insisted upon with zeal and fidelity, and the duties of the Christian life are inculcated both with earnestness and judgment. Though the author seems thoroughly impressed with the vital importance of the great gospel truths, his mind appears untinc. tured with fanaticism. The style is both pleasing and perspicuous, and in proper places not devoid of a just animation. But the principal recommendation of the book is its practical tendency both as to faith and duty, and few, we believe, will read it without feeling themselves the better for its perusal. In a chapter upon ecclesastical government, although his attachment. to the church of England is not so affectionate as our own, yet his sentiments upon the establishment are rational and good, and we heartily wish that they were more universally adopted. "If a man be satisfied that the doctrine of the established church be that of the apostles, he ought to lend his support to the church even although in some minor points of ceremonies and rules, he holds a different opinion. For it is not his duty to endanger doctrine for the sake of polity, or to withdraw his support from that national society of Christians which he believes to profess sound doctrine, and to be journeying towards heaven, merely because he differs from them regarding a point which he is convinced is neither to take him to heaven nor keep him from it. He ought to consider whether the advantage he proposes to gain by separation or by establishing a new sect be greater than the evil to be produced. I think it cannot be denied that the majority of those who dissent from the church do so from questions of polity rather than of doctrine; and it also most certainly happens that the greatest part of them are by no means qualified to decide on the matter. It is not a little melancholy to find that although the difference of opinion which prevails amongst men of the highest reputation for piety and learning proves the question to be difficult, yet those who in their capability of judging, or in the strength of their understanding may be said not to know their right hand from their left, pronounced boldly on the questions which have divided the best as well as the wisest of our countrymen. Indeed the matters on which the majority dissent from the established church are intrinsically, or when compared to the grand question, "what shall I do to be saved?" of no more consequence than the colour of the coat the preacher is to wear. If it be once admitted, which can scarcely be denied, that an establishment is useful, not to say a mean appointed by God for advancing and preserving religion; and if it be admitted that questions of church polity are not essential to salvation, I think it must appear to be the duty of every one to support the establishment, unless he differ from it in his belief of important doctrines. Those who dissent on account of doctrine are the only rational dissenters; but it becomes a man to weigh well his objections before he endeavours to injure what appears to be an appointment of God. It would indeed be not a little surprising, were it true, that a whole nation of Protestants who have the word of God in their hands, and have it daily preached to them, should be for so many years in a state of heresy or mistake, and the truth be only discovered by a handful of men who, neither in their conduct nor their principles, are better or purer than other people. That the truth hath not been discovered by them exclusively is pretty evident from the variety of sects which proceed from them, and the numerous refinements which take place amongst them, until, in some instances, those who have begun by wavering have ended in infidelity." P. 303. This is plain good sense, and upon some minds may have as full an effect, as the higher principles which we should be inclined to urge. Valeat, quantum valere potest. We trust, that to a second edition the author will add his name. POETRY. ART. 15. The Paradise of Coquettes, a Poem. In Nine Parts. 256 pp. Murray. 1814. Of all the poems which have appeared of late without expectation to anticipate, or a name to command applause, the "Paradise of Coquettes" will most justly challenge the attention of the public. The flow of the versification is elegant and harmonious, and the genius of the author is copious, sometimes even brilliant. The poem however, whether we consider the subject of the mode in which it is treated, is far, very far too long. To enable any one to perform a pilgrimage through nine books whether of epic, moral, or satyric verse, much variety both of incident, style, and character, is absolutely requisite. But of a poem in which supernatural agency is employed throughout, and that agency of a light, airy, and sylphish character, nine books are insupportable. Had the Rape of the Lock, which is the model our author appears to have exclusively chosen, and in many respects to have so happily imitated, extended to half this number, we will venture to say that not even the name and the genius of Pope could have ensured the attention it might have justly merited. We have not time to follow Zephyra, the heroine of the poem, through all her etherial wanderings. Under the guidance of the Genius of Coquetry, and invested by him with the Cestus of Levity, she ascends through the purgatory of coquettes, and the cave of oblivion, to their Paradise The misery of the coquette when chained at last to a single lover is well described. "But with a slave, already tamed, to live, To To hear, while tardy months like ages creep, Dread doom!--When days, and weeks, and months are past, How sweet to triumph, shew that charm is flown." P. 152. The address of the poet to woman, in the opening of the seventh book, previous to the description of his Paradise is no bad specimen of the general harmony of his verse. "So kindred all to bliss thy soul, thy sight, With eyes that look, and thoughts that breathe delight, Some readier presage of its future heaven, Some harmony of joy, whose faithful tone Glow the full Paradise, it half pourtray'd." P. 168. In the picture of his Paradise there is much lively imagination and happy invention, but almost every part of the poem partakes of the great failing of the whole: it is too long.-The light of fiction, like that of the lustres which our poet has so well des cribed, beams only for a time; if it be prolonged beyond the proper period, it burns heavy and dull. The following is the passage to which we allude, in which the light of the lustre is preferred to that of the day. "No! from the ceiling let the lustre fall, Which sees no wretch, and shines but on the gay; 'Mid rearls, and gems, and plumes o'er plumes that swell, Let starry lamps a soften'd splendour throw Teach Teach every eye more languid love to speak, If the parts which we have selected shall have induced the reader to examine the whole, we think that he will find much to reward his trouble. The author appears well acquainted with his subject, and scientifically to understand the anatomy of the heart of a coquette. We must confess however that there is something still wanting to render the poem complete; and this deficiency we take to be the want of a moral. Now on so light a subject we neither expect nor desire a grave and sententious conclusion, yet a moral may exist, and a very strong one too, without one word of morality throughout; a moral by implica tion, which even in the fairy scenes of gaiety and fancy the heart may appropriate. But here there is none, which, even by impli cation, we can draw: nor indeed can the motives and views of the author himself be clearly ascertained. He has placed in his Paradise of eternal joys, those whose conduct upon earth has verged, to say the least, upon the borders of criminality; and that Paradise consists principally in a round of the same idle and not very innocent amusements. In short this poem does not appear to us to be meant, as its name would at first lead us to suppose, as a satire upon coquetry, but as a panegyric. If the author is ironical, we must say that his irony is of a species which we cannot comprehend. We do not assert that it was written with a mischievous design, nor that it is an unprincipled work, except as it appears to have, which in so long a poem upon such a subject is an unpardonable error, no principle at all. ART. 16. The Doge's Daughter, a Poem, in two Cantos; with Translations. By Lord Thurlow. 1814. Ariadne, a Poem, in three Parts. By Lord Thurlow. 1814. Notwithstanding our unfeigned respect for the high and paramount privileges of the peerage, we cite Lord Thurlow to appear before the bar of critical justice. The systematic and repeated trespasses which his lordship is in the habit of making upon the territories of fancy and common sense, will be best, and most adequately rewarded by a faithful account of the manner in which the misdemeanors are committed. Of the two performances before us, the first was undertaken in the friendly hope of quieting Lord Eldon's bodily pains by the medicinal influence of light and cheerful airs of poesy.' Had his lordship's disorder been an imposthume, instead of the gout, the Doge's A a daughter, 6 V●L. II. SEPTEMBER, 1814. daughter,' might have been a remedy far more efficacious than eau medicinale, or all that the materia medica could provide; but says Lord Thurlow, " I thank God, your lordship's pain lasted not so long as my labour." Ibi omnis effusus labor. It is not at first sight discoverable, why after the immediate object of the poem was thus happily frustrated, the author has been so unkind to himself as to submit it to the inspection of any judg ment less unsound and partial than that of illness and friendship. At the time when "The light hating man and fowl The astronomer and owl, To their learned beds were gone-" P. 3. Heliodore, daughter of the Doge," an image for all men t'adore," with "marble arms" and "thrice golden head,” discloses to her nurse Cancura while lying naked on her golden bed," her dissatisfaction at being destined to "be the windy spouse of a corsair." "O my lord, my father, O, Weeping at your feet I lay-" &c. All her reason gone to wrack." P. 5. She is comforted by the affectionate, though somewhat homely assurance of Cancura, "There's never a prince' in Italy But I'll know the reason why-" &c. 66 Marry forbid! the Doge is mad, I say't again, the Doge is mad." P. 9. To fulfil this promise she takes her charge in search of the favoured lover Frangipani, (Anglicè Gingerbread)" underneath the purple eve' to the' "Captain of the ship, St. Mark, Who will take us in the dark." P. 11. After the cheeks of Heliodore have been alternately ❝ pale with fear," "of an ashy hue," "straight again crimson red," and full of "a soft and Amazonian flame," she bargains with an armourer for a suit of mail, "that Hercules could scarce shoot through." "Achilles was a valiant man ; 'Pray sir,' said Helidore- Anan?'" P. 23. Thus armed, she rides to war with the fierce Pagans with 9 whom |