Again perhaps, as change eternal sways,
By potent engines, moulding nature's frame,
Some lab'ring force profound the mount may raise,
Still fountful to revive Sabrina's fame.

Through virgin meads, new-clad in vernal pride,
Shall the young naiad draw her sinuous train,
By springing groves and rising turrets glide,
Then yield her bridal tribute to the main.
A second Thyrsis may invoke her aid *,

To free chaste beauty from th' enchanter's speli,
While warbled plainings fill the twilight glade,
And woo sweet Echo from her aery shell.
Then too some waning bard, in pensive vein,
May strictly meditate sage Spenser's lore; †
Of time and mutability complain,

And life's brief periods, fix'd by fate, deplore.
Yet renovation still succeeds decay,

Alternate, as the flood and ebbing tide:
The muse, though mortal, hence forbids dismay,
Who, cheer'd with hope's bright genius by her side,

A glance through dim futurity shall dart,

Then breathe one last, but elevating strain,
Of solemn charm to calm the throbbing heart,

Which thought too curious would appal in vain.'

The Latin verses are fluent and chaste, but evidently not finished for publication, Should any of our classical friends have imbibed a partiality for spectres, they will be gratified by four lines, which occur in a poem composed to dissuade a friend from the study of the feudal system;

'Ultro crediderim tam tetra voce locutum

Attonita è tumulis Gothica spectra sequi;

Hengistumque, Horsamque, et operta casside tervam
Haroldi speciem, Neustriacumque ducem.'

The operta casside torvam is correctly and happily descriptive. We shall conclude our quotations with Mr. Champion's epi gram on Vincent Bourne's Latin Poems:

• Antiquo mibi das nova carmina tincta lepore, ‡
Queis insunt lacryme, gaudia, vota, sales.
Hac quoties recolam, dulcique in munere verser,
Curole, qui possim non meminisse tui ?
Nam lepidi ingenii est, et culta mentis imago

Hic liber; et Charites pagina quæque sapit?

Alluding to the invocation of Sabrina, and the song of Sweet

Echo, in the masque of Comus.'

The two cantos of Mutability at the end of the Faery Queen, and the poem intitled the Ruins of Time.'

Vincentii Bournei poemata.?

The

The dates of several of these pieces are from 1743 to 1771; and, in their ease and polish, they remind us forcibly of the good old poetical School.

The noble editor of this handsome volume has prefixed a short biographical account of its deceased author, in which he speaks in the highest terms of the productions of his muse as well as of the qualities of his heart. If we do not unreservedly subscribe to the energy of Lord Lyttelton's praise on the former, we know not any reason for abating the strength of his eulogy with regard to the latter: though, as we had not the pleasure of being acquainted with Mr. Champion, we are equally unqualified to confirm it.

ART. XIII.

La Bagatella; or, Delineations of Home Scenery. A Descriptive Poem. In Two Parts. With Notes, Critical and Historical. By William Fox, jun. Svo. 5s. Boards. Rivingtons. 1801.

WE
E are not disposed to treat with any severity the inoffen-
sive lounges of this author, in the neighbourhood of
Hackney; nor to disturb his enjoyment of the Venetian blinds
in his library, which are here not only sung, but depicted in one
of the pretty vignettes which adorn the book. No-we will not
quarrel with his poetry, for it may certainly be read without
dislike; witness the following lines:

Meck priests of nature! who with incense cull'd
From mountain air, in morning's early time,
"Twixt the soft rains of spring, full oft invite,
But vain, their fellow-men, their rites to share.
When, by the tender dawn light, the young lark
Wakes from his lowly bed, the bard walks forth
To greet the march of day; and when, at eve,
The plaintive nightingale her requiem chants,
He lingers fondly by the green-wood side,
Or on the river's banks, to watch the moon
Upon the water play- or in the dell
Alone, by some old abbey, will he sit,

"Till, by the midnight prayer-bell rous'd, he leaps
Forth, as from trance, and joins the holy choir

In strains more sweet, and heart more warm, than theirs.
Ah! who can speak the raptures of the bard
When forth, on his rich fancy, first awakes
The embryo colouring of his fairy forms.

• How holy Milton felt, ah! who shall tell,
When he of Paradise so largely sang,

In strains that Paradise might love to hear?

Or how great Shakspeare, when, from Nature's hand,
The keys of her exhaustless stores he took?

Or

Or frantie Collins, or diviner Gray,

When, with quick-trembling hand, they seiz'd the lyre?
Not common men were these, nor common track
Did they pursue unto their journey's end.
The low horizon that confines the crowd,
With noble daring, oft they stepp'd beyond,
And tred sublimer ground. With angel-light
Almost endow'd, they on the future glanc'd,
The present, and the past; and, eagle-eye'd,
From nature cull'd, with magic potency,
Each varied form-the flower, the shrub, the herb,
From forest wild, or the cool water'd vale,
The tempest and the calm, the western glow,
Morn's blushing tints, and evening's milder gray,
To grace the scenery they lov'd to paint.

Such are the sweets my letter'd bower supplies,
And such the fairty-treat my shelves afford.

But when short truce th' exhausted sight requires,
And the rich banquet I awhile resign,

Sweet is the change, when forth, as now, allur'd
By summer scenes, to my lov'd walks I stray.

To Dorlestone's shaded path I turn me then
Across the.brook, and by my favourite bench
Linger, to gaze upon the old gray tower,
By the red glare of setting-sun illum'd.'

We must, however, seriously complain of the quantity of notes and citations accumulated on this trifling subject There is a method of quoting any thing so as to make it relate. to any thing. Mr. Fox, perceiving that there are fields, and houses, and brooks, in and about Hackney, has opened most unmercifully the torrent of quotations on these topics;-and the vicinity of London and the Thames unfortunately encourages him to spread his prospect like that of Dyer, and

"Add unnumber'd fields and meads."

He has, moreover, taken the trouble of informing the world which are his favourite authors, and has printed very long extracts from books which are in almost every man's possession. Against this practice, also, we must enter our protest; because, at this rate, the next Bagatelles which come before us may contain a republication of the British Poets. Indeed, if many readers, of Mr. Fox's standard, should exhibit their favourite passages, the result would perhaps resemble that of the story concerning Aristarchus's re perusals of Humer; and every line would be marked by the admiration of some individual or another.Neither can we admit that, with this display of reading, Mr.

We could not afford room for the extensive notes affixed to the above passage.

For

Fox has afforded much evidence of real literature, either in the poem or the notes. He tells us, for example, that, after the death of Sappho, the inhabitants of Mitylene [classically speaking, Lesbos] went so far as to engrave her image upon their coins. If Mr. Fox will consult any of the general books of Numismata, he will find that the Lesbians went so much farther in their medallic imagery, that the distinction was by no means enviable.

Voltaire, in a contest with a writer whom he supposed to be a German, wished him "more wit, and fewer consonants." When Mr. Fox appears again before the public, we shall be glad to see more verses, and fewer annotations.

ART. XIV. A Comment upon Part of the fifth fourney of Antoninus through Britain; in which the Situation of Durocobriva, the se venth Station there mentioned, is discussed; and Castor in Northamptonshire is shewn, from the various Remains of Roman Antiquity, to have an undoubted Claim to that Situation. To which is added, A Dissertation on an Image of Jupiter found there. By the Rev. Kennet Gibson, late Curate of Castor. Printed from the Original MS.; and enlarged with the Parochial History of Castor and its Dependencies to the present Time. To which is subjoined, an Account of Marham, and several other Places in its Neighbourhood. 4to. pp. 300. 15s. sewed. Nichols. 1800. WHEN we attempt to penetrate the deep and obscure

recesses of past times, objects must be expected to appear confused and indistinct; and often we shall be under the inevitable necessity of invoking the aid of conjecture, to supply the place of direct and positive evidence. Many ages have elapsed since Britain was occupied by the Romans; and though their public works were substantial and magnificent, there now remain comparatively but few traces of their conquest and dominion. The direction of the great military or consular Roman roads may yet be tolerably well ascertained: but in most places the roads themselves are so completely obliterated, that it is extremely difficult to fix with precision the Roman stations, as laid down in the Itinerary of Antoninus. This work, (generally attributed to Antoninus Caracalla, but by some supposed to be the production of a writer whose age is unknown,) being a mere list of names and numbers, unac companied by topographical or historical remarks, affords only a faint ray to the antiquary in his researches; yet patience, combined with fortunate discoveries, may sometimes superinduce a probability of conjecture; and when even this cannot be ef fected by such means, errors may be supposed to exist in the

numbers

numbers expressive of the distances between the stations in the copies of the Itinerary. Thus, when the mountain cannot come to Mahomet, Mahomet must be made to go to the mountain. Among antiquaries, this privilege is allowed. Hanc veniant petimusque damusque vicissim.

The work before us undertakes the elucidation of only a small part of Antoninus. Mr. Gibson, from whose MSS. the volume is published, made proposals (dated Castor July 3, 1769,) for printing, by subscription, a comment on part of the fifth Iter, in order to establish the claim of Castor to the Roman Station denominated in the Itinerary Durobrivis; and to add to this illustration the parochial antiquities of Castor, with the adjacent parts in the liberty of Peterborough, and of some other places in the county of Northampton: but death interrupted this design; and the MSS. of Mr. Gibson were not rescued from their obscurity till 1795 when they were offered by the then proprietor of them, the Rev. Daniel Bayley, to Mr. Nichols, the present editor. From that year till the date of their publication, they have been receiving additions and improvements; and, since it was the expressed intention of the original author to bring down the history of Castor from its antient state under the Romans, through the Saxon period, to the present times, a supplement is added by the editor, from Mr. Bridges's History of Northamptonshire.

Mr. Gibson's Comment occupies 140 pages. He first gives a list of the several editions of Antoninus, lays down the stations as enumerated in the fifth Iter, states the principles. on which he proceeds, and endeavours to ascertain the real spot which each station occupied; as well as to prove that Castor is the scite of the last. Employing Bishop Gibson, he thus gives the Roman route on which he comments:

See the account of a preceding attempt to illustrate this writer's

Itinerary, Rev. N. S. Vol. xxxi. p. 349.

In