WHITE’S CLIFTON GROVE. 
hope that the profits of this volume may 
enable him to enjoy the advantages of a 
collegiate education, with a view, we 
presume, to ordination. In this hope, 
we fear and believe he will be disap- 
pointed; but disgraceful as the want of 
patronage has ever been in England, we 
will indulge the hope that some powerful 
patron will be found on the present oc- 
casion—some person of rank and opu- 
lence who will seize the easy opportunity 
of securing and deserving the thanks of 
posterity by doing good. : 
« That this young poet is deserving of 
every encouragement which the public 
can bestow, the following extracts will 
sufficiently evince. 
«© Now, when the rustic wears the social smile, 
Releas’d from day and its attendant toil, 
And draws his household round their evening 
fire, 
And tells the oft-told tales that never tire : 
Or, where the town’s blue turrets dimly rise, 
And manufacture taints the ambient skies, 
The pale mechanic leaves the lab’ring loom, 
The air-pent hold, the pestilential room, 
And rushes out, impatient to begin 
The stated course of customary sin : 
Now, now, my solitary way I bend 
Where solemn groves in awful state impend, 
And cliffs, that boldly rise above the plain, 
Bespeak, blest Clifton! thy sublime domain. 
Here, lonely wand’ring o’er the sylvan bow’r, 
| Icome, to pass the meditative hour ; 
To bid a while the strife of passion cease, 
_ And woo the calm of solitude and peace. 
_ And oh! thou sacred pow'r, who rear’st on 
is high 
_ ‘Thy leafy throne where waving poplars sigh ! 
é Genius of woodland shades! whose mild 
| controul 
"Steals with resistless witch’ry to the soul, 
Come with thy wonied ardour, and inspire 
My glowing bosom with thy hallow’d fire. 
_ And thou too fancy ! from thy starry sphere, 
_ Where to the hymning orbs thou tend’st 
thine ear, 
_ Do thou descend, and bless my ravish’d sight, 
_ Veil'd in soft visions of serene delight. 
_ At thy command the gale that passes by 
Bears in its whispers mystic harmony. 
Thou wav’st thy wand, and lo! what forms 
% appear ! 
‘On the dark cloud what giant shapes career ! 
The ghosts of Ossian skim the misty vale, 
And hosts of sylphids on the moon-beam sail. 
5 4 * * * * 
Dear native grove! where’er my devious track, 
~ To thee will mem’ry lead the wand’rer back. 
| Whether in Arno’s polish’d vales I stray, 
Or, peste *¢ Oswego's swamps” obstruct the 
me day 5 , ( 
Or wander lone, where wildering, and wide, 
‘The tumbling torrent leayes St, Gothard's side; 
. 
Or, by old Tago’s classic margent muse, 
Or stand entrane’d with Pyrenean views ; 
Still, still to thee, where’er my footsteps roam, 
My heart shall point, and lead the wand’rer 
home. ‘ 
When splendor offers, and when fame incites, 
I'll pause, and think of all thy dear delights. 
Reject the boon, and weary'd with thechange, 
Renounce the wish which first induc’d to 
range ; 
Turn to these scenes, these well-known scenes 
once more, 
Trace once again Old Trent's romantic shore, 
And tir'd with worlds, and all their busy ways, 
Here waste the little remnant of my dalek 
But if the fates should this last wish deny, 
And doom me to some foreign shore to die; 
Oh! should it please the world’s supernal 
King, 
That weltering waves my funeral dirge shall 
sing ; F 
Or, that my corse should on ,some desart 
strand, . 
Lie stretch’d beneath the Simodm’s blasting 
hand ; 
Still, tho’ unwept I find a stranger tomb, 
My sprite shall wander thro” this fay'rite 
gloom, 
Ride on the wind that sweeps the leafless 
grove, 
Sigh on the wood-blast of the dark alcove, 
Sit a lorn spectre, on yon well-known prave, 
And mix its moanings with the desert 
ware.” 
There is nothing which we should so 
solicitously seek to avoid as the danger 
of exciting disappointment by undue 
praise. That the present volume has its - 
faults, who would not expect? The 
story of the ballad is ill conceived, and 
we should censure the Hudibrastic letter 
if. it were not for the anecdotes of the 
author which it contains. The tale of 
Bateman is given with less effect in his 
polished couplets than in the old ditties 
to which he refers, and by which we also 
were impressed in childhood. It would 
be invidious to point out these defects, 
without observing, that such defects must 
exist in the productions of a young man, 
and that no fault in such a case could be 
sO ominous, as the absence of all faults. 
There is no sap or vigour in the tree that ~ 
pushes out no shoots of wild luxuriance. 
One specimen more. 
** To the kerb Rosemary. 
«« Sweet scented fow’r! who’rt wontta bloom 
On, January’s front severe, 
And o’er the wint’ry desart drear 
To waft thy waste perfuine! 
Come, thou shalt form my nosegay now, 
And 1] will bind thee round my brow, 
