perienced the generosity of a Charlemont, a Flood, a Grattan, and a Percy, he was flattered with the applause of a Preston, a Walker, a Stirling, and a Tighe.' The generosity and friendship of the late Chief-Justice Kilwarden, then Altorney-general for Ireland, and of the present Honourable Baron Smith, were unable to rescue him from the degrading influence of his inveterate habits; he passed upwards of two years in alternate successions of short intervals of hope and comfort under the auspices of a patron, and much longer periods of misery and extreme want, during which he appeared as a paragraphist, and occasional contributor to the periodical publications; a solicitor of subscriptions to a volume of his poems now first published, and at last sinking the elevated spirit of the poet in the meaner importunities of distress.' He also sought relief in the too general retreat of literary misery and disappointment, political disaffection; and published a pamphlet and poem avowing and defend. ing revolutionary principles. This rash effort of folly and despair, though it displayed many marks of genius, totally disappointed the hopes of the starving politician, and

He calmly abandoned the projects which he had conceived were speedily to raise him to fame and fortune, and returned to the steady course of loyalty in the character of a humble but faithful sup-. porter of his country's honour as a private soldier in the 108th regi ment; he was progressively advanced to the ranks of corporal and serjeant; and on the 17th September 1794, in the 19th year of his age, embarked with the regiment for England. On his arrival it was his good fortune to be placed under the immediate notice and protec tion of that beloved and excellent nobleman the Earl of Moira, who appointed him to a second lieutenancy in the waggon corps.'

He was in almost every considerable action, and received several dangerous wounds. On the reduction of the army, he was put upon the half-pay list, and arrived in London determined to renounce his former follies and begin a new life of glory at the expence of the Earl of Moira he was placed in the house of Mr. Faulder; but his virtuous resolutions were speedily disregarded or forgotten-and a course of vicious dissipation was speedily followed by the most abject degradation and misery. His generous patron liberated him from prison, and accompanied an admonitory letter with a liberal donation; but neither kindness nor suffering could overcome the force of early propensities, and an alternation of sanguine hope and sorrowful disappointment nearly similar to that he experienced in the Irish capital, now took place in London. After exhausting the generous patience of the Earl of. Moira, he was successively protected and assisted by

1

the author of the work before us, by Mr. Allingham, Sir James Bland Burgess, Mr. Addington (now Lord Sidmouth,) his brother Mr. H. Addington, Mr. Bragge, and the Literary Fund.

That notwithstanding patronage so distinguished, this ill fated youth should have expired in misery and want, before he had reached his 28th year, is a melancholy confirmation of the important and impressive truth, with which the great biographer of our poets concludes his memoirs of a life nearly Similar in its eccentricities and sufferings: Those who in confidence of superior capacities or attainments disregard the common maxims of life, should be reminded, that nothing will supply the want of prudence; and that negligence and irregularity long continued, will make knowledge useless, wit ridiculous, and genius contemptible.'

The correspondence between Dermody and Sir James Bland Burgess affords several interesting specimens of epistolary excellence, and the generous conduct of the worthy Baronet entitles him to the regard and attention of all the friends of genius. We were rejoiced to see the letter from an officer of the Literary Fund (Mr. Yates ;) that excellent institution has our most cordial wishes for its prosperity; like virtue, to be admired, it needs but to be seen, and it is the more necessary on all suitable and proper occasions for literary men to notice its silent merits, because a standing order of the society generously and delicately regards the sensibility and feelings of suffering genius, by requiring that no disclosure of its benevolence should be made during the life of the beneficiary; and we perfectly agree with Mr. Yates, that Dermody's intercourse with the Literary Fund is illustrative both of the liberality and the caution with which the concerns of the society are administered,'

We were much entertained with the sarcastic and whimsical extracts from Dermody's Battle of the Bards, and shall be rejoiced to find some further effusions of his satiric muse in the promised publication of his poems: no sufficient reason appears to us why Mr. Raymond should not present to the public a complete edition of Dermody's poetical works, rather than confine himself to a selection from his juvenile poems, which would, we conceive, form a pleasing and acceptable companion to the present work.

The manners and fate of Dermody necessarily recall to our recollection the celebrated life of Savage, and Mr. Raymoud, in a sufficiently well written and animated character of his unfortunate friend, has noticed the similarity of propensities, and discriminated the varieties of temper and dis

position that distinguished these equally unhappy votaries of the Muses.

In perusing these volumes we have remarked some redundancies and inaccuracies of expression, and must observe that the interest of the narrative is weakened by the insertion of some humorous and critical pieces, which, though curious in themselves, would have been more appropriately placed at the end of the history.

But if all the dignity of philosophical remark, and energetic accuracy of style, with which the biographer of Savage has elevated his subject, do not appear in the life of Dermody, we can nevertheless recommend it as an entertaining and instructive work, well calculated, by a striking example of misery, to impress the mind of rising genius with the useful knowledge, that no powers of nature can compensate for the want of virtue, and that all the advantages of the most engaging and splendid acquirements, may be lost by a disregard of the established maxims of prudence and moral conduct.

N. B. In consequence of the illness of the gentleman who is reviewing Good's Lucretius, we are reluctantly obliged to defer the conclusion of that article to our next number,

MONTHLY CATALOGUE.

RELIGION.

ART. 14. An Address to Methodists, and to all other honen Christians who conscientiously secede from the Church of England. By the Rev. W. Cockburn, M. A. Fellow of St. John's, College, Cambridge, and Christian Advocate in that University. 8vo. pp. 24. 18. 6d. Hatchard. 1805.

WHEN we first heard of the institution of the office of a Christian Advocate, whose duty, as we have heretofore explained to our readers, it is, to defend our common faith against all foes, who may - endeavour to insult or injure it, we own that we congratulated ourselves not a little, and took great courage at the arrival of so good news. Here, said we, we shall indeed have a chosen champion, who will go out for us clad in seven-fold armour, against Turks, Pagans, and Saracens. We may now smoke our pipe securely under our vine, and sleep quietly in our beds. No Gallicized philosophists shall any longer puzzle our brains, nor pick our

pockets. Here is one whose duty it is to be our protection, who has a license to take, kill, and destroy; an authorized certificate and diploma to bleed, cauterize, or amputate.

It is possible that some portion of still more private and selfish feelings might intermix themselves with our joy. Perhaps our hearts whispered to us, that our own labours would be materially abridged by this salutary institution. Those sciolists in literature, said we, whose cobweb speculations in theology or philosophy have sufficed sometimes to teize or to perplex even sage reviewers, will now be no more; or if they dare to re-appear from their hiding places, the Christain Advocate will undertake the combat in our stead, he will soon be upon them with his spear and his shield: or on the least favourable supposition, all such as he, in contempt or in clemency, shall please to spare, we shall be more competent to encounter, after a few hints and lessons in the art of war from so great a master, and shall not despair of disarming a second-rate antagonist, or even of running him through the body, if occasion should so require, after the best manner of the Christian knights and champions of ancient days, secundum artem.

It will be no matter of surprize to hear, that in the luxury of these speculations of our indolence, the thoughts of a reviewer should recur to his common places. Giants and knights-errant, the tales of our infancy and our youth, the exploits of a Hercules and a Theseus, successively rushed into our minds; and were compared in our imaginations, but not preferred before the future promised triumphs of the Christian Advocate. The picture of the Cave of Polypheme was realized to us afresh. The terrors of Ulysses and his companions, their skulking in holes and corners, their miser able fate in the relentless grasp and the bloody jaws of that huge and merciless monster, were, we thought, not more than an apt resem→ blance of the fears, the fight, the unavailing flight, and death of many an unpitied wretch, who was hereafter to tremble or to fall before the might of this Academical Advocate.

But alas! how vain, how short-lived, how delusive are human expectations! Our triumph, our self-congratulation, our courage is almost all gone. Nay, there is a danger that our fears and our peril shall be even greater than they were before; that our labours, instead of being abridged, may be multiplied; that the Christian Advocate may not silence, but provoke hostilities; that to us his alliance may be, like that of some of the allies of our country, much more a hindrance than a help, a cause of advantage to our foes, and of increased perplexity, frouble, and peril to ourselves.

One hope only remains to us; a hope, however, so uncertain, and so ambiguous, that we can hardly distinguish it from fear. It is, that Mr. Cockburn may perhaps possess all the subtlety, as well as - strength of a consummate warrior; that be willingly, that, he designedly, withholds, suppresses, conceals his power; that he under stands the trick and efficacy of stratagem and ambush; that hơ CRIT. REV. Vol. 7. March, 1906.

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suffers the adversary to collect, to harangue, to refit their scattered bands; that he will leave them leisure to lick their wounds in the shade. Meanwhile he himself hides his strength, and

Calms the terrors of his claws in gold;'

but in due time he shall arouse himself, wake the forest with his roar, indulge no longer in playful skirmish, in the prelude and mockery of war, but leap in among his unsuspecting foes, and soon spread tenfold death and destruction around him.

We derive this our only remaining hope, as well from the general contents and complexion of the essay which is before us, as also from some particular passages, in which the ground of it more especially appears-for instance, from the following which occurs in the first pagy, where Mr. Cockburn affects (affects, we, say it must be, or else woe betide all our hopes!) an extraordinary, and otherwise útterly unaccountable share of ignorance."

A few years ago, all the many sects who differed from the church of England, were very commonly denominated methodists: they are now more usually called dissenters, sometimes independents, non-conformists, separatists, &c. and methodists are, in strict propriety, only one sect of these dissenters. Since, however, I have been unable to ascertain with accuracy in what respects they differ from each other, or what precisely constitutes a methodist, I shall address myself generally to all those protestant Christians in this kingdom, who separate from the communion of the church of England.'

A sentence comparable to the above in ignorance, from the band of a constituted advocate of religion, in the name of an English university, we are well persuaded that hardly any industry, or any felicity of research can again administer. All the many sects who differed from the church of England, a few years ago, were very com• monly denominated methodists '-idle, foolish, and incredible assertion, impossible to be made by any man but the most ignorant and illiterate. "They are now called dissenters, independents, non-conformists, separatists, &c.'-most lame and shameful confusion of genus and species. Mr. Cockburn tell us, that a methodist is a separatist is he then an independent, is he a presbyterian? Is a presbyterian an independent?-Besides, to say that methodists are dissenters or separatists, without any distinction or reserve, betrays want of knowledge of the grossest kind. Some, no doubt, have left the communion of the church, and many more, it is to be feared, are hurry. ing on into the sin of schism; but to say this of the body in general, to term them all in one word dissenters, is an unwarrantable assertion, indicative of ignorance extreme. And why not be able to ascertain, (what every body else can,) what precisely constitutes a methodist ?'

Thus, we see, is this tract founded in lamentable ignorance. The superstructure, we can promise our readers, is in sufficient harmony with the character of the foundations.