REVIEW. "Still pleased to praise, yet not afraid to blame."-POPE. gree. Than graphical representation, nothing more strongly impresses upon the mind, more especially upon the youthful mind, the events of former days. With the Sacred Volume open before him, and this Map expanded beyond it, the historical and descriptive portions of Scripture will be read by the student with increased interest; because, with this auxiliary, more accurate and lasting ideas will be acquired. The work is illustrated with expressive miniature figures, similar to those in the maps of Janson, which constitute a part of the "Geographia Vetus, Sacra et Profana," but the groundwork is far superior; and, as references are given to the respective passages in which the events or occur rences are described, it serves, in some degree, as an Index to the historical parts of the whole of the Sacred Writings. In a work like the present, critical accuracy, as to the positions of places, cannot be expected; for the greater part is necessarily laid down from mere verbal description, in which even days' journeys must, in some cases, be admitted as definite measures. It is also well known that, until lately, even the ART. II.-The Brothers, a Monody; and other Poems. By Charles A. Elton. 12mo. pp. 128. Baldwin and Co. 1820. M to the public by his "Transla R. ELTON, who is well known tion of Hesiod," and his "Specimens of the Classic Poets," and who has interested our readers by other publications, to which literary usage will not allow us to refer more particularly, now comes before us as a poet, and, we lament to say, as a mourner. His is no fictitious tale and no imaginary grief. He sings of real calamity, such as Providence rarely permits to fall upon the heart of man. The melancholy event is fresh in the painful remembrance of many before whose eyes this page will come; to others it may be suflicient to say, that "The Brothers" were two sons of the author's, youths of high promise, who about two years ago were swallowed up by the waves in the Bristol Channel, in returning from an islet, the passage of which is fordable at low water. What impression such an event was likely to make upon a mind of great susceptibility, some may be able to imagine; but no apprehension of it can come up to the reality as expressed in the Monody, which is the effusion of a heart bleeding at every pore, and which affects the reader of sensibility even to agony. After this, we need not say that the merit of the poetry is of lower consideration; though as far as the attention can be abstracted from the narrative and description, which the “Monody" really is, there will be found great beauty in both the thoughts and the language, and associations of ideas that wings, And listen high unutterable things. Bethink thee, for thou know'st,some chequering years Shall sweep like shadows o'er this vale of tears; When thou shalt every mortal pang resign, And their exulting spirits spring to thine! The "Monody" is a selection and description of the circumstances in which the sad event is clothed in the author's mind. With this one remembrance all objects are associated. This is nature. Poetry only reveals and illustrates the sentiment. The reader probably recollects the Dialogue which Shakspeare has put into the mouths of Philip of France, Pandulpho the Pope's legate, and Constantia, the mother of Prince Arthur, a prisoner in the hands of the cruel King John: Pan. You hold too heinous a respect of grief. Con. He talks to me, that never had a Above the channel'd sea; and when, deep One creature that had life: the most sunk In sleep's o'erpowering heaviness, with eyes That waking inward view th' external world, Its colour'd shadows, and its moving forms, I still am doom'd to see-for ever there For ever!-by my side and in my sight, Th' inseparable phantoms: they attend My rising up and lying down: pursue My steps, and flit around me with their bright Yet shadowy presence-angels of the dead! The effects of a superior moral and religious education are most pleasingly delineated: Thus pass'd their lives; their vernal lives so sweet, And brief as sweet; inheritors of love, Playmates of nature, they were fit for heav'n, And gather'd for that Eden, which their faith Saw, though unseen: the book of life to Bright star of evening! and their thoughts were fix'd Among those planetary worlds. thou Art Their habitation? Can embodied souls Tenant thy sun-revolving globe, or soar Their spirits to an empyrean height, View'd from whose glorious pinnacle thou palest Thy flamy splendour, and appearest dim, A speck in the immensity of light? In a note, Mr. Elton gives an anonymous ode from the Bristol Mercury, occasioned by the resplendency of this planet at the time referred to, which, he says, from the attention that it excited in his family circle, has become associated with recollections of deep and melancholy interest. The ode is so beautiful that we too must transcribe it : To the Planet Jupiter. I look'd on thee, Jove! till my gaze To the zenith, thy rival was none. Thou wert proud, pure, magnificent still. And I saw thy bright front through it shine, Like a God from the depth of his shrine. It was not thy lustre I saw : beam And the world was forgot in my dream. A happy and more than poetical, a religious, use is made of the pleasant circumstance of the "Brothers" having passed their last earthly eve in one of the humble places of worship with which our country happily abounds. That rustic temple open'd not its gate To earthly guests; it was the porch of heaven. The occurrences of the next melan The emblems of domestic desolation, the vow, and the exclamation of the following passage, speak at once to the heart, and especially to the parental heart, that has known bereavement : Our dwelling-house is desolate: this foot Shall ne'er repass the threshold which ye pass'd: Silence is in the walls that rang so late To your sweet laughter, and th' unheeded bird Flits round the chamber of your happy sleep: The plants ye loved are wither'd like yourselves : The wrecks and relics of your curious search, Gleanings from fields and woods, the air and streams, The weed, the pebble and the insect's wing, Remain, the records of your innocent tastes; Remembrancers of days of happiness That never can return your pen's known trace, The linings of your pencil's opening skill, Oh! thought of agony!-are these then all, All that are left me of your lovely selves? The conclusion of the Monody sheds a ray of cheerfulness and hope over the mind so long darkened and oppressed by the contemplation of this calamity. The author beholds the scenery on the banks of the accustomed river in the gloom of his own thoughts; but the setting sun shoots forth an unwonted splendour, and he exclaims, How the mind, effused Respond to its discourse, and character Beneath me, and above, the tinging gleam Of light from heaven; the resurrection's dawn Gilding the funeral vault; and in the sun choly day are told in the privileged The Christian's rest of glory; light and tone of sorrow, and without pomp or art. That night the little chamber where they lay, Fast by our own, was vacant and was still. strength In his decline-the earnest of his rise. Of the " Fugitive Pieces" following the Monody, we have been most pleased with "The Prison, a Vision ;" lines "Written on a Vernal Day, during Confinement from Indisposition;" the "Easter Hymn;" and "Sabbath Musings." * Some notes are added, chiefly of a theological complexion, which will be read with interest by such as delight to trace the speculations of an accomplished mind on sacred subjects. ART. III.-Coercion in propagating, defending, and supporting the Religion of Jesus, shewn to be in direct Opposition to his Teaching and Practice, in a Discourse, delivered at the Chapel in Parliament Court, Artillery Lane, London, on Thursday, May 25, 1820, before the Supporters and Friends of the Unitarian Fund. By Russell Scott. 12mo. pp. 40. Hunter and Eaton. You OU can no more subdue the understanding with blows," says Dr. Jortin, in words which Mr. Scott has very aptly inserted as a motto to his discourse, "than beat down a castle with syllogisms." Yet this is one of the last truths which communities, and even Christian communities, learn. Mr. Scott has, therefore, seasonably borne his testimony to the rational character and merciful spirit of the gospel; and, in so doing, has virtually pleaded the cause of the Unitarian Fund, the object of which is to promote that truth which is in alliance with charity, and by the means solely of argument and persuasion. The preacher's text (Luke xiv. 23) was once the war-whoop of bigots and inquisitors, and an instrument of deadly persecution. Bayle wrote a considerable work to wrest from the hands of ecclesiastics so destructive a weapon. Truth has at length triumphed, and it would now be accounted ridiculous, if not worse, to urge the words of Christ as a sanction of the notable practice of chaining or destroying men's bodies for the good of their souls. Mr. Scott amply explains and illustrates the passage, and boldly exposes the inconsistency of Christians who, in the language of the writer before quoted, challenge unbelievers and The Sabbath Musings," which exhibit the glowing characters of Christian truth and piety, will be found in The Christian Reformer of the present month. heretics, and then call for the constable to strengthen their arguments. The authority of a distinguished member of the Romish Church is, in the following passage, happily introduced on the side of religious liberty: "The advice which the amiable, learned and pious Archbishop of Cambray gave to the unfortunate son of James the Second, of England, deserves the attention of all governments who attempt to bolster up a national religion by prosecutions, or who endeavour to crush all dissidents, by letting loose on them the demon of persecution in any shape or degree. The venerable Fenelon recommended to the Chevalier St. George, ancestors, on no account whatever to if he should ever regain the throne of his constrain his subjects in matters of religion; stating that no human power can force the impenetrable entrenchments of the freedom of the mind. Violence, he adds, can never persuade men; it only makes hypocrites. When kings interfere in matters of religion, instead of protecting her, they reduce her to slavery. Give to all, then, civil liberty; not as regarding every thing as indifferent, but as enduring with patience what God permits."*-Pp. 8, 9. ART. IV.-The Means of doing Good. 24mo. PP. 212. Printed and Sold by G. Nicholson, Stourport. WE E wish the editor or publisher of this little volume who has sent it to us, had supplied us with the name of a London bookseller of whom it may be had, for we can sincerely recommend it to our readers. It is full of humanity, and contains invaluable counsels, especially for the poor and the young. "Of Individual Happiness," the compiler says, "How vain, how ineffectual are the means which mankind employ to attain happiness! When I reflect on those talents in men which fit them for important affairs who undertake the discipline of courts and camps; who are looked up to as the soul of the body politic, and as the life of empires; who raise or destroy kingdoms; who give peace or war at pleasure; what are they in the true estimate of human life? They are children heaping up shells or erecting castles of |