cal compofition, but to call in PAINTING to the aid of POETRY or to publish it (as it is expreffed at the bottom of the advertisement) with various defigns and engravings, descriptive and hiftorical, by the most eminent masters.'

HUMANITY, however, is fent forth, as a noun substantive, to ftand by itself, without having fo much as a Vignette joined to it. It was not neceflary: for not only the interefting nature of the fubject, but the particular season also of its publication (when the attention of Parliament was directed to the negroe traffic and flavery), would contribute to procure it many readers. Mr. Pratt confeffes, that in the order of his great poem on Society, what relates to the inhuman treatment of negroes would not probably have taken the lead, but that he was induced to depart from his original plan, and to anticipate fome of his obfervations, in order, at a seasonable moment, to enforce the appeals of those who have the strongest claims on humanity. We highly applaud the motive. As the avowed friend of the human race, Mr. Pratt is entitled to the greateft refpect, though, as a poet, not to perfect commendation. His fentiments are those of an expanded and liberal mind; but they are not always expressed in the happieft manner.

Alluding to a former work (we apprehend, to his Landscapes in Verfe), he thus beautifully begins the poem before us:

• From vernal blooms and many a fragrant bow'r, The red'ning bloffom and unfolding flower, From breezy mountains and the covert vale, The gliding water and the whispering gale, From gayer scenes where carelefs fancy ftray'd, Bask'd in the fun, or frolick'd in the shade, Ambitious grown, and touch'd by generous praise, Now turns the MUSE to more advent'rous lays; No more fhe paints the tints of blushing morn, Nor hangs the dew-drop on the trembling thorn; No more the brook runs murmuring in her line, No more, fair Spring, her florid verfe is thine; Farewell; a long farewell, to founts and flow'rs, Far loftier themes demand her thoughtful powers.' Mr. Pratt's Mufe having, in this elegant exordium, taken her leave of paftoral objects, fketches the plan of her future adventurous fong on SOCIETY; but, ere fhe wings her bold flight, kneels at COMPASSION's fhrine, and confecrates her opening lay to HUMANITY. We do not doubt the fincerity of the confecration, nor the truth of what follows.

For thou her guardian, patronefs and guide,
She owns with rapture, and obeys with pride.'

But we lament that the is too rapturous to be grammatical. It is better, however, to fall into accidental violations of grammar, than to be guilty of repeating the fame thought, with no kind of

variation,

variation, in a fecond line, for the fake of procuring a rhyme to the firft. Of this fault, which we only expect to find in the moft flimfy writers of verfe, Mr. Pratt's Mufe ftands convicted on the evidence of the following couplet, which is part of her compliment to the Humane Society:

Drag the pale victim from the whelming wave,

And fnatch the body from the floating grave*."

For thefe offences ample reparation is foon made, as the proceeds to fing of the exercife of humanity toward the infane. This is the newest part of the poem, and as it will, no doubt, be pleafing to our poetical readers, we here offer it to their perufal :

• When fovereign Reason from her throne is hurl'd,
And with her all the fubject fenfes whirl'd +,
From fweet HUMANITY, the nurse of grief,
Even thy deep woes, O PHRENZY! find relief;
For tho' the tresses loose and bosom bare,
And maniac glance thy hapless ftate declare,
With gentle hand he still fupports thy head,
Beguiles thy wand'ring wit, and fmooths thy bed;
Aflifts thy roving fancy in its flight,

To crown thy airy fallies with delight;

An healing balm to thy warp'd fense she brings,
Till from her foftnefs magic comfort fprings,
And joys which Reason with a frown denies,
Her tender pity with a fmile fupplies;
Ev'n in thy prison-house fhe bids thee draw
From the rush fceptre, and the crown of straw,
The mimic truncheon, and the love-knot true,
Full many a transport Reason never knew;
And at thy grated cell fhe oft appears,

She culls thee flowers, and bathes them with her tears;
The perfum'd violet and the blooming rofe,

On thy hurt mind a tranfient blifs bestows;
Into a thousand fhapes the garlands change,
As fairy fancy takes its antic range;

Then as thy brows the fragrant wreaths adorn,
The rofes feem to bloom without a thorn.'

No Mufe, whofe fenfes are diftraught, could thus write of the infane; but when a Mufe gets warm, fhe is apt to become obfcure, or to fly beyond the ken of common fenfe. What is foon after observed of female beauty, that it breaks in the blush, and fhoots along the figh,' appears to us (who do not fee with the poet's eye" in a fine phrenzy rolling") a little dark; but this is nothing to what we meet with when he is more heated, and

* In another place, p. 52, our poet makes use of two words of the fame meaning in one line: law is called

The field, the fpear, and buckler of the land.' † We do not quite approve of subirl'd in the fecond line.

glows

glows with rage at the unconscious fugar-cane. Against this plant a very heavy charge is preferred; it is faid to be

Of ev'ry foft HUMANITY the bane;'

and defcribed in the fame fentence as having a poison, an art, and a forine. But from this flight into the regions of obfcurity, the Mufe foon defcends, and acts the graver part of the Hiftorian. She traces flavery, or the fale of human flesh, from its origin in Egypt, through Greece and Rome, to the time of its abolition by the Chriftian Emperors; reproaches Portugal and Spain for reviving it; has a ftroke at the Inquifition; defcribes the advances of POWER; gives us an imitation of Pope's Men would be Angels, Angels would be Gods; bids us behold the kidnapped Africans taken from their native land, and cruelly conveyed to the Weft Indian islands; and calls on the Europeans to justify their conduct. And now the affumes the fober province of Reafon; confutes the notion that power, colour, or fuperior fenfe, can give a right to act the tyrant; fhews that the refinement and polished manners of which we boaft, produce as many vices as virtues; attacks luxury on the fcore of its various cruelties; points out, by way of contraft, the Bramin's harmless life, and thews what thould be learnt from it; turns next to the flaveagent (who is faid to buy and fell the image of his God); has a ftroke at France (For all the licences is dance and fong;') then fweetly fings of liberty, Albion, and the Oak; again looks back to ancient times; talks of Caractacus and Boadicea; and concludes the first book with the laud and praise of King Alfred.

In the fecond book, the Mufe of Humanity darts her all-pervading eye at the Baftile; abhors the loath fome dungeon; flies to Afia (where flavery is faid to bloom beneath the faireft fky'); (quere, what can be meant by the blooming of flavery?); laments the horrid effects of defpotifm there; and, unable to reft on thefe plains, fteers her flight to Africa. Here the relates fome pretty tales, much to the credit of the jetty race;-then-but unable to follow Mr. Pratt's Mufe, who travels as faft as any of Ariofto's knights, we must content ourselves with the following extract, which contains a fentiment truly liberal and juft, and is a fair fpecimen of the poetry:

O pride enormous! impudence of man!
But let not Britons imitate the plan,

Frame no falfe fyftems and then call them wife,
Or make diftinctions where no difference lies;
Alas! full oft the European face

Masks a mind darker than the darkest race;
The Negroe's heart may be a purer shrine,

For thoughts devout, O haughty White, than thine,
Acceptance find more gracious from its God,
Than the proud mafter who uplifts the rod,

His prayer to holy KANNO more prevail
To the great SPIRIT whispering in the gale,
His pious vows to QUOJA 'midit the trees
Or high BASSEFO walking in the breeze,
These may more virtue and more truth impart,
Than Chriftian incenfe from a favage heart,
And his wild Tambour beat to idol fhouts *,
To heav'n afcend before the organ's notes;
Say, what the pomps of science or of prayer,
If the poor Indian's fervor glows not there?
In different forms tho' men the God adore,
Shap'd as the brute or painted as the flow'r,
As marble here, and there as feathers feen,
There the birds bone, and here the fishes fin,
Each, as it marks fincerity, fhall rife,
And welcome find in the recording skies,
Shall more be cherish'd by the powers of Heav'n
Than lefs true worship where more aids are giv'n,
Than the mock homage of th' enlighten'd train,
For whom a Saviour liv'd and died in vain.'

As a poet, Mr. Pratt is a very unequal writer. Frequently there is ftrength and pathos in his verfe; at other times it is tame and languid. He is, moreover, not fufficiently nice and attentive in his choice of words. Sailors would object to the phrafe loudly roars the gale, and would inform the landfman poet that the moment when the gale begins loudly to roar, it becomes a ftorm. Sometimes he is abrupt in his tranfitions; an instance of this appears in p. 44.

We have noticed other little defects, but we fhall not particularly enumerate them, nor have we mentioned the above from any defire of injuring Mr. Pratt's reputation +. Our wish is to increase it. We have blamed him now, that we might, confiftently with our engagements to the public, more entirely commend his future work; and we must take the liberty of giving it as our opinion, that if, instead of priding himself in a vast extent of lines, he would learn to be more correct in the ufe of metaphors, and to blot, lop, and condense, he would foon be in confiderable eftimation as a poet.

We have been informed that Mr. Pratt's extreme illness, while the poem on Humanity was at prefs, obliged him to leave the MS. to be given out at different times, by a perfon who had mixedthe revifed copy with feveral loofe fheets of the rough original draft; confequently many errors (befide those in the errata) will be found.

* Shouts and notes make a very bad rhyme.

+ Our remarks prove that we have not deemed his present work unworthy of criticifm. Such distinction is more than we can afford to every poem that iffues from the prefs.

REV. Nov. 1788.

Ff

ART.

ART. IX. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero against Caius Cornelius Verres, tranflated from the Original, by James White, Efq; with Annotations. 4to. 18s. Boards. Cadell. 1787.

OF

Fall literary tafks, that of translating from the ancients is the most ungrateful, fince the labour is arduous, and the reward inconfiderable. According to an ingenious French writer," it is an unalterable law to refer all that is excellent to the original, and all that is bad to the copy; and the unhappy condition of a tranflator resembles that of a dancer on the flack rope, whofe dexterity is little regarded, while the leaft inadvertence cofts him his life."

Confidering this circumftance, we have always been inclined to view with much indulgence every attempt of this kind, when undertaken, as the late learned Mr. Harris ufed to fay, by qualified perfons; in which rank, Mr. White may very properly be placed. He has been ftudious to understand his author; and the copiousness of his English style is well fuited to express the exuberant fertility of Cicero.

In the preface he defcribes the fubject of the original, explains his defign in the tranflation, and intermixes feveral obfervations which are not common, and which appear to us to be folid; we fhall therefore infert it entire as a fpecimen of his ftyle, and as an earneft of the fatisfaction which the English reader may derive from the perufal of his work.

The deplorable abuses of provincial government have never been depicted in more glowing colours than in the celebrated orations againft Caius Verres. Such readers as are accustomed to compaffionate human mifery, will doubtlefs receive a fatisfaction from being told, that the abilities and zeal of Cicero were not exerted in vain. In this triumphant profecution, the delinquent, who had returned to Rome loaded with the fpoils and curfes of Sicily and Asia, was blasted by the lightning of irrefiftible eloquence.

Profligate men, intrufted with domination over opulent regions, defpifed the common career of villany, and were tempted to become monsters. Entire nations were impoverished irretrievably: there was no motive of intereft to reftrain the oppreffor: impunity at Rome was fecured by excess of wickedness abroad: there was nothing to deaden the ftroke of defpotifm. The tyrant haftened to his province, as to a devoted prey; proceeded to plunder it with a dreadful regularity; kept a journal of defolation; and, embittering the peace of millions, directed from his tribunal the fyftem of their calamities.

This is one of the moft applauded periods in the life of Cicero. Throughout the impeachment and trial of Verres, he appears to have been wholly unmolefted by that timidity which afterwards enfeebled and difgraced his operations. Here we behold him fearless and firm; an example of patient investigation, of perfevering vigour, of im

* Tourreil, in his hiftorical preface to the tranflation of Demofthenes.

Fregnable