MONTHLY REVIEW OF LITERATURE AND ART. 467 



knowledge of his vernacular tongue, should not write as good poetry as a 

 mechanical gentleman who does not work ; yet the wonder is, how the 

 author should have devoted so much of the little time he enjoys, to the cul- 

 tivation of his poetical taste ; and how he should by any means have at- 

 tained the perfect mastery of his language, as evidenced in the present pro- 

 duction. 



Had this poem been published forty years ago, it would have produced 

 the author fame and profit ; we very much fear that now-a-days it will 

 obtain for him neither. We know that, in these times, poetry, which does 

 not, or will not, directly appeal to the passions, has very little chance of 

 success. We, however, strongly call upon the public to read this poem, 

 which, every circumstance considered, may be pronounced a wonderful 

 performance. It is not only " no vulgar strain ;" but (which is saying 

 much more for it) it has dared to commune with a sacred and sublime sub- 

 ject and has not degraded it. 



Mr. Ragg would not thank us, were we not unreservedly to state, that 

 there are some defects in his poem. There is too much mere dry reasoning 

 throughout, unrelieved by poetical illustration or imagery. We know how 

 difficult it is to reason in verse ; but, like all other difficulties, it ought to 

 be overcome. The following, for instance, is not poetry. It might have 

 been said much better in plain prose. 



" To this conclusion therefore must we come, 

 If love's an attribute of Deity, 

 (And God is love !) and His perfections are 

 Immense, eternal, and immutable, 

 (And as existing by necessity 

 They very evidently must be so,) 

 He must exist in personality ; 

 That love, within the Essence increate, 

 May flow in one immense, eternal stream. 

 And as He must exist in Unity 

 As well as in distinctness, these His modes 

 Must be confin'd to three ; the third of which 

 The other two conjoins ; and shews blind man, 

 What Revelation's sacred page declares, 

 A Godhead TRINITY-IN-UNITY." 



We, however, leave our author, with an assuranc e of our respect for his 

 talents, and our admiration of his piety. 



WILSON AND SINCLAIR'S SPECIMEN OF BOOK TYPE. EDINBURGH, 



1834. 



Most assuredly there is a phisiognomy in every thing. Even as the old 

 physicians fancied, that every herb of the field, and every tree of the forest, 

 was divinely impressed with its peculiar signature, revealing to what mem- 

 ber its medicinal virtues were applicable, so is every other work of nature 

 and of intellect inscribed with a character a type which all may not be 

 capable of reading, but which, to those who can, conveys most certain in- 

 telligence. A man's expression, for instance, is not to be found solely, as 

 Mr. Shandy would have it, in his nose ; nor, as Gall and Spurzheim main- 

 tain, in the prominencies and declivities of his cranium ; nor, as Lavater, 

 with greater approximation to truth, has assumed, in his facial angle ; but 

 there is a meaning in all these things, so there is in his voice, his gait, the 

 Hanging of his coat-laps, his hat (especially if he be a poor poet), his hand- 

 writing (if he has not been instructed by a. fashionable calligraphist), in his 

 laugh, his cough, his manner of taking snuff, or smoking a pipe, wiping his 



