Domestic and Foreign. 



307 



public works were limited to the adorning 

 of Paris, and that to the neglect and sacri- 

 fice of the provinces ; and his merit in the 

 Simplon amounts to his employment of 

 Fabbroni. For his sufferings at St. Helena, 

 he has no sympathy : his thoughts obsti- 

 nately and irresistibly turn to the death of 

 the Duke d'Enghien, the massacre of Jaffa, 

 the prison of Toussaint, the thousands and 

 tens of thousands that perished to glut his 

 devouring ambition. 



And rightly so. The world is dazzled by 

 success, and too apt to forget the cost to 

 believe that every man who has it, deserves 

 it. Napoleon was not the benefactor of the 

 human race, nor of France. The benefits 

 which the French now constitutionally and 

 practically experience were not his do- 

 nation. The fruits of the revolution were 

 kept down by the weight of his tyranny, 

 and only advanced to maturity when that 

 pressure was withdrawn. If Dr. Channing 

 has done him any injustice, it is in the 

 statement of his intellectual vigour. That 

 was assuredly greater than the doctor's es- 

 timate greater not merelyas evidenced by 

 the comprehensive views he took of com- 

 plicated affairs by his sagacity his deci- 

 sion his execution but in conversations 

 on ordinary topics, in the readiness and 

 effect with which he flung himself into dis- 

 cussions of chance subjects of literary 

 matters of plays, poetry, philosophy, 

 science : of which instances may be seen 

 innumerable in Las Casas, &c. &c. But, 

 if our recommendation be worth any thing 

 at all, let Dr. Channing's Analysis be 

 carefully read. 



Poems, by Thomas Gent; 1828 These 

 are for the most part the unelaborate, but 

 generally very graceful, trifles of a cultivated 

 and gentlemanly mind. Some of the longer 

 pieces, and none of them are very long, such 

 as the monody on Sheridan, and the lines on 

 the Princess Charlotte, have been published 

 before, though not by any means the most 

 successful specimens of the writer's graver 

 muse. Of those of the more serious cast, 

 the lines on the Grave of Dibdin are among 

 the very best commemorating, and with 

 great truth and vivacity, the effects of his 

 ballads on the moral feelings of the sailor. 

 But the pieces, which shew any thing like 

 peculiar and conspicuous power, are de- 

 cidedly those of the lighter kind, and they 

 are of a character and quality that prove the 

 author possessed of a talent which might be 

 cultivated with the fullest success. He has 

 no rival, except perhaps Luttrell. We give 

 the reader a specimen from the "Poet's 

 "Last Poem," which, however, nifallimurj 

 will be followed by many more last dying 

 speeches : , 



Ye bards, in all your thousand dens, 

 : Great souls, with fewer pence than pens, 

 Sublime adorers of Apollo, 

 With folios full, and purses hollow ; 

 Whose very souls with rapture glisten, 

 When you can find a fool to listen ; 



Who, if a debt were paid by pun, 



Would never be completely done. 



Ye bright inhabitants of garrets, 



Whose dreams are rich in ports and claret*, 



Who, in your lofty paradise, 



See aldermanic banquets rise 



And though the dims around you troop, 



Still float in seas of turtle soup, 



I here forsake the tuneful trade, 



Where none bat lordlings now are paid. 



Or where some northern rogue sits puling, 



(The curse of universal schooling) 



A ploughman to his country lost, 



An author to his printer's cost 



A slave to every man who'll buy him, 



A knave to every man who'll try him 



Yet let him take the pen, at once 



The laurel gathers round his sconce I 



On every subject superseded, 

 My favourite topics all invaded, 

 I scarcely dip my pen in praise, 

 When fifty bardlings grasp my bays ; 

 Or let me touch a drop of satire, 

 (I onee knew something of the matter), 

 Just fifty bardlings tak the trouble 

 To be my tuneful worship's double. 



Or when I turn my pen to love, 

 A theme that fits me like my glove, 

 A pang I've borne these twenty years, 

 With ten times twenty several dears, 

 Each glance a dart, each smile a quiver, 

 Stinging their bard from lungs to liver 

 To work my ruin, or my cure, 

 Up starts thy pen, Anacreon Moore ! 

 In vain I pour my shower of roses, 

 On which the matchless fair one dozes, 

 And plajit around her couch the graces, 

 While jealous Venus breaks her laces, 

 To see a younger face promoted, 

 To see her own old face out-voted ; 

 And myrtle branches twisting o'er her, 

 Bow down, each turned a true adorer* 

 Up starts the Irish bard in vain 

 I write, 'tis all against the grain : 

 In vain I talk of smiles or sighs, 

 The girls all have him in their eyes ; 

 And not a soul mamma, or miss- 

 But vows he 's the sole Bard of Bliss, 



My ton's the very cream of fashion, 

 My passion the sublimest passion, 

 My rage satanic, love the same, 

 Of all blue flames, the bluest flame 

 My piety perpetual matins, 

 A quaker propp'd on double pattens; 

 My lovely girls the most precocious. 

 My beaus delightfully atrocious! 

 Yet scarcely have I play'd my card, 

 When up comes politician Ward : 

 Before my face he trumps my trump, 

 Sweeps off my honours in the lump-, 

 And never asking my permission, 

 Talks sermons to the third edition &c. &c. 



Prefixed to the Poems is a very touching 

 tribute to the memory of the author's wife 

 a lady well known for her high attainments 

 as a lecturer ; her course on the Physiology 

 of the External Senses, was considered as 

 a perfect model of elegant composition. We 

 cannot forbear quoting it : . 



2 R2 



