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comparison is therefore peculiarly natural and familiarity so far as to bid the Supreme Being graceful. Dew on a bramble is no more like stop and meditate on the importance of the a woman's eyes than_dew anywhere else. interests which are under his care. The gro. There is a very pretty Eastern tale, of which tesque indecency of such an address throws the fate of plagiarists often reminds us. The into shade the subordinate absurdities of the slave of a magician saw his master wave his passage, the unfurling of whirlwinds, the un wand, and heard him give orders to the spirits rolling of thunder, and the upheavir.g of who arose at the summons. He accordingly worlds. stole the wand, and waved it himself in the Then comes a curious specimen of ous air; but he had not observed that his master poet's Englishused the left hand for that purpose. The spirits

“ Yet not alone created realms engage thus irregularly summoned, tere him to pieces, Thy faultless wisdom, grand, primeval sage! instead of obeying his orders. There are very For all the thronging woes to life allied few who can safely venture to conjure with

Thy mercy tempers, and Thy cares provide." the rod of Sir Walter, and we are sure that we should be glad to know what the word Mr. Robert Montgomery is not one of them. “ For" means here. If it is a preposition, it

Mr. Campbell, in one of his most pleasant makes nonsense of the words, “ Thy mercy pieces, has this line

tempers." If it is an adverb, it makes non.

sense of the words, “ Thy cares provide.” “The sentinel stars set their watch in the sky."

These beauties we have taken, almost at The thought is good—and has a very striking random, from the first part of the poem. The propriety where Mr. Campbell placed it—in second part is a series of descriptions of vathe mouth of a soldier telling his dream. But, rious events ---a battle---a murder--an executhough Shakspeare assures us that "every tion.--a marriage---a funeral---and so forth. Mr. true man's apparel fits your thier," it is by no Robert Montgomery terminates each of these means the case, as we have already seen, that descriptions, by assuring us that the Deity was every true poet's similitude fits your plagiarist. present at the battle, murder, execution, marLet us see how Mr. Robert Montgomery uses riage, or funeral, in question. And this propo. the image

sition, which might be safely predicated of "Ye quenchless stars! so eloquently bright,

every event that ever happened, or ever will Untroubled sentries of the shadowy night,

happen, forms the only link which connects While half the world is lapped in downy dreams,

these descriptions with the subject, or with And round the lattice creep your midnight beams, How sweet to gaze upon your placid eyes,

each other. In lambent beauty looking from the skies."

How the descriptions are executed, our reaCertainly the ideas of eloquence--of un

ders are probably by this time able to conjec.

The battle is made up of the battles of troubled repose-of placid eyes, on the lambent all ages and nations; “red-mouthed cannons, beauty of which it is sweet to gaze, harmonize uproaring to the clouds,” and “hards grasping admirably with the idea of a sentry! We would not be understood, however, to operations of which this part of the poem re.

firm the glittering shield.” The only military say, that Mr. Robert Montgomery cannot make minds us are those which reduced the Abbey similitudes for himself. A very few lines far: of Quedtinburgh to submission-the Templar ther on, we find one which has every mark of with his cross.--the Austrian and Prussian originality, and on which, we will be bound, grenadiers in full uniform--and Curtius and none of the poets whom he has plundered will Dentatus with their battering-ram. We ought ever think of making reprisals:

not to pass by unnoticed the slain war-horse, “The soul, aspiring, pants its source to mount, who will no more As streams meander level with their fount."

“Roll his red eye, and rally for the fight;" We take this to be, on the whole, the worst similitude in the world. In the first place, no

or the slain warrior, who, while “ lying on his stream meanders, or can possibly meander, bleeding breast,” contrives to “stare ghastly level with its fount. In the next place, if

and grimly on the skies.” As to this last ex. streams did meander level with their founts, no

ploit, we can only say, as Dante did on a simi. two motions can be less alike than that of

lar occasion, meandering level, and that of mounting up

“Forse per forza gia di parlasla wards.

Ma io nol vidi, ne credo che sia.” We have then an apostrophe to the Deity, couched in terms which, in any writer who

The tempest is thus described dealt in meanings, we should call profane, but “But lo! around the marsh'lling clouds unite, to which, we suppose, Mr. Robert Montgomery

Like thick battalions halting for the fight; attaches no idea whatever.

The sun sinks back, the tempest-spirits sweep;
Fierce through the air, and flutter on the deep,

Till from their caverns rush the maniac blasts, “Yes! pause and think, within one fineting hour, Tear the loose sails, and split the creaking masts, How vast a universe obeys Thy power;

And the lash'd billow's, rolling in a trajn, Unseen, but felt, Thine interfused control

Rear their white heads, and race along the main!" Works in each atom, and pervades the whole; Expands the blossom, and erects the tree,

What, we should like to know, is the difer. Conducts each vapour, and commands each sea, ence between the two operations which Mr. Beams in each ray, bids whirlwinds be unfurl'd, Unrolls the thuader, and upheaves a world!”

Robert Montgomery so accurately distinguishes

from each other,---the fierce sweeping of the No field-preacher ever carried his irreverent tempest-spirits through the air, and the rushing

ture.

Si stravolse cosi alcun del tutto:

a

of the maniac blasts from their caverns? And We should be sorry to stake our faith in a why does the former operation end exactly higher Power on Mr. Robert Montgomery's when the latter commences ?

logic. Does he believe that lightning, and bub We cannot stop over each of Mr. Robert bles, and the phenomena of dreams, are designMontgomery's descriptions. We have a ship-less and self-created? If he does, we cannot wrecked sailor, who “visions a viewless temple conceive why he may not believe that the whole in the air;"-a murderer, who stands on a universe is designless and self-created. A few heath, “ with ashy lips, in cold convulsion lines before, he tells us that it is the Deity who spread;”—a pious man, to whom, as he lies in bids “thur.der rattle from the skiey deep." bed at night,

His theory is therefore this, that God made the

thunder, but that the lightning made itself. “The panorama of past life appears, Warms his pure mind and melts it into tears;'

But Mr. Robert Montgomery's metaphysics a traveller, who lose: his way, owing to the set forth the fearful effects of atheism.

are not at present our game. He proceeds to thickness of the “cloud-battalion,” and the want of “heaven-lamps, to beam their holy “Then, blood-stain'd Murder, bare thy hideous arm,

And ihon, Rebellion, welter in thy storm: light.” We have a description of a convicted

Awake, ye spirits of avenging crime; felon, stolen from that incamparable passage in Burst from your bonds, and battle with the time!" Crabbe's Borough, which has made many a rough and cynical reader cry like a child. We fication,

and belongs, we need not say, to that

Mr. Robert Montgomery is fond of personican, however, conscientiously declare, that school of poets who hold that nothing more is persons of the most excitable sensibility may necessary to a personification in poetry than to safely venture upon it in Mr. Robert Montgo- begin a word with a capital leiter. "Murder mery's alteration. Then wa have the “poor, may, without impropriety, bare her arm, -as mindless, pale-faced, maniac boy," who

she did long ago, in Mr. Campbell's Pleasures “Rolls his vacant eye,

of Hope. But what possible motive Rebellion To greet the glowing fancies of the sky."

can have for weltering in her storm,—what What are the glowing fancies of the sky ? avenging crime may be,- who its spirits may And what is the meaning of the two lines which be-why they should burst from their bonds, almost immediately follow?

—what their bonds may be, -why they should

battle with the time, what the time may be, “A soulless thing, a spirit of the woods,

-and what a battle between the time and the He loves to commune with the fields and floods."

spirits of avenging crime would resemble, we How can a soulless thing be a spirit? Then must confess ourselves quite unable to undercornes a panegyric on the Sunday. A baptism stand. follows:-after that a marriage; and we then proceed, in due course, to the visitation of the

“And here let Memory turn her learful glance

On the dark horrors of tumultuous France, sick, and the burial of the dead.

When blood and blasphemy defiled her land, Often as death has been personified, Mr.

And fierce Rebellion shook her savage hand." Montgomery has found something new to say Whether Rebellion shakes her own hand, about him.

shakes the hand of Memory, or shakes the "O Death! thou dreadless vanquisher of earth,

hand of France, or what any one of the metaThe Elements shrank blasted at thy birth! phors would mean, we know no more than we Careering round the world like tempest wind,

know what is the sense of the following pass. Martyrs before, and victims strew'd behind; Ages on ages cannot grapple thee, Dragging the world into eternity!"

“ Let the soul orgies of infuriate crime If there be any one line in this passage about

Picture the raging havoc of that time, which we are more in the dark than about the

When leagued Rebellion march'd 10 kindle man,

Fright in her rear, and Murder in her van. rest, it is the fourth.

What the difference may And thou, sweet flower of Austria, slaughtered be between the victims and the martyrs, and

Queen,

Who dropped no tear upon the dreadful scene, why the martyrs are to lie before Death, and

When gushed the life-blood from thine angel form, the victims behind him, are to us great myste- And martyr'd beauty perish'd in the storm, ries.

Once worshipp'd paragon of all who saw, We now come to the third part, of which we

Thy louk obedience, and thy smile a law,” &c. may say with honest Cassio, "Why, this is a What is the distinction between the foul orgies more excellent song than the other." Mr. Ro- and the raging havoc which the foul orgies are bert Montgomery is very severe on the infidels, to picture? Why does Fright go behind Re. and undertakes to prove that, as he elegantly bellion, and Murder before? Why should not expresses it,

Murder fall behind Fright? Or why should "One great Enchanter helm’d the harmonious whole." of a hero who had

not all the three walk abreast? We have read What an enchanter has to do with helming, or

“Amazement in his van, with Flight combined, what a helm has to do with harmony, we do

And Sorrow's faded form, and Solitude behind." not quite understand. He proceeds with his argument thus:

Gray, we suspect, could have given a reason " And dare men dream that dismal Chance has framed for disposing the allegorical attendants of Ed All that the eye perceives, or tongue has named;

ward thus. But to proceed. Flower of Aus. The spacious world, and all its wonders, born tria” is stolen from Byron. “Dropped” is Designless, self-created, and forlorn ;

false English. “Perish'd in the storm” means Like to the flashing bubbles on a stream, Fire from the cloud, or phantom in a dream ?"

nothing at all; and “thy look obedience" means

age:

the very reverse of what Mr. Robert Montgo- ner of the Morning Post-can produce emolu. mery intends to say

ment and fame? The circulation of this Our poet then proceeds to demonstrate the writer's poetry has been greater than that of immortality of the souli

Southey's Roderic, and beyond all comparison

greater than that of Carey's Dante, or of the ." And shall the soul, the fount of reason, die, best works of Coleridge. Thus encouraged,

When dust and darkness round its temple lie ?
Did God breathe in it no ethereal fire,

Mr. Robert Montgomery has favoured the pubDimless and quenchless, though the breath expire." lic with volume after volume. We have given

so much space to the examination of his first The soul is a fountain; and therefore it is not and most popular performance, that we have to die, though dust and darkness lie round its none to spare for his Universal Prayer, and his temple, because an ethereal fire has been smaller poems, which, as the puffing journals breathed into it, which cannot be quenched tell us, would alone constitute a sufficient title though its breath expire. Is it the fountain, to literary immortality. We shall pass at once or the temple, that breathes, and has fire to his last publication, entitled Satan. breathed into it?

This poem was ushered into the world with Mr. Montgomery apostrophizes the

the usual roar of acclamation. But the thing

was now past a joke. Pretensions so un. “ Immortal beacons,--spirits of the just." fvunded, so impudent, and so successful, had and describes their employments in another magazines and reviews, accordingly Satan

aroused a spirit of resistance. In several world, which are to be, seems, bathing in has been handled somewhat roughly, and the light, hearing fiery streams flow, and riding on arts of the puffers have been exposed with living cars of lightning. The deathbed of the good sense and spirit. We shall, therefore, be sceptic is described with what we suppose is

very concise. meant for energy.

of the two poems, we rather prefer that on

the Omnipresence of the Deity, for the same " See how he shudders at the thought of death! What doubt and horror hang upon his breath,

reason which induced Sir Thomas Moore to The gibbering teeth, glazed eye, and marble limb. rank one bad book above another. “Marry, Shades from the tomb stalk out and stare at him." this is somewhat. This is rhyme. But the

other is neither rhyme nor reason." Satan is A man as stiff as marble, shuddering and gibbering violently, would certainly present so in five or six thousand lines of blank verse,

a long soliloquy, which the Devil pronounces curions a spectacle, that the shades, if they

concerning geography, politics, newspapers, came in his way, might well stare. We then have the deathbed of a Christian Sir Walter Scott's novels, Lord Byron's poetry,

fashionable society, theatrical amusements, made as ridiculous as false imagery and false and Mr. Martin's pictures. The new designs English can make it. But this is not enough: for Milton have, as was natural, particularly -The Day of Judgment is to be described,

attracted the attention of a personage who and a roaring cataract of nonsense is poured occupies so conspicuous a place in them. Mr forth upon this tremendous subject. Earth, we Martin must be pleased to learn, that, whatever are told, is dashed into Eternity. Furnace blazes wheel round the horizon, and burst into may be thought of those performances on bright wizard phantoms. Racing hurricanes earth, they give full satisfaction in Pandemo

nium, and that he is there thought to have hit unroll and whirl quivering fire-clouds. The

off the likenesses of the various thrones and white waves gallop. Shadowy worlds career around. The red and raging eye of Imagina

dominations very happily. sion is then forbidden to pry further. But fur

The motto to the poem of Satan is taken ther Mr. Robert Montgomery persists in pry- thou? From going to and fro in the earth, and

from the Book of Job :- :-" Whence comest ing. The stars bound through the airy roar. The unbosomed deep yawns on the ruin. The walking up and down in it.” And certainly, billows of Eternity then begin to advance. his hero go to and fro, and walk up and down.

Mr. Robert Montgomery has not failed to make The world glares in fiery slumber. A car with the exception, however, of this propencomes forward driven by living thunder.

sity to locomotion, Satan has not one Satanic “Creation shudders with sublime dismay, quality. Mad Tom had told us, that “the And in a blazing tempest whirls away."

prince of darkness is a gentleman;" but we And this is fine poetry! This is what ranks had yet to learn that he is a respectable and its writer with the master-spirits of the age! pious gentleman, whose principal fault is, that This is what has been described over and over he is something of a twaddle, and far too liberal again, in terms which would require some of his good advice. That happy change in his qualification if used respecting Paradise Lost! character which Origen anticipated, and of It is too much that this patchwork, made by which Tillotson did not despair, seems to be stitching together old odds and ends of what, rapidly taking place. Bad habits are not eradiwhen new, was, for the most part, but tawdry cated in a moment. It is not strange, therefore, frippery, is to be picked off the dunghill on that so old an offender should now and then which it ought to rot, and to be held up to ad- relapse for a short time into wrong disposi miration as an inestimable specimen of art. tions. But to give him his due, as the proverb And what must we think of a system, by recommends, we must say, that he always remeans of which verses like those which we turns, after two or three lines of impiety, to his have quoted—verses fit only for the poet's cor- preaching tone. We would seriously advise

Mr. Montgomery to omit, or alter, about a hun- Attend: the second, are a sensual tribe. dred lines in different parts of this large volume,

Convened to hear romantic farlols sing.

On forms to banquet a lascivious gaze, and to republish it under the name of “Ga- While the bright perfidy of wanton eyes briel.” The reflections of which it consists Through brain and spirit darts delicious fire : would come less absurdly, as far as there is a

The last, a throng most pitisul! who seen,

With their corroded figures, rayless glance more and a less in extreme absurdity from a And death-like struggle of decaying age, good than from a bad angel.

Like painted skeletons in charnel pomp

Set forth to satirize the human kind!We can afford room only for a single quota

How fine a prospect for demoniac view! tion. We give one taken at random-neither “Creatures whose souls outbalance worlds awate!" worse nor better, as far as we can perceive, Methinks I hear a pitying angel cry." than any other equal number of lines in the Here we conclude. If our remarks give book. The Devil goes to the play, and moral- pain to Mr. Robert Montgomery, we are sorry izes thereon as follows:

for it. But, at whatever cost of pain to indi

viduals, literature must be purified of this *Music and pomp their mingling spirit shed Around me; beauties in their cloud-like robes

taint. And, to show that we are not actuated Shine forth,-a scenic paradise, it glares

by any feelings of personal enmity towards Intoxication through the reeling sense

him, we hereby give notice, that, as soon as Of flushed enjoyment. In the motley host Three prime gradations may be ranked: the first, any book shall, by means of puffiing, reach a To mount upon the wings of Shakspeare's mind, second edition, our intention is, to do unto the And win a flash of his Promethean thought,-- writer of it as we have done unto Mr. Robert To smile and weep, to shudder and achieve A round of passionate omnipotence,

Montgomery.

CIVIL DISABILITIES OF THE JEWS.*

Tue distinguished member of the House of to say, some person or persons must have a Commons who, towards the close of the late right to political power. Parliament, brought forward a proposition for It is because men are not in the habit of the relief of the Jews, has given notice of his considering what the end of government is, intention to renew it. The force of reason, in that Catholic disabilities and Jewish disabilithe last session, carried the measure through ties have been suffered to exist so long. We one stage, in spite of the opposition of power. hear of essentially Protestant governments Reason and power are now on the same side; and essentially Christian governments, words and we have little doubt that they will con- which mean just as much as essentially Projointly achieve a decisive victory. In order testant cookery, or essentially Christian horseto contribute our share to the success of just manship. Government exists for the purpose principles, we propose to pass in review, as of keeping the peace, for the purpose of comrapidly as possible, some of the arguments, pelling us to setile our disputes by arbitration or phrases claiming to be arguments, which instead of settling them by blows, for the purhave been employed to vindicate a system full pose of compelling us to supply our wants by of absurdity and injustice.

industry instead of supplying them by rapine. The constitution, it is said, is essentially This is the only operation for which the maChristian; and therefore to admit Jews to office chinery of government is peculiarly adapted, is to destroy the constitution. Nor is the Jew the only operation which wise governments injured by being excluded from political power. ever propose to themselves as their chief obFor no man has any right to his property; a man ject. If there is any class of people who are has a right to be protected from personal injury: not interested, or who do not think themselves These rights the law allows to the Jew; and interested, in the security of property and the with these rights it would be atrocious to inter- maintenance of order, that class ought to have sere. But it is a mere matter of favour to ad- no share of the powers which exist for the mit any man to political power; and no man purpose of securing property and maintaining can justly complain that he is shut out from it. order. But why a man should be less fit to

We cannot but admire the ingenuity of this exercise those powers because he wears a contrivance for shifting the burden of the proof beard, because he does not eat ham, because from those to whom it properly belongs, and he goes to the synagogue on Saturdays instead who would, we suspect, find it rather cumber- of going to the church on Sundays, we cannot some. Surely no Christian can deny that every conceive. numan being has a right to be allowed every The points of difference between Christianity gratification which produces no harm to others, and Judaism have very much to do with a and to be spared every mortification which man's fitness to be a bishop or a rabbi. But produces no good to others. Is it not a source they have no more to do with his fitness to be of mortification to a class of men that they are a magistrate, a legislator, or a minister of excluded from political power? If it be, they finance, than with his fitness to be a cobbler. have, on Christian principles, a right to be Nobody has ever thought of compelling cobfreed from that mortification, unless it can be blers to make any declaration on the true faith shown that their exclusion is necessary for the of a Christian. Any man would rather have averting of some greater evil. The presump- his shces mended by a heretical cobbler than tion is evidently in favour of toleration. It is by a person who had subscribed all the thirtyfor the persecutor to make out his case. nine articles, but had never handled an awl.

The strange argument which we are con- Men act thus, not because they are indifferent sidering would prove too much even for those to religion, but because they do not see what who advance it. If no man has a right to po- religion has to do with the mending of their litical power, then neither Jew nor Gentile has shoes. Yet religion has as much to do with the such a right. The whole foundation of go- mending of shoes as with the budget and the vernment is taken away. But if government army estimates. We have surely had several be taken away, the property and the persons signal proofs within the last twenty years that of men are insecure; and it is acknowledged a very good Christian may be a very bad that men have a right to their property and to Chancellor of the Exchequer. personal security. If it be right that the pro- But it would be monstrous, say the persecu perty of men should be protected, and if this tors, that Jews should legislate for a Christian can only be done by means of government, community. This is a palpable misrepresen. then it must be righi that government should tation. What is proposed is, not that the Jews exist. Now there cannot be government unless should legislate for a Christian community, but some person or persons possess political power. that a legislature composed of Christians and

Therefore it is right that some person or per- Jews should legislate for a community com sons should possess political power. That is posed of Christians and Jews. On nine hundred

and ninety-nine questions out of a thousand, Statement of the Civil Disabilities and Privations af- land criminal law, of foreign policy, the Jew

on all questions of police, of finance, of civi. fecting Jews in England. 8vo. London : 1829.