"His being was in her alone, They joy'd one joy, one grief they grieved, As all the rest, so now the stone: That tombs the two is justly one.' PP. 276. At p. 297. occurs a poem ascribed to Sir Henry Wotton, entitled, Rusticatio religiosi in vacantiis,' which deserves preservation. The poem, 'to Mrs. E. T. saying she could not be afraide of my ghost', has some sparkling lines and happy allusions, but it is too long, and the stanzas are very unequal. We had marked for quotation' the Fairies' song,' at p. 305, but can spare room only for the first three stanzas. 'Wee dance on hills above the wind, Sometimes we dance upon the shore The thunder's noise is our delight, The last three stanzas of this poem are most unfortunately discordant with these truly poetical conceits: whether the writer descended to the ridiculous by mere natural tendency, or through wilfulness, the effect is equally unhappy. We should be glad to give the whole of a Contemplation upon the shortness and shallowness of human knowledge,' as well as the Dirge,' and Life a preparation for Eternity,' did not our li mits imperiously forbid further extracts. The former of these is to be found, we are informed, in Howell's Letters,' one of the most amusing and instructive volumes of the 17th century. The specimen certainly possesses considerable merit. We have judged it allowable to indulge ourselves in these copious extracts from the work before us, as the costly size of the volume will render it in a measure inaccessible to general readers; and few, perhaps, of its purchasers will be disposed to rake through the whole collection for the sake of the pearls which are mingled with so many beads and so much tinsel. The volume is valuable principally as affording materials to the Editors of future Specimens' or Anthologia, and as il lustrating the history of English poetry. With the exception of the pieces we have selected or referred to, and perhaps a few others, the contents of the volume are no farther inte resting than as they are objects of curiosity. In turning over the pages, we imagined ourselves in the venerable pile of Tixall, seated before the ancient trunk containing the Aston papers, and the perusal of each uncouth or trite and puerile production conjured up a number of fanciful associations and suppositions, connected with the manners and events of the age in which they were composed. The circumstance of the collection itself is interesting, the more so from the traits of domestic feeling and the references to domestic history, which are scattered through it, and which serve to bring us into contact with the authors themselves. There is a passage in a letter from Mrs, Constance Fowler to her brother Henry Aston, dated 1636, given in the Preface, which, on this account, is very amusing. I have not receaved yet those copyes of verses you promised me for sending your box to Mr. Henry Thimelby, therefore I beseech you not to forget them, for I have a longe time much longed for them. And indeed I could almost find in my hart to quarrel with you, and to conclude my letter with it; for I have written to you I know not how often, and beged of you most pittyfully that you would send mee some verses of your owne makeing, and yet you never would, when you know I love them more then can bee expressed. And in one of your letters, rather then you would send any of them to poore me, you writte word you had none, when I am sure you cannot chuse but thinke I know that is impossieble. And therfore pray see how hardly you deale with mee, when I have sent you all the verses that I could gett perpetuly, never omieting the sending of any that I could get that were good ones. Therfore I de sire you will make an end of the quarrell, with sending mee some as sune as you can; for I assure you they cannot come to one that will more esteme them than your ever most afectionat sister to serve you, Constance F.' After all that may be said of genius, the permanent interest of poetry-its essential vitality-consists in its being employed as the medium of expressing those simple, universal feelings, which secure the sympathy of every age. It is obvious that with the higher objects of poetry, as connected with that fair ideal which awakens the enthusiasm of genius, or with those deep and mysterious feelings which are drawn from the hidden sources of the breast only by study and quiet meditation-with any higher object in fact, than the amusement of the hour, the writers of the greater part of these poems had no acquaintance, much less any communion. Or if at times their feelings were raised to a pitch above their usual tone, it was, probably, more from accident than intellectual effort. Nevertheless, as XVOL. II. N. S. Y pressive of natural and simple emotions and sentiments, and as instrumental in promoting their development and culture, poetry was, even to them, something better than its design, which was mere amusement; and its object was so far answered, and its power to interest rendered so far perpetual, as the writers employed their efforts in the expression of genuine feeling and the touching representation of truth. What redeem the false wit, the puerile conceits, the tame diffuseness, and the lawless licence of the productions of the 17th centuryqualities which are only accidentally interesting, and certainly not imitable by a more polished age-are the artless pathos, or gaiety, or quaint humour, which are their occasional characteristics, and their being generally so true to our common nature. Art. VII.-1. Memoirs of a celebrated Literary and Political Character, from the Resignation of Sir Robert Walpole, in 1742, to the Establishment of Lord Chatham's Second Administration, in 1757; containing Strictures on some of the most distinguished Men of that Time. A New Edition.-8vo. pp. 170. Price 7s. 6d. Murray, 1814. 2. An Inquiry concerning the Author of the Letters of Junius, with reference to the "Memoirs of a celebrated Literary and Political Character." 8vo. pp. 114. Price 5s. 6d. Murray, 1814. A VERY considerable proportion of the present readers of Junius must, to be consistent with their political feelings and opinions, detest the productions of that writer. They must, therefore, be pleased with any circumstance tending to diminish the influence by which they may judge that a part of the community is liable to he still affected and perverted, from so memorable an example of daring and unpunished hostility to what a multitude of excellent preceptors of Filmer's school have been incessantly exhorting mankind unconditionally to revere. To this effect of diminishing the influence, a little has probably been contributed by the recent publication of the enlarged edition. That edition has brought out a large assemblage of the same writer's compositions, many of them so sensibly inferior, and indeed the mass of them, estimated collectively, so inferior, to the prevailing quality of his more splendid labours, as to have effected some slight modification of the impression which he had made by his appearance in the lofty and powerful character of Junius. For we are apt, though the rule may be of very doubtful justice, to depress our estimate of an author as low at least as the average quality of his works; and that average is obviously lowered by a quantity of considerably inferior matter thus brought to be combined with the more admired productions in a general estimate. In beholding this portion of the works, we seem as if we had been taken round to see the sloping, more accessible, and less forbidding side of an eminence which we had been accustomed to contemplate only on that side on which it is beheld as an awful and impending precipice. While this mysterious personage loses somewhat of the commanding and over-awing aspect of his talents, by their being displayed in operations not so very much surpassing those of ordinary men, he has been made to confirm every conviction or surmise, which the readers of his letters, as Junius, might have been forced to entertain against the soundness and refinement of his moral principles. The class of persons we have referred to, as deeming the political influence of his writings to be mischievous, pleased to see him, from the mode of his new appearance, losing somewhat of his power, may very justly be desirous of what would diminish it considerably more,-an absolute identification of his person. No fact is more familiar than that there is a strange power in mystery, which confers an imaginary, and, therefore, excessive magnitude on what it shrouds, and imparts a ghostly significance and preternatural emphasis to the voices heard from its dark and haunted recesses. We may confidently appeal to the strongest admirers of that unknown author, whether, though stimulated by their admiration to the keenest curiosity during the renewed and most active research, they have not felt, if, in any instance, the object so eagerly pursued has appeared on the point of being attained, somewhat of a disposition to wish that the proof might fail, an unwillingness that this one individual, or this other, coming forward in palpable substance, and under a plain, ordinary name, should take the place of the mysterious and formidable shade.' They thought that this person, and still that the next, was not of sufficiently commanding character to stand in the magnitude of Junius. But so they would have felt whoever might have been pretended or even proved to be the man. Their reluctance to admit a reality, was a kind of instinctive feeling that no real person could be so commanding an object as the one that imagination had imperfectly beheld behind the veil of mystery. For ourselves we will confess that, though Junius is far enough from personating our ideal form of an all-accomplished censor of bad men, and bad times, he has, nevertheless, fixed himself as a being of so commanding aspect in our imagination, and we are, like all our race, so fond of effect, that we are disposed to be content that the secret should still and always defy investigation, as it has hitherto done; and we are indiffe Y ? rent whether the promoters of this last of the long series of distinct claims (those of about twenty individuals) shall prosecute the matter any further, with or without additional evidence, or not. The new claimant is Mr. Glover, the writer of the epic poem of Leonidas, which may, perhaps, obtain a slight temporary renovation of notice in consequence of the manner in which its author is now brought forward. And certainly, these publications shew so many of the things required in the rightful pretender, actually meeting in the case of Mr. Glover, that we may well wonder how it could happen, that the almost preternatural vigilance of inquisition, excited during the publication of the formidable letters, should not have glanced on him. But, indeed, this very fact, if it was a fact, must be admitted to be, in some degree, a presumption against his being the author, when we consider to how many shrewd and interested persons he was -well known. If none of them ever suspected him, while on such communicative terms with him, while perfectly acquainted with his temper and opinions as an active politician, and while apprized of his knowledge of the secrets and cabals of state, it would seem to go far towards proving that he did not, in their estimation, evince the kind or measure of talent displayed by Junius. Still there are a number of concurring presumptions in his .favour. His age comported with the severe maturity of mind indicated in the writings of Junius. He was born in 1712, and consequently was fifty-six or fifty-seven, at the time of the first appearance of that writer under that denomination; and at that period he might be said to have grown old in public business; for we are told that being an ardent politican, in the old Whig interest, he made a conspicuous figure in the city as early as 1739, and by his influence and activity was the means of setting aside the election to the mayoralty of a person who had voted in parliament with the court party. But we will transcribe the paragraph in which the writer of the Inquiry draws into one view the particulars on which the presumption is founded in favour of Glover. He was an accomplished scholar, and had all the advantages that affluent circumstances and the best company could give. He was ever strongly attached to the principles of the constitution: his politics were those of Junius, and he was of the private councils of men in the highest station in the state, throughout the greater part of a long and active life. At the time the Letters of Junius were written, he had attained an age which could allow him, without vanity, to boast of an ample knowledge and experience of the world; and during the period of their publication he resided in London, and was engaged in no pursuits incompatible with his devoting his |