The regular stanza is preferable to irregular numbers, rbecause, in poetry, as in music, it is necessary, that there should be a proportion of parts, and that the ear should become acquainted with the modulation.

The spirit and genius of these Odes are of such an abstracted kind, that the Author, we apprehend, must content himself •with the praise of those few congenial minds who can discern and feel the finer influences of Fancy : who can enjoy the enthusiasm of visionary communications, and aspire to the regions of ideal existence.

But abstracted from all external praise, there is a charm in the indulgence of poetic fancy; and, in this respect, poetry, like virtue, is its own reward.

r.

When first Aurora's gorgeous car

Springs from Night's dreary vault rcleas'd,
And Beauty's consecrated star

Retires behind the blushing East,
Can Titan's orient beams dispense
A more propitious influence
To animate th' exulting earth,
Than sheds bright Fancy o'er the mind,
When from Care's grosser dregs refin'd,

It gives the fruits of Genius birth.

The imaginary and enthusiastic delights of Poetry are happily described in the following stanzas:

Us.
Where Poesy erects her feat,

The myrtle's fragrant branches twine,
Beneath the Pleasures' nimble sect
Upstarts the new-born Columbine;
Methinks s see the jocund band
Of Nymphs and Graces hand in hand
Their artless symphony inspire ;
The Muses catch the dulcet found,
They waft the sportive echoes round,
* And wake the sympathetic lyre.

IV.
The rose's aromatic bloom

Adorns their wild fantastic grove,
And o'er the violet's perfume
Angelic forms delighted rovej
Fair Sappho in Elysian bowers
Beguiles the gently stealing hours,

And soothes entranced Despair to rest,
Her strains so feelirgly express
The force of elegant distress j

Implanted in a female breast.

The

The stanzas dedicated to Madam Deslioulieres and Mrs. Rowe, are truly poetical and characteristic.

V.
Carelessly tripping o'er the green

The sprightly Deslioulieres appears
With winning air, and brow serene,
Unclouded by the frown of years:
Around the nymph in graceful state
A thousand smiling Cupids wait,

And each performs his destin'd part;
Some give the cheeks a livelier glow,
Some tune the tyre, some twang the bow
To pierce the most obdurate heart.

vr.

The plaintive Rowe, whose warbling breath

Dispers'd the melancholy gloom
Which, at her dear Alexis' death,

O'erhung the sickening vales of Frome,
To the soft Cyprian lute recites
The fears, the hopes, the fond delights,
The tender blandistiments of love,
Their mutual happiness compleating,
Where innocence and pleasure meeting
Have fix'd them in die realms above.

VII.
Beside them Cytherea stands

In Virtue's showy garb array'd,
And reunites their social hands,

Sever'd by Death's tremendous blade:
The Loves with elegiac verse
Meanwhile adorn the sable hearse
In which their mortal ashes lye,

And in due chaplet Phœbus weaves
The laurel's never-fading leaves,
The Guirdon of eternity.

The epithet tremendous may possibly be changed for one less common, one that shall in this place have greater propriety. The word Guerdon is, perhaps, both too harsh and too obsolete to be agreeable to the tuneful ease of lyric poetry: and the cinders of the dead, in the eighth stanza, approaches too near to what Horace calls the dominantia nomina rerum, to be read without censure.

This Ode concludes with a compliment to the Lady to whom it is addressed, who, we understand, is a fair Salopian and a. Poetess.

In the Ode to the Dryads we admire, in general, both the sentiment and the poetry, but particularly in the two following stanzas, where the Author has agreeably evinced both his humanity and his judgment,

• TJio'

xr.

Tho' in your holy grots retir'd.

The subtle Priests • with venom'd breath
The thirst of homicide inspir*d,

And wak'd the slumbering coals of death :
To their polluted altars led
Where erst the captive youth had bled
Victim of hellish cruelty,
Devoted Mona's frantic shade
In vain implor'd your guardian aid,
O'erthrown by Roman victory:

xir.

Yet never gave your presence birth
To murders fell, to battles rude,
To taunting jefls, or boiit'rous mirth,
Which on your favourite feats intrude ;
Ye haunt not that licentious grove
Where Spencer's desperate Champions rove,
Your chaste ear loves not to be told
Of blatant beasts, of dread Despair
With glaring eyes, with clotted hair, •

And brutal chivalries of old.

We are glad to find that Mr. Wodhull agrees with us, 1st disapproving the filthy images, and the loathsome bloody allegories of£|rnser. He will observe, however, that the same objection lies against the words printed in Italics in the eleventh stanza of this Ode, as against the expression censured in the eighth stanza of the first Ode.

There is no part of these Odes more beautiful than that where the Dryads are yet supposed to haunt the scenes of Petrarch's poetical Attentions:

•XIII.

In Avignon's delightful shades

Where Petrarch fix'd his lowly cell,
Perhaps, ye silver sooted Maids,
. • , fiy cool Valclusa's ebbing well
Ye deign to tend the rising flowers,
And bid the myrtle's shadowy bowers
A more enchanting fragrance Died;
And there the earliest rose is found,
Where on the rud* uncultur'd ground.
Your Bard reclin'd his sinking head;
XIV.
For there engrav'd upon the rind

Of every plane, and spreading beech
The fond complaints of Love ye find,

Which move beyond the power of speech,

• The ancient Druids.' * Rev. Jan, 1764. D An*

And where lie shed the tender tear
O'er his departed Laura's bier,

To sooth her hovering shade ye bring
The freshest lilies of the vale,
And waft the soft refreshing gale
On welcome Zephyr's balmy wing.

The poetical beauty and proprieties alludine, in an Ode t*» the Dryads, to a Lover's engraving his complaints on the baric of trees, are sufficiency obvious.

In the concluding stanza the Author avows the liberal-doctrine, that Pleasure and Morality arc not inconsistent; a doctruie which we do not find ourselves inclined to oppose :

XVI.
Yes: they who erst content to rove

Thro' Poesy's sequester'd sphere,
Or wak'd the Cyprian late of Love,
Or bade mild Pity's starting tear
Bedew the coach of Misery, find
With strict Morality combin'd

Sweet Pleasure's mediating wiles;

There seeking oft the Tuscan bowers.
Where Horace pass'd his jocund hours,
E'tn philosophic Rigour smiles.

CAM, en Ekgy. 4U). is. 6d. Flexney.

A S the intention of Isis*, an Elegy, published some years f\ ago, was to reproach the University of Oxford for the supposed Jacobitical principles of some of its. Members, so Cam, an Elegy, is now published as a satire on the University of Cambridge, for those servile and courtly principles which the Author ascribes to that illustrious body. The conduct of both poems is nearly the fame, and as the Isis was the principal Speaker in the former,, so is Cam in the present Elegy ; but Isis was introduced to bewail the degeneracy of her son3, Cam to lament the misfortunes of his, in the downfall of thei? powerful Patron the Duke of N .

We are far from approving such publications as these, which tend to injure either the political or the moral reputation of any respectable body; nevertheless, as a literary performance, we cannot withhold our approbation from the poem before us ; for the sentiments are manly, and the versification is elegant; the composition is remarkable for its cafe and perspicuity, and the descriptive n&iWbt the poem are ingeniously invented.

• Written by Mason. "

-Fat

Far from liis coral, wave-encircled, bower,
Form'd for the social, or the festal hour,
Lay sedgy-mantled Ca M, on oozy bed ;
While the bleak winds beat rudely on his head :
Some silent sorrow prey'd upon his mind,
And o'er his urn he sullenly reclin'd ;
That urn where science wont in times of yore,
To trace the symbols of her sacred lore;
Where Freedom once, with virtuous pride elate,
Saw her dear emblems thron'd in social state:
But now their trophies banifh'd from its side,
More modern ornaments their place supplied;
Where erst the Genius of the British race
The Charter grasp'd with stern and awful grace,
There smil'd a Peer, whose fortune-favour'd hand
Display'd its power, the staff, the seals, the wand ;
Where Phoebus fat, and struck hi; golden lyre,
In concord sweet with all the Aonian choir ;
There Plutus held Preferment's types on high,
Scarfs, mitres, stalls, that prompt the priestly sigh;
Fast by his side was servile Flattery seen,
Known by th' obsequious smile, the cringing mien;
Where Study wont, by taper dim, to toil,
And rifle Learning of her richest spoil,
There Indolence, and Mirth, congenial souls!
Loll'd on the couch, and crown'd the frequent bowls.
At distance due sit objects strike the eye,
Here temples seem with palaces to vie ;
A bower umbrageous, a gymnastic green,
Sweet interchange! compleat th' inchanting scene.

The following lines make a part of the River-God's com? plaints:

And can it, Powers immortal! can it be,

That these, these wretched eyes are bound to fee

My H—Ll—s leagu'd with Opposition's train,

Bustling with zeal ridiculously vain ;

For what ?—could Liberty one danger know,

Or fear, while George protects, the subtlest foe I

Can Granta's Patron such a dupe commence,

So strange a foe to Granta's self and sense,

In earneji to espouse his country's cause,

And court the real Patriot's applause ?

A Patriot! Cam detests the odious name f

The doating flave of principle or fame 1

WhaJ's Principle?—blind Conscience! random rules—

What's Fame ?—a feather in the cap of foob.

Weigh'd in the balance with thy solid joys, '

O Power! how quick their nothingness would rise!

The Description of the Duke of N 's Installation is

spirited and poetical, and does honour to the Author, though cot to the subject.

P 2 EV»