One grave did often many scores enclose
Of men and women and it may be those,
That could not in two parishes agree,
Now in one little room at quiet be.

Yon lay a heap of skulls; another there;
Here, half unburied, did a corpse appear.
Close by, you might have seen a brace of feet,
That had kickt off the rotten winding-sheet.
A little further saw we othersome,

Thrust out their arms for want of elbow room.
A lock of woman's hair; a dead man's face
Uncover'd; and a ghastly sight it was.
Oh! here, here view'd I what the glories be
Of pamper'd flesh: here plainly did I see
How grim those beauties will ere long appear,
Which we so dote on, and so covet here.
Here was enough to cool the hottest flame
Of lawless lust. Here was enough to tame
The madd'st ambition. And all they that go
Unbetter'd from such objects, worse do grow."

Much of this poem is taken up with Wither's own contemplations during the plague, and more especially with arguments relative to his stay in the city or flight into the country. He determines, at length, upon the former, and appears to have shut himself up in a kind of solitary imprisonment.

"So long the solitary nights did last,

That I had leisure my accounts to cast;

And think upon, and over-think those things,

Which darkness, loneliness, and sorrow brings

To their consideration, who do know

From whence they came, and whither they must go.
My chamber entertain'd me all alone,

And in the rooms adjoining lodged none.

Yet, through the darksome silent night, did fly

Sometime an uncouth noise; sometime a cry;

And sometime mournful callings pierc'd my room,

Which came, I neither knew from whence, nor whom.

And oft, betwixt awaking and asleep,

Their voices who did talk, or pray, or weep,

Unto my list'ning ears a passage found,

And troubled me, by their uncertain sound."

His morning was not much to be preferred to his night.

"No sooner wak'd I, but twice twenty knells,
And many sadly-sounding passing-bells,
Did greet mine ear, and by their heavy tolls,
To me gave notice, that some early souls
Departed whilst I slept: that other some
Were drawing onward to their longest home;
And, seemingly, presag'd that many a one

Should bid the world good night, ere it were noon."

The poet, however, is far from repining, and, like a true enthusiast, glories in his resolution. He thus expresses his satisfaction at remaining to record the suffering of the city, and thanks the Almighty for his preservation in the midst of danger.

allow!

"Oh! God, how great a blessing, then, didst thou
Confer upon me! And what grace
Oh! what am I, and what my parentage?
That thou, of all the children of this age,
Didst chuse out me, so highly to prefer,
As of thy acts, to be a register?

And give me fortitude and resolution
To stay, and view thy judgement's execution;
That I should live to see thy angel here,
Ev'n in his greatest dreadfulness appear?
That when a thousand fell before my face,
And at my right hand, in as little space,
Ten thousand more, I should be still protected
From that contagious blast, which them infected!
That, when of arrows thou didst shoot a flight
So thick by day, and such a storm by night
Of poison'd shafts; I, then, should walk among
The sharpest of them; and yet pass along
Unharm'd? And that I should behold the path
Which thou dost pace in thy hot burning wrath,
Yet not consume to ashes."

Thus far had we advanced in this review, when we cast a glance on the heap of blotted papers which had already accumuÏated before us. The ghost of all our good resolutions about short articles, variety, &c. &c. struck us with horror. "A plague upon the plague," we exclaimed. It used to be reckoned a rapid disorder, but us (we hope not our readers also) it keeps in lingering torments-we fear we shall be thought to have it periodically, and that, like the tertian ague, the Plague will recur in every third number. Not so. In the next number, or the next but

one," the Plague" shall positively die. But it would be unpardonable to rake up the ashes of the excellent M. Bertram, for a hasty gaze at the end of an article, and the glorious bishop of Marseilles, Henry de Belzune, must be treated ceremoniously and with reverence. If, too, we should drop the curtain over this great tragedy at this moment, we should eternally close a book, which ought to be looked into again before its leaves for ever lose the light. We are certain that the Britain's Remembrancer never will be opened again; when we came to the FINIS, we suggested to the little fat volume, that it should now take leave of mortal readers; for there was something within us (whether sleep, or fatigue, or what not) which instinctively revealed, that this book would be a sealed book for all future ages.

ART. II.-The History of the famous Preacher Friar Gerund de Campazas, otherwise Gerund Zotes. Translated from the Spanish, 2 vols. T. Davies. London, 1772.

We partly meditate the surprising our readers with certain indiscretions-witty, humorous, or jocose,-" pleasant, but wrong:"-Should we do this, however, and aberrate from the serious track of Reviewers, it must be at another season, perhaps in the warm July weather, when our fancy is heated and the air is clear, and we can both see our way through the humours of the multitude, and handle them with becoming spirit. It is not in these cold days of March, when the sharp winds are abroad, blowing even the critics (the sturdiest of the wit tribe) home to their chimney corners, that we shall undertake the task. But, let the mild May open her blossoms, and June tinge the roses, and July bring forth the red peeping strawberries-and then, with the golden air about us, and the bright blue roof to look at, we may try what we can do. Then, indeed, we may luxuriate in witty indolence, and tell our readers gaily all we know of the gay and gallant spirits that have gone before us. We assure them, that there is a fine host, a dazzling array; and it will be hard indeed if we cannot catch a little of the lustre which will envelope us. There is the Senor Miguel de Cervantes; the historian of Gil Blas ("Blas of Santillane," the reader recollects him); the renowned Philibert de Grammont; and the wittiest of historians, the Count Antony Hamilton: there is the famous author (and true father, we understand) of Mr. Thomas Jones, " a foundling;"

to say nothing of Dr. Tobias Smollett, and M. Pigault Le Brun, and others, equally though differently delightful. A wit in France is an ordinary production of the soil, indigenous: a wit in England, keen, bitter, caustic, is not extraordinary. In Italy, which is extraordinary, they are not remarkable for wit; and Holland is out of the latitude. But in Spain!-that is what strikes us,-in Spain, where it should seem that nothing by right should be, save gravity and green olives, wit sprouts up like a mushroom,—and in truth, it is an exemplary birth, a fine antithesis to the common solemnity of the Spanish cha

racter.

Don Quixote is not the only instance of a Spaniard forgetting what is due to gravity, and making his readers laugh. One smiles with Guzman d'Alfarache, the Spanish rogue; and one laughs at the Fray Gerundio, the Spanish friar. And who is the Spanish friar?-Is it possible that the reader does not know?-that he does not know the Friar of Campazas, which is in the province of Campos, which is in Old Castile?-Does he not know the son of Antony Zotes and Catanla his wife? But we see how it is; we must inform him.

Friar Gerund (de Campazas), then, otherwise El Fray Gerundio, otherwise Gerund Zotes, (for, like all people of a wide renown, from kings to pickpockets, our hero had a choice of names at his service) was, in truth, a somewhat remarkable person. Not that he was like Picus de Mirandula, or Crichton, or Zerah Colburn, who have put to shame all people knowing only half a dozen languages, or requiring pen or pencil to make up their minds to certain intricacies of decimals and fractions. On the contrary, our hero did not puzzle himself much on those or any other points, however he might perplex his hearers.

Being a friar by profession, he was necessarily somewhat of a parson in practice. Yet even there he was not a parson of the order of Jeremy Taylor, or Lowth, or Porteus; but of that wider range which boasts of Thwackum (was not Thwackum a parson?) of Trulliber, and others, as its disciples; true proprietors of tythes, men who know the points of a pig, and who can preach and flog to perfection. Every man, however, has his weakness. Parson Adams (good Parson Adams!) was fond of ale, Trulliber of pork, Wildgoose of preaching, and Friar Gerund loved them all. Nothing came amiss to him, unless, indeed, it might be good advice. That, as the reader knows, or may know, has an unsavoury flavour, which, however wholesome to the stomach, invariably affronts the palate. Accordingly our friar rejected it, and arrived at notoriety without its help.

The history (for after all there is a history) of Friar Gerund,

is written by the father Joseph Francis Isla, and is an odd work enough for a Jesuit. It was written, if we may believe the advertisement," with the laudable view to correct the abuses of the Spanish pulpit, by turning the bad preachers into ridicule:" and, in truth, this is very elaborately attempted, and sometimes even well performed. The book, we are told, met with great approbation in Spain, and the “ Inquisition itself" encouraged the publication. Things must have come to a sad pass, indeed, when those serious people lent their smiles to such a performance. They were not much in the habit of cherishing satire of any sort, and jokes against their own body were occasionally requited by an auto da Fé. This volume, to be sure, was by a privileged person, and the excuse towards him, therefore, would be naturally easier than towards another. For our own parts, we have little doubt but that the Spanish clergy required a "history" of this sort. We do not profess to be intimate with the productions of the Spanish pulpit; but we can conceive, from what we have heard even in England, that some improvement might be desirable in the art of preaching. We are told that bad grammar and idle doctrine are sputtered out (on the continent, of course,) by fellows who relieve the tedium of shoemaking and other mute occupations, by giving free liberty to their lungs on Sunday. We are told that they even denounce damnation, and partition off heaven, and dispose of places (high and low) with a decision which must stagger any one but a "true believer." If these things are done in France, or Germany, or elsewhere, they may also be done in Spain. There were other stables to be cleansed, in old times, besides those of Augeas.

The book, then, is a satire upon the Spanish preachers. If it were nothing else, however, we might leave it for the edification of the Castilians: but it has other claims upon our regard. It is true, indeed, that there is more than sufficient space devoted to the discussion of the different styles of preaching. In fact, that is the besetting sin of the book. It is too professional, if we may so call it. Our good father Isla should have considered this, when he undertook to set his brethren aright. People have little or no sympathy with the peculiarities of preachers or lawyers. In order to create a general interest, there must be some of the ordinary traits of our race-some good, rich absurdity, which belongs to the common stock of human nature. These are certainly not forgotten; but they are nevertheless, too sparingly scattered over the Jesuit's work.

Friar Gerund was the son of Antony Zotes (the Zotes are a collateral branch of the "Wrongheads,") and of Catanla Rebollo, his wife. This Antony was a sort of gentleman