1

Struck to the soul at this dread scene,

All motionless she stood !
To view the raven bird obscene,

Drink up the clotting blood.
What horrors did her breast invade,

When as she nearer drew ?
The features that the raven fed,

Her lover gave to view.
With Shrieks she rent th' affrighted air !

To tears had fond recourse ; .
With frantic hand now tore her hair,

Now sunk upon the corfe.
Then throwing round a troubled glance,
With madness'

ray

inflam'd: Beheld fome travellers advance,

To whom the thus exclaim'd:
6 Ye base inhuman train, away!

What urg'd you to this deed ?
You've turn’d my gentle love to clay,

And bad me. sorrow wed.
· Hark, hark! the raven flaps her wings-

She drinks his blood again
Ab ! now. The feeds on my heart-strings

Oh Jesu! soothe my pain.”
This scene of woe what cou'd create,

The travellers admir'd;
While shrinking at the blow of fate,

She with a groan expir’d.? This story is not less affecting than that of Pyramus and Thisbe in Ovid's Metamorphoses, and is told with elegant fimplicity. Our readers will not be displeased with another littlepiece, entitled

6. The ROOKERY.
« Oh thou who dwell'st upon the bough,
Whofę tree does wave its verdant brow;
And spreading shades the distant brook,
Accept these lines, dear fifter Rook!
And when thou'st read

my

mournful lay,
Extend thy wing and fly away,
Lest pinion-maiin’d by fiery shot,
Thou Should'It like me bewail thy lot ;

Lest in thy rook’ry be renew'd,
The tragic scene which here I view'd.

• The day declin'd, the evening breeze
Gently rock'd the silent trees,
While spreading o'er my peopled neit,
I hush'd my callow young to rest ;
When suddenly an hostile sound,
Explosion dire ! was heard around:
And level'd by the hand of fate,
The angry bullets pierc'd my "mate ;
1 saw him fall from fpray to spray,
Till on the distant ground he lay:
With tortur'd wing he beat the plain,
And never caw'd to me again.
Many a neighbour, many a friend,
Deform'd with wounds, invok'd their end :
All screaming, .omen'd notes of woeg, vi
'Gainst man our unrelenting foe :
'These eyes beheld my pretty brood,
Flutt'ring in their guiltless blood :
While trembling on the shatter'd tree,
At length the gun invaded me;
But wayward fate severely kind, !
Refus'd the death, I wish'd to find :
Oh ! farewell pleasure, peace, farewell,
And with the gory raven dwell.
Was it for this I shun'd retreat,
And fix'd near man my social seat?
For this destroy'd the infect train,
That eat unseen the infant grain !
For this with many an honest note,
Issuing from my artless throat;
I cheard my Lady, liftning near,

Working in her elbow chair ?" It is impossible to read these concluding lines in which is defcribed the attitude of my Lady, without a smile of approbation.

17. An Ode to Genius. By J. Jennings, Master of St. Saviour's

Free Grammar School, in Southwark. Fol. Pr. 6d. Cabe. The province of genius is like a spacious garden.

Where Mr. Jennings might have gathered many beautiful flowers, he contents himself with selecting two or three daisies. The whole performance is included in four pages.

18. An

i8. An Esay on Friendßhip, a Poem. 410. Pr. 15. Cooke. This Essay contains many falutary precepts concerning friend thip, but nothing uncommon. By the following lines out readers will perceive, that the author's poetical abilities are hot contemptible.

• True friendship grows not with the luft of gain,
Nor will she fort with pleasure's jenjual train;
A conscious indigence can never prove
The vig'rous source of such exalted love;
Nor can like mamers raise the gen'vous fire
In vicious minds; for vice can ne'er inspire
The sacred flame : The slave of vice, forlorn;
E’en on a brother looks with secret fcorii.
Hail, Virtue, then! 'tis thy intrinsic worth
That can alone give genuine friendship birth:
Yet pleasure, profit, and convenience join

To aid its growth, and make it brighter shine.? 19. Elegies. By Thomas Russel, M. D. 470. Pr. iso 6d.

Cadell. It is difficult to ascertain the true character of these Elegies. The author does not appear to want a genius for plaintive poetry. We might produce several passages in which there is agreeable imagery, and an air of folemnity in the flowing of his lines ; yet, on the other hand, in inany instances his nuinbers are prosaic, and his sentiments uncouth. Speaking of a Thipwreck, he says,

The echoing skies the drowning fallors rend,

In fearful fbrieks, with dying groans combin'd;
Some, muttering their pray’rs, th' abyss defcend,

Leaving above their fleeting ghosts behind.' Thefe Elegies are four in number, viz. The Storm, Strephott, a Love-Elegy, and one on the death of Dr. Young.

20. State Nocelity not considered as a Question of Law. 4to. Pri

Is. Kearsiy. The seeming absurdity of this title is compensated by the good intention of the fubject. The author thinks very properly, that in the game of chess, the pawns (which by the bye ought to be spelt Pions, and in the Eastern language signifies common men) are the strength of the state,

Without whose aid, king, queen, and all,

Unguarded stand, and foon must fall. VOL. XXIII. Mørch, 1767.

The

The author has summed up his doctrine in the following lines, which are far from being destitute of good sense and poetical merit.

It matters not one single pin,
Who's in or out-who lose or win :
What hand, of state, assumes the rule;
Who acts the knave, or plays the fool :
Borne down, by this enormous weight,
Rushes the structure of the state,
And till we pay this mighty score,
Reform, grow wise, contract no more ;
Trust me, the nation drags a chain,
Of which the people may complain,
For howsoe'er the game is play'd,
What ministers, or peers are made ;
The publick treasure, how expended ;
The state patch'd up, or wholly mended :
A million voted ev'ry year;
Exchequer sums however clear :
By whomsoe'er these sweets are tasted ;
The people are codilld and basted.

21. The Buck. A Poem. 410. Pr. 15. Smith. This is a very decent moral poem, and executed with a considerable degree of genius. The moral the author inculcates is what we may properly call Anti-Buckism, and we are pleased to have an opportunity of recommending to the younger part of our readers the following picture, which is but too faithfully drawn from the life.

Languishing o'er his morning tea,
This victim of intemperance see;
Who scarce with trembling hand can fill
The draught, to wash down last night's pill.
His blood no more its course maintains,
Through the nice filaments of veins;
The way where acrid falts impede,
Forcing the current to recede ;
Which stagnating upon the heart,
Mocks all the vigilance of art.
But let the muse, with friendly veil,

His dreadful close of life conceal ! 22. Some Obfervations on the Causes of the Dearness of Provisions in general; ana Corn in părticular. 8vo.

Bladon. This author fays, “It is generally allowed by farmers that pas ut at four Thillings the bushel on an average is dear enough

for

Pr. is.

for them, and I think, with some other people, except in years of scarcity, it is in the power of the legiilature to keep the price of the best of that grain between three and five Thil. lings the bushel, if a general and standing law was made that. no bounty should be given when the price of good merchantable wheat exceeded four shillings a bushel, and all exportation (except to our own ports and colonies) prohibited on a severe penalty, when the price of such wheat exceeds five shillings a bushel Winchester measure.

* And here I would premnise the enforcement of a law that no other measure than that should be used in the kingdom, the present inequality being productive of a great many difpufes and quarrels, and some law-suits ; this is the ancient standing measure of the country, and the use of it was intended to be general, and no doubt but it would be better if it was fo, for all sorts of pulse and grain except wheat;, which I think in all reason ought to be sold by weight every where, as the custom is now in some places ; what that weight should be must be determined by better judges than myself, but as the customary weight of four bushels of meal at London is two hundred and a quarter, I should suppose somewhat thereabout might serve for wheat all over the kingdom: perhaps the Efsex millers may object to this weight; as their custom in some part of that country is fourteen pounds in a sack more, and I fuppose the farmers who have not been used to the custom of selling by weight, will object to weighing at all, and be desirous to continue the custom of selling that grain by measure still, but there are many obvious reasons why it should not be fo.'

As we do not profess ourselves judges of this subject, we can only submit the tentiments of every author who writes upon it to the public. Those of the pamphlet before us are among the most rational and practicable of any we have seen. 23. Important Confiderations upon the A&t of the thirty forft of George 11. relative to the Alize of Bread.

8vo. Pri Iso Woodfall.

This writer thinks that Mr. Alderman Dickenson, who ob. tained the act of the 31st of George II. chap. 2d, 29, being

milled by some interested cornfactors, mealmen, and bakers, upon pretence of improving the quality and reducing the price of bread in favour of the poor, undertook, and prevailed on parliament, to pass an act, repealing the former : by which new act, the three different fpecies of allized bread, were reduced to two only, viz. Wheaten and Houshold ; and new prices and new tables of allize, regulating the said prices in

troduced