Fair was that face as break of dawn, When the soul's heaven lies calm and bright; We have now quoted enough, we believe, to give our readers a pretty just idea of the character of Mr Wilson's poetry. We shall add but one little specimen of his blank verse; which seems to us to be formed, like that of all his school, on the mos del of Akenside's; and to combine, with a good deal of his diffuseness, no ordinary share of its richness and beauty. There are some fine solemn lines on the Spring, from which we take the following, almost at random. 6 -The great Sun, Scattering the clouds with a resistless smile, Yet are ye not, Sporting in tree and air, more beautiful OF Of hopes ambitious, the disturbing sound Fly like disparting clouds, and leave the soul Pure and serene as the blue depths of heaven. 249---250, Till, quie o'ercome with pity, his white arms A parting kiss, and blest his laughing eyes! His sobs speak fond remembrance, and he weeps To think so kind and good a man should die. p. 411-41 We now lay aside this volume with regret: for though it has many faults, it has a redeeming spirit, both of fancy and of kindness, about it, which will not let them be numbered. It has, moreover, the charm of appearing to be written less from ambition of praise, than from the direct and genuine im-pulse of the feelings which it expresses; and though we cannot undertake to defend it from the scorn of the learned, or the ridicule of the witty, we are very much mistaken if it does not afford a great deal of pleasure to many persons almost as well worth pleasing. 3 ART; ART. VII. Observations on the Criminal Law of England, as it relates to Capital Punishments; and on the Mode in which it is administered. By Sir SAMUEL ROMILLY. 8vo. pp. 76. Cadell & Davies. London, 1810. WE owe an apology, we believe, both to our readers, and to the distinguished author of the work before us, for having so long delayed to enter upon an examination of the subject to which it relates. Various accidental circumstances, and several interruptions, of a nature alluded to in our last Number, have occurred to prevent us: Nor do we purpose, at this time, to attempt exhausting the topics which it presents for our consideration, but rather to introduce them, and lay the foundation of a series of discussions, which we may pursue at a future period. The honour of cooperating, in how humble soever a path, with such a man as Sir Samuel Romilly, in so grand a cause, is sufficient to gratify a far loftier ambition than ours. There is a tendency in man, connected with some of the least unamiable weaknesses of our nature, to reverence with an undue observance established practices and existing institutions, merely because they have been handed down through a succession of ages, and owe their origin to a period of society, in which, as Lord Bacon sagaciously remarks, the world was by so many ages younger and less experienced than it is in our own times. This feeling, while it resists the changes by which customs, and systems of polity, would otherwise be insensibly adapted to the changes which, in spite of us, are constantly going on in the circumstances of society, persuades us, at the same time, that there is a virtue in those very incongruities, rendered every day more apparent, between ancient arrangements and the state of things, wholly unforeseen by their authors, to which they are now applied. Thus, by a strange refinement of self-complacen cy, we ascribe to design, effects produced, not by human contrivance, but in spite of it,-nay, in counteraction of it,---and actually give our ancestors credit for having intended that the same plan should work for some ages in one direction, and then for so many more in the very opposite. It is not easy to imagine, that any thing but the most entire thoughtlessness could, for a moment, so far supersede the evidence of facts, and the authority of common sense, as to impose such dreams upon our belief. The most noted example of this delusion meets us in the great question of Reform, in both its branches. Broach the subject of Parliamentary Reform, and you are sure to be met with an inflated panegyric of the present system of representation,-contrived by the wisdom of our forefathers to attain the C.G VOL. XIX. NO. 38. utmost upon which private and public virtue must be founded.-Mr Wilson, however, does not seem to believe in the necessity of this extraordinary monopoly; but speaks with a tone of indulgent and open sociality, which is as engaging as the jealous and assuming manner of some of his models is offensive. The most striking characteristic, indeed, as well as the great charm, of the volume before us, is the spirit of warm and unaffected philanthropy which breathes over every page of it-that delighted tenderness with which the writer dwells on the bliss of childhood, and the dignity of female innocence-and that young enthusiasm which leads him to luxuriate in the description of beautiful nature and the joys of a life of retirement.. If our readers can contrive to combine these distinguishing features with our general reference of the author to the school, of Wordsworth and Southey, they will have as exact a conception of his poetical character as can be necessary to prepare them for a more detailed account of the works that are now offered to their perusal. The most considerable of these is The Isle of Palms,' which, though it engrosses the whole title-page, fills considerably less than half the volume,-and perhaps not the most attractive half. It is a strange, wild story of two lovers that were wrecked in the Indian Sea, and marvellously saved on an uninhabited, but lovely island, when all the rest of the crew were drowned;-of their living there, in peace and blessedness, for six or seven years-and being at last taken off, with a lovely daughter, who had come to cheer their solitude-by an English ship of war, and landed in the arms of the lady's mother, who had passed the long interval of their absence in one unremitting agony of hope and despair. This, in point of fact, is the whole of the story,-and nearly all the circumstances that are detailed in the four long cantos which cover the first 180 pages of the volume before us: For never, certainly, was there a poem, pretending to have a story, in which there was so little narrative; and in which the descriptions and reflection's bore such a monstrous proportion to the facts and incidents out of which they arise. This piece is in irregular rhymed verse, like the best parts of Mr Southey's Kehama; to which, indeed, it bears a pretty close resemblance, both in the luxuriance of the descriptions, the tenderness of the thoughts, the copiousness of the diction, and the occasional harmony of the versification, -though it is perhaps still more diffuse and redundant. To some of our readers, this intimation will be quite enough; but the majority, we believe, will be glad to hear a little more of it. The first canto describes the gallant ship, in the third month of of her outward bound voyage, sailing over the quiet sea in a lovely moonlight evening, and the two lovers musing and conversing on the deck. There are great raptures about the beau ty of the ship and the moon,-and pretty characters of the youth and the maiden in the same tone of ecstasy. Just as the sky is kindling with the summer dawn, and the freshness of morning rippling over the placid waters, the vessel strikes on a sunken rock, and goes down almost instantly. This catastrophe is described, we think, with great force and effect ;--allowance being always made for the peculiarities of the school to which the author belongs. He begins with a view of the ship just before the accident. • Her giant-form O'er wrathful surge, through blackening storm, Mid the deep darkness white as snow! But gently now the small waves glide So stately her bearing, so proud her array, The main she will traverse for ever and aye. Many ports will exult at the gleam of her mast! ---Hush! hush! thou vain dreamer! this hour is her last. Five hundred souls in one instant of dread Are hurried o'er the deck; And fast the miserable ship Becomes a lifeless wreck. Her keel hath struck on a hidden rock, Her planks are torn asunder, And down come her masts with a reeling shock, And a hideous crash like thunder. Her sails are draggled in the brine That gladdened late the skies, And her pendant that kiss'd the fair moonshine Down many a fathom lies. Her beauteous sides, whose rainbow hues Gleam'd softly from below, And flung a warm and sunny flush O'er the wreaths of murmuring snow, To the coral rocks are hurrying down To sleep amid colours as bright as their own, An hour before her death; And sights of home with sighs disturb'd The |