Dramatic Bardolph in his nuptial noofe ; And laft, Democracy exhales in flow'rs." Pp. 57---70. In the juft praise bestowed by the bard on the talents of Mr. Porfon, we heartily coincide; and we fincerely join him in deploring, that a man fo eminently endowed with knowledge and abilities of a fuperior caft should have devoted fo large a portion of his time to pursuits so wholly unworthy of him. It is with pleafure, however, we learn, that he is, at length, weaned from thefe purfuits, and that the public are likely to receive from his pen fome, at least, of thofe mafterly productions which they have a right to expect from it. This poem has, like the "Purfuits of Literature," to which, however, it is greatly inferior, an appearance of affectation arifing from the multiplicity of quotations from claffical authors, A tranf lation of the paffages from the Greek and Roman writers is fubjoined. But why this oftentatious difplay of reading? For learned readers the tranflation is useless; and, for unlearned readers, the original paffages are worfe than ufelefs. Both could not be neceffary. The tranflation, with a reference to the original, would furely have fufficed. "Perry, the Editor of the Morning Chronicle, was imprisoned three months in Newgate, for a libel on the Houfe of Lords." "The example of the Caravan of Deportation, or, as it is called from the place of banishment, the Guiana Diligence, in Paris, fhould be a warning to the editors and printers of fuch papers as the Courier, Morning Chronicle, the Star, &c. &c. how they abuse the patience and forbearance of the mild and lenient Government of England. "Under the bleffings of French freedom and emancipation, what is the liberty of thinking, fpeaking, and writing? The authors, the printers, and the bookfellers, are crushed at once and equally, and either chained in dungeons, or feized and fwept away from their native country, without hope and without judgement, unheard, unpitied, and unknown. Pro lege voluntas! "But we have yet a Nation to fave; we have millions of loyal men who never bowed the knee to the Baal of Jacobinifm; and we have alfo many who have drawn back from the bloody idol, and turned unto righteousness to the prefervation of their fouls, their bodies, and eftates, and the general deliverance of their country." "See Dr. Darwin's Botanic Garden and Loves of the Plants." ART. XI. The Patriot: A Poem. By a Citizen of the World. 8vo. Pp. 55. Price 18. Ridgeway, London. 1798. HIS production of "A Citizen of the World" is dedicated, with peculiar propriety, to Earl STANHOPE, who is well known to be a zealous difciple of the univerfal Philanthropists, who charitably extend their hatred to all who have not the good fortune to be fo enlightened as themfelves. The noble Earl is the fubject of "his morning and his evening's fong." The book opens and clofes with a defcription of his patriotic and civic virtues. If his Lordship can be pleafed with fuch lines as the following, which are not the worst in the book, he will have a rich treat.-- "My countrymen! the hoary bard began, And population, wealth, and joy, increase." Perhaps the tribute, in the last page, to his Lordship's patriarchal virtues, may afford a more pleafing fpecimen of the author's abilities in this line of compofition :-- "There STANHOPE rules, with patriarchal love, N. B. The author has been guilty of a misnomer, in calling his book "A Poem." ART. XII. The Irish Boy: A Ballad. 4to. Pp. 16. Price 1s. Kearsley, London. 1799. AS a poetical compofition this ballad has confiderable merit: fimple, harmonious, and pathetic, it gratifies the tafte, and ftrongly affects the feelings. But, in another point of view, it is highly objectionable; for it has a tendency to propagate prejudices injurious to the peace of fociety, and deftructive of that concord which it pro feffes to inculcate. It is dedicated to the fubfcribers to a fund for the "Relief of the Widows and Orphans of thofe Men who have perished during the Rebellion in Ireland," without distinction of party. That the purpose is benevolent no one can deny, and we heartily with fuccefs to the fcheme; but, furely, in fuch a publication, all partyallufions, all strictures that can tend to excite animofity, and to increase difcontent, are peculiarly improper. That the following stanzas are calculated calculated to produce the effect which we deprecate, will eafily be allowed :-- "And will you then fave me? O, gen'rous and kind! Save from ftarving a Catholic boy! How the great ones will murmur, how rail, when they find, "I ought to deftroy! whofe religion fays fo? With refentmnt and vengeance hell's regions may glow, ART. XIII. The Equality of Mankind: A Poem. By Michael Wodhull, Efq. Revifed and corrected, with Additions. London. 1798. THIS HIS is the fourth time that this poem has been printed; though, excepting, perhaps, when it was reprinted in Pearch's Col lection, we do not know that it can with propriety be faid ever to have been published; having, as it would feem, been printed, as now, only to be prefented to the friends of the author. However liberal this may be deemed, we cannot help noticing one peculiarity attending it, which feems to prove, that though, as he fays, "overfhadowing age may have damped his poetic fire," it has not abated his zeal and ardour in the caufe of what he calls Liberty. As far as our obfervation has reached, his copies appear to have been distributed, chiefly, among the ladies; and, we add, among young ladies; no doubt, from the hope of finding in their ductile minds a more ready acquiefcence than he could hope for from thofe who, in general, may be fuppofed to have been trained to fyftems of feverer ratiocination than are to be looked for in poets. This poem, as well as moft of Mr. Wodhull's other compofitions, is written in fo high and rampant a ftrain of philofophy and demo. cracy, that taking, as it does, a curfory review of the English history, we could almost have perfuaded ourselves that the congenial fpirit, whofe hiftorical investigations were noticed in our laft Number, and who, like this poet, had run through the hiftory of this kingdom, as it were, on purpofe to find occafion for abufing priests and Kings, had made this poem his model. A man with more violent prejudices against both than Mr. Wodhull has, we have never known; and it is impoffible not to regret, that a man, with fuch refpectable talents, fhould have prostituted them to the defence of fo unworthy a caufe. If, however, the credit which the author might have derived from good verfes be much diminished by their being employed to fet off and recommend bad principles, he is, in our efti mation, ftill more inexcufable for having, again and unfolicited, brought them forward, when the world is fmarting fo feverely from their having already been but too fuccefsfully propagated in it. As heretofore published, the poem confifted of 526 lines; whereas, at prefent, it contains 532; with a poftfcript of 16. The alterations it has undergone, confift both of omissions and additions. The first fix lines, in the edition of 1772, in which it is acknowledged that, at first, the author was both a Tory and a Jacobite, have now been left out; from an apprehenfion, we fuppofe, that, as thofe days are now o'er, and he is no longer "pinion'd," but a complete fon of Liberty, it might be obferved of him, as it has been of others fo circumftanced, that apoftates are almost always prone to run into extremes, as none are fo likely to become infidels and libertines as enthusiasts and devotees. Whatever truth there may be in the obfervation in general, Mr. Wodhull, at leaft, furnishes no exception to it. We are furprized to find in a writer, whofe lines are, in general, harmonious, many that are profaic and lame :-Thus, "Suddenly from the rock's impending fide."-1. 73. There are many fuch in the poem ; but, as a fair fpecimen of it as a whole, we will now extract the character which he gives of the people of this nation, and which, though far enough from being a flattering picture, is probably drawn from the life : "Born in a changeful clime, beneath a sky, Too proud to ferve, too abject to be free." P. 23-1. 477; We cannot clofe our review of this article, without first reprobating this author's unmanly, though impotent, attack, on the great and good Lord Clarendon, one of the prime ornaments of our nation, both as a gentleman, a fcholar, a Chriftian, a patriot, and an historian. The infinuation that he meant to encourage affaflination is a forced inference from a cafual expreffion, which will more naturally, and more justly, bear another, and a very different, interpretation. It is as little to his credit as an impartial reader of our national hiftory, to infer from a paffage or two from Buchanan, an acknow. ledged party-writer, that the Prefbyterian form of church-government is not an innovation. We believe it is now pretty generally agreed by writers, on both fides, that Prefbyterianifm, at leaft, as a national inftitute, was not known before the time of Calvin. We deem this violent opponent to our conftitution, both in church and state, ftill more reprehenfible for the grofs mifreprefentation he gives of a wellknown, and not unimportant, matter, of fact. He fpeaks of the confecration of Dr. Seabury, the late learned, pious, and venerable Bishop of of Connecticut, as "a pretended confecration by a junto of non-juring Scotch ecclefiaftics, affuming to themfelves the epifcopal office." (P. 28.) Let it fuffice to inform this prejudiced dealer in random affertions, that Bifhop Seabury's confecration was as real and genuine as that of any English or Irish Bishop whatever; and the three Bifhops who confecrated him, far from being merely a junto, or affuming to themfelves the epifcopal office, derive their authority from as authentic and regular an efpifcopal fucceffion as any other Bishops in the Chriftian world have to produce. See Skinner's Ecclefiaftical Hiftory of Scotland, VOL. II. P. 683. In the collection of this author's poems, printed in 1772, there is an epiftle on the "Abuse of Poetry," which feems to be obfcure, and, in no refpect, very interefting. The prefent collection, in like manner, clofes with a poem on the "Ufe of Poetry ;" which, like the former, fays but little of poetry as poetry, but indulges, at great length, in his favourite terin Liberty, a vague word, which, as he ufes it, is beft adapted to orators and poets, and the "Sovereign People." Accordingly, the perfons and things here celebrated, are fop's two fables of the Suppliant, and the Children of Hercules by Euripides; Lucan, Milton, Akenfide, Mafon, Darwin, Voltaire, the French Revolution, Washington, La Fayette, and Kofciusko. It is a motley groupe : my foul, come not thou into their fecret; unto their affembly, mine honour, be not thou united." Gen, XLIX. v, 6. POLITICS. ART. XIV. The Prefent State of Ireland, and the only Means of Preferving her to the Empire confidered, in a Letter to the Marquis Cornwallis. By James Gerahty, Efq. Barrister at Law. Svo. Pp. 84. Price 15. 6d. Stockdale, London.. 1799. THE author of this Tract difplays an intimate knowledge of the political hiftory of his country, and employs that knowledge, with the wisdom of an intelligent ftatefman, for the purpose of deriving advantage from paft errors with a view to future improvement, and thus promoting the great ends of fociety, the good and happinefs of all its members. From his hiftorical view it clearly appears, that the people of the Sifter Kingdom were, previous to their connection with this country, involved in a state of favage barbarifin, and that from that connection have refulted all the advantages, in point of commercial profperity, and national improvement, which they enjoy in their prefent ftate of comparative confequence. But Mr. G. alfo demonftrates, by the faireft deductions from paft events, and by a reference to established facts, that there exifts in Ireland that trong difpofition to effect a feparation of the two countries, which renders it impracticable to preferve the connection by means of fubfifting ties. Union or Separation he defcribes as our only alterna |