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charged to be fure not to forget to bring home Peregrine Pickle's Adventures; and when Dolly is fent to market to fell her eggs, fhe is commiffioned to purchase The Hiftory of Pamela Andrews. In fhort, all ranks and degrees now read. But the most rapid increase of the fale of books has been fince the termination of the late war.

A number of book-clubs are alfo formed in every part of England, where each member fubfcribes a certain fun quarterly to purchase books: in fome of these clubs the books, after they have been read by all the fubfcribers, are fold among them to the higheft bidders, and the money produced by fuch fale is expended in fresh purchases; by which prudent and judicious mode, each member has it in his power to become poffeffed of the work of any particular author he may judge deferving a fuperior degree of attention; and the members at large enjoy the advantage of a continual fucceffion of different publications, inftead of being reftricted to a repeated perufal of the fame authors; which muft have been the cafe, if so rational a plan had not been adopted.

The Sunday Schools are fpreading faft in moft parts of England, which will accelerate the diffusion of knowledge among the lower claffes of the community, and in a very few years exceedingly increase the fale of books.'

We shall not follow Mr. L. in his travels to Edinburgh and other places; nor in his details of his business and private life. His book is fo open to a charge of vanity, that we could not wield a weapon against a man wholly unarmed, efpecially as his vanity is feldom offenfive; but the following inftance extorts a smile: At Weymouth we had the honour of walking the Efplanade, with their majefties, and the four princeffes, and every one who came. Could Mr. L. read French, he might have met with an antidote. A young nobleman faid to his uncle, I have been at the levee, and the king faid many good things to me and I, anfwered the uncle, have been at a fermon of Bourdaloue's, who faid many wife things

to me.

To the book, which feems an honeft faithful narrative, is prefixed a portrait fo flattering as to bear little refemblance; a defect common to moft English portraits: we prefer honest Dutch painters and engravers, who never venture to improve the works of nature.

Mifcellaneous Poems, and a Tragedy. By Mrs. Weft. 8vo. 45. Faulder. 1791.

MRS. Weft's poetical abilities are not of an inferior caft.

She mentions her having laboured under the difadvantages of a confined education, and that the duties of domestic life have allowed her but little leifure for literary purfuits.

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That time, however, has not been idly spent. The four odes which occur first in this performance evidently owe their birth to a reflecting and cultivated mind. A text of fcripture is prefixed to the two former, which ferves as a thefis for the fubfequent poems. The fecond is on the following fubject: 'What is man that thou art mindful of him!' Pfal. viii. 5. It concludes thus:

• Turn then, ye erring pilgrims! turn,
Who perfect blifs on earth pursue:
Her steps ye never fhall difcern;

To Heav'n the radiant cherub flew,
When Adam fell. Go feek her there
By humble virtue, ardent prayer,
And Charity's directing light.

Not unregarded shall ye figh:
Faith wafts your withes to the fky,

And years of endlefs joy fhall your defires requite.

No more of partial evil tell,

Suppress the false repining lay:

Will not Eternity dispell

The forrows of life's little day?

Ev'n Death, the laft refifting foe,

To her refigns his ebon bow

And nervelefs drops his murd'rous hand.
The Chriftian, by her name impell'd,
Fenc'd by Devotion's facred fhield,

Dares the feducing world and hell's infernal band.

Along the pilgrimage of life

To heav'n fubmiffive, fee him go.

Secure from paffion's mental ftrife,

He feels not paffion's restless woe.

If to his lot indulgent heav'n

A path lefs intricate has giv'n,

And Arew'd it with fome cafual flowers;

Grateful he crops the bloffoms fair,

And cultivates thofe plants with care,

Whofe fragrance will revive in heaven's ambrofial bowers.

But if through deferts, wild and rude,

With dangers fraught, his journey lies,

His mind, each rebel thought fubdu'd,
An intellectual calm fupplies;

While innocence, with gentle beam,
Attracts affection and esteem,

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Still to the virtuous fufferer given.
Such are the antidotes to woe

Thefe fublunary scenes bestow;

Such is our portion here; and our reverfion, Heaven.'

The third, to Independence, difplays likewife both thought and imagination: it concludes with very proper advice to the fons of affluence and fame,' which all muft allow to be very good, and few will practife. The fourth, for the year 1989, exhibits Mrs. Weft's political opinions; in which the avows her zeal for freedom and the rights of man. Her fentiments, however, are neither illiberal nor improper. She is no wild enthufiaft, who, in pursuit of those rights, would trample on all falutary laws and ordinances. She is indeed a votary of freedom, but of freedom with Aftræa join'd.' The other poems are in general not inferior to the odes. They are of various kinds; elegies, characters, paftorals, &c. The latter are evidently written after the manner of Shenstone, and it is not unfuccefsfully copied. The paftoral in which the scene is laid in the Highlands, poffeffes most originality; and the imagery is picturesque and appropriate. My temper is ardent and warm,

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I was bred on the mountain's rough fide;
The labour, that strengthen'd my arm,
With courage my bofom fupply'd,
My virtues resemble a foil

That boafts no improvement from art 5
The offspring of nature and toil

They glow with full force in my heart.
I have met the keen wind of the North,

When it brought the thick tempeft of snow;
I have feen the fork'd lighning burst forth,
When the forefts have shrunk from the blow.
To rescue my lambs and my sheep

The loud mountain torrent I've brav'd :
It was clamorous, ftormy, and deep,
But the tremblers I happily fav'd.

I have climb'd to the top of the cliff,
Whose fummit bends far o'er the main,
From thence I've look'd out for the skiff
Of the fifher, beneath me, in vain.
Yet here, on it's uttermoft verge,
Their young ones the penguins will rear;
What time they from ocean emerge,
And spread their broad pinions in air.

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There

There the eggs of the fea-fowl I fought,
And the famphire that redolent blooms;
From that eminence haply I brought

The feathers that form thy light plumes.
There I clung, while the fpray of the waves
Rofe like mifts o'er the rocks at my feet,
And the birds darting fast from the caves,
Seem'd with clamour to guard their retreat,
I have fail'd on the lake in my boat,

When the Weft hath look'd dufky and red,
When the fea-mew, with ominous note,
Seem'd to call to the feaft of the dead.
From the hills the ftorm menacing howl'd,
The firs thund'ring fell down the steep;
O'er the fky darkness awfully fcowl'd,
And horribly roar'd the vex'd deep,
My veffel o'erwhelm'd in the fhock,
I rofe on the falt furge up-born;
I fwam to the caves in the rock,

And waited the coming of morn.
There chill'd by the keen driving blast,
And drench'd by the pitilefs rain,
The day has reliev'd me at laft,

But the night never heard me complain,

I have paft o'er the mountain, which fhrouds
Its fummit in regions divine,

When the moon, failing fwift through the clouds,

Tipp'd with filver the arrowy pinę.

Thus I met the proceffion of death;
It pafs'd me in shadowy glare ;
Slow it mov'd to the valley beneath,
Then melted illufive in air.'

Some flight errors might be pointed out, befides that relae tive to the penguins; the moft unfortunate birds that could have been introduced, as, inftead of broad pinions, they can fcarcely be faid to have any at all except what affift them in running or fwimming. It is equally impoffible for them to fly, and for us to account for their vifit to the Hebrides, or what to understand by the feathers that form thy light plumes. -We have no inclination, however, to dwell on faults, where the beauties are so much more numerous and prominent. The Tragedy will not bear a very critical examination; but it may be read with pleasure.

Poems

Poems on various Occafions. By Lawrence Hynes Halloran. 410. 55. fewed. Trewman, Exeter. 1791.

An Ode on the propofed Vifit of their Majefties to the City of Exeter. By Lawrence Hynes Halloran. 4to. 15. fewed. Brice, Exeter. 1791.

THE author of these miscellaneous poems, as far as we

can judge from the compofitions themselves, writes with much facility. We commonly meet with a clearness of expreffion and an easy flow of diction, which is feldom compatible with laborious ftudy and fevere application. We are therefore induced to pay credit to his affertion, that they were for the greater part written in the evening (the only interval of relaxation from feverer ftudies which his employ allows), when both body and mind were already fatigued with the business of the day.' We however greatly question how far they may anfwer the motive he has thought proper to assign for his prefent as well as his former publication:- prodeffe et delectare:-the former for himself, the latter for his readers. The fubjects are either too hacknied, or too little interefting to the public, for an author, unless poffeffing very fuperior talents, to entertain any well-grounded expectation of an extenfive fale. Mr. Halloran would probably be more fuccessful in obtaining the utile for himself, and the dulce for his readers, were he to exercise his talents on fome well-chofen fubject, and to dedicate a greater portion of his time to the revifing, correcting, and improving it. From fuch a work he might acquire more reputation than from a hundred poetical effays like the prefent, which are of such a nature as most people of poetical taste and cultivated minds could eafily write. The Elegy under a gallows is not the worft of these poems. The reader will not be displeased with an extract from it. A traveller is fuppofed to be bewildered in a ftormy night,

In vain his anxious eye fome Cot explores,
As o'er the dreary heath his footfteps wind;

Around his head the ruthless tempeft pours,
And Fear, and Anguifh prefs him close behind.

And now a blaze of lightning flashing, bright,
Aghaft, -he views the awful Gibbet near;
And flowly rifing from the neighb'ring height,
The fancied forms of fhadowy Ghosts appear.

In airy circles while around they flit,
And with thrill fhrieks lament their fatal doom;
Lo! ftill Attention on yon hillock fit,
An hollow voice thus iffuing from the tomb!

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