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in our extract) seem to us very

daughter of Jephthah seems to us modelled on the better heroines of exceptionable. The great merit of

Lord Byron. It is impossible to contemplate her without thinking of Zuleika and Medora, and even of some traces in the lady of the Giaour.

This resemblance may be thought matter of praise; but, from us, we confess that the praise would not be unmixed. Zuleika, indeed, is extremely captivating; and the daughter of Jephthah has some very delightful features; but, after all, one cannot suppress the idea that nothing but the respective untimely deaths of these interesting ladies prevented each of them from becoming a Medora a character of much more questionable merit. Perhaps it is a purely fanciful idea; but we deceive ourselves if the whole cast of the female character suggested in the poems of the noble writer to whom we have alluded, is not of an Oriental kind. His is a heroine in the Turkish style, though with a refinement stolen from the West. She is beautiful, playful, fond, languishing, constant, and (if young) pure as the light; a being formed to love and to obey. She is a child; and, therefore, while really a child, like the Bride of Abydos, delightful; but we miss something beyond; we miss that ennobling delicacy, that shrinking self-respect, that dignified and principled purity, which con. stitute the highest and the most interesting charm of beauty's powerful glance." We miss the qualities that become the chosen companion of a rational and immortal being. The poetic heroine of the writer in question has no soul, except for love -almighty love. She is, after all, a gem of Giamschid," an exquisite play-thing.

The concluding lines of the passage we have quoted from Mr. Smedley are entirely formed on a similar idea of the female character, and (with some others which we have not been anxious to include

several of them (for we could point out couplets that are really of the highest merit) does not compensate for the radical deficiency of the sentiment. As yet, the young lady described was smiling and light of heart; but, it seems, the days of love and coquetry are at hand; and then adieu to smiles and light-heartedness, which must now be exchanged for a higher and brighter order of beauty. Is it not the best thing we can suppose of such a sentiment, that it is absolute and unmixed nonsense?

From the portrait of Jephthah's daughter we pass to that of the hero himself; and here also we shall find the general feature of the Byronian school; but with a proper softening, and with a better excuse than before. What is recorded in the sacred pages of the person described, very well agrees with the fuller and more minute description of Mr. Smedley. He has by no means violated the outline in filling it up; nor has he at all changed the essential and predominant character as it came to his hands. He has given it great prominence and expression, however; and we cannot therefore but think highly of the skill with which, availing himself of a few dispersed hints, he has produced a portrait so energetic, yet so little different from his authority. Jephthah was reproached for his birth, and was driven by his brethren into a strange land; where certain "vain men,” supposed by the commentators to be roving Arabs, were gathered to him, and went out with him. He was also, in scriptural language, "a mighty man of valour." From these slight notices, taken in connection with the briefly-told history of his return, his victory, and his vow, the author has developed a full and a tragicallyinteresting picture. We cannot give the entire passage; but shail extract what may convey a just notion of it,

without mangling the effect of the whole on those who may hereafter read the poem itself.

"Loud swells to heaven the exulting rab. ble's throat,

Where Gilead's twin and victor banners float;

And louder still the shouts of triumph

rose,

"Then would he shrink convuls'd, and haply weep

Tears such as Valour's rugged cheeks may steep:

The few big drops which only fall from high

When the pent thunder chafes the unwil ling sky.

"The wish'd-for season comes; with humbled brow

When Jephthah rein'd his steed before the Manasseh's elders at his footstool bow;

pageant's close.

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A breast which injury had mail'd in steel, A heart so deeply wrung it dar'd not feel." pp. 11, 12.

The author proceeds to describe his hero ruling a band of outlaws on the borders of Arabia; and then paints the effect produced on his rugged mind, by one solitary sentiment of tenderness and fond inquie tude, parental attachment to an only and an interesting daughter. This single feeling softened his stern nature, gave an interest to his apparently dark destinies, and whispered, that there was something for which he yet might live.

Hail him their judge, their captain, and their lord,

And

sue his aid, and barter for his

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Perhaps this spirited passage may be thought to exhibit one slight exception to the general concur. rence of Mr. Smedley's narration with the scriptural account. the original, "Jephthah said unto the children of Gilead, Did not ye hate me and expel me out of my father's house? and why are ye come unto me now when ye are in distress?" These words, however, do not necessarily imply the taunt and the mockery which Mr. Smedley tells us the illustrious exile suppressed.

The meeting of Jepthah with his daughter, the poet has well described; and the confusion and despair of the chief, when, with thoughts full of the dignity to which he was about to raise the object of all his affections, he suddenly encounters her, and his vow at the same moment flashes on his mind. After this, a difficult task remained-the description of the fatal sacrifice. Mr. Smedley conceived it to be clear, that, "for all poetical purposes, it was far more sublime to consider, that Jepthah offered his daughter as a living victim on the altar, than that he devoted her to perpetual virginity." The scriptural account being doubtful, it was perhaps very competent to the poet to adopt the supposition he preferred; but we are not sure, that the grounds of our author's preference are as indisputable as he seems to imagine. Waving, however, all discussion on this point, it seems surprising that he should not have acted a little more effectually on his own idea. After dwelling on the horror of Jepthah at the sight of his daughter, he pauses abruptly, overleaps all the rest of her history, and makes a sudden descent of about three thousand years. A modern pilgrim is introduced, travelling through the Holy Land, under the conduct of a "turban'd guide," who shews the Christian the tomb of Jepthah, shortly alludes to the tragical story connected with that name, hints at the ghosts that are in the habit of haunt ing the spot, and utters a Mobammedan prayer for the safety of himself and his charge. The general idea given of the sepulchral scenery that surrounds the travellers is happy, and the delineation is forcible and picturesque; but it will not supply what is wanting. We remember no other instance in which a poem, not deliberately professing itself a fragment, ventured on leaving so much to the imagination.

Perhaps our author could not

to

satisfy himself in his attempts to describe the subject, and, after what he conceived to be repeated failures, at last fairly resolved on evading a difficulty which he could not surmount. But, if the omission was deliberate, he surely must have forgotten that the imagination of a reader is stimulated, not by absolute concealment, but by half-disclosures; by partial discoveries, and mysterious intimations. On any other principle, all descriptive poetry would soon be reduced to a blank. In one of his notes, Mr. Smedley alludes to the celebrated painting of the Sacrifice of Iphigenia. That memorable instance of skilful concealment might have afforded an useful lesson. The painter, Timanthes, gave an air of grief to all the countenances in his piece, but in different degrees, according to the respective intimacy of the characters with the family of Agamemnon. At length, he came Menelaus, the uncle of the unhappy victim, and exhausted on him all his utmost power of graphic expression. The art could do no more ;—he threw a veil over the face of the agonized father. The experiment was hazardous, but, by the concur ring testimony of all antiquity, succeeded completely. Its success, however, evidently proceeded as much from what the artist disclosed as from what he concealed. Leading the imagination, stage by stage, from one degree of mournful expression to another, he at last left it but one step to make for itself. He prompted it, therefore (if we may so speak,) though he would not and could not tell it all. If Timanthes had covered all his faces, or if he had introduced but one figure-that of the afflicted Agamemnon-and, in despair of adequately representing the sorrows of a father, who had been compelled to be the executioner of his child, had enveloped the hero's countenance with a deep veil-can any thing be conceived

more ludicrous? Nothing, surely, but the practical wit of Hogarth, who exhibited a piece of canvas daubed with red paint as a historical picture of Pharaoh and his army, drowned in the Red Sea.

It is permitted to the lightest actor to make his exit at the last act gravely; and, perhaps, in tak ing our leave of this subject, we may be allowed to speak a little more than we have yet done in the character of the Christian Observer. We do not ask, what is the moral of this poem? A poem need not have any single moral. A sacred poem, however, should at least have a general and decided moral effect: it should be redolent of great truths, either insinuated or expressed. The Seatonian prize was, indeed, evidently instituted as an incentive to the production of religious poetry. The restriction must, of course, not be construed with an exclusive rigid

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this respect, sufficiently availed himself of the capabilities of his subject. There was room for a grave passing observation or two, to say the least, on the remarkable history which he was versifying: and something might have here and there appeared, that shewed him to be on sacred ground; some decided tokens might have been borne away of the favoured soil in which he was treading; some memorial of those "hap py walks and shades, fit haunt of gods;" some blossoms culled from among those flowers,

“That never will in other climate grow.”

The delightful composition of Mr. Heber on Palestine is a model in this point; and, should Mr. Smedley (as we hope) again enter the lists of Seatonian warfare, he will, we trust, lend himself a little more to the example of that truly sacred poem. Should these remarks chance to meet his eye, he will not, we are persuaded, understand them in an unfriendly sense. It is the real merit of his publication, which has induced us to bestow on it not only praise but blame. We find it so good, that we wish it perfect.

LITERARY AND PHILOSOPHICAL INTELLIGENCE,

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&c. &c.

PREPARING for Publication: Robinson's Theological, Biblical, and Ecclesiastical Dictionary, on the Plan of Calmet's, but derived chiefly from Protestant Divines; -Annals of the Reign of George III. by Dr. Aiken ;-A History of England (which is said to be in a considerable state of forwardness,) by Sir James Mackintosh ;An enlarged edition of Hutton's Mathematical Dictionary;-Hints addressed to the Patrons and Directors of Schools, by Miss Hamilton;-The White Doe of Ryl. ston, a Poem, by Mr. Wordsworth ;-The Lives of E. and J. Philipps, Nephews and Pupils of Milton, by Mr. Godwin;-The

Speeches of the Rt. Hon. C. J. Fox, from 1768 to 1806, with Memoirs &c. in 6 vols. octavo ;-Select Beauties of British Poetry, with Lives of the Poets, by T. Camp. bell, Esq. Author of "The Pleasures of Hope," &c. -History of the Kingdom of Cabul, by the Hon. Mr. Elphinstone; -The Travels of Ali Bey, 2 vols. quarto, 100 plates; An Introduction to Entomology, by Rev. W. Kirby, B. A. F. R. S. and W Spence, Esq. F. L. S. ;—An Introduction to the Study of Conchology, by Sam. Brooks, Esq. F. L. S. :-Periodical Work on British Fossils, by Mr. Donovan ; —Part I. of Flora Londinensis, by George Graves, F. L. S.; Part I. Naval Re

cords, by Lieut. W. J. Pocoke, with engravings from original designs by N Po. Coke, Esq;-Observations, &c. on Books and Men, by the late Rev. Joseph Spence, with Notes by Malone and Beloe;-Censura Literaria, or Titles, &c. of old scarce Books, by Sir Egerton Brydges, K. I.; Exercises on Latin Prosody, by Valpy; A new edition of Kett's Elements of use. ful Knowledge;-A new edition of Pinkard on the West Indies ;-Scripture Biography, by Claude Fleury;-Memoirs of Oliver Cromwell and his Children, supposed to be written by himself;-Some Account of the late Rev. Thomas Robinson, by the Rev. E. T Vaughan;-Elements of Chemical Science, by J Murray;-Travels through Russia, Poland, &c. in the Tract of Bonaparte's Campaigns, with coloured engravings, by MR. Johnston ;-Reports on the Pestilential Fever in Spain, in 1810, by Sir J. Fellows;-A translation of Bichart's Anatomy;-An Answer to the Question" Why are you become a Christian" by Christopher Leo.

The following attempt to account for the formation of bogs, such as those which abound in Ireland, is curious. Professor Davy is of opinion, that in many places where forests had grown undisturbed, the trees on the outside of the woods grew stronger than the rest, from their exposure to the air and sun; and that when mankind attempted to establish themselves near these forests, they cut down the large trees on their borders, which opened the internal part, where the trees were weak and slender, to the influence of the wind, which, as is commonly to be seen in such circumstances, had immediate power to sweep down the whole of the internal part of the forest. The large timber obstructed the passage of vegetable recrement, and of earth falling toward the rivers; the weak timber in the internal part of the forest, after it had fallen, soon decayed, and became the food of future vegetation.

The following fact is well worthy the attention of philosophers :-In 1755, a pond in the town of Luton in Bedfordshire, in which there had been but little water for some weeks, suddenly filled, and a copious sediment was thrown up from the bottom at the precise time of the earthquake at Lisbon, the water continuing to overflow for some hours, and then all remaining quiet as usual. Last Sept. the same pond in Luton began to overflow suddenly, which created alarm in the minds of the inhabitants, who apprehended that this circumChrist. Observ. No. 161.

stance was the indication of some earthquake on the Continent. This was afterwards known to have been the case.

Mr. Abraham Stern, of Dublin, has presented an arithmetical machine, which has engaged his labours during many years, and on which he performed several experi ments in the presence of many spectators. The machine calculates, without assis tance, whatever is desired in the four rules of arithmetic, in whole numbers and in fractions, in a more rapid manner than they can be done on paper: 'it requires no further knowledge than merely that of the value of figures. When this machine is prepared for operation, it proceeds as di rected without further interference, and announces the result by the sound of a bell,

A new translation of the books of Moses is announced for publication at Freyberg, which appears to intend the combination of particulars dependant on the art of criticism, and requiring much skill in that art, with corresponding information and learning. It is proposed, as, 1. being more exact than any hitherto published; 2. as arranged according to the primitive order of the books; 3. cleared from apocryphal additions; 4. accompanied by remarks; 5. illustrated by additional matters, from subsequent revelations, &c. The Five Books of Moses divided into two historical books, and three books of laws:

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