REVIEWS OF NEW PULI ACATIONS; ORIGINAL ESSAYS ON POLITE LITERATURE, THE ARTS AND SCIENCES; POETRY; BIOGRAPHY; CORRESPONDENCE OF DISTINGUISHED PERSONS; ANECDOTES, JEUX D'ESPRIT, &c.; SKETCHES OF SOCIETY AND MANNERS; PROCEEDINGS OF SCIENTIFIC AND LEARNED SOCIETIES; LONDON: PRINTED BY JAMES MOYES, TOOK'S COURT, CHANCERY LANE: PUBLISHED FOR THE PROPRIETORS, AT THE LITERARY GAZETTE OFFICE, WELLINGTON STREET, WATERLOO BRIDGE, STRAND: 1830. AND Journal of Belles Lettres, Arts, Sciences, &c. This Journal is supplied Weekly, or Monthly, by the principal Booksellers and Newsmen, throughout the Kingdom; but to those who may desire its immediate transmission, by post, we recommend the LITERARY GAZETTE, printed on stamped paper, price One Shilling. REVIEW OF NEW BOOKS. Satan; a Poem. By Robert Montgomery, author of "the Omnipresence of the Deity,' &c. 12mo. pp. 391. London, 1830. Maunder. WE must begin our new year with an inauspicious name, Satan, and a not very recommendatory confession, namely, that we have not had leisure to give to Mr. Montgomery's poem the attention which its elevated character and importance demands. But such is the truth, and we are bound to state it; both as an excuse for ourselves in the critical chair, and an apology to the author for the scanty justice we can render to an epic in three books during the teeming week of annual publications, and an unusual press of other novelties. The design we may, however, remark, is one of great daring for any man, and especially for a young one. To aim at the highest honours of literature and the highest flight of genius, is an attempt in which even to fail would be a proud distinction. But Mr. Montgomery has displayed wonderful powers; and if he has sunk at all, it has been beneath the overwhelming magnitude and sublimity of his subject. Satan, the mighty archangel fallen, is placed on an eminence, whence, as in Holy Wit, he throws his glance over the outspread world, on which he descants in the language assigned to him by the Bard. We are not prepared to say whether the idea of making the Devil moralise against infidelity and the vanities of life, as well as believe and tremble, is altogether well judged: we must take the matter as it has pleased the author to offer it, and try it by that standard. It opens thus: "Awake, ye thunders! let your living roar Exult around me, and a darkness shroud The air, as once again the world I greet, Here on this haughty mountain-head, where He Appall'd, or agonising in the wreck And well earth answers to the voice of heaven. In life and fury march upon the main !- When proud rebellion shook the walls of heaven,- That madden'd wild as billows in the storm, The tempest dies, the winds have tamed their ire, "Another gaze, bright Hindostanic clime! The gi nd and beautiful their glowing spell Of the writer's strong feelings against "And some are Britons who enslave the free; Then boast not, England! while a Briton links From dungeon and from den there comes a voice "How gloriously diluvian Ararat Hath pinnacled his rocky peak in clouds! The following reflections on the happiness of "Sceptres are mighty wands, and few there be With strength to wield them; yet how many dare! PRICE 8d. The tyrant witchery, I'd bid the young In the deep midnight, when the world lies hush'd Regret for trait'rous hearts, and that keen sense Of kings, though gorgeously it dare the eye; A darkness that defies a sun!-such dream How poor, how perilous, the state of kings!" The metaphysics of the long extract which we proceed to copy is as fair a specimen of the whole poem as we could select; and we insert it to enable our readers to form their own esti mate: "To the vast silence of primeval gloom On wings of mystery may spirit roam, The atmosphere that circleth gifted minds And that, the throbbing of the fires within! And thus, while Fame's heart-echoing clarions ring For glory, all the rapture of renown In one vile whisper may lie hush'd and dead; It rides upon the billows which despair And yet a Croesus in his store of joy Compared with thine, -the man whom earth "Northward of Greece, behold renowned Gaul, She too hath beauty; and her sun-warm h Ils The far-off thrones Too grasping to be great; and when thy thirst more mature. nine volumes, are brought to a close; and our for which, amid all their simplicity, the peop very favourable opinion of Mr. Griffin's (the of his class and nation are most remarkable: In conclusion, we shall simply contrast some author's) talent has rather been increased than True for you, so it was, indeed. Drinki of his (Satan's) reflections on France and Eng-diminished by the perusal of his present pro- is a bad business for a poor man, or a rich o Y land, which, at all events, shew the poet to be no duction. Of these two stories, the Rivals is either, and fighting is a deal worse. But less a patriot. perhaps the most interesting; and Lacy's never spoke a truer word than that. Ambition the better arranged and written: tell you what helped to make the place as n when we say interesting, we mean for our as it is, besides. The man that owns th juvenile readers, as both contain much matter house is Palentin an' a Protestant; he has which must deeply engage the attention of the ground for five shillings an acre, on a lo The marked characteristics of lase; he has a kind landlord over him, th this author are unexaggerated good sense and will never distress him for a small arrear; rational views as applied to his native coun- isn't like a poor Catholic that has a mud cabi try, Ireland; and also a keen insight into an acre o' pratie ground, an' seven landlor the nature and modes of thinking of its natives, above him,tan' that has no feeling nor kindn whose peculiarities are brought forward with to look for, when times run hard, an' pover great tact and force. Another of his merits is strikes him between the cowld walls. A the power of describing scenery with much with submission to you, sir, that's the ve beauty; and in several instances he displays thing that causes all the drinking an' t still higher qualities as a novelist. For ex-fighting. When a poor man sells his corn ample, in Tracy, a country gentleman living market, an' feels his pocket full o' money, in all possible respectability and happiness, we tell you what he does, an' what he says have the picture of ambition, by holding out himself, an' he returning home of a cov the petty lures of place and profit, gradually night, sitting upon the corner of his thruc undermining his comforts and destroying his [cart], with the moon shining down upon hi good name, and ultimately even his good and the frosty wind blowing into his hea feelings. This is a finely touched moral lesson. an' the light streaming out o' the window If, with so much of praise to give, we have the public house on before him. any faults to find, we should observe, that it thirty shillings or a pound now,' he says might add to the effect of his narratives, if the himself, an' that's enough to pay my rent author would avoid interruptions, and, by con- this turn. Very well,' he says, an' when In have that paid, what good 'll it be to me? centrating, strengthen the dramatic effect. his anxiety to paint the Irish character, he don't know my landlord, nor my landl doesn't know me. I have no more howld occasionally goes too much into detail. We prefer quoting from the dialogues to my little cabin an' my bit o' ground, than breaking in upon the mysteries of the Tales; have o' that smoke that's goen' out o' my pi though we feel that we can by no means do I don't know the moment when I an' my lit justice to Mr. Griffin's abilities by the extracts craithurs 'll be wheeled out upon the hi to which we must confine ourselves. The road; an' the more pains I lay out upon following is peculiar,-no matter who the in-ground, the sooner, may be, 'twill be tak An' I'll go home now in the fro "The view now presented to the eye no- and pay this money to the masther, giving h Wis thing of a higher interest than a tract of uncut a wattle to break my own head! bog, or a sullen lough, half concealed by rushes then, indeed I won't. Let the masther, and weedy shallows, on the banks of which a the rent, an' the cabin go an' whistle toget wretched cabin, with mud walls propped and if they like; I'll go an' warm my sowl in roof falling in, sent up its thin and tremulous body with a glass o' spirits, an' have smoke into the sultry air above it, while the happy hour at any rate, if I never ha poor solitary, who housed his wretchedness in another!' In he goes, an' I need'nt tell y the state his pockets are in when he comes again. That's the way the drinking com Mr. Thracy, an' the fighting comes o' drinking just as nathural as a child is born his father."" I heard Heaven curse thee, and exulting hail'd "Fronting the wave environed shore of France, Heaven-favour'd land; of grandeur, and of gloom, Here all that can soft worship claim, or tone Is thine: the sky of blue intensity, Or charm'd by sunshine into picture clouds, terlocutors are: That make bright landscapes when they blush abroad, this lonely tenement, suspended his labour The dingle gray, and wooded copse, with hut But Ocean is thy glory; and methinks ful author? The Rivals. Tracy's Ambition. By the Author of the Collegians." 3 vols. London, 1829. Saunders and Otley. WITH this publication, the series of Tales entitled those of the Munster Festivals, in all from me. I ha Our author draws a rather satirical pict of that affectation of religion which too of forgets its golden rule of charity. With yielding to opinions that would make Damer the representative of all those who l in the odour of sanctity, it must be confes that he is one of a class which is not v limited in point of numbers. before the door-way, and leaned forward on his *Palatines, descendants of German settlers. †This is no fiction. 3 olen down that " le meâ, tegak, Le loj krave, the ex ... te : 1 ad the tenants of the ar, but the of a manner and appearance very different from triot, and you have set been laid under tribute. The that of Mr. Damer. He was tall and well, t) warted you, and you hope to be a great to at #ind covers of a quarta edition proportioned, dressed very plainly, with a red, some day or another. lav on his right hand re. ̧ht of fear wat en les, which eves, which seemed to be always ran,bling in nature, what say y 4* laughing counter ance, and two large binen your own dark-g partor, the study of } And on the score of da siku m* and in cand est· ks of have vi. search of atausement. Well, Datier,' said to my von castet stidy with it wa Ai and ergatit de. Mr. Leonard, the gentleman just described, na re men von au m, tie n Ï's is a l vin anaded with all the sier dours of the * I totally disagree with you in every one o On a secretaire, at a your plans. their nature." from the tabe, were placed a I think you wil do no serie continua is wel whatever to the peasantry, I think you do not dissect at w,' ssd Franca, pada k Ta h, atd w. day, and understand them rer.tlv. ern with the im, cem if the striled ) I think though they are intrant (Mr. Damer over his heart. D: Jean Ja - of ( atan know. and naked (por tellows '), and Papists to boot, kutiv 18, jed, they have a fracce of goute to heaven to voerver must detesta as the best of ourselves; that is my ides, por." Well, well, he 3 sera, antred in but devil' even though they do break out now Veir title mis the and then; human nature is human nature: Te Daryman's and may idea 1, that all the fluids and sub, everen of 2ɔmiths De, seit ins in the world will not get hef a the Church of Rome,' dozen more sls into heaven than were on ¿'m, a fale,' 'Father their way before. Half a dozen is the out•No story and marry • de.* * A* ! would not the salvation of one, nd a sem af teens. There said Mr. Damer, lifting the cute roti to ha the air of the v hoe spart. line, be worth the wide cint, and all the caklarni to impress the he, exertion of the Now ety tage her ** mufa fatema emmy.etim of the sixty thisand a year ?' • Be word! e tedures, and the piety of Benges the bkerings and Levtaru •♫ Sixty w ! attle of mere fast, best that have broken up the frame of mox ety 11 vsen en of suture which, in our country, tre diy son of farthes, t'e et, and in Ire mindering of early attachments, the foments. t'e ai The ton of civil d win on, ad the diffus in of was entirely in tha ail uncharitablerest in private ife » My »dea ** money, in keep. 18, t'at for the me soul we save beisha. In har was short ness, we lone fifty,' as a let, n's face • For shame, Tom,' s. Mrs. Durer, even meek and sancti. worse every da 'I do't petend to * ec earthy fire great sanctity,' mud Lær atd. pem and ha’strial self. and fat and si * You, m* fa. ale thrin ch the * 19 * ster, ki væ ong time, and know me to be a l'int the Venus Erver a te., t'at ti is he does his dir were er sted, so takes care of os re„I wour's body, and ravee when, be fer of a 1. s mer] Tetween ku vd his Creator. hit is the é ference betwee3–179. Tren • at patetich. No hit est a fellow as any lufy, bit his fanta Damer 18 * t, oloured the evaporates in smke. It I find a pose frin starving on my estate, why (Heaven, fig ve me) i tek I do my duty when I se ditim a " D'As " wi le Damer smothers him with toke and ་ 1 |