Let me thy simple glances meet Not that along the wintry shore The peasant piles the labour'd grain, But, when to wrongs thy sufferings lead, SELECTIONS. From "Poems by James Montgomery." THE OCEAN. Written at Scarborough, in the Summer of 1806. ALL hail to the ruins, the rocks and Thou wide-rolling OCEAN, all hail! dimpled with oars, And the silver-wing'd sea-fowl on high, Like foam on the surges, the swans of From the tumult and smoke of the city With eager and awful delight, Scarboro' Castle. CAMBRIA. I gaze, and am changed at the sight; My soul, like the sun, with a glance From the day-darting zone to the night- My spirit descends where the dayspring is born, Where the billows are rubies on fire, Are sweet as the Phonix's pyre: When pure was her heart, and un- But now the fair rivers of Paradise wind Through countries and kingdoms o'erthrown; Its mildewing influence sheds ; The birds on the wing, and the flowers By their Maker Himself in his anger in their beds, Are slain by its venomous breath, While their mouldering skeletons whi ten the ground. Ah! why hath JEHOVAH, in forming the world, With the waters divided the land, His ramparts of rocks round the continent hurl'd, And cradled the deep in his hand? And leap o'er the bounds of his birth Distinct as the billows, yet one as the sea! There are, gloomy OCEAN! a brotherless clan, Who traverse thy banishing waves, The poor disinherited outcasts of man, Whom Avarice coins into slaves; From the homes of their kindred, their forefathers' graves, Love, friendship, and conjugal bliss, They are dragg'd on the hoary abyss ; The shark hears their shrieks, and ascending to-day, Demands of the spoiler his share of the prey. Then joy to the tempest that whelms them beneath, And makes their destruction its sport! But woe to the winds that propitiously breathe, And, waft them in safety to port! Where the vultures and vampires of Mammon resort; destroy'd. But the cries of the fatherless mix with her praise, And the tears of the widow are shed on her bays! "Love led the wild hordes in his flower-woven bands, The tenderest, the strongest of chains! Love married our hearts, he united our hands, O Britain! dear Britain! the land of And mingled the blood in our veins ; my birth! O Isle, most enchantingly fair! sprung; Its boughs with their trophies are hung; Their spirit dwells in it :—and hark ! for it spoke; The voice of our Fathers ascends from their oak. "Ye Britons! who dwell where we conquer'd of old, Who inherit our battle-field graves; Though poor were your Fathers,-gigantick and bold, We were not, we would not be slaves; But firm as our rocks, and as free as our waves, The spears of the Romans we broke, -The world was great Cæsar's-but "For ages and ages, with barbarous foes, rush'd from their den ; We taught them, we tamed them, we turn'd them to men. One race we became :-on the mountains and plains Where the wounds of our country were closed, The Ark of Religion reposed, The unquenchable Altar of Liberty blazed, And the Temple of Justice in Mercy was raised. A Song; altered from a German air, in the opera of Die Zauberlôte." A CARELESS, whistling Lad am I, The thrush and linnet in the vale, The sweet sequester'd nightingale, The bullfinch, wren, and woodlark, all Obey my summons when I call : To catch the coy, coquetting fair, When all were mine,-among the I'd choose the Lass I liked the best, 592 THE BOSTON REVIEW. NOVEMBER, 1806. Neque ulli patientius Librum tuum legi & quam diligentissime potui annotavi, quæ commutanda, que eximenda, arbitrarer. Nam ego dicere vero assuevi. reprehenduntur, quain qui maxime laudari merentur.—PLINY. "The THIS volume is introduced by a letter from a friend, who condemns the whole mass of American poetry in a manner, which gives us reason to expect, that the translator is to appear elevated far above the common herd, and to stand forth as the deliverer of the American Muse from that state of durance and abjection, in which she has so long remained. Conquest of Canaan, GreenfieldHill, Me Fingal, The Vision of Columbus, and The Progress of Genius," are among the works which inçur his censure. "These and others which might be cited, he remarks, lived very harmlessly, and suffered little injury; they offended no one, and no person felt disposed to offer violence to them; and as they lived peaceably, so they died quietly. Let us not therefore presume to trouble their repose." "The Power of Solitude" has not escaped our epistolary critick. But, however faulty the passage he has selected for his remarks, the reader will not think his apprehension, lest he should appear somewhat hypercritical," altogether groundless. We could say something in praise of Mc Fingal and the Vision of Columbus, were this the place to appear as their advocates. We could say much of the peculiar propriety of denouncing such performances in a preliminary epistle to one of the humbler satires of Juvenal, and some smaller poems, not more in bulk, than a few columns of an ordinary newspaper would afford. We could say still more of the modesty of the author in admitting this rude and indiscriminate attack upon his prede cessors and superiours. But this modern Achilles is not rendered altogether invulnerable by the waters of adulation, in which, through paternal (we presume) rather than parental tenderness, he has been faithfully immersed. Nor has this process given him that confidence in his own prowess which it seems designed to have afforded. He has generally yielded the precedency to Mr.Gifford, and he has not been scrupulous in following his interpretations, and frequently borrowing his rhymes, and copying his verses with little variation of lan guage. From a very cursory comparison of the two translations we have selected a few, out of numerous examples, to evince the correctness of our assertions. At fally's whims their hands applauding raise. Anonymous. v. 156. At deeds of shame their hands admiring raise. GIFFORD. 163. Undoubting, throws away, These, forsooth, can fling away Quit, quit those benches, angry Lectius Those benches are the knights', nay, Up, up! those cushion'd benches, Lec- Are not for such as you; for shame! arise. The chances of the town then all bewail, When all at fires with double hatred rail. Still flames the pile, when lo! the flat- And pour their riches to supply the waste. All join to wail the city's hapless fate, And rail at fire with more than common hate. Lo! while it burns the obsequious courtiers haste With rich materials to repair the waste. To rail at fires must be somewhat awkward and uncomfortable; and the declaimer, who should be overheard reproaching with insolence the aspiring flames, instead of using his exertions to extinguish them, would do it at the hazard of being ridiculous. A sweet retreat at smaller cost than here Some elegant retreat for what will here year. Farewell, my friend Anon. 465. with this em brace we part; Cherish my memory ever in your heart. GIF. 484. No one will contend that these and numerous other resemblances of the same kind could be mere accidental coincidences. The same sentiment, circumscribed within the same limits, in similar language, and the same rhyming words, and admission even of the same peculiarities of expression, freedom with Mr. Gifford. There are sufficient proofs of our author's are other more trifling marks of imitation, on which we shall not and exclamatory phrases in paral dwell; such as similar expletives, lel passages; as, ye Gods! for Mr. G.'s heavens! both equally unauthorised by Juvenal; and a resemblance in a construction of the verses of the two authors in the translation of the same passages. The author of the translation before us has ascribed no particu lar character to his work; and indeed it is difficult to ascertain it very exactly. He is seldom scrupulously faithful to Juvenal, and which make the very spice of satgenerally loses those finer parts, ire. He would seem quite unas piring in his views; for he presumes not to enter the lists with Mr. Gifford. We cannot suspect him of such an intention. He is not sufficiently independent for a rival. He has a guide of whom he rarely loses sight; for he generally follows where Gifford leads. His |