Where o'er its surface wheels with restless speed
Yon glossy insect, on the sand below

How the swift shadow flies. The stream is pure
In solitude, and many a healthful herb

Bends o'er its course and drinks the vital wave:
But passing on amid the haunts of man,
It finds pollution there, and rolls from thence
A tainted tide. Seek'st thou for HAPPINESS?
Go Stranger, sojourn in the woodland cot

Of INNOCENCE, and thou shalt find her there.'

As lyric compositions are not the author's favourites, we shall say nothing of two Birth-day Odes, but proceed to a theme perfectly novel, the Botany-bay Eclogues. The sort of music, which the touch of genius can draw from this wild instrument, will appear from the following specimen ;—which, we presume, will move some concordant strings in every feeling heart:

Time, Morning. Scene, the Shore*.
• Once more to daily toil-once more to wear
The weeds of infamy-from every joy
The heart can feel excluded, I arise
Worn out and faint with unremitting woe;
And once again with wearied steps I trace
The hollow-sounding shore. The swelling waves
Gleam to the morning sun, and dazzle o'er
With many a splendid hue the breezy strand.
Oh there was once a time when ELINOR
Gazed on thy opening beam with joyous eye
Undimm'd by guilt and grief! when her full soul
Felt thy mild radiance, and the rising day
Waked but to pleasure! on thy sea-girt verge
Oft England! have my evening steps stole on,
Oft have mine eyes surveyed the blue expanse,
And mark'd the wild wind swell the ruffled surge,
And seen the upheaved billow's bosomed rage
Rush on the rock; and then my timid soul
Shrunk at the perils of the boundless deep,
And heaved a sigh for suffering mariners.
Ah! little deeming I myself was doom'd
To tempt the perils of the boundless deep,
An Outcast unbeloved and unbewail'd.

Why stern Remembrance! must thine iron hand
Harrow my soul? why calls thy cruel power
The fields of England to my exil'd eyes,

The joys which once were mine? even now I see
The lowly lovely dwelling! even now

The female convicts are frequently employed in collecting

shells for the purpose of making lime,'

Behold

Behold the woodbine clasping its white walls
And hear the fearless red-breasts chirp around
To ask their morning meal :-for I was wont
With friendly hand to give their morning meal,
Was wont to love their song, when lingering morn
Streak'd o'er the chilly landskip the dim light,
And thro' the open'd lattice hung my head
To view the snow-drop's bud: and thence at eve
When mildly fading sunk the summer sun,
Oft have I loved to mark the rook's slow course
And hear his hollow croak, what time he sought
The church-yard elm, whose wide-embowering boughs
Full foliaged, half conceal'd the house of God.
There, my dead father! often have I heard
Thy hallowed voice explain the wonderous works
Of Heaven to sinful man. Ah! little deem'd

Thy virtuous bosom, that thy shameless child
So soon should spurn the lesson! sink the slave
Of Vice and Infamy! the hireling prey
Of brutal appetite! at length worn out
With famine, and the avenging scourge of guilt,
Should dare dishonesty-yet dread to die!

Welcome ye savage lands, ye barbarous climes,
Where angry England sends her outcast sons-
I hail your joyless shores! my weary bark
Long tempest-tost on Life's inclement sea,
Here hails her haven! welcomes the drear scene,
The marshy plain, the briar-entangled wood,
And all the perils of a world unknown.
For Elinor has nothing new to fear

From fickle Fortune! all her rankling shafts
Barb'd with disgrace, and venom'd with disease,
Have pierced my bosom, and the dart of death
Has lost its terrors to a wretch like me.

Welcome ye marshy heaths! ye pathless woods,
Where the rude native rests his wearied frame
Beneath the sheltering shade; where, when the storm
As rough and bleak it rolls along the sky,
Benumbs his naked limbs, he flies to seek
The dripping shelter. Welcome ye wild plains
Unbroken by the plough, undelv'd by hand
Of patient rustic; where for lowing herds,
And for the music of the bleating flocks,
Alone is heard the kangaroo's sad note

Deepening in distance. Welcome ye rude climes,
The realm of Nature! for as yet unknown

The crimes and comforts of luxurious life,

Nature benignly gives to all enough,

Denies to all a superfluity.

What tho' the garb of infamy I wear,

Tho'

Tho' day by day along the echoing beach
I cull the wave-worn shells, yet day by day
I earn in honesty my frugal food,

And lay me down at night to calm repose.
No more condemn'd the mercenary tool

Of brutal lust, while heaves the indignant heart
With Virtue's stifled sigh, to fold my arms
Round the rank felon, and for daily bread
To hug contagion to my poison'd breast
On these wild shores Repentance' saviour hand
Shall probe my secret soul, shall cleanse its wounds.
And fit the faithful penitent for Heaven.'

The two subsequent eclogues are more in the humorous Stain: but the last, intitled Frederic, is exquisite and sublime misery.

We think it superfluous to particularize all the remaining pieces, sonnets, odes, elegies, ballads, &c. on various topics, but mostly pensive or fanciful; scarcely any of them without strokes of pathos and warm touches of description, some of them irresistibly moving, and some strikingly picturesque. The volume concludes with a Hymn to the Penates, which, though less poetical than Akenside's Hymn to the Naiads, (whence the idea was obviously taken,) is more interesting to the heart, by pictures of life and feeling. The following passage will perhaps account for a cast of sentiment, which throws a sombre hue over most of the productions of this writer:

Hear me ye PowERS benignant! there is one
Must be mine inmate-for I may not chuse
f
But love him. He is one whom many wrongs
Have sicken'd of the world. There was a time
When he would weep to hear of wickedness
And wonder at the tale; when for the opprest
He felt a brother's pity, to the oppressor
A good man's honest anger. His quick eye
Betray'd each rising feeling, every thought
Leapt to his tongue. When first among mankind
He mingled, by himself he judged of them,
And loved and trusted them, to Wisdom deaf,
And took them to his bosom. FALSEHOOD met
Her unsuspecting victim, fair of front,

*

And lovely as Apega's sculptured form,

Like that false image caught his warm embrace

One of the Ways and Means of the Tyrant Nabis. If one of his Subjects refused to lend him money, he commanded him to embrace his Apega; the statue of a beautiful Woman so formed as to clasp the victim to her breast, in which a pointed dagger was conosaled,'

And

And gored his open breast. The reptile race,
Clung round his bosom, and with viper folds
Encircling, stung the fool who fostered them.
His mother was SIMPLICITY, his sire
BENEVOLENCE; in earlier days he bore

His father's name; the world who injured him
Call him MISANTHROPY. I may not chuse

But love him, HOUSEHOLD GODS! for we were nurst

In the same school.'

It can scarcely be necessary for us, after the quotations which we have made, and the general view that we have given, formally to recommend this volume to the notice of our poeti cal readers, and its author to their esteem. Genius is a des potic power, and irresistibly commands homage.

DE

Ai.

ART. XIV. The Bishop of Landaf's "Apology for the Bible" examined. In a Series of Letters addressed to that excellent Mạn. By A. Macleod. 12mo. pp. 288. 39. 6d. sewed. Crosby. 1796. EISTICAL writers rarely content themselves with consider ing Christianity in its simplest form; viewing it through the medium of its corruptions, they egregiously err in the ob ject of their attack, and often conclude themselves entitled to triumphal honours from their brethren, for exposing and confuting what many Christians have been as ready as themselves. to expose and confute. It must be confessed, indeed, that Theologians, in their defences of revelation, have led its adver saries into this error, by blending with the general argument their own schemes of doctrine. In the ardour of their zeal, they have attempted to prove more than the matter immediately at issue required; while the infidel, not reflecting that Christianity may be true, and yet their representation of it be false, has exhibited certain doctrines as invalidating the adduced evidence.

This imprudence on the one hand, and incorrect mode of argumentation on the other, ought as much as possible to be suppressed in a question of such vast and universal importance as that which is at present under discussion. Deists ought to know that a belief in the truth of revealed religion does not, of necessity, include a belief in the absolute inspiration and purity of the books which compose the Bible, nor in the doctrines of the Deity of Christ, the miraculous conception, original sin, and atonement. Though some Christians insist on these points as articles of faith, there are others who openly disavow them, and yet are strenuous advocates for revelation. The truth of these doctrines is not the real matter of debate. The question ought to be, "Is Christianity probable

and

and credible on any scheme; or, is there any view or representation of it, on which it may be maintained to be entitled to acceptance?"

We were induced to hope, from the commencement of Mr. Macleod's strictures on the Bishop of Landaff's "Apology for the Bible," that he was prepared to meet and discuss the question in this simple and unincumbered shape; for he tells us, in his second page, that he writes more with a view to receive instruction, than from a wish to discredit revelation, or to lessen the influence of religious duty.' We were concerned to perceive, however, as he proceeded, that he eagerly catches at every slight and flimzy pretext to bring revelation into discredit, and seems to consider Deism (to use his own words) as sallying forth with lustre' in his letters, while he is employing the weakest arguments to invalidate the testimony and authority of the Scriptures. He professes much respect for the character and abilities of the Bishop of Landaff (Dr. Watson), but he will not allow that there is any thing in his Lordship's Apology for the Bible that can satisfactorily recommend revealed religion. Indeed, if we admit his comments, we must wonder that wise and good men should attempt to recommend that work. Mr. M. however, in attempting to expose the Bible, exposes his own ignorance; and, under the semblance of a profound inquirer, he evinces the man of superficial research. What must we say to a reasoner who would condemn the history of the Bible as a fable, because Cain is said to have had a wife?" which he asserts to be an impossibility according to the Mosaiac account, as from this it does not appear that Eve bore any female children; when, had he only turned to Genesis v. 4. he would have found that Adam begat daughters as well as sons, though their number and names are not given. What, again, shall we say to an infidel who is so very eager to make objections, as to assert, in his comment on the first verse of the first chapter of Genesis, that it was impoffible to create the earth" without form and void?" Could Mr. M. be so very ignorant as to imagine that, supposing these terms were ever so incorrect, they could invalidate the Mosaiac account of the crea tion? The inn of the original Scriptures is better expressed by Ovid's rudis indigestaque moles, and is rendered by Dr. Geddes, in his new translation, "a desolate waste" but the words, as they stand in our present version, can only be misunderstood by an hypercritic who is resolved to seek after objections with "a microscopic eye."

We may here remark that the records of the first ages of the world, on account of their conciseness, and of the then

state