him a little relief; but has no sooner dismissed her delighted
messenger, than she repents of her weakness, and begins to
harden her heart again by the recollection of his misconduct.
Thus fix'd, she heard not her Attendant glide
With soft slow step-till, standing by her side,
The trembling Servant gasp'd for breath, and shed
Relieving tears, then uttered" He is dead!"

"Dead!" said the startled Lady: "Yes, he fell
"Close at the door where he was wont to dwell.
"There his sole friend, the Ass, was standing by,
"Half dead himself, to see his Master die."

p. 321-5. The Wager' is not of this tragical complexion. It is a story, not of the most dignified kind, of two married friends; one of whom boasted of having his wife entirely at his command, while the other confessed that he was in some respects under the dominion of his. The henpecked man, however, roused. by the taunts of his neighbour, offers, one night, to lay a wager that he will make a trip to Newmarket with less resistance from his spirited wife, than his friend will find in his submissive one; -and he wins the wager;-the pretender to obedience wheedling her imaginary master into absolute compliance with her will-and the independent partner freely giving up her's for her husband's honour and her own.

The Convert' is rather dull-though it teaches a lesson that may be useful in these fanatic times. John Dighton was bred a blackguard; and we have here a most lively and complete description of the items that go to the composition of that miscellaneous character; but being sore reduced by a long fever, falls into the hands of the Methodists, and becomes an exemplary convert. He is then set up by the congregation in a small stationer's shop; and, as he begins to thrive in business, adds worldly literature to the evangelical tracts which composed his original stock in trade. This scandalizes the brethren; and John, having no principles or knowledge, falls out with the sect, and can never settle in the creed of any other; and so lives perplexed and discontentedand dies in agitation and terror.

The Brothers' restores us again to human sympathies. The characters, though humble, are admirably drawn, and the baser of them, we fear, the most strikingly natural. An openhearted generous sailor had a poor, sneaking, cunning, selfish brother, to whom he remitted all his prize-money, and gave all the arrears of his pay-receiving, in return, vehement professions of gratitude, and false protestations of regard. At last, the sailor is disabled in action, and discharged, just as his heartless brother has secured a small office by sycophancy," and made

a prudent marriage with a congenial temper. He seeks the shelter of his brother's house as freely as he would have given it; and does not at first perceive the coldness of his reception. -But mortifications grow upon him day by day. His grog is expensive, and his pipe makes the wife sick; then his voice is so loud, and his manners so rough, that her friends cannot visit her if he appears at table; so he is banished by degrees to a garret, where he falls sick, and has no consolation but in the kindness of one of his nephews, a little boy, who administers to his comforts, and listens to his stories with a delighted attention. This too, however, is interdicted by his hard-hearted parents; and the boy is obliged to steal privately to his disconsolate uncle. One day his father catches him at his door; and, after beating him back, proceeds to deliver a severe rebuke to his brother for encouraging the child in disobedience, when he finds the unconscious culprit released by death from his despicable insults and reproaches. The great art of the story consists in the plausible excuses with which the ungrateful brother always contrives to cover his wickedness. This cannot be exemplified in an extract; but we shall give a few lines as a specimen.

Cold as he grew, still Isaac strove to show,'

By well-feign'd care, that cold he could not grow;
And when he saw his Brother look distress'd,
He strove some petty comforts to suggest;
On his Wife solely their neglect to lay,
And then t'excuse it as a woman's way;
He too was chidden when her rules he broke,
And then she sicken'd at the scent of smoke.

George, though in doubt, was still consol'd to find

His Brother wishing to be reckon'd kind:

郾

That Isaac seem'd concern'd by his distress,
Gave to his injur'd feelings some redress;
But none he found dispos'd to lend an ear
To stories, all were once intent to hear:
Except his Nephew, seated on his knee,
He found no creature car'd about the sea;
But George indeed,-for George they call'd the boy,
When his good Uncle was their boast and joy,-
Would listen long, and would contend with sleep,
To hear the woes and wonders of the deep;
Till the fond Mother cried-" That man will teach
"The foolish boy his loud and boisterous speech.
So judg'd the Father and the boy was taught

'

To shun the Uncle, whom his love had sought. p. 368, 369.
At length he sicken'd, and this duteous Child

Watch'd o'er his sickness, and his pains beguil'd

The Mother bade him from the loft refrain,
But, though with caution, yet he went again;
And now his tales the Sailor feebly told,
His heart was heavy, and his limbs were cold:
The tender Boy came often to intreat

His good kind friend would of his presents eat;
Purloin'd or purchas'd, for he saw, with shame,
The food untouch'd that to his Uncle came;
Who, sick in body and in mind, receiv'd
The Boy's indulgence, gratified and griev'd.
Once in a week the Father came to say,
"George, are you ill?"--and hurried him away;
Yet to his wife would on their duties dwell,
And often cry," Do use my brother well;
And something kind, no question, Isaac meant,
Who took vast credit for the vague intent.

But, truly kind, the gentle Boy essay'd
To cheer his Uncle, firm, although afraid;
But now the Father caught him at the door,

And, swearing-yes, the Man in Office swore,

And cried, "Away!--How! Brother, I'm surpris'd,

"That one so old can be so ill advis'd, " &c. p. 370-1.

After the catastrophe, he endures deserved remorse and an

guish.

'He takes his Son, and bids the boy unfold

All the good Uncle of his feelings told,

All he lamented—and the ready tear

Falls as he listens, sooth'd, and griev'd to hear.

p. 374.

"Did he not curse me, Child?"-" He never curs'd, "But could not breathe, and said his heart would burst: "And so will mine; ". "Then, Father, you must pray; My Uncle said it took his pains away." The last tale in the volume, entitled The Learned Boy,' is not the most interesting in the collection; though it is not in the least like what its title would lead us to expect. It is the history of a poor, weakly, paltry lad, who is sent up from the country to be a clerk in town; and learns by slow degrees to affect freethinking, and to practise dissipation. Upon the tid ings of which happy conversion his father, a worthy old farmer, orders him down again to the country, where he harrows up the soul of his pious grandmother by his infidel prating-and his father reforms him at once by burning his idle book, and treating him with a vigorous course of horsewhipping. There is some humour in this tale ;--and a great deal of nature and art, especially in the delineation of this slender clerk's gradual corruption-and in the constant and constitutional predominance U

VOL. XX. No. 40.

of weakness and folly in all his vice and virtue-his piety and profaneness.

We have thus gone through this volume with a degree of minuteness for which we are not sure that even our poetical readers will all be disposed to thank us. But considering Mr Crabbe as, upon the whole, the most original writer who has ever come before us; and being at the same time of opinion, that his writings are destined to a still more extensive popularity than they have yet obtained, we could not resist the temptation of contributing our little aid to the fulfilment of that destiny. It is chiefly for the same reason that we have directed our remarks rather to the moral than the literary qualities of his works;—to his genius at least, rather than his taste--and to his thoughts rather than his figures of speech. By far the most remarkable thing in his writings, is the prodigious mass of original observations and reflections they everywhere exhibit; and that extraordinary power of conceiving and representing an imaginary object, whether physical or intellectual, with such a rich and complete accompaniment of circumstances and details, as few ordinary observers either perceive or remember in realities ;--a power which, though often greatly misapplied, must for ever entitle him to the very first rank among descriptive poets; and, when directed to worthy objects, to a rank inferior to none in the highest departinents of poetry.

In such an author, the attributes of style and versification may fairly be considered as secondary-and yet, if we were to go minutely into them, they would afford room for a still longer chapter than that which we are now concluding. He cannot be said to be uniformly, or even generally, an elegant writer. His style is not dignified-and neither very pure nor very easy. Its characters are force, precision, and familiarity; -now and then obscure-sometimes vulgar, and sometimes quaint. With a great deal of tenderness, and occasional fits of the sublime of despair and agony, there is a want of habitual fire, and of a tone of enthusiasm in the general tenor of his writings. He seems to recollect rather than invent; and frequently brings forward his statements more in the temper of a cautious and conscientious witness, than of a fervent orator or impassioned spectator. His similes are almost all elaborate and ingenious, and rather seem to be furnished from the efforts of a fanciful mind, than to be exhaled by the spontaneous ferment of a heated imagination. His versification again is frequently harsh and heavy,. and his diction flat and prosaic ;--both seeming to be altogether neglected in his zeal for the accuracy and complete rendering of

his conceptions. These defects too are infinitely greater in his recent than in his early compositions. The Village' is written, upon the whole, in a flowing and sonorous strain of versification; and Sir Eustace Grey,' though a late publication, is in general remarkably rich and melodious. It is chiefly in his narratives and curious descriptions that these faults of diction and measure are conspicuous. Where he is warmed by his subject, and becomes fairly indignant or pathetic, his language is often very sweet and beautiful. He has no fixed system or manner of versification; but mixes several very opposite styles, as it were by accident, and not in general very judiciously;-what is peculiar to himself is not good, and strikes us as being both abrupt and affected.

He may profit, if he pleases, by these hints-and, if he pleases, he may laugh at them. It is no great matter. If he will only write a few more Tales of the kind we have suggested at the beginning of this article, we shall engage for it that he shall have our praises-and those of more fastidious critics,whatever be the qualities of his style or versification.

ART. III. Travels into the Interior of Brazil. By John Mawe, Author of the Mineralogy of Derbyshire. 4to. Longman & Co. London.

M R JOHN MAWE keeps, we believe, a mineralogical shop in the Strand, where he sells-or (as he phrases it) has been induced to form portable collections of minerals. He has been induced' also to travel in the Brazils-and these are the fruits of his researches.

The first part of the route is to Cadiz,-and from thence to the Rio de la Plata, and Monte Video. In the year 1804, it seems that Mr Mawe undertook a voyage of commercial experiment to Rio de la Plata. On his arrival at Monte Video the ship and cargo were scized-Mr Mawe was thrown into prison and afterwards, at the period of Sir Samuel Auchmuty's expedition, sent up the interior: and here the observations of Mr Mawe begin to assume some degree of interest and importance. The place of his banishment was called Barriga Negra, distant about 160 miles north-east from Monte Video-120 from Maldonado-and 90 from the town of Minas; the country mountainous, well watered, and not destitute of wood. This district is chiefly occupied by great breeding estates, many of which are stored with from 60,000 to 200,000 head of cattle, guarded principally by men from Para