and the poet is sure to express in very glowing language every sentiment with which they are inspired.

"Lusia, while musing on the wayward fate
Which rules the scale of Europe's doubtful state,
Whilst Freedom's trembling hopes yet pause, to know
The event that waits her last impending blow,
Say, can an ardent heart, which long has sighed
For ancient Honour's dimmed and fallen pride,
Touched by thy kindred spark, refuse to twine
Its fondest dreams, it's warmest prayers, with thine?
"On Lusia's kindling ear no longer vain
Shall fall the patriot's voice, the poet's strain,
O'er every classic scene, that once could fire
For her the throbbing breast, or echoing lyre,
Shall prophet fancy weave the fairest wreathe
That ever bloomed to victory's flattering breath,
And Valour teach her glowing steps to steer
In freedom's holy cause, to glory's bright career.

"Yes, in that generous cause for ever high
Shall beat the pulse of native energy!-
For thee the teeming cot it's tenant yield
And sun-brown labour quit it's favourite field,
For thee each antique fort, or mouldering tower,
(Trophy erewhile of glory's short-lived hour,)
The aery rock, the mountain's topmost pride,
The fleecy tract that decks it's glimmering side,
Vocal once more, shall rouse, at thy command,
The patriot terrors of it's rustic band,
Whilst, proudly wakening to the call of heaven,
Valour shall claim the rights by nature given,
In every bard a new Tyrtæus spring,
And Spartan ardour strike the Lusian string!

"Yet sweet it is, when faery hands have wrought
Those ruddiest hues by poet Fancy taught,
When fiction's reign is past, and o'er the soul
Untricked reflection holds her calm controul,
To mark, with steadier ken, each slow degree
By wakening justice trod, by valour, liberty,

To thread each wildering Maze, and scan, the while,
As their mild influence cheers the patriot's toil,

Each transient mist, that dims the bright array

Of glory's handmaid forms, and stays their destined way."

Now the reader will not fail to notice what an animated scene here presents itself. Lusia, the first, and, doubtless, the most important personage in the whole piece, has, by way of

eminence, a double task assigned her; she is the object of invocation herself, and is yet introduced, in her own person, dreaming and praying. She is to touch with her kindred spark (which must be acknowledged to be an odd sort of tact), and immediately afterwards she is described as having a kindling ear, and yet in the same passage, forgetting her resources, she is said to have borrowed fire from the classic scene to burn both the throbbing breast and the echoing lyre. Then comes the prophet fancy, weaving a wreathe over the classic scene, which wreathe is the fairest of any that has ever bloomed to the breath of victory; and valour teaches her glowing steps (we suppose the steps of Lusia) to steer in freedom's cause to glory's career.

Now really, though we by no means approve of reducing poetry to prose in order to exhibit it naked to its enemies; and we have always been of opinion that the muse has a full right to deny the jurisdiction of such a tribunal, and to claim a trial by her peers, yet we do confess ourselves to think that those verses have no title to be called poetry which are not in strict correspondence with the rules of grammatical construction. This is the primary duty of every species of composition, and it should be remembered by every writer, that there is but one syntax for poetry and prose. It behoves the muse to be just before she is generous, and to satisfy her obligations before she displays her munificence. The debt due to grammar and sense is one of universal obligation, in our opinion, whatever may be the style or the theme: and if victory, fancy, glory, freedom, or Lusia herself and a hundred other such be invested with the attributes of living beings, they must submit to have their transactions recorded in the common idiom, and with grammatical concordance. If we expect prose to be perspicuous, we expect poetry to be capable, at least, of being construed; but this seems to us to be by no means the case in general with the poetry of Lord G. N. Grenville. It has been said of Dryden, that he loves to tread upon the brink of meaning where light and darkness mingle the author of the present poem has gone beyond his great predecessor: if he is less oracular, he is more ambiguous; and, instead of playing on the margin of a dubious light, he has triumphantly rushed into decided darkness.

We have not heard a great deal said of this poem on Portugal, but we should not be surprised to find that it is very fashionable among fine gentlemen and fine ladies. We have observed of late the little demand for sense in our town-made poems, as well as our town-made novels. The tuneful philosophy of Dr. Darwin, the dulcet strains of the Della Cruscan muse, and the rhyming ribaldry and tender trash of our popular ballad writers

and sonneteers, have taught a very large portion of readers to put up with sound instead of sense, and to consider poetry as having little or no connexion with the understanding. All that seems to be required by the class of readers to which we have alluded, appears to be an harmonious cadence, or shall we call it rather,a melodious monotony, made up of soft and sounding, amorous and hyperbolical expressions, that convey to the understanding the faint adumbrations of meaning, to the heart the corruptions of sentiment, to the fancy the fuel of the passions. Such in general is the pleasing and philanthropic occupation of our fashionable rhymers.

To the author of this poem, however, we are happy to say, that nothing but negation is imputable. As far as he is intelligible he seems most emphatically to mean well. His muse is chaste, and it can by no means be said of him as of some of his contemporaries, that he has endeavoured "to leave the world less virtuous than he found it." Though in the first line of his poem he seems to think it poetical to put the scale of Europe into the hands of "wayward fate :" it subsequently appears that the heaven-born melody of the wakening spheres, the birth of time, and other facts of the like convincing tendency, had long ago satisfied him of the existence of a God; and we are invited in pages 24 and 25, in no mean strains, to sit with him under the cork-tree shade (his lordship seems very fond of the shade) and meditate with him on these things. As to the quantum of a young nobleman's or gentleman's faith, we must not be nice in these days, and we must give him full credit for what we can get from him of this kind in prose or rhyme. At a time in which poetry seems to be the passport of infidelity, and the whole of natural and revealed religion, nay all the creeds of the earth, are disposed of in a single stanza, we feel really obliged to Lord G. N. Grenville for charitably allowing us a Providence, and a future state.

It is for these reasons that we have declared ourselves to wish to approve the efforts of his lordship's muse. It is for these reasons also that we take the liberty of strenuously recommending to him to try the effect of simplification, and before he buries himself in clouds, by endeavouring to strike the stars with his head, to strive in good earnest to walk on the plain ground with a firm and graceful step. Towards attaining this desirable object, we suggest the great advantage that the perpetual perusal of Shakespear and Cowper may be of to him, to which, if he please, he may now and then add Burns and Crabbe. Peradventure, when his mind shall have been disencumbered of all the ponderous inanities under which it labours at present,

and his brain shall have been dispeopled of those wild inhabit-· ants which seem at this moment to possess it, we shall be delighted with a spontaneous growth of just sentiments and natural images. We are the more induced to hope that this may be the case, as, sometimes in the midst of a number of sickly phantasies, a strain of manly thought breaks forth, that seems to us, from the depth and dignity of its expression, to be the produce of original thinking. The advice given us in pages 18 and 19 is of this character. We think the immersion of the little vessel in the storm is described in a very interesting and poetical manner. There is also so much spirit in many parts of the description of the conflicting hosts at Busaco, that we shall extract a portion of it for our readers.

"The fight's begun ;-in momentary blaze
Bright o'er the hills the volleying lightning plays,
Bursts the loud shell, the death-shots hiss around,
And the hoarse cannon adds its heavier sound;
Till wide the gathering clouds that rise between
Clothe in a thicker gloom the madd'ning scene ;
And, as the billow's wild and angry crest,
That swells in foam o'er ocean's lurid breast,
Through each dark line the curling volumes spread,
And hang their white wreathes o'er the column's head.

"But mark,—as onward swept the northern blast,
In opening folds the eddying circles pass'd,
The deaf'ning guns are hushed ;—but from afar
As slow the gale uplifts the shroud of war,
Half veiled in smoke, half glimmering on the sight,
What bristling line expands it's wings of light?—
It lengthens as it moves,—thus the pale ray
Scowers o'er the steep, when tempests pass away.-
Death hovers o'er it's path,-Yes, Britain, here,

Here was thine inborn might!-hark, the loud cheer
Bursts from thy thousand voices to the race,
The ranks of battle melt before thy face!—

"They join!-The shout has ceased!-as when the breeze Of winter sweeps along the leafless trees,

When the loud storm is up, and, waving slow,

The stately forest bends before the blow,

Wide shrinks the adverse host, with rustling moan
Heard distant, speeds the gathering havoc on.-"

We cannot take leave of the noble author of this poem without expressing our thanks to him for the philanthropy, and

amiableness of sentiment of which he has made it the vehicle, and to assure him that, as we have at no time any pleasure in flippant or disrespectful criticism, so we shall be unaffectedly happy on any future occasion to be able to afford him with sincerity the humble meed of our applause.

ART. XX. Select Letters of Tippoo Sultan, to various public Functionaries, including his principal military Commanders; Governors of Forts and Provinces, diplomatic and commer cial Agents, &c. &c. With Notes and Observations, and an Appendix, containing several original Documents never before published. Arranged and translated by William Kirkpatrick, Colonel in the Service of the Honourable East-India Company. London, 1811. One vol. 4to. Black and Parry, &c. 21. 2s.

TH

HOSE who are fond of representing the adventurers and usurpers of India as her "native princes," will, no doubt, purchase these "Letters of a real Sultan" with somewhat of the same feeling with which Lord Chesterfield sent a remittance to his son, to enable him to visit the court of Hesse;" that it was impossible to demur to so small an expence for the purpose of beholding a live Landgrave." But with respect to the world in general, we cannot help thinking (notwithstanding the intrinsic merit and amusing nature of this volume), that if published earlier, it would have attracted a greater portion of the public attention than we fear is now likely to be extended to it. Thirteen years, most eventful years, have elapsed since the empire of Mysore was compelled to yield to the superior prowess of the nation, against which its whole force, directed by no ordinary minds, had for thrice that portion of time been opposed, with a view to its utter extirpation from the territory of India. A few hours levelled with the dust the usurped power of the mightiest enemy that the British name and nation ever had in that quarter of the world; and, transferring the country and means of our enemy into a friendly and legitimate hand, converted them into a tower of strength. Rarely hath history recorded so complete an event-a capital subdued-its sovereign slain-his whole. army, "all its appliances and means to boot" captured or dispersed-almost every member of the royal family made prisoners, together with the families of nearly all his generals and chiefs; an immediate transfer, in short, of the whole physical and moral machinery of a nation and government, from the

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