And fierce Defiance long to prove,

His might amidst the field's alarms;
And Hate and Ire inflame each host,
And cannon thunder round the coast;

Yet will not Interest's voice prevail?
Reflect, how Commerce must decline,
The loom stand still, and want assail

The many that must starving pine;
And burdens weigh each nation down,
And wild Despair with fury frown.

Ye brothers are: both Freedom prize;
And in one language worship Heaven:
Why, then, Religion's voice despise,
By hellish Hatred madly driven?
Let Reason and Religion reign,
And War's grim dogs once more enchain.
Encroach not on each other's right,
Let Justice lift aloft her scale!
Ye both are brave-both proved in fight-
Oppressive wrong cannot prevail;
Then throw those gleaming arms aside,
In peace the plough and shuttle guide.

THE FAR-OFF LAND.

[From the Gentleman's Magazine.]

The rock, and wood, and field, and stream, Are flickering 'neath the sunny beam; Above me is the heaven of blue, Beneath the boundless ocean's hue; O'er sea, and shore, and moss, The pleasure-wafting breezes sweep; And onward nothing meets the eye, Save yonder gallant argosy,

and steep,

Stretching, scarce seen, its lingering way
Beyond the forkings of the bay.

How lovely all! how passing fair!
Safely the travelled man might swear
That naught his wandering eyes had seen
So mild, so tranquil, so serene.
And yet, with fond and eager view,
I turn, and other course pursue;
Catching, beyond the sea-girt strand,
Dark glimmerings of a distant land,
Mountains which fancy scarce can shape,
Bold rock, and far projecting cape,
And earth so mingled with the sky,
'Twere hard to tell the boundary.

I know not if that far-off land
Be some accursed and desert strand,
Where o'er the mountain's summit bleak
No sounds but of the tempest speak,
And the wild ocean's raving tide
Lashes its never-trodden side;
Perhaps that country of the storm
Ne'er viewed the port of human form;
Perhaps it lies unsought, unknown,
Some burning or some frozen zone:
Yet 'mid the soft and tranquil scene
Of sea, and sky, and forest green,
I reck not these, but inly sigh
That unacquainted coast to try.

Oh! if some cherished hopes destroy

The tenor of thy present joy,

And bid thee with inquiring view
The onward vale of life pursue,

Where on the shadowy distance move
Fair undistinguished forms of love,
And round the dim horizon press
Imagined shapes of happiness;

Yet, stay awhile! thine eye has strayed

To scenes which, viewed more closely, fade;
Take what thy power may now command,
All onward is-the far-off land!

LITERARY INTELLIGENCE.

[From London periodical works of September.]

The Life of Nelson. By Robert Southey; beautifully printed in one volume, small 8vo. with Plates, will be ready for publication in January.

Many Lives of Nelson have been written: one is yet wanting, clear and concise enough to become a manual for the young sailor, which he may carry about with him till he has treasured up the example in his memory and in his heart. In attempting such a work, the author proposes to himself to write the eulogy of our great naval hero; for the best eulogy of Nelson is the faithful history of his actions; the best history is that which shall relate them most perspicuously.

Book of the Church; Describing, 1. The Religions of our British, Roman, and Saxon Ancestors, and the consequences resulting from their respective systems.-2. A view of Popery and its consequences.-3. A Picture of Puritanism.-4. A Picture of Methodism. Concluding with an account of what the Church is, how it acts upon us, and showing how inseparably it is connected with the interest of the country. Interspersed with Biographical Sketches. Neatly printed in one volume, small 8vo.

Critical and Biographical Notices of the British Poets, with Occasional Selections from their Works. By Thomas Campbell, Esq. author of the Pleasures of Hope. Printed, uniformly with Mr. Ellis's Specimens, in 4 vols post 8vo. Will be published in March.

Charlemagne, or Rome Delivered; an Epic Poem, in twenty-four Cantos, by Lucien Bonaparte. Superbly printed in two volumes, Imperial 4to. with Plates, executed in the best manner by Charles Heath.

The subject of the Poem is the deliverance of Rome from the Lombards, by Charlemagne, and the establishment of the second Western Empire. With this, the author has mixed a description of the warlike exploits of Charlemagne against the Saxons and Huns, a representation of the Heathen Worship of the Saxons, and the conversion to the Christian Faith of their leader, Witikind, who is regarded in history as the ancestor of the third dynasty of French kings. The excesses of the Greek Iconoclasts, the civil and military habits of the Moors in Spain, and the achievements of Roland, and other knights, are likewise introduced into the work.

The machinery of the Poem has nothing in it of Pagan Mythology, but is founded entirely on the Catholic Creed. All the principal ceremonies of that religion are successively introduced into the course of the narrative, and made subservient to its development.

The Poem is of considerable length, and is divided into twenty-four cantos. Its composition, and the prosecution of the various studies connected with it, have formed the chief occupation of the author during eight years which have elapsed since he retired from public life. They continue to engage him at present, and it is hoped that many months will not elapse before the Manuscript is brought into a fit state for the press.

A Poetical Translation in English will accompany the French Original.

ANALECTIC MAGAZINE.

FOR APRIL, 1813.

[From the Edinburgh Review, for November, 1812.]

Memoires de Frederique Sophie_Wilhelmine de Prusse, Margrave de Bareith, Sœur de Frederic le Grand. Ecrits de sa Main. 8vo. 2 Tomes. Brunswick, Paris, et Londres,

1812.

PHILOSOPHERS have long considered it as probable, that the private manners of sovereigns are vulgar, their pleasures low, and their dispositions selfish; that the two extremes of life, in short, approach pretty closely to each other; and that the masters of mankind, when stripped of the artificial pomp and magnificence which invests them in public, resemble nothing so nearly as the meanest of the multitude. The ground of this opinion is, that the very highest and the very lowest of mankind are equally beyond the influence of that wholesome control, to which all the intermediate classes are subjected by their mutual dependence, and the need they have for the good will and esteem of their fellows. Those who are at the very bottom of the scale are below the sphere of this influence; and those at the very top are above it. The one have no chance of distinction by any effort they are capable of making; and the other are secure of the highest degree of it without any. Both, therefore, are indifferent, or very nearly so, to the opinion of mankind: the former, because the naked subsistence which they earn by their labour will not be affected by that opinion; and the latter, because their legal power and pre-eminence is equally independent of it. Those who have nothing to lose, in short, are not very far from the condition of those who have nothing more to gain; and the maxim of reckoning one's self last, which is the basis of all politeness and leads, inVOL. I. New Series.

N n

sensibly from the mere practice of dissimulation to habits of kindness and sentiments of generous independence, is equally inapplicable to the case of those who are obviously and in reality the last of their kind, and those who are quite indisputably the first. Both, therefore, are deprived of the checks and of the training, which restrain the selfishness and call out the sensibilities of other men; and, remote and contrasted as their actual situation must be allowed to be, are alike liable to exhibit that disregard for the feelings of others, and that undisguised preference for their own gratification, which it is the boast of modern refinement to have subdued, or at least effectually concealed, among the happier orders of society. In a free country, indeed, the monarch, if he share at all in the spirit of liberty, may escape much of this degradation; because he will then feel for how much he is dependent on the good opinion of his countrymen; and, in general, where there is a great ambition for popularity, this pernicious effect of high fortune will be in a great degree avoided. But the ordinary class of sovereigns, who found their whole claim to distinction upon the accident of their birth and station, may be expected to realize all that we have intimated as to the peculiar manners and dispositions of the caste; to sink, like their brethren of the theatre, when their hour of representation is over, into gross sensuality, paltry intrigues, and dishonourable squabbles; and, in short, to be fully more likely to beat their wives, and cheat their benefactors, than any other set of persons--out of the condition of tinkers.

But though these opinions have long seemed pretty reasonable to those who presumed to reason at all on such subjects, and even appeared to be tolerably well confirmed by the few indications that could be obtained as to the state of the fact, there was but little prospect of the world at large getting at the exact truth, either by actual observation or by credible report. The tone of adulation and outrageous compliment is so firmly established, and, as it were, positively prescribed, for any autherized communication from the interior of a palace, that it would be ridiculous even to form a guess, as to its actual condition, from such materials: And, with regard to the casual observers who might furnish less suspected information, a great part are too vain and too grateful for the opportunities. they have enjoyed, to do any thing which might prevent their recurrence; while others are kept silent by a virtuous shame, and the remainder are discredited, and perhaps not always without reason, as the instruments of faction or envy. There seemed great reason to fear, therefore, that this curious branch of natural history would be left to mere theory and conjec