Amidst the spirited beauties of this passage, it is impossible not to consider some as particularly conspicuous. How strong and nervous the second and fourth lines! How happily expressive the two Alexandrines! What a luminous idea does the epithet "murky" present to us! How original and picturesque that of the "clotted tear!" If the same expression be found in the Ode to Howard, let it however be considered, that the exact propriety of that image to wash it from the face (for how else, candid reader, could a tear already clotted be removed) is a clear improvement, and certainly entitles the author to a repetition. Lastly, how consistent the assemblage, how admirable the climax in the last six lines! Incomparable they might appear, but we recollect a passage nearly equal in the Essay on History,
"_Wild_ as thy _feeble_ Metaphysic page, Thy History _rambles_ into _Steptic rage_; Whose giddy and fantastic _dreams abuse_, A Hampden's Virtue and a Shakespeare's Muse."
How elevated the turn of this passage! To be at once luxuriant and feeble, and to lose one's way till we get into a passion, (with our guide, I suppose) is peculiar to a poetic subject. It is impossible to mistake this for prose. Then how pathetic the conclusion! What hard heart can refuse its compassion to personages _abused_ by a _dream_, and that dream the _dream of a History!_
Oh, wonderful poet, thou shalt be immortal, if my eulogiums can make thee so! To thee thine own rhyme shall never be applied, (_Dii, avertite omen_).
"Already, pierc'd by freedom's searching rays, The waxen fabric of his fame decays!"
INKLE AND YARICO, A POEM, BY JAMES BEATTIE, L.L.D. 4TO.
This author cannot certainly be compared with Mr. Hayley.
We know not by what fatality Dr. Beattie has acquired the highest reputation as a philosopher, while his poetry, though acknowledged to be pleasing, is comparatively little thought on. It must always be with regret and diffidence, that we dissent from the general verdict. We should however be somewhat apprehensive of sacrificing the character we have assumed, did we fail to confess that his philosophy has always appeared to us at once superficial and confused, feeble and presumptuous. We do not know any thing it has to recommend it, but the good intention, and we wish we could add the candid spirit, with which it is written.