Health! thou sun of life, without whose Scotland," a poem which, next to beam The fairest scenes of nature seem involved In darkness, shine upon my dreary path Once more; or, with thy faintest dawn, give hope, That I may yet enjoy thy vital ray! Though transient be the hope, 'twill be most sweet, Like midnight music stealing on the ear, Then gliding past, and dying slow away. Music! thou soothing power, thy charm is proved Most vividly when clouds o'ercast the soul; So light its loveliest effect displays rack The Sabbath Walks" for the different seasons of the year, have been justly and peculiarly admired. And the little poem called "The First Sabbath," though somewhat obscure in one or two places, is a noble specimen of the author's genius. Yet we cannot but regret that the chief ideas of these poems, which properly belong to the subject of "the Sabbath," were not introduced as a part of it. The "Biblical Pictures" are well named, for a painter might draw from most of them, and steal from them also Promethean fire, to infuse life and beauty into the creations of his pencil. We speak not, however, so much of the language, for Mr Grahame is often careless, as of the description and sentiment. They display the minute acquaintance of the author with scriptural facts, and his profound reverence for scriptural truths. It is now incumbent on us to offer a few remarks on "the Birds of the "Sabbath," we think the best of his long productions. It is divided into three parts, the first of which contains a description of our woodland songsters; the second, of those which migrate in the winter; and the third, of birds of prey. But though the poet has followed this general arrangement, from the nature of the subject he is desultory in the details; and it is by no means easy always to trace the principle of association by which his transitions are conducted. This is a defect in some degree attached to all descriptive poetry. It is also extremely difficult to render a composition of this nature interesting. Yet Mr Grahame has done much to overcome the difficulty, and has been so successful in the moral and historical allusions and references which he has introduced, that we wish he had introduced them more frequently. When the author was hesitating about a name for his poem, we recommended to him the title of " Caledonian Ornithology;" and indeed, though he does not profess the accuracy of a natural historian, we have not found any natural history of the tenants of our woods and heaths more particular in its observations, or more cor. rect in its statements. To the genuine lovers of nature this poem will furnish an exquisite treat, for the author, in happy accordance with his theme, displays ease, grace, and rapidity, in his delineations of the habits and haunts of the feathered tribes. The lovers of variety will find abundant gratification. There is as little similarity between the habits of a hawk and a red-breast, as there is between those of a highwayman and an honest housewife; and as little resemblance between the characters of an owl and a cock-sparrow, as there is between those of a senator and a recruit with his new cockade. If Mr Grahame then, like a bird, appears to hop from tree to tree, his plumage sometimes irradiated by sun-beams, sometimes obscured in marshes or thickets, it must be re membered, that he is following a devious subject, and that he is bound to describe the humbler and less interesting, as well as the more lofty and elegant of the winged race. We have pleasure in extracting the following highly-wrought description of the Eagle bearing her prey to her young, together with a fine passage about our patriot Wallace, which it very naturally introduces. Mr Grahame and his family spent a considerable part of the summer, 1807, at the beautiful village of Roslin. Here he was chiefly employed in the composition of a poem on the aboli tion of the slave trade, an event which will render that year for ever memo. rable. No one who was not actively engaged in the accomplishment of that great work, was animated with more zeal in the cause; and no man rejoiced more sincerely than he in the gle was terminated. A plan was glorious triumph by which the strugformed by Bowyer of Pall Mall, London, for perpetuating the remembrance of this consummation, in a manner worthy of this enlightened age and country. He proposed to publish what might be considered as a national work, consisting of three original poems on the abolition, with splendid embellishments. The per sons who undertook the poetical part of the work were, James Montgomery, Mr Grahame, and Eliza Benger. This splendid work made its appearance in 1809, and was never much circulated. In Scotland it is very little known. Our limits forbid us to offer our intended criticism on this elaborate work. We shall only observe, that the amiable Montgomery's poem was afterwards published separately in a 12mo volume, and is called the "West Indies;" that it met with very great and just ly merited success, and that it will transmit his name with honour to posterity. In the mean time Mr Grahame, who found the pursuits of literature the more delightful from the fame which he had already acquired, and from the power which he possessed of relaxing or increasing his diligence, as his health declined or improved, became more and more averse from his professional labours, and gradually discontinued his connection with the bar He was quietly employed in preparing himself for the duties of a clergyman, in which it had been his wish at first to engage, and to which his heart, amid all the vicissitudes of life, had been more or less attached. He said to a friend, “I love peace," and both his conversation, and many of his peetical allusions, shew how much he hated contention, and how unfit he was for mingling in the strife of tongues and the jarring of selfish interests. He now, therefore, thought, with redoubled pleasure, of becoming a minister of the religion of peace; and not only his predilection, but his early studies, rendered his preparation for the change easy and pleasant. and avowed a small poem in rhyme, entitled, "The Siege of Copenhagen." He describes the apparently pacific approach of our fleet to the Scandinavian coast, the friendly welcome with which it was cheered as it passed the Sound, and approached the ca pital; the amazement, dismay, and resistance of the Danes, the horrors of the bombardment, and its dismal success; and concludes by a remonstrance with his countrymen on the alleged injustice and impolicy of the painful expedition. We shall only observe, in reference to this afflicting topic, that as its secret causes have never yet been fully explained, so the measure seems more questionable in point of morality, as some of its details were more afflicting to hu manity, than any in which England has for many years been engaged. The calamities of warfare, however, are of themselves no proof of its ini quity, and certainly Mr Grahame has too much identified both. The fol lowing most exquisitely drawn picture will atone by its beauty, pers haps, for the pain which its perusal must give. And now on every side rise sights of woe, Here instant death, there lingeringly slow. In yonder roofless dwelling mark the blaze, That round the cradled infant lambent In 1808, Mr Grahame published We have much more satisfaction in extracting the closing passage of the imputed its faults to its didactic He passed the winter, as usual, in Edinburgh, and resided, during the greater part of the summer, 1808, with his family, at a pleasant villa in the neighbourhood of Annan. Here his active mind was occupied in the composition of the "British Geor gics," a poem which, together with long and tedious notes, was printed about a year afterwards in a splendid quarto. If we may judge from the style in which the volume appeared, and from the price at which it was sold, we should be led to conclude, that, like many a fond parent, he was most attached to the least promising of his offspring. The title, we think, of this agricultural poem is somewhat rashly chosen. The mind of a scholar is thus forced to recal, and to bring into comparison with it, the Georgics of the Mantuan Bard, a poem distinguished for its beauty and elegance, and which has sometimes been pronounced to be the most exquisitely polished and complete of the compositions of Virgil. Certain critics who have treated Mr Grahame's Georgics with marvellous indulgence, have nature; but this apology will avail little with those who find it completely inapplicable to his great prototype. At the same time, success in such an attempt is certainly difficult. We are indeed disposed to receive lessons in morality, or the fine arts, from the muses; but cannot relish their instructions about ploughs and harrows unless they are delivered with exquisite address; nor can we readily understand how they should be qualiof drill and broad-cast turnip husfied to discuss the comparative merits bandry. Agriculturists have in general been deemed Though we are not disposed to give much weight to this charge, we can hardly expect that a practical farmer should go to a poetical calendar for instruction about manuring or tilling his land; and, if men of polished taste are to be interested in the art, great skill and delicacy are indis. pensably necessary on the part of the poet. In consequence of the greater facility with which blank verse may be constructed, than that which is bound in the trammels of rhyme, we are disposed to be the more rigid in our claims upon and great is our dis. it; appointment on this occasion. Though there are many fine passages scattered through the twelve divisions of the work, yet we are compelled to say, that there are very few which we have perused with approbation, that refer to the proper business of the poem. Mr Grahame, in the best of his poems, is not nice about the rules of English prosody, nor is he careful to consult the ear in his deviations. 'We have often two superfluous syllables in a line, which spoil the sound without adding any thing to the sense; and sometimes by the simple change of a word from one place of a line to another, we bring out a melodious, instead of a grating and discordant verse. Whether to impute this glaring fault to carelessness, to the want of a correct ear for poetical numbers, or to the example of Cowper, who seems to have been his chief favourite, and who sometimes offends in a similar way, we know not. But in the British Georgics we do not so much complain even of this, as of the bald and unadorned precepts in which the art of farming is often taught. The following may serve as speci mens. The seed 'time closed, the fences, hedge, and ditch, Demand your tendance: first the ditches clear, And then with cautious hand the hedges lop, Round at the bottom, tapering by degrees, As to the top the shears or bill ascends. Again, Oft times, 'tis true, a single row of thorns But let us now attend a little to the beauties of this volume. Various reviewers have so ransack |