Death would grafp with icy hand
"And drag thee to our grizly band-
Away! the fable pall I fpread,
"And give to reft th' unquiet dead-
"Hafte! ere its horrid shroud enclofe

"Thy form, benumb'd with wild affright,
"And plunge thee far thro' waftes of night,
"In yon black gulph's abhorr'd repofe !"
As ftarting at each step, I fly,

Why backward turns my frantic eye,
That clofing portal paft?-

Two fullen fhades, half-feen, advance!-
On me a blafting look they caft,
And fix my view with dang'rous spells,
Where burning frenzy dwells!-

Again! their vengeful look-and now a fpeechlefs

Among the more striking beauties of this poem, we must particularly notice (in the firft ftanza) the invocation of the forms to interrupt the dreadful filence of the scene-the bold image in the 3d ftanza, their glaring look is cold.' In the 6th stanza, the pathetic idea of the infant telling his abfent mother his diftress and, in the 8th, the description of a mother and her infants perifhing with hunger, and the freezing power of fixed defpair. A wildness and horror run through this whole piece, which arreft the Reader's imagination, and chill the heart with "grateful terrors."

Thefe volumes are published under the patronage of a very numerous and refpectable lift of fubfcribers.

ART. IX. An Ode to Superftition with fome other Poems. 4to. Is. 6d. Cadell: 1786.

IN

N thefe pieces we perceive the hand of an able mafter. The Ode to Superftition is written with uncommon boldness of imagery, and ftrength of diction. The Author has collected fome of the moft ftriking hiftorical facts, to illuftrate the tyranny of the dæmon he addreffes, and has exhibited them with the fire and energy proper to lyric poetry. The following stanzas are particularly excellent:

Mona, thy Druid rites awake the dead!

Rites thy brown oaks would never dare

E'en whisper to the idle air;

Rites that have chain'd old Ocean on his bed.

Shiver'd by thy piercing glance,

Pointless falls the hero's lance.

Thy magic bids th' imperial eagle fly,

And mars the laureate wreath of victory.

Hark, the bard's foul infpires the vocal string!

At ev'ry paufe dread Silence hovers o'er: Rav. July, 1786.

E

While

While murky Night fails round on raven wing,
Deepening the tempeft's howl, the torrent's roar ;
Chas'd by the morn from Snowdon's awful brow,

- Where late fhe fat and fcowl'd on the black wave below.

Lo, fteel-clad War his gorgeous ftandard rears! *The red-crofs fquadrons madly rage,

And mow thro' infancy and age;

Then kifs the facred duft and melt in tears.
Veiling from the eye of day,

Penance dreams her life away;

In cloyfter'd folitude fhe fits and fighs,

While from each fhrine ftill small refponfes rife.
Hear, with what heart-felt beat, the midnight bell
Swings its flow fummons thro' the hollow pile!
The weak wan votarift leaves her twilight cell,
To woo, with taper dim, the winding ifle;
With choral chantings, vainly to aspire

Beyond this nether sphere, on Rapture's wing of fire."

The picture of night at the end of the first of these stanzas is highly poetical: in the fecond, the gloom of cloyftered folitude is well reprefented.

The following Elegy is harmonious and tender:

The Sailor fighs as finks his native shore,

As all its leffening turrets bluely fade;
He climbs the maft to feaft his eye once more,
And bufy fancy fondly lends her aid.

Ah! now, each dear domestic scene he knew,
Recall'd and cherish'd in a foreign clime,
Charms with the magic of a moon-light view,
Its colours mellow'd, not impair'd, by time.
True as the needle, homeward points his heart,
Thro' all the horrors of the ftormy main;

This, the last wifh with which its warmth could part,
To meet the smile of her he loves again.
When morn first faintly draws her filver line,
Or eve's grey cloud defcends to drink the wave;
When fea and fky in midnight darkness join,
Still, ftill he views the parting look she gave.

* This remarkable event happened at the fiege and fack of Jerufalem, in the last year of the eleventh century, when the triumphant croifes, after every enemy was fubdued and flaughtered, immediately turned themselves, with the fentiments of humiliation and contrition, towards the holy fepulchre. They threw afide their arms, ftill ftreaming with blood. They advanced with reclined bodies, and naked feet, to that facred monument: they fung anthems to their Saviour who had purchased their falvation by his death and agony; and their devotion, enlivened by the prefence of the place where he had suffered, so overcame their fury, that they diffolved in tears, and bore the appearance of every soft and tender sentiment.'

HUME, I. 221.

Her

Her gentle fpirit, lightly hov'ring o'er,
Attends his little bark from pole to pole;
And, when the beating billows round him roar,
Whispers sweet hope to footh his troubled foul.
Carv'd is her name in many a spicy grove,
In many a plantain foreft, waving wide,
Where dufky youths in painted plumage rove,
And giant palms o'er-arch the yellow tide.
But lo, at laft he comes with crowded fail!
Lo, o'er the cliff what eager figures bend!
And hark, what mingled murmurs fwell the gale!
In each he hears the welcome of a friend.

'Tis fhe, 'tis fhe herfelf! fhe waves her hand!
Soon is the anchor cast, the canvas fufl'd;

Soon thro' the milk-white foam he fprings to land,
And clafps the maid he fingled from the world.'.

The reft of thefe pieces have the fame character of chafte and claffical elegance.

ART. X. Sunday Schools recommended, in a Sermon preached at St. Alphage, Canterbury, December 18, 1785. By George Horne, D.D. Dean of Canterbury, and Prefident of Magdalen College, Oxford. With an Appendix concerning the Method of forming and conducting an Establishment of this Kind. Published for the Benefit of a Sunday School. 4to. Is. Robinsons, &c. 1786. T muft afford great pleasure to the friends of religion and public order, to obferve the rapid progrefs of an inftitution, fo pregnant with benefit both to individuals and fociety, as that of Sunday Schools. The Author of this Sermon has faid fo many excellent things on the fubject, that we shall make no apology for giving it a larger fhare of our attention, than we ufually allow to occafional difcourfes.

Dr. Horne opens his Sermon (on Pfalm xxxiv. 11.) with this judicious obfervation :

It is one mark of that wifdom by which the world is governed, that the affiftance afforded is proportioned to the neceffities of the times wherein fuch affiftance is called for. When the darkness which covers a land becomes fo thick as to make men despair of its removal, light fhall fuddenly arife from an unexpected quarter; fmall, indeed, and scarce difcernible, at firft; but gently and gradually increafing, till the darkness vanishes, and the perfect day is formed. When corruption of one kind or other has in fuch a manner overspread the face of religion, that its features are fcarcely any longer to be dif tinguished, a reforming hand fhall appear, to do away the foil contracted in a course of ages, and restore the picture to its original beauty.'

On the prefent corrupt ftate of manners, and the profpect of reformation which arifes from the inftitution of Sunday Schools, our Author fays:

• The

The matter is, however, of late come home to our bufinefs and our bofoms." A lawless tribe of profligate, defperate, unfeeling villains have broken loofe upon the Public, to rob, to maim, and to murder; fo that we can no longer travel with comfort upon the road, or fleep with fecurity in our beds. Numbers of thefe wretches are from time to time apprehended, and crowded together in prifons; from whence fome come forth again to make fresh ravages in fociety, tenfold more the children of hell (if poffible), than they went in; while others furnish out mournful and horrible executions of twenty or thirty at a time, to the astonishment of the kingdoms around us, and our own hame and confufion of face. How happens it, fay foreigners to our countrymen, when upon their travels abroad-how happens it, that under a conftitution, of which you boaft, as the glory of the world, monthly fcenes are exhibited, which would fhock the minds of Turks and Tartars? This is a queftion more easily afked, than answered. The fact, alas, is certain; and even the public prints begin to exclaim, that there is no police amongst us, no remedy for thefe disorders; and, in fhort, that all is over.

But let us not by any means defpair. This would only make bad worse. If we once bring ourfelves to fancy that no remedy can be found, no remedy ever will be found, for none will ever be fought. Dark as the profpect was, a ray of light has broken in upon it, and that from an unexpected quarter. An inftitution has been fet on foot by a private individual, to the excellency of which every man who loves his country muft rejoice to bear his teftimony. From fmall beginnings it has increased and diffused itself in a wonderful manner; and if it be generally taken up through the kingdom, especially in the metropolis, with the fame zeal and judgment which have been fhewn in the management of it among you, the fagacity of the wifeft cannot foresee how much good may in the end be done by it, and how far it may go towards faving a great people from impending ruin. At the moment in which I am fpeaking, not lefs than one hundred thousand pupils are faid to be in training under its care. There may foon be ten times that number; and if it finally fucceed with half thefe, five hundred thoufand honeft men and virtuous women, duly mingled in the mafs of the community, will make a great alteration. In the cafe of good as well as bad, a little leaven (and this can hardly be called a little) leaveneth the whole lump."

After feveral general but important obfervations on the expediency of attending to the morals of the common people, the beneficial effects to be expected from Sunday Schools are thus explained:

It is to be obferved, then, firft, that when the managers of all other charitable foundations have done their beft, numbers of children muft ftill be left in ignorance, being employed, from morning to evening, during fix days of the week, and all little enough, to earn the bread they are to eat. Their cafe therefore is defperate, unless we contrive to give them on a Sunday that inftruction which they can obtain on no other day.

II. By appropriating the charitable fund to the ufe of Sunday alone, numbers may be comprehended (perhaps all the poor children

in a place) who ftand in need of fuch affiftance: whereas a very few only could be benefited, at the fame expence, for the whole week.

III. Sunday being a day of reft from the labour of the hands, from worldly bufinefs of all forts (for fuch it ought to be among Chriftians), we are the more at liberty to employ it in the opening of the understanding, and improvement of the heart, which is the proper employment of the day. And blessed are they who do fo employ the hours which remain, after the attendance on public worship is over. One of the great lights of the law, in the last century, Lord Chief Juftice Hale, went fo far as to fay, and has left it upon record, in his inftructions to his children, that he never failed to experience the kindly influence of a well-fpent Sunday on the bufinefs of the fucceeding week. He fuppofed (and I know of no good reason to be given why we fhould fuppofe otherwife) that, by the devout exercifes of fuch a Sunday, the mind and the temper were formed and prepared to encounter the fatigues and difficulties which might occur; as alfo, that the favour of heaven was a natural confequence of having kept its commandments. Give me leave therefore to take this oppor tunity of intreating you to confider, whether the face of things' would not be very foon, and very much altered for the better among us, if each mafter of a family fhould refolve to inftitute a kind of SUNDAY SCHOOL (if I may fo fpeak) in his own house, and dedicate the evening of the Lord's day to the inftruction of his children and his fervants in matters of religion. I am not pleading for a Jewish or a puritanical Sabbath; for a four face, or an ill temper. But it feems reasonable, that one evening, at least, out of feven, fhould be given to this good and neceffary work, and that Sunday. evening fhould be fixed upon, for unless fome time be fixed upon, the work will never be done at all. A man may live fifty years,, perhaps, without once recollecting, that it is his duty to take this care of the household over which it has pleafed God to place him.

IV. By a SUNDAY SCHOOL a number of children are kept out of harm's way; they are collected together, and inured to early and regular habits of attendance on God's worship; they are inftructed in what is right; they are enabled to employ well their leisure hours, when they grow up; and teach others after them to do the fame. Let me fay, that thefe are very great points gained indeed! For though the obfervation be trite, it is true, and cannot be too often repeated; that most of thofe unhappy wretches, who fuffer for their crimes, when they come to confeflion, charge their deftruction uponthe manner in which, in the days of their youth, they mif-fpent Sunday, while their neighbours were at church. And how can it be otherwife? What wonder that they fhould turn out bad, who conftantly miffed the opportunities (the only ones, it may be, which they had) of becoming good? The thing fpeaks itself. And in confirmation of what was faid above refpecting families, let it here be added, that more young people of either fex, fervants efpecially, are ruined by being permitted to wander abroad, instead of being well em-ployed at home on a Sunday evening, than on any other. The reafon again is plain; becaufe on that evening, for want of the dif cipline in families above recommended, there is a far greater number.

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