ART. IV. Poems. By THOMAS NEXT to the pleasure of bestowing On genius the well-earned meed of warm and hearty commendation, we critics taste no satisfaction equal to that of consigning a dunce to eternal oblivion. In both these cases, we follow the strong impulse of feeling, and are little apprehensive that the justice of our sentence should be arraigned by the world at large.

But, in the republic of letters, as in general society, we meet with a number of mixed characters, in whom virtues and vices, beauties and deformities, are so perplexingly blended, that it is impossible to dwell on either with the serenity of fixed-decision. We praise with reluctance, we blame with regret, we hesitate, we qualify, and, after a tedious display of caution and candour, leave our readers at last wearied and embarrassed, dissatisfied, they know not why, with us, the author, and themselves. The poems before as unfortunately come under the perplexing class we have described. This is partly owing to their subject; almost all are purely sentimental, and concerning sentiments and tastes, who shall dispute? or rather, who shall determine? Sometimes we listen with emotion to a strain of refined tenderness, or manly piety; then a trill of dainty affectation grates upon our feelings worse than discord; then again we lose all time and tune, and measure, in hopeless inextricable confusion, which aims at science and execution, and we know not what. Perhaps we cannot describe the poems of Dr. Brown more justly, than as the works of a man of science, of reading, of refinement, of the most liberal sentiments, and amiable feelings, whose genius, however, is neither vigorous nor Hively, whose judgment wants clearsightedness, to distinguish between sentimental elegance and metaphysical subtlety, and whose taste is perverted by that tumid affectation, which substitutes extravagance for energy, and strangeness of expression for originality of conception.

In nothing has Dr. Brown more sinned against grammar, good sense, and that respect for language, which ought to be preserved by every man of taste and learning, however it may be violated by the illiterate mob of modern versifiers, than in his licentious use of compound words. Respecting the formation of

BROWN, M. D. 2 vols. 12mo. these, it may be difficult to lay down ab. solute rules; but we apprehend that no one can analyze, without condemning, the following, and many others of a similar kind, none of which, probably, our author would have dreamt for a moment of employing in prose. "Glance-dew, self-shaped, pain- pursued, glitteringvested, pageant-gleam, art-mingled, ponderous-held, carnage-plain, darkly-clot ted, favouring-willed, happier-breathed, victor-combat, death - plumed, damp. chilled, death-dark, death-weight, murder-flood, battle-sod, tempest-arm, warheart, blood-step, anguish-quiverings, night-unhallowed."

We cannot compliment Dr. Brown on the smoothness of his numbers, or the appropriateness and harmony of the mea sures that he has chosen to adopt. The double rhyme with which he has length. ened out every other line of his elegies, gives them an air of burlesque: of the effect of the strange novelty introduced into the measure of several of his sonnets and small pieces, we shall enable our readers to judge, by the following lines, which will also serve to show that we do not charge him unjustly with turgidity and affectation.

"To the Spirit of Music. "Wake me not with bliss I cannot name.

Wake me not, to passions thus unknown.

Say, But O! how sweet that stranger tone' Say, what happier realms its language clai Com'st thou from those moon-shine sh so dear,

Love's still shades, where only murmur. rise,

And, when joy o'erpowers the whisper

Thyrse.

given to them; if insinuation, adulation, or

Influence and sympathy still condescend, Then force thy path, for instinct has no end; Still let's maintain our elevated strength;

And still admire the shepherd's simple length."

The prose is as wild as the verse; and that every thing in the book may be coberent, (to use the author's favourite word), it contains several prefaces, which are always placed after the foregoing pastoral to which they refer. We will preserve a passage from one of these posterior prefaces.

If you think I have made too free with my gods; if I have introduced them where they ought not to be introduced; if I have given them that which should not have been

and can speak to my gods as to my brothers; and this circunstance least of all; for it will tend to discourage instead of encourage, and all knowledge of nature and myself is dead; then in her participation has this instinctive mistress led me. Her qualities are not the qualities I imagined they were; her powers are not original; her participations are m just; her motions are not uniform; her actions are mere deviations; her instinct is irregular and unavailing; and her sympathy is non-co-operative. Prove one of these instances, and all parts and powers are utterly abolished. Man is no longer man; reason, reason; or philosophy, philosophy. Nature is lost, and sympathy dead, and I am an atom deviating in the general course of nature; have formed artificial instead of instinctive non-instinctive diminutives, must fall. But, and co-operative verse; and, like many other no, I will maintain that this is not the present case; for, I wrote from a power, and an exciting propensity in nature, matter, and form, a power compelling, perceptible, and instinctive, and gravitating towards its centre; not with a view of gaining manly or worldly esteem, but the esteem of humanity; gods. Although this sympathetic and uninot to gain, by insinuation, the favour of my form power is theirs, I have this participating and co-operative essence in my own bosom, as warm as imagination ever put forth its glance in a truly-good man, formed naturally feeling, and philosophically wise, I see its immediate power, and I feel it—a propelling virtuous property. It is this property that I esteem; take it from my gods, and I would turn indignant on them."

The author's mode of associating ideas, or rather of doing altogether without ideas, would puzzle a metaphysician;-to a physician his case is clear.

And shifting winds, converging, coalesce Their bell'wing rage, and from one common point

Pour their whole fury forth.

Many extraordinary coalitions we have seen, and many more we shall see, but never a more extraordinary one than this which Mr. Warren has brought about. It must have puzzled the sailors terribly!--all the two and thirty points

got into one corner! We beg leave to offer a verbal criticism here: Mr. Warren calls this corner a common point; now in our opinion it was a very uncommon

one.

Is this gentleman of the sister king. dom? He has entitled one of the parts of his poem Midnight, or the Day of Judg ment. We are the more inclined to say pect this, as he has the art of prosing a

verse.

icissitudes to which they have, in conquence, been exposed. They were reuced to great distress in the war with e giants; but since the saints have ected them, and reigned in their stead, e shifts to which they have been driven e pitiful indeed. At this present time, wever, the venerable emigrants, with few exceptions, seem to be comfortably ttled, tho'

ser

"Fallen fallen fallen fallen Fallen from their high estate." Jupiter has found a faithful and zea. is friend in Thomas Taylor, and Escuplus also has had a cock sacrificed to n in one of our provincial cities. Mirva has been taken into keeping by Lane of Leadenhall-street; her cha. ter has indeed, in some degree, suffer. by the connection, but her devotees numerous, and she consoles herself h her partner for the loss of her owl. ollo, in like manner, took to loose rses, opened tea gardens in St. orge's Fields, and was driven out by magistrates. What is become of since none of the poets can tell; but oracle still continues its old trade of ng its voice, and deceiving the peo. Neptune left the ocean to be taken of by the British navy, and set up a spaper. Mars and Hercules, on the rary, both went to sea; one entered English, and the other the French ; and Mars having been wise enough oose the right side, took Hercules pri. T. Vulcan has been very fortunate: ke all other adventurers who want to e a fortune, he crossed the Tweed Scotland, where he still has his altar, continues his trade. Mercury has been invoked in secret, and can t of votaries of all ranks. Every - knows how Verus has been vilified the physicians put a crown of shame her head. Mr. Barry has now made mends, and exhibited her in diviner iness than ever deserved the adtion of Greece. Bacchus has led a life; is free of both universities; he urted at elections, being of no party, at all times has the honour of keep. he very highest company. Ate was time one of our cabinet counThe Furies too, after they had been En out of France, were taken into mere, and let loose in Ireland. Since administration of lord Cornwallis have not been heard of, but there od reason to believe that they will, ong, find employment in the sugar

islands. Nemesis, having taken care of governor Wall, is now busy in looking after the emperor Napoleon: and where is Cupid? Gentle reader, Cupid is turned volunteer! and being a volunteer, Cupid is come to be reviewed.

According to this true history, it appears that Cupid, finding all the other young gentlemen in the kingdom were going to play at soldiers, was determined that he would no longer play at blindman's-buff. He therefore took the bandage from his eyes, and went to ask leave of Minerva that he might become a volunteer: the reader may wonder perhaps why Minerva's consent should be necessary. She was sitting upon an extraordinary kind of seat when he approached; the base resembles one of the great tombs, which would be square if they were not too long; raised upon two steps, but from the second step to the top of the pedestal, certainly appears to be a longer stride than the goddess could with any decorum take. On the further end of the pedestal she was seated upon a stone seat of the same form, to which a column served as a back, and a very inconvenient one it must needs be. Á heart stands on its point, upon the summit of this column; and from the heart a fire ascends, separating into two flames.

flag is suspended about half way up the column: we do not very well know why; neither can we very well tell how, She wore a helmet, and had a spear in her hand, and her dress was certainly too thin to be either comfortable or wholesome in this cold climate. Cupid is stark naked. It is plain that the Philan thropic Society knew nothing of his condition; nor the worthy gentlemen who have associated for the suppression of vice and immorality.

Having obtained Minerva's leave, Cupid wraps up his bow and arrows in the British standard to hide them, taking it for granted that the standard will not be displayed. Whether he is going to place it upon a block of wood, which very much resembles the butchers' blocks in Clare Market, we do not know, but such a block is standing by him, and an hourglass upon it, the meaning whereof hath not been expounded by Mr. Park. He then assumes his firelock, advances to the altar of loyalty, where a great many sacrifices have been offered of late years, and there takes the oath of allegiance; next he surveys the target, and the poct shall tell his success.

"Right through the mark his bullet Alies:
So may it speed 'gainst all who dare
Th' invader's ruffian-hazard share,
To snatch a felon prize!
So shall it speed, if freedom's race,
Be to their king and country true;
And each deluded Gaul shall rue
The day he felt the fraterniz'd embrace,
The bitter hour he was enforced away

From her who clasp'd him with connubial

arms,

From all domestic life's endearing charms, And a sad conscript, looking fiercely gay, Compell'd as vassal to a despot lord, To bleed for him his soul abhorr'd,— Whelm'd by defeat in a reproachful grave, Or train'd by conquest to be more a slave."

And now Cupid has the honour of presenting colours before the king; not the king in person, but his head in marble: but we humbly submit to Mr. Wilberforce, and the author of Munimenta Antiqua, whether this offering to a graven image savoureth not of idolatry? There is more reason to suspect this, inasmuch as immediately afterwards he is found beating the drum and dancing, both parts of such idolatrous ceremonies. While Cupid is thus employed, we are concerned to perceive, that one of his little brothers has climbed up to the top of a truncated column; and is sitting there without considering, that should he fall, he must be in great dan ger of breaking his neck.

What follows is prophecy; the painter and the poet both foresaw, that if Cupid should be called out upon actual service, very unpleasant consequences might result; he might have been placed under the command of colonel P. who is known to have a personal dislike to him; or he might have been frightened at the sight of the great Raw-head-and-bloody. hones, who, the Form of Prayer says, is determined to swallow us up quick; or, peradventure, Cupid might have fallen in battle, to the irreparable injury of all song writers and sonnetteers. All these mischiefs are prudently prevented by these designs of genius, loyalty, and patriotism, as Mr. Park denominates them.

Still may resound that charter'd strain Which hails Britannia, empress of the main!

Still may her sons be fam'd through every clime

For deeds of spotless faith, and dauntless soul sublime!"

In this important history we must notice some censurable omissions. It is not mentioned to what corps Cupid belong. ed: perhaps this may have been designedly omitted, lest the gentlemen who served with him should be called Capid's Company. Neither is his uniform described: now every volunteer knows that the uniform is a thing of the first importance.

The designs are very prettily executed; and the poetical illustrations not unworthy of Mr. Park, a gentleman of nassuming talents, and great erudition in English literature. The subject, however, tempts us to suggest, as a suitable motto, the lines of the song: "Little Cupid Why so stupid?”*