poem; it is euphonous, but tedious; and its beauties consist in its details rather than in its plan. We make these observations the more freely, because it is exceedingly important not to recommend inferior models to young persons. The human faculty never attains its entire capacity, until the greatest writers have been read; the sooner the mind is taught to shape its thoughts in their moulds, the more likely it is to take their bent; and whoever directs admiration to mediocrity teaches ambition to be contented with attainments which can bestow on the individual but a trifling distinction, and on the country. no accession of glory. We are persuaded that this comprehensive dissertation, on the laws which govern the inflections of our tongue, will contribute to direct a curious attention to its structure, and will favour that critical appretiation of its powers which is the best pledge for their habitual exercise, and the best safeguard against misuse and corruption. ART. X. Blümchen der Einsamkeit; i. e. Flowerets of Solitude. By C. L. Reissig, Captain of Cavalry. 12mo. Boards. Boosey, London. 1813. A GERMAN volume, printed and published in London, is In welcome to us, as announcing a growing care respecting that language and literature. The writings of the Germans already command the attention of the continent; and their Gothic dialect, notwithstanding its difficulty, may even in time supersede French as the vehicle of European erudition. deed, there is a mass of information, partly compiled and partly speculative, which constitutes the attainment of our age, and which subsists altogether only in German. Hence the communicators of knowlege, of discovery, and of instruction, are every where finding the language to be necessary to them; and those philosophic bystanders, or gentlemen-critics, who choose to occupy such stations in the temple of science as enable them to see behind the curtain, are also learning it. German is become the esoteric language of the European mind. We have here a volume of easy and pleasing poems, which it may amuse the young scholar, the learner of German, to try to construe. They are intitled Flowerets of Solitude, and exhale many sweetly-scented sighs. To Spring, to Sleep, to the Bottle, or to the Rose; to his Mistress, to his Friend, or to his Mother; to the Birth-day or the Wedding-festival which he joined, or to the Park which he visited, the author is prone to express the tuneful sensibility of his affectionate reminiscence. For a cavalry officer, thus to know how to decorate and embellish X 3 his his leisure is a display of education, a mark of talent, and a proof of merit. Writers of occasional poetry, of domestic verses, of social rhimes, of fire-side sonnets, who employ a muse to indite their notes, and Apollo to fill up their letters of congratulation, will readily find in this collection some apt model from which they may take hints, whatever ordinary subject may occupy their metrical activity. As German sentimentality has something so clinging and adhesive in its fondness as to leave English apathy at an aukward and blushing distance, these effusions have a tenderness which only Mr. Wordsworth, perhaps, among our own poets, might expect to rival. In warmth of attachment to little things, the brother-bards would agree; and they would sympathize in viewing the contiguous objects of nature through the microscope of a chrystalline tear. Prose-translations of poetical compositions are at all times flat; and they are peculiarly so when the topic of the poem constitutes the smallest part of its interest; when it is the euphony of the lines, the flow of the phrase, the structure of the stanza, or the elegance of the turn and close, which bestows the charm. In reading these verses, we have been struck with a melody seldom attained in the Teutonic tongue, and with a display of feeling which endears the writer to the reader. Yet how could we convey, or even account for, these impressions, by any prosaic imitation? We must, then, have recourse to the rhiming machine in our drawer, which perhaps never went glibly, and which is now a little rusted from disuse; and by means of it strive to grind into verse a short-no, a long — specimen for this poem occupies three pages of the volume, and others commonly fill but one or two. Lamentation of a single Woman over the Cradle of her Child, Sweet infant, glowing are thy cheeks As is the roseat light of morn; The tints of health and ruddy life To fan on thee their golden dreams. Once I was pure and blest like thee, Knew but affections calm and mild : My God, why taught'st thou me to love? The spirits of those vernal days. Pass me with downcast looks of gloom. O Innocence! no prayer, no sigh, The household circle knows my place no more; And let the seraph Virtue guide your ways. That hope could promise or my fate controul; That words of praise and tones of passion pour? Still the thought vibrates in my quiv'ring breast, This mould'ring frame amid the turf shall rest. Calmer of human sorrow, downward bend Thy dimmer torch, and quench this spark of life. In this poem, and especially in the third stanza, pathetic touches of real beauty are interspersed; and the persevering reader will elsewhere find many other passages equally attaching, though animated by opposite emotions. Some of the poems profess to be translated from the English: it would have been well to accompany them with the original text: the task of version and reversion is not to be recommended merely to the linguist, but also to the poet, since it bestows not only a command of idiom, but a command of phrase. When will the printing-presses of Vienna offer to the British muses a similar hospitality? When the business of nations shall be conducted more by men of letters, and when the natural representatives of the European mind shall be the avowed agents of European intercourse. X 4 ART. ART. XI. Christianity in India. Letters between Laicus and an East India Proprietor, as they appeared in the Times Newspaper, in the Months of August, September, and October, 1813. 8vo. pp. 102. 3s. 6d. Rivingtons, &c. IT T is said that Christianity is wanted in India; and this is very true, if by the proposition be meant that it is desirable, in an abstract moral and religious view, that the faith of the Gospel should supplant the absurd, cruel, and in some respects immoral superstitions of the Hindoos. To secure this object, however, which is so devoutly to be wished, we must take care to secure our station in India; for if, by a Quixotic adventure of humanity, we should lose our vast Asiatic empire, which is admitted by Mr. Wilberforce to be in a precarious situation, we shall be cut off from the very possibility of preaching Christianity in any degree or mode. Let us, therefore, look in the first place to the stability of our eastern possessions, and to their amelioration in the second. To invert this order is to hazard every thing, with the probability of effecting nothing. The benevolence of the object is divine: but, if it be injudiciously pursued, the catastrophe may be melancholy and even ruinous; and this is a case in which generous zeal must submit to be curbed by interested, or, as some will call it, low-calculating prudence. We are confirmed in the opinion of the necessity of caution, when we hear such language used as that we ought to despise a reptile policy;'-that we ought wards, and "let Heaven answer for the rest." to go for Since, however, the experiment has many powerful advocates, let us see how stand the pros and the cons in the field of argument. Laicus begins in behalf of the measure; and he reasons with great energy, under an evident religious impression of our being bound in duty, as the governors of India, vigorously to attempt its conversion. From the practices of infanticide, of the burning of women with their deceased husbands, and of the sacrifice of human life at the shrine of idols, he argues: that a cloud of darkness exists in India which requires to be dissipated by the light of the Gospel. He replies to the objections which have been urged against the modern project for christianizing the East, and then enumerates the reasons which incline him to be friendly to it, viz. 1st, that the state of the British residents, and, 2dly, that the state of the half-casts, furnish claims to our attention; and, 3dly, that a moral obligation compels us to diffuse the light which we enjoy. - To the statements and arguments of Laicus, a gentleman replies who signs himself an East India Proprietor; and that plan, which Laicus views with so much satisfaction, appears to to this opponent to be pregnant with danger. His opinion is that we cannot be too careful on so delicate a subject as that of religion, and that the project is perilous and impracticable. A friend, a patron, a promoter of missionaries, confessed in his examination, before the House of Commons, that of his own knowledge he did not know one, not even one, respectable Hindoo who had been converted? It is also contended by the Proprietor that India is not yet ripe for the proposed measure;' that, by increasing the number of missionaries there, we shall occasion increased alarms among the natives; and that this may lead to a dreadful explosion, by which our present vast empire will be shattered into pieces. In a political point of view, he thus contemplates the subject; and we ought not to lose sight of the question in this very aspect of it: because, if we instruct the Hindoos in the policy of Christian states, we shall furnish them with weapons by which we must infallibly be expelled from the peninsula. It is a moral and political phenomenon, for a parallel to which we shall in vain search into the pages of history, and respecting which it would, therefore, be unsafe to pronounce any positive opinion. It seems, however, reasonable to expect, that the best chance for the security of the present system of Government, is the continuance of the present state of opinions, and particularly on the subject of religion, The religion of the Hindoos is intimately connected with their civil habits and customs: they are knit together, and, as it were, bound up in each other. These united constitute their weakness, and bur strength. If, therefore, we discard these opinions, if we strike off the fetters of superstition which chain them to the earth, they will spring up with an elasticity proportioned to the pressure they have sustained, and drive us from our seat.' No two persons can differ more widely than these two writers; and Laicus, returning to the charge, contests every inch of ground with his adversary. So far is he from supposing that the present religious system of the Hindoos operates to our security, that he pleads for leading them to a knowledge of the Gospel, under an idea, that this gift will attach them in heart to the British, and thus be instrumental to the security of India.' A nation invaded and conquered, however, is not so easily attached in heart to its conquerors; and it is in the highest de gree improbable that we should attach the Hindoos in heart to us, by discovering a settled plan of invading their religious prejudices and superstitions. When a nation has become Christian, and generally sensible of the value of the Gospel,. it We ought to advert, on this occasion, to the extraordinary case in point which is furnished by the Japanese. See p. 283. of this Review, and their persevering exclusion of the Russians, in the preceding pages. may |