Scattering their deepening horrors o'er the skies ;
Loud and more loud the rattling thunders spread,.
Wild howl the winds above the Prophet's head;
Fleet darts the lightning's flash athwart the gloom, a
Gilds the wide waste, and lights the watery tomb;
High rides the bark where mountain billows roll,

Then seeks with headlong prow the nether pole.
... Rous'd by the storm, that thunder'd long and loud,
As the full peal of Sinai's fiery cloud,
There on the deck the trembling Jonah stood,
Wild with affright and eyed the yawning flood.
Hope fled the guilty breast-Remorse was there,
That bids his victim wake but to despair:
E’en Mercy seem'd to spurn him ; Vengeance came
Exultant, arm'd with sword of cherub flame,
And thron'd in terrors on the airy steep,
Hurld the red bolt, and dash'd him to the deep.
But from those depths, with Hades near to view,
Leviathan the recreant prophet drew;
His guard commission'd by divine command,

To bear the wanderer to his destin'd strand.' pp. 7, 8. This may suffice for a specimen of the performance. We cannot dismiss Mr. Bellamy, however, to whom, as devoted to the Christian ministry, poetical fame must be a very subordinate ubject, without one word of severer animadversion, in reference to the passage beginning,

• Ye cheerless blossoms-fade, that coldly spread.'' These lipes appear to be a palpable, but indifferent, imitation of some of the finest lines in the "5 Pleasures of Hope, but they have this further disadvantage; that the total negation of all peculiarly Christian sentiment, the omission of any reference to the dictates of Revelation on the subject of the world to come, is, in a poem professedly founded on Old Testament history, particularly offensive and reprehensible. It indicates, what is obvious from the extract given above, that the poet neither felt nor properly understood his subject. Jonah was indeed a Jew, but if, as our Author has properly represented him, though he makes no use of the reference, he was a type of • Israel's King', it is not to be supposed that he was unacquainted with the Christian doctrine of immortality, as ( brought to

light' by the Gospel. Such lines as the following are destitute of all propriety in a poem on a sacred subject. . .

No-beneath Heaven's firm shield, in peril's hour
He treads the tomb, and braves oblivion's power,
Smiles at blind fate, and hails with rapture high
The morning star of immortality.' p. 13.

We are much better pleased with Mr. Smedley's performance. Not half of his poem, indeed, is occupied with the suba ject of Jonah ; and he must therefore be considered as having eluded, rather than surmounted, its difficulty as a theme for poetry. Still, in the brief and rapid narrative which he gives of the history, more of the circumstances recorded in Scripture, are included, than in Mr. Bellamy's diffuse description.

The poem commences with the destruction of Nineveh, as predicted by Nahum, Zephaniah, and Jonah ; and a very judicious use is made of the bold and vivid language of prophecy. The transition is then made to the story of Jonah, in the following lines :

.Yea! Nineveh is fallen -but not before

The Lord had shewed her that his wrath was sore :
Not till his finger pointed out the thread
By which the vengeance quiver'd o'er her head.
There spake the son of Cushi in his might;
There rollid the thunders of the Elkoshite;
And there Amittai's trembling seed obey'd
The call reluctantly; as if afraid
Of man, yet fearless to endure the wrath
Of Heaven, which follow'd blasting on his path. .
Vainly he wander'd, for the Spirit of God
Was strong within him wheresoe'er he trod;
Whether in Sephor's many-peopled street
He thought to mingle his forgotten feet;
Or fled the presence which his steps pursued
In Asmon's never-beaten solitude.
Nor less when hid within the galley's side
He slumber'd, careless of the raging tide,
Saw not the mighty tempest, nor the wave
With hundred mouths wide yawning to the grave.
Then fear was on the seamen, and despair .
Hung on their lips in unaccustom'd prayer ; :::
They sought the guilty whom such wrath pursued
By lot, and tried their divinations rude.
The hand of God was with them, and they knew
The offender; him unwillingly they threw inn
A willing victim to the gulph, which clos'd.
Above him, and in calmness then repos'd.

“ 'Strange was the mystery which the Lord prepard
To save the Prophet whom his mercy spar'd.
Three days, alive, and yet as in the grave,
He died new death each moment; and the wave
Unceasingly he heard about him roll, .
Depth above depth, encompassing his soul...
There the dank sea-weed round his living head
Wrapped its green folds, like shroud upon the dead.
Earth with her bars inclos'd him ; ever down,
Down to the mountain bottoms he was thrown,

...". The flood-springs, and the eternal roots which bound

The innermost secrets of this upper ground.
Three days in bitterness of death he lay, .

The fourth the monster yielded up his prey. pp. 5-7. The remainder of the poem is devoted to the death and entombment of “a greater than Jonah," of which the prophet's story is considered as a typical representation. This part of Mr. Smedley's production is entitled to no ordinary praise : it is every way worthy of a Christian poet. The portraits of the Mother of our Lord, the Magdalene, and the beloved disciple, are very finely conceived, and in strict harmony with the Gospel narrative. On perusing these lines, we felt no disposition to retract what we have remarked respecting the difficulty of treating scriptural subjects, but they convinced us still more strongly, that they are, after all, the finest which can employ the imagination, when no attempt is made, by the injudicious addition of poetical ornaments, to fill up the outline of inspired history, at the expense of its truth and severe simplicity. We must make room for the concluding lines in the poem.

So they--but he for whom they mourn'd had gain'd
The limit of this being, and remain'd
In that unknown, which never mortal eye
Sees till it closes on mortality. .. .
Three days his body slept, and the cold tomb
Held him within its fearful bed of gloom.
Death hoverd over him, but on his face
The foulness of his touch could leave no trace, .
Nor did his body see corruption; there
Sate living freshness, and the tranquil air
Of a light slumber, when high visions fil
The fancy, and exalt to Heaven the will ; !
As if embalm'd by his divinity, '
When death began, his body ceas'd to die; .
And when his earthly nature did not dwell
Within, the unearthly purified the shell ; . .
Adorn'd it for his triumph, and resum'd .
The veil of flesh more holy since entomb'd..

The third day comes-Oh! not within the grave
Look for his body who has died to save; I.
1. Seek notin earth the immortal flesh which holds .

'A Spirit as immortal in its folds. ... . . Him
Won is the Paradise to sin refus'd ;
The bruised heel the venom'd head has bruis'd;..
Gain'd is the yictory now, the battle done;

To us the living and the dead are one."
Lo! on the ruins of the first there stands
A nobler temple, fashion'd without hands;
And blazon'd on its everlasting shrine i pepper
Beams to our eyes the Prophet Jonah's sign.' ;

Art. X. 1. Report together with the Minutes of Evidence, and on

Appendix of Papers, from the Committee appointed to consider of Provision being made for the better Regulation of Madhouses in England. Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed, 11th July, 1815. Each Subject of Evidence arranged under its distinct Head, by J. B. Sharpe, Member of the Royal College of Surgeons, London. Reprinted for Baldwin and Co. 47, Paternos

ter-Row. 8vo. pp. 399. Price 13s. 1815. 2. A Letter addressed to the Chairman of the Select Committee of the

House of Commons, appointed to enquire into the State of Mad: houses ; to which is subjoined Remarks on the Nature, Causes,

and Cure of Mental Derangement By Thomas Bakewell, Author . f“ A Domestic Guide in Cases of Insanity," and Keeper of Spring

Vale Asylum, near Stone, Staffordshire. pp. 100 Stafford. 1815. 3. Practical Hints on the Construction and Economy of Pauper

Lunatic Asulums. Including Instructions to the Architects who offered Plans for the Wakefield Asylum, and a Sketch of the most

approved Design, By Samuel luke. pp. 55. York, 1815. . 4. Observations on the Laws relating to Private Lunatic Asylums,

and particularly on a Bill for their alteration which passed the House of Commons in the Year 1814. 8vo. pp. 112. price 3s. 6d. Conder, London. 1816. AFTER a sanguinary conflict, especially when it has been n of unusual and unexpected severity, as in the case of the victory of Waterloo, we hear with horror of numbers, who, although not the immediate victims of death on the field where they had fought and bled, nevertheless, subsequently lose their limbs and their lives for want of timely medicinal aid, and in consequence of that pressure and hurry in the business of healing, which directly succeed to the business of slaying. But the feelings which are excited by this consideration, must sink very low in comparison of those which are occasioned by the reflection, that mental soundness, and mental life, if we may so express it, are frequently lost for want of opportunity and of pecuniary resources, to preserve them. How many wretched beings do the wards of a public lunatic asylum enclose, who, having been once as we are, are now reduced to a state of worse than brutal ferocity, uttering horrid blasphemies, and denouncing malignant menaces on all who pass by ; but who, had their circumstances been such as to coinmand the exercise of tenderness and skill equal to the exigencies of their cases, might now have been taking their places in the social circle formed by sympathy and affection, thinking, and feeling, and acting, like ourselves! In the great round of human misery and wo, there cannot surely be found any case that comes at all near to this in dreadful and heart-appalling interest.

. That this statement is not a figment of the imagination, but a recital of facts, has been repeatedly asserted with all the confidence of conviction; and if such be the shocking state of things, in reference to lunatic hospitals, no wonder that in this age of reformation and of public spirit, the attention of the legislature should have been called to the consideration of this momentous inquiry.--" Whether the circumstances and treatment of lunacy are susceptible of melioration and amendmeot.'

This question has indeed been recently agitated in the British Senate, with an earnestness and interest which will command the admiration of posterity. ..

• The labours of Mr. Rose and his associates,' (as is well ob. served in one of the pamphlets before us) were labours of simple humanity and benevolence unmixed with party feeling, and of too partial an influence to produce them fame. While the unhappy objects of their compassion are shut out, perhaps for ever, from the world, and generally unable to express or even to feel gratitude. May they live (adds the writer), to receive the only reward they appear to aim at or desire, in the certainty that their completed delibera. tions and exertions have removed all the evils which occasioned them.'

Before we proceed to a more detailed account of this investigation and its results, we shall say a few words on the recently much agitated inquiry, which immediately and obviously arises out of the preceding one, and which was repeatedly urged by the members of the Committee of investigation in the course of their individual examinations. It is this-Whether is insanity under the control of remedial agents, in the same manner as are those maladies which are more properly and strictly regarded affections of the bodily frame? Is madness to be cured by medicine? The remarkable discrepancy which was displayed before the Committee, in reference to this very im-.. portant question, must have necessarily excited some degree of scepticism, or at least of uncertainty, in the minds of those who entered upon the inquiry with anxious but unprejudiced minds. We are told by one person, a man of unquestioned talents and extensive experience, that he considers vomiting rather injurious than beneficial in cases of insanity; another, of equal experience, and of great name, stated his dependence upon the medicinal power of emetics ; and in this opinion he is countenanced by a recent writer of great merit on the subject of mental affections. One physician, who has directed his knowledge and attention principally to these unhappy affections, approves generally of venesection ; a second, similarly circumstanced, describes this practice, as fraught with extreme danger. Purgatives are the sole dependence of some, alteratives and