the Committee ventured to doubt the accuracy of these asseverations. A friend of Mr. Clarkson had once met with a person who had been up the rivers, but knew nothing more of him, not even his name, than that he was going to some king's ship lying up in ordinary in some port. With this slender intelligence Mr. C. determined to board every ship in ordinary in every port in the kingdom, for the purpose of examining every person who had been in the trade, so as to discover the unknown individual. He examined all the ships at Deptford, Woolwich, Chatham, Sheerness, and Portsmouth, amounting to above two hundred and sixty vessels, without obtaining any intelligence of this important person. He was not disheartened. "There was but one port left, and this between two and three hundred miles distant," to which however he immedi ately repaired; and in the fifty-seventh vessel he boarded in Plymouth harbour, the Melampus frigate, he discovered this precious witness, Isaac Parker, who fully confirmed the suspicions of the committee, that all the slaves obtained were actually kidnapped.--We unwillingly omit the account of his severe nervous illness, and the distressing circumstances that induced it (p. 459); but we must not neglect to state that the distance he travelled in search of evidence, and chiefly by night, amounted to more than thirty five thousand miles, which is nearly once and a half the earth's circumference. It will easily be perceived that a man like this must be the most interesting character in any book narrating the history of the Abolition. He has given a model to future times; he has dignified our common nature; he has exemplified that wondrous energy of mind, which a contemporary Essayist has extolled with congenial eloquence. And his reward even here is proportionate to his labours; in his feelings and his health he has suffered more than others, and his exultation will be the more rapturous. In proportion to his anguish for the oppression of his brethren, will be his gratitude for their deliverance; and if his nights and days have been afflicted in their afflictions, his slumbers will now be sweeter than those of other men, from the reflection that the sleep of Africa will no more be murdered, and the beams of morning will shine on him with augmented radiance, as he considers that they shine too on an ocean disburthened at length, and principally by his own exertions, from the commerce in human blood, and the dungeons of cruelty and despair, A few plates are introduced in these volumes, representing the section of a slave-ship with its cargo, the instruments of torture used by captains in the Guinea-trade, and other subjects connected with the work. Art. XII. The Highlanders, and other Poems. By Mrs. Grant, Laggant 12mo. pp. 300. Price 7s. Longman, and Co. 1808. FROM having read this lady's very interesting 'Letters from the Mountains,' we opened her volume of poems with very favourable and unavoidable predisposition. This, however, could not have preserved our complacency through so long a course of verses, if they had not possessed intrinsic qualities adapted to please independently of all foreign impressions; and we have read them with much of this sentiment. The author's mind is highly congenial with the spirit and all the best attri butes of poetry; the scenes and migrations of her earlier life tended to prompt her genius in this direction, and supplied to her many rich materials; and the long systematic application to study, for which her ample domestic concerns would not allow the requisite leisure, would have raised her to a high rank among the contemporary poets. Her imagination is always animated and not unfrequently sublime; and her sentiments alternate between a gaiety which will exhilarate, and a pensiveness which will soften, every reader of sensibility. The general character of her language is elegance, often of that natural kind which results solely from the author's own living feelings and good taste, occasionally of that rather too artificial kind, which is so easily acquired even by a person of no genius in the school of Pope. It will be of course presumed that the moral tendency of her poems is in general excellent; but we must altogether disapprove of the more than lenient extenuating manner in which she has commiserated the depravity of Burns. The idolatry which she acknowledges to genius is carried somewhat too far, when the moralist is by implication warned to be silent on the drunkenness, the pro faneness, and the debauchery, of a clever young man who had wit and could make admirable verses, by the observation that the stupid and selfish are no judges of the dangers that environ the children of genius; who pass through a deceitful world with open arms stretched out to embrace all that solicit compassion, and offer gratification; and whose naked hearts, overflowing with kindness and good will, are unprotected from treachery and temptation.' Beside the unaccountable mistake of describing, in such terms, a man who had amidst his pro fligacy so much sagacity, slyness, and satire, we must observe that it is of most immoral tendency thus to insinuate an apology for the basest vices of men of genius, from the consideration of their possessing fine sensibility and glowing pas sions. The principal poem in the volume is the Highlanders, which abounds with beautiful descriptions, and very interesting sketches of the life and manners of those mountaineers. is every where apparent that the author has viewed with the eye and imagination of a poet al the beautiful and all the tremendous appearances of the romantic region, and entered with the most animated sympathy into all the ideas and passions of the inhabitants. And really nothing can well be more striking, than the contrast between such a state of society and that which we are accustomed to witness in this.country. Under the fascination of her poetry, we feel something like a conge. nial admiration of so much vigour, and energy, and simplicity, and attachment to the spot which has been consecrated by the abode of revered ancestors. But when we become cool again, we cannot help perceiving that the life of the Highlanders is a most miserable struggle of endless toil against hopeless poverty; nor can we at all coincide with their regrets, or those of our author, for the necessary emigration of so many of these hardy and adventurous labourers to the far more fruitful regions of the Ohio. It is very interesting to read such a lively narrative of the adventures of the Pretender in 1746; it is as a story of most remarkable events and escapes that it interests us; for we do not in the smallest degree partake of that affectionate partiality for the wanderer which our poet seems to feel. Placing totally out of the account all consideration about claims to the throne, we can feel nothing but detestation for a person, who can come to a peaceful and well-governed country to excite tumults which he knows must be bloody and destructive beyond all calculation. The following extract, though by no means an unfavourable one, will not perhaps convey an adequate idea of the merits of the principal poem. The wished Repast the weary inmates cheers, What bounding deer and fluttering game they trac'd, That brings the long-lost brother back again Not all the magic cunning of the scene, Which bids the energetic soul aspire, Like the clear flames that light the frozen zone, Now all the household with due reverence kneel, They drown their toils in sweet oblivious rest. p. 32. The Letter in prose to Mr. Arbuthnot, on the authenticity of the Ossian poems, is in Mrs. G.'s best manner. It is on her compositions in this form that she must depend, as she justly may, for popularity and enduring fame; and notwithstanding the merit of this work, we shall be still more gratified to receive her promised Memoirs of an American lady, with Sketches of Manners and Scenery in America, as they existed previous to the Revolution," than a new volume of poems. Art. XIII. The Gospel best promulgated by National Schools. A Sermox. preached in the Cathedral Church of St Peter, York, before the Hon. Sir Alan Chambre, Knight, one of the Justices of the Court of King's Bench; and the Hon. Sir George Wood, Knight, one of the Barons of the Exchequer; July 31, 1808. By the Rev. Francis Wrangham, M. A. F. R. S. of Trinity College, Cambridge. Published at the request of the High Sheriff, and the Gentlemen of the Grand Jury. 4to. pp. 55. Price 3s. 6d. Wilson, York; Mawman. 1808. TH HIS Sermon is a sort of Supplement to that which Mr. Wrangham delivered at the Lent Assizes on the support afforded by Christianity to the national laws (Ecl. Rev. Vol. IV. 464); and the verse following the text of the former discourse is adopted for the present, Deut. iv. 9. A character nearly identical is applicable to both: they are distinguished by a sound theology, liberality of sentiment, just observation, and a very glowing though not blameless style. Mr. W. is a zealous advocate of a national system of education, and he seems to have given his entire approbation to Mr. Whitbread's bill. He draws a striking contrast between the instructed and illiterate youth; and cites as general examples in fayour of education the superior morality of the lower classes in Switzerland and Scotland. He justly enforces the necessity of including religious instruction among the requisites in a national system of education, and pleads for the adoption of the church catechism, in opposition to the idle cant about uncontroverted doctrines," 66 The Atonement in particular, (he observes) which may be denominated the peculiar characteristic of the Gospel, as it's acceptance or rejection seems to ratify or to annul the covenant sealed upon the Cross, should be invariably kept in sight. That it should ever have been left out of sight, indeed, must appear extraordinary to those, who have read their Bibles, and learned not to think above that which is written. For if we analyse the Christian dispensation-it's forerunners, it's objects, and it's accompanimentsas delivered in the Sacred Records, we find every thing converging to one brilliant centre; Adam, Abraham, Jacob, Moses, history, prophecy type, ceremony-all pointing to one refulgent personage, and all proclaiming Him, with the convinced Apostle, their Lord and their God. Angels announced his conception, celebrated his nativity, ministered to his necessities: Upon Mount Tabor he assumed the glory of the Godhead, and when he expired upon Mount Calvary, the wail of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom, and the earth did quake, and the rocks were rent, and the graves were opened, and many bodies of the saints which slept rose! And was all this magnificent, all this tremendous machinery set in motion-by Him too, in whose works means and ends are strictly commensuratee-was this globe convulsed throughout it's depths, and were yon skies clad. in preternatural mourning, simply to mark the decease of a prophet? Yea, I say unto you, and more than a prophet. Away then with the audacious theories, which would despoil Christianity of the Deity of it's founder, of it's propitiatory sacrifice, of it's great and blessed scheme of mediation; divest it of it's consolation; extinguish in short all it's bright beams of heaven, and present it to it's dejected fol lowers as a system only of cold and inefficient morality, introduced into the world with an idle and ostentatious display of the interposing Divimity! pp. 27-28. Part of this paragraph is indistinctly ascribed to Dr. Symmons; it strongly reminds us of an admirable sermon of Massillon's.toned Instead of quoting more freely, as we could wish to do, from this ser mon, we insert the author's vindication of himself from the encomium of Major Scott Waring. Mr. Scott Waring, in one of his many late pamphlets has represent ed me as contending, that the conversion of the heathens should be reserved exclusively for the members of the Established Church. With a full conviction of the superiority of her creed to that of those who dis sent from her, I should regard myself as grossly illiberal and contemptibly irrational, if I were really guilty of the opinion imputed to mes Quocunque modo rem, if I may interpret rem of the propagation of Chris✩ tianity, will I trust ever be my motto; or, to quote from a higher autho rity than that of Horace, Every way, whether in pretence or in truth, Christ is preached; and I therein do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice. p. 34. i A large collection of notes, on various subjects, is subjoined to the ser mon; and a curious and learned Appendix is added on the famous Numher 666, which Mr. W. finds in the generic term Azola775+ |