J827.J 



Domestic and Foreign. 



Thou hast a lather, an old white-haired man, 

 Who loves thee. Leave him not, I charge thec, 



Mabel! 

 Bring not those white hairs to the grave with 



shame 

 For thy foul sin I 



The Widow's Tales, and other Poems, 

 by Bernard Barton ; J82T. We are glad 

 to see Mr. Barton again sure of finding 

 good sentiments and sound sense in every 

 line he writes. This little volume com- 

 mences with the story of a shipwreck no 

 new subject to be sure of a party of mission- 

 aries, wilh their wives and children, on their 

 outward voyage. The entire crew and com- 

 pany of the vessel perish, with the single ex- 

 ception of one missionary's widow, who 

 lives to tell the tale of destruction a tale 

 delivered with extreme simplicity, and in 

 the true spirit, which we must suppose a 

 missionary's wife to possess standing aloof 

 as missionaries must seem to do from the 

 common ties and associations, that exert so 

 strong a power over bosoms yet unwearied 

 with the world and its concerns. She tells 

 of the storm's rise, and growth, and fury, and 

 devastation, and subsidence of the few that 

 lingered after the many that were over- 

 whelmed, in a tone of monotonous melan- 

 choly the constant concomitant of such as 

 sternly resolve not to let their affections rest 

 on any thing below. This melancholy be- 

 comes for a moment, or two absolutely pa- 

 thetic, when she describes the fate of the 

 children struggling in violent and helpless 

 terror against irresistible destruction ; and, 

 again, the condition of her husband, who 

 dies, sustained in her arms that are scarcely 

 able to support him the while on the frag- 

 ment of the ship to which she clings. We 

 will not mutilate the poem by an extract ; 

 for indeed there is not a passfige that would 

 appear with any advantage iu an insulated 

 state. 



In another part of the volume are some 

 verses, entitled " Sea-side Reverie," the 

 language of which is more melodious than 

 is usual with Mr. Barton ; for though he 

 writes easily, he certainly does not write 

 musically. The piece is more unexcep- 

 tionable too, than the rest of the smaller 

 poems, from the entire absence of the 

 phraseology of the conventicle, while, never- 

 theless, religion and poetry seem to reign 

 with equal dominion over the soul of the 

 writer. There is a pretty large class of rea- 

 ders who approve of the exclusive appropria- 

 tion of poetry to religious topics. For our- 

 selves, though we shall always be eager to 

 do justice to Barton's gentle/devout, chaste, 

 and truth-worshipping mind, yet, we confess, 

 our taste, our longings, have a wider range 

 we think there is a time to be grave, and 

 a time to be gay. He seems to contem plate 

 the extended and complex universe in one 

 single point of view only taking to the very 

 letter the religious advice oi seeing God in 

 all things of reading death and the grave 

 iQ stones and everything; and thus he is 



obliged, like all who unnaturally and need- 

 lessly circumscribe their views, to employ 

 the microscope for the purpose of enlarging 

 his favourite points. And this is done too, 

 to a degree painfully wearisome to such as 

 would lain look about in every direction 

 imbibing all those beauties of the moral, in- 

 tellectual, and physical world, of which we 

 seem to ba the free and natural heirs an 

 inheritance, for the relinqinshraent of which 

 there appears to us to be no rational ground. 



The Living and the Dead, by a Country 

 Curate; 1827.. The scribblings of a Coun- 

 try Curate, relative mainly to certain eccle- 

 siastics of some reputation, but jumbling oc- 

 casionally the secular with the clerical, in a 

 verj 7 odd manner none of any worth to any 

 soul breathing, unless it be in the single 

 chance of their proving productive to the 

 writer himself, who must not be supposed to 

 throw out his panegyrics, nor even his cen- 

 sures, at random. Mr. Benson, the late Mr. 

 Rennel, arul Archdeacon Daubeny are co- 

 vered with the froth of his laudations. The 

 Dean of Salisbury is the dedicatee "the 

 able supporter'' the dedicator informs him 

 arid the world " and eloquent advocate of 

 our pure and apostolical (what does this 

 mean?) church happily combining energy 

 in action with sobriety in precept, and pour- 

 traying all that is glowing in piety, without 

 the least leaven of fanatical zeal" all 

 which, for any thing we know, may be very 

 true ; but of what value is anonymous evi- 

 dence? To be sure the Dean with a 

 bishoprick in immediate prospect will never 

 be suffered to burst in ignorance. 



But now and then, the writer en- 

 counters and disserts upon laymen and wo- 

 men. Mrs. Joanna Buillie and her sister 

 " Grizzle,'' are met at table, and must 

 both be shewn up the brilliancy arid ma- 

 jesty of surpassing genius the subser- 

 viency and unenvying good-humour of con- 

 tented inferority. Mrs. Baillie was exceed- 

 ingly eloquent (how easy it is to use these 

 fine words) upon divers topics ; unluckily for 

 us the writer is no " reporter," and we are 

 left without a specimen. Some " professor" 

 thought the Waverley novels would not go 

 down to posterity ; Mrs. Baillie thought they 

 would; but on what grounds either of them 

 thus opined, appears not ; and of course, there 

 is no judging from this quarter, whether they 

 will or will not. Then comes Francis Jeffery 

 in the scene; but he is a whig (by the way, 

 a "whig" is now, it seems, according to an 

 official declaration in the last Edinburgh, 

 a go-between, neither more nor less), bilious 

 to a mortal degree, mentally and bodily 

 " disappointed man " stamped in large cha- 

 racters upon every feature; his sneer, wither- 

 ing ; his sarcasm, cutting : " let him," says 

 the writer, in deep and solemn humility, 

 " pride himself in both there is no peace or 

 harmony within." Poor Mr. Jetfery ! could 

 not you, Sir, transfuse, and thus dispose of a 

 little of your superfluous bile ? or has this 

 divine, think you. enough of his own? 



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