will never be found to degenerate into misanthropy. He is particularly anxious that this should not be ascribed to a desire on his part to participate in that fashion of affected gloom, which, originated by one of mighty endowments, has, of late years, too much prevailed. He has felt, in those moments of temporary depression of spirits which are incidental to all, more disposed to indulge his inclination to verse than at other seasons; and that his pieces should frequently have taken the hue of his feelings, is by no means extraordinary.'

Nor is it by any means extraordinary, that he should feel a wish to publish them, although this supplies no very strong reason for selecting the effusions of such morbid moods. But we hold it as a favourable sign, when a young writer begins to shake off the shackles of a servile imitation of some popular model, and shews himself able to form a sober and discriminating estimate of the genius which had once warmed and dazzled his boyish fancy. Our opinion of Lord Byron's poetry has been repeatedly given. Much of it is exquisitely and inimitably fine; but, like Thomson's and Young's, his style becomes insufferable in his imitators; and sentiments which, in him, were affectation or lordly spleen, are, in them, grimace and childishness. Mr. Rolle's volume, however, is free from every palpable fault of this kind. The first poem is obviously modelled upon Childe Harold; it is not, however, a servile imitation. It is a clever essay, and would have commanded commendation as a prize poem; it is, evidently, the Author's most serious and laboured effort, and it has served to supply a title to the volume. Yet, notwithstanding all this, the Author is, we make no doubt, aware ere this, that it is neither the best nor the most pleasing poem in the volume; that it is jejune and savours strongly of the morbid feelings of disconsolate seventeen. The following elegant little poem has a thousand times more heart' in it.

" COWSLIPS.

Favourites of my early hours,
Still I love your golden flowers!
Not the way-side primrose, pale,
Shivering in the wintry gale;
Not the daisy; no, nor yet,
The sweet-scented violet,
Though I love them each, can be
Ever half as dear to me.

Tales of olden time ve tell,
Of the sweet-toned Sabbath bell,
Heard, as through the mead we trod,
To the distant house of God;-
Of the brook in verdure lost-
Of the rustic bridge we crost!-

Golden pathway-golden hours:
Then my very thoughts were flowers!
I remember, when the day
Morning's dew had dried away,
I, one of an infant band,
With an eager eye and hand,

Sought and pluck'd your cluster'd bells
In the shady woods and dells,
Nor forgot that should be mine
Fragrant tea and future wine.
'Days of infancy! alas!
Why do ye so quickly pass?
What would I relinquish now
For that sunny eye and brow-
For that meek and unwarp'd will—
For that ignorance of ill,

Which were mine at five
years old,
Ere life's dark page was unrolled!
Since I follow weightier things,
Vanished are my spirit's wings;
Cloudless is my heart no more,
But with care all shadow'd o'er;
Never may it know again

The pure joy that warm'd it then,

When its highest hopes were crown'd-
Hopes, a cowslip field could bound!'

The Exile's Return' is, perhaps, altogether, the most successful poem in the volume; and we shall give it entire. There are some faults in it, which we should not think it necessary to notice, if they were mere slips of the pen; but, as they are imitated faults and studied slovenliness, we must warn our Author, that bad grammar and bad construction, such illicit versification as parts the verb and its preposition, tyrannically assigning them to separate lines, and still worse, which divides one sentence between two stanzas, leaving the last line of the one to struggle towards the first line of the next, like the severed parts of a worm under the gardener's spade;-such proceedings, we say, can never be legalized by precedent, or tolerated in any minor poet,

THE EXILE'S RETURN.

'My head hath whitened 'neath the orient sun,
My heart is worn by many an hour of care;
At times I deemed my course was well nigh run,
For it was mine in peril oft to share ;
But from the hour my exile life begun,

I had this hope to hold me from despair,
That when long years were vanished, the same glen
My boyhood knew, should know my steps again.

Oft thought I of the cottage in that vale,

With green o'ergrown, and canopied by trees; Where ne'er the songs of birds were known to fail,

And each bright day brought troops of humming bees To the rich verdure mantling o'er the pale,

Sweet woodbine, mossy rose, and fragrant pease :—
Of her who was my all, and who is now-
But what she is, O ruthless grave, say thou!
And of that pleasant bower where oft we met
When the close branches arboured us around,
So woven that they bade the pattering wet
A green defiance, and the sloping ground
Was clothed with furry mosses; flowers unset,

But springing wild were there; and not a sound
Could reach us, save the dying sobs and heaves
Of the light breeze, and rustling of the leaves.
And I at last am here; the heavy sea

Is crost, its droning voice hath left my ear;
The self-same branches now wave over me
That in my days of infancy were dear;
Ah, my old comrades, when we parted, ye

Like me were in your spring-now both are sere;
Ye fade, but soon ye know returning bloom,
While I must fade into the wintry tomb!

Here will I pause, on this, the very mound
Whence my sad eyes sent forth their last adieu
To my once happy home; each spot of ground
Is as I left it, fields and lanes I knew,
Are not, as I am, alter'd; there we found

Such heaps of violets,-there the hawthorn grew,
The tree my mother loved so-where is she?
Ah, my long tearless eyes, methinks in ye

The long-sealed founts of other days gush forth;
The griefs of early years stalk from their grave
And haunt me like dark spirits;-can thy worth,
Thy fondness, be forgotten?-Yew-trees wave
With a sepulchral sadness o'er the earth

Where thou dost sleep; nor love nor health could save Thee from an early tomb; we laid thee where Yon lowly spire pierces the placid air.

'Stay thee an instant here, thou aged man!

Thy thin and frosty locks, methinks, do speak Knowledge of by-gone years; why dost thou scan My features thus with thy dim vision, bleak With life's most cold December; but, though wan, And time-bleached from its hue may be thy cheek, Methinks 'twas once familiar; aught canst tell Of they who in yon bower of greenness dwell?

• Thou wilt not tell me so! my father dead,

And garner'd 'neath the church-yard hillock-there!
Brothers and kindred o'er the wide world spread!

And strangers in my birth-place! where, Oh where
Is, then, that old man's daughter? we were bred
Fond twins together; she was fond as fair;
Where is my sister?-Do I rightly hear?
Then I have comfort yet if she be near;—

• Lead on, lead on, old man, for I may yet

Be blest, though mine no more that much-loved spot,
Where first my weeping eyes the day-light met;

Yet is each field, each tree a friend, which not
Time's billows sweep from my remembrance, set
There as in adamant, while all forgot

Many events and strange scenes that have passed
Before my eyes since I beheld them last.
'Art thou my sister?-THOU?-it cannot be!
Amelia's eye was bright, her cheek was fair,
Her step was springy, and her port was free,
And full and flowing waved her auburn hair ;-
What is there of this character in thee?

Thine eye is dim, thy brow is worn with care,
Thou hast a widow's garb, and that sad look
Tells thou'st a widowed heart-when last I shook
My sister's hand, and kissed her snowy brow,
She wept, and fast and free the big tears came;
Yes, her eyes gushed forth tears, as thine do now,
Yet even in weeping ye are not the same;
Hers was an exquisite woe, but not to bow
The spirit, not that settled, lifeless, tame,
Emotionless, and petrifying grief,

That knows not hope, and seeks not for relief.

Is this the hour I sighed for-dreamt of-dwelt

On with a fond idolatry? is this

The meed of all I suffered-all I felt ?—

My treasure of anticipated bliss ?

My heart! thy last rays into darkness melt,

Henceforth thou'rt but a cold and drear abyss !

Would I had perished 'neath the orient beam,

In the full faith of my long-cherished dream!' pp. 13—19.

Many of the songs appear to be written for favourite airs; a difficult task, in which few have succeeded. The lines entitled, Sad will I be no more,' are, we presume, not of this description: they are very touching and elegant. We sympathize with Mr. Rolle's fondness for the violet, but the bee' knows more about flowers and their chronology, than his poet does. We can make room for only one more specimen, and we believe the following will please ur readers.

TEARS.

Woman, I envy thee the tears

With which thy griefs are wash'd away,
And quench'd the deadly fire that sears
The heart, and goads it to decay;
As mists are melted into rain

And lost, earth's bosom scattered o'er,
So, sighs that rend the heart with pain,
Melt into tears, and are no more.
'Light is the grief that thus can pour
Itself from the o'erflowing eyes,
To that which racks the bosom's core,
And may not vent its agonies :
Often, alas! 'tis mine to mourn
Without a hope to which to fly;
By torture's tooth my heart is torn,

And yet each burning lid is dry !' pp. 72, 3.

The Poetical Illustrations of Passages of Scripture' possess a very high degree of merit. Indeed, we have not lately met with a volume of sacred poetry that has so much gratified us. In our last Number, we had occasion to remark on the singular want of success which has attended the numerous attempts, some of them by our best poets, to give a metrical form to the translation of the Psalms; notwithstanding which, we maintained the practicability of preserving inviolate, the simplicity of expression and sacred dignity characteristic of the original, in a lyrical version. Had the present volume then been in our hands, we need not, we think, have gone any further for an illustration of our remarks, but might have referred to the following version of the CIII Psalm, as a happy specimen-we were going to say, an almost perfect specimen, from its very simplicity-of what such poems should be. It is not, indeed, complete, because several of the verses of the Psalm are passed over; but, in point of closeness, without servility, propriety of diction, and spirit, it leaves little to wish for.

'PSALM CIII.

'O Bless the Lord, my soul! O bless the Lord!

Let all that is within me bless his name!

Bless him, my soul; forget not to record
His mercies who sustains thy feeble frame:
Who thy diseases heals,

Who for thy frailty feels,

And crowns thy life with good-O bless his holy name!
'Jehovah is a God of MERCY still;

No long-retained anger will he hide;
Nor does his hand the unerring measure fill
Of wrath for us; nor will he always chide :