are sacred feelings-feelings not to be trifled with; but they are all done violence to by the heartless clauses of the ministerial measure. These feelings would be reverenced and cherished by Conservative legislators; and the poor would have the satisfaction of knowing, that when laid aside by sickness, or disabled by age, a provision would be made for them at their own homes, and that their feelings would no longer be lacerated by the reflection that they must either starve, or be separated from their nearest and dearest friends. The best portions of the bill should be preserved; but all its harsher enactments would be repealed by a CONSERVATIVE ADMINISTRATION! THE DEAN OF YORK. It will be fresh in the memory of our readers, that in the early part of the past quarter, proceedings were instituted against the Very Rev. Dr. Cockburn, Dean of York, for having simoniacally sold the Church preferment vested in him as the head of the Chapter. The articles exhibited against him comprised many transactions, and extended over a considerable space of time. The result of the investigation was, that the Archbishop as visitor, deprived the Dean, and judgment was pronounced by Dr. Phillimore, his Grace's Commissioner, who, in a very able speech, gave the legal grounds of the Archbishop's decision. From this sentence the Dean appealed, demurred to the Archbishop's authority, and threw the cause into another court. Lord Denman, a few days ago, reversed the Archiepiscopal sentence, and accordingly reinstated the Dean, or rather declared that he had never been deprived, and inhibited the Archbishop from continuing to enforce his sentence. The proceedings would have had ample notice in this report had not the lateness of Lord Denman's decision put it entirely out of our power. The principles involved are, however, of such great and permanent interest to the Church, that we shall in our next number enter into them at considerable length. DISSOLUTION OF PARLIAMENT. The dissolution of Parliament, preparatory to a general election, announced in a supplement to the Gazette, has given the country at large notice of the important event about to take place. We have already exposed the absurdity of the supposition, that a clergyman, by the fact of his having received 'holy orders, is debarred from the exercise of his civil rights: we would now, therefore, merely urge upon them all to be at their posts, and to remember that their post is wherever they can best serve the cause of the Church. The new Parliament meets on the 19th of August. 230 General Literature. Poems. By Robert Aris Willmott. London: Fraser. 1841. Is there a dearth of poetry? The question is an interesting one, and one which, on many accounts, deserves an answer. The nineteenth century is anything but a poetical century. Stern matter of fact has usurped the place of fancy; and Romance, with her glittering train, has vanished from the science-bound world. There is no Milton, no Shakspeare, no Byron. Scott, with his wizards and knights, has departed from amongst us, and the mantle of his poetic genius has fallen on no equal follower. Yet have we names "which (as Milton once beautifully observed) the world will not willingly let die." We have an Elliott pouring forth strains mighty and sublime, poisoned though they be with the ungodly, the accursed leaven of radicalism and rebellion. We have a Mackay, who has proved himself worthy to be ranked with our elder lyrists. It has been but lately that the grave has closed over Felicia Hemans and Letitia Elizabeth Landon; and even now the horizon of our poetical sky shows some rising stars of no mean splendour. The vers de societé, however, which were once sufficient to create a reputation, are now banished to albums and small magazines; and those which once were able, when printed, to raise the writer to a niche in the temple of fame, are now, alas! published by scores of volumes, obtain a brief passing notice from a review or a newspaper, are once half read, and straightway altogether forgotten. "Who was that very gentleman-like person who was so remarkably quiet in his manners?" asked a friend, a few days ago, of a celebrated wit. "That," was the reply, "was the celebrated Mr. M." "And for what is he celebrated?" proceeded the interrogator. "Why," continued the wit, "he is now four-andthirty years of age, and has never published a book!" In days, then, like these many hundreds of respectable books must be published every year, and many scores of volumes intended for poetry. The little volume which we have here before us is not by the celebrated Mr. M-. The author has been long known as a successful candidate for public favour; and as he has accomplished this end by, in every one of his works, promoting the interests of virtue and religion, he has a right to some notice at our hands. In his work, The Lives of the Sacred Poets," he has proved himself well able to judge the poetry of others. In the present volume he puts in a claim for himself. Now, on the first hasty glance over the twenty-two small poems that fill up the seventy pages of this elegant book, the reader will be probably inclined to think that there is too much sweetness, and too little force; that, in fact, the poems do not strike him. Pleasing and delicate, and full of exquisitely beautiful classical allusions, they are, but they are chiefly addressed to the scholar. Virgil and the old English writers must be well read, and well studied, before the reader will do full justice to Mr. Willmott. Yet who will not feel the beauty of such a gem as the following: Sleep on sleep on the summer hours A pillow for thy slumber bring; While evening breathes the bloom of flowers, "From morning in the meadow straying- "One arm upon her eyes she folds; Her soft hair on her forehead fann'd,— "Oh, wake her not! the sylvan streams Nor stir the garland of bright dreams, That sleep has bound about her head!" Mr Willmott is very fond of bright dreams, and there is a dreamy beauty, like that of a summer's afternoon, about his poetry, which is well calculated to lull the reader into a calm reverie. It is like the sound of "The little brook, In the leafy month of June, He himself exclaims-if aught so gentle can be called exclamation "Unto my couch of summer leaves Come Sleep, by warbling gladness led, Of dreams-a pillow for my head." And having slumbered through the Arcadian groves, lulled by the sweet yet opiate strains of such poetry, we rise up and long for the trumpet voice of sterner bards, and we desire to watch the fierce battle with Homer, or the brilliant tournament with Aristo. Yet we feel that Mr. Willmott deserves no little praise, for it requires genius such as is not often met with, to imprint on the soul of the reader the characteristic of the bard. Very indifferent writers may send to sleep those who try to peruse their productions; and we know of poems that never were read, save by the authors and the compositors: but it is one thing to do this, and it is another thing to touch the mind with the caduceus, to bring round us pleasant meadows and tranquil groves, and to people the intellectual atmosphere with spirits of golden repose. Who would not wish to dream, when such images as this are brought around him :- "O beautiful! when Venus sprung, Eve of the waters, into sight, And round her breast her tresses clung, With lip, and cheek, and eye, like thine, The white foam, lilies for her feet!" Another specimen, which is like a gleam of mellow sunshine, with its too great brilliancy softened by passing through an amber cloud : : "The spirit of mine eyes is faint With gazing on thy light; I close my eyelids, and within "Thy beauty wanders by my side, I hear thee in the bird that sings Thy face, from every woodland stream, Smiles fondly up to me. "On fount and tree the moonlight sleeps; Thy beauty will not part Within my weary lids it dwells, O, lovely that thou art! And from thine eyes the sweet breath falls Like odour on my heart!" The reader of Philostratus will remember the romantic affectation of the Greek Euphuists, whose manner is imitated in this poem. But we must not close without noticing the religious spirit that breathes through these delightful poems. Speaking of a misled but not altogether corrupted youth, and recalling to mind the manifold miracles of the Saviour, he continues "He is not dead! Thy voice of might The moral sickness can control; "O Day-Star of the bosom, rise With rest, with healing on Thy wings; "Thy hallowed work of love begin- Revive the dead, THE DEAD IN HEART!" We must stay; we have no intention either "to praise our poet to death," or to commit a literary piracy, by extracting all the poems. There are faults in the volume as well as beauties: the air of languor we have already noticed, not as such; but one or two words we will say upon subjects to which modern poets do not pay sufficient attention. To make such words as heaven, flower, and bower, dissyllables, is by no means adding to the strength of the line; and strength is what Mr. Willmott cannot afford to lose. Again, we find the line "In Thalaba, the wondrous tale," &c. Now everybody ought certainly to read and to know Thalaba; but Mr. Wilmott has no right to take it for granted that they do; and to use, moreover, a figure in such a mode as to be entirely unintelligible to those who do not. "The Last of Seven" may be entitled "A sentimental recipe for spoiling a child," and it is one which the experience of a thousand families can show to be effectual. In the recollection of Harrow, Mr. Willmott assures us that— "Time, onward creeping, Still finds me by the Ægean wave." We do not pretend to misunderstand him; but he, if he find the Ægean wave at Kensington, is far more fortunate than those who, like the boatswain that understood Spanish, have had "to sail for it." While we are about this ungracious business (we have awakened for the purpose), we will just hint, that in the |