is, whether his moon of ice has any effect upon the weather here; also, if she has any effect upon weak minds, such as we may suppose Mr Prescot or Mr Cormouls to have. We rather suspect that both of them have been for some time in a pretty close contact with lunar influence. We shall also be happy if he will inform us why Venus and Mercury put on phases exactly resembling those of the moon-why Mars is sometimes seen gibbous-and how it happens that bright spots, near his poles, appear and disappear once during every revolution of the planet? We wonder whether Mr Prescot ever took a peep at Jupiter, or Saturn, through a pretty good telescope? If not, he would be very much surprised to see four lucid particles of ice always moving round Jupiter, constantly at the same distance, and always in the same period of time. He is, perhaps, not aware of the existence of this phenomenon. There are also seven satellites, or particles of ice, moving round Saturn, beside a very curious ring, perhaps of ice, forming a most beautiful object. This ring, and satellites, are certainly of no use to the inhabitants of this earth; nevertheless, we should be very sorry if they were to dissolve in rain. The earth being the centre of the system, how does it happen that Venus never sets at a period more than three hours after the sun; and that Mercury is never seen above two hours after sun-set? How will Mr Prescot explain the direct and retrograde motions of the planets, which are "natural appearances?"--But enough has been said to convince Mr P., if he be not too far gone, that he had better let such things rest: his knowledge of these subjects is more contemptible than he probably conceives. We would seriously advise him to apply his time, in future, to his day-books and journals, where his talents may be more respectably employed. On carefully examining this book, which is a specimen of West-of-England Philosophy in the Nineteenth Century, we could not avoid smiling at the immense number of learned quotations which the author has raked together, not thinly scattered, to make up a show, but arranged in deep phalanx, capable of supporting any thing but the shock that is sufficient to overturn a system of the universe. Mr Prescot, we have no doubt, placed great confidence in these quotations, as indications of much learning, and patient research after truth; but the supposition, like his system, is founded in error: for neither these, nor his abominable practice of supporting his vagaries with perverted texts from the sacred writings, nor the name of Sir H. Davy, nor that of the Ministers and other great characters to whom he has sent his performance-no, nor our review, will be able to rescue it from that oblivion to which it is hastening beyond all power of redemption ! ! EXTRACTS FROM "DARTMOOR," A PRIZE POEM, BY MRS HEMANS. [We are permitted to state, that we have been favoured with these "Extracts" by the accomplished lady to whom the Royal Society of Literature have awarded their prize for her poem on "Dartmoor." Fifty copies only were printed, and distributed to the members of the Society; and the following "Extracts" are the sole authorised portions of this beautiful descriptive poem which have yet been given to the public. As we have reason to believe that this successful "Prize Poem" will soon be given to the world, along with other pieces from the same delightful pen, we shall reserve, till their appearance, what we would otherwise have been inclined to say of the incomparable author of "The Sceptic," " Wallace," and "The Wife of Hasdrubal."] Sepulchral Cairns and Druidical Remains on the Moor. YET, what avails it, though each moss grown heap Still on the waste its lonely vigils keep, Guarding the dust which slumbers well beneath, (Nor needs such care) from each cold sea. son's breath? Where is the voice to tell their tale who rest, Thus rudely pillow'd, on the desart's breast? Doth the sword sleep beside them A sound of battle midst the silent scene A savage grandeur; while the starry skies Rung with the peal of mystic harmonies, As the loud harp its deep-ton'd hymns sent forth To the storm-ruling Powers, the WarGods of the North. war, Here, for their lovely southern climes afar, In bondage pin'd: the spell - deluded throng, Dragg'd at ambition's chariot-wheels so long, To die, because a despot could not clasp A sceptre, fitted to his boundless grasp. Yes! they whose march had rock'd the ancient thrones And temples of the world; the deepening tones Of whose advancing trumpet, from repose Had startled nations, wakening to their woes, Were prisoners here. And there were some, whose dreams Were of sweet homes, by chainless mountain-streams, And of the vine-clad hills, and many a strain And festal melody of Loire or Seine ; And of those mothers who had watch'd 58 Extracts from "Dartmoor," a Prize Poem, by Mrs Hemans. [July And there was mirth too!-strange and savage mirth, More fearful far than all the woes of The laughter of cold hearts, and scoffs From minds to which there is no sacred And transient bursts of fierce, exulting The lightning's flash upon its blasted tree! Of village duties, in the Alpine glen, men; Drawn to that vortex, whose fierce Ruler blent The earthquake-power of each wild ele ment, To lend the tide which bore his Throne on high, One impulse more of desp❜rate energy; Might, when the billow's awful rush was o'er, Which toss'd its wreck upon the stormbeat shore, Won from its wand'rings past, by suffering tried, Search'd by remorse, by anguish purified; Have fix'd at length its troubled hopes and fears Yet was this all ?-amidst the dungeon- On the far world, seen brightest through gloom, The void, the stillness, of the captive's doom, Were there no deeper thoughts ?—and that dark Power, To whom Guilt owes one late, but dreadful hour, The mighty debt through years of crime But, as the grave's, inevitably paid; Yes! as the night calls forth from sea From breeze and wood, a solemn harmony; Lost, when the swift, triumphant wheels of day, In light and sound, are hurrying on their way; Thus, from the deep recesses of the heart, The voice that sleeps, but never dies, might start, Call'd up by solitude, each nerve to thrill, The voice, inaudible, when Havoc's train rung, And the broad light of conflagration sprung, From the South's marble cities ;-hush'd, midst cries That told the heavens of mortal agonies; But gathering silent strength, to wake at last, In the concentred thunders of the Past. And there, perchance, some long-bewilder'd mind Torn from its lowly sphere, its path confin'd, our tears! And, in that hour of triumph, or despair, Whose secrets all must learn, but none declare, When, of the things to come a deeper sense Fills the rais'd eye of trembling Penitence, Have turn'd to Him, whose bow is in the cloud, Around life's limits gathering as a shroud; The fearful mysteries of the heart who knows, And, by the tempest, calls it to repose. LIGHTS AND SHADOWS OF SCOTTISH LIFE, ONE VOLUME 8vo. EDINBURGH, 1822. ABOUT sixty years ago, the German poet Gesner published a set of pastorals, which he called Idylls, and which charmed all the young sentimentalists of Britain, as well as Germany. The sentiment, however, was chiefly calculated to captivate inexperienced but susceptible minds, who had never looked at life in the mirror of Nature, but had admired the flattering pictures which Romance and Fiction had drawn, without closely examining their pretensions to inculcate practical virtue. The sentiment was what may be termed, if the phrase is not too coarse for refined ears, rather of a syrupy kind, which, after no great space of time, went out of fashion in Britain, or was confined, at least, to certain girlish philosophers of the boarding-school, or to coteries of a delicate sort, which had not then acquired a title they have since assumed, but on what grounds, or from what etymology I know not, of Blue Stocking Associations. The author of these " Lights and Shadows" seems to have nearly followed the model of Gesner; and he has published a volume of short stories, chiefly of a rural kind, descriptive of the scenery and manners of what his title imports to belong to Scotland. The justness of this title may, however, be questioned. The scenery in some places is indeed Scottish, and carries us among moors, and rocky banks, and mountain rills; but neither the language nor manners are of that country. They are rural manners, refined and exaggerated, but of no particular place or country, except we should denominate them Arcadian-an epithet by which some of the shepherds might be designated. Rural images, however, are always pleasing to any one who has not, in the callosity of am cr bition, or of the desire of amassing wealth, hardened his mind against the impression which, in the language of the Roman poet, the " vestigia ruris" produce on the mind. Perhaps this impression is stronger on the inhabitant of a town, whom laborious and unremitting business has long "in populous city pent," than on those who often, or occasionally, revisit the country, and mix in its enjoyments or its amusements. He who, day after day, looks only on the black perspective of smoking chimney-tops, or the long dull line of dirty streets, has prospects in his imagination foreign to those of his eyes, and indulges in the abstract ideas of rural felicity of verdant meadows--of sunny banks, made lively by the chirping grasshopper-of woods, made vocal by the song of the nightingale of clear blue skies, undimmed by the smoke of towns, and the golden gleam of setting suns brightening the rays of green hills-of village spires, rising over groves of antient elms, or spreading oaks, venerable from the growth of centuries; and all these localities peopled by a race of innocent and guileless people, with all the simplicity of pastoral manners, and all the sober unambitious dignity of patriarchal rule. Such are the pictures drawn by the author of this volume, and, if more beautiful than the truth, they give, in general, a pleasure not damped even by the reflection that such beauty is exaggerated, such manners the creation of the writer. There is an advantage in tales written in this spirit, that they certainly, if not very ill managed, and so improbable as to let down the dreams of imagination into the reality of unbelief, have a moral effect on the mind, and are calculated to smooth the turbulence of passion, to awaken the sentiment of benevolence, to lessen the inordinate value of this world, and, with serious men, to point the hope and anticipate the joys of another. "No man," says an amiable moralist of our own country, “No man is a villain in castle-building; nor, when his castle contains other men, does he love to paint them in the dark colours of vice, unless he is one of those moody spirits of whom there are some examples among us, who are at war with them selves as well as with the world,—a temper which, in some instances, is combined with powerful talents, calculated, like the fabled powers of evil genii, to pour out misery on the unfortunate beings who come within the reach of their voice. After what we have said above, we need scarcely add, that the morality of these tales is perfectly pure. But when the key of moral feeling, to use a musical illustration, is pitched too high, it is apt to lose much of its efficacy as an example. People look on it as something too refined for ordinary use, and despairing of being able to attain it, make no exertion to approximate their practice to its theory. This defect, however, is not to be found in all these tales; the one entitled The Minister's Widow, for instance, is a plain example of the good effects of the religious principle, of a submission to, and reliance on the goodness of God, giving peace and resignation of a quiet, almost of a happy kind, to a woman tried with severe affliction-the loss, first of an excellent husband, and, after his death, of three excellent sons, whose dutiful affection promised to gild the evening of her days. Her affliction is "not loud, but deep," and to others she does not affect to display or to stifle it; it is of that quiet unobtrusive sort, which sleeps in the bosom of the sufferer, and keeps its silent sorrow sacred to Heaven. But some of the stories are of a much less gentle sort. The Covenanter's Marriage-day is one of those savage tales which one is unwilling to believe. That British soldiers should imbrue their hands in the blood of two innocent Covenanters, who had that very morning been married on the side of St Mary's Loch, amidst the quiet of the solitary scene with which it is surrounded,-one of whom, the bridegroom, had, instead of being guilty of the murder of a ruffian, who had fallen a sacrifice to the vengeance of a party of persecuted Covenanters, done all he could to save his life from their enthusiastic fury, is such a shock to human feeling, and such a stain to the character of a soldier, that our only way of escaping from its horror, is by having recourse to scepticism, as to its reality or verisimilitude. An illustrious No |