1825.] 
unfortunately, the worst view of Grecian 
character—that which is to be drawn from 
the temporising portion of the population, 
debased by long and prudential, though grudg- 
ing submission to the usurping yoke, and 
makes the butt of contemptuous ridicule 
what, since the time when it was written, 
(long before its date of publication) has 
Heeome the object of heroic enterprize and 
merited admiration. As a comedy, how- 
ever (though, sometimes degenerating into 
the broad caricature and improbability of 
of farce), it has much higher pretensions 
than the generality of those which have, of 
late, been most successful on the boards of 
our theatres. Several of the characters, 
scenes and situations, are boldly conceived 
and happily executed; and the metrical 
dialogue has frequently the merit of being 
poetical, without seeming artificial ; and of 
imitating the nervous styie of our old dra- 
matists, without adopting their obsolete 
phraseology. For example. 
« It sickens me, 
To hear a pampered idle sensualist 
Prate of philosophy. You are a cheat, 
Packing your reason like a juggler’s cards 
To make the vulgar stare; you judge mankind 
From your own heart ; trust not in faith or virtue; 
Call sloth and selfishness, content and wisdom, 
Duty a dream; mock honest industry, 
Yet envy it its fruits, and stoop to share them 
By every base compliance. — —— 
“€ Philosophy "it is a worn-out mask, 
That shows you court disguise, yet hides you not ; 
The dullest eye detects the knave beneath it.” 
Songs of the Greeks, 4to. la. pr. pp. 35.— 
A rivulet of print flowing through a meadow 
of margin—frequently not half way through. 
We cannot say the waters are, in general, 
very bright, however “ inspiring the sub- 
ject they should reflect.” The following 
are the most sparkling drops we could col- 
lect—the first and the last stanza of 
** Miaulis to his Crew.’ But we must pre- 
jude them by quotation of the note: 
“In an attack with the Egyptian and Turkish 
combined fleet, the Greek admiral was surrounded 
by the enemy. In despair of escape, or successful 
opposition, the commander, Miaulis, was on the 
point of blowing up the ship, when several Greek 
sail were descried, and the scale was quickly turned. 
The poem thus begins : 
*« No, first yon crescent moon, 
Fall'n, shall adore ye; 
Pale sink the sun, as soon 
As we before ye.” 
Suppose the torch just ready,— 
“ Hark! 'twas a Grecian shout! 
Cease, torch, thy gleaming ; 
Now lightning blades are out,— 
Freedom is beaming!” 
A General Critical Grammar of the 
Ingltish Language, on a system novel and 
extensive ; ewvhibiting investigations of the 
Analogies of Language, written and spoken, 
Discussions on the Authorities of Gramma- 
rians, and a general Grammatical Criticism 
of the Learned and Modern Languages, tn 
Domestic and Foreign. 
357 
comparative Illustration of — the Englis!t 
Tongue: To which is prefixed, a Discourse 
on the Study of Languages in Polite Edu- 
cation : by SamurL OLIVER, jun, esq. 
“ Speak the speech, I pray ye, as I pro- 
nounced it to ye,” says this critical gram- 
matist, by way of motto: but how this 
might be, we really cannot pretend to say,— 
never having had the pleasure of hearing Mr. 
Samuel Oliver, jun. pronounce; but this 
we know, that we should be very sorry to 
undertake the task of speaking a speech of 
any length, as the said Mr. Oliver would 
‘“ write it” for us : unless, indeed, we were 
disposed to run the hazard of being com- 
mitted under the vagrant-act, for our gyp- 
sy jargon ; or had an audience of Gdipuses, 
who could solye the Sphynx’s riddle. 
What, for example, will an ordinary reader 
or hearer make of such sentences as these : 
**« Some few gentile nouns, and adjectives, are in- 
serted, while most are overlookt; these gentilismg 
not being confined to sects, but preposterously 
extended tocountries.” p. iv.—‘‘ In the metaphysical 
puzzles of Harris, or the Gothick virtu of Horne 
Tooke, in the scienced reveries of Priestly, or the 
critical schediasms of Lowth; in the jargonised 
sounds of Walker, or the inerudite positions of 
Murray ?” p.v. 
We pass over incontiguous veins of the 
mine,” ‘‘ scrawls of hebetude and monstro- 
sity ;” and “having ¢raverst etymology,” 
come to the gracious permission to “ advance 
to syntax, where error will be less reper- 
litizus, yet, sufficiently palpable.” p. vii. 
In the very next page of the Preface (for 
we have not the Herculean courage to ven- 
ture beyond that boundary), we come toa 
sentence which happens to be intelligible, 
and to the import of which (though neither 
enamoured of the spelling nor the euphony) 
we have nothing to object : 
«© In art, an acute connaisseur may be a dull mas- 
ter, or no master at all; in literature, this contin- 
gency will not occur similarly, since a good critic 
cannot properly be a bad writer.” 
Agreed, we say. Ergo, Mr. Oliver, jun. 
can be no critic at all. 
Then in p. ix, we find Mr. Oliver bring- 
ing to the contest, ability and industry, 
“ equipolent to those of his predecessors ;” 
and telling us, that though “ Poeta nasci- 
tur; fit orator, is a favorite aphorism of 
ancient wisdom ;° yet it might be emen- 
dated.” Inp. x. we have “ the eviguous 
grammar of Lowth,” and “the yet more 
eviguous one of Johnson ;” and are told, that 
“* Johnson was, in the grammar accompany- 
ing his dictionary, as indolent as in the 
lexicon itself operose,” and complaints are 
made against those who “propose to teach 
the manytongued Inglish, without reference 
to other tongues, which, indeed, eguiva- 
lences proposing to teach language, without 
the signs of language.’’ And in the same 
page “a general attribution of variety and 
excellence, appears somewhat antilogistick.”’ 
Such namby-pamby, or sing song, dallying 
with sounds, as the first clause of the en- 
suing 
