Her virgin waxen arms were precious bands Fair Politure walk'd all her body over, Soft and white Sweetness was her native cover, From heav'n to earth, from head to foot I mean, This was the first-born Queen of Gallantry, Who, when she was presented to their view, Phoebus, who rode in glorious scorn's career And clearer wash him in the western main. The smiling Air was tickled with his high A body soft, and sweet, and chaste as his. All odorous gales that had but strength to stir The marygold her garish love forgot, The sturdiest trees affected by her dear The influence of her looks; for having let Their song fall down, their eyes on her they set." Canto VIII. opens thus. Sage Nature, how profound is thy discretion, By seasonable useful intermission! Thou lett'st us feel the want, to learn the price; When night's blind foot hath smeared heav'ns face, the day' When winter's churlish months are thawn away, When æstuating in her mighty toil The sea has wrought up to her highest shore, Back to that rest wherein they swum before. Yet sleep the gentlest of thy blessings is, When trees all summer have been labouring hard Down to the root straight sinks the tired sap, When rivers many tedious months have run This locks them up in glass, and makes them rest Yet other creatures little find in sleep Which they themselves perceive not when they reap: That sleep itself can be awake to him, And entertain him with some courteous dream. O sweet prerogative! by which we may The universe, and turn our work to play; No outward object's importuning rout And scorning Contradiction's laws, at ease Of nothing makes what worlds herself doth please. Nor is the body more befriended than The soul, in sound digestion's work, by sleep : This is the undisturbed season when The mind has leisure to concoct that heap In this soft calm, when, all alone, the heart Those blessed visions which pose the best Of waking eyes, whose day is quench'd with night Our readers will agree with us that there is much valuable poetical matter here; and since the work is of so truly a Retrospective cast, since it contains so much of what is good, buried among so much that is obsolete, we propose to deviate from our ordinary plan, and to carry on our extracts in a future Number. Forty thousand lines are a large field for a botanist of any taste or industry-Our collection of flowers has far exceeded the compass of any reasonable anthological bouquet. ART. VII.-Fynes Moryson's Itinerary: or Ten Years' Travells through Great Britain and other parts of Europe. Folio, Part I. pp. 295. Part II. pp. 301. Part III. pp. 292. London, 1617. To the enlightened and sincere friend of the improvement of his fellow creatures, no inquiries can be so attractive and encouraging as those which enable him to mark their progress, at different periods, in knowledge, civilization, and happiness.Such inquiries it is the peculiar nature and recommendation of our Review to enable him to make and to satisfy. We point out, by the books we notice, what was known and thought, the state of the imagination, judgment, and reasoning powers,-the condition of mankind, half a century, a century, or two centuries ago, and thus furnish materials, at once amusing and instructive, for the study to which we have alluded. The contrast between the most highly improved nation, and one in a state of native barbarism and ignorance, may made, either by looking to examples of each, at present existing, or by comparing the former powers, with what it was in remote periods of its history, But the conviction, that mankind is in a regular state of improvement will be impressed much more deeply by the latter method: this enables us to prove the actual fact, as well as to trace the times and many of the causes of the various stages of improvement. Britain, as it is at present, we see gradually rising out of the barbarism and ignorance in which Cæsar found it, and we can lay our fingers on most of the influential causes of this advancement. Whereas, we find it difficult to foresee or to imagine when, or by what causes, the degraded people of Asia or Africa, or the savages of America, will receive even the first permanent impulse towards civil and political knowledge and happiness. History gives us little information on this interesting subject: it is too much occupied with less pleasant and instructive topics: glimpses of the state of the great bulk of mankind may, indeed, appear in its pages, but they are not of such duration, extent, or minuteness, as to be of much service in this inquiry. Books of travels afford the most ample and satisfactory materials he who reads a chronological series of travels in any country will receive information on this subject, at once the most to the point, and the most amusing. After rising from a perusal of the most ancient, and the most recent travels in China and Hindostan, he will be puzzled to assign to each its respective era, such a close and striking resemblance will be found between the pictures they respectively exhibit, of the inhabitants of these countries. It is unnecessary to multiply examples of the series of lessons that may be drawn from books of travels chronologically read. There is, however, one fact such a course of study will make us acquainted with, to which we must advert. If we peruse travels in Britain, France, Germany, or almost any other country in Europe, of a more remote date than a century or a century and a half, we shall be struck with the precedency in knowledge, comfort, and most kinds of improvement of almost every European nation over Britain.— This precedency seems to have remained till the commencement of the last century: then our country began to approach very close to the most improved continental states: she soon came up with them; then passed them, and, within the last fifty years, her superiority has advanced in the most rapid and astonishing manner. We know no subject so full of materials, at once interesting and instructive, as the contrast between Britain and its inhabitants at the beginning of the reign of George III., and at the beginning of the reign of our present sovereign. Modern travellers possess several advantages over their predecessors; they can and ought to bring more science to their task. Hence, on all topics connected with science, especially natural history, modern travels must be infinitely more instructive: they are also superior in statistical information, and consequently unfold, more completely, the sources of national and individual wealth. But we doubt much, whether, in any other respect, modern travellers can be compared to their predecessors. They do not take so much time or pains; their objects are too various: they do not go into those minute details, furnished by old books of travels, from which the most accurate and complete picture of manners, and the state of society, may be drawn. We know much better from modern than from old travels, the plants, animals, minerals, geology, agriculture, manufactures, and commerce of Germany, but we question extremely, whether the latter do not introduce us to a more intimate and familiar acquaintance with the Germans themselves. We speak advisedly, and within bounds, when we assert, that Fynes Moryson's work need not dread a comparison with any other book of travels, so far as amusing and instructive details, regarding manners, and the state of society, are concerned. There is, indeed, in his bulky volume, much that, to modern readers, is useless or uninteresting, and one portion that belongs to history and not to travels; but we cannot read many pages without being satisfied, that he was quick at observation, and that he had the faculty of selecting the most characteristic particulars of each nation, and of giving them with graphic force and liveliness. |