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Or we might fit, and tell fome tender tale
Of faithful vows repaid by cruel icorn,

A tale of true love, or of friends forgot;
And I would teach thee, lady how to rail,
In gentle fort, on those who practise not
Or love, or pity, tho' of woman born."

SONNET VII.

"We were too pretty babes; the youngest the,
The youngest, and the loveliest far (1 ween)
And Innocence her name: the time has been
We two did love each other's company;
Time was, we two had wept to have been apart.
But when, by fhew of feeming good beguil'd,
I left the garb and manners of a child,
And my first love for man's fociety,
Defiling with the world my virgin heart-
My lov'd companion dropt a tear, and fled,
And hid in deepest shades her awful head.
Beloved! who fhall tell me where thou art?
In what delicious Eden to be found?

That I may feek thee, the wide world around."
- 1795.

SONNET V. 1

"OI could laugh to hear the midnight wind,"
That rushing on its way with careless sweep
Scatters the ocean waves; and I could weep
E'en as a child! for now to my 'rapt mind
On wings of winds comes wild-eyed phantasy,
And her rude vifions give a dread delight.
O winged bark! how fwift along the night
Pass'd thy proud Reel! Nor fhall I let go by
Lightly of that dream hour the memory,

When wet and chilly on thy deck I ftood,
Unbonnetted, and gaz'd upon the flood,
And almoft with'd it were no crime to die!
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There

There is, in the mufe of Coleridge, an originality at once grand and affecting. He feels whatever he writes, and he writes whatever he feels. That roughness which would deform a common poet, is in him fymmetry and proportion. We do not look for evenness and exactitude, in the old grandeur of the gothic: this would be no indication of ftrength; and ftrength is the beauty of greatnefs. Coleridge feems to labour for utterance; and when he can no longer retain filence, he fhapes the language to himfelf, because our language is not fhaped to him. Hence the obfcurity of fome of his phrafes to those who have no poetical idea. But, whatever imperfection may by fome minds be adjudged to him on this account, they are unanimous in their admiration of his pathetic poetry: and they are alive to his defcriptive powers. In a poet of fuch various, yet uniform excellence, it would be tedious to feek for defects. His defects, call them as you will, are the defects of genius and intelligence.

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“If any man," fays Coleridge, expect from my "" poems the fame eafinefs of ftyle which he admires in "a drinking fong, for him I have not written." This paffage is worthy of its writer: we wish we could think fo of what follows." I expect," continues Mr. C."neither profit or general fame by my writ"ings; and I confider myfelf as having been amply "repaid without either. Poetry has been to me its "own exceeding great reward:' it has foothed my "afflictions, it has multiplied and refined my enjoy"ments; it has endeared folitude; and it has given "6 me the habit of wifhing to difcover the good and the "beautiful in all that meets and furrounds me." A divine tribute to poetry and we are forry to object to any part of it.

That Mr. Coleridge does not expect "profit" from his poems, at the fame time that it reflects difgrace on the age in which we live, it reflects credit on his temper and judgment. Fame, however, is different to

profit. And what is a poet without fame? Where is the fuel of his genius; and the fympathy that enlivens his heart; if fenfibility be not awakened by his writings, and if fame be indifferent to his claims? A vain mar will be pleased with flattery; but it does not become a great man to talk lightly of fame.

CHARLES LLOYD,

Whofe poems come next under confideration, is evidently of the Coleridgean fchool, though of a genius fomething fofter than his mafter. There is much fimplicity, fweetnefs, and promife in the poetry of Lloyd. What we have faid of Mr. Lloyd will partly apply to his friend

CHARLES LAMB :

The pieces which this gentleman has contributed to the collection under review, entitle him to confiderable praife. It will be feen that he has a nearer refemblance to Coleridge than that which appears in Mr. Lloyd. He is ftrong and harmonious; but he is not fo affecting

as the laft writer.

When we spoke of the Coleridgean fchool, we meant not to give birth to lightness and triviality: our inten- !

tion had no fuch bent. We obferved a resemblance in the manner, and in the fentiments of this triumvirate : a resemblance too clofe for chance. Mr. Coleridge, for inftance, is very fond of the rhyme efs or ness; as diftrefs, happiness, &c. &c. and his friends have been very prodigal in this way. We meet with "quietness" without end, in the poems before us, especially in those by Mr. Lloyd; and there is, fometimes, both in him and Mr. Lamb, a turgefcence of ftyle not very remote from affectation.

ART.

ART. II. A Short Commentary, with Strictures on certain Parts of the Moral Writings of Dr. Paley and Mr. Gisborne. To which are added as a Supplement, Obfervations on the Duties of Trustees and Conductors of Grammar Schools, and Two Sermons on the Purity of Principle, and the Penal Laws. By George Croft, D. D. Late Fellow of University College, Oxford; Vicar of Ancliffe, Lecturer of St. Martin's in Birmingham, and Chaplain to the Right Honourable the Earl of Elgin. 8vo. pp. 274. 5s. Boards. Thomas Pearfon, Birmingham; Rivington's, London, 1797.

PERHAPS there is no fubject within the reach of

human investigation, that has occafioned a greater variety of difcuffion than the principles of ethics or morality. We are too intimately connected with the fubject to be inattentive fpectators of the combat. Indeed, if we were ever fo difpofed to negligence, the very different explications which different writers affign to the fame rules, muft roufe us, at leaft, to a momentary reflection. The names of Paley and Gisborne, fo well known to the obfervers of ethical science, need no introduction to our readers; and the celebrity of their powers might forgive even a flight attempt to point out their reípective wants, or the deficiences of their respective works. But Mr. Croft is not inadequate to the task which he has announced, and the commentary before us ought not to be unknown to those who have ftudied his text-works, in the labours of Paley and Gisborne.

The doctrine of "general utility," that private, ought ever to recede before public confiderations, even to juftify, in certain emergencies, an apparent breach of rectitude, is thus vindicated by our author, from countenancing the will of depravity

"Evil muft not be done, that good may come. This or that is evil.

Therefore this or that must not be done."

VOL. II.

In the case of PROMISES, about which so much fophiftry has been used, we beg leave to put a few enquiries.-Would the rule of "general utility" be benefited or injured by the non-obfervance of promises? Is not even a defpotic obfervance of fuch engagements more advantageous than a partial one? who, we would know, though he might promife, would perform injuftice and impoffibility? Do not men object, if the leaft inconvenience occur between the birth and the completion of a promife? And, when, in general, we are fo prone to licentioufnefs, is it wife to relax the obligations of morality?

Croft avows his conviction, though opposed to Paley, that beggars ought not to be relieved.

"When we confider," fays he, "how few vagrants merit compaffion, when all the mischiefs of vagrancy are taken into the account, the safest way is to refufe, in toto, left while we relieve their wants, we corrupt their morals. A poor man taken ill upon a journey, if he can produce that teftimony of his character which honeft men cafily obtain, is not in the number of vagrants. Our tenderness may be better kept up by giving relief to indigent families, and as Dr. Paley elfewhere obferves, being charitable upon a plan. The spirit of our laws is contrary to all lenity, that may be fhewn to vagrants. We are punishable for harbouring them, and furely cannot altogether be innocent in fupplying them with the means of being harboured by others. A refidence in a large country village, infefted by fuch perfons, has given me decided conviction, that the Doctor's opinion fhould not be followed."

Thefe obfervations appear to us both excellent and judicious:

"Of the doctrine of the Trinity, fome have doubted whe ther it can be found in the Old Teftament. They who wish for fatisfaction on this fubject, may confult Dr. Burgh, or Dr. Thomas Randolph's Latin Protections. The pious in all ages expected an atonement, and therefore believed in the-Meffiah; they relied not on their own endeavours merely, and therefore expected

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