chose, depui cet accord unanime qui a soustrait à la cupidité Européenne les générations Africaines, et surtout depuis le religieux accord conclu entre la Russie, l'Autriche et la Prusse. Mais comment se fait-il que, pendant que nous délivrons de l'esclavage des Africains, nous laissons réduire en esclavage des peuples civilisés, nos compatriotes, par d'autres Africains? Nous renonçons à notre propre cupiditê, et nous laissons une libre cours à la cupidité des Barbaresques; est-ce parce que nous en sommes les victimes?" (p. 175.)

The great object of M. Theremin is, as we stated in the outset, to recommend to the people of France an acquiescence in the principle of the legitimacy of sovereigns, on condition of receiving on their part a grant of the right of representation. We think that the principal error he commits is, in supposing that the people of France, after their revolution, their military despotism, and their subjugation, are in a condition to receive a constitution in all respects similar to that of Great Britain. We apprehend that nothing can be more true than this position, that the more a nation is reduced in the scale of freedom, and the more it has been debased by tyranny, the more it may be in need of relief, but the less it is capable of receiving it to the full extent. For this reason, we believe that, at present, it would neither be conducive to the happiness of the natives of France, nor to the security of Europe, if liberty, precisely in the proportion it was enjoyed in this country in our best times, were given: they are, in truth, not prepared for it; and even if some injustice be shewn in deciding the limit, we think that the evil will be less than would result from the disregard of all limitation.

ART. III.-Mador of the Moor; a Poem. By JAMES HOGG, Author of the Queen's Wake, &c. Edinburgh, for W. Blackwood; London, for John Murray, 1816. Pp. 140.

THE last aim of a true poet should be contemporaneous popularity; for, looking back to the history of his art, he will find, that by far the greater number of those who are now justly considered its chiefest ornaments, were either little esteemed by those among whom they moved, or were esteemed for qualities and excellencies which they did not in reality possess, and which posterity has denied them. He that devotes his time and talents in poetry to gain the admiration merely of the uninstructed and unthinking, may probably succeed, for the task is not very difficult; but if he do not

outlive his own reputation, if he do not himself see the period when his works are neglected and his name forgotten, those works and that name will never extend far beyond the period assigned for his natural being.

such wretched eminent things

Leave no more fame behind them, than should one
Fall in a frost, and leave his print in snow;

As soon as the sun shines, it ever melts

Both form and matter." Webster's Dss. of Mulfy, 1623.

This, indeed, is the true cause why poets, properly so called, are by the proverb consigned to poverty, because they disdain the riches which others devote their studies to acquire it is only by a glorious and disinterested attachment to the Muse, by a rejection of all rewards but such as she bestows, that the highest excellence is attained. The poet wisely looks upon his stay here but as the least and lowest part of his existence-merely as the opportunity afforded him of sowing in base earth the seed of his aspiring fame, and lasting immortality: he regards this life but as the beginning of his life, and values it only as it enables him to fix his steady trust upon futurity. He who is desirous of meriting the admiration of posterity, should address himself to that posterity; and taking into his comprehensive eye the gradual but certain improvement of mankind in arts, sciences, and literature, he should direct his efforts to render his productions worthy of the understandings of those who shall read them in after times.

We do not intend to enlarge upon this topic; were we ever so capable, we could urge little that is new upon it. We were led to it by reading the new poem by Mr. Hogg, the Ettricke Shepherd, which is obviously an imitation of the style of Mr. Walter Scott, whose numerous and interesting productions have attracted so much notice, and upon which the critical powers of reviewers on both sides have been so often employed. We shall not enter into any fresh discussion of their merits, which we allow to be many and striking; we only wish to remark, in reference to the imitation of them before us, that we do not think they deserve to hold the first rank among works of imagination, and their great popularity, upon the principles adverted to in the preceding paragraph, seems to us to warrant that opinion. The great difference between poems of the highest and of a secondary excellence is, that the first address themselves to the understandings, and the last to the senses of their

readers; or if the senses are called in aid by the first, it is only as a mode or mean by which the intellectual powers are approached and influenced. If they speak of the green sea, the bright air, the forest, or the fields, as they often necessarily do, their purpose is not merely the description of various external perfections; but they deal alike with the invigorating spirit of life within, and with the forming spirit of beauty without, and with the vivid impressions and warm impulses conveyed to the heart and understanding. Thinking then as we do, that Mr. Walter Scott's productions have for object chiefly, if not solely, the gratification of the eye and the ear, however great we may allow his descriptive powers to be, we cannot, as some have done, place them in the first rank of poetry. Of course Mr. Hogg, as one who has followed in the same track, cannot expect from us a higher station than his precursor.

At the same time it is but justice to allow, that the author of Mador of the Moor, from the education he has received, or rather from the neglect of his education, and from the rude employments of his life (at least until he started as a poet), has not had those advantages which Mr. Scott has always enjoyed, and which, but for the frame and nature of his mind, might have contributed to make him a poet of a different and nobler description: in the class he has chosen, learning unfortunately is but wasted; and several imitators besides Mr. Hogg, doubtless much Mr. Scott's inferiors in every other respect, are not very far behind him in poetical excellence. Does not this fact of itself sufficiently shew, that productions of this species do not merit a rank superior to that which we have assigned them?

An "Advertisement" prefixed to the poem informs us, that it is partly founded on an incident recorded in the Scottish annals of the fourteenth century." We are not sufficiently acquainted with the chronicles of the north to be enabled to state in whose reign it occurred; and as from the beginning to the end Mr. Hogg gives no name to the King who is the hero of the story, we have no clue to guide us in a search, were we disposed to make one: the author, however, does speak of him as the Stuart, and he probably means Robert II. or John Robert, the latter of whom finished his reign in 1405, when James I. who for eighteen years was prisoner to Henry IV. and V. of England, came to the throne. It is the opinion of some of the Scottish historians, that James was the first of the family of Stuart; but on many accounts it is obvious, that he could not have

been an actor in the incident which this production details, and we did not know that Robert or John Robert were of such characters as to render it probable when related of them. But this is a point of little importance; and if Mr. Hogg had invented the whole fable, we should not have been disposed to complain of him.

The "Introduction" to Mador of the Moor contains an address to Scotland, in which the author had no doubt in his recollection the lines by Mr. Scott in the commence ment (if we recollect rightly) of the second Canto of the Lay of the last Minstrel. "Oh Caledonia! stern and wild," &c. Mr. Hogg then proceeds to state generally the nature of the story he is about to unfold.

"I cannot sing of Longcarty and Hay,

Nor long on deeds of death and danger dwell;
Of old Dunsinnan towers, or Birnam gray,
Where Canmore battled and the villain fell.

But list! I will an ancient story tell,
A tale of meikle woe and mystery,

Of sore mishaps that an Old Sire befel,
Wise Dame, and Minstrel of full high degree,
And visions of dismay, unfitting man to see.

And thou shalt hear of Maid, whose melting eye
Spoke to the heart what tongue could never say
A maid right gentle, frolicsome, and sly,

And blyth as lambkin on a morn of May;
Whose auburn locks, when waving to the day,

And lightsome form of sweet simplicity,

Stole many a fond unweeting heart away,
And held those hearts in pleasing slavery.

Woe that such flower should e'er by lover blighted be!
"But ween not thou that Nature's simple Bard
Can e'er unblemish'd character define;

True to his faithful monitor's award,

He paints her glories only as they shine.
Of men all pure, and maidens all divine,
Expect not thou his wild-wood lay to be;

But those whose virtues and defects combine,

Such as in erring man we daily see

The child of failings born, and scathed humanity."

The fable of the poem may be related in a very few words. Ila Moore, is the simple and beautiful daughter of Kincraigy, an honest rude Highland vassal; she is about to be married to Albert, the Laird under whom her father is

tenant. Shortly before the celebration of the nuptials, however, a merry minstrel, calling himself Mador of the Moor, takes up his abode for a few days with Kincraigy, and by his jollity and comely person, without much artifice, contrives to beguile the heart of Ila, whom he forsakes after she has reposed in him the last confidence of ardent love. Her father is driven from his farm by Albert, and takes shelter in a lonely miserable cottage, where his daughter is delivered of a boy. Ila, in despair at the disgrace and misery her imprudence has brought upon herself and her family, flies in search of the faithless Mador (who had promised to return and make her his wife) to the court of the King at Strevline. On her way she is aided by a palmer, whom she overtakes, and after her arrival, by the Abbot of Dumfirmline, who represents her story to the King, who, on the sudden (not hearing the names, and not remembering the precise circumstances), swears that the minstrel, whereever he be found, shall make the maid instant reparation. The Abbot then exhibits a silver ring which Mador had left with lla as a token, and conviction flashes upon the King that he is the man. The truth is, that King James, having been out on a hunting expedition, had by accident seen lla, and had become enamoured; for the purpose of accomplishing his desires, he took upon himself the disguise of a minstrel, and leaving his courtiers, assumed the name of Mador of the Moor. In the end, Ila is married to the King with all due solemnity, her child is of course legitimated and christened, and she becomes Queen of Scotland.

This story will call to the minds of such of our readers as are at all acquainted with old English poetry, several ancient ballads and other pieces founded upon very similar incidents, which seem to have been pretty familiar with our kings and nobles in uncivilized times. The short relation we have given, will serve as an outline to enable those who have not seen the poem before us, to fix upon the proper place for the quotations we shall make.

"Mador of the Moor" is divided into five parts-1. The Hunting; 2. The Minstrel; 3. The Cottage; 4. The Palmer; 5. The Christening. We were at first disposed to censure Mr. Hogg for the arrangement of his poem, and for introducing us, in the first instance, to King James pursuing the chase, because we were not aware of the connection of this part of the tale with the conclusion, and the way in which the whole story is conducted is very ingenious and