comes of it. And wherefoever after death we be, there too the thought were death. And is this love? the Chriftian loves the Jewels. What of that? my fitter than yon. to doubt-O what a Jew is he! yet easy to pass for the mere Jew. ' P. 159, 160. The following is part of the first dialogue that passes between the lovers. • Recha. Where have you been? where you perhaps ought not Up-how d'ye call the mountain? Oh that's very fortunate. Temp. Now I fhall learn for certain, if 'tis true Temp. What! If the fpot may yet be feen where Mofes ftood before God; when firft Recha. No, no; not that. Where'er he flood, 'twas before God. Of this I know enough already. Is it true, I wish to learn from you, that-that it is not as to get down-for on all mountains else, that I have feen, quite the reverse obtains. p. 128-29. After some farther talk, equally innocent and edifying, the amorous Templar exclaims Temp. How truly faid thy father, "Do but know her! Temp. Thy father " faid to me, "Do but know her," and of thee.' p. 130. The following soliloquy of the Wise Nathan, when the sultan leaves him to ponder on his query about the three religions, is in a loftier style, and is in the best and most sententious manner of the author. Nath. I came prepared with cash-he asks truth. why not a Musulman? P. 145-46. Truth? We suspect our readers have enough now; yet there are many choice phrases and images to be culled. Nathan, reproving pride, says, The iron pot would with a filver be lifted from the fire.' prong The fair Recha comparing the truth of Christianity to weeds sown in her mind, says, .. Yet Yet I must acknowledge I feel as if they had a four fweet odour, that makes me giddy--that half fuffocates me.' And her handmaid, obferving the agitation of her lover, observes with much elegance, Something paffes in him. It boils-but it must not boil over. Leave him We The fame perfonage conceiving Nathan to be fomewhat severe in his farcasms, replies to him with great fpirit, by firft faying, Hit off, and then exclaiming, you are on the bite.' fufpect, however, that we are indebted to the taste of the tranflator for the dignity of these two repartees. There is one other phrase to which he seems particularly partial, and which has a very fingular effect on his compofition. He can by no chance be pre'vailed upon to use the verb to find,' without coupling it with the particle up; thus, he fays, We'll find thee up a ftaff;' -go find me up the Jew; 'Will no one find me the Dervis up; I wish to find him up that may convert her,' &c. &c.* The phrafe occurs at least twenty times; and, whether it be borrowed from the idiom of the original, or invented by the translator, must certainly be allowed to poffefs fingular grace and animation. We have now exhibited enough, we conceive, of this drama, to fatisfy the greater part of our readers, that, in fpite of fome late alarming symptoms, there is good reafon for holding, that there is ftill a confiderable difference between the national taste of Germany and of this country. The piece before us, has not only been a favourite acting play for thefe laft fix and twenty years, but it is confidered as one of the best productions of their celebrated Leffing, who is vaunted as the pureft and most elegant of their dramatic writers, and has long been the idol of those who cry down Schiller and Kotzebue as caricaturists. The tranflation is from the pen of Mr Taylor of Norwich, whofe admirable verfions of Lenore, and of the Iphigenia in Tauris, have placed him at the head of all our tranflators from that language. ART. XII. English Lyrics. Third Edition. By William Smyth, Fellow of St Peter's College, Cambridge. 12mo. pp. 150. London, 1806. THIS HIS is a very elegant and pleasing little volume: the work evidently of a man of refined taste and amiable difpofitions. The character of the poetry is delicacy rather than force; ten derne fs derness rather than enthusiasm; and a sort of contemplative morality, somewhat sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,' instead of the strong emotions and lofty conceptions of the bolder lyric. The author holds dalliance with the Muse, but is not possessed by her; he rather guides his genius, than is impelled by it; and stands too much in dread of faults, to attain many of the greater beauties. There is nothing of narrative, and very little of character or manners in his volume. It is made up of dissections of the finer feelings, reflections on innocent unhappiness, and allegorical sketches of the passions by which life is governed. The composition is sometimes enlivened by the beautiful workings of fancy, and sometimes debased by the affectation of unnecessary refinement. In short, if the reader can form to himself the idea of a middle style, between the capricious prettiness of Shenstone, and the bold and abstract personifications of Collins, he will have attained a very just conception, we think, of the style of Mr Smyth's English Lyrics. It was a bold attempt to inscribe an Ode to Pity,' after the author we have just mentioned; yet the following stanzas are elegant. O Pity! all my fighs are thine, My follies paufe, my bofom warms, My mufing griefs to blifs refine, Whene'er I mark thy forrowing forms; -Or him, 'mid fortune's gathering gloom, The exile grey, when start to view The tears, that speak the exiled foul; The mother, as fhe bids adieu, And turns, her anguish to controul; Of many a morrow gay. p. 67, 68. The following lines express a common thought; but express it, we think, with great tenderness and beauty. Ah, Julia! must that morrow come, When I in anguish shall behold That cheek with animated bloom No longer warm-pale, shrunk-and cold Thofe Thofe lips, whence I fuch kiffes steal, Or fpeak one tempting challenge more? Yet feel no pulfes trembling there? • In fome dread feafon of despair, Muft keen difeafe, muft wafting pain, To count the fighs that moan in vain ; And feel the grief that cannot weep. p. 26, 27. The next is in a more cheerful and familiar tone. True, Laura, true! I own with pain, But ill thy generous care repaid; How could the hapless truant flee From peace, and innocence, and thee? Thou canst not from this fcene below, Nor nature change, nor fate command ; Look round, my love, this hamlet fee, The poor have marked thee for their friend; Which pity foothes or bounty heals, See, |