Or, in the city Pallas tends,

Shall I be set to ply the loom,

And work on hues the crocus lends-
On curious webs of yellow bloom,
Athene robed with saffron hood,

And yoke the steeds that wh eel her car;
Or else depict the Titan brood,

O'erwhelmed by Jove's flame, blazing far?

Ah me, my sons! Ah me, my sires!
And ah, my captured native land!
Now sinking 'mid the smoke of fires,
Lit into blaze by Argive hand!
Soon, on a foreign shore, from all

To hear and bear the name of slave,

I leave fair Asia Europe's thrall,

And change my bride-bed for a grave!

A-V.

LITERARY NOTICES.

Songs. By ANDREW PARK. Glasgow: Thomas Murray, 1848.

Within the last few years, poetry and business have got into a very close alliance, though, perhaps, both the poetry and business are not of the most respectable kind. The Muse is now the handmaid of Trade. Warren's Blacking, as if it were fine ink for verses, has, for a long time, been regularly advertised in song: and the London tailors-Moses and Son, not only keep journeymen to measure their customers, but also maintain a poet to measure rhymes laudatory of their Clothing Establish

ment.

The great commercial city of Glasgow has seen fit to engage the services of one of this musical tribe; and Mr. Andrew Park is a very zealous and industrious Laureate, celebrating all the local institutions, societies, soirees, and incidents, and recommending to the unaccommodated public all the empty houses and mansions in the neighbourhood, in a style worthy of Mr. Robins, the famous auctioneer, for Mr. Park, when describing a locality, decks it out, so that it may be sold or let. Glasgow can depend upon his punctuality in furnishing some kind of poetry for all occasions. Let Queen Victoria sail near Greenock, and Mr. Park at a moment's warning, will fire a salute, and thus prove how loyal Glasgow is. Let a "Great Civic Banquet in honour of the birth of the Prince of Wales" be got up; and Mr. Park-in sufficiently good time either for the reciter or the vocalist, produces a song. Let the "Gorbal's Gravitation Water Company" be projected, and Mr. Park is most copious with his streams of poetry. Let the "Anniversary of the Stationer's Company" come round, and Mr. Park is provided with a suitable ode. Let a Charity Ball be given in the "Glasgow Royal Exchange,” and

among "the muslins, and satins, and turbans and all," Mr Park appears waving his poetic mantle. Let the "Glasgow Native Benevolent Association" meet, and Mr. Park has a donation of rhyme. In short, he is a more useful and perhaps more popular man in Glasgow than either William Shakspeare or John Milton would be. It is to be regreted that he cannot find leisure to celebrate all the births, marriages, and deaths which take place in the City of the West.

We of Edinburgh and other towns, however, cannot have much delight in reading Mr. Park's songs, when these are published; and it would be rather inconvenient and expensive for us to remove our tent, and settle in Glasgow, merely for the sake of appreciating Mr. Park's poetry. If he cannot come to us, we must decline going to him.

This volume of collected pieces possesses but small general interest. To a great extent, the pieces are as completely local as they are ephemeral. We regard them as the withered roses which once adorned a festival arch, and a festival arch, moreover, which did not grace our neighbourhood, and about which therefore, we are unconcerned.

The volume is dedicated to Mr. Charles Dickens, whose brief acknowledgment is (somewhat ostentatiously) appended. We have also a preface which happens to be unintelligible. We dont complain that Mr. Park should render his own ideas obscure, for they may hide themselves just as they please; but we cannot commend him for making an author like Addison unintelligible :-here is the trifle.

PREFACE.

"The only preface the author offers to this volume, is a quotation from an article by Addison in the Spectator,' 'Remedium efficax et universum,' or an effectual remedy adapted to all capacities; showing how any person may cure himself of ill-nature, pride, party-spleen, or any other distemper incident to the human system, with an easy way to know when the affection is upon him. The panacea is as innocent as bread, agreeable to the taste, and requires no confinement.

N.B" No family ought to be without it.''

The volume is indeed, as innocent as bread; but we always imagined that poetry should be more like manna than common bread. Mr. Park has no humour, and should abandon all efforts at comedy either in prose or verse. The pieces which are designed to convulse us with laughter, are dull as bread, and wont tickle us at all, at all. Often too, they display a wretched taste. We cannot overlook one despicable effusion over the grave of Daniel O'Connell, who is addressed as "the jolly Beggar." That there was considerable knavery about the leader of the Irish millions, and that his policy was sometimes selfish and often crooked, we believe; but intellectually, he was a great man, and he who was so much beloved in private life, could not be a mean man; and it is contemptible in such a person as Mr. Park, to make abusive fun over O'Connell's ashes.

The following is a sample of the execrable stuff:

"At last, as he was growing old,

His power upon the wane,
And his people dying destitute,
He fled from Derrynane,-
This dastard, Irish beggar.

His very latest, latent hope-
Designing doctors say-

Was to get pardoned by the Pope,
But he perished on the way,-
This fat fed, Irish beggar.

They took his heart from out his breast,
And sent his body home,

That he might heartless lie in death,
As living he had done,

This selfish Irish beggar.

They held high masses for his soul,
With all their pomp and show:
But the devil from the altar laughed,
And said it was no go-

Now to mock this Irish beggar—”

Concerning this piece the author says that he " expects to be shot, shaven or shorn-" and adds-" the first is a sort of pleasant end, and the latter two he is frequently much in need of." Mr Park is not worth powder and shot; and we hope that he will still be left to pay his penny for being" shaved and shorn." But he will receive the contempt of every generous mind.

The love-songs are very poor and artificial things. The following one is altogether in the style of the Rev. Dr Hetherington of St Andrews:

"Pree mi mou', my cantie callan

Callan, pree mi mou':

Certes noo! I'm unco willin'

Gin ye're willin too.

"Meikle does my fain heart lo'e thee,

Read my thochtful e'e:

Wha could e'er be lealer to thee?

Nane sae leal as me.

Then pree mi mou', my cantie callan,

Callan, pree mi mou':

Certes! I was ne'er sae willin'

Gin ye're willin' too."

The piece which we like best is a " Sonnet on Professor Wilson's Bustsculptured in marble by J. Fillans”—

"How like a lion in quiescent might,

The noble-souled, old Christopher appears

The mental glory of internal light
Smiles beautiful amid his ripening years.
No petty meanness-no flesh-shapen fears
O'ercast the manly firmness of his face.
His brow a dome of thought-majestic rears,—
His eye, a thousand fancies seems to trace
His flowing locks swim o'er a neck of grace,
And all the aspect of his form, is power!
A manliness, that time cannot displace,
Fresh and unbending as in youth's gay hour,

The Heathens had their gods: so, Scotland, thou

May'st trace as proud a form in living WILSON now!"

Our readers will also be pleased with the following Sonnet on Spring:

Spring comes in beauty, with her vernal wand-
A goddess full of cheerfulness and song!
There's not a tree that lives upon the land
But opes its eyelids as she glides along.
The aged oak that lifts its arms so strong
By yon sequester'd ruin's lonely wall-

Through sombre winter suffocated 'mong
The twining ivy-hears her joyous call;
While groves and glens by every water-fall,

In haste re-dress in fresh and lovely green
And flowers look forth like scatter'd stars, and all

Is young and fair, and sunny and serene.

This is the resurrection of sweet things,

She o'er the daedal earth her wondrous beauty flings!"

Spiritual Progress: or, Advancement in Personal Religion, Illustrated and Enforced. By the Rev. JOHN FRASER, Minister at Gordon. Edinburgh: John D. Lowe. 1848.

This little book is the prodigy of the age. It sets at defiance grammar and sense, as completely as if it were made up of cross-readings. Lying in manuscript, it could be nothing save penmanship; and now, when it is published, it is nothing save print. We appreciated the prodigy, as soon as we saw the second sentence of the Introduction:

"The only grounds which the writer of the following pages can assign for presenting them at the present time, may be said to be the great importance of the subject to which they relate, and the absence of any work on the subject AMONG our Christian literature."

We asked ourselves-" Who can this Mr. Fraser be?" Who is the man that says gravely, that there is no work on " Spiritual Progress." adding, with a fine sense of grammar, "AMONG our Christian literature ?"

We give Mr. Fraser's statement of the five things which constitute personal religion. Their arrangement, it will be seen, baffles comprehension, and their phraseology is most ludicrous.

"1st, When a man is converted to Christianity, he comes under the influence of the Holy Spirit." "2d. But when a man is converted to Christianity, he is also brought into a state of knowledge. This may be placed next to the Holy Ghost." "3d. Another state into which we are brought to another grace of the Christian character, is Faith." "4th. And yet another state, or another grace, of the Christian religion, is Love." "5. There remains yet to be mentioned another state into which we are brought by conversion to God,-the New Creature."

Discourses on the Song of Solomon. By the Rev. ALEX. W. BROWN. Free St. Bernard's Church. Edinburgh: John D. Lowe. 1848.

The author of these discourses must be a bold man. We wish that his delicacy had been equal to his courage. He knows his own motives-we judge not of these-but we have formed the most decided opinion, both

about his spiritual-mindedness and taste. We confess ourselves curious to ascertain whether those females even that wore veils in his congregation were able to remain during the delivery of these discourses. The book is execrable, and should be classed with the vilest publications issued from the London Press.

END OF VOLUME V.

WILLIAM MACPHAIL, PRINTER, GREENSIDE PLACE, EDINBURGH.