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Ah! such are the miseries to which ye give birth;
Ye statesmen! ne'er dreading a fear;
Who from pictured saloon, or the bright sculptur'd hearth,
Disperse desolation and death through the earth,
When ye let loose the demons of war."

Surely the fentiments of Mrs. Smith can never have so offended her former subscribers, as to withhold their support from this volume; and we are certain, that the declension of her poetical talents affords no ground for the denial. The fame plaintiveness of foul, the fame exquifite modulation, chasteness, and beauty, which endeared her former poems, every where prefent themselves on the present occafion. If Mrs. Smith, in any respect, may be said to have deviated from her general spirit and excellence, it is in that polished folicitude which is too apt to exchange the simple for the correct. Such words as-fragile, lithe, troul'd, &c. words which did not embellith her first productions, now and then occur in the pages before us. But she is, when compared with some of her most eminent contemporaries, rather faultless than faultly. The reader will not take our unsupported assertions. He has ample materials for the exercise of judgment. And need we point out, to the intelligent mind, the feveral beauties we have felected their properties, and effects? By those effects will he diftinguish their properties.

On the calamities of Mrs. Smith, we wish not to intrude our remarks

"Time, fince we saw her last, And heavy hours with time's deforming hand, Have written strange defeatures in her face."

But shall that muse, whose rays have enlivened her darkest hours-who has accompanied her under every bereavement and who will hold her in unfading remembrance, when each memorial of living friendship shall have been swept from the records of time,-be abandoned by one whom she has loved so well?

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ART. III. Azemia, &c. &c. &c. By Jacquetta Agneta Mariana Jenks, &c. &c. &c. &c. To which are added, Criticisms Anticipated. 2 vols. 75. sewed, Low. 1797.

" CRITICISMS Anticipated," as they refer only to established reviews, claim not here a moment's attention; and as the amusive Miss Jenks appears to us in the manner of a gentleman, false delicacy shall not filence our thoughts.

Set a thief to catch a thief, is a proverb of ancient date, and it has been alfo admitted, that ridicule is the test of truth. These maxims will justify the author of "Azemia," in this attack on his novelizing cotemporaries. Individual failings become objects of hostility, when set forth to public admiration; and the vanity of fcribbling is of this stamp, Lady Belinda, Miss Gri, felda Ironfide, and the Rev. Solomon Sheeppen, are taken from-and applicable to life: while Mrs. Quackly, Mrs. Albuzzi, Blow-up, and Jerrygum, are gentlefolks of perfect notoriety. But a novel, intended as is that of Azemia," should hand down the names of those whom it ridicules, when fuch names are otherwife forgotten. To preserve these personages, it is not fufficient to paint them as they are to give them tamely and unheightened. Absurdity, we know, is always abfurd; but it does not follow, that what has been laughed at, when feriously written, will excite the fame risibility, when presented as the mark of ridicule, unenforced by the hand of irony. If the tale of BlueBeard were meant as a jeer on Mrs. Radcliffe, for we cannot think it an imitation of that lady, its business will disappoint its meaning. It has all the marks of intentional feriousness, and more of propriety than twothirds of our ghoftly compilations. In a day when the Scriptures were more respected, we should not have apologized for introducing them to the reader; but he VOL. II.

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will,

will, at present, take that apology in our predilection for fupernatural appearances. Probably the majority of novel-readers are unacquainted with a description, whose beauties, in an hour less favourable to spectres, would never have recommended it to their attention. Job, chap. iv. 13 to 17. "In thoughts from the visions of the night, when deep fleep falleth on menfear came upon me and trembling, which made all my bones to shake. Then a spirit passed before my face; the hair of my flesh stood up:-It stood still, but I could not difcern the form thereof: an image was before mine eyes, there was filence, and I heard a voice, faying-Shall mortal man be more just than God? Shall a man be more pure than his Maker?" Perhaps the first spectres of our time, have emanated from this chapter of Job, though their authors have not deigned to acknowledge it. Truly, it would be easy to prove, that the chief beauties of English literature are derived from the pages of Revelation; and, that they are only beautiful to the eye of fashion, because fathion is ignorant of their derivation.

To return to "Azemia." The poetry of these volumes is more delicate and pointed than the profe. The innumerous swarm of poetasters, who astonish the ignorant, and disgust the sensible; whose productions are blacker than the presses from which they iffue, and more infufferable, because more laboured than common nonsense; these cannot experience an unmerited severity. There is not a whip hip that they do not deferve; and the nine-tails of fatire should belay their infenfible hides.

Here we would pause, not too blinded with difguft, and contemplate the improvements around us. Yes, we have been severe, too severe-indeed we have. We live in refined days; and furely, when the heroes and heroines of all our most celebrated novels, which are professedly taken from life, can read and write poetry, we have a right to look back, with disdain, on the comparative

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parative stupidity of our ancestors! For, if we have not yet reached it, we are we must be within sight of a golden-age!

A whisper with "Azemia," or the parent of "Azemia," which is much the fame thing, and we have done.

Miss JACQUETTA AGNETA MARIANA JENKS. -If your ladyship be of "Bellegrove," or any other grove whatever, as it is a situation most favourable to study, although we must opine that your ladyship doth not excel in the facetious; we do certainly think, that your ladyship might, in an hour of retirement and reflection, present us with a work that would please the public: after which, it must not fail to please us.

ART. IV. AN ODE TO THE LIVERY OF LON. DON, on their Petition to his Majesty for kicking out his worthy Ministers. Also an Ode to Sir Joseph Banks, on the Report of his Elevation to the important Dignity of a Privy Counsellor. To which is added a Jeremi-ad, to George Rose, Esq. By Peter Pindar, Esq. pp. 44. 2s. 6d. Walker. 1797. No calamity can begloom Peter, and no event escape him. He is, however, not a little aftonished at the impudence of his countrymen, for, says Peter,

"There's not an Englishman, I do fuppofe,
That would not from his office kick poor Rose,
And on his honest earnings lay his pats;

Eke on DUNDAS'S, JENKINSON's poor fouls!
And eke from humble RICHMOND tear his coals,

A king's black present to his blacker brats." He remonstrates severely on this ungracious Livery, by reminding them of the golden days of their anceftors under "Good queen Bess."

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"Think of the horse-whipping she gave
Th' AMBASSADOR-a saucy knave!
In Latin, too, to make the fellow wonder-
The man was frighten'd at her voice,
And could (he) not then have had his choice,
He rather would have fac'd a clap of thunder.
Of lords the often lugg'd the ear;

And often would her HIGHNESS swear

*On BISHOPS, facred men! enough to shock ye,
"Do this!" her MAJESTY would fay-
"Do that!-God's blood! I'll have my way!
"Quick, quick; or, d-n me, parfons, I'll unfrock ye!"
What to her PARLIAMENT said she?

"Good gentlemen, I must agree
"That ye are proper judges of the weather,
" And judges, too, of the highways,
"Hares, pheasants, partridges, and jays;
"And eke, the art of tanning leather.
"But, as for fovereigns and dominion,
"Tis too fublime for your opinion."
Suppose the LIVERYMEN had boldly faid
To this SEMIRAMIS of lofty rule,
"Your majesty must knock off CECIL'S head,
"And hang up ESSEX for a beast or fool:
"We relish not these mens' administration;

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"So, Ma'am, dismiss them, and oblige the nation:"

What had the answer been

Of this great queen ?

Why, to the APOTHECARIES the had roar'd

" Ye knaves, who do more mischief than the fword!

"You vomits, glyster-pipes-the dev'l confound ye! "What to such madness, raggamuffins, urges? " Murderers! I'll make you fwallow your own purges! "In your own mortars, rascals, will I pound ye! "You, BAKERS, I shall heat your ovens, flaves, " And serve you like the three Jew boys, ye knaves, "Shadrach, and Meshach, and Abednego: "Browner than all your loaves, shall be your skins: " Then let us fee, if, for your faucy fins, "Your God will deign to take you out or no.

You,

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