should be subverted? So will it be with that revolution of which the immediate evils spread themselves year after year more widely. War to palaces, peace to cottages, was the cry with which it began; but in the train of horrors which it has drawn on, the cottage and the palace have been involved in one common ruin. Like a devouring pestilence it has raged through every part of Europe, and now that it can find upon our continent no new field for its ravages, a wider scene of havoc has been opened in America. That the end will be good, we believe with perfect faith :—but well will it be for us, if, in its progress, we discover those errors which have made its course hitherto so fatal. In our foreign relations the wickedness of the enemy has given us all that could be wished; we stand upon that vantage ground which France occupied at the beginning of the contest, and we are at this moment leagued, not with corrupt courts, and oppressive governments, but with people fighting for their independence, and their hearths and altars—and with the friends of liberty wherever they exist. France has done this for us abroad; the example of France must be our security at home it has been lost upon our Heberts and Marats, and Chaumettes, who go on inflaming the passions of the ignorant and ferocious part of the community, as if they themselves were not sure to be the victims in their turn, of the revolution which they are labouring to produce. The circumstances of England give these men far greater advantages than their fellow journalists and writers enjoyed in France. We may hereafter take occasion to show in what manner the state of society in this country is favourable to their nefarious prospects, and what are the means by which they may best be counteracted.

:

ART. XV. Poems, by William Robert Spencer. pp. 240. Svo. London; Cadell and Davis. 1811.

WE

E cannot rank these productions of Mr. Spencer higher than poetry of the boudoir.' The style of writing is perfectly well-bred, civil, and unassuming; but the force and tone of inspiration are wanting. If, indeed, the absence of bold and original thoughts could be compensated by sensibility almost morbid, and by the flutter of wit, which never rises to a painful height, we might repose on Mr. Spencer's pages with delight; for they resemble the conversation of Chaucer's Abbess, in which

All was charity and tender heart.'

in this little collection is a translation of Burgher's

celebrated ballad, which afforded a subject of emulation to contending wits, some years ago. Mr. Spencer's version is sprightly and elegant. The Teutonic, sublime, and terrible, are well given.

The Year of Sorrow is an original Poem, written to commemorate several domestic afflictions, which the course of that period had produced to the author. The idea of this piece is not very fortunate, for it consists merely of a string of epitaphs, without any other plan than that resulting from their dates. He who grieves by the Almanack, can hardly be expected to create much sympathy. There are, however, many good lines,

And art thou gone, Parent* and friend revered!
Parent of her by ev'ry charm endear'd ;
Yes, thou art gone! thy Susan, far away,
Smiled no sweet sunshine on thy closing day,
Not on her breast thy drooping forehead hung,
Not to her lips thy summon'd spirit clung,
Ah! no-whilst others watch'd thy ebbing breath,
And lighten'd by their love the load of Death,
Haply thy Susan, in a distant land,

E'en at that hour the scheme of pleasure plann'd
To meet once more on Danube's happy plain,
And clasp a Mother to her heart again!-p. 41.
Those on the Honourable Mrs. Ellis are still better.
'Breathe soft, Italian gales! and ye that wing
The tideless shore, where never-changing Spring
Rules all the halcyon year, breathe soft, and shed
Your kindliest dews o'er pale Eliza's head!
Propitious grant an anguish'd mother's prayer,
And save a wedded lover from despair.

Vain was the hope-in beauty's earliest pride,
E'en in the porch of life Eliza died;

Ere yet the green leaf of her days was come,

The death-storm rose, and swept her to the tomb!'-p. 44.

The short poem entitled the Visionary, is sweetly expressed; though it is little more than an expansion of a well-known phrase, the ghost of departed pleasure.

When midnight o'er the moonless skies
Her pall of transient death has spread,
When mortals sleep, when spectres rise,
And nought is wakeful but the dead!
No bloodless shape my way pursues,
No sheeted ghost my couch annoys,
Visions more sad my fancy views,
Visions of long departed joys!

The Countess Dowager of Jenison Walworth, Mrs. Spencer's mother, died at Heidelburgh in Germany.'

Since lifeless to my heart ye prove!'—pp. 67, 68.

The ballad of Beth Gelert has been so frequently printed, and has found so much favour with most readers that we do not think it necessary to analyse it. The author has certainly' dallied with the innocence' of his subject, like the old age.'

The Emigrant's Grave contains some pathetic lines, though the measure is unhappy :

Why mourn ye, why strew ye those flow'rets around
To yon new-sodded grave, as ye slowly advance?
In yon new-sodded grave (ever dear be the ground)
Lies the stranger we lov'd, the poor exile of France.
And is the poor exile at rest from his woe,
No longer the sport of misfortune and chance?
Mourn on, village mourners, my tears too shall flow
For the stranger we lov'd, the poor exile of France.
Oh! kind was his nature, tho' bitter his fate,
And gay was his converse, tho' broken his heart;
No comfort, no hope, his own breast could elate,
Though comfort and hope he to all could impart.
Ever joyless himself, in the joys of the plain

Still foremost was he mirth and pleasure to raise ;
How sad was his soul, yet how blithe was his strain,

When he sang the glad song of more fortunate days!'-pp. 134,135. Of the French verses, as we cannot speak well, we shall say nothing. It is impossible to close the volume, without regretting the trifling direction which the author has given to talents and acquirements which might have attained much higher praise, by more vigorous exertions. Where we perceive so much taste and feeling, we are willing to suppose that attention to subjects requiring some thought and research, would have roused the author to strains of a deeper tone. But in the pages before us, the celebration of beauty supersedes all thought, or, at least, only leaves the author a disposition to be ingenious. To become a dangler of the muses is a propensity as unfortunate in literature, as a similar turn in gallantry. The first impulses of imagination, like those of the affections, are debased, if they are not directed to an estimable object; and the generous warmth of those early feelings can hardly be recalled in either case.

ART. XVI. Euripidis Supplices Mulieres, Iphigenia in Aulide, et in Tauris, cum Notis Jer. Marklandi integris, et aliorum selectis. Accedunt de Græcorum quinta Declinatione imparisyllabica, et inde formata Latinorum tertia, Quæstio Grammatica, Explicationes veterum aliquot Auctorum, Epistolæ quædam ad D'Orvillium data, cum Indicibus necessariis. Oxonii. 1811. pp. 544.

4to. et 8vo.

OUT

UT of the long list of our countrymen who cultivated Greek literature during the eighteenth century, seven names of distinguished eminence have lately been selected by a very competent judge of the subject, who, if it were not for the unfortunate circumstance of bis being still alive, would be fairly entitled to a place at the first table of grammatical or critical fame in preference to more than one of the guests whom he has admitted to it. These guests are Richard Bentley, Richard Dawes, Jeremiah Markland, John Taylor, Jonathan or John Toup, Thomas Tyrwhitt, and Richard Porson. We do not object to this selection, although we are not quite certain that one of the preceding names ought not to be exchanged for that of Samuel Musgrave. To be one of seven or eight men who have attained the greatest eminence in a department of knowledge to the pursuit of which hundreds have devoted the greater part of their lives, must be acknowledged to be no inconsiderable achievement. The following character of Markland, which is contained in one of Hurd's letters to Warburton, and which we transcribe from the publication now before us,† must unquestionably be considered as a caricature.

After all, I believe the author is a good man, and a learned; but a miserable instance of a man of slender parts and sense, besotted by a fondness for his own peculiar study, and stupified by an intense application to the minutia of it.'

Much of the asperity of this censure is, of course, to be attributed to that noble contempt, which men of cultivated understandings so frequently feel for literary and scientific pursuits different from their own. As, however, the bishop does not appear to have despised all verbal critics, and as the bishop's patron was also the

It is remarkable, that though his name was Jonathan, in his later writings [for instance, in the title-page and dedication of his edition of Longinus] he always calls himself in Latin Joannes Toupius. In some of the books he had when young, he has written E Libris Jona. Toup.'-Gentleman's Magazine, March, 1785, p. 186. Before he became bold enough to write Joannes Toupius at length, he called himself in Latin Jo. Topius. He adopts this contraction in his Emendationes in Suidam, and he is called Jo. Toupius by Dr. Burney, who writes at full length the names of the other six Magnanimi Heroes.' The old controversy respecting Consul Tertium and Consul Tertio was decided in the same manner. A Gellius, L. K. cap. 1.

See pp. 148 and 149 of the first part or volume.

patron of Toup, it is probable, that the low esteem in which poor Markland was held, arose, in some degree, from his blindness in not discovering that William Warburton was the first divine, philosopher, and critic of the age, and that Richard Hurd was the second. We are willing to recur to any mode of accounting for Hurd's unfavourable opinion of Markland's mental faculties, rather than to allow the enemy to maintain, on such grave authority, that, if labour and patience be not wanting, any blockhead may be fashioned into what is commonly called a great scholar. At the same time, it is not our intention to assert that Markland was a man of genius, or that he possessed a very vigorous understanding. When Dr. Burney saluted him by the name of Magnanimous Hero,' we apprehend that it was not Dr. Burney's intention that the expression should pass current for the highest value at which it is capable of being estimated.* Markland's literary character is not very difficult to describe. He was endowed with a respectable portion of judgment and sagacity. He was very laborious, loved retirement, and spent a long life in the study of the Greek and Latin languages. For modesty, candour, literary honesty, and courteousness to other scholars, he is justly considered as the model which ought to be proposed for the imitation of every critic. Gifted as he was, we are not aware that he could have applied his faculties to any object, with more credit to himself and more advantage to others, than to the cultivation of ancient literature. He certainly would not have been eminent as a theologian, a metaphysician, a political economist, an historian, a poet, an orator, a writer of farces, or a reviewer.

Of all Markland's critical writings, which are numerous, the most elaborate, as well as the most generally esteemed, is his Commentary on the Supplices of Euripides. This work, after it had lain by for several years, was given by the author to the late Dr. Heberden, with full liberty either to print it or to burn it. Dr. Heberden politely chose the former alternative, and, accordingly, in the year 1763, when Markland was more than seventy years of age, the Supplices of Euripides and the Commentary of Markland, together with the Quastio Grammatica, and the Explicationes Veterum aliquot Auctorum, mentioned in the title of this article, were very elegantly printed by William Bowyer in a thin quarto volume. The press was corrected by Dr. Jortin. A second edition, in octavo, with several additions, omissions, and corrections, was pub

It may also be said with great truth, that Magnanimous Heroes is not a fair translation of Magnanimi Heroes. See Warburton's translation of Thomas Bentley's dedication of his Horace. Notes to the Dunciad, B. II, v. 205.

Markland died on the 7th of July, 1776. In a short account of his life, inserted in the Annual Register for that year, he is said to have been born in Aug. 1697.