O that the dreams of childhood could remain,
When years steal on, and reason grows with pain!'

These, in our judgment, are for the most part very beautiful verses; and so are the following, with the exception of some instances of careless rhythm, occasioned by the modern error respecting the variety of versification. We have exposed this error too frequently to think of returning to the hopeless task.

'But painful scenes drew nigh: fate had not shed
Its utmost malice on Velasquez' head.

E'en on that night of mourning, while his wife
Still press'd the fatal couch, just reft of life,
Stern justice dragg'd him from his gloomy home,
To linger cheerless in a living tomb.

Young Julia shared his doom, content to dwell
A self-devoted victim in his cell.

There, spiritless as the corse which he had left,
Disease assail'd him, of all hope bereft.
His pallet was of straw, and Julia hung
O'er his uneasy sleep. Carelessly flung
On her white bosom, the dishevell❜d hair
Made her more beauteous even in despair.
She sate entranced, while memory round her drew
Forms of the past in long and sad review.
In her heart graven with unerring truth
She traced each pastime of her earliest youth;
And in that dungeon, free and unconfined,
Valentia's charms came beaming on her mind;
Rodrigo's smile; the mutual joys and fears
Which had endear'd him in her infant years:
And then the clouded brow, the constrain'd look;
The pleading eye, when that last leave he took;
The hasty pressure of her yielded hand;
The barque, that bore him from his native land.
Next rose the grief, that reft her of her home,
Torn from the shades where once she loved to roam;
Her mother's failing strength, her kind caress,
Foreboding thoughts which she would fain repress ;
The paleness that betray'd life's dwindling flame,
The slow decay of that exhausted frame.
Then keener thoughts arose; the pang, that prey'd
Like poison on her heart, to none bewray'd;
The tale, which dagger-like had smote her soul,
"Rodrigo wedded to a rich Creole."

We need not say that we except from any portion of our praise the Crabbe-like line of

Rodrigo wedded to a rich Creole

As little, we trust, need we add that in the term Crabbe-like we intend no disrespect to the great genius of the founder of

the

the Dutch school of poetic painting among us; although we must be allowed to assign him his due share in the corruption and degradation of those qualities, which we once considered as the refinement, the dignity, and the idealism, of English poetry.

In the subjoined common-place, on love, we discern rather too much of the violence of our contemporaries; and yet, with this drawback, it has much merit. We should remark that the preceding rhyme,

it was a power

Which sway'd his passions, rooted in its CORE.'

is very unworthy of the general correctness of this little poem.
O thou stern god! imperious, fearful love!
In thy deceitful cradle as a dove,

Thou in thy might dost like a giant move!
Thro' the wide universe thy strength is spread,
And nature quivers underneath thy tread!
Whether thou art of hell or child of heaven,
To thee on this our world all power is given.
Blest author of delight, and yet our bane!
All bliss, all guilt, are mingled in thy reign.
Thy steps are viewless as the lapse of time,
And lead the soul from ecstacy to crime.
Thy lip thou clothest with an angel's smile,
Lord of each dearest charm that can beguile;
And thou dost lure the wretch thou wilt destroy
With such sweet rapture, that to fall is joy.
But, in thy passion roused, thou art of might
To make man's essence shrink before thy sight.
Thy look, which late with mildest beauty shone,
Shall like a gorgon turn his heart to stone;
Murder, and rape, and phrensy rise from hell,
And the whole host of sin obey thy spell.'
The line

And nature quivers underneath thy tread!'

is genuine bombast. There is a fairness in this style of composition, this copy of the true English couplet, which betrays at once any weakness or impropriety in the thought; while, on the other hand, the most extravagant or most feeble images are apt to be excused, or even to gain an apparent strength, under the cloak of the older dramatic phraseology. Any observant reader must have detected numerous instances of this fact in our best modern poets; especially in Lord Byron and Mr. Milman.

We have no time, however, to prolong either our remarks or our extracts; although we are reluctant to leave some very

beautiful

beautiful passages still untouched. This poem, and the Pia Della Pietra, (reviewed in a former Number,) will preserve Mr. Herbert's fame, when the milder and rougher vagaries of his muse shall long have sunken in merited oblivion. Yet this we say on the fond and perhaps erroneous presumption that a purer literary taste will at some time revive in England; and that the inheritors of our glory and our genius, in another hemisphere, will not be misled and interrupted in their natural course of improvement, by our present meteor lights, and false models of composition.

ART. VIII. Sketches of Upper Canada, Domestic, Local, and Characteristic: to which are added, Practical Details for the Information of Emigrants of every Class; and some Recollections of the United States of America. By John Howison, Esq. 8vo. pp. 356. 10s. 6d. Boards. Oliver and Boyd, Edinburgh; Whittakers, London. 1821.

LTHOUGH Some few individuals may fly to distant lands

because they are impatient of the political restraints imposed on them at home, and others in order to save from the gripe of the tax-gatherer the little wreck of property that yet remains to them, the great mass of emigrants must always consist of those miserable and hopeless beings who are driven from their native country by absolute poverty and want, and whose labor is insufficient to procure a maintenance for their families. "The world is all before them ;" and the mothercountry ought undoubtedly to alleviate, as much as possible, the inevitable difficulties with which those bare and wretched exiles have to struggle who choose to settle in one of her colonies, rather than under a foreign government. Formerly, the British ministry encouraged emigration to Canada with an humane but injudicious liberality which defeated its object, Besides the payment of their passage across the Atlantic, it provided them with rations and farming utensils for an entire year after their arrival: but the consequence was that the most worthless people took advantage of these facilities to emigration, lived in idleness as long as their rations lasted, then sold their agricultural utensils, and went into the United States. As it was impossible to enforce any stipulation for permanent residence in Canada, it might have been foreseen, if the United States presented advantages for settlers which our own colony did not offer, that British emigrants would soon cross the frontiers. The conduct of these people, however, made government abandon all

idea

idea of assisting emigrants, farther than by granting them a certain quantity of land.

Let us now hear what is said on this subject by Mr. Howison; a native, evidently, of the northern part of this island, whence the emigrations to America have been so numerous : who tells us that he passed two years and a half in Upper Canada, residing in various parts of the Province; and who enjoyed such numerous opportunities of inspecting its new settlements, that all his statements intended for the information of emigrants are the result of his own personal knowlege. His observations on this point appear to us to be judicious, and deserving the attention of our government.

At first, Mr. H. remarks, too much was done for emigrants from this country, and now too little. He found at Quebec and Montreal crowds of these poor creatures in the most dreadful state of poverty and disease. Most of them had funds, when they first landed, sufficient to carry them to the Upper Province, and even to settle them comfortably on their "locations:" but they knew not where the promised land was situated, and were detained in Lower Canada by anxious and unavailing efforts to obtain information. All this misery, he thinks, might be prevented, and thousands of active settlers be annually added to the province, if government would place an agent in Quebec, Montreal, and the other towns, to whom emigrants might apply for information. It is true that emigrant-societies are established: but, owing their existence to individual benevolence, they are superficial and limited in their operation; and government-assistance seems necessary to relieve the emigrants from their difficulties.

A regular, cheap, direct mode of conveyance should be established between Quebec and York for them alone; they would then be enabled to reach the Upper Province at a very trifling expense, and the concern would not cost government any thing, as people might be carried up the St. Lawrence and lakes for onethird the sum they pay for their passage at present. When the emigrants had reached York, I should consider further assistance unnecessary. Were all persons to get there as cheaply and expeditiously as the plan recommended would enable them to do, there would be few of those instances of poverty and distress which are at present so common among new-comers. Almost all emigrants, after paying their passage to Quebec, have what, they conceive to be enough, and what really is far more than enough, to pay their expenses to York; but the present mode of travelling up the country is so unreasonably expensive, and the delays and uncertainties which attend their movements are so numerous, that they spend twice as much in the course of their journey as is necessary, and four times as much as would be required, were government to take the charge of transporting them into its own hands.'

On

On the principle that people are apt to undervalue that which they obtain without merit or exertion, the author deems it inexpedient to allow emigrants a free passage to Canada, or to give them any thing but land when they arrive there; the great object being to lessen the expence of the voyage across the Atlantic, and of the journey through the interior of the country. The passage-money to Quebec, he says, might be made so low as two pounds, provisions included: since, from actual calculation, it is said that government might transport emigrants for this insignificant sum without any other loss than the use of the vessels employed; and an individual might be conveyed from any port in Great Britain to York, in Upper Canada, for three guineas, under a proper system of management at home and abroad.

The most fertile, populous, and, from the comparative mildness of its climate and various local circumstances, the most important portion of the Province commences at the mouth of the Niagara, and extends westward to the head of Lake Erie. Mr. Howison draws no flattering picture of Canadian felicity, however: for he says that, having anticipated much pleasure from being an eye-witness of the neatness, taste, and simplicity which were said to characterize the peasantry, he felt disappointed when he saw every thing in a state of primitive rudeness and barbarism, even in the oldest settlements.' That country must, indeed, be in a very low state of civilization, in which mercantile transactions are carried on by barter, and this appears to be the case throughout all the western part of the Province: circulating medium being so scarce that it can with difficulty be obtained in exchange for any thing, and growing still more scarce every day.

The causes of this deficiency are very obvious; Upper Canada receives the various commodities she requires from the United States, or from the Lower Province, and she must pay money for every thing she buys from the Americans, they having a superabundance of flour, pork, and every kind of produce which she could give in exchange. Thus, almost all the commercial transactions that take place between Upper Canada and the United States are the means of drawing specie from the former country, and this specie of course never returns to the inhabitants of the Province under any form whatever. Again, the retail merchants send all the money they receive to Montreal, to pay the debts they have contracted there; or, if they do retain any in their own hands, the country is not benefitted, for they never put it into circulation. The only channel through which a regular influx of money took place was by the sale of flour; but this is now stopped, as that article has of late brought no price in Lower Canada; and those

persons