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all things. He therefore remembereth all things. Men forget their sins: but they cannot be forgotten by God.-God is also boly. He is of purer eyes than to behold evil, and cannot look upon iniquity. As such then He must hate sin. It must be infinitely offensive to Him.-Further, God is most just. He loveth righteousness, and execute judgment. As a righteous Judge then, He cannot but be concerned to punish sin: for not to punish it would be unjust. It would not be to treat sin according to its deserts, which would be injustice. Besides, God is true and faithful to his word. He is truth itself, and cannot lie. How is it possible then that he should not punish sin, for he hath declared that he will punish it, that he will by no means clear the guilty?'-Put all these things together. God sees sin: He remembers sin: He hates sin: He cannot be just without punishing sin: and He has said that He will punish it. With what certain. ty do these perfections of the Almighty declare, that a man's sin will surely find him out! Only let us consider, that, to entertain the contrary presumption; to suppose that sin will escape unpunished, is in fact to strike at the root of the Divine character, to deny one at least, if not all of the glorious perfections of the Godhead. To say, that our sin will not find us out is to say, either that God does not see sin; or that He will forget it; or that he does not hate it; or that He is unjust; or that He will not keep his word. And which of these things will a man presume to say? Or which of them, if he did presume to say it, would be true? God, in his very nature

must be infinite in all his perfections; and so surely as He is so, so surely, unrepented, unpardoned sin will not go unpunished." pp. 250-252.

will allow us to suggest to him, and will not disregard the suggestion, that he cannot, perhaps, more effectually promote the interests of the Redeemer's kingdom, than by continuing to disseminate, through the medium of sermons, such as those we have now been reviewing, the undisguised and unadulterated truths of our holy religion.

Jephthah: a Poem, (which won the
Seatonian Prize for the Year 1814.)
By EDWARD SMEDLEY, Jun. Lon-
don, Murray; and Cambridge,
Deighton.

THE first and instinctive idea which
the expression prize-poetry excites
in the mind is, that of distinguished
excellence. But most poetic readers
have, in so many cases, experienced
the fallacy of this idea--their ex-
pectations of distinguished excellence
in productions of this class have so
often been disappointed-they have
so frequently laid hold of a prize-
poem, and found a prize no where
but in the title-page-that the very
name of prize-poetry seems now to
be regarded rather with prejudice

It is looked upon as

than favour. another phrase for decent mediocrity and unoffending tameness, and proWe cannot take our leave of Mr. scribed accordingly by virtue of the Cooper without requesting him to authority of Horace. And, as a reaaccept our acknowledgments for the son must be given for every thing in pleasure, and, we trust, instruction, this reasoning age, men soon disco which his volume of sermons has ver that all this is very natural; for afforded us. He enjoys, we doubt true poetic genius is above prizes not, in the testimony of his own con- and prize-poems. It will not conde. science and in the humble assurance scend to take task-work for hire. It that his labours are graciously ac- shrinks from the idea of labouring cepted and will be finally recompens- on a set subject for pay. It reed by Him to whom they are con- quires no leading but th secrated, a satisfaction unspeakably enthusiasm, no spur but superior to that which any tribute, of fame. however sincere, from us can yield him. We trust, however, that he

of its own

the desire

And yet these opinions must seem very dubious to those who

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will take the trouble to reflect that some of the most celebrated poems in our language have been written, not for fame, but for bread; that the tragedians whose sublime productions immortalized the theatre of Athens, were regular prize-fighters; and, what is still more remarkable, that the greatest, the most finely moral, and the most boldly fanciful lyrist of antiquity, wrote his noblest compositions as mere tasks, with no better a subject than a horse race; and was as regularly paid for his work, by the piece, as any wondermaker who scrawls for a country magazine.

The truth is, that though genius cannot be created, it may be excited and directed. Accident, occasion, necessity, example, a prescribed subject, a proposed reward-all and each of these may be the rousers and the feeders of that ethereal flame. They do not give it birth, any more than flint gives birth to fire; but they elicit it, and call it into sight and into action. It is indeed the very property of strong powers, that they thus adapt themselves to the given opportunity, and, under the pressure of an external impulse, move with all the ease, grace, spirit, and decision of self-directed and gratuitous exer. tion. If prize-poems are seldom of great excellence, we should remem. ber that they generally come out of a limited field. The candidates for any one scholastic or academic honour are necessarily but a few, too few to be sure of containing a good poet amongst their number, And, after all, the great use of the poetic prizes at our public seminaries is not so much to call into existence poetry of rare and extraordinary merit, as to promote among the students the practice of a species of composition which tends to store the mind with rich and elegant ideas, d to give command of language 5 refinement of style. 105There have not been wanting, how rist. Observ. No. 161.

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ever, productions which have amply and nobly redeemed the reproach that has been conceived to attach to academic prize-poetry. Some of these we have formerly pointed out to the notice of our readers, and, if our criticisms are by this time forgotten, it is not so with the works that excited them. Had our critical la bours commenced a few years earlier, other subjects of similar praise would have come within our view; nor, on the whole, can it be doubted that, if the elite of English prizepoems were collected together intoa single work, the collection would be highly interesting, and of positive and great, though certainly various, excellence.

The poem now before us might, we think, not unjustly claim admission into such a collection. The Seatonian prize has not often been adjudged to so good a composition. The writer discovers fancy, feeling, considerable conception of character, and great command of poetic language. Without venturing on any йagrant departure from the simple history of Scripture, he has filled up the short outline of the account of Jephthah with genius and dexterity, and has given his portrait, although necessarily but the copy of a copy, much of the spirit and freedom of an original.

Some few objections, with which we shall take the liberty of qualifying this praise, will fall from us in the progress of our remarks. Mean time, we may offer one general observation, leaving our readers to reflect whether it implies more of censure or of commendation,—that the muse of Mr. Smedley is, in her generic character, considerably Byronian. We here mean to speak of her literary, not her moral, character. The great success and unquestionable merit of Lord Byron could not fail to make him the founder of a school; and though, before the recent publication of the Hebrew Melodies,

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we might not exactly have expected And shook his ocean-dropping tresses vide to find a writer on scriptural subjects On redden'd Shenim's balm-distilling ide." P. 1, 2. among the number of his disciples; yet there could be no doubt that some of the noble poet's most striking pe

culiarities of manner were very capable of being transferred into sacred ground. We are far from denying Mr. Smedley the praise of originality; but there is something in the general air and cast of his writing which certainly bespeaks him the delighted reader, though not the servile imitator, of Lord Byron; and proofs of this fact will cursorily appear in the sequel.

The opening lines, though here and there a little wordy, are very beautiful, and can scarcely fail to attract the attention of the most unpoetic reader:

"From the dim east no vermeil tint was flung,

Though thrice the bird of dawn his carol

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candidly remarks, that the sun-rise Mr. Smedley, in his notes, very here described is, perhaps, rather that of the tropics than of Palestine, where, however, the transition from utter darkness to light is much more rapid than in our own climate. The passage will probably remind the

reader of the simile in Mr. Walter
Scott's Rokeby, where Bertram, an-
ticipating his tragically glorious end,
finely compares it to the abrupt and
fiery setting of a tropical sun.

No cooling dews his wrath allay;
"No pale gradations quench his ray;
With disk like battle-target red,
He rushes to his burning bed,
Dyes the wide wave with bloody light,
Then sinks at once,-and all is night."

Cant. 6.

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"What spectacle invites The growing multitude, That torrent-like they roll along? Boys and gray-headed age; the mother

comes,

Leading her child, who, at arm's length Outstripping her, looks back

And bids her hasten more. Why does the city pour her thousands fourth?

What glorious pageantry

Makes her streets desolate ?............. On the house-tops and in the windows rang'd

Face above face, they wait

The coming spectacle;

The trees are cluster'd; and, below, the dust

Through the throng'd populace

Can find no way to rise.

He comes! the Sultan! hark the swelling horn,

The trumpet's spreading blair, The timbrel tinkling as its silver bells Twinkle aloft, and the shrill cymbal's sound,

Whose broad brass flashes in the morning

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The introduction of this fair per. son gives the author an opportunity of trying his powers in one of the highest and most interesting departments of poetic portraiture-the delineation of character. The description is long, and is moreover broken by some reflections which are delivered obscurely, and do not seem conceived or executed in the happi. est taste. We will not, therefore, transcribe the passage at length; but the extracts which we shall give may convey to the reader an adequate idea of the whole.

"His child-her father-in those holy ties

Were centred all her bosom's sympa. thies:

Unus'd to kindle at a softer flame,
She knew none sweeter than a father's

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dwells,

And all the bosom's fulness mutely tells; The mingled look of fervor, and of calm, The knee meek-bending, and the clasped palm ;

Such is the scene which when the heart o'erflows

The cherish'd privacy of rapture knows; Such are the cares which in her hour of joy,

That Maiden's solitary thoughts employ. Brief was her orison, and when her pray'r To heaven arose not, still her thoughts were there :

So pure her spirit that it seem'd to hold No gross communion with its fleshly mould, But spotless, chaste, and undefil'd within, Breath'd all its first immortal origin; Bright as when heaven's own image gave

it birth,

And earthly sent without one stain of earth." pp. 6, 7.

Though bright the charms which youth may round her throw, Another tint will heighten all their glow; The master touch which Nature's band

must give

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Plays on her lip, and dwells delighted there;

Asks not for homage, spreads no curious wile, Nor marks with heighten'd wreathe an answering smile.

Yet lurks a spirit in that eye which seems Though yet uowaken'd, powerful in its dreams;

And beams a lustre on her cheek which shows

How rich that cheek will be when once it glows.

Thus on the stem the budding fruits may cling,

Ere shed the blossom'd fragrance of their spring;

And as they mingle on the cluster'd tree, Give promise fair what summer soon shall be," pp. 7, 8.

It will at once be perceived from these lines, that the author is by no means a mere hunter of commonplaces. He is not content with giving us an insipid representation, copied at the hundredth hand from his predecessors, or leisurly put together out of the "Elegant Extracts in Verse." Nor has he satisfied himself with a lifeless drawing of negative qualities, a colourless exhibition that leaves no trace on the mind. He has really attempted the description of a human being, and of

ture. Probably, also, the reader will agree with us that the execution of the idea is good, and, in some parts, extremely happy. But he will also agree with us in considering neither the idea nor the execution as altogether original. In effect, the

one cast in the fairest mould of na

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