I've almost thought to see her issue forth • Edward. Pretty fancies! 'Tis a new song; I have but tried it to thy shrubs and flowers.' The conclusion also is pretty; and we are bound to give a glimpse of the fairies, who appear in their native colours, and use their proper language in several parts of the drama. • Mabiel. 'Tis my cue now; I step forth Champion of much-vexed worth. - Lady, I that did thee harm, From the earth's pole, where it lay, • Chorus of Fairies. 'Never sickness enter here, Pain and Sorrow, come not near. Youth, and health, and kindly pleasure, All enjoyments without measure, To their love and virtue due, Fall upon the happy two. • Oberon. Oberon. 'Tis I must put the top-stone to their bliss. So far i'the distance; but you'ad once a brother, When, as 'twas thought, he died. Your mother's grief He was not dead; but elves of mine had found him And brought him to me sleeping. I might not Save the ethereal bloom that may not pass; [Fairies vanish. Mabiel. Oh, my dear master! Gone! but what kind feelings Come over me! Sweet sister! Ellen. Oh, my brother! There was nought wanting to my bliss but this. How I shall learn to love the name of brother! 'Mabiel. I have a brother too. • Edward. One you shall love, [Ex. Or I will lose much labour. Let's go in, 'Chorus, in the air. 'Never sadness enter here, Pain and sickness come not near! There are perhaps portions still more fanciful than this; for the author has certainly a brilliancy of fancy in some of his lyrico-dramatic effusions: but we have no room for specimens of that nature; and, on the contrary, we must now observe that a coarseness of expression occasionally derogates from the polished effect of the larger part of the volume. Such, we think, is the idea of the bald and leprous head' in the foregoing quotation. The following, too, appears to us pedantic. 'No chains but such as Love, turn'd smith, would forge, And never bribe his mother with a kiss To borrow for him her lame husband's smithy.' p. 49. We are by no means desirous of seeing every borrowed allusion attributed to its right owner by inverted commas, and citation: but, when so striking a story as the contest of the Minstrel and the Nightingale is introduced at some length, (see p. 17.) it should be referred to its original, in the Prolusions of Strada. After having referred to a most feeling and elegant little poem at p. 182., we now come to Mr. Neale's Horatian lucubrations; and here, we suspect, our readers will agree with us that the author lamentably fails. A clear correctness of language, an easy flow of verse, a strong though pleasing turn of composition, must appear in the style which attempts to imitate Horace, or to transfuse his peculiar elegancies into another tongue. Mr. Neale seems to us capable of much better translations, or paraphrases, than those which are here offered to the classical reader: but he is run away with, he is abstracted from his legitimate object, by the impracticable fancy of writing a free and casy English ode, and at the same time preserving the sense and spirit of Horace. Not only do the two languages preclude the possibility of this amalgamation, but the singularities of Horace, his own "curious felicity" and recondite graces, render the attempt itself ridiculous. Something must be sacrificed in such an undertaking as the transfer of the sense of Horace into the words of Englishmen; and the judicious translator will not hesitate long in chusing the sacrifice. Audivere, Lyce, Dii mea vota, &c. TO HIS MISTRESS, GROWN OLD. 'Tis heard, my prayer is heard above, All this we think is bad, except the first line, perhaps; and the second is pre-eminently vulgar. In a still greater degree, we conceive, Mr. N. has mistaken the spirit and character of the Latin lyrical bard, when he thus represents Quantum distet ab Inacho, &c. Oh, prythee, no more of the siege of Troy-town, This This reminds us forcibly of a successful melodram at one of the summer-theatres, where Æneas was introduced thus introducing himself to Dido. "Æneas, I'm from Troy, Ma'am, A ramping, roaring boy, Ma'am !" &c. "So I lather'd away with my oakstick!" We take our leave of Mr. Neale by quoting a very different and much more honourable strain. TO A FRIEND ABOUT TO MARRY A SECOND TIME. Thy lips, on which her last, last kiss These haunts are sacred to her love, • Beneath these elms you sate and talk'd, At evening arm-in-arm you walk'd, • Thou❜lt meet her when thy blood beats high Meet the mild meaning of an eye That never learnt to chide. Oh, no, by heaven, another here ART. VI. Messiah; in Twenty-four Books. By Joseph Cottle. Part II. Crown 8vo. 6s. Boards. Button and Son. 1819. E W had entered with some surprize, but certainly with due attention, into Mr. Cottle's theory of rhyme, as propounded in his preface to this volume, when we came to the following most oracular passage. 1 A consistency with my proposed design required that every part connected with the more tender class of feelings (as well as the didactic parts) should be expressed with choice smoothness, and that roughness, and short sentences, should be introduced in precise proportion to the degree of passion connected with the subject; an order which Nature inviolably observes. I more particularly notice, also, that it was my wish (if my success were at all commensurate with my efforts) that whatever else might disturb the reader, his sense of weariness might not often be excited by the recurrence of monotonous pauses, the bane of many, if not of most long poems in rhyme. I even purposed to carry the exclusion of similar pauses to an extent which should leave no two lines, through the whole Poem, that possessed the same cadence, with the reasonable latitude of taking in conjunction the line which immediately precedes or follows. However imperfectly this object may have been accomplished, my endeavours to attain it, as well as my labour in altering lines unexceptionable, except from their proximity to others of a like construction, exceeds the power of ordinary calculation. A long-confirmed sense of the evil I wished to avoid led me to consider whether metrical expression, capacious as it is, had already reached its attainable extent; and, as it respects rhyme, I was satisfied that there were still high and unappropriated regions, and that if a few notes, a few letters, a few bells, admitted of an almost infinite combination of sounds, the world of poetic harmony was not confined to one, nor to fifty paths, but fearlessly encouraged the qualified visitant to explore in new ways its inexhaustible and ever-varying luxuriance. I would, however, observe that this (poetical) breaking of the line, which I have thus attempted, (to an increased degree,) if unrestrained by judicious regulations, might degenerate into the unsightly motion of a wain on a rough road, and obtain merely an equivocal character, differing from both, yet retaining the merits of neither of the two orders of verse of which it was compounded.' Whether Mr. Cottle, in this composite order of verse, which he seems to deem so excellent, has not occasionally imitated the wain, or waggon, above-mentioned, we shall now permit our readers to decide. We take the extract out of many kindred examples : They haste to Bethlehem. Lo! there they see, Now |