ductions in this collection, which might as well have been omitted. The following ftanzas, extracted from a letter to a friend, have confiderable merit.

To

's wood,

"You faw, my friend, in W
My rural tribute to the Nine;
For there, you fay, uninjured flood
Maria's name prefixed to mine.
That bold infcription, in your grove,
I cut, with too afpiring claim;
(How warm imaginations rove!)
I thought it poetry, and fame.
Her friendship, carved in rustic style,
I thought excell'd elaborate lays;
I thought her still approving smile
Would crown me with immortal praife.
But my fad history's prefent page
Brings your old prophet to my view;
And fure, an oracle more fage
Dodona's forest never knew.
For, in your venerable shade,

As I my rude memorial wrought,
Impell'd to talks which ne'er upbraid,
The wood a hoary peafant fought.
The folemn pedants of the schools
May boaft their systematic strain;
But Nature's more authentic rules,
And fenfe, and truth inspire the swain.
The Patriarch of the peaceful vale
Approached, my characters to fee;
To hear the poet's favourite tale
Explain the letters on the tree.

His words with moral ftrength were fraught;
I well remember all he spoke;

I almost thought him, while he taught,
The Druid of fome aged oak.

"Short bounds determine (faid the fage)
"The joys, the cares, the toils of man;
"His works are tranfient, like his age,
"His labours, and his life, a fpan.

"Still trifles agitate his breast,

"Delufive meteors of the day;

"And fome are, in their birth, fuppreffed;

And fome, in thinking, die away.

Ob.

"Objects, whofe death is lefs in haste,
"To calm reflection are not late;
"For worne by Time's perpetual wafte,
"They yield to all-fubduing fate.

"And fay, what theme employs thy mind;
"What occupies the sculptor here?
"A theme, perhaps, which he will find
"Worse than indifferent in a year.

"Some pupil fair of London's art,

"Where polished falfehood holds her reign? "Or warms a rural nymph thy heart, "Some ruddy virgin of the plain? "Or fome protectrefs of renown,

"Some guardian of the Mufe's flame; "Whofe fovereign tafte directs the town, "And flakes ambition's thirst with fame?

"Rash man, you court a constant strife

"With numerous woes; of verfe beware;
"I've heard, and read the poet's life;
"His toil, is thought; his prize is, air.
"Though now her friendship you enjoy,
"And on her eulogies repofe,
"Envy that friendship may destroy;
"For merit brings a host of foes.
"Politenefs may have formed your friend,
"Politenefs in the bright extreme;
"On which the wretches who depend,
"For truth mistake a golden dream.

" Charms to the person, to the face
"It gives; but withers Virtue's bloom;
Its varnish rots her nobler grace;
"It is the fcripture's whited tomb.
" 'Tis branded by the moral pen;
"Opinion, ftill, the daftard fears;
" 'Tis meanly all things to all men;
"It never is what it appears.
"But should your patronefs withstand
"Each barbarous witling of the age,
"The dull, and the malicious band,
"That conftant war with genius wage.
"In affluence give your ftrains to flow,
"And bid with Pope's their spirit vie;
"On one plain truth your thoughts bestow :

Yourself, your friend, your verse, must die.

"All the great scenes that bards difplay,
"All their strong pictures of mankind,
"By Time's impreffion will decay,
"Like this infcription on the rind.

"For Time's relentless hand these lines
"Will first distort, and then erafe!
"Refiftlefs hand! that undermines
"The pyramid's enormous base.
"Then let the fit, the good, the true,
"Be all thy work, and all thy care;
"Through life, their facred path pursue,
"Nor fubftance quit for tinfel glare.
"Give reafon her divine'controul;
"And to be great, be truly wife;
"Let profpects animate thy foul,
"Sublime, and lasting, as the skies."

A Pocket of Profe and Verfe: Being a Selection from the Literary Productions of Alexander Kellet, Efq; fmall 8vo. 3s. Dilly.

These productions are in profe and verfe; as a specimen of the latter of which, we fhall felect the following extract from a poem entitled Reason; referving a fpecimen of the profe, with a more particular account of the whole, to a future opportunity.

Native Augufta, from thy joys eftrang'd,
Another world now my firm footsteps bears,
On other stars I gaze; and fee immense
Between us their tempeftuous volumes roll.
Yet not thy golden luxuries I repine,
Thy glitt'ring pomps, or elegant delights;
Nor (what might justify regret) the lofs
Of thy fair-featur'd daughters' matchless loves;
But the fagacious, but the free, difcourfe
Attain'd in thee, and no where else attain❜d,
I weep in blood. O who'll convey me swift
To where another bridge thy better claim
To the wide-diftant fhore oppos'd prefents,
And lightly placid father Thames beftrides;
Placid and level here, although in view
A gloomy pontifice, by British blood,
Ah, deep-diftain'd, he fcourge with torrent roar
Enrag'd? O when again the candid round,
Whofe ample structure decks thy fumptuous fkirt,
When shall I fpatiate; blind to beauty's lure,

VOL. IX.

K

To

To foothing mufic deaf, attentive fole
To the more foothing eloquence of friends?
Chiefly to him by more than blood endear'd,
Who friend I call, because I prove him fuch,
And but for vanity a brother name:
O form'd alike the battles dreadful edge
To credit, or inftruct the letter'd fage,
Or lead the standard elegance of taste.

"Nor thou, though yet ambition thee detain,
(Virtuous ambition in thy gen'rous breaft)
Amid' the licens'd homicides of war

In tented noife, nor thou (my friend) decline
The proffer'd dalliance of the tuneful Mose;
The Mufe, who fill her balanc'd wings fufpends,
(Each fifter of the mount her deftin'd flight
Infeparably joins, and ev'ry grace)

And fondly hovers o'er Britannia's cliffs,

Where tower'd her temples once, and altars blaz'd,
That blaze no more. For now the speeds dismay'd
Before the monfter whofe unnatʼral birth
Its parent Liberty, fo lovely late,

• Foully distorted; Int'reft nam'd by men,
But whom th' unerring gods Corruption call.
This fyren from a hundred tongues harangues,
A hundred venal tongues, and fmooths the path
With twice as many gold-polluted hands
To pow'r, (alas) and dignity, and wealth;
Ah, ill-acquir'd, ill-us'd, detefted pow'r,
Infamous dignities, and wealth obscene,
With timid growth the peft at firft advanc'd,
Ere long to fpurn the ground, and feale the sky ;
Then through three fertile realms her progress urg'd,
On fairy foot, and eagle-rapid wing,

And blafted ev'ry bleffing the beheld.

"Where may the British mufe her exile rest? In frozen Greenland's fubterranean towns,

Or favage Lapland, her melodious fong

Might the will'd fun at other months recal,
And footh the feal-furr'd femi-brutes to men:
In Albion though profcrib'd, ev'n welcome there.
Will not her patience placidly await
The rifing empire in Atlantic furge
Of renovated Britons, who proceed

Lords of the world, and patrons of the lay?
Or fhall fhe rather claim thy present aid,
Accomplish'd Frederic, round whofe regal brow
The creeping ivy with the laurel vies ?
"O England, rich in foil, in wavy plains
Of golden grain, and ever-verdant fields;
Rich in thy natives too, who best reflect

Great nature's truths, with happy-temper'd minds;

Whofe

Whofe valour beft the deadly-diff'ring climes
Subdues, and kinds of widely vary'd men:
For whom the western Indian fleers his chafe
Thro' tracklefs lab'rinths of perpetual wood,
A living bronze, and fends the valu'd fur,
To drefs authority for vulgar view:
To whofe fuperior genius Afric pays
Her abject homage, and to fultry tasks
Her falamander youth refigns, to talks
For which her fable fous alone fuffice:
Roufe, O my country, roufe your giant force;
And (as Anteus) ftronger from your fall,
Corruption's golden fetters burft; nor fpare
The wily forc'refs; but, with virtue steel'd,
Dash on obdurate rocks her crackling limbs;
Or with her blood your crimfon'd oaks bedew."

Cafes of Practice in the Court of King's Bench at Westminster, from the Reign of Queen Elizabeth to the 14th of Geo, III. a Period of near 220 years. Selected from, and examined by, the Books of Reports; and methodically arranged under proper Titles: fhewing the whole Practice of that Court, ancient and modern; and being a compleat Guide to all Barrifters as well as Attornies. With a Table containing the Names of the Cafes, and Index of the principal Matters. By a Gentleman of the Middle Temple. 4to. 12s. bound. Owen.

An useful repofitory for ftudents and young practitioners.

A methodical English Grammar, containing Rules and Directions for fpeaking and writing the English Language with Propriety: illuftrated by a Variety of Examples and Exercifes. For the Ufe of Schools. By the Rev. John Shaw, Head Mafter of the Free Grammar School at Rochdale in Lancashire. 12mo. 2s. Richardfon and Urquhart.

An English Grammar, calculated for the ufe of those who have made, or are intended to make, a proficiency in Latin

K 2

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Inftructions