injuring this entire scene, we cannot explain the particular defect to which we allude. The speech of the dying Gertrude (though we know not how to spare a line of it) is much too long. Waldegrave and Outalissi survive, and the poem ends with the war-song of the latter, in a very wild characteristic style. Some critics will unquestionably condemn the judgement of the author, which we most cordially approve, in changing the heroic for a lyric stanza in this last strain of the frantic and vindictive Indian.

We have very few general observations to add. The foregoing examples will shew, that the execution of this poem ought to satisfy every reasonable hope that may have been formed of Mr. Campbell's matured talents. The figures are striking, the sentiments ardent; and the diction is elevated in every part, where the poet has not been pinioned by the rhyme, or borne down by the measure. Meanness of expression, whenever it does occur, appears to double disadvantage amidst the splendor of language that surrounds it. Mr. Campbell's faults, like the sun's spots, are seen by his own light. In the work of an ordinary writer, the following couplet would not be particularly offensive; in these august pages it is flat

They tore him from us when but twelve years old,
And scarcely for his loss have I been yet consoled."

A poet who has genius enough to awaken curiosity concerning himself, never charms his readers more, than when he incidentally and unexpectedly affords them a glimpse of some circumstance connected with his personal history. In the first canto of this poem, Mr. Campbell with fine discriminating strokes of character describes the natives of various European countries, who formed the little society of Wyoming. After noticing the German and Spaniard, he thus proceeds:

But who is he, that yet a dearer land.
Remembers, over hills and far away

y?

Green Albyn !* what though he no more survey

Thy ships at anchor on the quiet shore,

Thy pellochst rolling from the mountain bay;

Thy lone sepulchral cairn upon the moor,

And distant isles that hear the loud Corbrechtan roar.' p. 8.

The Corybrechtan, or Corbrechtan, is a whirlpool on the western coast of Scotland, near the Island of Jura, which is heard at a prodigious distance. Its name. signifies the whirlpool of the Prince of Denmark; and there is a tradition that a Danish Prince ance undertook, for a wager, to cast anchor, in it. He is said to have used woollen instead of hempen ropes, for greater strength, but perished in the attempt. On the shores of Argyleshire I have often listened with great delight to the sound of this † Porpoises.

Scotland.

vortex, at the distance of many leagues. When the weather is calm, and the adjacent sea scarcely heard on these picturesque shores, its sound, which is like the sound of innumerable chariots, creates a magnificent and fine effect.' p. 78.

Who, on reading this note will not pause, as we did, with sensations of indescribable sympathy, to listen with the young poet to the distant din of the loud Corbrechtan?'

Amidst the general brilliancy of epithet and metaphor, in which Mr. Campbell indulges, we sometimes meet with a phrase which we cannot find in our hearts to condemn, though we can as little recommend it to imitation :

'In Gertrude's eyes their ninth blue summer shone.'

Wherefore blue summer?-Because her eyes were blue.Had they been black, what then?-Why-say what youwill, the expression is as beautiful as the lady's eyes; look at them, and find fault if you dare.-We submit, and proceed:

Or winglet of the fairy-humming bird,

Like atoms of the rainbow fluttering round.'

Is there no impropriety in comparing the winglet' of the humming bird to what can neither exist in nature nor in imagination-the fragments of a broken rainbow? Yet the simile is sparkling, and will inevitably be admitted.

Of the smaller pieces at the end of this volume, the Naval Ode, Lochiel's Warning, and Hohenlinden, have been long known to the public. Lochiel and Hohenlinden are perhaps the master pieces of Mr. Campbell's muse; each is unique, and may be for ever unrivalled, since every imitation that has merit enough to be compared with such originals, must in reality far transcend them, or in appearance fall short of them: the former would be a hopeless, the latter a fruitless labour, which no man of genius would condescend to undertake. We had seen the Naval Ode, Ye Mariners of England!' attributed before to the author of The Pleasures of Hope; but till we found it in this volume, we did not believe that he could deliberately compose so tautological a line as that which is the burthen of the song;

And the stormy tempests blow.'

The rest of the ode is not unworthy of the writer.-Glenara, Lord Ullin's Daughter, and the Battle of the Baltic, we presume are now first published. The two former would command more attention in almost any other volume of modern poetry than in this: the latter is executed in Mr. Campbell's happiest lyric spirit, in a peculiar ballad style, and in numbers irregularly and mournfully musical. We cannot copy the whole, and to mutilate it would be poetic sacrilege.

Art.IV. Memoirs of William Paley, D. D. By G. W. Meadley. To which is added, an Appendix. 8vo. pp. 390. Price 9s. Cradock and Joy. 1809.

WE E are a little reluctant to accept this work as giving a true impression of the character of Dr. Paley. And yet the biographer appears an intelligent, well-informed, and candid man; was personally acquainted with the doctor during the last . years of his life; and has evinced a commendable diligence of inquiry respecting its former periods, of which va rious particulars have been communicated to him by some of Paley's early and surviving friends. There is no doubt of the general accuracy of the book as a memorial of facts; and we have not much right to question whether a just estimate of the character is conveyed by the whole effect of the recitals and observations. Those parts of the sketch which are formed from the author's opinion, seem well warranted by those which consist of narration, and are quite in the same spirit. But, if this be a true delineation, we cannot but regret that truth had not authorized a different one.

It was not, for our complacency, a fortunate circumstance, to have read these Memoirs about the same time that we had occasion to read the lives of some of the most eminent of the puritan divines, such as Baxter, Howe, and Philip Henry. In these men we beheld, beside the talents and learning which in them were but very secondary recommendations, the utmost sublimity of devotional sentiment, such a zeal for the promotion of Christianity as absorbed their whole being, a promptitude and a heroic perseverance to make any and every sacrifice to the most refined dictates of conscience, a great indifference to considerations of emolument and fame, a contempt of vain customs and amusements, and therefore, in the combination and result of all these qualities, a character prodigiously elevated above any thing that the world in general has ever consented to acknowledge as its standard of morals and religion. We turned from these models of transcendant excellence, to inspect the character of Dr. Paley, as drawn by a very sensible friend and admirer. In high estimation of his talents and writings, we yield but in a very slight degree to this or any other of his eulogists; and in those particular features of his works, which deny us the pleasure of approving and admiring, we are very unwilling to perceive indications of qualities, which a religious observer must be compelled to disapprove in his character. But in viewing the character displayed in the book before us, we find every tendency to that enthusiasm, with which we contemplate the highest order of buman excellence, completely arrested. We calculate with pensive wonder the width of VOL. V.

Rr

moral space through which we find we have been suddenly conveyed, when we contrast the affectionate veneration, and the passionate aspirings to resemblance, which we have just felt in thinking of those men, several of whose names we have mentioned, with the state of our feelings in the company of the subject of these memoirs. There is presented to us, indeed, a combination of highly respectable qualities; love of truth, independence of character with respect to the rich and great, orderly attention to the concerns and ministrations of the church, impartiality in discharging the duties of a magistrate, kindness in domestic relations, and patience in suffering. Now, with regard to the ordinary tribe of divines, we suppose it would be thought very illiberal to insist, that something more than this is desirable in a man who is appointed an instructor, monitor, and pattern to mankind, in relation to infinitely the most momentous of their concerns; the present times are indulgent in fixing the standard of clerical piety. Passing over the question-whether, with the awful importance of religion, and the nature of the consequent responsibility of its teachers, full in our view, we are bound to concur in this law of indulgence, we may at least confidently assume, that an eminently conspicuous and powerful advocate of Christianity, ought to have been distinguished by a spirit peculiarly sympathetic with that of the Founder, and that of the apostles, martyrs, and confessors of this religion. For surely he that in modern times has a more impressive view than almost all his contemporaries of its evidence and excellence, possesses something strikingly in common with its first promulgators. His more luminous view of the truth and divine excellence of the religion, places him on a ground of nearly equal privilege with that of those persons, who com menced its disciples and advocates actually amidst the prodigies that attended its first introduction. But to have embraced the religion under the immediate impression of those miracles, which gave direct proof from heaven of its being not only true, but, in the divine estimation, of inexpressible importance, and then to have been less than ardently zealous in the exercise and promotion of it, would have been deemed an unpardonable inconsistency. It would have been expected, and even required, of that man, that he should be inspired and actuated by the divine principles thus received into his mind, as much almost as if a spirit had descended from heaven to inhabit his person, and determine the whole system of his sentiments and agency. And therefore nearly the same result is justly required from the man in later times, who, being favoured with a superlative clearness of conviction, is placed in nearly as high a rank of privilege as the original converts and advocates.

If this be true, the Memoirs of Dr. Paley cannot be read without considerable regret. Sincerely gratified to observe and applaud his excellent and amiable qualities, we yet in vain endeavour to avoid perceiving a very serious deficiency of what we think the spirit of primitive Christianity. Notwithstanding much moral worth, there is something unsaintly spread over the character. A respectable man of the world seems to meet us, when we wish to see a person that will remind us of the apostles. It is not to be noted as a fault, that Paley had not the great passions which, when combined with great talents, can make a character sublime: his constitution denied him that warmth and energy which can throw the mind into fits of enthusiasm, which can make good men captivating, and bad ones dangerously seductive. However favourable this incapability of great emotions might be to purely intellectual operations, its obvious tendency was to withhold the mind from being completely grasped by that religion, of which the efficacy depends so much on the affections; and to deprive the clearest intellectual representations made in its favour, in preaching and writing, of that very powerful principle of efficacy which they derive from the mingling sensibility, which can give a character of sentiment and vitality to every argument, without in the least injuring its logic. The natural incapability of great emotions operates very strongly to prevent the prevalence of the Christian spirit, in the man, and in the minister and vindicator of religion, unless an appropriate discipline is adopted to obviate this injurious effect. That discipline would consist, in habituating the mind to dwell much on the most solemn and affecting views of revelation, in employing a considerable portion of time in exercises strictly devotional, in reading those writers who have infused an irresistible pathos into their Christian discussions, and in frequently seeking the society of those who are distinguished by zeal and devotional feelings as well as intelligence. In these memoirs it is not made to appear that Dr. Paley had recourse to such a moral regimen.

We are not informed of any special anxiety in his early instructors to make the impressions of religion deep in his mind. At college he confessedly associated, during the first years, with some young men of very light character. Among the many friends with whom he was more or less intimate during his subsequent life, there are very few names that have ever been distinguished for elevated piety. We are not told that, in the society of accomplished men, whom he must often have found strangers or enemies to Christianity, he was watchful to insinuate its claims. We are not told that, amidst that general repute for deficient piety and for worldly mo