ART. VI. Eighteen Hundred and Eleven. A Poem. By Anna Letitia Barbauld: 4to. London. Johnson and Co. 1812. OUR UR old acquaintance Mrs. Barbauld turned satirist! The last thing we should have expected, and, now that we have seen her satire, the last thing that we could have desired. May we (without derogating too much from that reputation of age and gravity of which critics should be so chary) confess that we are yet young enough to have had early obligations to Mrs. Barbauld; and that it really is with no disposition to retaliate on the fair pedagogue of our former life, that on the present occasion, we have called her up to correct her exercise? But she must excuse us if we think that she has wandered from the course in which she was respectable and useful, and miserably mistaken both her powers and her duty, in exchanging the birchen for the satiric rod, and abandoning the superintendance of the 'ovilia' of the nursery, to wage war on the reluctantes dracones,' statesmen, and warriors, whose misdoings have aroused her indignant muse. We had hoped, indeed, that the empire might have been saved without the intervention of a lady-author: we even flattered ourselves that the interests of Europe and of humanity would in some degree have swayed our public councils, without the descent of (dea ex machina) Mrs. Anna Letitia Barbauld in a quarto, upon the theatre where the great European tragedy is now performing. Not such, however, is her opinion; an irresistible impulse of public duty-a confident sense of commanding talentshave induced her to dash, down her shagreen spectacles and her knitting needles, and to sally forth, hand in hand with her renowned compatriot, in the magnanimous resolution of saving a smking state, by the instrumentality of a pamphlet in prose and a pamphlet in verse. * The poem, for so out of courtesy we shall call it, is entitled Eighteen Hundred and Eleven, we suppose, because it was written in the year 1811; but this is a mere conjecture, founded rather on our inability to assign any other reason for the name, than in any particular relation which the poem has to the events of the last year. We do not, we confess, very satisfactorily comprehend the meaniing of all the verses which this fatidical spinster has drawn from her poetical distaff; but of what we do understand we very confidently assert that there is not a topic in Eighteen Hundred and Eleven' which is not quite as applicable to 1810 or 1812, and which, in our opinion, might not, with equal taste and judgment, have been curtailed, or dilated, or transposed, or omitted, without * See Art. II. any any injustice whatever to the title of the poem, and without producing the slightest discrepancy between the frontispiece and the body of the work. The poem opens with a piece of information, which, though delivered in phraseology somewhat quaint and obscure, we are not disposed to question, namely, that this country is still at war; but it goes on to make ample amends for the flat veracity of this commonplace, by adding a statement, which startled, as much as the former assertion satisfied; our belief. Mrs. Barbauld does not fear to assert, that the year 1811 was one of extraordinary natural plenty, but that, with a most perverse taste, 'Man called to Famine, nor invoked in vain.' We had indeed heard that some mad and mischievous partisans had ventured to charge the scarcity which unhappily exists, upon the political measures of government:-but what does Mrs. Barbauld mean? Does she seriously accuse mankind of wishing for a famine, and interceding for starvation? or does she believe that it is in the power of this country, of what remains of independent Europe, nay, of herself, to arrest the progress of war, and, careless of what Buonaparte or his millions may be about, to beckon back peace and plenty, and to diffuse happiness over the reviving world? But let us select a specimen of her poetry, which shall be also one of her veracity, prophecy, and patriotism. It is the description of the fallen state of this poor realm. 'Thy baseless wealth dissolves in air away, Like mists that melt before the morning ray; * * * * * Yes, thou must droop; thy Midas dream is o'er, We do not know where Mrs. Anna Letitia now resides, though we can venture to assert that it is not on Parnassus: it must, however, be in some equally unfrequented, though less classical region; for the description just quoted is no more like the scene that is really before our eyes, than Mrs. Barbauld's satire is like her 'Lessons for Children,' or her Hymns in Prose.' England, in her prophetic vision, is undone; soon, it seems, to be only known By the gray ruin and the mouldering stone,' while America is to go on increasing and improving in arts, in arms, and even, if that be possible, in virtue! Young Americans will cross the Atlantic to visit the sacred ruins of England, just as Then the ingenuous youth, whom fancy fires From the blue mountains or Ontario's lake'-p. 10. and pay sentimental visits to Cambridge and Stratford-upon-Avon. These ingenuous' Americans are also to come to London, which they are to find in ruins: however, being of bold and aspiring dispositions, 'They of some broken turret, mined by time, And choked no more with fleets, fair Thames survey This is a sad prospect! but while all our modern edifices are to be in such a lamentable state of dilapidation, Time is to proceed with so cautious and discriminating a step, that Melrose Abbey, which is now pretty well in ruins, is not to grow a bit older, but to continue a beautiful ruin still; this supernatural longevity is conferred upon it in honour of Mr. Scott. But let not Mr. Scott be too proud of a distinction which he possesses in a very humble degree, compared with him, to whom belong The Roman virtue and the Tuscan song. Which of the virtues, the (xal' oxy) Roman virtue is, Mrs. Barbauld does not condescend to inform us, nor does our acquaintance with Mr. Roscoe enable us to guess any virtue for which he is more particularly famous: so great, however, is to be the enthusiastic reverence which the American youth are to feel for him, that, after visiting the scenes which are to remind them of General Moore, Mr. Clarkson, Lord Chatham, Doctor Davy, Mr. Garrick, and Lord Nelson, they are to pay a visit, 'Where Roscoe, to whose patriot breast belong Where Ceres never gained a wreath before' Or, in other words, (as the note kindly informs us,) to Mr. Roscoe's farm in Derbyshire, where, less we apprehend, by the Roman virtue and the Tuscan song, than by the homely process of drainage and manuring, he has brought some hundred acres of Chatmoss into cultivation. O the unequal dispensations of this poetical providence! Chatham and Nelson empty names! Oxford and Cam bridge in ruins! London a desert, and the Thames a sedgy brook! while Mr. Roscoe's barns and piggeries are in excellent repair, and objects not only of curiosity but even of reverence and enthu siasm. Our readers will be curious to know how these prodigies are to be operated: there is, it seems, a mysterious Spirit or Genius who is to do all this, and a great deal more, as we shall presently see; but who or what he is, or whence he comes, does not very clearly appear, even from the following description: There walks a Spirit o'er the peopled earth, Secret his progress is, unknown his birth, No force arrests his foot, no chains can bind.'-p. 17. This extraordinary personage is prodigiously wise and potent, but withal a little fickle, and somewhat, we think, for so wise a being, unjust and partial. He has hitherto resided in this country, and chiefly in London; Mrs. Barbauld, however, foresees that he is beginning to be tired of us, and is preparing to go out of town on his departure that desolation is to take place in reality, which is so often metaphorically ascribed to the secession of some great leader of the ton. But the same Genius has far more extensive powers even than these; he changes nature,' he absorbs the Nile,' (we had not heard of the Nile's being absorbed,) and he has of late taken it into his head to travel northward,' among the Celtic nations,' with a mercantile venture of Turkey carpets, of which speculation the immediate effects are, that the ‹ vale of Arno' and the ' coast of Baia’ are not near so pleasant as the dykes of Batavia; that the Pontine marshes have lately become extremely unwholesome, and that Venice is no longer, as she was a short time since, the mistress of the sea. (p. 20, 21.) This wonderful person is also so condescending as to assist us in divers little offices, in which we are hardly aware of his interference; he is the real author of Dryden's Virgil and Middleton's Cicero, (p. 22,) he dresses light forms' in 'transparent muslins,' he tutors' young ladies' to swell the artful note,' and he builds verandas to our balconies; he is, besides, an eminent nursery man, and particularly remarkable for acacias' and 'cedars,' and the chrystal walls' of his hothouses produce the best grapes and pines about London; (p. 23;) in short, there is nothing good, bad, or indifferent that this Genius does not do: but, alas! good upon England he intends no longer to confer; our muslins, pines, acacias, and even our forte-pianos are in jeopardy; For fairest flowers expand but to decay, The worm is in thy core, thy glories fade away; Arts, Arts, arms, and wealth destroy the fruits they bring, Crime walks the streets, fraud earns her unblest bread, Upon this melancholy night, however, a bright day dawns, and all the little sense with which Mrs. Barbauld set out, now dissolves away in blissful visions of American glory. This Genius of her's which walks the peopled earth,' viewless and secret,' suddenly appears walking on the summit of Chimberaço, (which never was nor can be peopled,) displays his viewless' form on the Andes, and secretly arouses, by loud exclamations, all the nations of the western continent. 'Ardent the Genius fans the noble strife, And pours through feeble souls a higher life; And swears-Thy world, Columbus, shall be free.'-p. 25. And with this oath concludes Eighteen Hundred and Eleven,' upon which we have already wasted too much time. One word, however, we must seriously add. Mrs. Barbauld's former works have been of some utility; her Lessons for Children,' her 'Hymns in Prose,' her Selections from the Spectator,' et id genus omne, though they display not much of either taste or talents, are yet something better than harmless: but we must take the liberty of warning her to desist from satire, which indeed is satire on herself alone'; and of entreating, with great earnestness, that she will not, for the sake of this ungrateful generation, put herself to the trouble of writing any more party pamphlets in verse. We also assure her, that we should not by any means impute it to want of taste or patriotism on her part, if, for her own country, her fears were less confident, and for America her hopes less ardent; and if she would leave both the victims and the heroes of her political prejudices to the respective judgment which the impartiality of posterity will not fail to pronounce. ART. VII. Memoirs of the Public Life of John Horne Tooke, Esq. Containing a particular Account of his Connections with the most eminent Characters of the Reign of George III. His Trials for Sedition, High Treason, &c. With his most celebrated Speeches in the House of Commons, on the Hustings, Letters, &c. By W. Hamilton Reid. 8vo. pp. 192. dou. Sherwood, Neely and Jones. 1812. THIS is the only Life of Mr. Tooke we have yet seen. It is a miserable performance, below contempt as to style, informa Lon |