who is left to read these books by himself, and afterwards asked easy questions on their contents, with references to the page for the proof of what is asserted, will be led by degrees to what Miss Edgeworth evidently wishes to fix in the young rational mind-a habit of thinking, instead of (as is the case in too many schools) a knack of gabbling a parcel of words by rote, which tend to no good purpose, and which have but one fortunate circumstance attending them—that they are soon again forgotten. ART. 41.-Three Stories for young Children. By Maria Edgeworth. 24mo. 6d. Johnson. 1802. These little stories are by the same author as the foregoing articles, and are executed in the same profitable manner. ART. 42 -Moral Tales; designed to amuse the Fancy and improve the Hearts of the rising Generation. By the Rev. Edmund Butcher. To which is added, by a Lady, The Unhappy Family, or the dreadful Effects of Vice. A Tale. 12mo. 23. Boards. Vernor and Hood. 1801. Mr. Butcher has here produced two pretty little stories for the use of children. Henry's residence on the uninhabited island is too much a copy of Robinson Crusoe; and it is not likely that bread, an axe, and just such other things as were immediately useful, should be the only articles cast on shore from a wreck ;-but upon the whole the tales are both instructive and entertaining. The lady makes us laugh in her story, by recovering a person from insensib.lity with narcotics. This female physician surely could not know that narcotic signifies stupefying. POETRY. ART. 43-Lines on the Death of the late Sir Ralph Abercromby. By the Author of the Conspiracy of Gowrie. 4to. Is. Bell. 1801. Shades of the brave, firm honour's martial train, On Asia's neighbour strand in conflict slain; Who, whilst the vanquish'd crescent trail'd the ground, And visit once again with holy love The scenes where first you drank the light on earth, To scan the thoughts that stirr'd your mortal frame,→→→ Hither, tho' now, perchance, decreed to feel Well, well ye know, that never nobler heart Your waste of valour in undying verse; P.9. These lines are evidently produced by a writer of more than common powers: but the poem, from its brevity, is more adapted for a news-paper or magazine than for separate publication. We cannot but remark the adulatory dedications that disgrace the present and former production of this author. ART. 44-Ode to the Memory of Sir Ralph Abercromby, and the glorious 21st of March, 1801. By Anthony Todd Thomson. 4to. is. 6d. Trepass. 1801. Sterling poetry, like sterling cash, is not always to be had on demand. Upon these temporary subjects better lines can hardly be expected than the following. • Where the red sun with solemn march Souls of the brave in battle slain ! A partner of their blissful band: Ah! why is heard the voice of woe? Why is dropp'd the pitying tear? Bedeck not with the cypress bough The hoary victor's honour d bier: He needs no tear, in Honour's arms who dies, Nor Sorrow's sable train to grace his obséquies." P.9. CRIT.REV. Vol.34. March, 1802. 2 B 354 The pamphlet concludes with two of the worst rhymes we have ever seen. • Stranger! exultest thou in joyous youth, ART. 45.-Ocean: a Poem, in Two Parts. By Mason Chamberlin, 8vo. 1s. 6d. sewed. Clarke. 1801. If we examine this poem by the rules of Horace, and transpose the words, we shall make it sermo merus; as we have fully experienced by transposing, as Bayes says, different passages. The prose however is neat and pleasing. The picture of the fisherman was never a portrait; for different are the manners of these rough sons of Neptune; and the descriptions are in general neither animated nor picturesque. ART. 46.-Carminum rariorum Macaronieorum Delectus, in Usum Ludorum. Fasciculus Primus. 1801. Macaronic poetry soon loses its relish; but we find in this collection entertainment of a superior kind. The first only is a macaronic poem-the Dunghill Battle between Lady Scotstarvet and Lady Newbaras,' written by William Drummond early in the seventeenth century. The manners of this period are antiquated, and the humor to us at least somewhat obsolete. The second is a very classical and almost literal translation of Christ's Kirk on the Green, in Latin hexameter and pentameter; and the third, a humorous version of the contest between Ajax and Ulysses. Of course, the latter appears in a ludicrous garb, and not very unlike Cotton's Travesty of Homer. These two last poems possess much merit in their different lines, and will be highly entertaining to those acquainted with the Scottish dialect.-The Ludi Apollinares allude, if we mistake not, to the Golf club on the Links of Leith. ART. 47-The Sacred Meditations of John Gerhard, translated into Blank Verse. By W. Papillon, Clerk, M.A. c. 8vo. 5s. Boards. Egerton. 1801. That poetry is too often made subservient to very bad purposes, must be lamented by every Christian; and that it may be advantageously employed in the holiest exercises, the Scriptures abundantly testify: yet this attempt to make it more profitable will by no means answer the writer's laudable expectations; and he is equally unfortunate in the choice of his model, and the dress in which he has clothed the theologian in our language. It is German divinity in blank verse, or rather prose numbered by syllables. ART. 48.-The Sorrows of Love; a Poem. In Three Books. 8vo. 45. Boards. 1801. Of this author we can only say, that he writes smooth verses, and understands Persian. ART. 49.-Alfonso, King of Castile: a Tragedy, in Five Acts. By M. G. Lewis. 8vo. 2s. 6d. Bell. 1801. With no inconsiderable portion of modesty Mr. Lewis offers this piece to the public, not as a good play,' says he, but as the best that I can produce. Very possibly no body could write a worse tragedy; but it is a melancholy truth that I cannot write a better.' P. IV. In regard to the plot, we have assuredly no right to examine it by the light of history, because the author candidly confesses that he has departed from it. He has however, we must acknowledge, not diminished the interest which the reader feels in the fate of his characters. The versification is in general bold and spirited, but the thoughts are frequently too high-flown and overstrained. The course of Mr. Lewis's reading may be traced in this, as well as his other works; all his passions are expressed in ungovernable language; and the wild impetuosity of Schiller and the German dramatists is visible in every page. It appears as if the author were laying great violence on his inclination3 in keeping the ghosts off the stage in the fourth and fifth acts, for he cannot forbear making them visible to Ottilia and Amelrosa. We, beg leave to congratulate him on this victory over his prejudices; and to remind him, that true fame consists in the approbation of the discerning few, not in the shouts of the vulgar. Eripe turpi Colla jugo, Liber, liber sum, dic! age. HORACE. ART. 50.-Holiday Time; or, the School-boy's Frolic: a Farce in Two Acts. As performed by his Majesty's Servants of the Theatre-Royal Norwich, with universal Applause. By Francis Lathom. 8vo. 15. 6d. Longman and Rees. The mind of Mr. Lathom may be perceived here, as in other works, to be capable of considerable invention; but this farce is not of consequence enough to merit much investigation. Although it be not in our power to bestow upon it any great share of praise; yet, to use his own words, he shall not in us meet with critics sufficiently sour to frown upon a School-boy's Frolic.' NOVELS. ART. 51.-Letitia; or, the Castle without a Spectre. By Mrs. Hunter of Norwich. 4 Vols. 12mo. 1l. 1s. Boards. Longman and Rees. 1801. A fitter title for this work would have been The Letitias,' for it is the history of three-the grandmother, mother, and daughter. Miss Letitia Dashmore marries Mr. Marchmount; their daughter Letitia marries Mr. Rushwood; and, again, their daughter Letitia marries Alfred Langstone. The first of these ladies is but seventeen when her story commences, and the novel is not concluded till the last has presented her husband with two boys. It is a pity that Mrs. Hunter did not make one of them a girl, and then she might have gone on with the history of Letitia ad infinitum. The work however is not destitute of merit; but the continuation from generation to generation' cannot fail to tire a reader's patience, ART. 52.-Helen of Glenross; a Novel. By the Author of Historic Tales. 4 Vols. 12mo. 16s. Boards. Robinsons. 1801. The author of the volumes before us is of the penseroso school. The tale does not end, like the generality of novels, in a happy wedding, but in the death of those who had married unhappily. In the common tales of devoted beauty, a delicate mind finds so little sympathy, that it hardly serves for warning against errors too broad to require much caution to avoid. But the purest may sympathise in Helen's fate-may learn diffidence from her story, and be convinced it is easier to avoid imprudence, than to prevent or remedy the evils that follow it.' Vol. iv. P. 264. The story is an interesting one, and the incidents are pathetic. The writer also evinces some poetical merit in the ballad style, by a reverie on the daisy, in the second volume. ART. 53-Ariel; or the Invisible Monitor. In Four Volumes. 12mo. 18s. served. Lane. 1801. There is a peculiar cast of character assigned to one of the personages in this novel, which, although extravagant, will gain it the favour of the fair, and which is indeed a much more pleasant piece of machinery than ghosts and goblins-the attendance of the chevalier St. Alvars upon Rosaline in the guise of an aerial spirit. Notwithstanding that this circumstance is a little too fanciful, we cannot refuse our approbation to the work in general. The incidents are, such as to interest the reader continually; and the fortitude of the heroine is dignified and constant. We were sorry, however, to see that Sir Walter's conduct did not rise equally high with her own; for Adolphus's head might have been turned by anxiety, and Rosaline's heart broken by grief, had not the baronet's folly been grati fied by her proving in the end a sprig of nobility. ART. 54.-The History of Netterville, a Chance Pedestrian; a Novel. 2 Vols. 12mo. 8s. Boards. Crosby and Co. 1802. We cannot say much in favour of these volumes. The catastrophe is not badly brought about: but there is hardly an event or an expression in the work that may not be met with in former works of this nature. MISCELLANEOUS LIST. ART. 55. An accurate and impartial Narrative of the Apprehension, Trial, and Execution on the gth of June 1798, of Sir E. W. Crosbie, Bart; including a Copy of the Minutes of the Proceedings of the CourtMartial which tried him; together with authentic Documents relating to the whole of his Conduct, and the Proceedings against him. Published, in Justice to his Memory, by his Family. 8vo. 3. Hatchard, 1801. The family of the deceased publish these proceedings to vindicate |