Hence every state, to one lov'd blessing prone,
Conforms and models life to that alone.
Each to the favourite happiness attends,
And spurns the plan that aims at other ends;
Till, carried to excess in each domain,

This favourite good begets peculiar pain.'

This is the position which he conducts through Italy, Swisserland, France, Holland, and England; and which he endeavours to confirm by remarking the manners of every country.

Having censured the degeneracy of the modern Italians, he proceeds thus:

'My soul turn from them, turn we to survey

Where rougher climes a nobler race display,

Where the bleak Swiss their stormy mansions tread,
And force a churlish soil for scanty bread;

No product here the barren hills afford,
But man and steel, the soldier and his sword.
No vernal blooms their torpid rocks array,
But winter lingering chills the lap of May;
No Zephyr fondly soothes the mountain's breast,
But meteors glare, and stormy glooms invest.
Yet still, even here, content can spread a charm,

Redress the clime, and all its rage disarm.

Though poor the peasant's hut, his feasts though small,

He sees his little lot, the lot of all;

See no contiguous palace rear its head

To shame the meanness of his humble shed;

No costly lord the sumptuous banquet deal

To make him loath his vegetable meal;

But calm, and bred in ignorance and toil,

Each wish contracting, fits him to the soil.'

But having found that the rural life of a Swiss has its evils as well as comforts, he turns to France.

'To kinder skies, where gentler manners reign,
We turn; and France displays her bright domain.
Gay sprightly land of mirth and social ease,

Pleas'd with thyself, whom all the world can please.—

Theirs are those arts that mind to mind endear,
For honour forms the social temper here.—
From courts to camps, to cottages it strays,
And all are taught an avarice of praise;

They please, are pleas'd, they give to get esteem,
Till, seeming blest, they grow to what they seem.'
Yet France has its evils:

'For praise too dearly lov'd, or warmly sought,
Enfeebles all internal strength of thought,
And the weak soul, within itself unblest,

Leans all for pleasure on another's breast.

The mind still turns where shifting fashion draws,

Nor weighs the solid worth of self-applause.'

Having then passed through Holland, he arrives in England, where,

'Stern o'er each bosom reason holds her state,

With daring aims, irregularly great,

I see the lords of human kind pass by,
Pride in their port, defiance in their eye,

Intent on high designs, a thoughtful band,

By forms unfashion'd, fresh from Nature's hand.'

With the inconveniences that harrass [sic] the sons of freedom, this extract shall be concluded.

'That independence Britons prize too high,
Keeps man from man, and breaks the social tie;
See, though by circling deeps together held,
Minds combat minds, repelling and repell'd;
Ferments arise, imprison'd factions roar,
Represt ambition struggles round her shore,
Whilst, over-wrought, the general system feels
Its motions stopt, or phrenzy fires the wheels.

Nor this the worst. As social bonds decay,
As duty, love, and honour fail to sway,
Fictitious bonds, the bonds of wealth and law,
Still gather strength, and force unwilling awe.
Hence all obedience bows to these alone,

And talent sinks, and merit weeps unknown;
Till time may come, when, stript of all her charms,
That land of scholars, and that nurse of arms;
Where noble stems transmit the patriot flame,
And monarchs toil, and poets pant for fame;
One sink of level avarice shall lie,

And scholars, soldiers, kings unhonor'd die.'

Such is the poem, on which we now congratulate the public, as on a production to which, since the death of Pope, it will not be easy to find any thing equal.—The Critical Review.

WILLIAM COWPER

Poems by William Cowper, of the Inner Temple, Esq. 8vo. 5s. Johnson.

These Poems are written, as we learn from the titlepage, by Mr. Cowper of the Inner Temple, who seems to be a man of a sober and religious turn of mind, with a benevolent heart, and a serious wish to inculcate the precepts of morality; he is not, however, possessed of any superior abilities, or powers of genius, requisite to so arduous an undertaking; his verses are, in general, weak and languid, and have neither novelty, spirit, or animation, to recommend them; that mediocrity so severely condemned by Horace,

Non Dii non homines, &c.

pervades the whole; and, whilst the author avoids every thing that is ridiculous or contemptible, he, at the same time, never rises to any thing that we can commend or admire. He says what is incontrovertible, and what has already been said over and over, with much gravity, but says nothing new, sprightly, or entertaining; travelling on in a plain, level, flat road, with great composure, almost through the whole long, and rather tedious volume, which is little better than a dull sermon, in very indifferent verse, on Truth, the Progress of Error, Charity, and some other grave subjects. If this author had followed the advice given by Caraccioli,* and which he

* Nous sommes nés pour la vérité, et nous ne pouvons souffrir son abord. Les figures, les paraboles, les emblémes, sont toujours des ornements nécessaires pour qu'elle puisse s'annoncer: on veut, en la recevant, qu'elle soit déguisée.

has chosen for one of the mottos prefixed to these Poems, he would have clothed his indisputable truths in some becoming disguise, and rendered his work much more agreeable. In its present state, we cannot compliment him on its shape or beauty; for, as this bard himself sweetly sings,

'The clear harangue, and cold as it is clear,

Falls soporific on the listless ear.'

In his learned dissertation on Hope, we meet with the following lines

[Quotes some fifty lines from Hope beginning,

Build by whatever plan caprice decrees,

With what materials, on what ground you please, etc.]

Add

All this is very true; but there needs no ghost, nor author, nor poet, to tell us what we knew before, unless he could tell it to us in a new and better manner. to this, that many of our author's expressions are coarse, vulgar, and unpoetical; such as parrying, pushing by, spitting abhorrence, &c. The greatest part of Mr. Cowper's didactics is in the same strain. He attempts indeed sometimes to be lively, facetious, and satirical; but is seldom more successful in this, than in the serious and pathetic. In his poem on Conversation there are two or three faint attempts at humour; in one of them he tells us that

'A story in which native humour reigns

Is often useful, always entertains,

A graver fact enlisted on your side,
May furnish illustration, well applied;
But sedentary weavers of long tales,
Give me the fidgets and my patience fails.
'Tis the most asinine employ on earth,
To hear them tell of parentage and birth,