distinction is by no means apparent. The eighth division is entitled The Sovereigns; here Charles I. and Wil

They are the

Followers of Nelson's path, and the glorious
career of the Wellesley.

We now come to the twelfth, and, thank God, the last part of this vision; and never did unwilling school boy

liam H., Queen Elizabeth and the Many are they, whose bones beneath the bil- reach the end of a severe task with

Black Prince, all hob-nob together; while Richard, whose

'Leonine heart was with virtues humaner enno. bled,

(Otherwise, else, be sure, his doom had now been

appointed,'

is holding a tete-a-tete with Alfred and the other Saxon kings; and the poet perceives→→→→

The joy which fill'd their beatified spirits, While of the Georgian age they thought and the glory of England.'

Having dismissed the sovereigns, and, by the by, the poet has only placed half-a-dozen of them, since the conquest, in this abode of eternal happiness, we come to the Elder Worthies, who form the ninth part. First comes Bede, next Bacon' the marvellous friar,' Wicliffe, Chaucer; then,'Bearing the palm of martyrdom, Cranmer was there in meekness,—

Holy name, to be ever rever'd! And Cecil, whose wisdom

'Stablish'd church and state-Eliza's pillar of
council'

And Shakespeare, who, in our hearts, for him-
self hath erected an empire
Not to be shaken by time-nor e'er by another

divided.'

Spenser, Mr. Southey's master dear,-Milton, no longer here to kings and to hierarchs hostile,'-Taylor [Jeremy], Marlborough, Newton, and Berkeley, fill up the list of the elder worthies, and lead us to the tenth division, which includes The Worthies of the Georgian Age, who came forth to welcome their sovereign. Many were they and glorious all. Mr. Mathews, in his present novelty, has a song entitled, High and Humble, what a Jumble.' Mr. Mathews's humble jumble is nothing to that of the poet laureate, who classes his subjects admirably. Here we have, in regular order, Wolfe and Captain Cook, Handel and Sir Joshua Reynolds, Hogarth and Wesley, (the founder of Methodism,) Mansfield and Burke, Warren Hastings and the poet Cowper; and Nelson, too, was in this kingdom of peace,' although

"His calling, While upon earth he dwelt, was to war and the

work of destruction.'

The poet's heaven not being yet peopled, he brings in his Young spirits, who comprise the eleventh division of his vision. These young spirits consist of

"The gallant youths of high heroic aspiring, Who, so fate had allow'd, with the martial renown of their country Would have wedded their names.'

lows have whiten'd,

Or, in a foreign earth they have moulder'd,
hastily cover'd

In some wide and general grave'
Here also were spirits

To have guided, like Cecil of old, the councils

of England;

Or have silenc'd and charm'd a tumultuous

senate, like Canning,

When to the height of his theme, the consum-
mate orator rising,

greater pleasure than we approach the concluding part of this wretched mass of absurdity, y'clept a vision of judgment. It is but justice, however, to say, that this is by far the best, we bad almost said the only unexceptionable part, of the whole poem: and, therefore, wishing to deal fairly with the author, we quote it. It is intitled The Meeting.'

Makes our Cataline pale, and rejoices the
friends of their country.
Others came in that goodly band, whom be-Lift up your heads, ye Gates; and ye everlast-
nigner fortune

Led into pleasant ways on earth: the children
of science

Some, whose unerring pursuit would, but for
death, have extended

O'er the unknown and material, man's intellec-
tual empire,
Such their intuitive power; like Davy, disarm-
ing destruction

When it moves on the vapour; or him, who
discovering the secret

Of the dark and ebullient abyss, with the fire

Pure in heart, and spotless în life, and secret in bounty,

Queen and mother, and wife unreproved:-The gentle Amelia

Stretch'd her arms to her father there, in ten

derness shedding Tears, such as angels weep. The hand was toWhose last pressure he could not bear, when

ward him extended

merciful Nature,

As o'er her dying bed he bent in severest anguish,

sorrow for ever.

Laid on his senses a weight, and suspended the
He hath recover'd her now: all that was lost is

restored him;

We wish our poet had told us the names of these lost Cannings, Davys, and Haydons; but, after the compliment he pays to these living geniuses, we shall think them the most ungrateful of men if they forget the bard. Mr. Canning must procure Mr. Southey a better sinecure than that of Poet Laureat; Sir Humphrey Davy must make him a F. R. S. which, perhaps, he will deem a greater honour than that of being Member of the Royal Spanish Academy,' or of the Royalt Institute of the Netherlands.' Mr. The poet now awakes from his-what from this poem, of, at least, the same and instead of— Haydon must paint an historical picture shall we call it-trance or madness, dimensions, that is fifteen feet long.The rapturous sound of hosannahs, Should these gentlemen, however, be Heard the bell from the tower toll! toll! thro' so ungrateful as to neglect the poet, they will have no place in his heaven, but

They are met where change is not known, nor
Death is subdued, and the grave, which cons

sorrow nor parting.

quers all, hath been conquer'd.'

the silence of evening.

This concludes the Vision of Judg ment, but the poet, having written it in a measure of fifteen feet long, determines it shall be fifteen shillings in price,

and, to make the bargain the better, of three years before any notice was
adds notes, consisting principally of an taken of it, solely because, in these dis-
extract from St. Pierre's Harmonies of cerning times, it happened to be printed
Nature, with an English translation; at a village press, on coarse paper,
and some specimens of Sir Philip Sid- and on the author's own account? It
ney's Hexameters, to prove that he, Mr.is no part of the plan of the Literary
Southey, was not the first to write a Chronicle to diverge into retrospective
foolish poem in such a measure. criticism; but having alluded to the
Mr. Wordsworth's Peter Bell and volume of poems, by the author of the
Benjamin the Waggoner, were nothing production immediately before us, and
to Mr. Southey's absurdities in his Vi-to the unmerited neglect they have ex-
sion of Judgment; and if neither his perienced, we should be guilty of a
pipe of canary as laureat, nor Sir Hum- misprision of injustice were we to omit
phrey Davy's nitrous acid gas will in- the opportunity of recommending them
spire his muse more happily, we be to the notice of all lovers of poetry as
seech him to abandon her entirely, and abounding in many of the features of
never again hazard that reputation for genuine poetic excellence.
poetical talents which he had once so
justly acquired.

pp. 37.

&c. he wished to know from the author, whether he should deem it incumbent on him to adhere to this practice, when preaching before the regiment on the 30th. This information Colonel Gordon' sequence of the oath of allegiance which stated to be absolutely necessary, in conevery yeoman must take, and which he himself had taken in his judicial capacity, on the accession of his present majesty.

It was answered on the part of the author, that no such agreement had ever been thought of by his brethren-that it did not appear, he believed, to the majo of much importance whether her majesty rity of the Presbytery of Kirkcudbright, was prayed for nominatim, or generally with the royal family, in which she was necessarily included, and that, with regard to himself, he would certainly act, on all public and private occasions, according of the church and the land. to the best of his apprehension of the law

In obedience to this intimation, the author went to Kircudbright on the 28th ultimo, where he delivered before the corps, on the following Sunday, the dis course here given to the public; and, in his concluding prayer for the royal family, introduced the words, "Bless likewise

the Queen."'

No sooner was this bold yet honest act, made known to Mr. Commandant Gordon, who was not himself at church, than he was pleased to put the reverend preacher under military arrest; and so immediate and urgent did the necessity of the proceeding appear to this champion of all Tory godliness, that the arrest took place on the evening of that hallowed day, when the even hand of the law is suspended in favour of all but felons.

The strange circumstances under which the Discourse before us was sent to the press, may serve the double purThe Rebellion of Absalom; a Dis pose of accounting for its appearence course, preached at Kircudbright, and exempting it from nicety of crition the 30th of July last, before the cism. The author appears, at present, Stewartry Gentlemen Yeomanry as a clergyman placed under military arCavalry. With a Preface, Ex-rest, for no other reason on earth than planatory of the Extraordinary Cir- that he had the honesty, the charity, and, cumstances under which the Author we will add, the loyalty to pray for the was Arrested FOR PRAYING for the Queen! He has printed the Sermon, Queen. By the Rev. William Gil- which preceded this prayer, precisely as lespie, Minister of Kells. 8vo. he delivered it, in order to shew that, altho' he conceived it to be his laudTHE sermon before us has attracted able duty as a Christian Pastor to offer our notice, less from the political cir-up his prayers to Heaven for that much cumstance, extraordinary as it is, persecuted individual, Her Majesty, which has led to its publication, than he entertains none of those dangerous from the pleasing impression with opinions or projects which have been which the name of Mr. Gillespie stands so calumniously imputed to all who associated in our recollection, as the have dared to lend a helping hand or author of a volume of poems, which offer an encouraging word to Her appeared some years ago, entitled Majesty in her hour of severe trial; but CONSOLATION,' &c. We have often that, on the contrary, his aim in this, as wondered that a volume of such merit in all his addresses to the corps to could by any chance have slumbered which he is chaplain, has been to enin that obscurity which we suspect to liven the flame of patriotism as well as By accepting the appointinent of chaphave been its fate; but have as often devotion, and to advocate the great ed none of his rights and privileges as a lain of the cavalry, the author surrenderceased to wonder when we reflected on cause of religion, morality, and social minister of the church of Scotland. He the length and difficulty of the way order.' never undertook to pray according to the which lies between writing a poem deword of command, nor to submit the terms serving of admiration, and ushering it in which he was to address the Almighty, into the presence of the public with to military censorship. In the duties he that degree of ceremony and bustle was to perform as chaplain, he was to be and noise, which are all so necessary to guided solely by the doctrines, laws, and ensuring to it a candid examination into member, and to which, by his ordination usages of that church of which he was a its merits. What can a country pastor, who woos the muses amidst the wildvows, he had solemnly bound himself to Early in the month of July last, he re-adhere. But that church, which has no of Galloway, who prints his produc-ceived a letter from James Gordon, Esq. liturgy, disclaims all civil interference tions on his own account, and who con- younger of Culvennan, his colonel-com- with its forms of worship. The indesigns them like a pund of woo', to be mandant, (the hero of the tale) request-pendence of the Presbyterian establishmade the most of, to some house in the ing him, as usual, to attend the corps inent in Scotland, is secured by a funda Row called Paternoster, hope in the while in quarters, and preach before mental and essential article of the treaty of way of justice being done to his publi- them on Sunday, the 30th of that month. union, and which every sovereign for a But, it was added, that, as he was inform-century past, down to his present Majesty cation? Let our friends in the Rowed there was either a public or private inclusively, has sworn inviolably to maintell. If we recollect rightly, Auster agreement on the part of the ministers of tain and preserve. Fair,' a poem now deservedly of great the Presbytery of Kirkcudbright, to pray tempted, therefore, by subordinate autho reputation, had been in print upwards on all public occasions for her Majesty,rity in this case, implies a power which

Mr. Gillespie thus relates the circumstances of his arrest, and we see no reason to quarrel with the compliment which he pays to the ⚫ Stewartry of Kircudbright', in supposing that they will scarcely be believed' any where else :—

On the legality of this extraordinary step, Mr. Gillespie makes the following spirited remarks:

What has been at

tween them?

cannot be claimed even by Majesty it- for peace sake; each party taking their One great characteristic of Mr. James's self. Of such interference the church of own road to the same end, and saying poetry is its simplicity and the harmoScotland wisely entertains a salutary jea-nothing of the debateable ground be-ny of the versification; many of the lousy, and on this subject its eventful history is pregnant with instruction. And There may be worldly poems breathe the most amiable dispowhilst the author trusts he will always act but as long as it exists, the less that is thropy, and we should not be much wisdom in this sort of management, sition and the most genuine philan as becomes a dutiful and loyal subject, so he will continue to resist every infringe- said about "sacred charters of free- surprised to learn that the author is a ment on the rights of his order-every at- dom" the better. member of the Society of Friends. tempt to violate that sacred charter of his this as it may, the work before us does church's freedom, which was obtained him much credit, not only as a poet, through so many persecutions, and purbut as an able advocate of the best chased with so much blood.' feelings which dignify human nature. A few extracts will justify our commendation:

The author appears, however, to admit, that though the Scottish church disclaims all interference with its forms of worship, the King and council have not abstained from passing orders which had that tendency. He says, in a note to the passage we have just quoted :

The sermon having, as we have before mentioned, been printed precisely as it was delivered, and written with no view, we presume, to publication, it would be unfair to subject it to any thing like a critical analysis. We shall content ourselves with making one brief extract, which will shew how little pretence there was for the absurd measure of his arrest, on the ground of any deficiency in sound and patriotic principles, and at the same time serve as no unfavourable specimen of the author's style:

'A mere order in council, as to praying for the royal family, has never literally been observed by the Scottish clergy: if To stand forth in defence of a constithey have paid any attention to the sub-tution so noble and excellent, is at once stance of the order, they have never used honourable and praise-worthy, and is, I the express words. Even the most loyal am persuaded, on your part, the impulse have prayed in language of their own of affection as well as the dictate of duty. choosing. It is the general assembly alone I trust that you consider it a sacred deposit which has any right to prescribe to the intrusted to your care, to be preserved inministers of our establishment in what ex- violate, which your fathers have transpress terms they are to pray." mitted unimpaired to you, and which you, also, will transmit unimpaired to your children. I trust, that no misrepresentations of the factious, no clamour of the multitude, no personal inconvenience or privation, will prompt you to remit your discipline or abate your ardour in so glorious and so patriotic a cause. I trust, that no unhappy family questions at home will ever be made a rallying point to the disaffected, will ever shake your fidelity or diminish your affection to your common country, whose independence your fathers have achieved by their arms, and lowed by the ashes of the martyr, and purchased with their lives; which is halconsecrated by the blood of the brave.'

After all, from any information we have on the subject, we are much in clined to be of opinion, that the claim of the Church of Scotland to an utter independence of the civil power, is a thing rather passed over in silence than solemnly acknowledged. Why does the King, by his representative the Lord High Commissioner, preside at all the general assemblies of the Scottish Church? What has the King to do there if it is not as head of the Church? Can or dare the assembly meet without the royal presence and sanction? Nay, is it not a fact, that at each meeting of assembly, the Lord High Commissioner first opens and constitutes it in the name of the King (acting, of course, on the assumption that he is the head of the church), and that the moderator (or president) then proceeds as if he knew nothing at all of what his grace had been doing, and, without in the least adverting to the circumstance, opens and constitutes the assembly in the name of Christ (as the real head of the church)? Is it not equally true that the commissioner sits on the throne in the midst of them during every hour and minute of their deliberations; and that, at breaking up, the same double sort of ceremony is gone through as at the opening of the assembly? What do we see in all this but a mere adjustment of pretensions

Poems. By P. M. James. 12mo.

"THE BEACON.

Be

pp. 224. London, 1821.
AFTER undergoing the penance of
reading Mr. Southey's hexametrical
absurdities, under the torturings of in-
patience and disappointment, which
ultimately gave way to the hopeless-
ness of despair and to disgust, we turn
with peculiar pleasure to this little
volume, which restores us to our love of
poetry and of poets. Mr. James, if w
may judge from the motto he has
adopted, is a young poet, but from his
productions we should think him a ma-
tured one; and we have seldom been
more gratified than we have in the pe-I
rusal of the sixty-one short pieces of
which the volume consists. These are
songs, sonnets, elegiac stanzas, &c. &c,

we

'CANZONET.
When time shall heal my wounded peace,
And bid the heart's repinings cease;
When the rude storm of memory's sway
Shall die in calm despair away,

Think not I'll then forget thee!
Thou hear'st me bid thy love farewell;
With wasting sighs that ever swell,
Thy smiles of fondness I resign,
The will is heaven's, the woe is mine,

For I can ne'er forget thee!
When youths, aroused by joy's control,
Shall call to love my drooping soul;
And many a smiling form appear,

They'll wonder at my starting tear,

For then I'll not forget thee!
The curious breast shall never know

The griefs that nurse my silent woe;
The treach'rous sigh shalt ne'er reveal
The name love teaches to conceal,

Yet I shall not forget thee!
wish not that thy throbbing breast,
Like mine should mourn its banish'd rest!
No uightly tear thine eye should dim,
Yet thou may'st sometimes think on him,

Who never can forget thee "

Mr. James's tribute to the sex is at | Preach not to the slave! 'tis to mock his desire, once forcible and elegant:

'Tis to bring the parch'd lip to the brink of the And badest the battle and the triumph cease;

plan whatever. Chance, time, and successive wants have alone presided over their formation; rules were afterwards made as well as they could be, founded merely on what custom had established; hence the numerous irregularities and the continual exceptions which fatigue the imagination and disgust beginners.'

Such a work, executed as M. Lelouvier's is, would be highly desirable in every French school in England, particularly if the English editor would be at the pains to give, immedidiately after the French verb, its various significations in English, as the author has done in French, this done, its utility would be greatly increased and it would not fail to find its place in every school and every library.

The French subaltern officers wear their epaulette on the left shoulderour lieutenants and ensigns on the right; and it is not unusual to see them enter a café with several of their men, drink, and even hob and nob with them, in a glass of brandy, and appear on a perfect system of equality. Such familiarity has no place in the English army; I would not certainly advocate its adoption, but the truth seems to me to be, that the French private soldier is too highly regarded-ours, not sufficiently so.

In France, the ladies of all ranks scruple not to dine at a public tavern; our English ladies would be ashamed to seat themselves in a coffee-room.

Original Communications.atres are

THE FRENCH AND ENGLISH.

CONTRASTED REMARKS,

Hastily thrown together by an Englishman

in Paris.

(FOR THE LITERARY CHRONICLE.) NEVER, perhaps, were two people, whom nature has placed at so small a distance from each other, distinguished by such remarkable contrasts as the English and the French; they seem to be mutually determined to preserve the characteristic features of their respective nations; in my remarks on the peculiarities of each, I pretend to no order; and though extracted from my commonplace book, the following observations may not, altogether, deserve the title of lieux-communes.

A Frenchman cannot visit a child at nurse, or a parent at the point of death, if the one or the other reside at a distance of twenty miles from Paris, without a passport from the policeoffice; a Parisian cannot take his morning drive in his carriage out of Paris, without having his gig, curricle, or coach, examined at the Barrière, to ascertain if he is engaged in smuggling a miserable loaf of bread; or should he be an inhabitant of the environs of the city, he cannot take a drive into it, without undergoing a similar visit, lest he should have popt a few bottles of wine or brandy, or a joint of meat, into the sword-case, with the view of evading les impôts de la ville. Our English fashionables would not much admire the intrusion of an exciseman into their equipages, at Hyde Park corner or at Shoreditch Turnpike, on a similar mis

sion.

table of an English baronet, take out
a clasp-knife from his pocket,-tear
the poor bird to pieces,then pick his
teeth with the same article of cutlery;
and afterwards employ the identical
knife to distribute the contents of a
Even at the first
plate of preserves!
restaurateurs in Paris, you are expected
to eat flesh, fish, and fowl with the
same knife and fork; happy, even, if
you procure a change of plates. An
Englishman will desire that these habi-
tudes may ever remain a contrast to

those of his native land.

In France, servility is pushed to such a pitch, that the most sublime productions of the dramatic poets are beheld in silent sadness, should the In France, the Sunday is devoted to King of France honour the theatre with merriment, debauchery, and noise; all his presence; it is contrary to etiquette the theatres are open-all the the- to applaud before his Majesty; I do full; the public houses not think that the presence of all the swarm with the lower and middle kings of the whole earth, could stifle classes of society, who dance away John Bull's enthusiasm at a representheir care and make the only substan- tation of the chef-d'œuvres of Shaketial meal which, in all probability, speare, or repress his honest and hearty many of them partake of in the entire laugh at the comedies of Colman, or the week; reviews, exhibitions, and pup-farces of Garrick and of Foote. The French eat their meat apart,— pet-shows, &c. occupy the morning of the Sabbath,-the evening is devoted their vegetables by themselves,-then to fêtes champêtres, gambling parties, the fish, and afterwards le rôli; the de-but sert is put on previous to the cloth being and fire-works; in EnglandI need not point out the contrast in drawn, and a glass of brandy finishes the dinner of these people, who think this instance! themselves the politest, most civilized, and most liberal in the world.

In France, the first prince of the
blood, the Duke of Orleans, lets out
his palace piece-meal, to impures,
gamblers, and shop-keepers of every
description,-he derives a large fortune
therefrom, but I do not think it should
be termed a princely one; this circum-
stance presents
a double contrast,
which it may be as prudent to leave to
the reader's sagacity to discover.

In France, on any solemn religious
occasion, the congregation are secured
from all interruption during divine ser-
vice, by double lines of gend'armes and
of the national guards, who, with fixed
bayonets and covered heads, instil into
the minds of the faithful, the respect
due to the God of mercy and of
peace! In England, thank heaven,
we need not such an escort, even to the
very steps of the altar.

In France, a Frenchman will run all over Paris with you, shew you all the curiosities, procure you tickets for the play, public gardens, &c. ; in Eugland, we should first of all ask a stran. ger to dinner.

I have seen a man of rank, and a member of the French Institute, on being asked to carve a turkey, which was placed opposite to him at the

The windows of every baker's shop, and of every marchand de vin, (publichouse,) have the aspect of a prison; they are all secured by large iron bars; I do not think that our labourers and mechanics would admire such a means of security ;-they would fancy themselves in so many spunging houses.

I break fasted, on my arrival in Paris, at the Cafe de Foy, in the Palais Royal; one of the best and most respectable in the capital. A French gentleınan, decorated with half-a-dozen orders, the ribands of which, on his half-worn-out blue coat, represented a greater quantity of colours than the rainbow, placed himself opposite to me and at the same table; I demanded a thè complet, (a pot of tea, several lumps of sugar, a French roll, and a pat of butter ;) the Frenchman called for a cup of coffee;-1 remarked that my neighbour had been served with a less quantity of sugar than myself, although we had both much more than was required. Being pressed for time, I had finished my meal long before the other party, and was drawing on my gloves, when he very politely asked me, pointing to the five