164 
with other trifling and unnecessary details 
which can hardly possess any interest for 
residents, and to strangers are mere im- 
pertinencies.—Preston has reason to be 
proud of enjoying the privilege of uni- 
versal suffrage in a higher degree than any 
place in the empire. 
It will be proper for those persons who di- 
rect their yiews to emigration, to consult a 
recent yolume containing A Geographical, 
Historical and Topographical Deseription 
of Van Diemen’s Land, by GEORGE WIL- 
LIAM Evans, Surveyor-general of the Co- 
lony, which conveys a very favourable ac- 
count of that island, and holds out to set- 
tlers adyantages of the first importance. 
The most valuable and original portion of 
the work is that which relates to the topo- 
graphy of the colony, and it is, indeed, 
this part of the work alone, which is to be 
attributed to the pen of Mr. Evans. The 
rest, and by much the greater portion, has 
been compiled and added to the original 
manuscript since its arrival in this country, 
with the apparent object of adding to the 
bulk of the work. The matter thus collected, 
although not without its use, has been for 
some time before the public, on whom it is 
thus forced again very unnecessarily. With 
these drawbacks, this volume is certainly 
both interesting and instructive. A large 
chart of the island is also published to ac- 
company the volume, but is to be had in a 
separate form, so well detailed as to bea 
geographical acquisition. 
When a poet “ finds his stanzas very 
easy” to write, the presumption is, that 
the public will find them very difficult to 
read. Soit is with The Templar. It is the 
opinion of this author, that his verse, Don 
Juan’s metre, “ is made as women stitch.” 
* No doubt it is, with just as much facility, 
**By men with less than Byron’s famed ability.” 
But this facility is only a snare for the 
unexperienced. To write indifferent dog- 
‘ grel verse they find to be the easiest thing in 
the world. It is only by sad experience that 
the real difficulty of their task is discover- 
ed. Nothing of this sort can livé, which 
does not mingle pungent wit and an ex- 
quisite perception of humour, with some- 
thing of the higher faculties of a poet, and 
the whole must bear a fine and delicate 
polish. Such is Lord Byron’s Don Juan— 
and such is not the Templar. We think it 
is altogether a failure. The humour is 
low, the composition loose, and the verse 
for the most part intolerable. No licence 
can justify such lines as the following, 
which, instead of wit and rhyme, abound 
with blunders and vulgarity— 
** Ain I to take about your wicker basket 
Under my arm? I vow it makes me savage. 
T am surprised how youcan think toaskit ~ 
Or expect me to run after your cabbage ! 
Being full of wrath and ire I will not mask it; 
Tmmediately I'll pack up all my baggage.” 
“fAll! (quoth the lady) that surely never much shall 
Be, which will rest in the compass of a nut-shell.” 
Literary and Critical Proemium. 
[Mareh I, 
We leave this specimen to speak for it- 
self, and shall only reiterate our admoni- 
tion, that nothing is so offensive as this 
style of poetry without a very high degree 
of skill and delicacy in its execution. 
A Statistical Account, or Parochial 
Survey of Ireland, by WiLL1AM SHAW 
Mason, Esq., is a work which we have un- 
deservedly for a long time omitted to no- 
tice. We would recommend it to the at- 
tention of any one who wishes to havea 
clear and correct idea,of the state of our 
oppressed and neglected sister country. 
The communications upon which it is 
drawn up, are made by the clergy, so that 
their accuracy may be safely depended 
upon for any purpose for which they may 
be consulted. The antiquities which are 
to be met with in the various parishes are 
noticed, and many stone engravings of 
them are given. The three volumes now 
published, may be considered as a supple- 
ment to the series of County Surveys, un- 
dertaken by the Dublin Society, and both 
series taken together, may be safely said 
to comprize the most extensive and authen- 
tic stock of materials whence future wri- 
ters may deduce correct inferences, as to 
the present state of the country in several 
of its most interesting particulars. 
We have been favoured with a copy of 
Three Nights in Perthshire, with aDescrip- 
tion of theFestival of a Scotch Hairst Kirn 
(or harvest-home feast), by PERcy YORKE, 
with the perusal of which we were highly 
pleased. The author, whilst making a pe- 
destrian tour amongst the enchanting 
Lochs of Ketturin and Lochard, the Cla- 
chan of Aberfoil, and the neighbouring 
scenery, so widely celebrated by the pen 
of Sir Walter Scott, becomes acquaint- 
ed with two young men, who carry him 
with them to a friend’s house, where he is 
treated with true Scotch hospitality, by the 
worthy father and his two lovely accom- 
plished daughters, and is detained a day 
for the purpose of being present at the 
“ Hairst Kirn.” The description of his two 
friends at the beginning of this little work, 
led us to expect much pleasure from the 
perusal of it, and we were far from being 
disappointed, His sketches of the roman- 
tic scenery, with which thatregion abounds, 
prove him to possess no despicable de- 
scriptive powers, and the numerous pieces 
of poetry with which his pages are inter- 
spersed, though perhaps not equal to the 
other parts, shew that the author’s attain- 
ments, in that line of composition, are very 
considerable. 
a 
ARCHITECTURE, 
Taylor’s Builders’ Price Book, corrected 
for 1822. 4s, 
Rural Architecture ; or, a Series of Designs 
for Ornamental Cottages ; by F. P. Robinson, 
Archt. No, I, 4to. ds. ASTRONOMY. 
