines, is to affect to be a philosopher; to be a member of a Bible Society, is to be a philanthropist. But this Writer disclaims being either. The flippancy and temerity,' it is added, with which the most abtruse questions of Scripture are introduced into familiar conversation, is as irreverent as it it is absurd, and ought to be discouraged. Our readers will learn with surprise, that too large an infusion of theology into familiar conversation, is one of the crying sins of the day; but the Author must be allowed to have hit upon a curious antidote, in composing Conversations on the Bible!

This work is, we doubt not, well meant, and we regret that we cannot commend the execution. The style is very deficient in simplicity, and the young ladies converse in a language which sounds much too lofty for their years. What I want,' says Miss Fanny to her Mother, is a synoptical elucidation of the story, with its general relation to the several parts of the Bible.' A young lady who could understand the use of these terms, ought to have read her Bible. Her Mamma replies :

• I will endeavour to give you such a view, though I may not ac complish it as well as I could desire. The subject is exceedingly interesting, for the Bible is not only the oldest book in existence, but it contains an account of the creation of all things, and a history of mankind from the beginning.'

It is but just to add, that other and better reasons for studying the Bible, are afterwards intimated. But Mrs. M. is evidently not at home on the subject of religion. The desigu

seems to have been, to present the Old Testament history in a connected and unexceptionable form. Mrs. Trimmer and Miss Neale have anticipated the idea; but, had the present work been competently executed, we should not the less have given it our cordial approbation. In a work for young persons, we look at least for correct and intelligible composition; yet, what can we say for such sentences as the following?

Prophecy is unquestionably the most obscure portion of the Scriptures; yet is it sufficiently plain to form the great palladium of their origin, the chief argument of their divinity. Its predictions are so far beyond the penetration of human intellect, and the accomplishment of these predictions are so multiplied and exact, as no art of man or combinations of men could achieve. The most hardened infidelity is compelled to refer both the prescience and the power to something more than human.'

Art. X. The Star in the East; with other Poems. By Josiah Conder. 12mo. pp. 195. Price 6s. London. 1824.

CIRCUMSTANCES probably well known to the majority of our readers, embarrass us exceedingly in the criticism of this publication. Conscious that our warm admiration is the result of impartial and even of severe examination, we feel that there is something almost unmanly in shrinking from the full responsibility of avowing and sustaining it; nor should we suffer, in such a case, any thing short of a specific injunction to interfere between our feelings and their entire expression. Happily, there is an alternative, far more satisfactory in the present instance, than in others more doubtful: if we are forbidden to praise, we can at least produce examples, and we may venture on these somewhat the more largely, since we shall, though most reluctantly, abstain from every thing in the shape of eulogy, and confine ourselves to simple analysis and extract. The first and principal poem 'The Star in the East,' commemorates the progress of the Gospel, and anticipates its final triumph. It opens with the Song of the Angels at the Messiah's advent.

O to have heard the unearthly symphonies,
Which o'er the starlight peace of Syrian skies
Came floating like a dream, that blessed night
When angel songs were heard by sinful men,
Hymning Messiah's Advent! O to have watch'd

That night with those poor shepherds, whom, when first
The glory of the Lord shed sudden day,-

Day without dawn, starting from midnight, day
Brighter than morning,-on those lonely hills,
Strange fear surprised-fear lost in wondering joy,

When from the angelic multitule swelld forth
The niany-voiced consonance of praise :-
Glory in the highest to God, and upon earth
Peace: towards men good-will. But once before
In such glad strains of joyous fellowship,
The silent earth was greeted by the heavens,
When at its first foundation they look'd down
From their bright orbs, those heavenly ministries,

Hailing the new-born world with bursts of joy.' Pp 3, 4. The poem then passes to the massacre of the Innocents, the destruction of Jerusalem, and its modern state, the predicted restoration of the Jews, and, after an animated apostrophe to England as the chosen • Evangelist of nations,' breaks forth in the following indignant strain :

• There was a nation-whisper not its name
Lords of the realm through which old Ganges rolls
Her guilty stream, land populous with gods,
Olympus of the East : those Christian loris,
Great Juggernaut's copartners, shared the gains
Of his lewd triumphs, winking at the cheat.
Yea, and at Doorga feasts, the Christian fair
Did graceful homage to the mis-shaped gods,
And pledged the cup of demons. Then we heard,
To veil their shame, of Hindoo innocence :
Meek, simple, virtuous, mild idolaters,
They needed not to learn the Christians' faith.
Witness the dire suttee, the corse-strewn plain,
Where vultures track the abominable car
Of blood-stain'd lewdness. Bear thou witness too,
River of hell, whose deadly baptism stains
E'en to the soul its victim. Witness ye
Dark sanctuaries, whence shrieks, with laugh obscene
Commingling, speak the worship and the god.
O righteous sword of Mahomed, which gave
The shaven crowns of those infernal priests
To their own goddess, a meet sacrifice,
Fresh beads for Kali's necklace. Not with sword
Or spear of earthly temper, sainted WARD,
Didst thou, with thy heroic compeers, take
The field, and patiently sit down before
The thrice-entrenched Pandemonium
Of central Ind. Slowly, by sap and mine,
The painful siege proceeds, and many an arm
Must fail, and many a martyr wreath be won,
Until at length the powers of bell shall yield;
And He whose right it is, shall enter in
To reign. Lift up your heads, ye fortress gates!
Ye long-closed barriers of the East, give way! pp. 9, 10

Persia, China, and Taheite, presented objects too decidedly poetical to be neglected.

• Land of the Sun, once thy fond idol! Land
Of rose gardens, where aye the bulbul sings
His most voluptuous song! Thou mother land
And cradle of the nations! Land of Cyrus!
(Shall e'er a second Cyrus spring from thee?)
Thy palaces have heard a heavenly voice:
A prophet's feet have trod thy burning soil:
A man of God" has left his name with thee.
Thy sage Mollahs, say, have they yet resolv'd,
The Christian's knotty interrogatives?
Go, send for aid to Mecca. Ha! the Arab!
The Wahabite is there! The Caliphate,
Shrunk to the shadow of a name, survives
But in thy Othman rival, who e'en now
Sees Egypt lost, and quails before the Greek.
Rouse thee! shake off the trammels of a creed
Forged to enslave thee. From thy Soofish dreams
Awake to manlier life; and, if thou canst,
Call up thy ancient Magi from their rest,
To lead the to His rising, who returns

To gladden thee with healing in his beams,-

The SUN whom thou mayst worship. Thy Euphrates
Shall flee his ancient channel, to prepare

A passage for the monarchs of the East.

And thou, "Celestial Empire!" teeming hive

Of millions! vast impenetrable realm!

The hour is writ in heaven, thy yellow sons
Shall bow at the holy name, and woman there
Relent into the mother. Human loves
And softest charities shall in the train
Of heavenly faith attend. Thy wondrous wall
Is scaled, thy mystic tongue decipher'd now.

Where, in the furthest deserts of the deep,
The coral-worm its architecture vast
Uprears, and new-made islands have their birth,
The Paphian Venus, driven from the West,
In Polynesian groves long undisturb'd
Her shameful rites and orgies foul maintain'd.
The wandering voyager at Taheite found
Another Daphne. On his startled ear,

What unaccustom'd sounds come from those shores,
Charming the lone Pacific? Not the shouts
Of war, nor maddening songs of Bacchanals;
But, from the rude Morai, the full-toned psalm
Of Christian praise. A moral miracle !
Taheite now enjoys the gladdening smile
Of sabbaths. Savage dialects, unheard
At Babel, or at Jewish Pentecost,

Now first articulate divinest sounds.' pp. 10-13.