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Why swells dread Alaric's name on air?
A sterner conqueror hath been there!
A conqueror-yet his paths are peace,
He comes to bring the world's release;
He of the sword that knows no sheath,
Th' avenger, the deliverer-Death!

'Is then that daring spirit fled?
Doth Alaric slumber with the dead?
Tamed are the warrior's pride and strength,
And he and earth are calm at length.
The land where heaven unclouded shines,
Where sleep the sunbeams on the vines ;
The land by conquest made his own,
Can yield him now-a grave alone.
But his her lord from Alp to sea-
No common sepulchre shall be !
Oh, make his tomb where mortal eye
Its buried wealth may pe'er descry!
Where mortal foot may never tread
Above a victor-monarch's bed.
Let not his royal dust be hid
'Neath star-aspiring pyramid;
Nor bid the gather'd mound arise,
To bear his memory to the skies.
Years roll away-oblivion claims
Her triumph o'er heroic names:
And hands profane disturb the clay
That once was fired with glory's ray;
And Avarice, from their secret gloom,
Drags e'en the treasures of the tomb,
But thou, O leader of the free!
That general doom awaits not thee!
Thou, where no step may e'er intrude,
Shalt rest in regal solitude,

Till, bursting on thy sleep profound,
Th' Awakener's final trumpet sound.

Turn ye the waters from their course,
Bid Nature yield to human force,
And hollow in the torrent's bed
A chamber for the mighty dead.
The work is done-the captive's hand
Hath well obey'd his lord's command.
Within that royal tomb are cast
The richest trophies of the past,
The wealth of many a stately dome,
The gold and gems of plunder'd Rome;
And when the midnight stars are beaming,
And ocean-waves in stillness gleaming,

Stern in their grief, his warriors bear
The Chastener of the Nations there;
To rest at length, from victory's toil,
Alone, with all an empire's spoil!

Then the freed current's rushing wave,
Rolls o'er the secret of the grave;
Then streams the martyr'd captives' blood
To crimson that sepulchral flood,
Whose conscious tide alone shall keep
The mystery in its bosom deep.

Time hath past on since then-and swept
From earth the urns where heroes slept;
Temples of gods, and domes of kings,
Are mouldering with forgotten things;
Yet shall not ages e'er molest

The viewless home of Alaric's rest:
Still rolls, like them, th' unfailing river,

The guardian of his dust for ever.'

Art. XIV. Common Sense; a Poèm. 8vo. pp. 53. Edinburgh. 1819.

THIS HIS is something much better, we confess, than the common run of satirical poems. " It is not the Religion of a < Clerk,' or the ribaldry of a Pasquin, but contains the sentiments of a man who has taste as well as wit, perhaps less wit than taste, and who can admire, as well as satirize; one who has positive as well as negative sentiments respecting men and things, and whose creed, both poetical and political, wears neither the drab nor the blue and yellow party livery. Such a writer, although we may not agree with him on all points, has a good right to be allowed the unmolested assertion of his opinions, especially as they are expressed without arrogance; and we are quite willing to connive at his harmless invasion of our province, by the promulgation of his criticisms. He is however a better poet than he is a critic, nor do we think satire his forte: there are some things in his poem which are of a higher quality than either satire or criticism. The versification is pointed, and at the same time easy and free. The execution is in all respects as good as needs be. The Author modestly tells us in the opening lines:

I have no genius. Though I make no doubt,

Sage reader, thou wouldst soon have found this out :
I tell thee, lest thou waste thy precious time
In seeking here for aught but sense and rhyme
Plain common sense, but no ecstatic feats,

And rhymes at least as good as Mister Keates'.'

The Poem consists of two Parts,' or rather, the pamphlet contains two poems. In the first, the Author asserts his po

etical and his political creed. Mr. Orator Phillips, and the Reverend Mr. Maturin, first come in for a share of his ridicule. Lord Byron is then commented on with more of the appropriate severity of a moralist, than of the feeling of a poet. In the feeblest passage of the whole poem, the Poet tells us that he admires him, but not through thick and thin;' that the crazy wandering boy' is not fit to be named with Milton; and that the Scrivener's son was nobler than the peer.' We warmly participate in our Author's indignation at his Lordship's atrocious abuse of his talents, and concede that as a poet he is destitute of moral sublimity, as well as deficient in variety; but it is of no use to expose oneself to the imputation of being unable to appreciate his extraordinary powers. Wordsworth, strongly suspect, our Satirist has not read; else, whatever perversity or imbecility he had with good reason charged upon the Author of The Excursion,' he would never have characterized his fancy as poor.' Coleridge is treated as slightingly. 'Poor Coleridge! his is no affected rant, He lives on opium and he studies Kant; Not over clear at first, what mortal brain Opium and Kant together could sustain ?

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Coleridge and Wordsworth are both fair subjects of satire; but the worst is, that satire, even when it has a fair subject, is but rarely just. Lamentably abortive as has proved the splendid promise afforded by Coleridge's early indications of genius, he has yet produced enough both in quality and in' quantity, to entitle him to rank with our finest lyric poets: pretensions resting upon a much less solid basis than his, have sufficed to admit many names into the Catalogue. Besides, there is something peculiarly ungracious in wasting ineffectual satire upon a man of real genius, whose literary character has at all events been perfectly inoffensive, and who has not lost all claim to respect for his talents, though his habits may have sunk him to a level with our pity. But we are insensibly straying into unnecessary discussions. Of Southey, the Writer says,

'He is a poet unconfined by rule

Devised in Lakish or in Cockney school;-
He is a poet-for his glancing eye

Takes in the forms of earth, and air, and sky:
He, still at home where'er he takes his stand,
Mid Biscay's mountains or Arabia's sand,
Calls by his magic art for prince or peer,
Moslem or Christian, and they all appear;
He too can paint, as well as Walter Scott,
The misty valley and the sunless grot;
And BYRON'S sullen muse could scarcely mount
Above the vengeance of the injured Count:

But who could draw Florinda sad and fair,

Her matchless love, her hope and her despair!
And who, O who, but he could have expressed
The deep remorse of Roderick's noble breast-
His penances by day, his prayer by night,
His bearing and his war-cry in the fight?
Yes, Southey, spite of all thy childish tricks,
Thy laureate odes, and cottage politics;

Though Jeffrey quiz, and Kempferhausen praise,

I still must read, and still must love thy lays.'-pp. 11-12. Notes are a most impertinent appendage to such a text, which ought not to require the qualifying or illustrating postscript, to set the reader right. We omit them, therefore, in our extracts. The Cockney School' are very summarily treated. Crabbe is thus vindicated as to his choice of subjects:

• None but a bard his own true line can tell-
He chooses right who executes it well.'

Campbell is characterized as great in every thing but ease.' Moore-

for a song where wit and feeling pour

Their mingled streams, there's not a bard like Moore.'

Joanna Baillie, and Felicia Hemans, the only two ladies who are admitted to write verse well, bring up the rear. The Reviews are then adverted to, in the dual number,' our Author being imprudent enough to let all the regular purveyors. of monthly criticism know, that the Edinburgh and (the) 'Quarterly are the only ones he sees.' We dare say that he will take a peep at our present Number, and perhaps he will be surprised to find what very intelligent criticism occasionally appears in the Eclectic Review. He seems to have a very just notion of the obligations the Public at large are under to the profession.

I own I dearly like a new Review,
Whether its livery be drab or blue :

Books now are made so long, I have no time
To read the tenth of either prose or rhyme :
Books now are sold so dear, that had I twice
The time to spare, I could not reach the price-
And therefore 'tis to the Reviews I owe
Nine-tenths of all the little that I know.
1 speak of those inaccessible cates,
Fine quarto travels, with fine coloured plates;
Where tottering icebergs 'mid the current glide,
Or black dragoons on dromedaries ride.
And what, for instance, but by the Review,
Should I have known of amiable Loo-choo?

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Loo-choo, where, peaceful as the Isle of Palms,
None know the use of money or of arms;
I buy them not, but Barrow tells me all
From Marco Polo down to Captain Hall;
I buy them not-but my six shillings pay,
And sip the cream of twenty in a day.

• Reviews are useful in another light,
We need a whipper-in to keep all right.
By we, I mean we poets, who are apt,
In self-conceit or self-formed system wrapped,
If fools, to shame our craft; if wits, to waste
The powers God gave, and spoil the public taste.
Thus Jeffrey did his duty, when he tore
The tinsel from the harlot Muse of Moore;
Thus will he do his duty, should he nerve
His arm, to pay what Byron's crimes deserve.
But as to politics--their worth is less
Than the thin folios of the daily press:
Courier and Times, however they may grudge,
Are forced to give the facts on which they judge;
While the Reviews, by stubborn facts oppressed,
Remember or forget what suits them best.

Both are mere pleaders, who, to serve their cause,
Would drop an incident, or strain the laws;
Blackguard a witness, and declare he lied,
Because his story helped the other side.
Now this is paltry, and since such their tricks,
I look to neither for my politics.' pp. 21-23.

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Accordingly, he takes occasion to laugh at the veiled prophets of the North,' for their predictions respecting the war in Spain, and celebrates the praises of the Duke of Wellington and the Congress of Vienna. But after this, he turns rudely round upon Ministers, and adds:

But oh, the tragic farce that then ensued,
By Sidmouth half, and half by Watson brewed;
That sleeveless plot, made up of rags and jags,
Petitions, speeches, pike-heads, and green bags.
It was not well-although the tale was shocking
Of three lead bullets in a worsted stocking-
To let the bulwark of our freedom serve
As sacrifice to Sidmouth's trembling nerve.
All was soon blown-such tales of blood and fury.

Might gull the House, but not a London Jury.' p. 27.

In the Second Part, the Writer assumes a graver tone, and after asserting the transcendent importance of our having, when 'business fatigues, and pleasures cease to please,' a hope beyond the grave, proceeds to delineate the different styles of preaching which contend to satisfy the inquirer as to the way

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