MONTHLY REVIEW OF LITERATURE AND ART. 473 



result which, in our modern literary atmosphere, he should, as a prudent 

 man, aspire to effect. 



LlVES OF THE MOST EMINENT FOREIGN STATESMEN. BY EYRE EVANS 



CROWE. 



THIS volume, comprising the lives of Cardinal Amboise, Ximenes, Leo 

 the Tenth, Cardinal Granville, and Maurice of Saxony, Barnevelt, Sully, 

 Duke of Leima, Duke of Ossuna, and the far-famed Lorenzo de Medici, 

 fully supports that character of excellence which every preceding number of 

 the Cabinet Cyclopaedia has so justly merited. At such a time as the present, 

 the publication of such a work as the Lives of Foreign Statesmen is pecu- 

 liarly opportune. The charge, the size, and the succinct sufficiency of each 

 biography, render it a cheap, conveniently compact, and highly valuable 

 addition to the political library of every one, who desires to examine and 

 understand the character and principles of those great main springs in the 

 government of the world the statesmen of other countries. Without such 

 knowledge and reading, however great our acquaintance with the history of 

 our own country, it must suffer the imputation of being still very imperfect, 

 if the motives, schemes, and objects of those whose power or whose subtlety 

 abroad have influenced our policy at home, either in our own defence, or 

 with reference to our relationship with others, be only conjectural or indis- 

 tinctly known. A work of this nature will make up, and fit in, those odd 

 pieces in the puzzle of political history ; which without, we have in vain, per- 

 haps, been attempting to reconcile. 



Mr. Crowe, the compiler, has executed his task with great care and com- 

 pleteness ; so far as we can judge, at least, from the first volume. His style 

 is simple and chaste, and the chief incidents in the lives of these great men, 

 with also the intrigues and duplicity characteristic of the times in which 

 some of them flourished, are given with remarkable fidelity. 



EUROPE, A POLITICAL SKETCH ; AND OTHER POEMS. BY CHARLES OWEN 



APPERLEY. 



THE modern receipt for poem-making, though open certainly to the charge 

 of being neither majestic nor honest, is undoubtedly distinguished for a cer- 

 tain curious ingenuity and predatory blushlessness. A young gentleman 

 conceives the idea of writing a poem, or a series of idyls, and forthwith fur- 

 nishing himself with a congenial goose quill, and a smooth sheet of Bath, h,e 

 draws his chair to the window, in order to command the "full presence of 

 nature (a few pigs fattening for Christmas, and an unfortunate donkey out of 

 work), and seizing a pen in one hand, and with the other dashing his undis- 

 ciplined tresses back into something like poetic fury, he commences. What 

 shall it be ? Evening ? there I shall jostle with Gray. Poland ? there I shall 

 elbow Campbell. Never mind, something must be done, so here are a few 

 stanzas on a " nice evening, sir." 



" The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, 



" The lowing herd winds slowly up the lea ;" 

 So sings the soft, the ever-classic Gray, 

 ' And oh ! how sweet this sweetest eve to me. 



" The drowsy tinklings lull the distant fold ;" 

 Just as he wrote in nature's truth appears, 



O that so young I ever should be old, 



" And all the earth a solemn stillness" wears. 



Hark ! in my ear the homeward beetle hums, 

 The owl with hollow hootings fills the vale ; 



Night from the west in ebon chariot comes, 



And chaste the moon looks forth with visage pale. 

 M.M. No. 94. 3 P 



