212 
and-the thrushes and the poplars that 
sympathized in the event,—and such 
other parental ebullitions as,in the over- 
flowing of the heart, a doating father 
may naturally enough be expected to 
babble about to a child who could not 
understand them; but which (with all 
our reverence for domestic feelings) we 
cannot but think look very silly in 
print—or, at least, in dedicatory print, 
as ushering a literary production to the 
public. : 
We should add, that this nursery de- 
dication is followed by a proem, which 
looks very like another dedication to a 
certain grown child of fortune (a much 
more efficient patron, if he were dispos- 
ed to patronize any thing but dogs and 
horses,) who did such mighty things at 
Pamplona, that the atheistical French- 
men, who were just about to turn 
godly, lost their wits and fell to cursing 
instead of prayers. 
“Vain was the Frenchman’s skill, his 
valour vain ; “ 
And even then, when eager hope almost 
Had mov’d their irreligious lips to prayer, 
Averting from the fatal scene their sight, 
They breathed the imprecations of despair. 
For Wellesley’s star hath risen ascendant 
there.” 
But the actual and legitimate dedica- 
tion of the poem is to the memory of 
Dr. Jenner, and occupies the first two 
stanzas of the poem itself: and we con- 
fess that we should have been better 
pleased if the volume and the poem had 
begun together—though we should have 
lost thereby the lispings of little Edith 
May, and the important information of 
what Mr. Southey loves to dream about. 
“*T love, thus uncontroll’d, as ina dream, 
To muse upon the course of liuman things ; 
Exploring sometimes the remotest springs, 
Far as tradition lends one guiding gleam ; 
Or following, upon Thought’s ‘audacious 
wings, 
Into Futurity, the endless stream. 
But now in quest of no ambitious height, 
I go where truth and nature lead my way, 
And ceasing here from desultory flight, 
In measured strain I tell a Tale of 
; Paraguay.” 
The apocryphal lines of egotistical in- 
troduction to Virgil's Eneid, telling us 
what the author had done or dreamt of, 
and what he was about to do, have been 
so often imitated, and in so many dif.. 
ferent shapes, by Mr. Southey, that we 
hope, at least, that this is the last ver- 
sion he will present us with. 
_ But. a still more curious sample of 
direct egotism remains to be noticed—- 
News from Parnassus. 
(Oct. 1, 
the congratulation of thé shade of the 
Jesuit missioner, Dobrizhoffer, in the’ 
third canto of the poem, on the siiperla- 
tive and unanticipated honour of: hay- 
ing had his “ History of the ‘Abipones,’ ’ 
translated by Mr. Southey himself, and’ 
made by him, also, the subject: of an 
immortal poem. é 
“A garrulous, but a lively tale, and fraught 
With matter of delight and food for thought. 
And if he could in Merlin’s glass have seen 
By whom his tomes to speak our tongue 
were taught, ra ; 
The old man would have felt as pleased 
_ I ween, : 
As when he won the ear of that 
Empress Queen. 
great 
“ Little he deem’d, when with his Indian 
band : 
‘He through the wilds set forth upon his way; 
A Poet then unborn, and in a land : 
Which had proscribed his order, should one 
. da: : ivi 
Take up Pith thence his moralizing lay, 
And shape a song that, with no fiction drest, 
Should to his worth its grateful tribute pay, . 
And sinking deep in many an English breast, 
Foster that faith divine that keeps the heart 
at rest.” , 
These passages may serve to fore- 
warn the reader, that whatever com- 
mendation we may bestow upon the 
“ Tale of Paraguay,” it is not entirely 
free from the customary blemishes of 
its author. Robert Southey is still 
Robert Southey ; but we say again that 
whenever he is so, in the best sense of 
the phrase—when he sinks the Laureate, 
and ceases to deify in the tomb those 
whom living he abhorred—his merits 
may be accepted in full atonement for 
his defects, ; : : 
Many of his descriptions of the wood- 
land solitude of his Guaranies are very 
beautiful. . His scenes and incidents of 
simple tenderness. are (as .they -are 
always) soothingly delightful. They give 
us the echo of the heart ; and on themes 
like these, or the affections they refer 
to, the heart of Southey whispers no- 
thing that may not be echoed unblamed, 
The sketches of the young affections 
of the brother and sister are particu- 
larly pleasing: though they awaken ir- 
resistibly a reflection, that, but for the 
fortunate arrival of the Jesuit, the time 
was approaching when that affection 
must have changed its character; and 
after the example of the children of 
our first parents—the dove must have 
found his mate in the fraternal nest: 
Transplanted to the -prison-house of 
social mechanism, when: the ; first joy" 
oO 
