other countries, might easily be proved: it might also easily be proved that it does not always produce population in the fame degree that it produces employment: it produces a factitious neceffity, which is not, like the neceffities of nature, easily fupplied. It therefore renders marriage inconvenient, and confequently prevents population. So far therefore we are ancients with Dr. Goldfmith, and cannot agree with modern politicians in their opinion, that national advantage is always in proportion to national luxury.

That luxury is at prefent depopulating our country, not only by preventing marriage, but driving our villagers over the Weitern Ocean, we may perhaps be difpofed to deny with the beft and wifeft of Dr. Goldfmith's friends, but we do not therefore read his poem with the less pleasure. As a picture of fancy it has great beauty; and if we fhall occafionally remark that it is nothing more, we fhall very little derogate from its merit.

The Author writes in the character of a native of a country village, to which he gives the name of Auburn, and which he thus pathetically addrefies:

• Sweet AUBURN, lovelieft village of the plain,
Where health and plenty cheared the labouring fwain,
Where fmiling fpring its earliest vifit paid,

And parting fummer's lingering blooms delayed,
Dear lovely bowers of innocence and ease,

Seats of my youth, when every fport could please,
How often have I loitered o'er thy green,
Where humble happinefs endeared each scene;
How often have I paused on every charm,
The fheltered cot, the cultivated farm,
The never failing brook, the busy mill,

The decent church that topt the neighbouring hill,
The hawthorn bush, with feats beneath the fhade,
For talking age and whispering lovers made.
How often have I bleft the coming day,
When toil remitting lent its turn to play,
And all the village train from labour free
Led up their sports beneath the fpreading tree,
While many a paftime circled in the fhade,
The young contending as the old furveyed;
And many a gambol frolicked o'er the ground,
And flights of art and feats of ftrength went round.
And still as each repeated pleasure tired,
Succeeding sports the mirthful band inspired;
The dancing pair that fimply fought renown
By holding out to tire each other down,

The fwain miftruftlefs of his fmutted face,
While fecret laughter tittered round the place,
The bafhful virgin's fide-long looks of love,

The matron's glance that would thofe looks reprove.

Thefe

These were thy charms, fweet village; fports like thefe,
With fweet fucceffion, taught even toil to please;
Thefe round thy bowers their chearful influence shed,
Thefe were thy charms-But all these charms are fled.
Sweet fmiling village, lovelieft of the lawn,
Thy fports are fled, and all thy charms withdrawn ;
Amidit thy bowers the tyrant's hand is feen,
And defolation faddens all thy green :
One only mafter grafps the whole domain,
And half a tillage ftints thy fmiling plain;
No more thy glaffy brook reflects the day,
But choaked with fedges, works it weedy way,
Along thy glades, a folitary gueft,

The hollow founding bittern guards its neft;
Amidst thy defert walks the lapwing flies,
And tires their ecchoes with unvaried cries.
Sunk are thy bowers in shapeless ruin all,

And the long grafs o'ertops the mouldering wall.'

In this extract there is a ftrain of poetry very different from the quaint phrafe, and forced conftruction, into which our fashionable bards are distorting profe; yet it may be remarked, that our pity is here principally excited for what cannot fuffer, for a brook that is choaked with fedges, a glade that is become the folitary haunt of the bittern, a walk deferted to the lapwing, and a wall that is half hidden by grafs. We commiserate the village as a failor does his fhip, and perhaps we never contemplate the ruins of any thing magnificent or beautiful without enjoying a tender and mournful pleasure from this fanciful affociation of ideas.

He proceeds to contraft the innocence and happiness of a fimple and natural ftate, with the miferies and vices that have been introduced by polifhed life:

A time there was, ere England's griefs began,
When every rood of ground maintained its man;
For him light labour fpread her wholesome store,
Juft gave what life required, but gave no more.
His best companions, innocence and health;
And his best riches, ignorance of wealth.

But times are altered; trade's unfeeling train
Ufurp the land and difpoffefs the swain;
Along the lawn, where fcattered hamlets rofe,
Unwieldy wealth, and cumbrous pomp repose;
And every want to luxury allied,

And every pang that folly pays to pride.
Thefe gentle hours that plenty bade to bloom,
Thofe calm defires that asked but little room,

Thofe healthful sports that graced the peaceful scene,
Lived in each look, and brightened all the green;
These far departing feek a kinder fhore,
And rural mirth and manners are no more.'

This is fine painting and fine poetry, notwithstanding the abfurdity of fuppofing that there was a time when England was equally divided among its inhabitants by a rood a man: if it was poffible that fuch an equal divifion could take place, either in England or any other country, it could not continue ten years. Wherever there is property, there muft of neceffity be poverty

and riches.

We come now to the following beautiful apoftrophe to Retirement:

"O bleft retirement, friend to life's decline,
Retreats from care that never must be mine,
How bleft is he who crowns in fhades like these,
A youth of labour with an age of ease ;
Who quits a world where ftrong temptations try,
And, fince 'tis hard to combat, learns to fly.
For him no wretches, born to work and weep,
Explore the mine, or tempt the dangerous deep;
No furly porter ftands in guilty ftate

To fpurn imploring famine from his gate,
But on he moves to meet his latter end,
Angels around befriending virtue's friend;
Sinks to the grave with unperceived decay,
While refignation gently flopes the way;
And all his profpects brightening to the laft,
His heaven commences ere the world be past!'

But this paffage, though it is fine, is fanciful. Does he who retires into the country to crown a youth of labour with an age of eafe,' ufe no knife, eat no fugar, and wear neither shirt nor breeches? If he does, for him the mine must be explored, the deep tempted, and

The pale artist ply the fickly trade.'

The following description of the parish priest would have done honour to any poet of any age:

Near yonder copfe, where once the garden fmil'd,
And still where many a garden flower grows wild;
There, where a few torn fhrubs the place difclofe,
The village preacher's modeft manfion rofe.
A man he was, to all the country dear,
And paffing rich with forty pounds a year;
Remote from towns he ran his godly race,

Nor ere had changed, nor wifh'd to change his place;
Unskilful he to fawn, or seek for power,
By doctrines fashioned to the varying hour;
Far other aims his heart had learned to prize,
More bent to raise the wretched than to rife.
His house was known to all the vagrant train,
He chid their wanderings, but relieved their pain;
The long remembered beggar was his gueft,
Whose beard defcending swept his aged breast ;

The

The ruined fpendthrift, now no longer proud,
'Claimed kindred there, and had his claims allowed;
The broken foldier, kindly bade to ftay,

Sate by his fire, and talked the night away;
Wept o'er his wounds, or tales of forrow done,
Shouldered his crutch, and fhewed how fields were won.
Pleafed with his guefts, the good man learned to glow,
And quite forgot their vices in their woe;
Careless their merits, or their faults to scan,
His pity gave ere charity began.

Thus to relieve the wretched was his pride,
And even his failings leaned to Virtue's fide;
But in his duty prompt at every call,

He watched and wept, he prayed and felt, for all.
And, as a bird each fond endearment tries,
To tempt its new fledged offspring to the skies;
He tried each art, reproved each dull delay,
Allured to brighter worlds, and led the way.

Befide the bed where parting life was layed,
And forrow, guilt, and pain, by turns dismayed,
The reverend champion flood. At his control,
Defpair and anguish fled the struggling foul;
Comfort came down the trembling wretch to raife,
And his last faultering accents whispered praise.

At church, with meek and unaffected grace,
His looks adorned the venerable place;
Truth from his lips prevailed with double fway,
And fools, who came to fcoff, remained to pray,
The fervice paft, around the pious man,
With ready zeal cach honeft ruftic ran;
Even children followed with endearing wile,

And plucked his gown, to share the good man's fmile.
His ready fmile a parent's warmth expreft,

Their welfare pleas'd him, and their cares diftreft;
To them his heart, his love, his griefs were given,
But all his ferious thoughts had reft in heaven.
As fome tall cliff that lifts its awful form

Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the ftorm,
Though round its breaft the rolling clouds are fpread,
Eternal funshine fettles on its head.'

The fimile of the bird teaching her young to fly, and of the mountain that rifes above the ftorm, are not easily to be paralleled, and yet the conftruction of the laft is not perfect. As, in the firft verfe, requires fo, in the third, either expreffed or implied at prefent the conftruction is, As fome cliff fwells from the vale, funfhine fettles upon its head, though clouds obfcure its breaft. So cannot be admitted here, or, if it could, one part of the fimile would be exemplified by another, and not the context by the fimile, a very fmall alteration will remove the inaccuracy:

So lifts fome tow'ring cliff its awful form,

Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm;
Though round its breaft the rolling clouds are fpread,
Eternal funshine fettles on its head.

The rest of the poem confifts of the character of the village fchoolmaster, and a defcription of the village alehouse, both drawn with admirable propriety and force; a defcant on the mifchiefs of luxury and wealth, the variety of artificial pleasures, the miseries of those, who, for want of employment at home, are driven to settle new colonies abroad, and the following beautiful apostrophe to Poetry. Having enumerated the domestic virtues which are leaving the country with the inhabitants of his deferted village, he adds,

And thou, fweet Poetry, thou loveliest maid,
Still firft to fly where fenfual joys invade ;
Unfit in thefe degenerate times of fhame,
To catch the heart, or strike for honest fame;
Dear charming nymph, neglected and decried,
My fhame in crowds my folitary pride.
Thou fource of all my blifs, and all my woe,
That found'ft me poor at first, and keep'ft me so;
Thou guide by which the nobler arts excel,
Thou nurse of every virtue, fare thee well.'

We hope that, for the honour of the Art, and the pleasure of the Public, Dr. Goldfinith will retract his farewel to poetry, and give us other opportunities of doing justice to his merit.

ART. VI. A Theofophic Lucubration on the Nature of Influx, as it refpects the Communication and Operations of Soul and Body. By the honourable and learned Emanuel Swedenborg. Now first tranflated from the original Latin. 4to. 2 s. 6 d.

Lewis, &c. 1770.

TH

HIS myftical title will lead our readers to expect fomewhat rhapfodical and chimerical in the work itself; and they will not be difappointed. It is a curious performance, and difcovers fome good fenfe and learning in the writer, at the fame time that he appears to be a visionary and enthusiast. Several other Latin works have been publifhed by him, but this Lucubration, though printed, the tranflator tells us, was never before published. He addrefles it particularly to the honourable and learned Universities of this realm, and offers it to the public, chicfy, he fays, as a means to introduce the knowledge of the other Latin works of this writer, which though long ago printed, remain yet as a treasure hidden in a field.'

We cannot but express our doubt whether fuch a publication. would be attended with many real and folid advantages. Per

haps