TO MARY, ON RETURNING TO THE COUNTRY. SINCE thou art come, delightful maid, Or muse amid the woods unseen Kind nature spreads her blessings round, And greets with smiles her fav'rite child; With violets the fields abound, And even roses blossom wild! The red-breast, thy peculiar care, To cheer him in the wint'ry hours. The howling tempest wings its flight, In such sad hours as those to toy, To seck upon her downy breast THE RED-CROSS KNIGHT. SONG TO SOPHIA. WHEN to conquer this heart you essay'd At the very first sally you made, You bore off my heart as a trophy. As you shower'd love's darts from your eyes, And a sigh soon confess'd my surrender. From thee, soft enslaver to part, Death sure is a trial severer, For the chains that have fetter'd my heart Are blessings than liberty dearer. Forbear the fond slave to remove, But send me your heart as a token, And the treaty, when witness'd by love, By no jealous foe shall be broken. Then let each rude bick'ring cease, Which our bosoms united would sever, Let a smile be the prelude of peace, And a kiss seal the compact for ever. CASIMIR. MEMORY. AT the mild close of dewy eve, While the last sun-beam lingers near, The wild and noisy throng I leave, To think of scenes to Memory dear. When on the clear blue arch of heaven, O'er the high trees the stars appear; I love those hours to sorrow given, To think of scenes to Memory dear. Oft to the dove's sad tales I list, Drop to her fabled woes a tear, And, careless of the night-dew's mist, I think of scenes to Memory dear. Then as the full moon sails on high, And brings to view the prospect drear, Oft echo will repeat the sigh That heaves for friends to Memory dear. And when the close of life draws nigh, The thoughts of them my heart shall cheer; And my last fault'ring accents sigh, Peace to the friends to Memory dear. When o'er my form the green turfs swell, If e'er my friends should wander near, Will they in moving accents tell, How died the friend to Memory dear. THE EXILE. YE hills of my country, soft fading in blue; That mingles its tide with the blood of the brave; Where the blasts of the trumpets for battles combine, And the heart was laid low that gave rapture to nine. Ye scenes of remembrance that sorrow beguil'd, Again your lone wood-paths that wind by the stream, Be the haunt of the lover-to hope-and to dream. But never to me shall the summer renew bestow The colours of heaven on the dwellings of woe! The Sea Nymphs arose with their reedbraided hair, Green Neptune deserted his cell, Heavy whales in loose gambols around her appear, And Amphitrite sounded her shell; "Britannia reign ever the Queen of the Wave." With grief soon she learnt that her Hero had died, The tears gush'd in floods from her eyes; His deeds were too bright for a mortal, she cried, His reward must be sought in the skies; The warriors that fell still exclaim from their graves, "Britannia reign ever the Queen of the Waves.* RETROSPECT OF POLITICS FOR THE MONTH OF JULY, 1806. FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC. THE state of the nation and foreign affairs has not undergone much change since our last. If a few weeks past there was some doubt with regard to the disposal of Holland, and the Mouths of the Cataro, these points have now been settled in the manner which might have been expected. Holland is become a kingdom under the sovereignty of one of the branches of the House of Napoleon; and the Mouths of the Cataro have been surrendered to the Austrians, as a preliminary to their final surrender to the French. Nothing can better shew the imbecility both of the Austrians and Russians, as well as on the other side the arrogance of the French Chief. It must be remembered that the Mouths of the Cataro belong to neither of these three Powers who have been in this long contention for them; Cataro is in the dominions of the Grand Seignior, the habitation of the Montenegrians, a kind of half-civilized barbarians, on the eastern side of Europe. Thus we see two Powers seizing what does not belong to them, and a third demanding it as his own, in a tone of arbitrary authority. The new kingdom of Holland will not have less effect on the further consolidation of the French power. Holland, even whilst a province of France, retained a slight degree of their former independence; her union with the French empire was less strict, and it required much management and dexterity, to bring her force to bear on any common point with France; reluctance and counteraction subtracted much from the strength of this addition to the French force. Holland, restored nominally to her independence, and having a king of her own, will be enabled to bring a greater force into the field; she will exert herself at the call of a king and senate of her own, when she would not do so at the summons of a foreign power. The army thus raised will not be less than hitherto at the disposal of France. such a fate. So that the sum of the argument is reduced to this,-either that the abolition will be productive of no harm to the West India planters, or if it does them injury, this injury only consists in their being deprived of what they unjustly hold. There now remains but one subject more,the progress of the war towards the conclusion of peace. During the whole of the present month this question has been much agitated, and the reports of its accomplishment have been kept alive by the daily arrival and return of messengers from both sides. It is impossible yet to conjecture may be hazarded, the demands of the French Government are such as will be repug nant to the honour of this country to comply with. It will surely never be expected of us to surrender Malta, the immediate object of the contest. We are not a conquered Power, we The situation of our domestic affairs is much varied from what it was in the preceding month. The Parliament and Ministry have been more than usually active, and a greater number of bills have been passed than have perhaps ever occurred in the same period of time. The Training Bill has given the last finish to the military system of Mr. Windham. It is well known that the intention of this bill is to comprehend under mili-say how this negociation will conclude, but if a tary discipline every class of society; the whole nation is to be balloted, and 200,000 names to be transferred to the recruiting Serjeant. In a word, this act begins in confusion, and, we fear, must terminate in disappointment. The Property Act has at length passed, but much modified from its original severity; it is still, however, are scarcely to be considered even as a baffled an iron rod, and bears with oppressive rigour on the shoulders of the multitude; we say multitude, because, in fact, it is chiefly on the multitude that it attaches. Indeed there is scarcely any order of society, however low, that is exempted from this infliction. It is certainly the most productive of all the war taxes, and we should not be surprised, in the course of another year, to see it augmented to 20 or 25 per cent. The act for the suspension of the navigation laws, and encouragement of American intercourse, have much altered our commercial system. Our West India ports are hereafter to be opened to American ships; but how far this may affect the shipping interest of Great Britain, is a question which this is not the proper place to determine. A further progress has been made towards the abolition of the African Slave Trade. A resolution has passed both Houses, that this trade is contrary to every principle of humanity, and expressing the firm purpose of the two Houses to concur in the benevolent efforts of his Majesty to accomplish the abolition of so unnatural and so inhuman a traffic. It is asserted by the advocates of this traffic, that this step will accelerate the ruin of these islands; this we believe, but it may be said on the other hand, that the present stock, by more humane treatment, may be kept up. If it can be kept up, where is the injury the abolition will produce? If it cannot be kept up, it must be owing to the insalubrity and the nature of the work that is expected from them. If the insalubrity of the climate, and the nature of the labour expected from them, be thus mortal, checking all future generation, and intercepting their lives in the middle of their days, how great must that injustice be which tears them from their native home, and exposes them to No. VI. Vol. I. one. One of the objects of the war, and that not the least important, the possession of Malta, has been obtained. We hope that no English minister will ever be found to surrender this; and we are persuaded that France will not, in the present moment, inake peace without it. The security of the Mediterranean is necessarily connected with the possession of Malta. Malta is to Turkey and Egypt what Gibraltar is to the Levant trade. The Cape of Good Hope is of equal importance to this country in the present situation of affairs. The ambition of the French is not confined to Europe; it is well known that our Indian possessions have long been the object of their eager envy. The Cape of Good Hope, in possession of the French or Dutch, their sure ally, might give a dangerous facility to any attack upon this quarter. It is well known that during the life of Tippoo Saib, the intrigues of the French, from the Isle of France, excited great troubles in India, and led to the ruin of the kingdom of Mysore. Of all men the native princes of India are most exposed to seduction from the intrigues of the French. The system of administration in India, as far as it regards their federal politics, is, to say the least of it, very oppressive; it cannot, therefore, be expected that it can be patiently submitted to by princes who have been accustomed to consider themselves as the independent masters of the soil. One or other of the Mahratta chiefs are always at hand to give trouble to the Company, and the vicinity of a foreign auxiliary might convert these troubles into real dangers. We hope these considerations will be weighed before the Cape is surrendered to the demands of the French or Dutch. X X PUBLIC AMUSEMENTS FOR JULY. Mr. Frankland, a country gentleman, misled by Old Sordid, his steward, disinherits his son, and leaves his estate deeply mortgaged, and entirely in the power of the man who had deceived him. Young Frankland, whose irregularities had been privately abetted by his betrayer, thus finds himself left at the mercy of the world; and the intelligence is farther embittered by a letter from Squir‹ Tail, father of the Female he had been promised, disclaiming an alliance with the natural son of the false Steward, who, to conceal the connection which gave him birth, had brought his child up in ignorance of his parents Edward Frankland sets out for Harvest Hall, the seat of Squire Flail, in hopes to soften his determination. Luckless (Sordid's Son) is also led thitherward, by an advertisement from his father, who journeys towards the same place to forward the treaty of marriage in favour of his son. Edward, on his ro.d, rescues Mary Flail from a ruffian, but so far from prevailing on her father to relent, Flail only ironically promised that, if Edward, within twelve hours, en produce a freehold tenement, an acre of land, and one article of live stock, within six miles of Harvest Hall, he shall have the hand of his daughter. Mr Kalendar, a Mathematical, Philosophical oddity, and a very warm friend to Edward, discovers a half obsolete forest law, which enables him to assist the young man in fulfilling, on a small scale, the above hard conditions in the given time, and without purchase. Sordid and Son, being severally misled on their journey, by a wrong-painted finger-post, five miles from the Hall, are sufficiently delayed to give time for the accomplishment of Edward's plan. Sordid, fearful of being robbed, hides his money and some valuable papers on the very spot over which Edward's temporary mansion is afterwards erected, as part of the stipulation required by Squire Flail, and the title deeds of Edward's paternal property being found under his newly-raised roof among the other papers concealed by Sordid, whose son proves to be already married, an accommodation is effected between all parties. The piece takes its title from an incident which occurs to Old Sordid, through the stupidity of an Irish carpenter, and of a sign painter, who is one of the people called Quakers. These men put up in the forest a finger-post, the top of which is moveable, and goes round like a turnstile with the wind. Sordid comes up to the place where it is erected, and follows the guidance of one of its fingers which is lettered "To Harvest hall," but which unluckily happens to be at that time in a wrong direction. It is during the journey which this mistake occasions, that the incidents occur of which we have given an account. The dialogue of this piece abounds with the quibbles and puns that of late have been so prevalent on the stage. Some of the equivoques are much better than the common class of such things; and perhaps it is not saving too much to pronounce that this is the most entertaining play, if not the most classical comedy, which has made its appearance for several years. Every assistance has been afforded it by the performers, who were indeed in almost every instance excellent. Fawcett's Kalendar was truly original. John Spriggins, in the underplot, which is constituted by his attachment to Jenny, was admirably repre sented by Matthews. The Irish carpenter was a bad imitation of that long-established favourite Johnstone. The Quaker, and particularly in the song, was after the best manner of that chaste performer, Liston; and we cannot help noticing, with the highest praise, the acting of Mr. Hatton in the Thief. Indeed, if we were not afraid of hazarding such an opinion, on such a character, we should call it, not acting, but na ture itself. The piece was extremely well received, and has continued to attract overflowing audiences ever since its production. |