On the death of Owen Gwyneth, king of North Wales, A. D. -1169, his children disputed for the succession. Yorwerth, the eldest, was set aside without a struggle, as being incapacitated by a ble mish in his face. Hoel, though illegitimate, and born of an Irish mother, obtained possession of the throne for a while, till he was defeated and slain by David, the eldest son of the late king by a second wife. The conqueror, who then succeeded without opposition, slew Yorwerth, imprisoned Rodri, and hunted others of his brethren into exile. But Madoc, meantime, abandoned his barbarous country, and sailed away to the west in search of some better resting place. The land which he discovered pleased him; he left there part of his people, and went back to Wales for a fresh sup. ply of adventurers, with whom he again set sail, and was heard of no more. There is strong evidence that he reached America, and that his posterity exist there to this day, on the southern branches of the Missouri, retaining their complexion, their language, and, in some degree, their arts.

'About the same time, the Aztecas, an American tribe, in consequence of certain calamities, and of a particular omen, forsook Aztlan, their own country, under the guidance of Yuhidthiton. They became a mighty people, and founded the Mexican empire, taking the name of Mexicans, in honour of Mexitli, their tutelary god. Their emigration is here connected with the adventures of Madoc, and their superstition is represented the same which their descendants practised, when discovered by the Spaniards. The manners of the poem, in both its parts, will be found historically true.'

The discovery of another hemisphere is certainly a noble and important subject, and we regret that, with powers adequate to a theme of this high nature, Mr. Southey has. chosen to neglect the real hero of this grand event, and to bind the unfading laurels, which his genius, can bestow, around the brows of an imaginary being. The adventures of Madoc are certainly a fairy tale, and therefore Madoc himself may be regarded as a creature of the fancy. This has

doubtedly given a wider scope to Mr. Southey's invention, and has enabled him to diversify his work with many wonderous and delightful fictions; but the true history of Columbus is so full of miraculous enterprise, of magnanimous exploit, of strange adventure, and of deep-toned sorrows, of great success, and sad reverse, of all that can excite admiration or touch the heart, that Mr. Southey would have found ample scope for his poetical powers, and he might have done that justice to the memory of Columbus, which America has withheld. A great many incidents have been borrowed from the history of that illustrious navigator, such as the discontents of the crew, the indications of land, and various other circumstances, which must naturally be drawn from that

foundation of truth. We could have wished that the whole had been derived from the same source, and that our poet had recorded the fame of the great actor in that truly great event, the discovery of half the world, instead of giving splendour to the adventures of a second Sinbad the Sailor.

After this account of the subject of the work, it remains for us to give our opinion of it's poetical merits. The preface Laught our eye, and excited those uneasy sensations from its Hippancy, which we have so fully expressed. Like the fiend in Sir Joshua's well known picture of Cardinal Beaufort, it thrusts itself upon our view, and arrests that attention, which would otherwise have been fixed in admiration on the beauties of the whole piece. Madoc is a noble effort of genius the characters are well delineated, the illustrations from physiology are beautiful, and the harmony of the verse is exquisite. Here Mr. Southey has shewn himself a complete master,

Untwisting all the chains that tie
The hidden soul of harmony.

There is scarcely a single page without some striking beauty, without some sublime description, some delightful picture, or some forcible appeal to the heart: but as a poem it is defective in plan and in arrangement. Characters are introduced, and their history is related, but the reader soon parts with them to meet no more. They are as independent of the story, as sheep sometimes are of the landscape in which the painter gratuitously introduces them. The poem is full of long passages which lead to nothing.' Madoc's adventures/ in Atzlan have so little reference to the circumstances of his family in Wales, that the two parts, into which Mr. S. has divided bis work, might be sold separately as two distinct poems. The first part, which describes the revolutions of the hero's family, is very confused, and at the same time it is so circumstantial and so minute on some particular points, that we are naturally led to expect, that some future events will hinge upon them: but the heir of the house of Owen took his way

A lonely traveller on the moonlight sea.

And whether he was drowned before he reached the shore, or by a favorable revolution was seated on the throne of his ancestors, we shall never know, till perhaps a Third Part. comes out, which, as Mr. S. pays no attention to unity of design, may very probably be expected. This is one advantage of the POEM UNLIMITED. Each book is so unconnected with the others, that an enumeration of the beanties of the

poem and of its faults, cannot be given without a minute analysis of every section. It would be a task similar to that of a critique on the papers of the Spectator, where every page creates fresh matter for observation. The great fault is the want of unity of design, which harasses the reader's memory, and distracts his attention: the banners are gay, the pomp is magnificent, the actors are of noble mien, and appropriately attired, the music is harmony itself, but the whole procession is badly arranged. Mr. Southey himself would become immediately sensible of this, if he would take the trouble of placing a chapter of contents at the head of each book. There cannot be a more sure or more easy criterion than this; but (whether from idleness or design we cannot tell,) Mr. S. has dexterously avoided this species of analysis, by prefixing a bare list of the dramatis personæ at the beginning of the volume. There are other faults of lesser moment. Madoc's reproach of his brother (P. 15 and 27) at the board of festive hospitality, where he was kindly received, is very ill-timed and unnatural. If David was the eldest son by a second wife, he certainly had a better claim to the throne than Hoel, who was illegitimate. If Llewellin was the right heir, this certainly should have been stated in the preface, or so clearly explained in the beginning of the poem, that the reader might be able to form some conjecture of the real cause of David's jealousy and suspicion of his brothers: instead of this we are suddenly surprized by the appearance of Llewellin. The family quarrel is, like most family quarrels, a very confused piece of business. We hear a great deal of Owen's race,' but Owen had put out his nephew's eyes with red-hot plates, and therefore we do not perceive what reason they had to be proud of having sprung from such an stock. Owen was a usurper, and the recital of his cruelties is very unnecessary and ill-judged. Cynetha's circumlocution for blindness is very quaint

it had been worth

The wealth of worlds, if he could then have seen
Their ruffian faces.

The anxiety, and the alternate hopes and fears of Madoc on his voyage, are highly wrought; the whole passage is written by the hand of a master: it is too long to be quoted, and by curtailing it of a single line, we should rob it of a beauty; but when he reaches the long-wished-for land, Oh! what a falling-off is here. We follow Madoc over the unknown ocean with enthusiastic sympathy; but, when his voyage is completed, we are most miserably disappointed.

I stood upon the deck and watched till dawn,
But who can tell what feelings filled my heart,
When like a cloud the distant land arose
Grey from the ocean,... when we left the ship
And cleft with rapid oars the shallow waves,
And stood triumphant on another world?'

By a reference to Robertson's History, our readers will see how far the poet here falls short of the historian. Mr. S. has evidently consulted Robertson's work; why has he omitted the natural and deep-felt repentance of the sailors for their ungenerous mistrust of their chief? We cannot follow Madoc without thinking of Columbus.

The whole narration of Baldwin the prior cursing the corpse of Madoc's father, from P. 152 to P. 168, inclusive, might very properly be omitted. It is a dull episode, and introduced we cannot tell why, nor guess wherefore, unless Mr. S. happened to have been reading the curses of Ernulphus in Tristram Shandy. Perhaps there is a deeper reason: Mr. S. does not seem to be fond of priests: in Wales and in Atzlan his priests are ferocious.

The second book of the second part is tedious. The description of the serpent is a noble part of the poem; it is frequently sublime; but the mode of destroying the monster is too minutely told; there is too much of contrivance and cunning in the scheme: a set of tailors could not have devised a more ingenious mode of killing a mad dog. If this exemplification of what we mean should be thought too degrading, we would say that Madoc and his companions kill the serpent exactly as you would expect the crafty Ulysses and his associates to have done the deed, if they had met with such a reptile after escape from the giant's care under the sheep's bellies.

The proper names are in general" confounded hard words:" as Mr. S. enjoyed the liberty of naming the children of his own fancy, we think he might have had a little more mercy on his readers. The heroes of the Iliad have given names to our modern race-horses, dogs, and ships; but this honor cannot be expected for the heroes in Atzlan, viz. Yhidthiton, Coanocotzin, Mexitli, Tezozomoc, and the Aztecas. The following line has not its parallel in any poem of note, but we recollect one very much resembling it, which was written by a school-boy:

first he donned

A Gipion quilted close of gossampine.

The boy's line is equally pretty

Where splendid conchs do micque upon the shore. CRIT. REV. Vol. 7. January, 1806.

G

The story of Coatel's discovering the young Hoel in the cave, is borrowed from the Arabian Nights, with the exception that a vulture is here substituted for the fox.

Malinal's and Goervyl's defence against the Hoamen, in the 16th book, is tediously and too minutely descriptive. It may be accurate, but it is the accuracy of an old nurse's tate Indeed there is too much fighting through the remainder of the volume: it is quite a gazette.

Is the following passage adapted to the purposes of poetry? We are willing to try it by Mr. Southey's own criterion. We think that it is not, and therefore we have not quoted it in the shape of verse, at the same time we challenge even the admirers of Thalaba, to read it in such a manner, that its flow and fall shall be perceptible.'

And on he went toward Goervyl, and with sudden turn, while on another foe her eye was fixed, ran in upon her, and stooped down and clasped the maid above the knees, and throwing her over his shoulder. to the valley straits set off: il seconded, in ill attempt; for now his comrades are too close beset to aid their chief, and Mervyn hath beheld his lady's peril. At the sight, inspired with force, as if indeed that manly garb had clothed a manly heart, the page ran on, and with a bill-hook striking at his ham, cut the back-sinews. Amalahta fell: the maid fell with him; and she first hath risen, while grovelling on the earth he gnashed his teeth for agony. Yet even in those pangs remembering still revenge he turned, and seized Goervyl's skin, and plucked her to the ground, and rolled himself upon her, and essayed to kneel upon her breast, but she clenched fast his bloody locks, and drew him down aside.'

P. 341.

The sport in Atzlan, of the Flyers, who mount the pine, is almost unintelligible. A slight alteration in the concluding lines would clear it of obscurity. The mazy dance' and other games are well described. Mr. S. in general conquers the intricate difficulties of description with admirable

skill.

We are surprized not to find the horse introduced in AtzLan. This animal was to the first settlers in America, such an instrument of wonder and of power, that their exploits, when related even in the sober narrative of truth, have an air of romance and enchantment. We naturally expected to see this noble creature forming a part of the inferiormachinery.

The beauties of Madoc are gr: at and many. We have not quoted any particular passages, as every reader of taste,

* Vide preface to Thalaba.