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readers as have not met with it, and I trust you will feel disposed to gratify me. I do not pretend to be a critic; yet I think that I have some idea what criticism ought to be, and what a critic ought not to be. "The duty of criticism," says Dr Johnson, "is neither to depreciate, nor dignify by partial representations, but to hold out the light of reason, whatever it may discover; and to promulgate the determinations of truth, whatever she shall dictate." This, as far as I am able to judge, cannot admit of contradiction; and I should have been happy to have seen the Doctor adhere to his own precept in writing the Lives of the Poets: precept and practice, however, are very different things. But let that pass. Criticism, in the hands of a man of talent, of learning, of candour, is of essential benefit to society. It tends to cherish the blossoms of opening genius it proves a light to the path of the more illiterate; but when it only appears, like an ignis fatuus, to lead them astray, the mischief is great. For it cannot be denied, that readers in general are very apt to be swayed,-nay, to be implicitly led by what they find in Magazines and Reviews. Although I may be deficient in talent and learning, I shall not, I promise you, be deficient in candour, and I shall speak of Leyden's poetry in the sincerity of my heart. It requires, perhaps, a mind of peculiar habits of thought to relish the poetry of Wordsworth or Coleridge, but the common feelings of mankind are all that is necessary to be brought to the perusal of the poetry of Leyden. There are no metaphysical subtleties, there are no mystical dreams, the visions which arise on his soul, and the feelings which flow from his heart, are as readily recognized and appreciated by the illiterate as by the learned. When an author is determined to set at defiance the ordinary associations of mankind, he has no right to complain of the severity of criticism, or of the unpopularity of his works, he has written to please himself, let him therefore be satisfied with his own approbation. But when a man, like Leyden, has poured forth the undisguised feelings of his heart, -feelings which he possesses in common with every brother of the human species, there is reason to be

astonished if any one should be insensible to them.

"The Scenes of Infancy" is Leyden's greatest work,-a work which possesses many faults and many beauties. It is deficient in connection,

the author's oriental learning is unnaturally obtrusive,-several of the passages are over-laboured,-and some of the episodes are coldly conceived and artificially written; but all these faults are amply redeemed by many descriptions truly faithful,-by the recollections of the author's boyhood, embalmed in strains that are worthy of Goldsmith,-by patriotic feelings nobly expressed, and, above all, by those passages in which he has given vent to his unfeigned sorrow at parting from his native land with all its endearments. The following passages, though, perhaps, not the best, are a fair specimen of the spirit, feeling, and versification of the work:

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finish'd vow,

These eyes, that still with dimming tears o'erflow,

Will haunt me, when thou canst not see my woe.

Not yet, with fond but self-accusing pain, Mine eyes reverted linger o'er the main; But, sad, as he that dies in early spring, When flowers begin to blow, and larks to When nature's joy a moment warms his sing, heart,

And makes it doubly hard with life to part, I hear the whispers of the dancing gale, And fearful listen for the flapping sail,

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Oft, while an infant, playful in the sun,
I hop'd thy silent gambols to outrun,
And, as I view'd thee ever at my side,
To overleap thy hastening figure tried.
Oft, when with flaky snow the fields were
white,

Beneath the moon I started at thy sight, Eyed thy huge stature with suspicious mien,

And thought I had my evil genius seen. But when I left my father's old abode, And thou the sole companion of my road, As sad I paus'd, and fondly look'd behind,

And almost deem'd each face I met unkind,

While kindling hopes to boding fears gave place,

Thou seem'dst the ancient spirit of my

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ble even when compared with similar compositions of his illustrious friend Sir Walter Scott, and this is no scanty praise. As they have been long before the public, and are to be found in popular works, it would be almost an insult to your poetical readers to give them a quotation.

I now come to his Miscellaneous Pieces, some of which I consider as his most successful efforts. The "Ode to an Indian Gold Coin" is, with the exception of some confusion in the first stanza, a most exquisite little poem. It comes nearer than any thing I ever saw to Burns's "Mary in Heaven.' Can any thing be more beautifully conceived, or more forcibly expressed, than the following verses?

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Slave of the mine! thy yellow light Gleams baleful as the tomb-fire drear.A gentle vision comes by night

My lonely widow'd heart to cheer; Her eyes are dim with many a tear, That once were guiding stars to mine : Her fond heart throbs with many a fear! I cannot bear to see thee shine.

For thee, for thee, vile yellow slave,

I left a heart that lov'd me true!

I cross'd the tedious ocean-wave,

To roam in climes unkind and new. The cold wind of the stranger blew Chill on my wither'd heart :-the grave Dark and untimely met my viewAnd all for thee, vile yellow slave! p. 164.

The verses 66 To Mr James Purvis" need only be read to be at once appreciated and admired.

Purvis, when on this eastern strand With glad surprise I grasp thy hand, And memory's, fancy's, powers employ In the form'd man to trace the boy; How many dear illusions rise,

And scenes long faded from my eyes, Since first our bounding steps were seen Active and light on Denholm's level green! Playmate of boyhood's ardent prime! Rememberest thou, in former time, How oft we bade, in fickle freak, Adieu to Latin terms and Greek, To trace the banks where blackbirds sung,

And ripe brown nuts in clusters hung, Where tangled hazels twined a screen Of shadowy boughs in Denholm's mazy Dean ?

Rememberest thou, in youthful might
Who foremost dared the mimic fight,
And, proud to feel his sinews strung,
Aloft the knotted cudgel swung ;

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Yes, it was sweet, till fourteen years
Had circled with the rolling spheres.
Then round our heads the tempest sleet
Of fretful cares began to beat;
As to our several paths we drew,
The cold wind of the stranger blew

Cold on each face-and hills between Our step uptower'd and Denholm's lovely green.

When the gay shroud and swelling sail Bade each bold bosom court the gale; The first that tried the eastern sea Was Gavin, gentle youth, was he! His yellow locks fann'd by the breeze, Gleam'd golden on the orient seas: But never shall his steps be seen Bounding again on Denholm's pleasant green.

We both have seen the ruddy tide Of battle surging fierce and wide; And mark'd with firm unconquer'd soul The blackest storms of ocean roll; While many a sun-ray, tipt with death, Has fall'n like lightning on our path; Yet, if a bard presage aright, I ween, We both shall live to dance once more on Denholm's green. pp. 180-182,

The following sonnets are, perhaps, as good as most other sonnets.

On an Old Man Dying Friendless.

To thee, thou pallid form, o'er whose wan cheek

The downy blossoms of the grave are shed!

To thee the crumbling earth and claycold bed

Of joys supreme, instead of sorrows, speak. Deep in the silent grave thou soon shalt

rest;

Nor e'er shalt hear beneath the ridgy mould

The howling blast, in hollow murmurs cold,

That sweeps by fits relentless o'er thy breast!

No warm eye glistens with the dewy tear For thee, no tongue that breathes to heaven the vow,

No hand to wipe the death-drops from thy brow,

No looks of love thy fainting soul to cheer! Then go, forlorn to thee it must be

sweet

Thy long-lost friends beyond the grave to meet. p. 13,

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grave,

Which oft thou moistenest with the morning dew.

To thee the sad, to thee the weary fly; They rest in peace beneath thy sacred gloom,

Thou sole companion of the lowly tomb! No leaves but thine in pity o'er them sigh. Lo! now, to fancy's gaze, thou seem'st to spread

Thy shadowy boughs to shroud me with the dead. p. 17.

It would be a tedious, and, in all probability, an useless task to enter into a minute examination of Leyden's poetry; and I only would beg of the readers of poetry to consult the work for themselves, and not to abandon the direction of their own judgments. But what disposition of mind ought a reader to bring to the perusal of poetic composition? I would not venture so far as Sterne to say,—" I would go fifty miles on foot to kiss the hand of that man, whose generous heart will give up the reins of his imagination into his author's hands; be pleased, he knows not why, and cares not wherefore;" for this is making man a merely passive, when he ought to be a rational being. Pope speaks with more reason:

A perfect judge will read each work of wit With the same spirit as its author writ.

Now, this is all I wish-I wish a man to sit down in singleness of heart to the perusal of poetry. If his feelings, notwithstanding, be seared by an immoderate love of worldly wealth, or if his imagination be polluted by the pursuit of gross pleasures, he will not be found to be a very adequate judge; but if he be feelingly alive to the beauties of nature-both animate and inanimate and if he has attended in some degree to the silent workings of his own heart, he will be no incapable judge of the most genuine of all species of poetry-the poetry of truth and nature. Yes! I will repeat it if he be alive to the beauties of the VOL, VII.

original, he will be able to judge of the imitative art; and if he be possessed of those sensibilities-the fountain from which poetry springs-he will be competent to distinguish whether the stream be pure or adulterated. A reader, such as I have described, will, in my opinion, be able to judge of the poetry of Leyden, for it is, generally speaking, the poetry of truth and nature. From this, indeed, must be excepted a few of his shorter pieces, and not a few passages in the "Scenes of Infancy," where the author has endeavoured to work up his pictures more with a view to make an impression on the mind of his readers, than to give vent to those legitimate feelings which the original picture was calculated to awake in his own bosom: that is to say, he has dressed ficial style, which is too generally callhis thoughts in that ornate and artied poetic diction, when he ought to have ushered them forth in the nakedness and simple dignity of truth. And so far he is wrong; but no human composition can be perfect, and there is certainly sufficient evidence of genius in the writings of Leyden to make a candid reader confess, that the soul of poetry is there.

To conclude: Let us contemplate this aspiring man struggling from the shades of his native obscurity-overwhen the harvest of all his hopes, and coming every obstacle-and, at last, of the hopes of his countrymen, seemed lying in full luxuriance before him-see him at once cut off by the mysterious hand of Providence. Such a contemplation will engender a mingled feeling of exultation and sorrow, and will undoubtedly dispose every man to sit down with a friendly temper of mind to the perusal of any thing that has come from the pen of the late Dr Leyden.

A BORDERER.

DIALOGUES ON NATURAL AND REVEALED RELIGION.

MR EDITOR,

I Now transinit to you a farther portion of my Dialogues; but before embarking your readers again in the stream of disputation, I wish them to pause a little on the position with which my last communication concluded. It is what I consider as

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the most original and important part of all my speculations, and if I have not succeeded in establishing it on irrefragable grounds, I have yet very little doubt that it will hereafter be completely established by some more accurate and profound inquirer. I mean my position, that all our belief, connected with the system of nature, rests on a previous intimation conveyed to us, that there is a system, and, accordingly, that we cannot take a step in existence without acting upon principles, which, when followed out to their clear consequences, infallibly land us in pure and perfect theism. If I am not greatly mistaken, this theory of belief will be found to open into very elevated views of the human mind, and of the constant dependence with which it leans upon the Deity. It, indeed, shows us, that "in Him we live, and move, and have our being, since we cannot think a thought or perform an action that has not a secret reference to his exist

ence.

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I think, too, it will be disco vered, that it is the want of this view which forms the great and lead ing defect in Mr Hume's philosophy. His system hangs much better together, and seems to go deeper into the human mind, than those of the philosophers who have risen to oppose him. When they speak of principles of belief, of which they can give no farther account, than that they invariably exist in all human beings, and which, accordingly, they slump under the vague and general name of common sense, they are evidently not philosophizing-they explain nothing; there is no connecting tie by which these different principles are linked together, or by which the belief in which they all terminate can be shown to be one and the same thing. Mr Hume comes much nearer the point when he speaks of belief as a sentiment or feeling arising in certain circumstances, and although his account of what this sentiment is, is extremely defective and inaccurate, yet it is the kind of account which he could not but give, supposing, as he did, that there was no principle on which it rested at all more rational than the mechanical principle of Custom or Habit. "All belief of matter of fact or real existence (says he) is derived merely from some object present to the memory or senses, and a

customary conjunction between that and some other object; or, in other words, having found in many instances that any two kinds of objects, flame and heat, snow and cold, have always been conjoined together; if flame or snow be presented anew to the senses, the mind is carried by custom to expect heat or cold, and to believe that such a quality does exist, and will discover itself upon a nearer approach. This belief is the neces sary result of placing the mind in such circumstances. It is an operation of the soul when we are so situated as unavoidable as to feel the passion of love, when we receive benefits, or hatred when we meet with injuries."

Mr Hume is here just upon the verge of the truth, but he has not hit it, and has exactly made the same blunder in metaphysics, which every one is prone to do in common life, and which it requires much medita tion and religious thought to correct. Our minds have become so abituated to the order of things around us, that we forget that it is an order or system, and are but too ready to go on through life without any of the devout sentiments which so beneficent an arrangement ought constantly to inspire. Thus we have got the habit of believing without looking back to the foundation on which our belief rests, (Mr Hume mistakes the habit for the foundation,) and when we do not see that belief is invariably the same thing with faith, or opinion founded upon faith or trust in another Being, we naturally come to describe this sentiment in the singular way in which this philosopher has done, that it "is nothing but a more vivid, lively, forcible, firm, steady conception of an object, than what the imagination alone is ever able to attain." I believe Mr Hume's philosophy, amidst all its scepticism, is the best key which has yet been given to the human mind: it unlocks the outer courts of the temple--but the everlasting gates are not thrown open! Explain only the true nature of belief, and the foundation on which it obscurely rests even in the infant mind,

and the clouds of "sceptical doubts,' and " sceptical solutions of these doubts," are at once dispelled, the veil is rent in twain, and the Holy of Holies itself is disclosed to the prostrate but grateful worshipper!

PHILOTHEUS.

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