minor poets, than a candid acknowledgment of their own inferi ority, we think Mr Bloomfield well entitled to have his magnanimity recorded. The illustrious soul that has left amongst us the name of Burns, has often been lowered down to a comparison with me; but the comparison exists more in circumstances than in essentials. That man stood up with the stamp of superior intellect on his brow; a visible greatness and great and patriotic subjects would only have called into action the powers of his mind, which lay inactive while he play ed calmly and exquisitely the pastoral pipe. The letters to which I have alluded in my preface to the "Rural Tales, "were friendly warnings, pointed with immediate reference to the fate of that extraordinary man. "Remember Burns," has been the watch-word of my friends. I do remember Burns; but I am not Burns! I have neither his fire to fan or to quench; nor his passions to controul! Where then is my merit, if I make a peaceful voyage on a smooth sea and with no mutiny on board?" V. 136. p. 135, The observations on Scotish songs, which fill nearly 150 pages, are, on the whole, minute and trifling; though the exquisite justness of the poet's taste, and his fine relish of simplicity in this species of composition, is no less remarkable here tharr in his cor respondence with Mr Thomson. Of all other kinds of poetry, he was so indulgent a judge, that he may almost be termed an indiscriminate admirer. We find, too, from these observations, that several songs and pieces of songs, which he printed as genuine antiques, were really of his own composition. The common-place book, from which Dr Currie had formerly selected all that he thought worth publication, is next given entire by Mr Cromek. We were quite as well, we think, with the extracts; at all events, there was no need for reprinting what had been given by Dr Currie ;-a remark which is equally applicable to the letters of which we had formerly extracts. Of the additional poems which form the concluding part of the volume, we have but little to say. We have little doubt of their authenticity; for, though the editor has omitted, in almost every instance, to specify the source from which they were derived, they certainly bear the stamp of the author's manner and genius. They are not, however, of his purest metal, nor marked with his finest die Several of them have appeared in print already; and the songs are, as usual, the best. This little lamentation of a desolate damsel, is tender and pretty. My father pat me frae his door, My friends they hae disown'd me a' ; The bonie lad that's far awa. A And he'll come hame that's far awa.' V. 432, 433. We now reluctantly dismiss this subject. We scarcely hoped, when we began our critical labours, that an opportunity would ever occur of speaking of Burns as we wished to speak of him: and therefore, we feel grateful to Mr Cromek for giving us this opportunity. As we have no means of knowing, with precision, to what extent his writings are known and admired in the southern part of the kingdom, we have perhaps fallen into the error of quoting passages that are familiar to most of our readers, and dealing out praise which every one of them has previously repeated. We felt it impossible, however, to resist the temptation of transcribing a few of the passages which struck us on turning over the volumes; and reckon with confidence on the gratitude of those to whom they are new,-while we are not without hopes of being forgiven by those who have been used to admire them. We shall conclude with two general remarks-the one national, the other critical. The first is, that it is impossible to read the productions of Burns, along with his history, without form ing a higher idea of the intelligence, taste, and accomplishments of the peasantry, than most of those in the higher ranks are disposed to entertain. Without meaning to deny that he himself was endowed with rare and extraordinary gifts of genius and fancy, it is evident, from the whole details of his history, as well as from the letters of his brother, and the testimony of Mr Murdoch and others to the character of his father, that the whole family, and many of their associates, who have never emerged from the native obscurity of their condition, possessed talents, and taste, and intelligence, which are little suspected to lurk in those humble retreats. His epistles to brother poets, in the rank of farmers and shopkeepers in the adjoining villages, the existence of a book-society and debating-club among persons of that description, and many other incidental traits in his sketches of his youthful companions, all contribute to show, that not only good sense, and enlightened morality, but literature, and talents for speculation, are far more generally diffused in society than is generally imagined; and that the delights and the benefits of these generous and humanizing pursuits, are by no means confined to those whom leisure and affluence have courted to their enjoyment. That 1 That much of this is peculiar to Scotland, and may be properly referred to our excellent institutions for parochial education, and to the natural sobriety and prudence of our nation, may certainly be allowed. but we have no doubt that there is a good deal of the same principle in England, and that the actual intelligence of the lower orders will be found, there also, very far to exceed the or dinary estimates of their superiors, It is pleasing to know, that the sources of rational enjoyment are so widely disseminated; and, in a free country, it is comfortable to think, that so great a proportion of the people is able to appretiate the advantages of its condition, and fit to be relied on in all emergencies where steadiness and intelligence may be required. Our other remark is of a more limited application; and is addressed chiefly to the followers and patrons of that new school of poetry, against which we have thought it our duty to neglect no opportunity of testifying. Those gentlemen are outra geous for simplicity; and we beg leave to recommend to them the simplicity of Burns. He has copied the spoken language of passion and affection, with infinitely more fidelity than they have ever done, on all occasions which properly admitted of such adaptation but he has not rejected the helps of elevated language and habitual associations; nor debased his composition by an af fectation of babyish interjections, and all the puling expletives of an old nurserymaid's vocabulary. They may look long enough among his nervous and manly lines, before they find any "Good lacks!". "Dear hearts!"- -or "As a body may say, "'in them; or any stuff about dancing daffodils and sister Emmelines. Let them think, with what infinite contempt the powerful mind of Burns would have perused the story of Alice Fell and her duffle cloak, of Andrew Jones and the half-crown,-or of Little Dan without breeches, and his thievish grandfather. Let them con trast their own fantastical personages of hysterical schoolmasters and sententious leechgatherers, with the authentic rustics of Burns's Cotters' Saturday Night, and his inimitable songs; and reflect on the different réception which these personifications have met with from the public. Though they will not be reclaimed from their puny affectations by the example of their learned predecessors, they may, perhaps, submit to be admonished by a self-taught and illiterate poet, who drew from Nature far more directly than they can do, and produced something so much liker the admired copies of the masters whem they have abjured. ART. II. Lettre aux Espagnols Americains. Par un de leurs Compatriotes. A Philadelphie. 8vo. THIS * pp. 42. HIS curious and interesting address is the production of Don Juan Pablo Viscardo y Gusman, a native of Arequipa in Peru, and an ecclesiastic of the Order of Jesus. When the Jesuits were banished from all the territories of Spain, he, with the rest of his order, who, whatever may have been their demerits in other parts of the world, had been the chief benefactors of Spanish America, was deprived of his country, and took re-. fuge in the dominions of the Pope in Italy. At the time when the dispute about Nootka Sound threatened to produce a war between Great Britain and Spain, and when Mr Pitt, in the view of that event, had adopted the scheme of revolutionizing the Spanish colonies in America, he invited, at the suggestion of General Miranda, a certain number of the ex-Jesuits of South America from Italy, for the purpose of using their influence in disposing the minds of their countrymen for the meditated changes. Of this number was the author of the present appeal, in which the inhabitants of South America are called upon, by every consideration interesting to human kind, to take the management of their own affairs into their own hands, and to establish a just and beneficent government, which may at once insure their own happiness, and open a liberal intercourse of benefits with the rest of mankind. This uncommon person, who evinces a share of knowledge, of thought, and of liberality, worthy of the most enlightened countries, died in London in the month of February 1798, and left the present tract, in manuscript, together with several other Montesquieu says of this Order, Il est glorieux pour elle d'avoir été la première qui ait montré dans ces contrées [Spanish America] l'idée de la religion jointe à celle de l'humanité. En reparant les devastations des Espagnols, elle a commencé à guerir une des grandes plaies qu'ait encore reçues le genre humain. 'Esprit des Lois, liv. iv. ch. 6. Dr Robertson, too, when treating of the rapacious, oppressive, and licentious lives of the ecclesiastics of that country, says, It is remarkable that all the authors, who censure the licentiousness of the Spanish regulars with the greatest severity, concur in vindicating the conduct of the Jesuits. Formed under a discipline more perfect than that of the other monastic orders, or animated by that concern for the honour of the Society, which takes such full possession of every member of the order, the Jesuits, both in Mexico and Peru, it is allowed, maintained a most irreproachable decency of manners. History of America, vol. i Note xix. other papers, in the hands of Mr King, at that time minister in this country from the United States. It was afterwards printed, by means of General Miranda, for the purpose of being circulated among his countrymen. At a moment like the present, we doubt not it will appear of importance to our readers to contemplate the sentiments of a man who may, to so great a degree, be considered as the representative of the leading classes of his countrymen, on a question at all times highly interesting to Great Britain, but which, in the present situation of Europe, assumes an incalculable importance. In presenting to his countrymen a short sketch of their history, he tells them, after Herrera, that their progenitors won the Country by their own enterprize, and established themselves in it at their own charges, without a farthing of expense to the mother country; that, of their own free accord, they made to her the donation of their vast and opulent acquisitions; that, instead of a paternal and protecting government, they had experienced, at her hands, the most galling effects of a jealous, rapacious, and oppressive administration; and that, for the long period of three centuries, their attachment to her had triumphed over the strongest causes of resentment. He then draws a picture of the oppression to which the colonies of Spain have been subjected; and, after enlarging on the galling restraints in respect to personal liBerty, and the ruinous effects of the exorbitant commercial monopoly to which they have been condemned, he alludes to their exclusion from all offices of profit and trust, even in their own country, in a strain of patriotic indignation. After this picture of slavery, the author proceeds to demonstrate the foundations of liberty; and, considering the education he had received, the country where he was reared, and the society to which he belonged, the beneficence and justness of his views are worthy of no ordinary approbation. He then displays the solid principles of liberty which were originally interwoven in the constitution of Spain, and assisted by the spirit of the people; and, in the following short passage, states, with much discernment, the miserable, but delusive causes of its loss. ، La réunion des royaumes de Castille & d'Arragon, ainsi que les grands Etats, qui dans le même temps échurent aux rois d'Espagne & les trésors des Indes donnèrent à la couronne d'Espagne une prépondérance imprévue, & qui devint si puissante qu'en très-peu de temps, elle renversa toutes les barrières élevées par la prudence de nos ayeux, pour assurer la liberté de leur postérité : l'autorité royale, telle que la mer sortie de ses bornes, inonda toute la monarchie, & la volonté du roi & de ses ministres devint la loi universelle. Le pouvoir despotique une fois si solidement établi, l'ombre même des anciens cortes n'exista plus; il ne resta, aux droits naturels, civils & |