Thy vast heights glistening with untrodden snow,
Ón which the sun at eve imprints his ray;
There lingers yet the mild farewell of day.
The blue lake sleeps below in tranquil sheen;
Here among Nature's miracles I'll pray
The Nature's Deity; how vast the scene !

The loveliest works of God-the grandest too are seen!
Here from our slumbers light we rise to feel

The consciousness of being; fresh and free

The soul pours forth its orisons with zeal
To the great Spirit of Eternity

That was, that is, and shall for ever be.
The fertile valleys, giant mountains, prove
The Omnipresence of the Deity!

Best emblems of his wisdom, power and love,
Pervading all things here around, below, above.
The golden sun has colour'd all the woods!

Fresh views succeed; each brighter than the last!
There barren rocks are channell'd by the floods,
Here Flora's beauties cannot be surpast,
Lausanne, an universe of charms thou hast;
There Winter's fetter'd in his icy bed–

Steeps rise o'er steeps immeasurably vast―
While the rude craggs projecting over-head

Strike in the stoutest hearts a momentary dread!

After many beautiful verses, descriptive and didactic, the author proceeds in his view to Italy, where we meet with some luxuriant description of the beauty of the Italian country, and the following sensible and manly reflections on the luxurious sensuality and frivolity of its inhabitants:

Amid rich orange-trees, whose beauteous fruit
Glows like the western sun with deepened hue;
Where carelessly the southern plants up-shoot,
Their green contrasting to the sky's deep blue;
Think ye to find Arcadian fables true?
Vain hope; pale misery sallows every face,

Yet still to Nature's works full praise is due;
Oft in the peasant's wretched looks ye trace
Some lineaments unspoil'd as yet of manly grace.
Such were my thoughts when fast from Ischia's isle
The little vessel bore me, as the glare
Of noon-day soften'd itself down awhile,
A passing breeze o'er Baia's bay so fair,
Gave a delicious fragrance to the air.

Sunny Neapolis, thy loveliness

Of clime, thy fruitage, thy luxurious fare,
Pamper thy sons with sensual excess;

Thy daughters dream of nought save lustful wantonness!

Here all is strenuous idleness! the hum

Of men, like children bustling about nought:
The bawling mountebank, and frequent drum,
Are glorious substitutes for troublous thought;
While business is unheeded and unsought.
Here to the last they whirl around; the bier
Bears to the grave some noisy trifler caught
By death; the world's epitome is here ;

The sight provokes a smile, yet mingled with a tear!

It is not, however, possible for us to give our readers all we could wish from this part of the work, and we shall therefore go on to the next poem, in point of merit, called "Poesy, a Satire;" which gives indeed some smart castigating cuts and slashings with its satiric whip at the reigning fools and follies of the day. We wish we could be more liberal in our quotations here, because of its poetical merit, and because it does that in good and nervous poetry which we have vainly attempted to do in prose, in our articles on Modern Manners, &c. This poem begins thus:

Gods! what a swarm are here! the motley crowd
Of bards, and jack-daw bardlings chatter loud!
Yes! I will vent my spleen, though others know it,
Though M- -y sends forth every year a poet!
While scribbling dandies from St. James's-street
To Portman-square the Byron's name repeat!

Each rides his Pegasus in furious mood:
And seems to "labour with the inspiring God."
Some sing of storms, and battles hardly won;
Of dreadful deeds in eastern climates done!
Others have golden dreams; before them dance
The strange fantastic beings of romance;

Wild as Orestes by the furies driven,

They fly from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven!
Some whining fools in elegies would move

Their scornful mistresses to-sleep, not love.
"Tis not their language, be it low, or vile,
'Tis not the affected quaintness of their style,
That irritates my mind; far more diffuse
Are the contagious crimes that shame the Muse:
Well might our moralists these times deplore,
When Poets love to deify a whore.

Who can be silent now? do thou inspire
My verse with Gifford's spirit, Byron's fire,
Great Nemesis; and trample under feet

Those odes which young Petronius deems so sweet.

At page 95, we find these lines of smart satire, written at Rome, and doubtless very faithfully illustrative of its vices:

We need not fear in these enlighten'd times
Hildebrand's power, or Alexander's crimes:
Or that fierce Pope *, unspiritual lord

Of Roman faith, who grasp'd the temporal sword;
But here is superstition's last strong-hold:
Still, here, release from Purgatory's sold.
Here are the women pious in their way,

At noon read Casti †, though at eve they pray :
How eloquent their looks! beneath the lashes
Of their dark eyes the soul of passion flashes!
Alternately they read their prayers, and paint;
Now woo a lover, now invoke a saint!
Such are the Portias, the Cornelias, now;
So well is heeded here the marriage vow.

* Julius II.

+ Casti, a profligate writer, author of certain "Novelle," as Forsyth says, "too excellently wicked."

At page 101, there is a very beautiful ode on the death of the excellent Princess Charlotte, which is, perhaps, as fine a production as any the mournful muse breathed on that melancholy occasion. There is a great deal of lyrical harmony and excellence in this ode; and it is undoubtedly the most sustained and eloquent piece in the volume. We are here obliged to pass over a number of very beautiful little "overflowings of the mind,” as Wordsworth quaintly calls some of his minor pieces, till we come to an "Epistle to a Friend in Town," which gives some final strokes of the satiric thong to the backs of those incorrigible sisters, Fashion and Folly.

The advice given to a young debutante in the world by one of her own sex, somewhat older in that knowledge which is worse than ignorance, is written in a very rich vein of polite humour; and induces us to think that the author would be very successful in essaical sketches on similar subjects.

We must, however, make one more extract; and having done this, conclude this is an apostrophe to the memory of Vittoria Colonna, the friend and admirer of Michael Angelo; and the poem is indeed worthy of the names it revives in our recollection, and of the sublime work of that greatest of the great Roman artists, the colossal statue of Moses:

Divine Colonna! boast of Leo's days!
Rival of Petrarch in thy gentle lays!
Pride of a princely house, unmatch'd for fame!
Pescara's noble wife! most glorious dame!
These were thy titles, fair Vittoria, thine
A heart Devotion deem'd its purest shrine:
Thou sang'st (instead of culling fancy's wreath)
Thy husband's virtues, and thy Saviour's death.
When fair Ausonia's sons were bathed in slaughter,
And Christian blood oe'rflow'd the land like water;
When poets, mindless of their glorious trust,
Deck'd with gay flowers the hoary head of lust,
Thy pious muse look'd heaven-ward, or with zeal
Urg'd warring states their mutual wounds to heal:
Vittoria, like a heaven-descended spright,
Wander'd on Arno's banks at hush of night
With Him, the master-spirit of an age

Fertile in great ones; Poet, Sculptor, Sage!

Vittoria pointed to the deep blue sky,

(How beautiful thy star-light, Italy !) ¡

There is stability alone, she said;

There, Buonarotti, when thy glories fade,

When e'en thy works shall perish, thou shalt live;

The bent to genius let Religion give.

What thy vast mind has imag'd, that thy hand
Has bodied forth in sculpture, truly grand.
O wondrous Man! adore th' eternal Source
Of genius, with thy soul's intensest force.
Should such a mind from its Creator turn,
Devils might well rejoice, and angels mourn.
Let "truths tremendous" on thy canvass dwell,
Or joys celestial, or the woes of hell;
Thus may'st thou fortify the good, and make
The wicked at thy painted terrors quake.
Masterly done! thy giant forms o'erawe
The soul!-the Jewish Leader's look is law;
Trembling I gaz'd upon that look; I felt
Such inward veneration, that I knelt.

The Persian feels such awe-commixt delight,

When sunbursts 'mid the storms break out so bright.
Many will strive to copy (vain their will!)

This great exemplar of creative skill.

God's mightiest prophet lives in marble-view
Thy work, grand Architect, and own it true.

There is, in the lines we have marked in italics, a fine enthusiastic feeling, and an unaffected disclosure of the overpowering effect which the sight of that grand masterpiece of sculpture had on the ardent mind of our author, that is at once a high tribute to the sublime power of Michael Agnolo's genius, and creditable to the heart and mind of the author.

We now leave Mr. Leigh in the better company of our gentle readers, with the hope that he will not retrograde from his "high vantage ground”, but fight on like a good soldier on the side of faith, religion, and rational liberty, (which is not licentiousness, as some would make it and understand it), to the honour of himself and the cause for which he fights gallantly and without fear.

III. A Sermon preached at the Consecration of the King's Chapel, annexed to His Majesty's Pavilion at Brighton, January 1, 1822. By the Rev. Hugh Pearson, D.D., of St. John's College, Oxford; Chaplain to His Majesty, and the Household_at_Brighton.Published by His Majesty's command. London, T. Cadell, 1822. pp. 30.

ONE of the most imposing ceremonies of our church, is the consecration of her temples, and it is as instructive as it is impressive. It is a service which reason requires, and scripture sanctions, nor can it fail to awaken feelings the most solemn and devout. The consecration of the Royal Chapel, in this place, on the first day of the present year, was attended with circumstances which powerfully increased the interest of this hallowed spectacle. The distinguished character of the congregation, comprising several of the most illustrious personages of the land; the dignified appearance of our aged diocesan, venerable for rank, for piety, and for a life extended beyond the years of man; the presence of our beloved monarch, who joined in the sacred services with the utmost fervour, formed a scene, which elevated as it was by the assistance of sacred music, and sublimed by the influence of devotion, must remain indelibly impressed on the hearts of all who witnessed it.

Under these circumstances, the sermon before us was delivered, and its highest commendation is that it was admirably suited to the occasion. Appropriate and simple, it appealed to the better part of our nature, and left the retiring audience nothing to regret or to desire. Much of its impressiveness it has, indeed, lost in the press; it wants the aid of the living voice, and the favourable associations which gave it effect from the pulpit. The text is from the eighth chapter of the First Book of Kings, and the sixtythird verse, (6 So the king and all the children of Israel dedicated the house of the Lord." The discourse describes the state of religion in the time of Solomon, and the pomp and glory of the Jewish ritual and worship.

From this it makes an easy transition to the dignity, beauty and simplicity of the christian dispensation, and its fairest and most scriptural form retained and exhibited in the church of England. A well-merited compliment is paid to our sovereign, as the founder of the chapel, and his general benevolence and condescension are mentioned in terms of chastened and deserved eulogy.

We could have wished that a more definite and extended reference had been made, in the course of the sermon, to Him who puts it into the hearts of kings to rule in righteousness, and to whose worship and honour the building was then solemnly dedicated. One sentence afforded us sincere pleasure, because it proved what we always believed, but which we understand some persons questioned, the orthodoxy of his majesty's recently appointed chaplain.-Whoever, henceforth, may be disposed to censure his supposed tendency to the evangelical party in our church, must now rest satisfied that their apprehensions are groundless. For Dr. Pearson highly commends the reformers, the fathers of our protestant establishment "that they steered a middle course between the opposite, and almost equally dangerous extremes of popery and of calvinism."

This is a passage which we are sure will be read with the liveliest interest, by all who are anxious for the reputation of the reverend preacher. The sermon is dedicated to his majesty, and was presented to him in person, at the last levee. We are happy to hear that it was most graciously received.

IV. Poems. By Bernard Barton. Second Edition, with additions. London. 1821.

But I contend the quaker creed,

By fair interpretation,

Has nothing in it to impede

Poetic aspiration.-The Author's Defence.

IN entering upon the consideration of the poems now before us, we are led to offer a few remarks upon the general tendency of the manners of the 'times we live in', induced as they are, by the sentiments of Mr. Barton, upon almost every subject which his pen has adorned.

To the most careless observer, it must be evident, that a mighty change has, within a few years, been wrought amongst us: the demons who instigated the enormities which during the latter, and part of the present, century, have demoralized the nations of the continent, seem entirely to have lost, or are very much weakened in, that little influence they exercised over the morals of this happy land; and we may now look abroad fearlessly, and rest our eyes upon the horizon, without the dread of our vision being disturbed by objects of disgust or horror.

To be sure, we have some amongst us, even now,' spoilt children,'who, from the love of novelty, the desire of evil fame, or the ambition of singularity, are contented to pervert the mighty talents which God has given them, to the very worst of purposes, the corruption of their fellowcreatures; the debasement of morality; and the overthrow of religion :