LXXXV. "Clear, placid Leman! thy contrasted lake, To waft me from distraction; once I loved That I with stern delights should e'er have been so moved. "It is the hush of night, and all between Thy margin and the mountains, dusk, yet clear, "He is an evening reveller, who makes At intervals, some bird from out the brakes, LXXXVIII. "Ye stars! which are the poetry of heaven! In us such love and reverence from afar, That fortune, fame, power, life, have named themselves a star." P.47. The characters of Voltaire and Gibbon are drawn with more discrimination than we had reason to expect. What is the noble Lord's opinion of their success, he has not been pleased to impart. What his wishes are he has clearly shewn by his anathema against their conquerors. "Lausanne! CV. "Lausanne! and Ferney! ye have been the abodes They were gigantic minds, and their steep aim, Thoughts which should call down thunder, and the flame On man and man's research could deign do more than smile. "The one was fire and fickleness, a child, A wit as various,-gay, grave, sage, or wild,- "The other, deep and slow, exhausting thought, Which stung his foes to wrath, which grew from fear, Which answers to all doubts so eloquently well. CVIII. "Yet, peace be with their ashes,-for by them, It is not ours to judge,-far less condemn ; The hour must come when such things shall be made By slumber, on one pillow,-in the dust, Which, thus much we are sure, must lie decay'd; "Twill be to be forgiven, or suffer what is just." P. 57. To the sentiments contained in the last stanza, if not to the poetry, we bow with unfeigued respect; but though we would not hastily condemn the frailties and the errors of others, yet we would not confound light and darkness, truth and falsehood in one undistinguished mass. The same hand which committed the sacred charge of truth to our care, will demand it again unpolluted at our hands. To condemn the error we are com manded; manded; to condemn the person we are forbidden. That final judgment rests in a higher tribunal, which we fear for the sake of the noble Lord and of ourselves, will too surely "deign do more than smile.” The Prisoner of Chillon is the complaint of the survivor of three brothers confined within the Chateau of that name, which is situated between Clarens and Villeneuve. The verses are in the eight svilable metre, and occasionally display some pretty poetry; at all events there is little in them to offend. We do not find any passage of sufficient beauty or originality to warrant an extract, though the whole may be read, not without pleasure by the admirer of this style of versification. The next poem that engages our notice is called DARKNESS, describing the probable state of things upon earth should the light and heat of the sun be withdrawn. To so strange and absurd an idea we must of course ascribe the credit of vast originality. "The world was void, The populous and the powerful was a lump, And their masts fell down piecemeal; as they dropp'd The wayes were dead; the tides were in their grave, And the clouds perish'd; Darkness had no need But We must confess that criticism is unable to reach a strain so sublime as this. If this be called genius, as we suppose it must, we are of opinion that the madness of that aforesaid quality is much more conspicuous than its inspiration. after the noble Lord has carried us with him in his air balloon to so high an eminence in the sublime, on a sudden he discharges the gas, and down we drop to the lowest depth of the bathos below. "I stood beside the grave of him who blazed The comet of a season, and I saw The humblest of all sepulchres, and gazed On that neglected turf and quiet stone, With name no clearer than the names unknown, Which lay unread around it; and I ask'd I know not what of honour and of light Thus spoke he, I believe the man of whom And therefore travellers step from out their way Your honour pleases,'-then most pleased I shook Some certain coins of silver, which as 'twere In which there was Obscurity and Fame, The Glory and the Nothing of a Name." P. 32. The noble Lord seems to be in the humour of Timon, to invite his friends to a course of empty dishes, which are finally to be discharged at their heads. Profane enough we must own ourselves, for never did we more heartily laugh than at the conclusion of this burlesque; in which we think the noble Lord has shewn no ordinary talents. So much for the "Visit to Churchill's grave. The next poem, called "The Dream," contains as usual a long history of "my own maguificent self." At the conclusion we are told "The The Wanderer was alone as heretofore, Through that which had been death to many men, He held his dialogue; and they did teach A marvel and a secret-Be it so." P. 44. Amen, say also we; for till these dialogues are somewhat more intelligible than many of the verses in this volume, we trust that our philosophy neither of intellect nor of temper will be put to the test by any attempt to interpret them. The next poem is a Chorus in an unfinished Witch Drama, which as it consists wholly of curses upon some devoted victim, the reader will take for granted that the noble Lord has excelled. We fear that the noble Lord will gain very little credit by the volumes before us. The first is decidedly the best, and contains some very good lines, plentifully interspersed with his accustomed crudities, but not without a considerable share of poetic merit. The Night Thoughts appear to be the objects of his imitation, but the copy falls very far short of the original. His Lordship's philosophy is at times of the sect of the "unintelligibles," at least to us ordinary mortals, who have been bred up in the schools of common sense. We do earnestly hope that the noble Lord will at last take his promised repose, and' write no more, till he can cease to write about himself. The address to his daughter, with which the Childe Harold concludes, under all those circumstances with which the public are too well acquainted, is written in bad taste, and worse morality. "The English nation is not so easily to be whined out of its just and honourable feelings. ART. VII. The Colonial Policy of Great Britain, considered with Relation to the North American Provinces, and West |