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filial love which it breathes; but we venture to hint to our fair poetess, that it is hardly allowable for her " Boy" to speak in his own person, of clasping his little hands in artless prayer, (p. 84 ;) surely, that description of his pious orisons is anything but "artless."

There is much of poetic feeling, we submit, in "The Infant's Grave;" and, doubtless, our readers will not fail to discover in its lines a maternal affectionateness, to which we have already referred as eminently characteristic of the talented volume upon our table. The first stanzas,Mark yonder rose that faintly blows, Arrest thy step-tread not too near; The sacred spot where now it grows Is hallowed by a mother's tear! Her wayward fancies love to cling With fondness to that flowret fair; As, hovering round that fragrant thing,

The spirit of her babe were there,-(p. 89.)

remind us of the kindred lines in the " Elegy to the Memory of an unfortunate Lady:"

"Yet shall thy grave with rising flowers be dress'd,
And the green turf lie lightly on thy breast;
There shall the morn her earliest tears bestow,

There the first roses of the year shall blow."

"That flowret fair" may be compared to Milton's tender description of a "Fair Infant's Death:"

"O fairest flower, no sooner blown but blasted." +

Nor will the classical reader venture to deny the prescriptive propriety of decorating the burial spot of these " silken primroses fading timelessly," when he calls to mind the "manibus data lilia plenis" of the Mantuan bard.

Of the same character is the beautiful" Impromptu on a fading but cherished Bouquet," (p. 95 ;) and we gladly quote the concluding verses, because they manifest a nervousness of style, and a fervid strength of passion, which will convince her admirers that our authoress, though fascinatingly gentle and affectionately tender, is capable of something far better than the whining drawl of maudlin sentimentality. She thus defies the ruthless power of withering old Time :

Come then, stern Time, exert thy hateful power,
Blast every beauty of each treasured flower;
Rifle the fragrance from the lily's breast;
Spare not the charm the blushing rose confess'd;-
Crush all beneath thy dull and with'ring stroke,
And kill the sweets the timid spring awoke!
Thy cruel tyranny my heart defies,

Where still they bloom in all their varied dyes!
Their perfume haunts me in my sweetest dream,
In fancy's eye their gorgeous colours gleam!

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And every silent hour to musing dear,
Shall bid the lov'd illusion still appear;

While memory forms a bright elysian bower,

To save for ever each endearing flower.-Pp. 96, 97.

The same masculine vigour is discernible in "The Assassins ;" and when the widowed mother, agonized at sight of her murdered lord, and "abjuring each woman thought of tenderness," unsexes herself, and, revelling in the revenge to be inflicted upon the bloody murderers by her infant boy, calls upon him to assume the form of an avenging angel, to pour his vials of punishment upon their guilty heads, we think we see the slumbering babe start from his cradle at the stirring voice, and suddenly assume the stature of a giant! What could he do less, at that passionate appeal, than

Leap the gay chasm of his boyhood's years,

And for revenge forget his childish fears?-P. 98.

"The Widow," like her prototype of Nain, though not honoured with the miraculous interposition of her present Saviour, finds her best comfort in piety :

Thus, when she bowed to kiss her last dead child,
Regret was mute, and Resignation smiled.

The holy text reveals to her sad eye

A tearless home of rest beyond the sky;

Her bosom glows with its inspiring flame

"The Lord bestowed! He takes! Blest be his name!"

Pp. 112, 113.

There was a time (thank God! such times are past) when it was the fashion to assert that genius was incompatible with godliness; that poetry had no affinity with piety; that profligacy was the privilege of talent; that vice and vigour of intellect were almost synonymous. The worshippers of Burns and Byron would teach us to scoff at the homely virtues enjoined by Christianity, and to discard the every-day decencies of life, which are fit only for the vulgar, and may therefore be safely despised by men of superior endowments, as undeniable proofs of want of mental taste and of debasing inferiority of intellect. The best answer to these silly and mischievous opinions is given by the pen of the pious; and if we needed any additional witnesses to demonstrate the folly and the falseness of such wretched sophistry, we should promptly appeal to the pages under review, where poetry and piety meet in happy embrace, to assure us that "the imagination which burns with the clearest, the loftiest, and the most expansive flame, is that which is fed by the purest sentiments and the freshest affections."* Indeed we have a peculiar satisfaction in adducing the testimony of the authoress of "Tranquil Hours," to rebut the infidel claims of a graceless crew to

Quarterly Review, May 1819.

exclusive talent in the imaginative paths of fancy and the delicate creations of taste, because her effusions are not the offspring of a melancholy temperament, nor yet of a distempered enthusiasm, nor yet of a puritanical mind, nor yet of feverish feeling. She is sedate, yet not sad; affectionate, yet not weak; cheerful, yet not frivolous; devout of heart, yet not delirious in her love to God. She shows her readers that her poetic fire is the inspiration of no strange deity; that her happy energies,

"Like vestal flames to purest bosoms given,

Are kindled only by a ray from heaven."

Our space compels us to pass over many pieces which we might quote with unmixed satisfaction; and, in good truth, we should allot much narrower limits to the little volume before us, did not its merits challenge an ample examination at our hands. "The Widow to her Babe" (p. 134) affords a happy example of tender and affectionate feeling beautifully expressed.

O! smile again with those star-like eyes,
My beautiful! my best!

That have so oft beguiled the sighs
Of this despair-wrung breast!

O! would on this deep-list'ning ear
Thy joyous laugh could break,
Still rendering weary life most dear,
For thy adored sake!

The hectic of that burning cheek

Is not the rose of health;

And yet thy fragile life, fair boy,

Is all thy mother's wealth!

How throbs with fear my anxious heart

At each complaining tone;

To mark the tear of anguish start,

Or catch thy stifled groan!

Each lingering moment that I wait
Beside thy feverish bed,

Seems pregnant with portentous fate
For my devoted head.

O! when the heart has but one thing,

On all the earth, that's dear,

How oft that heart will terror wring,

And strange foreboding fear!

Each waking hour I spend in grief,
Watching thy fleeting breath;

And 'chance if sleep yields short relief,
My dreams depict thy death!

Horror! to see the pretty flower,

Nurtured with such fond care,

Wither beneath death's blighting power,

Despite our lone despair!

The beauty that we idolized

So loathsome turns when dead,

That even to affection's eyes

It is a thing to dread!

Then selfish why should I retain
My drooping blossom here?
And save, to feed a love so vain,
A cherub from yon sphere!
In that warm paradise above,
Sheltered from every woe,

'Twould bloom the brightest flower of love
That ever there did blow!

Angels my opening bud would shield,
To bloom eternally;

And seraphs their glad homage yield
To one so fair as thee!

Ah! if thy tranquil soul had fled
From this abode of care,

To God I'd bow this contrite head,
And pray to join thee there!

One hope illumes this aching heart,
To break the cheerless gloom;

It is, my blest! we may not part,

But both find one sweet tomb!-Pp. 134-137.

Here again we witness the power of christian resignation, and are reminded that whilst

"The parent mourns his child upon the bier,

The Christian yields an angel to his God."

"The Rebuke" contains some beautiful thoughts clothed in beautiful language. Standing over the "timeless " grave of departed loveliness, "what stoic bosom can forbear a sigh?" Who will not moralize this spectacle into a thousand similes? Take our authoress's fancy :— Hushed now is each emotion of that breast,

White as the snows which on yon mountains rest,
Ere yet the sun has lent one burning ray,

Like love, to melt the purity away.-P. 156.

Take another example. It is styled "Impromptu on hearing two Sisters singing some Themes from the Creation." We do not challenge the praise of originality for this trifle, but we think our readers will consent to call it pretty, though reminded thereby of the well known couplet,

"We were too blessed with these enchanting lays,
Which must be heavenly when an angel plays."↑

If the bright vaults of Heaven ring
With joy to hear its angels sing
Their songs of holy mirth!

How should our souls exulting swell,
To hear their raptures sung so well
By seraphims on earth!

Could envy reach that blest abode,

Where peace and love reside with God,

Unfelt or grief or pain

The heavenly choir would cease their song,
Forced to confess, to these belong

A more angelic strain!

Mason's Poems, vol. i. p. 138.

+ Pope.

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When their pure souls are called above-
Meet inmates those fair realms of love—
Admiring saints shall stand

To hail them to that home divine,

Where most harmonious they shall shine
Of all that choral band!—Pp. 174, 175.

Turning to the 181st page of the volume under review, we find a poem without any introductory argument explanatory of its subject; and we notice this serious defect because it occurs very often in these poems, to our great annoyance. We like to be apprised of the topic about to be handled ere we peruse a piece, in preference to being left to discover it for ourselves; just as a traveller would choose some friendly guidepost to direct his sure steps, rather than encounter the difficulty of guessing his way by the dull and doubtful light of his unaided judgment. We entreat our talented authoress to reconsider this point, in the full persuasion that in another edition of her work she will remove this trifling imperfection. We suggest as a "heading" for the poem which has prompted these remarks" The Old Bachelor," and we leave "the lonely wretch" to his melancholy fate without one tear for his

miseries.

We urge the same objection to a delightful piece which Mrs. Thomas calls "A Fragment." It contains some remarkably good lines upon a theme peculiarly suited to a female pen. They are at once delicate and powerful; warm, yet chaste; sentimental, yet not maudlin. Our limits forbid us to extract the whole poem, but the description of the bashful virgin in presence of her lover is too good to be omitted. Here it is :

:

So mute she stood, but for her heaving breast,

And that deep eye which knew not where to rest,

You would have deemed 'twas beauty's form enshrined,
To claim the adoring homage of mankind.

The tear of bashfulness, half pain, half joy,
Veiling the radiance it could not destroy,
Like the soft cloud by zephyr oft unfurled
O'er the bright orb of a rejoicing world,
Till in a dewy tear it quits the sky,

"The

So fell the tear-drop from her conscious eye.-Pp. 188, 189. "Farewell" (p. 190) we recommend to the lovers of pathos. Dying Lover" will recommend itself to the same tribe (p. 182); and another piece, which might also be entitled "Farewell" (p. 194), reminds us that we too must pronounce that "grief-fraught word," and take respectful leave of our fair poetess, our opinion of whose merits may be measured by the unusual space allotted to her elegant volume; and yet, ere we finally part, we must add a few more last words, for the purpose of directing the attention of our readers to "Despair," who is thus introduced with graphic skill as gloating, fiend-like, over the sad victims of his power. Where the pale widow kneels in agony by

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