robbery, is no question; the point to be ascertained is, are they worth our picking up? For ourselves, we have no hesitation in say ing that we are very well pleased that the contents of this poetic postbag have been thrown in our way, though they do not equal those of the Twopenny-post bag, its predecessor. As hedgehog poetry, it may be presumed to be somewhat rough, and to partake of the qualities of a curry-comb rather than of a razor: but, though it is meant to scratch, it is not designed to go so deep as to cause a wound that will fester. The ease and carelessness in these comically satirical epistles are intentionally manifested; since the author, in his Bagatelle, shews that he can write elegantly and harmoniously. We should like to steal one letter out of Humphrey's General-Post Bag: but they are mostly too long for us. We will take the beginning and the ending of 'Lord Cgh to the Earl of L——————).”

My toasts and bon mots in the Louvre.

Now, JENKY, my boy,

Give up to your joy,

Get drunk, quiz the Whigs, and laugh hearty;
Soon let it be known,

A BOURBON's on the throne,

And glum looks the beast BUONaparte.

The great Russian bear

Has won, I declare,

The blessings of every Parisian :
I very much fear,

Bye and bye 'twill appear,

He'll eclipse you and me in ambition,

He told me to-day,

His intention to pay

Very shortly a visit to London;

Pray keep him, mind that,

From private chit-chat

With the PE, or we all shall be undone.

Such lessons he'd read

From his own silly creed,

As might shake us in GE' good graces;

For you and I know,

A very slight blow

Would tumble us both from our places.

He's an old-fashion'd wight,.

And seems to delight

In ministers not overweening,

And

And fancies withal,

The government stall

Is a stable that needs frequent cleaning.

But now, my dear honey,
To go back to BONEY,

A subject replete with acumen;
My hopes and my pride,
Are ill satisfied,

That Paris is not now consuming.

Our wishes thus balking,
What signifies talking

Miss PLATOFF will never be married;
Since the fiend has got free,

'Tis most clear to me

The design of the war has miscarried.
Why, d-nme, what think ye?
This Elba, dear JENKY,

Is an island on Italy verging:
And here the arch-devil,

Still bent upon evil,

May strike out his schemes for emerging.

Had CZAR ALEXANDER

Been less of a gander,

And FRANCIS thought less of his daughter;
I had felt no strange dread,

Lest the sparing his head

Had prepar'd but the way for new slaughter.

• Should those come to shame,
Who his life and his name

In a fit of benevolence spar'd him;
Let them suffer alone,

The fault is their own,

That they had not more fatally snar'd him.

'Pon my soul, my dear lad,
"Twould have made me most glad,

And set all my wits in wild racket,
To have seen the knave dance
From some platform in France,

Enwrapt in an iron-bound jacket.

• The carrion crows then,
Of this mightiest of men,

Might have frequently pilfer'd a dinner;
Shewing fortune her giving

Confines to the living,

And that e'en a dead Emperor can't win her.

And now for the better

Concluding the letter,

Remember

Remember me over your claret ;

Fill your glass to the brim,
And pledge it to him,

Who at fancy's feast gladly will share it.'

From the Bagatelle we copy the following, which is very pretty: • TO A LADY,

Who desired the Author to write some Poetry on her.
Oh! sweet is the music which beauty inspires,
And sweet is the song of the soul;

When the brain is illum'd by the heart's glowing fires,
And the Graces the subject controul !

You ask a poor bard all your charms to rehearse,
And the task would chill apathy warm;
But no pencil can picture, nor pen paint in verse,
What a God must have studied to form!
The poor silly insect that thoughtlessly plays
Round the flame which is pregnant with fate,
While, lur'd by its lustre, is scorch'd in the blaze,
And feels the fell danger too late,-

So the poet, presumptuous, who dares to pourtray
The likeness of charms such as thine,

Must inhale the strong poison that lurks in the lay,
And wound his own heart with the line!'

Art. 18. Love of Fame, a Satire. 8vo. 2s. Sherwood and Co.

1814.

Never was poet more incensed against Bonaparte than this satirist : but he cannot say with Juvenal, Facit Indignatio versum. He is feeble in his wrath, which boils over without appearing to be warm, and flows from page to page without energy and force. A tame and nerveless satirist pelts with feathers, and shews his teeth without being able to bite. Almost superior to our hatred of the monster is our pity for the poet, when for satire he gives us such lines as these:

• And if there live one honest man, who says,
The deeds of Bonaparte are worthy praise,
I like the good physician will reply,

When his own sick the General would destroy,
If to be great require a deed like this,

Do thou seek glory, I'm content with bliss.'

If the author pays his court in this manner, he may talk of his Love f Fame, but it will not be reciprocal.

Art. 19. Poems, or Miscellaneous Metricals, amatory, moral, pathetic, &c. By P. Taylor, Member of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, &c., late Deputy Customer Inwards at the same Port. I2mo. 6s. Boards. Longman and Co. 1814.

How often shall we be under the necessity of cautioning dabblers in rhyme against the flattering advice of friends, and of reminding them that the praise of a country-town is no sure passport to fame ? Genuine

poetry

poetry is a language which very few understand; it is also a species of literary manufacture in which skill and nicety of execution are required. The painter and the statuary never estimate their works by the praises of their ordinary acquaintance, but, by comparing them with the best models, judge of their own proficiency in their respective arts. The poet, also, if he would excel, must act on the same principle. Pope, indeed, talks of "snatching a grace:" but the cunning rogue knew full well that he never snatched a grace in his life, and that his poetic excellence was the result of study, and of much revision, arising from a difficulty in pleasing himself. Mr. Taylor appears to have never felt any difficulty of this kind, but to have pride in telling us with what facility he composed at a public desk, amidst the bustle and pressure of business." Could he have heard the epithets of displeasure which we expressed while reading his sadly imperfect verses, he would have been extremely mortified. When no rules either of poetry or of grammar are observed, critics cannot help growling. We will not undertake to point out all the defects of this little volume, but, as specimens of Mr. T.'s poetic merit, copy two or three stanzas:

To a young lady, the bard observes ;

A good œconomist,

Will ponder in his breast,

From circumstances low,

How comforts soon may flow.'

Mr. Taylor's poetical circumstances are low enough: what comforts may flow from them, we cannot conceive.

In some lines on an angler, we read thus:

At length beguil'd a growing trout,
Sprung on the fly's alluring wing-
Alas! too late, he strives to root
In giddy maze, its fatal sting!-

So in life's course we often see,

The unsuspecting young a prey
To flattering duplicity,

That strings before meridian day!'

Mr. T. seems to have quitted his post of Customer Inwards' at the port of Newcastle: but, if the bellman of the said town is in want of a verse-maker, the author may be a candidate for that office, with some prospect of success.

Art. 20. Adbaston; a Poem. By Charles Ash. Crown 8vo. 580 Boards. Robinsons. 1814.

"George," (said a gentleman to his intimate friend, who had accompanied him on a visit to his native village,) " I view these scenes with an enthusiasm which I cannot communicate to you; for when a boy I trudged over this path to school; in that field I " urged the flying ball;" and in that hedge I had once the felicity of finding a blackbird's nest with four eggs." Similar recollections, under similar circumstances, very generally produce the same feelings; and hence verse-men and prose-men have spoken with rapture of the natale solum,

which, though it could not renew their youth, revived its brightest visions. Mr. Ash remarks, from Ovid, that "there is a peculiar sweetness that attracts us all to the place which gave us birth, and neither time, nor distance, can erase it from our recollection ;" and this poem is meant to be an illustration of the remark. Adbaston, a retired spot on the western borders of Staffordshire, of no intrinsic celebrity, rises into consequence with Mr. Ash, and becomes the subject of his muse, because it happened to be his birth-place. Every circumstance of the scenery and moral features of this village is displayed, and we should suppose that the picture is tolerably correct. The poetic execution, however, is not in the first style. Though Mr. Ash is captivated with his theme, his numbers want polish and force; he has spun it out to an unnecessary length; and we think that the drunken bout at the farm-house, and the long detail of the multifarious occupations of the parish-clerk, are of a too low and vulgar character for insertion. The poem, indeed, is not an elegant composition, but may be denominated an unpolished pastoral. The writer's apostrophe to his native village is a favourable specimen, and therefore we shall take it:

Dear native Adbaston! - remote from care,

Thy tranquil fields would mitigate despair:

In thy sweet vales a balsam I could find,

When nought on earth could calm my troubled mind.
Each wild, each trifling object that surrounds,
Each lonely stile in thy sequester'd grounds; -
The ancient elm that shades the cottage door,

-

The distant grange the dusky, rush-grown moor,
The echoing wood that joins the neighb'ring farm,-
Each hath, by turns, the magic pow'r to charm.
And yet, while thus the landscape I pursue,
What sad sensations pierce my heart, to view
Such change in ev'ry once-frequented scene,
That many a trace is fled of what has been.
Remember'd trees, on which I've carv'd my name,
Or hung the trophy of some boyhood fame,
Are seen no more; the axe, with well-aim'd blow,
Long since has laid their leafy honours low;
While others rise upon the tufted lawn,

Which then were only in their sapling dawn:
Thus mighty empires that have long sustain'd

The shocks of time, and still, each day, have gain'd
Superior pow'r, for boundless ages past,

Must know a change. a dreadful fall at last.'

Art. 21. National Triumphs. By Mrs. Cockle. 8vo. 2s. 6d. Chapple. 1814.

Painters are not better acquainted with the effects of light and shade than poets, who are very dextrous in contrasting our joys with our sorrows, and in giving the boldest relief to splendid triumphs by loading the back-ground with the darkest tints. Mrs. Cockle, being thoroughly initiated into this poetic secret, first harrows up REV. AUG. 1814.

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