of the little posthumous publication which is the imme diate subject of our article..

In prose he was an easy, natural, and lively writer, with out any affectation either of pompous diction, or extraordinary refinement, or brilliant wit; yet the original humour with which he was amply gifted by nature, often circulates through his pen, unprenieditated and almost unknown to himself. In poetry, the same facility and inartificial flow of language, form, perhaps, the leading or characteristic feature of his style. Always harmonious, correct, and natural, he seldom rises to any sublime height, never aims at singularity, nor degenerates into mannerism. He is often extremely pleasing, and displays an active and lively fancy ra ther than a very vigorous or lofty imagination. His habits of study and his literary inclination were of a peculiar nature, and have often exposed him to the censure of critics, who are unable to estimate duly the impressions under which he wrote, or the intentions which guided him in writing. He was a good and sound scholar, but not, in the common acceptation of the term, a critical one; a curious and ingenions, but not a deep or rigid antiquary.

A short recapitulation of his works will illustrate this general outline of his literary character. The first, of any importance, that appeared under his name, was a versification of Fingal, which exposed him equally to the censure of the admirers, and of the revilers, of the supposed Ossian. The former, regarding the visionary bard with a sacred enthu siasm, which extended itself to the labours of his soi-disant restorer, compared the absurdity of cramping the sublime energies of Macpherson's elevated prose, by the confinement of a regular ten foot verse, with the vain and exploded system of converting into metre, the strong original langaage of the prophets and apostles; the latter, treating the whole fabrication as an imposture of the grossest nature, and the manner of its execution as puerile, spiritless. and atterly contemptible, arraigned of folly little short of idiotism all those who could employ their time and talents in criticising or illustrating what appeared to them so infinitely below criticism or serious consideration. On this long agitat ed question the world is now nearly at rest; and we can es timate, more dispassionately than at the time we allude to it might have been possible for us to do, the merits and suc cess of Mr. Hole's undertaking. When the poems of Ossian first appeared, we must suppose him to have been among the number of those literary characters who were inclined to depend on their genuineness, and who were captivated by the show of extraordinary refinement and sensibility, of cultivated

fancy, and poetical diction, so contrary to the notions which our reason bids us entertain of our remote ancestors, but yet so agreeable and soothing to those phantoms of the imagination, which our natural veneration for antiquity is too apt to invoke and embody. At the same time, he was not so indiscriminating an enthusiast as to extend to Macpherson the warmth of admiration which he felt for Ossian; and the disgusting affectation, the fustian, the confusion, the heavy monotonous cadences, of the translator, probably suggested to him the idea of presenting the original, as nearly as he could be guessed at from his existing copy, in the dress which he conceived justly was best suited to him, that of a poet. No adequate idea of the simplicity of a Celtic bard could, perhaps, be given in modern heroic verse; but he recollected that, notwithstanding this objec tion, the only copy of Homer, which this country ought not to blush at acknowledging, was framed on that model: and, had the subject of Fingal been intrinsically so interesting as the enthusiasm of its admirers originally seduced them to imagine it, Mr. Hole's poem might have stood the test of a comparison with the captivating and noble epic of Pope, which it certainly rivals in harmony of numbers and felicity of expression. Mr. H.'s early and lasting attachment, both to Homer and his translator, led him to enter the lists more openly with the latter, by publishing a version of that hymn to Ceres, which has alternately been ascribed, and denied to belong, to the former. After noticing this work, we need add nothing to the general observations we have made, which apply equally to all the poetical production's of our author. Arthur, or the Northern Enchantment' is the most important, and the most highly finished of his poems. Its fable is interesting, many of its characters forcibly conceived and well supported, its machinery original and perfectly appropriate. One of its greatest misfortunes, perhaps, is that it was produced at a period most fatally prolific of epics; and that unfortunate, and muchabused title, has contributed to rank it, in the esteem of many, among the Alfreds, Jeans of Arc, and Richards-Cour-deLion of the day, above all which, its intrinsic merit, in qur judgment, claims a considerable exaltation.

Many smaller poems of Mr. H.'s have appeared, from time to time, in various temporary and local publications,some of which are well known to the world, and are highly esteemed by the most judicious part of it. In the latter years of his life, he seldom indulged his fancy in its former pcetical excursions, but devoted his talents to works of geneqal taste, criticism, and belles lettres. During this period CRIT. REV. Vol. 10, March, 1807.

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he became one of the original members, and most active supports, of a literary society at Exeter, in the neighbourhood of which city he had constantly resided; and a collection of essays, which was, in due time, published in the name of this society, contains three or four very ingenious and agreeable contributions from his hand. On two of these, entitled' Remarks on the Character of Shylock' and on the Character of lago,' much ill-natured criticism has been bestowed, and much over-weening morality thrown away. When Swift produced his most grave and serious project for benefiting the condition of the poor in Ireland, by converting sucking-infants into useful and delicate articles of nourishment for their hard-working parents, and for the community at large, he was assailed by the clamorous abuse of all the draymen and porters of Dublin, who probably imagined that the cannibal Dean of St. Patrick's had already furnished his pantry with a store of these human porkers; and when Mr. H. in a vein of dry humour, with which he was peculiarly gifted, argued the humanity of the Jew, and the honour of the ancient, many honest christians lifted up their hands and eyes with a degree of horror, which could hardly be justified on any other supposition, than that he had actually taken a bond for a pound of man's flesh, and stolen an embroidered handkerchief from the General of the district, with a view of instigating him to smother his wife.

The last of Mr. H.'s publications was entitled Remarks on the Arabian Nights' Entertainments,' in which he endea vours to shew that many of the stories in that most delightful collection of romances, are not to be considered merely in the light of wild and improbable fictions, but as valuable illustrations of real manners and characters, of the general habit of sentiment and belief that obtained among nations and individuals. More particularly, with respect to the speciosa miracula' that so plentifully bestrew the narratives, they are often, as he argues, nothing more than the overcharged descriptions given by travellers of real objects and circumstances, and often the results of general and popular superstitions, of which the origin is to be traced, or the resemblance to be discovered, in the more familiar religious systems of Greece or Rome, or of our own Scandinayian and German ancestors. In the investigation of this most curious and interesting train of speculation, Mr. H. confined himself principally to the well known voyages of Sindbad, which every child knows to be the most marvellous story in the whole collection, and therefore very fit to be taken as a specimen of the rest. Mr. H. follows the Ara

tian sailor, from his setting out through the whole series of his adventures, accompanied by Sir John Mandeville, Rubruquis, Marcus Paulus the Venetian, Benjamin of Tudela, Purchas's Host of Pilgrims, and a whole cloud of other witnesses, who prove Sindbad to be, if not an oracle of truth, at least hardly deserving his character of the prince of liars, considering the company in which Mr. H. has placed him: and, whenever we are at fault, and neither of these right. honest worthies can keep pace with the eastern fabulist, we are generally helped to recover the scent by the unexpected and strange intervention, perhaps, of Ulysses and Calypso, of Jason and his Argonauts, or, possibly, of Ochther the Dane, or some Scandinavian hero, whose exploits are detailed by Olaus Magnus.

To a mind so fond of curious speculation and fanciful theory as Mr. Hole's, the pursuit of this most singular subject must have produced a fund of original and never-failing amusement; and it was, probably, in the course of his wanderings in quest of Sindbad, that he fell in company with Ulysses, from whom he soon fancied he might be able to fish out the real truth of his much-disputed history. Soon after the appearance of his last-mentioned publication, he began to apply his thoughts to this new subject of investigation, the design of which, was to bring together all the instances of resemblance to be met with between the wonders which Ulysses records to his Phæacian host, the prevailing superstitions of the nations with whom Homer may be supposed to have had any intercourse, or with whom Greece, in Homer's time, could have any connection or communication, and the narratives, either authentic, or doubtful, or fabulous, of travellers of all ages and countries, as far as they could be brought to bear, in the remotest degree, upon the Odyssey. From the whole mass of these curious and intricate speculations, the author designed to have inferred the extreme probability that Homer, in relating the wanderings of Ulysses after the destruction of Troy, gave the his tory of a voyage which was actually accomplished, and of adventures which were really experienced, adorned only by the allowable graces of poetical imagery and diction, and diversified by the natural disposition to romance of a traveller conscious of having gone through unusual difficulties and dangers, and wishing to make the worst of them to an audience composed of credulous landsmen, who could never have an opportunity of eontradicting whatever statements he might chuse to impose upon their belief.

We have here spoken from our own recollection of the general outline and contents of an unfinished manuscript,

with the perusal of which we were gratified, even at a period not long previous to the death of its much-valued author. We are not able positively to speak as to the degree of perfection to which it was advanced by him; but it should seem that no part of it had been brought to a regular completion, except a small portion which was originally intended only for a prefatory discourse, or introductory chapter to the main work. Such, at least, is what we always considered to have been his meaning with regard to the Essay on the Character of Ulysses, which is now, after an interval of three years since his death, presented to the public. We are happy in having this opportunity of representing what we believe to be an accurate statement of the facts attending the composition of this little work, being surprised to observe that, in the advertisement prefixed to it, though it is professed to have been published by some of the most intimate of the author's friends, no notice whatever is taken of that more extensive undertaking to which it ought to be considered only in the light of an appendage: the obvious consequence is, that it will be very wrongly appreciated by all those who are not acquainted, as we happen to be, with the attending circumstances.

In one passage, indeed, of the little work before us (p.120.), the author distinctly refers to an intended publication of the nature we have mentioned; and this passage, at least, ought to have drawn an explanation at full length from his editors, if they are in possession of the posthumous papers from which they offer this as a selection.

But we have too long delayed what we had to say on the particular subject before us, of which we must now content ourselves with giving a summary review. We cannot elucidate the general plan of the author more clearly or concisely than by stating in his own words the conception on which he proceeded in forming it.

A perusal of the Odyssey, however, with some attention has inclined me to consider the character of its hero, not only as Homer's chef' d'œuvre, but as an excellent representation, not exceeded by the most skilful copyists of nature in any succeeding age.

To examine this extraordinary personage, depictured by an au thor, who, according to the best of our knowledge, first attempted to unfold the passions of the human mind, to develope its secret springs and latent motions, it is hoped, will prove an investigation neither destitute of interest nor curiosity. His pages, xaλ xalçoπpo, hold the mirrour up to nature,' and reflect our own similitudes in a race of beings, whose real forms, long since blended with their primitive dust, have faded from existence for nearly three thousand years. He brings them alive before our eyes, and shews