To write on so dignified and so sublime a subject, as that which the present author has chosen, would assuredly be a task that the very noblest of poets could not undertake without fear and trembling. How inconceivable therefore must be the vanity, or at least how overwhelming the self-delusion, of the gentleman before us; who, (being in fact unable to indite a sonnet on a daisy,) without preface or apology, attempts a theme fit only for Milton, and in which a Milton confessedly did not succeed!

Nothing, however, no genius, human or divine, — could sanction such adaptations of the Holy Scriptures to the purposes of poetry as are here throughout observable. The language of the Bible is constantly profaned by the most injudicious quotation, and interwoven with doggrel and vulgarity. To see these time-honoured expressions robbed of all their native and beautiful simplicity, and, like the fragments of marble and brilliant pieces of stone in some of our northern edifices, mixed up with base earth and rubbish, is beyond human patience. To all authors, indeed, whether young or old, dull or vivacious, honoured or neglected, with the earnestness of friends and the authority of advisers we should say, Approach the Bible with reverence: neither quote it flippantly nor adopt it thoughtlessly to your own frame of expression; and, instead of twisting and forcing things much too sacred for such purposes into your poor and paltry versification, read the impressive admonitions which this insulted book directs to you above all other offenders, "Be not wise in your own conceit:"Throw not pearls before swine,"such swine as your own unworthy Muses!

We subjoin a string of casual selections to illustrate and to vindicate our unmitigated condemnation of these volumes:

6

Then, taking from the multitude the twelve,
(First, Simon Cephas Peter,-Cephas call'd
From that firm rock whereon he built his faith,
The Rock of Ages! which nor change of time,
Nor rage of man, nor all the pow'rs of hell
Were able to withstand; his brother next,
Andrew the fisherman; then James and John,

The sons of Zebedee, and fitly stil'd

The sons of Thunder, for their pious warmth,
And all-prevailing eloquential pow'ers;-
Philip, who erst the Baptist's steps had trac'd,
But left him when he heard the Saviour's name;
Bartholomew, (Nathaniel better call'd)
An Israelite indeed, devoid of guile; -
Thomas, call'd Didymus, a humble man;
Matthew the publican, Alphæus' son,

Who

Who left a gainful trade to follow Christ;
The younger James;- Jude, whose epistle lives
In all the churches; Simon, fam'd for zeal ;
(The latter three united in the bands

Of love fraternal, to Cleophas born ;) —

And Judas sprung from Kerioth, whence the name
Iscariot, which discriminated well

His person from Cleophas' faithful son:
Jesus with apostolic honours crown'd

Their long attendance on His varied walks,
Pow'r to expel each foul and filthy fiend,
And ev'ry raging malady to heal,
He gave to all: then, sending them abroad
To preach His Gospel to their darken'd race,
He these instructions for their conduct fram'd.'

Worse, still worse, ensues:

Whilst the disciples, - whom excess of joy
Scarcely permitted to receive the truth,
With curious eye, and busy hands, ran o'er
The Saviour's form, and felt the word of life;
To dissipate each latent doubt that lurk'd

Within their wond'ring breasts, He ask'd for meat;
And, openly before them all, partook

With ardent appetite their little store.

Then all their fears were conquer'd, and their hearts
Bounded with joy, when thus such ample proof
Tactile and ocular their Master gave,

To seal their hope and make their credence sure."
In page 157. we have the following happy boldness:
To fix their credence on a daring lie.'
P. 154. the judicious introduction of
Outrages, insults, flagellation, scorn.'

P. 90. Vol. ii.

Ibid.

I dare foretell that he will do our cause
Essential service, if our twigs he lim'd
With gold and honours.'

But t'was his pers'nal poverty alone.'

The sixteenth book opens thus:

Oh that my eyes were two unfailing springs
Of sympathizing self-condemning tears!'

Without meaning any real misfortune to Mr. Woodley, we unite in this sensible wish, since there might then be some

chance either that his eyes would be too dim to allow of any more poetical effusions, or at least that the 'unfailing' tears would not fail to blot out some of the sins against the public which he has here committed.

At page 7. of vol, i. we have a string of exclamations indeed:

With strictest acc'racy and sharpest scent
The infant fry of Judah!'

P. 125. We behold the multitude, or the bay,

P. 181.

Indented in a semilunar curve.'

'Inevitable, or necessarily !'

which perhaps exhibits the most remarkable instance of mock versification that even the nineteenth century, fruitful as it has already been in such metrical monsters, has produced.

ART. VI. The Rise and Progress of Sunday Schools; a Poem, in Three Cantos; in which is shewn, the moral Condition of the Poor previous to their Establishment; the Origin of those Institutions, and their present flourishing State; together with a general View of the Benefits resulting from their Influence on the Habits of the Poor, and the consequent Advantages to Society at large. By George Mac Carthy, Junior, Surgeon, Halstead, Essex. 8vo. pp. 62. Boards. Baldwin and Co.

IN

1816.

N this ample title-page, the author has so completely developed the object of his little volume, that we need not say another word on that head; and, though not in point of taste yet in point of trouble, we are sometimes obliged to writers who will thus abridge the dry labour of analysis or abstract for their critics, by giving them an epitome of their work even before they have begun to read it. The only subsequent duty of this kind, which such critics have then to discharge, is to examine whether these things be so; and whether the author really furnishes that entertainment which his bill of fare held out to expectation. We are happy in being able to bear witness to the fidelity of Mr. Mac Carthy in this respect; although we must leave our readers to decide the previous question,

question as to the nature of the component parts of that banquet, that olio of religious food, which is here offered to their appetites. Nothing can be better meant than this publication; and nothing can be more worthy of the highest and most unqualified panegyric than its subject. We believe that the institution of Sunday-Schools in this country has done more good than any one measure of domestic policy that has been adopted by the collective wisdom of our legislature for centuries past; and this institution, as it is well known, arose originally from the patriotic exertions of one individual, the excellent Mr. Raikes of Gloucester. To his memory, the little work before us affords another grateful tribute; and indeed to the whole theme it presents the ever-welcome offering of sincere and earnest admiration. Here, however, we must stop in our measure of praise; and we must change our tone into an equally strong note of censure, when we consider the abuse of the press and the degradation of the very name of poetry which this volume effects. It has become lamentably general to imagine that the cadence which is dinned into our ears by the very nurses and pedagogues of our infancy, that the language even of the female half of those worthy personages, and a little self-conceit, are enough to qualify for the high office and character of poets! We do indeed grant, and it is with shame and sorrow that we grant it, that many men of genius of this latter day, from Cowper downwards, have so debased and vulgarized the language of verse, that it is an easy and venial mistake for any worthy tallow-chandler or dealer in small wares to commit, that he too may be a poet!" Quid vetat et nosmet" might be said by every manmilliner in the kingdom, and said with justice, after the prosaic expression and the hobbling versification of large portions of our most approved writings. That which was burlesqued in Lexiphanes, the facility of the composition of blank verse, might now with equal justice be applied to rhyme: but it is to blank verse that we also now wish to confine the attention of our readers, and of the present author's readers, for one moment. No news-paper, no Sunday-news-paper, put into unpremeditated and immediate blank verse, by any one of the numerous English improvisatori now existing, could be less truly poetical than the Sunday-School strains of the well-meaning but much mistaken Mr. Mac Carthy. The following goodhumoured exposé of the first consequences of Mr. Raikes's success will perhaps be as fair an example of the sort of conversation-verse which we have been endeavouring to describe, as any that we could select,

• Inform

1

Informing then the clergy whom he knew,
Of this successful issue of his schemes,
He soon their friendly influence obtain❜d,
And kind co-operation in the work.
For now the sev'ral parishes around
Perceiv'd the beauties of this new design,

And Sunday-Schools with peaceful sway control'd
The sev'ral parts of this capacious town.
Whence, widely spreading o'er the British land,
From place to place, they rapidly advance.
To tell of which and their important ends,
Will in succeeding pages be my theme.'

The next eloquent and harmonious passage to which we would direct our readers, and which doubtless was transcribed from some Weekly Messenger or Mercury –

"Mercuri, facunde nepos Atlantis !"

of the day, occurs at p. 25.:

• Instruction now her friendly guidance gave
To eighteen hundred of the youths of Leeds,
Thro' the sweet medium of the Sunday-Schools;
And Stockport next a school did quickly raise,
Which, since increasing to a large extent,
Can boast the favour of a royal breast,
The patronage of Kent's illustrious Duke.'

We conclude with the first lines of the last Invocation :'

"O blessed God! who kindly to the heart
Of Gloucester's lov'd philanthropist, in soft
Propitious whispers spake, when first he made
Successful trial of a Sunday-School!-
Who smiledst with benignity supreme
On all his labours, and hast smil'd no less
On those who in this vineyard since have toil'd,
And nurs'd the tender vines thy hand did plant!
O! if thy pleasure be, regard them still-
Shine with thy brightest beams upon the work,
And let the genial dew-drops of thy grace,
And show'rs of favour on their heads descend.'

This is certainly something better; and we heartily say Amen to the sentiment.

The notes contain some interesting extracts from the Sunday-School Repository: - but do, do, Mr. Mac Carthy, forswear the use of poetry !

ᎪᏒᎢ .