are lamentably ignorant, such biblical dramas should be regularly exhibited before the young clergy. But in England such, and indeed any amusements, are ignorantly held to be irreligious. The theatres are shut, concerts are deemed a profanation, cards are forbidden, a woman may not be seen to knit or sew, nor a man heard to sing or laugh; all must wear the face of gloom, and bear the ennui of idleness; many seem to put on mourning. No books but of a spiritual cast may be opened; no parties of pleasure made for jaunts or festivity. Much neatness of dress is however observed; and the women of the inferior classes usually pass the whole Saturday night in washing the linen of the family, that their husbands and children may appear cleanly at church; they also wash the floors and stairs, but this is done in concealment. No one rises early on the Sunday. Only milk is suffered to be sold. The bakers supply no fresh bread; pious persons, however, bake their dinners at public ovens, or dine on cold meat, in order to spare their servants the sin of cookery. About nine in the morning, the bells of the churches begin a funeral toll, which every quarter of an hour increases in rapidity, until the hour of worship. Then are first seen persons in the street, marching slowly with a face of awe, as if following a corpse. They are soon hidden in the temples, where priests, pronounce absolution in a white robe, and exhortation in a black one; there is no other ceremony, the congregation kneels to pray, stands to sing, and sits to hear. No pictures, no statues adorn the churches, only monuments of the dead; organs are rare. About twelve, the worshippers disperse, and mostly wander to the park, or to some public walk, where the neatness of their dress will be observed. Having dined, they return to the churches, and again walk abroad. No person should frequent the streets during the hour of divine service, and many a one is imprisoned for so doing. After the hour of tea, there are evening services; and, after the hour of supper, many fathers of families compel their children to read aloud a chapter of the Bible, and a sermon. All this dull and superstitious formality, disavowed alike by christianity and by reason, has more the appearance of a fast instituted to deprecate the anger of some malignant being, who views with hostile eye the happiness of man, than of a festival intended to honour a benevolent deity. The good God must delight in the felicity, not in the mortification of his creatures, and feel that heaven is paid when man receives, " to enjoy is to obey." Westminster Abbey is described with detail, and an engraving given of the monument of Mary, Queen of Scots, who is a much greater favourite on the continent than the equally lewd but less tolerant Queen Elizabeth. The public spirit of the nation, in combining for so many useful purposes, is held up to foreign example. The Magdalen Hospital and the Asylum are also recommended to German imitation. An account of Ackermann's picturesque publications concerning Great Britain, is given with elaborate detail. On the whole, however, not much novelty in this author's points of view will be detected; he rather excels in common sense than in originality.-Monthly Magazine, March, 1822. ART. 24.-Europe, or a General Survey of the present Situation of the Principal Powers, with conjectures on their future Prospects. By a Citizen of the United States. [Boston &] London. It is with great pleasure that we call the attention of our readers to an important work, which has lately made its appearance, under this comprehensive title. In all probability the writer of this volume has assumed in his title-page the privileges of an American citizen as a nom de guerre, and indeed his style is by no means that of a transatlantic author. The view which he takes of the present state of Europe, (and a more interesting period has perhaps never existed in its annals,) is highly liberal, and we think in the main soundly philosophic. He contends that the momentous changes which have been wrought within the last half century, in the political condition of almost all the kingdoms of Europe, have proceeded from none of those temporary and local causes, to which the wishes of despots would gladly attribute them; but have been induced by the operation of the great principles of enlightened freedom and improved knowledge which are still in progress, and from which our author anticipates still mightier effects. The chapter on Great Britain contains much valuable remark, with nothing of that harsh spirit which has been displayed by some of the American writers, when treating of our institutions in comparison with their own. Many parts of this volume are written with considerable eloquence.-Monthly Magazine, May, 1822. 59 ART. 25.-Memoirs of her Majesty Queen Caroline. By JOHN WILKS, Jun. 2 Vols. 8vo. London. THE materials for these memoirs are collected from Captain Ashe, Mrs. Robinson, newspapers, magazines, and the Annual Register. They contain little but what has been already before the public in a thousand different shapes; this, however, is rather in their favour, for whatever is given as original or additional matter rests on such "brief authority" that it can only be read as a fiction, which may be deemed probable or improbable, according to the preconceived opinions of the reader on the subject. It is scarcely possible, however, for any one to resist an inclination to smile when he finds the most important documents, or letters of the most confidential nature, given on the slender and doubtful evidence of "a distinguished character," a "dignified clergyman," a "lady of rank," &c. with now and then the cautious proviso of" since dead," or "at present on the Continent," added by way of security against more minute inquiry. The most creditable feature in the work is the professed impartiality of its tone in politics, though even this is carried to an excess that reduces its characteristics to "no character at all.”—-New Monthly Magazine, Feb. 1822. ART. 26.-The Royal Progress. A Canto, with Notes. 12mo. London. THE late Royal visit to Ireland has given occasion to this well-written poem, which exhibits a kind of satire very rare in modern publications, being light, elegant, and pointed, without the smallest mixture of grossness or personal malevolence. The poetry is accompanied with notes, which will not be found the least entertaining part of the work, and which fully bear the author out in all his assertions of the crack-brained sort of fervour, the improvident extravagance, and the improbable expectations of the Irish people on this occasion. They are chiefly taken verbatim from the Dublin papers, and the ministerial prints in our own country; their truth cannot, therefore, be denied, for "facts are stubborn things ;" and they afford one more instance of the folly of excessive and ill-judged adulation. ART. 27.--Poems. By BERNArd Barton. 2d Edition. London. [Littell & Henry, Philadelphia.] Ir must ever be a subject of deep regret with those who know and feel how effective an agent Poetry may be rendered in fur thering the great interests of morality and religion; who have drank instruction mingled with all that could minister to delight, from the bards of other and of better days, and have hailed and blessed the union; to behold an Art thus honoured in times past, and consecrated, as it were, on the altar of our God, prostituted, as it has often been in the present age, to the worst and most debasing purposes of scepticism and impiety. Under these circumstances, how delightful is it to receive a volume of poetry which, while it displays talent of no common order, exhibits, at the same time, and throughout its whole texture, sentiments the most correct, and a morality the most pure. I allude to the Miscellany, whose title is at the head of this article. It might, indeed, have been expected, from the religious profession of Mr. Barton, which is that peculiar to the disciples of George Fox, that such, as to the moral tendency of his poetry, would be the result; an expectation in the highest degree honourable to the sect of which he is a member, and fully warranted, in fact, by its past and present history. That a society of Christians thus remarkably distinguished for the purity and benevolence of their conduct; for a creed which, as exclusively built on the principles of peace on earth, and good will towards men, seems to have extinguished within their bosoms every angry and intolerant feeling, should have contributed so little to the stores of our poetic wealth, is a circumstance which may be justly lamented. Yet let us not forget, that to the suggestion of Ellwood, the companion of our immortal Milton, we are indebted for the Paradise Regained; and that from the pen of John Scott, the beloved friend of the great and good Dr. Johnson, we have a volume of considerable beauty and originality. Since the era, however, of the bard of Amwell, nothing of any importance in this department of literature had been produced by the Quakers; and it remained for Mr. Barton,† and subsequently for Mr. Wiffen, to give further proofs how well the cultivation of the Muses might accord with the spirit and the practice of their sect. It is a subject of no small astonishment, that attachment to an * It should be here recollected that the Penns, Granville Penn, Esq., and John Penn, Esq., of Stocke Park, though lineal descendants of the Founder of Pennsylvania, do not profess the same religious faith. † Many of the Poems in Mr. Barton's present Collection were published some years ago under the title of "Poems by an Amateur." The author of " Aonian Hours," and of "Julia Alpinula." art, honoured as this has been, by the adoption of the sacred writers, and calculated in itself to give added beauty and effect to the noblest sentiments of piety and devotion, should ever have · been deemed incompatible with, or derogatory to, even the strictest creed of Christianity. But so it has happened, that, both the Quakers themselves, and the world at large, have but too generally united in considering a Quaker Poet as something strange and anomalous, as a being, who has stepped out of his place and character. Of a persuasion at once so irrational and unjust, so unsupported by any thing which the nature either of religion, of poetry, or of quakerism can supply, Mr. Barton has, most assuredly, a right to complain; and in some verses originally sent to me in manuscript, he endeavours to remove the prejudices which have unhappily wound themselves round the title of "A Quaker Poet," in as far, at least, as such a designation is supposed to convey an expression of contempt or reprobation. 'Yes,' says our poet, in a strain of beautiful and affecting enthu siasm, 'Yes, I contend the Quaker Creed, By fair interpretation, Has nothing in it to impede Poetic aspiration. All that fair Nature's charms display All that the human heart can sway, All these are ours-The copious source Of true Poetic feeling; And wouldst thou check their blameless course, Nature to ALL, her ample page Impartially unfolding, Prohibits neither Saint, nor Sage, Its beauties from beholding. And thus the Muse her gifts assigns With no sectarian spirit ; For ALL the wreath of fame she twines Who fame and favour merit.' But let it not be forgotten that the fame here bestowed, and so highly and so deservedly valued, is that which is exclusively built on the basis of morality. From the few specimens which we possess of Quaker Poetry, there is every reason to wish that the disciples of this sect would become more frequent cultivators |