And yet, alas! too well I knew 
That love—or hope—was vain, 
The fountain whence delight I drew 
Would end in yielding pain! 
My folly and my peace at once 
A moment could destroy ; 
It bade me every wish renounce, 
And broke my dream of joy.” 
Travels of my Nightcap, or Reveries in 
Rhyme ; with Scenes at the Congress of Ve- 
rona. By the Author of “ My Note-book, 
or Sketches from the Gallery of St. Stephen’s.”” 
12mo.— We should perhaps be thought 
more punnical than critical, if we said that 
the natural journey of the Nightcap is to 
the land of Nod ; yet we would not answer 
for the event, if we should be condemned 
to go through these travels at an after- 
dinner sitting. And perhaps we should be 
thought a little malicious if we were to 
quote the latter half of the ensuing stanza 
as a review of the whole tour. 
«© In time arriving at Cologne, 
We thence proceeded on to Bonn, 
There saw some learned faces ; 
Thus scribbles many a travelled ass, 
Who fain would for a tourist pass, 
While through his tour he races.” 
We could have been content, however, 
that the long-eared racer should not have 
come into view so often. 
“* Some rhyming dolts attempt the stanza: 
With them ’tis th’ Ass of Sancho Panza, 
Limping along with the poor ‘squire on; 
How far from Spenser and from Byron !” 
Now, though we do not mean to put the 
author’s hobby upon a footing with either 
the one or the other of these steeds re- 
nowned, we doubt whether “the oftava ri- 
ma,” upon which the hero of the Nightcap 
proceeds to mount, be not, at least, as near 
in blood to the Pegasus of the former, as of 
the latter adventurer. In short, this is 
one of those rhythmical trifles, over which 
a certain class of readers may enjoy an oc- 
casional lounge; but which will not be 
very eagerly sought by those who have a 
taste either for the glowing inspirations of 
the muse, or the brilliant eccentricities of 
fancy, wit and satire. The following 
sketch from the ‘‘ Poetical Prolusion” is 
interesting, at least, for the subject ; and is 
a fair specimen of the general style and 
talent of the whole. 
«« ] saw young NAP, and he appears 
A youth matur’d beyond his years ; 
His nose and chin proclaim his sire; 
His eyes bespeak a latent fire; 
His manner ardent, quick, and bold, 
Reminds one much of NAP the old.” 
Catherine de Medicis, a Tragedy ; Ethel- 
wold and Elfrida,a Poem; James the Third, 
. King of Scotland, a Tragedy. By WILLIAM 
Wooptey, Esq. Cr. 8vo.—In a flippant 
and rather lengthy preface the author in- 
forms us, that as he was going to his book- 
seller's, he was stopped by a friend, who 
would haye dissuaded him from publica- 
tion, as the managers had pronounced his 
Monthly Review of Literature, 
[June I, 
dramas totally unfit for any theatre; and, 
as he himself acknowledged, that he never 
could get even a friend to listen to more 
than a page of any thing that he had writ- 
ten ; but that this somewhat blunt, but, we 
should say, very wholesome advice, was 
counterbalanced in his mind by the logic 
of a ‘‘singer of ballads,” who, being re- 
proached ‘“‘ by a butcher (who looked for all 
the world lixe a critic)’ with haying ‘‘a 
starving occupation,” replied, ‘‘ What's that 
to you?” ‘To us butchers of the pen and 
inkhorn, however, it is something ! for when 
a book comes to our slaughter-houses, it 
becomes necessary that we, at least, should 
stick our knife into it, and inform our cus- 
tomers whether the commodity is fit for 
the table. We will make our readers 
therefore, a present, of a sweet-bread, 
and let them judge for themselves by the 
flavour of it, whether it be worth our while 
to cut up the whole calf. Catherine de 
Medicis, in an apartment in the Tuileries, 
seeing her son Anjou approaching, thus 
soliloquizes— 
«« Now on my tongue be seated eloquence, 
That from his heart I may extract the sweets 
Of partial goodness—and infuse therein 
The rankling bitter of the gall of asps; 
Root out from thence the wholesome root of care, 
And sow instead the seed of high ambition.” 
How deeply versed in the metaphysies_of 
the heart the poet must be who could make 
his heroine talk to herself such honest vil- 
lainy! How exquisitely fine the percep- 
tions of the ear that could clothe it in such 
harmonious numbers ! In this passage, how- 
ever, itis possible to discover whether it 
were verse or prose that the author meaiit 
to write: but who, without invocating the 
assistance of the printer’s devil, can make 
out what was intended in the following 
passage from James the Third? 
“* There is no passion that I can remember ever 
so stirred my blood, as to deprive me of the fond 
hope of vengeance; no injury that slavery is heir 
to, but my mind, ennobled by its sufferings, would 
find some road, some channel to a just revenge.” 
Whether there may be any thing better 
in any part of this volume than what we 
have quoted, we cannot affirm; but we can 
truly say, that in all that we had patience 
to read, and we have looked into the poem 
as well as the plays, we met with nothing 
better, and could easily have selected worse. 
» And we very much suspect that when Mr. 
Woodley comes to a balance with his book- 
seller, (supposing him to have published 
upon his own account—and it is not very 
likely that any experienced publisher should 
have hazarded paper and print upon such 
a volume,) he will find that he has adopted 
a more “ starving occupation” than even 
the “ singer of ballads ;” and that he would 
have done wisely to have taken the butcher- 
ing advice of his friend in good part. 
The Common-place Book of Epigrams ; in 
which are included many never before pub- 
lished. By R. A. DaveEnrort, Esq. [With 
a 
