the moon's light,' in the third number, and What the bee is to the flowret,' in the fourth. There are also a few, though but a few, which have no striking beauty, and no glaring demerit.

But, when we have set aside all those passages which are faulty for political and local partialities, or the intermixture of false and far-fetched thoughts, or the introduction of incoherent metaphors and epithets, or a simplicity bordering upon childishness, or the mere absence of positive merit-there will still be left a large body of songs, exhibiting, we venture to say, a greater variety, and a higher tone of excellence than this order of poetry has often before attained. The most careless reader must be struck by the imagery of the following stanza: there is an old tradition that Lough Neagh suddenly rose above its level, and overwhelmed a whole region: long after which event, according to Giraldus, 'the fishermen, in clear weather, used to point out to strangers the tall ecclesiastical towers, still rearing themselves beneath the waters.'

'On Lough Neagh's bank as the fisherman strays,
When the clear cold eve's declining,
He sees the round towers of other days,
In the wave beneath him shining!

Thus shall memory often, in dreams sublime,
Catch a glimpse of the days that are over,
Thus, sighing, look thro' the waves of time,
For the long-faded glories they cover.'

In the delineation of that deep and settled melancholy, which affects the heart with a dead, yet aching heaviness, and makes life appear a blank, uninteresting alike in its pleasures and its pains, Mr. Moore is peculiarly successful.

• As a beam o'er the face of the waters may glow,
While the tide runs in darkness and coldness below,
So the cheek may be tinged with a warm sunny smile,
Tho' the cold heart to ruin runs darkly the while.
One fatal remembrance, one sorrow, that throws
Its bleak shade alike o'er our joys and our woes,
To which life nothing darker or brighter can bring,
For which joy has no balm, and affliction no sting;-

Oh, that thought in the midst of enjoyment will stay,' &c. &c.

Nor is he less so, where a gleam of gaiety is admitted to relieve the sadness of the sentiment; as in the eighth song of the first number:

O think not my spirits are always as light,

And as free from a pang, as they seem to you now;
Nor expect that the heart-beaming smile of to-night
Will return with to-morrow, to brighten my brow ;—

VOL. VII. NO. XIV.

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No,

No, life is a waste of wearisome hours,

Which seldom the rose of enjoyment adorns!
And the heart that is soonest awake to the flowers,
Is always the first to be touch'd by the thorns!
But send round the bowl, and be happy awhile;

May we never meet worse in our pilgrimage here,
Than the tear that enjoyment can gild with a smile,

And the smile that compassion can turn to a tear!
The thread of our life would be dark, Heaven knows!
If it were not with friendship and love intertwined:
And I care not how soon I may sink to repose,

When these blessings shall cease to be dear to my mind!
But they who have lov'd the fondest, the purest,

Too often have wept o'er the dream they believ'd:
And the heart, that has slumber'd in friendship securest,
Is happy indeed if 'twas never deceiv'd!

But send round the bowl; while a relic of truth

Is in man or in woman, this pray'r shall be mine :-
That the sunshine of love may illumine our youth,

And the moonlight of friendship console our decline!' In exhibiting those middle tints of emotion, which interest without agitating the bosom, Mr. Moore has great merit:

'Oh the days are gone, when beauty bright
My heart's chain wove:

When my dream of life, from morn till night,
Was love, still love.

New hope may bloom,
And days may come,
Of milder, calmer beam:

But there's nothing half so sweet in life,
As love's young dream—
Oh! there's nothing half so sweet in life,
As love's young dream.

Still it, lingering, haunts the greenest spot
On memory's waste.
'Twas odour fled
As soon as shed,

'Twas morning's winged dream!
"Twas a light that ne'er can shine again
On life's dull stream!

Oh! 'twas light that ne'er can shine again
On life's dull stream!'

Of his grace and facility in narrative, our readers may take the ballad called Eveleen's Bower,' as an example:

·

'Oh weep for the hour,

When to Eveleen's bower,

The Lord of the Valley with false vows came!
The moon hid her light

From the Heavens that night,

And wept behind her clouds o'er the maiden's shame.

The clouds past soon

From the chaste cold moon,

And Heaven smil'd again with her vestal flame!
But none will see the day,

When the clouds shall pass away,

Which that dark hour left upon Eveleen's fame.

The white snow lay

On the narrow path-way,

Where the Lord of the Valley cross'd over the moor!
And many a deep print

On the white snow's tint,

Shew'd the track of his footstep to Eveleen's door.

The next sun's ray
Soon melted away

Every trace of the path where the false Lord came:

But there's a light above,

Which alone can remove

That stain upon the snow of fair Eveleen's fame.'

Mr. Moore possesses, we think, in an eminent degree, the vir tue of poetical spirit, that excellence which redeems so many faults. When his feelings are roused, he pours them out with an eloquent energy, which sweeps along as freely as if there were no shackles of rhyme or metre to confine its movements.

⚫ We swear to revenge them!-no joy shall be tasted,
The harp shall be silent, the maiden unwed,

Our halls shall be mute, and our fields shall lie wasted,
Till vengeance is wreak'd on the murderer's head!

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Yes

Yes, monarch! though sweet are our home recollections,
Though sweet are the tears that from tenderness fall,
Though sweet are our friendships, and hopes, and affections,
Revenge on a tyrant is sweetest of all."

TIL

Of all the charms, however, which the poetry of these volumes may be thought to possess, there is none so captivating to us, as its genuine tenderness:

6

Though the last glimpse of Erin with sorrow I see,
Yet wherever thou art shall seem Erin to me:

In exile thy bosom shall still be my home,
And thine eyes make my climate wherever we roam.'

And if there had been no political allusion, we might have recognized, as one of the most affecting poems in the English language, the address of the lover to his mistress:

When he who adores thee has left but the name
Of his fault and his sorrows behind,

Oh! say, wilt thou weep, when they darken the fame
Of a life, that for thee was resign'd?

Yes, weep! and, however my foes may condemn,...
Thy tears shall efface their decree,
For Heaven can witness, tho' guilty to them,
I have been but too faithful to thee!

With thee were the dreams of my earliest love,
Ev'ry thought of my reason was thine:-
In my last humble pray'r to the Spirit above,
Thy name shall be mingled with mine!

Oh bless'd are the lovers and friends who shall live

The days of thy glory to see:

But the next dearest blessing that Heaven can give,
Is the pride of thus dying for thee!"

On the whole, the songs accompanying the Irish melodies, contain, together with some faults, a proportion of beauties more numerous and striking than can readily be found in any similar work with which we are acquainted. The author has the merit of setting an example, which, though it may not be easily equalled, will, in all probability, be imitated, and we hope, not without benefit to literary taste and national character.

ART. XII. The Works of the Right Rev. William Warburton, D. D. Lord Bishop of Gloucester. A New Edition. To which is prefixed, a Discourse by way of General Preface; containing some Account of the Life, Writings, and Character of the

Author.

Author. By Richard Hurd, D. D. Lord Bishop of Worcester. 6 vols. 8vo. London; Cadell and Davies. 1811.

THE learned and celebrated author of these volumes died in the year 1779. In 1788 a magnificent edition of his works, of which only 250 copies were printed, issued from the press of Mr. Nichols; and after a lapse of six years, a Discourse, by way of General Preface, containing an Account of the Life, Writings, and Character of the Author,' was added by his confidential friend and admirer, the late Bishop of Worcester.

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In that interval the learned and eloquent author of a most malignant attack on the right reverend biographer, ironically compli mented the editors on their discretion in not venturing upon a larger impression; but as the members of the Warburtonian school died off, the fame of their founder revived; and the growing demands of public curiosity are now gratified by the works of this extraordinary man in a less expensive and more tangible form.

Warburton was a kind of comet which came athwart the system of the Church of England, at a time when all its movements were proceeding with an uniformity extremely unfavourable to the appearance of such a phænomenou. Accordingly the disturbing force was strongly felt, and it was long before his excentricities were regarded without a degree of terror and aversion, which precluded the operation of curiosity, the chief feeling which his airy and fantastic motions ought to have excited. About the same time the tranquillity of the established church was disturbed in another quarter, and by causes of which the effects have been far more permanent. For while Warburton was speculating, and his adversaries replying; while the attention of the clergy was directed to the nature, rights, and authority of a church, to its connexion and alliance with the state, or to a new and revolting theory, which founded the Revelation given to Moses on the exclusion of the doctrine of a future state, practical religion was in a manner forgotten; preaching had degenerated into mere morality, and the influence of the clergy over their people diminished in proportion. In this state of frigid apathy, as the most tremendous volcanos issue from the region of snow, a violent eruption of fanaticism took place; and the formal, the timid, and even the sagacious within the pale of the establishment, were now content to receive as an ally against the common enemy, the fantastic but powerful speculator, who had so long been the object of their terror.

The fortunes of this singular man were no less extraordinary than his talents and temper. Though born to a narrow, or rather to no fortune, and at the usual age articled to a country attorney in a remote village, it might indeed have been foreseen, that a genius like

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his,