the public taste, which is likely to fix an era in the history of poetry. 'I have now (he fays) made the experiment; but the full fuccefs of it is only to be learnt from the voice of our country.' The idea was perhaps well conceived in our author's particular cafe; for he seems confcious, by adopting it, that the great defect of his verfification is monotony; and when he fufpects his readers may be nodding under the effects of this powerful opiate, he applies a gentle stimulant in the form of a fong or a fonnet. But we can never confent that the fuccedaneum of weakness should be erected into a rule of compofition. There is, without doubt, a tendency to monotony in a long heroic poem; and it is one of the difficulties with which poets have to ftruggle. But it is a difficulty which our claffical writers have not fought to get rid of by fuch inartificial contrivances: their ambition and glory have been, to overcome it by the vigour of their lines, and the variety of their cadence. The epic poets of antiquity were as much expofed to the danger of monotony as our modern rhymers. The hexameter verfe muft be managed with infinite dexterity, not to fatigue the ear. A school-boy's verfes may be perfectly correct in quantity: yet no man can read ten of them, without being ftruck with their heavy monotonous found. Let him then take up Virgil, and read an equal number of his lines. He will find in the latter a richness and varied melody, which could only be effected by the confummate art of the poet. If Mr Hayley's patchwork plan were at all confiftent with taste, it is too obvious to have lain concealed for ages, in order to be revealed to a minor poet of the nineteenth century. As to the lyrical pieces themselves, they are not at all calculated to recommend the novelty of the plan. There are not fewer than feventy fongs, fonnets and hymns, fcattered through the work, They feldom arife naturally from the ftory, but are preffed into the fervice, in a manner which plainly fhews that the poem was made for them, rather than they for the poem. We look upon them as the sweepings of the author's port-folio, in which, for his credit, they fhould have refted for ever. A few of them, the author fays, he found medicinal to his own mind under severe affliction, and thefe, on that account, notwithstanding the want of poetical language, are confiderably interesting; for the forrows of a parent are a fubject facred to fympathy and reverence. We shall give the following fonnet and fong as specimens: SONNET, Of the rich legacies the dying leave, Which I from you, my buried friends, receive ! Of Of this my nobleft wealth! The mifer's cheft God's kindeft gift! I prize it as I ought, And still to be enjoyed in truth's eternal sphere. ' p. 98. Which may the rage of grief difarm, 'Tis when fair truth to ber fond gaze, Grief feels a tender, proud repofe.' p. 7. In one or two more of the fame caft, we meet with fome pretty fentiments clumfily expreffed; but the reft are trafh, that fcarcely deferve a place among Watt's Divine Hymns, or even the labours of a Grub-Street fonneteer. We cannot allow the piety of fuch hymns as the following to plead for their poverty: HYMN. Lord! in whofe hand are life and death, So let me live, fo let me die; That love may grace my vital breath, And faith and hope my final figh! p. 96. There is a hymn in the 2d canto which feems to be a favourite of the author's. To give it a fair chance of becoming fo with the reader, we shall extract it: HYMN. Without the help of God, Nor innocence nor faith are fure Or trial from the fiends endure, With no contagious stain : Not fafe the path by angels trod Without the help of God, The powers of wisdom, courage, youth, Diffolve, like feel, by ruft: The blazing eye of fpotlefs truth Is only raylefs duft ; And mental fire, a fenfeless clod, Without the help of God! Without Without the help of God, All is decay, delution all, On which mankind rely: The firmament itself would fall, And even nature die Beneath Annihilation's nod, Without the help of God!' p. 37. We have feldom feen a more exquifite mixture of tameness and extravagance than this. Indeed, we could not read a fingle page, without aftonifhment that a man, who has been fo long a dabbler in poetry, and devoted his whole life to the ftudy of the fine arts, fhould have finned fo grofsly againft good writing. Who could have expected fuch lines as the following from the pen of a literary veteran? Venufia has juft vowed to Lucilio never to marry the old noble Zanetti: • That found exalted him to feverish bliss; Pierc'd his pale form-hé could not speak or figh ! * P. 14. The mute inflru&or haften'd to withdraw : The modeft maiden would not bid him stay ; But for their meeting nam'd a future day! It would be fwelling needlessly the length of an article, already out of all proportion to the importance of the fubject, were we to point out more in detail the faults both of the ftory and of the language. The reader is fure to find them, if he opens the book at all. He will be immediately ftruck with that constant characteristic of an inferior poet, the abundance of infignificant epithets; fuch as, awful gratitude (p. 114.), hideous peril (119.), fhuddering terror, fecurity's fure veil,' &c. &c. He will find pride, on account of its convenience in rhyming, in high favour, furnifhed with a whole wardrobe of epithets, and appearing in a new fuit almost every time he meets it. It is Venetian (3.), ecftatic (22.), fpeechlefs (42.), honourable (11.), zealous (31.), illufive (34.), fportive (113.), freakish (61.), connubial (146.), &c. He will difcover no lefs fterility of fancy than want of taste, in the conduct of the fimiles and metaphors-that important part of poeti cal embell fhment; for example, Quick, tho' feeming flow, arriv'd the morn, When, like a nightingale upon a thorn, The tender fongftreis ceas'd her fong. to meet Her kind preceptor. > P. 16. Yet, on reflection, this fimile may not be o flat as we at first imagined; for perhaps the author meant to imply, not only that the the fongftrefs fung like a nightingale, but that the fat upon thorns till her lover arrived. The reader will alfo hear of fiery fterms, in which the mind is like a fhrivell'd feroll,' (p. 21.); and of an affaflin, through whofe cleans'd heart unfeign'd repentance ran.' This is metaphor run mad. Upon the whole, we fincerely hope, for Mr Hayley's fake, that he has bid an eternal adieu to the Mufes; for whatever elfe the world may fay of his poctry, it will not complain of his having written too little. A profe work is announced at the end of the prefent volume; and we fhall be happy to find it fuch, as to redeem his credit with the public, and fix his reputation on the only bafis that can give it ftability. ART. VI. Eai fur les Avantages à retirer de Colonies Nouvelles dans les Circonfiances prefentes. Par le Cit. Talleyrand. Memoire fur les Relations Commerciales des Etats-Unis avec Angleterre. Par le Meme. (From the Memoires de la Claffe des Sciences Morales et Politiques de l'Institut National.) THE HE name of the author gives thefe tracts no inconfiderable share of intereft: but they derive a ftill more permanent claim to our attention, from the importance of their fubject, and from their intrinfic merits. We have therefore judged it proper to prefent our readers with fome account of them; and as they evidently belong to the fame clafs of difcuffion, we have brought them together for examination, although they may appear to be feparated by their titles. On his return from America, whither he had emigrated during the firft ftage of the French revolution, M. Talleyrand feems to have been strongly impreffed with the fituation in which he found his countrymen, after the violence of the Jacobin times had fubfided. Their minds were ftill in an unfettled and turbulent state; and there feemed great reason to dread both the commotions of thofe reftlefs fpirits whom the times had engendered, and the effects of that apathy which, in the great mass of the people, generally fucceeds to extreme irritation. The latter of thefe topics, however, is but flightly touched upon; and, without confidering the fatal confequences of the cooperation of thefe two evils, or reflecting on the impoffibility of preventing a few factious men from placing their leader upon a throne which the general indifference might prepare, and the univerfal dread of new revolutions might fortify, Talleyrand (at the date of his work, only a fpeculative inquirer) directs his regards entirely to the means of providing a fafe retreat for those unquiet fpirits whom the revolution had left behind it. The state of the country in which he had lately refided, ftruck him as fomewhat analogous to that of his own. He reflected on the fingular ease with which all the violence of a revolutionary civil war had there fubfided; and was naturally led to conclude, that industry is the grand pacificator, both of individuals and of nations; the best confervator both of domeftic tranquillity and focial peace. The impoffibility of adopting direct measures for promoting new exertions of labour among the people at home, was too obvious to require any expofition; and the obfervations which he had made upon the fabric of fociety in the infant fettlements of the American continent, fuggefted, as the best means of accomplishing the great end in view, a recurrence to the colonial fyftem, then almost overthrown by the crimes and follies of the revolutionary government. The papers now before us, are evidently dictated by this train of reflection; but they have affumed a more general form, and contain a variety of difcuffions upon the principles of colonization. Independent of the epigrammatic force and eloquence of their style, and of their more fubftantial merits as found and ingenious fpeculations upon a subject of equal difficulty and importance, they cannot fail to intereft us in their practical applications. They were the result of actual observation in countries where the author had accefs to the beft information, or was actually engaged in affairs. They were drawn up with a view to influence the conduct of France, under a government in which he foon after bore an active part. Subfequent events prove, that they were not without effect in shaping the measures of that ambitious power. Thefe tracts, it should be obferved, however, appear in a form purely fpeculative; their reafonings are general and philofophical; formed indeed upon facts, but guided by large, fcientific views; by an appeal to principles at every step; and by the kind of argument that inferior statesmen deride as theoretical, while their adversaries are conquering the world by the combinations to which it leads. The views of political decononomy by which our author feems to have been guided, are liberal and enlightened. He knows thoroughly the best doctrines of the science, and is fully impreffed with their truth. It will be difficult indeed for our readers to believe that the writer of some of the paffages which we mean to extract, is a leading perfonage in the prefent fifcal adminiftration of France. And, |