pose than for the sake of profit, by letting them at annual rents. The inconvenience occasioned by such practices, which cannot be considered in any other light than as disgraceful, can well be imagined, to those who would wish to attend their Church; who probably have not an opportu nity of purchasing, or think it improper to become parties to such a proceeding; and whilst a respectable householder is thus excluded, and probably when the Church is only partially filled, an inhabitant of an adjoining parish, not possessed of realty within the parish of Alcester, is in the enjoyment of a Pew, and even without the necessity of contributing to church repairs, or rates. I believe it to be doubtful, whether the custom is not so far ripened into general usage, as to be too deeply rooted for the Bishop of the diocese to exercise the authority with which he is invested by the common law (except in particular places wherein the same power is exercised by the Churchwardens), of parcelling out the Pews in every part of the Church, except the chancel, and making new allotments of them, upon a complaint being made and verified by a portion of the respectable part of the parishioners.

It would certainly be much to be desired if some remedy could in any way be applied to a system so pregnant with injustice to the parishioners, and prejudicial to the best interests of the Established Church.

M

POEMS OF LUCRETIUS, POPE, &c. WITH CRITICAL REMARKS. (Continued from p. 20.) AN himself, with all his proud boasts of reason, occupies but a single link in the chain of Providence; he shrinks into insignificance when opposed to the illimitable range of intelligences which we conceive it probable indue and animate the numberless created beings which people the vast domains of this universe, -beings which, to us, are utterly unknown, and which they may exercise with intuitive freedom. The race of beings which vegetate upon this planet which we call our home, scarcely, it is probable, approximate a middle rank in the order of intel

lectual and rational creatures, and though we think we can trace its first commencement in the subordinate stages of animal existence of our system, we soon lose it in heights which are beyond all possibility of our reach, As worlds crowd on worlds in the ample space, which philosophy no less than reason has assigned to creation, it is rational to suppose that the perceptions of intellect are, throughout the vast and indefinite scale which reigns throughout her realms, varied in their respective and unequal proportions.

The light of our natural faculties beams with a radiance corresponding with our natural condition,-which radiance, though it often shines considerably brighter through the endowments of genius, and the adventitious aids of industry and education, -even when mind has shone out in its utmost vigour, has ever been clouded by weakness and incapacity. Among the most eminent philosophers in antient times who adorned the Academy, the Lyceum, and the Portico, this weakness and obscurity was manifest when their respective founders and followers applied themselves in vain to the elucidation of various phenomena connected with nature and man.

The higher pretensions of sages of modern times,-of our Boyles, of our Lockes, and our Newtons, have, in their enquiries, exhibited instances of mortifying and reiterated failure, and brought home a powerful conviction to their minds of the bewildering darkness which, even in its most aspiring moments, o'ershadows the exertions of human reason and of human intellect.

The narrowness and inadequacy of our powers of intellect,-upon which Pope has so frequently descanted, may likewise be said to be sometimes conspicuous when we attempt to view Revelation with the eye of reason; and to reconcile the apparent discrepancies which must occasionally strike the examiner who would fain arrive at clear and satisfactory light on things which, in certain respects, involve questions of primary importauce. Theology, if interpreted in the sense of the letter, plainly inculcates the existence only of a single world; to which all the powers and resources of the universe are directed,

and

and upon which the regards of Omnipontence seem concentrated. Whilst thus addressing us, its various prophecies, allusions, and narratives, seem absolutely to contradict those mighty realities which are nevertheless corroborated and confirmed by all the experimental assurances of Science. Borne on the wings of probability, the imagination of man, soaring beyond the limited confines of a single world, expatiates amongst numberless other spheres; that, from evidence of the most unexceptionable kind, from accurate experiments, constrains the sober judgment to determine, are habitable and animated worlds, framed and designated for like purposes with our own. Disdaining to be circumscribed by the ideal fetters which the narrow circle of space assigned to our own immediate being, prescribes to our views, it wafts aloft through the ample territories of unknown globes, of dimensions even surpassing that on which we vegetate, peopled with innumerable creatures by a wise and all-bountiful Creator.

Such intellectual excursions, therefore, growing out of the general subject of man, are not to be deemed the idle and speculative dreams suggested by fancy, they are not the idle chimeras of a heated brain,-they are the rational deductions of fair reasoning, corroborated by accumulated experiments. Instructed by certain truths in science,-such, whilst contemplating the illimitable expanse which stretches on either side around us, are the visions which animate the soul;-such, whilst with mingled sensations of astonishment and awe, surveying the cloudless sky of evening, blazing with innumerable fires, are the prospects which silent and soberworking reflection magnificently unfold, and prodigiously widen the boundaries of creation. Filled with these scenes, and their immensity, the thoughtful mind, after roving thro' spaces without bound or limit, cannot resist the impression that something lies beyond this visible system, concerning which Revelation has been silent, and of which our understandings, assisted only so far as the inge. nuity of human art can contribute, cannot attain clear and adequate ideas.

This train of reflections,-this flow of thought, suggested by a general

view of certain parts of the Essay on Man, will naturally strike the mind when reviewing the dignity and philosophical importance of the subjects which Pope has sung. That he has at all times adequately sung them, in all the relations growing out of this complicated and undefined system of existence and of knowledge, could perhaps not be expected from a Poet of his endowments and capacities;— that he has infused dignity and interest into those general sketches which he has given us, and illustrated them by striking, eloquent, and beautiful associations, drawn from the moral and metaphysical study of his own species, is a meed of praise which can never be withheld from him. These laurels must always play round his head, notwithstanding the dictum noticed above of Johnson, who has not altogether done him justice when he asserts, that penury of knowledge and vulgarity of sentiment were never before so successfully disguised. The topics, or the subjects of discussion, comprised in this Poem may be said to be at once novel and of high interest. The Poet adventured his genius in an undertaking of an arduous kind, in embarking in disquisitions which have frequently employed the pens and the sagacity of the most acute metaphysicians and casuists, and certainly showed a confidence in thus adventuring himself in a capacity so unlike that in which he had previously shone, that nothing but the elevation of his sentiment, and the force and energy of his numbers, could have justified.

Warton has likewise alleged, as is well known, in disparagement of Pope's powers of ratiocination, that the plagiarism of his subjects (of which he cites instances), happily dis guised under an adscititious dress, render him unworthy of that regard of which he otherwise would eminently have been worthy. But here one of his admirers might ask if the licence thus taken (even supposing it to have been taken in its extent) be wholly confined to this accomplished Poet; and if, in so comprehensive a theme of enquiry as that in which he embarked, it is easy to avoid the train of arguments or arriving at the same inferences which, when investigators philosophize by the same legi. imate mode, seem, in a great degree,

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