1832.] 



Monthly Review of Literature. 357 



of the leading republics entire and unbroken ; insomuch as to induce the reader 

 at last to lay down this excellent volume with a feeling of regret. 



ON THE LIFE, WRITINGS, AND GENIUS OF AKENSIDE. BY CHARLES 



BUCKE. 



A LIFE of Akenside has long been felt as a desideratum in our poetical litera- 

 ture ; considered as the author of such a poem as the " Pleasures of the 

 Imagination," it is not a little singular it should not have been earlier undertaken, 

 while the biography of many inferior writers has been amply descanted upon. 

 The new materials now brought forward by Mr. Bucke, have confirmed us in our 

 favourable opinion of the subject ; they are thrown into a very interesting nar- 

 rative, and he seems to have spared neither zeal nor judgment in the uses to 

 which he has adapted them. Not confining his researches to the beaten track, 

 he has opened many new lights upon the poet's early life, his genius and writ- 

 ings, besides illustrating his subject with a rich fund of anecdote and informa- 

 tion, relating to the friends and connections he formed, both in his professional 

 and poetical capacity. As a didactic poet, Mr. Bucke very justly places Aken- 

 side on the highest ground ; but for most of his early poems, and his lyrical 

 effusions, he claims, we are sure, a higher meed of praise than the poetry of all 

 his odes and lighter pieces will at all warrant. The specimens of this kind with 

 which he has interspersed his narrative, do not always bear out the high opinion 

 he gives of them ; and the lines he has quoted, as bearing a comparison with 

 any of Horace, or of Collins, seem to us not the happiest that might have been 

 selected. Upon the whole, however, we think the public owes not a little to Mr. 

 Bucke, for the interesting and entertaining memoir so long wanted, and which 

 must furnish much genuine pleasure to the admirers of the poetry of Akenside ; 

 nor do we consider that there could easily have been found one better formed to 

 treat of the poet's life and works in a more congenial sphere, than the author 

 of the " Beauties, Harmonies, and Sublimities of Nature." 



AN ESSAY ON PROPORTION, WITH ITS APPLICATION TO THE SOLUTION or 

 PROBLEMS. BY JOHN GARRETT, Teacher of Mathematics in the Carlow 

 Academy. 



THE doctrine of proportion has always been the subject of scientific contro- 

 versy among mathematicians. The difficulties of this perplexing subject have too 

 frequently been the cause of impeding the progress of the youthful student, till he 

 has despaired of emancipating himself from the embarrassments by which he was 

 surrounded, and gave up the study as too abstruse for his investigation. Mr. 

 Garrett has, in this ingenious essay, removed much of the obscurity in which 

 the subject has been involved, and every student is indebted to him for having 

 rendered the science so much easier of application. His definitions are generally 

 perspicuous, his method of demonstration simple and clear ; and his object, 

 that of assisting the uninitiated into the mysteries of quantity, seems, in a great 

 measure, likely to be attended with success. 



THE DRAMA. 



THE DEVILS ! 



THE Devils have at last appeared that infernal combination which threatened 

 so to astonish, overpower, overwhelm, and annihilate, with excess of delight, 

 the expectant, though trembling natives of this great nation, has at length burst 

 upon their wondering gaze, in all the sublimity of blue fire and brimstone. 

 When will these Gallo-germanic monstrosities reach their climax ? The Cholera 

 Morbus is said to be making progress in the metropolis ; but the Cholera Dia- 

 blerie of the national theatre is infinitely more alarming. The legislature ought to 

 interfere as much in one case as the other. When such frightful diseases threaten 



