652 
with much ftrength and fpirit, and the 
dialogue is fupported with an unufual de- 
gree of vivacity. Mr. Holcroft’s Melo- 
drame, entitled ‘¢ 4 Tale of Myftery”’ is 
admirably adapted to the ftage. 
Having nothing to detain us in this de- 
partment of literature, we fhall haften to 
our next divifion, in which will be found 
a great deal to intercft and to amufe. 
POETRY. 
s° The Temple of Nature ; or,. the Ori- 
gin of Society: a Poem, with philofiphi- 
cal Notes. By ERasMus DaRwWiN, M.D. 
F.R.S." 
The Poem here prefented to the public 
as a pofthumous offering, does not pretend 
to inftruét by deep refearches of reafon- 
ing. ‘* Its aim is fimply to amufe by 
bringing ciftin&ly to the imagination the 
beautiful and fublime images of the ope- 
rations of Nature, in. the order, as the 
author believes, in which the progreffive 
courfe of time prefented them.” 
It is divided into four cantos : the firft 
treats on the produftion of life, the fe- 
cond on the reproduction of life, the third 
onthe progrefs of the mind, and tie fourth 
on good and evil. ‘The machinery of the 
poem is drawn from the Eleufinian Myf- 
teries ; as in them the philofophy of the 
works of Nature, with the origin and 
progrefs of fociety, are fuppofed to have 
been explained by the Hierophants to the 
initiated, by means of allegoric fcenery, fo 
in the prelent Poem, the Prieftefs of Na- 
ture, at the interceflion of Urania, with- 
draws from the Goddefs the myftic veil 
which flirouds her from profane eyes, and 
unfolds to her votary the laws of organic 
life. 
The theory which Dr. Darwin latd 
down in the firft volume of Zoonomia, he 
has here illuminated with all the {plendour 
of poetry: it is illuftrated with additional 
obfervations, and fupported.with addi- 
tional faéts; in fhort ‘* The Temple of 
Nature” may be almoft called Zoonomia 
in verfe. Wehave read the Poem with 
attention and delight: fo accuftomed as 
we are to behold the mental imbecility 
which old age induces, it is moft grateful 
and confolatory when we contemplate 
thofe exceptions which occafionally pre- 
fent themtelves, where the vigour of the 
mind outlives the vigour of the body, and 
where old age, which has relaxed the 
fibres of the outward man, and {truck 
wich infirmity and decrepicude his mortal 
frame, ret ves, baffled and difgraced, from 
an unequal confliét with his ethereal and 
immortal part. 
This Poem bears no mak of fenility 
4 
Retrofpect of Domeftic Literature.—Portry. 
about it: the lamp of Darwin's genius 
burns brightly to the laft; its light, if 
not at all times fafe and fleady, is ever 
beautiful and brilliant; and the Temple 
of Nature, in its darkeft and inoft fecret 
recefles, is partially at leaft illuminated 
by its rays. 
The prefent Poem, if poffible, is more 
carefully polifhed than the Botanic Gar- 
den: it prefents fome pictures of uncom- 
mon beauty ; we could feleét feveral, but 
muft content ourfelves with one or two— 
The epithets and the imagery employed 
in the following defcription of the den of 
Defpair are fingularly appropriate : 
‘¢ Deep-whelm’d beneath, in vaft fepulchrat 
cavesy 
Oblivion dwells amid unlabell’d graves ; 
The ftoried tomb, the laurel’d buft o’erturns, 
And fhakes their afhes from the mould’ring 
urns.— 
No vernal zephyr breathes, no fun-beams 
cheer, f 
Nor fong, nor fimper, ever enters here ; 
O’er the green floor, and round the dew-damp 
wall, 
The flimy {nail, and bloated lizard crawl ; 
While on white heaps of intermingled bones 
The nurfe of Melancholy fits and moans ; 
Showers her cold tears o’er Beauty’s early — 
wreck, 
Spreads her pale arms, and bends her marble 
neck, 
So in rude rocks, befide the A®gean wave, 
‘Trophonius fcoop’d his forrow-facred cave ; 
Unbarr’d to pilgrim-feet the brazen door, 
And the fad faye returning fmil’d na more. 
The folitude, filence, and decay, ‘here 
reprefented, are fo many infignia of Ob- 
livion ; and her refidence among ‘* unla- 
bell’d graves,*’ together with her employ- 
ment of o’erturning tombs and of fhaking 
their afhes—that laft memorial !—from the 
mouldering urns, are very happily ima- 
gined. The note on thecave of Tropho- 
nius is worth inferting ; ‘* Plutarch men - 
tions, that prophecies of evil events were 
uttered from the cave of Trophonius ; but 
the allegorical fiory, that whoever entered 
this cavern were never again feen to imile, 
feems to have been defigned to warn the 
contemplative from conlidering too much 
the dark fide of Nature, Thus an ancient 
Poet is faid to have written a poem on the 
miferies of the world, and to have thence 
become fo unhappy as to deftroy himtelf. 
When we reflect on the perpetual deftruc- 
tion of organic life, we fhould alfo recol- 
le&t, that it 1s perpetually renewed in other 
forms by the fame materials, and thus 
the {um total of the happinefs of the world 
continues undiminifhed ; and that a philo- 
é jopher 
