Art. 12.

The Origin and Proceedings of the Agricultural Associations in Great Britain; in which their Claims to Protection against Foreign Produce, Duty-free, are fully and ably set forth. 8vo. IS. Sherwood and Co.

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Mr. Webb Hall, chairman of the General Agricultural Association, appears to be the compiler, and indeed the author, of most of the addresses and documents collected in this pamphlet. He is an indefatigable and very zealous advocate for the former of the two systems, the nature of which we have briefly explained in the preceding article. To prove that agriculture, which requires as much skill, employs much more capital and many more hands than all the trades and manufactures of the country put together,' (p. 9.) is actually discouraged,' while commerce and manufactures are highly protected, the writer presents us with a list of heavy import-duties imposed on baskets, bottles, china, hides, leather, &c. &c., amounting in some cases to ninety and in many to more than fifty per cent.; and, on the other hand, with an almost barren list of petty duties on a few articles of agricultural produce. If, however, Mr. Hall had set about it, perhaps he might have furnished us with an estimate that would at once have put an extinguisher on all his inferences. What is the amount of the tax paid by the consumers of bread-corn in this country? We leave rye, peas, beans, barley, and oats out of the question, though all these are bought by the consumer at a much higher price than if they were allowed to be thrown into the market without any reference to the average-price at home. Foreign wheat cannot be brought to market in this country, till the average-price of the kingdom is eighty shillings per quarter: but wheat may generally be brought from the Baltic, from France, and the Netherlands, at forty shillings per quarter, with all the expenses of importation on its head. Suppose the average-price of English wheat during the year to be seventy shillings per quarter: the farmer then receives thirty shillings on the consumption of every quarter of his wheat, more than he would if he were not protected against foreign importation. It is not too much to estimate the annual consumption of wheat at ten millions of quarters; and consequently the British grower levies a tax on the British consumer of fifteen millions sterling per annum ! does not satisfy Mr. Webb Hall: but we really cannot encourage him to hope for more.

This

Art. 13. System of Voluntary National Revenue, to replace all compulsory Taxation, combined with the Distribution of the Right of Suffrage, upon Principles entirely new. 8vo. pp. 47. 2s. 6d. J. J. Stockdale.

“The earth hath bubbles as the water hath,

And these are of them !".

"The golden days of good Queen Bess" are mere dross, compared with that empyreal era which is at hand, when no taxes whatever, direct or indirect, are to take place or have existence; when the contributions alone of the voters are to supply all the expences of the government of the state;' and when each man

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in his parish or district shall declare to the proper officers appointed the sum he is able, or may please, to contribute for the year' towards its exigencies. If any one has a waste half-hour, and a waste half-crown, he may waste them both, first in purchasing and then in perusing these waste pages: which, finally, he may convert into waste-paper.

Art. 14.

POETRY.

The Emigrant's Return; a Ballad: and other Poems, by J. M. Bartlett. Crown 8vo. pp. 150. Chappell and Son.

1820.

From the Ode to Napolean Buonaparte' we presume that this author intends his efforts in "The Sublime" to be appreciated; and we extract a passage that we have no doubt is a favourite with Mr. Bartlett.

Yet brief the space since late

you stood,

Like Chimborazo's height, above the world,

And o'er surrounding shores thy deaf"ning thunders hurled;
E'en so we saw thy form

Collossal tower,

Armed with gigantic power;

As though thou wert the Genius of the storm,

Presiding o'er Man's destiny:

For, through the medium of our fears, we saw thy stride
To sovereignty and trembled at thy deeds thus magnified;
"Till, like the halo of a second sun,

A momentary glare encircled thee,

As Conquest led thee on!

But, Tyrant and Traitor! in thy hour of pride,
Thy soul, that scarce Creation should have bound,
Gazed only on its own deformity:

Until, self-deified,

As from another sphere, it looked around,
The idol of its own idolatry!

'Twas then that millions crouched the vassal knee,
And proffered at thy shrine a bloody fealty:

But thou!'

The singular spelling of the epithet collossal' will not have escaped the reader's notice. In the Notes, Bonaparte is com-pared to Hippias, in part; to the Indian monsoon, if he had died at Waterloo; to a tiger; to Richard the Third; to Lucifer; to Nero in prosperity; to Dionysius in adversity; to Cæsar in ambition; not to Scylla*, in any thing; not to Washington, the Cincinnatus of modern times!' What a farrago of comparisons, resemblances, and contrasts have we here!

We are still farther at a loss to divine the meaning of Mr. Bartlett, when he tells us that Napoleon fled; whilst the dying

* Here is another specimen of this writer's ingenious and original orthography.

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glances

glances of thousands of his imperial guards reproached him in language something like the Roman matron's, who, when she plucked the poignard from her breast, presented it to Cecinna Pætus, and exclaimed, “Such a death is not painful !" May we not exclaim," Why how now, mad wag? what, in thy quips and thy quiddities," has the death of Arria, consoling her husband condemned to die with her, to do with the dying glances of the Imperial Guards' reproaching Napoleon with his flight at Waterloo? We are not able to ascertain, with precision, what was the language of the last looks of these sacrificed heroes: but their expiring voices, we are assured, audibly though faintly exclaimed, "Vive l'Empereur!" We advise Mr. Bartlett not to press Pætus into the service, on the next occasion of attacking Napoleon.

Mr. Bartlett seems more at home when he is celebrating the memory of Mr. Charles Dibdin. In his praise of this meritorious lyrical poet we cordially join; and we quote with pleasure the following not unhappy tribute to the tuneful dead:

Weep, weep, "each jovial crew;"

"The flowing can" shall joyless tribute pour;
The Bard who erst, in peril's darksome hour,

With soothing melody could nerve each fearless soul
To meet, unawed, the deaf'ning thunders roll

Of storm, or conflict- wakes no more for you:

But he who oft

From valour's eye could call the tear;

From Lover's bosom draw the heartfelt sigh;
Or bid a smile fate's clouded aspect cheer;
"Is gone aloft."

Weep, weep, each martial band,

For he is gone, who once could cheer around,
With merry glee, the clay-cold tented ground,
Soothing the weary soldier's lot;

For he is gone, whose ever-cheering song,
Could pastime's festive hour prolong,
And charm, alike, the busy throng

In camp or cot.'

Among all the various imitations of that unjustifiable licence of speech which Sir Walter Scott and some other highly gifted moderns have introduced, scarcely one is more common in inferior writers than the omission of the article; and of this barbarism we have a most interesting example in the present author. Contentment revelled in her eye, Her cheek was glow of western sky?

We had marked several other splendid passages: but we are afraid of dazzling our readers, and here conclude.

* Contentment revelling is a new image. Vain antients! who imagined 'content' to be a placid thing.

Art.

Art. 15. Retrospection. A Rural Poem. By Thomas Whitby, author of "The Priory of Birkenhead, a Tale of the Fourteenth Century." 12mo. 5s. Boards. Hatchard, 1820.

This may be called an eventful poem, full of incidents and catastrophes. Among these, we were particularly struck with the novel and natural occurrence of a lady's daughter, lost in her infancy, being found again as a hay-maker, in the lady's hay-field ! A starting tear the maiden strove to check,

And rais'd the 'kerchief that her bosom veil'd:
Loud Bertha scream'd, - 'Tis she! behold her neck!
My child! my Ellen! where so long conceal'd?
She is restor'd, and Providence is kind!
My child, thy father clasps thee to his breast:
Henceforth a peaceful refuge thou shalt find,
Where want in vain prefers not a request.
How could my child so long unknown remain,
Whose ev'ry feature tells my heart a tale?
In her my Bertha's youth revives again,
Like her's those accents which bade love prevail.
And I beheld her- Ah! 'twas not unmov'd!
"Twas more than simple pity touch'd my
Mine was that anguish felt for one belov'd,
When doom'd by cruel destiny to part.
'Twas Nature's impulse! sympathy divine!
That nameless something which attracts the soul;
A mental whisper, Arnold she is thine;
Ere yet my sight, could recognise the whole.

heart;

Then Ellen told of cares and perils past,
How vagrant gypsies bore her far from home,
Expos'd to want and many a bitter blast,
Compell'd in search of sustenance to roam.
And many a tale of horror Ellen told,

For crimes profane she oft was doom'd to see,
And ruthless deeds, at which her blood ran cold,
Perform'd on nature's helpless progeny.

Then, she was wretched.'

We know not whether we need make any farther citations, after this sufficient proof of the author's degree of poetical rank: but we shall allow him to speak for himself in the subjoined common-place; and we think that then the author, reader, and critic, must be all equally satisfied, all equally ready to bid a long adieu to Retrospection.'

-

A lover's mind is like a shrub in spring,
When morning beams invigorative shine,

Each vernal bud, more bright than linnet's wing,
Expands invested with a tint divine.

Should chilling winds those morning beams subdue,
Or gelid vapours mark the reign of night;
Each tender leaflet changes to the view,
Its tints are faded with the morning light.'
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Art.

Art. 16. Slavery; a Poem: in Two Parts. By L. Smyth, Esq. Royal Navy. 12mo. 4s. Boards. Warren. 1820. It is not always that the commencement of a poem is the most laboured portion of the whole but generally, we believe, sufficient care is taken to make (if possible) a favourable impression at first. Hence the fairness of quoting the exordium; and we shall have recourse to that unobjectionable practice on the present occasion :

'An unfledg'd muse, 'mid Boreas' rude alarms,
Shall dare to sing the woes of Afric's sons,
And try to raise in feeling British hearts,

A kindred spirit to redress their wrongs.

Say, Britons! yet how long you will endure
The stain, that daily from her realms are dragg'd
Unnumber'd victims, whom your phlegm consigns
In western climes to tyrant lust or lash!
Where disproportion'd toil, and torture oft,
Enslave the freeborn souls that grac'd their forms
In other times; and memory, drooping yet
O'er days of bliss past by, their lives' bright morn,
When hope was young and promis'd future joy.

Oh, mem'ry! fertile source of grief or bliss!
On thee, how much of human good depends:
Or how much more of sorrow from thy stores,
Flows on the wretch of ev'ry tie bereft !
Then unavailing years of pain or woe,
Are but succeeded by a chill of heart,
An apathy, or vacuum of love,
That renders life at best an empty toy;
A thing unwish'd for, burthen to the soul,

A loveless, senseless, atom of indifference.'

A poem like the present should have been accompanied with notes, specifically stating how much good has been done by the acts of abolition in England; and how much of slavery yet remains, encouraged by other nations, and which might be abolished by our interference. The more particular the information on these points was, it would obviously be so much the better; and therefore we cannot be contented with a mere assertion that 'many regulations favourable to the condition and happiness of slaves have been made within a few late years, with which the author was unacquainted when he wrote the poem.' The said author, at all events, should have been better informed when he published, and not have let off a pateraroe of humanity so much in the dark.

Art. 17. Lays of Affection, by Margaret Brown. Crown 8vo. 8s. Boards. Hatchard. 1819.

A sign is no indication of the character of an inn: black bears, and blue boars, and red lions, partake of indiscriminate merit: but the title of a poem, when very ample and particular, is some clue

to