1817. Review.-Manfred. soul from ruin, religion-and the promise of redemption. This salvation Manfred is too far gone in anguish, sin, and insanity, to dare or wish to accept, and the Abbot leaves him in sullen and hopeless resignation to his doom. The conclusion of their colloquy is most impressive. Man "Look on me! there is an or- Of mortals on the earth, who do become ness Some of disease and some insanity- Man. " -Old man! I do respect Far more than me, in shunning at this time alone in the interior of the tower. "Manfred alone. I stood within the Coloseum's wall,, arches Waved dark in the blue midnight, and the stars Shone through the rents of ruin; from afar And dwell the tuneless birds of night, a- A grove which springs through levelled battlements, And twines its roots with the imperial Ivy usurps the laurel's place of growth; Grovel on earth in indistinct decay.- rule Our spirits from their urns. 1 "Twas such a night! "Tis strange that I recall it at this time; But I have found our thoughts take wildest flight, Even at the moment when they should array The Spirits enter, and while they are threatening to tear him into pieces, Manfred meets them with taunts and mockery, and suddenly falls back and We had intended making some obexpires in the arms of the Abbot. servations upon this extraordinary pro duction, but, to be intelligible, we could not confine them within the limits which necessity imposes. On some other occasion we may enter at length into the philosophy of the sub but we have given such an acject; count as will enable our readers to comprehend its general character. One remark we must make on the versification; though generally flowing, vigorous, and sonorous, it is too often slovenly and careless to a great degree; and there are in the very finest passages, so many violations of the plainest rules of blank verse, that we suspect Lord Byron has a very imper fect knowledge of that finest of all music, and has yet much to learn be fore his language can be well adapted 1to dramatic compositions. ANALYTICAL NOTICES. THE QUARTERLY REVIEW. No 32. 1. An Authentic Narrative of the Loss of the American Brig Commerce, wrecked on the western coast of Africa, in the month of August 1815, &c. By JAMES RILEY, late Master and Supercargo. The sufferings which Riley and his crew endured at the time of their shipwreck, and afterward, while they remained in captivity among the Arabs, were so severe, that the Reviewers would have felt inclined to withhold their belief from some parts of the narrative, if they had not been satisfied with regard to the writer's general veracity, from the well authenticated documents which they possess. Nothing can place in a stronger light the miserable condition to which these unfortunate men had been reduced, than the following extract from the narrative itself:- At the instance of Mr Willshire," (the British vice-consul at Mogadore, by whom they were ransomed), "I was weighed," says Riley, ""and fell short of ninety pounds, though my usual weight, for the last ten years, had been over two hundred and forty pounds; the weight of my companions was less than I dare to mention, for I apprehend it would not be believed, that the bodies of men, retaining the vital spark, should not weigh forty pounds!" This extraordinary emaciation was effected in about two months, the period which intervened from their shipwreck until they arrived at Mogadore, where every comfort was most humanely provided for them by the gentleman whom we have just mentioned. Were we not so posisitively assured by the Reviewers of Mr Riley's veracity, there are one or two points which might excuse a little scepticism; on one occasion, we read of an immediate interposition of Divine Providence in behalf of the desponding sufferers; and at another time, Riley, in a comfortable dream, saw a young man, who spoke to him in his own language, assuring him that he should again embrace his beloved wife and children, and whose features he afterwards recognized in Mr Willshire."The addition which Mr Riley has afforded to our information," say the Reviewers," respecting the geography and natural history of the great desert of Africa, amounts to very little, and that little not very accurate."—A large portion of this article is occupied with the travels of Sidi Hamet, Riley's master, who remained for a fortnight in Mr Willshire's house, and who, hesides entertaining them with an account of his expeditions to Tombuctoo, introduced them to the knowledge of a country to the south-east of it, wholly new to Europeans, containing the city of Wassanah, situated on the Niger, above sixty days journey from Tombuctoo, and twice its size. Upon the authority of the same traveller, the Reviewers proceed to offer some speculations regard, ing the course of the Niger. There is a strong presumption, they think, that the Niger, or Nile of the Negroes, has two courses, one from west to east, by Silla and Tombuctoo; the other from east to west, through Wangara, Ghana, and Kassina. This Sidi Hamet is altogether a very respectable sort of person. "Your friend," (Mr Willshire) said he to Riley at parting, "has fed me with milk and honey, and I will always in future do what is in my power to redeem Christians from slavery," a promise which, to a certain extent, he is known to have since performed. We have met with a gentleman belonging to the Surprise of Glasgow, to which the Reviewers allude, who gratefully acknowledges the personal kindness he received from Sidi Hamet in the deserts of Africa. 2. Ambrosian Manuscripts.-The Reviewers begin by discouraging the too sanguine expectations that have been entertained of the researches of antiquaries, in bringing to light the precious relics of Greek and Roman literature; and they then endeavour to account for the imperfect and mutilated state in which some of the ancient authors have come down to us. "The truth, after all," they say, "is, that of the Latin writers not many have perished whose loss we need greatly regret." The discoveries recently made by Mr Angiolo Mai, professor of the oriental languages in the Ambrosian library at Milan, consist of 1817. fragments of six orations of Cicero, and of eight speeches of Symmachus, -ninety-six Latin epistles to and from Fronto, with two books" de Orationibus," several fragments, and seven vepistles written in Greek,-fragments of Plautus, and some commentaries on Terence, the complete oration of Isæus, de hereditate Cleonymi, of which before we possessed about one-third, an oration of Themistius, and lastly, an epitome of part of the Antiquitates Romance of Dionysius Halicarnessensis, extending from the year of the city 315, to the year 685, which is valuable, inasmuch as this portion of the original work is not known to exist. We may judge of the labour which M. Mai has undergone in his researches, when we are told that all these relics (with the exception of the coration of Isæus) were elicited from what are called palimpsesti, or rescripti, that is, ancient MSS., which, from motives of economy, had been partly effaced, and then used by the Monks, in the middle ages, on which to transcribe the works of a very different description of writers. His discoveries, are curious and the Reviewers add, interesting to the classical antiquary, but they are not of that importance which the learned editor attaches to them; nor do they satisfy the expectations which the first intelligence of them had excited in our minds."-M. Mai is preparing for publication, a facsimile of a very ancient MS., containing about 800 lines of the Iliad, with da paintings illustrative of the descriptions of the poem. On one side of the leaf of this MS., which is of parchment, are the paintings, on the reverse the poetry; but this reverse had been covered with silk paper, on which are arlwritten some scholia, and the arguarments of some books of the Iliad. M. 97 Mai separated the paper from the 3o parchment, which last, he thinks, was written on at least 1400 years ago. Analytical Notices.-Quarterly Review. 4. Travels in Brazil. By HENRY KOSTER.This is a condensed, though to sometimes sufficiently minute, account, 297 of what the book contains. The Re- Praise is liberally bestowed years in the country; and they have displayed a singular degree of forbearance, in abstaining from all those speculations to which the scenes before them were so well calculated to lead,from all retrospect and anticipation, and, what was less to be expected perhaps from any thing like discussion, either religious or political.-For those general readers who have not access to the book itself, this article cannot fail to be a convenient substi tute. 5. The Veils, or the Triumph of Constancy. A Poem, in Six Books. By MISS PORDEN.-The Reviewers speak very highly of the author's powers of versification, but express their disapprobation of the manner in which she has chosen to exercise them. The poem is intended to display the "different energies of nature, exerted in producing the various changes which take place in the physical world, but personified and changed into the spirits of the Rosicrucian doctrine. A system which, as she observes, was introduced into poetry by Pope, and since used by Darwin in the Botanic Garden." The greater part of the critique is occupied with just animadversions on Darwin's personifications, so different from the tiny playful beings with whom we are so delighted in the Rape of the Lock." 6. Laou-sing-urh, or “ An Heir in his Old Age," a Chinese Drama. Translated from the Original Chinese by J. F. DAVIS, Esq. of Canton. This drama was written nearly 800 years ago, yet it is considered to be a true picture of Chinese manners and Chinese feelings at the present time. The Reviewers, though very moderate in their estimate of Chinese literature, are well pleased with this performance, of which, and of the theatrical exhibitions of China, this article contains a curious and amusing account. A poem called "London," written by a common Chinese, has been also translated by Mr Davis; and the specimen of it which the Reviewers furnish might have made a very respectable appearance among the least extravagant effusions of Gulliver, Nearly half the article is occupied, somewhat incongruously we conceive, with particulars regarding Lord Amherst's embassy, in which, however, we do not find any thing of importance that has not already appeared in the newspapers. It has failed, indeed, and yet in one sense it has not failed; for the refusal of our ambassador to submit to the degrading ceremonies of Chinese etiquette must give the celestial emperor a very high opinion of the English na tion: a most comfortable illustration of the well-known fable of the fox and the grapes. 7. Fragments on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening, &c. By H. REPTON, Esq.-The writer of this article must be deeply skilled in gardens--Italian, French, Spanish, Dutch, German, and Chinese and other Asiatic gardens, as well as with the ancient and modern style of landscape gardening in England; and also with all the writers on parterres and vistas, woods and lawns, and grottes, from the times of Virgil and Juvenal downwards. The book is said to be both interesting and entertaining. 8. Tules of my Landlord.This and the elder branches of the same family, in spite of the uncouthness of the lan guage of a great portion of them, even to Scotsmen, and the utter inability of the mere English reader to enter into the spirit of many of the most hu morous and characteristic representations, immediately upon their appear ance acquired, and continue to main tain, a degree of popularity to whichprobably no other works of the same class, and of the same dimensions, have ever attained. Yet in all these novels. there are faults or defects, which every one perceives upon a general survey of their texture, and every one forgets in? their perusal. It is one main object of the present article to explain the causes of this popularity, which many of their admirers are at some loss to account for; to show that the imper fection of the stories, and the want of interest in the principal characters, are more than compensated by the extraordinary attraction which their mys terious author has been able to give to the narrative, by his accurate and animated descriptions, and the truth and fidelity of his portraits. It was never doubted, in this part of the Island, that human beings had actually sat for these portraits, though there has certainly been much difference of opi nion about their originals; but it is truly mortifying to find a London Re viewer, even with the acknowledged assistance of his Scottish correspondo ents, coming forward to correct our land's late motion, some strictures on Santini's appeal, and a few remarks on the manuscrit, which, as is now very generally believed, is pronounced to be obviously a fabrication. The Reviewers are of opinion, that the public execution of Buonaparte, when he fell into the power of his conquer ors after the battle of Waterloo, would have been a great and useful act of justice; but that better and juster course being rejected, they strongly recommend that his allowance should be diminished,£4000 a-year they seem to think sufficient, and that further restrictions should be imposed, with a view to the more safe custody of his person. blunders, and dispel the obscurity, by presenting us with the prototypes of several of this author's principal characters. What if this singular person - should have the further presumption to try his hand, as a rival, at such a work himself? But though he is fond enough of finding fault, he seems, upon the whole, rather favourably disposed towards this fascinating writer, and, towards the conclusion of the article, endeavours to vindicate of Old Mortality" from some objections, to which our profound veneration for the sacred writings, and our respect for the memory of our persecuted ancestors, must find it but too much exposed. We have some doubts of the critic's accuracy, when he tells us, or at least insi-10. Report of the Secret Committee: nuates, that the f indulged" ministers and their adherents formed by far the most numerous body of the Presbyte rians of the period to which that tale refers; and we are not quite convinced that the present church of Scotland can, with any degree of propriety, be called the legitimate representative of the indulged clergy of the days of Charles II. But these inaccuracies (if they are so) may be easily excused in a writer belonging to the English church, as this Reviewer, from his residence in the south, most probably is, and of course but imperfectly acquainted with those parts of our church history, to which it did not perhaps fall within the province of his Scottish correspondents to direct his attention. This article is, after all, very curious, shrewd, and entertaining; and from its concluding paragraph, about the "transatlantico confessions," and the mistake of Claverhouse's men in taking the one brother for the other, we cannot help suspecting that the "gifted seers," whom our mighty minstrel so well commemorates, are not exclusively confined to the north side of the Tweed, and that Johnson might have found the second sight nearer home than the Hebrides. on all yo svitern and concludes with poignant ani madversions on several of our present political writers. The main source of popular disaffection must be sought in religious toleration (if we rightly understand the tendency of the reato soning), of which so many different bodies of dissenters have availed themselves to separate from the Church of England;" for certain it is," says the reviewer," that monarchy and episcopacy, the throne and the altar, are much more nearly connected than writers of bad faith, or little reflec tion, have sought to persuade man19. Santini's Appeal,-Montholon's Letter to Sir Hudson Lowe,-Barnes kind." This article may be considered Tour through St Helena, and Manu-bno slight auxiliary to the well known scrit venu de St Helene. The prin letter of Lord Sidmouth, so unjustly cipal contents of this article are, a se censured by those whose motives this vere censure of the treaty of Fon-profound writer has developed in a very tainebleaug by which Bonaparte was masterly style. We are indebted, as he sent tool Elba, an examination ofwell observes, to the English Bishops Montholon's letter, with notices of for the revolution in 1688, and for all' Lord Bathurst's speech on Lord Holanthe blessings which we now enjoy, 100 1999 Dawrot gaizto 29 11 199gewen en berge the |