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Happy in thoughtlessness, some careless air,

Heard Time depart, and felt the sudden change. vol. ii. pp. 84-86. The final separation of the just from the unjust is afterwards described; the assembling of the redeemed in the New Jerusalem, and the condemnation of the "reprobate" to chains and nether darkness. The song of triumph and of glory to the Messiah is then heard in heaven; and the celestial bard concludes his song.

Thus have I sung beyond thy first request,
Rolling my numbers o'er the track of man,
The world at dawn, at mid-day, and decline;
Time gone, the righteous saved, the wicked damned,
And God's eternal government approved.

vol. ii. pp. 258, 259.

Our readers will be able to judge from the above extracts of the prominent excellencies in "The Course of Time." As a whole, it claims our approbation neither for management nor design. The arrangement of its subjects is simple in the extreme; and the order of its great divisions, if such they may called, is that which immediately results from a continued view of the events related. Such a plan, however, is perhaps better suited to the general effect of the poem than one more complicated and artificial. The mind is elevated, by the awful objects in its view, above the influence of ordinary principles. Passion is subdued by terror, or swallowed up in astonishment; and the imagination displays a set of images, stern, distinct, and palpable; in the creation, and not in the disposition, of which, its mighty power is evinced. When employed in the contemplation of such objects, their very presence is sufficient to produce the effect desired; and, provided there be no mixture of images likely to distract the mind from one great and deep sensation, the simplest and least artificial manner in which they can be called up is probably to be preferred. In other species of the epopoeia this would be evidently wrong; for there the effect is to be produced by the fable whose moral is evolved by a nice arrangement of the events which lead to the general catastrophe. In the class to which the Course of Time belongs, the impression is made by the scenes and images employed; and is derived, in reference to the poem itself, rather from a set of separate and distinct impressions, than from one great effect produced by the whole composition.

The subject of Mr. Pollok's poem is one under which any ordinary genius must have sunk. We have few specimens of religious poetry from which, except for their sentiments, we should not turn with disgust. Many have thought, from this circumstance, that the subjects themselves, which religion offers for poetry, are unadapted by their nature to be offered in such

a form. To the generality of minds they are, it is true, of all subjects, the most unfit for verse. But their unfitness is neither in the nature of the objects they present for contemplation, nor in the genius or necessary character of poetry. It is their awful sublimity and grandeur which no ordinary mind can comprehend their magnificence and splendour which none but the eagle eye of genius, and that spiritualized, can look at and enjoy. When thus contemplated, poetry embraces, within its sphere, all that is wonderful in creation or awful in revelation; and the elements which compose it are the spirit which breathes, and the fire that burns, in the vast system over which it wanders.

With regard to the execution of the magnificent poem which has given rise to these reflections, the march of its verse is slow and solemn, and the language employed bold and simple, There is sometimes perhaps a turgidness of expression in the comparisons, and an occasional tendency to declamation in the moral parts of some of the books, which we could have wished avoided; but on the whole, and without taking notice of every slight inaccuracy from which so long a poem can hardly be entirely free, we consider its style as a fine specimen of English blank verse.

We take our leave of Mr. Pollok with regret. If his poem gain the popularity it merits, it will speak well for the improving taste of our age. If it be not yet read with the avidity which its beauties and sublimity will, we are persuaded, hereafter excite, he must attribute it to the present passion of poetical readers for sentiment rather than imagination-for softness rather than sublimity,

The Living and the Dead. By a COUNTRY CURATE. London 1827. pp. 379.

OUR author made his literary debût two or three years ago, by publishing a little work intituled "The Blank Book of a small Colleger. This first effort of a mighty genius, however, was scarcely ushered into existence, before it was seized upon by some ruthless brother of our profession, who with a single stroke consigned the luckless stranger to eternal oblivion; waggishly exclaiming, " This is indeed a BLANK BOOK!"

It must, however, be acknowledged, that it was extremely honest and candid in the writer to affix a title so accurately descriptive of the character of his work. Few authors would

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have thought that any book which they had been at the trouble to write, deserved the name of a "blank book ;" and still fewer would have given it such a name, even if they had thought so. And surely no man, who, with this title-page in his face, could go and buy the book, would have the least reason to complain that he had been cheated, even had he found nothing in the volume but a few blank leaves.

Perhaps it was this singular honesty, with which the writer proclaimed, in limine, the nothingness of his first publication, which led many to conclude that the title-page of the second was an equally candid and remarkable description of its contents. "The Living and the Dead" was opened with eagerness, as a piece of extraordinary auto-biography, which was expected to produce a story more full of romantic incident-and all of it, though strange, yet true-than any which the volume is actually found to contain.

Having spoken of the title-page of the book, we proceed to the dedication, which we lay before our readers at length-" To the Very Rev. Dr. Pearson, Dean of Sarum, who, as the able supporter and eloquent advocate of our pure and apostolic Church, so happily combines energy in action with sobriety in precept, and pourtrays all that is glowing in rational piety without the least leaven of fanatical zeal; this little volume is most respectfully inscribed, by The Author."

Doubtless "the Very Rev. Dr. Pearson" must be a very intimate acquaintance of the Rev. Author, who cannot be supposed capable of taking such a liberty as to inscribe his book to a stranger; nor of extolling so highly one as entirely unknown to him, as any literary character and exalted dignitary of the Church can be to a curate of the same church. What, then, will our readers think, when they know that this dedicacation is a mere venture on the part of the writer; who perhaps thought that the flattery it contained (for flattery it is, even if it be true, coming from such a quarter) would compensate for the literary imposture of dragging in the name of the Dean of Salisbury to give currency to a book the principles of which he would do any thing but approve. That the russe de guerre failed, and the dedication gave no satisfaction to the person whom it was intended to conciliate, and whose name was used to gain circulation for the book among a class of readers who would otherwise never have turned their eyes beyond the title, appears from the following paragraph in the New Times of April 7, 1827" We are authorized to state, that the recently published volume of the Living and the Dead has been dedicated to the Very Rev. the Dean of Salisbury without his concurrence,

and without his previous knowledge of the work or its author." -How the Curate felt on the perusal of this notice we know not: we hope it will teach him never more to take a similar liberty with great names, and henceforth to expect no promotion from the Very Rev. the Dean of Salisbury.

Our readers will, we hope, excuse us, if we detain them a few moments over the Preface to the volume; as it states the principles upon which the author professes to proceed; and we may have occasion, as we go on, to revert to those principles, and to inquire whether his practice is in keeping with his professions. Of the living," he trusts he has said nothing that is uncandid or unjust." He then speaks of the high mo

tives which have served to decide him in the choice of his subject: "There are those who will learn from the dead, however unwilling they may be to be instructed by the living." Very true but there are, we trust, some who will not refuse to learn from the living, and who will be warned to avoid those faults into which the living writer of the volume before us has fallen.

We only regret that some of the concluding observations of the Preface have not been more forcibly and constantly present to the author's mind in writing his book.

His first wish is, that it (the volume) may arouse some brother clergyman to a deeper sense of the paramount importance and ceaseless responsibility which attach to his sacred calling; of the gravity, and self-denial, and recollectedness which should at all times accompany it. His next is, that it may breathe no sentiment which the spiritual avocations of the author must condemn-contain no expression which may appear hostile to the interests of true morality and real religion.

How the author can suppose that he has attained either of these wishes, or has kept within any of the boundaries which he has prescribed to himself, we are perfectly at a loss to conceive. Never was a volume and its preface more at variance never did any writer more completely fail in all that he had proposed to himself, or send forth a publication to the world less calculated to produce any truly religious impression.

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We allow that there are passages in the book of a religious character; but they are something like those hours of leisure which, the writer says, are "few, and far between." We also contend, that even these are of an injurious tendency-that the religion of the book is of a meagre and defective kind. There is a good deal of parade about ministerial work and ministerial responsibility; but the writer seems much more at home when he is speaking of the prudery and old-maidenhood of Miss Irene Goggs and Miss Eunice Kick, than when he attempts to dwell upon the duties and solemnities of his proper calling

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Besides, we object most decidedly against that patch-work in book-making, which puts such incongruities in the same page as a ludicrous old maid's visit and a death-bed scene. mind seriously disposed is disgusted with the levity of one part of the scene; a mind not seriously disposed laughs at the gravity of the other; and both agree to condemn the folly of attempting thus to mingle the iron and the clay, and to form it into one consistent mass.

When a writer, who wishes to be thought religious himself, wants to introduce something very contrary to religion, it is very convenient for him to put the words which would not grace his own lips into the lips of a fictitious person, whom he can at pleasure introduce. A country clerk is made the vehicle of sentiments which would ill become the country curate.

"You've heard, I dare say, of Colonel Featherstone? Oh, he was a rare man for Church and King! There were four things the old Colonel used to say he never flinched from in his life-the enemy abroad; his principles at home; a pretty girl; and his bottle. I hope no offence, sir, then!" p. 25.

Yes, sir, there is great offence in a minister of the Gospel retailing such jokes, even were they true; and, above all, in attempting to perpetuate them in print, without a single sentence of condemnation against them.

But this Colonel Featherstone was a rare man for the Church; for when he was near death, and could not attend himself, he would be wheeled to the window, that he might see his tenantry enter the sacred house, which was placed on his own estate, and just in front of his own house. Hear, reader, with what commendable zeal for the Church this veteran in her service is made to enlarge by our author.

"Curse it," he exclaimed, in his peculiar sharp quick manner [Mark! it is a sharp manner, but not a blasphemous one!]" if I am not able to get to church, I like to see those that are! Why, what the plague's the matter with the people? They walk at a foot's pace, and as solemnly and dejectedly as if they were going to a funeral! No talking-no laughing—all silent! And they look at the house with such a lack-a-daisical aspect!-What? as I live, those two old fools, Jem Gregory and his wife, have caught sight of me! Andand-no, its not possible-yes, by they're whispering!" p. 27.

What! and does this cursing, swearing, dying Colonel; this true friend to the Church, pass without one word of pity? And is his conduct recorded, without one word of censure, by a minister of the Establishment? And do we meet with all this in the first chapter of the book-a chapter which begins with the account of the author's ordination, and with solemn reflections on the nature of his office? Is it in this way that he seeks to "rouse his brother clergymen to a deeper sense of the

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