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⚫ Hold, Sir, at least my reputation spare,

And add another falsehood if you dare,'* &c.

The tale of Rachael possesses no novelty of incident. It's an old t and often told,' of an absent lover and a faithful mistress; but the deve tion of the effect of the sudden appearance and as sudden departare of te lover, after a long absence, on a mind broken, wearied, and met finely painted, and the following lines are unsurpassed for their meant truth and beauty:

He tried to sooth her, but retired afraid

T'approach, and left her to return for aid.

None came! and Rachel in the morn was found
Turning her wheel without its spindles round,

With household look of care, low singing to the sound.

Parts of the story of " Villars" are good in the execution, but it an agreeable picture; and we think that neither the morality, the d nor the feeling of the author, would approve or applaud a huste: takes to his bosom a wife who had been living in adulterous estrangem and who at last is forcibly and unwillingly separated from her guilty st mour. This is not the only tale in Mr. Crabbe's works, where a humanity triumphs over all honour, and a sense of justice connecte. every pure and tender emotion, and virtuous principle, and ho feeling. It may do very well in a German play, but we did not to find it in Mr. Crabbe's poems. The guilt is unfortunately S nothing on earth can expiate without lowering the moral purity of the ing that pardons. Forgiveness must be sought elsewhere, and obtained; but here, to use the words of Young,

If I forgive, the world will call me kind :

If I receive her in my arms again,

The world will call me very-very kind.

The Ancient Mansion"t is well described, the accompaniments ciously chosen, and the description conveyed in some of Mr. Crabbe's versification. We can only afford room for the latter part.

Here I behold no puny works of art,

None give me reasons why these views impart

Such charm to fill the mind, such joy to sooth the heart.

These very pinnacles and towers small,

And windows dim, have beauty in them all.

How stately stand yon pines upon the hill,

How soft the murmurs of that living rill,

And o'er the park's tall paling, scarcely higher,

Peeps the low Church, and shows the modest spire.
Unnumbered violets on these banks appear,

And all the first-born beauties of the year.

The grey-green blossoms of the willows bring

The large wild bees upon the labouring wing;

In this tale the last line is defective in metre, whether designedly or not we not say,

Oh! happy, happy, happy pair! both sought
Both seeking-catching both-and caught.

+ The ancient mansion reminds us, that the artist who has given a plete Crabbe's house at Parham, in Vol. III. has made a complete mistake, and en house in which Mr. Crabbe never lived; he has in fact given Parham Hell 28 of Parham Lodge! It certainly is far the more picturesque mansion; and hear! bably was preferred.

Then comes the summer with augmented pride,
Whose pure small streams along the valleys glide.
Her richer Flora their brief charms display,
And as the fruit advances, fall away.

Then shall th' autumnal yellow clothe the leaf,
What time the reaper binds the burden'd sheaf.
Then silent groves denote the dying year,
The morning frost and noontide gossamer.
And all be silent in the scene around,
All save the distant sea's uncertain sound.
Or here and there the gun, whose loud report
Proclaims to man that Death is but his sport.
And then the wintry winds begin to blow,
Then fall the flaky stars of gathering snow.
When on the thorn, the ripening sloe, yet blue,
Takes the bright varnish of the morning dew;
The aged moss grows brittle on the pale,
The dry boughs splinter in the windy gale,
And every changing season of the year

Stamps on the scene its English character.*

In the "Wife and the Widow," the concluding verses are neatly and forcibly expressed (p. 199), as is also the character of the frivolous and foolish Belinda Waters, who after coquetting long, at last marries a poor surgeon's mate, and suffers accordingly.

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She wonders much-as why they live so ill,
Why the rude butcher brings his weekly bill;
She wonders why that baker will not trust,
And says-most truly says-indeed he must;
She wonders where her former friends are gone;
And thus from day to day she wonders on.
Howe'er she can-she dresses gaily yet,
And then she wonders how they came in debt;
Her husband loves her-and in accent mild
Answers and treats her like a fretted child;
But when he, ruffled, makes severe replies,
And seems unhappy-then she pouts and cries,

She wonders when she'll die. She faints, but never dies.

Danvers and Rayner" is a good story of a purse-proud parvenu; and the disenchantment of the lover at the end, is told with humour, though it is too long for us to give. "Master William, or Lad's Love," is of the same kind, where a quixotic and romantic youth falls in love with the gardener's niece; and his fancy invests her with such perfections as to make him even hesitate in venturing to declare his love. The dream is sadly broken in pieces by a sudden disclosure, abruptly made, that she is going to be married to the Footman.

Who takes her arm? and oh! what villain dares
To press those lips? not e'en her lips he spares.
Nay she herself, the Fanny, the divine,

Lip to his lip can wickedly incline.

The lad, unnerv'd by horror, with an air

Of wonder quits her arm and looks despair.

Nor will proceed-oh, no! he must return,

Tho' his drown'd sight cannot the path discern, &c.

In the Tales of the Hall (Book iv.), in the adventures of Richard, is a very elegant and just description of Autumn in the country, beginning

It was a fair, and mild autumnal sky,

And earth's ripe treasures met the admiring eye, &c.-Vol. VI. p. 71.

'Come, Master William, come Sir, let us on,
What can you fear? you're not afraid of John.
What ails our youngster?' quoth the burly swain
Six feet in height, but he inquires in vain.
William, in deep resentment, scans the frame
Of the fond giant, and abhors his name,
Thinks him a demon of the infernal brood,
And longs to shed his most pernicious blood.
Again the monster spake in thoughtless joy,
We shall be married soon, my pretty boy!
And dwell in Madam's cottage-where you'll see
The strawberry bed and cherries on the tree.'
Back to his home in silent scorn return'd

The indignant boy, and all endearment spurn'd.;

"The Will" is excellent, natural in its design, and well finished in it detail, but perhaps falling off a little towards the end; and the story a "The Cousins" admirably delineates the unsuspecting and disinterested feelings of a young woman, and her all-confiding lover; and the cold a culating selfishness, duplicity, and hardheartedness of a treachero worldy-minded man.

And thus at length we are arrived at the end of this pleasing and clever volume, which the editors judged rightly in giving to the public. Of Mr. Crabbe's former fame it has in no manner impaired the lustre; while to the public it has afforded a few more hours of innoc gratification. If compared to his former productions, a critical an curious eye may perhaps detect in some cases a feebleness of executiu, and an incompleteness of design :-may find the colouring of a faiste hue, and some few of the tales deficient in power and spirit-but we can not see that the best of them are at all below the level of Mr. Crabbe general power of writing. We have not, it is true, those tempestuo descriptions of his earlier scenes; the terrific and heart-rending descrip tions that are to be found in Ellen Orford, or in that half-dæmon and had brute Peter Grimes, or in the Prisons; but in these perhaps the trag distress has not been sufficiently softened and subdued by the ideal a poetical, which ought always to maintain their elevated dominion over the violence of passion, while the reason and the taste are to be satisfied eva among the most engrossing and painful impressions. We have alluded before to those earlier paintings by our great artist, of debased humanity, where the whole soul has become diseasd by crime; the moral nature disappeared in dark perspective behind the savage and sensual, and where the gloom and blackness that brooded over it, were only occasionally broken through by the electric fires of the unhallowed and ungovernable will. There are, too, the not less affecting scenes of a heart withering away in an uncongenial atmosphere, and in defenceless misery; where long and fatal sorrow, grown up from early emotions, and youthful feelings, and modest and delicate desires, is first seen by a few sunny tears and tender alarms, and timid hopes; afterwards in patient resignation, and silent suffering, and virgin pride; then, as blow followed blow, and a fresh tide of calamity rushed in e'er the former had ebbed away, the progress of misery is beheld gradually increasing in power, and growing sterner in feature, unfortunately mastering all other passions and feelings, till it gains entire possession of every faculty, banishing even hope itself, and making its habitation the receptacle of thoughts and images more forlorn and fearful than the grave. There is a life, alas !-thrice happy they who know not of it-that is said to resemble one single-one endless sigh!

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Such were the masterly productions of Mr. Crabbe's muse, in the fulness of his strength, and when his genius was in its meridian power and heat. The present Tales belong rather to the subdued and chastened fancy which shed a mild gleam on the evening of his poetical life. They hold, as it were, a middle place between the deeply tragic and the ludicrous; serious some, some pathetic, and some almost conversational and familiar. Yet they exhibit the same knowledge of the human heart; the same profound view-" of the life of nature and her mysterious springs," the inconsistencies of disappointed passion, and the wanderings of a misguided and distressed mind; the same picturesque situations; the same power of collecting all the impressions in one focus to bear with the greatest effect; the same fine harmonies and contrasts, colours delicate or strong, allusions playful or pathetic, grave or gay; the same discrimination and selection of facts, images and illustrations; with the same occasional fluity of detail, weakness of expression, and tameness of versification.

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GEOLOGY NOT SUBVERSIVE OF DIVINE REVELATION.

MR. URBAN, Gray's Inn. ON some points I readily agree with your reviewer in his critique on the Rev. H. Coles' "Popular Geology subversive of Divine Revelation," in your Sept. number, p. 283.; fully indeed, in his general negative to that proposition; but I cannot but think, that in detracting from the inspiration of the Book of Genesis, in support of his argument, he has advanced a position at once erroneous, and dangerous to the cause of revealed religion. Your reviewer, if I understand the end of his argument rightly, admits that Moses, from oral tradition, and various writings of others, compiled an account of the creation, which he did not himself clearly understand, and which the progress of science now shews to our senses and understandings, was not entirely true. Can any cne coolly advance this of the man who conversed with God, and was the medium through which God communicated to his peculiar people the Jews, his laws and commandments? who, in the power of the Almighty defied the sublunary power and malice of the Egyptian Tyrant, and forced his people from his unwilling grasp by the most awful and tremendous miracles, and was the ruler and lawgiver of that people for so many years, under the immediate guidance and personal dictation of the Almighty?

Whether Moses had the account of

the creation immediately revealed to himself, (which, from his frequent communion with God, is most probable) or derived it from those to whom it had been revealed, is, perhaps, not very material, but Moses was not likely to write from slight or inconsiderable information, still less from guess. The account of the creation, (slight as it is, though perhaps sufficiently full for the comprehension of mankind at the time it was written,) must have been the subject of Revelation, because man was the last work of the creation, and could of course know nothing of what passed before Adam existed, but from Revelation. If we may doubt any part of Moses' account of the creation, we may also doubt his information that, "in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth."

Now, believing, as I do implicitly, in the inspiration of the Mosaic account, I apprehend that the best and truest way of supporting the converse of Mr. Coles's proposition, is, to shew that popular geology is not only consistent with, but supported by that account of the creation; which I now propose to do by an examination of the first Chapter of Genesis.

It was immaterial to the principal end of the writings of Moses, (the knowledge of the true God, and his laws) whether the world was created in six days, or whether the Almighty

left each stage of the creation for a certain number of ages, to ripen and adapt itself for the next stage, and finally for the use of man, in what we are accustomed to call the course of nature. In order that mankind should be assured that God was the author and creator of the universe, and all that it contains, he mentions the fact of the creation, with very slight and few particulars certainly, but few as they are, and perhaps vague, we are bound, (if we acknowledge the authority of the sacred Scriptures,) to believe that every part is strictly true when rightly understood. Although "the Biblical composers" may have expressed themselves" in the language and philosophy then adapted to the comprehension and erudition of their audience;" we must not forget, that "whatsoever things were written aforetime, were written for our learning;" Rom. xv. 4. "and they were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come;" 1 Cor. x. 11.

Moses commences thus, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." When that beginning was, is not told us, but it was before the work of the six days or periods mentioned afterwards; the earth and the water were, they were in esse to be spoken of and described; and the creation of earth and water forms no part of the six periods. There was probably, after the first, or beginning act of creation, a mixed mass of earth and water, somewhat similar to what we now know as mud,† and without the element of fire, and other component parts of the later organizations, and certainly without its proper atmosphere, or firmament. The first addition was light and heat, then, after an atmosphere, proper for its

Mr. D'Israeli in his Revolutionary Poem, considers that forests and trees were made previous to the Earth. (p. 11.)

The forest sinks, nor roots co-nate with chaos, withstood their energy.-EDIT.

+ The shape of the Earth, flattened at the poles and swelling at the equator, is which would be assumed by a loose or

id mass in rotatory motion.--EDIT.

ripening to a further progressive fir had been given to it, we find the is mention of the earth and the m during the six noticed periods ins tion," And God sai?, Let the wate under the heaven be gathered netr into one place, and let the ca appear, and it was so: And called the dry land earth; and gathering together of the wata He seas." Then follow other stan of progressive improvement, an crease, until the glorious work of mo tion was consummated in the form of man to govern and enjoy at 'been previously made and ripetes goodness and perfection for his t It now remains to speak duration of the six days, or pe of the creation mentioned by M. and here, we must not take th count in its strictly literal sense 5 must make allowance for the fig style of the original language, *continually occurs in the Sacred ings, and not more allowance tha constantly made for other and sim passages. The days mentioned Mosaic account cannot mean the of twelve hours, or the day and of twenty-four hours, as at pre-understood in common pariarce cause day and night in such s could not exist until the sun created, in the fourth period; be we have abundant authority in Holy Scriptures themselves for L standing the term ‘day' in an extet. sense. Job, x. 5. in addressi Almighty, says "Are thy days as days of man? Are thy years as days?" and in the Psalm xc. 4. thousand years in thy sight are be yesterday;" and the "times," "days," and "months" of Da and the Revelation of St. John, ar terpreted in an extended and figurat sense by all the commentators in pounding those prophecies. W extent of time elapsed between creation of the heaven and the " in the beginning, and the commer ment of the further progress de the six periods, and what was duration of each of those subsequ periods, is perhaps left for resea and science to develope to an age y′′ pared by progressive advancemen know and understand it, and ins of flying in the face of Divine Ro

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