That inward joy, that makes the simplest home
Richer than palaces or Parian dome.
Clara's quick intellect and spirit bright

Ne'er slumber'd, but like Heaven's all-piercing light
Explored the deep recess with cheering ray,
And turn'd the mourner's wintry night to day.
The patron of those lands on foreign shores
Had breathed his last; his young successor's stores
Wasted by negligence demanded aid

From present gold; the proffer quickly made
With joy the heir accepted; and that hour
Saw Clara mistress of the sylvan bower.'

Mr. Chester now turns farmer, is ruined, and those very unpoetical personages, the bailiffs, again

Grasped the small remnant of their little store :'

but Clara's ingenious industry supports her aged parent, and their little cottage is brightened with a smile of comfort. Her occupations are pleasingly related.

• Little know the proud,
Who never pined beneath misfortune's cloud,
What stores inventive genius can command:
More rich resources from one slender hand,
Guided by taste and perseverance, flow,

Than wealth can grasp, or monarchs can bestow.
Those bright acquirements, which in halcyon days
Wrung from pale Envy's lips unwilling praise,
Put all her vain competitors to flight,

And fill'd the candid bosom with delight,
Now in Adversity's dark hour the maid

Produced, more brilliant from surrounding shade.
She scorn'd the pride, that will not bow the crest
To lighten anguish in a father's breast.
With cheerful labour for the public mart
Osier and rushes with ingenious art

She twined, and from the hop, and nettle's bed,
Spun fibres finer than the flaxen thread.

With playful smile she turned her humming wheel,
And blithely caroll'd to the whirling reel.
Jonquille and rose her graceful pencil drew;
Swift through the lawn her nimble needle flew,
Creating blossoms on the field of snow
As if by magic wand- with passion's glow,
Warm as the bard inspired, she pour'd a strain
Vivid and sparkling from the virgin brain,
And set her lyric lays
the song
With inborn taste to purest melody.
These various arts, with care and toil pursued,
Enrich'd with gold their dreary solitude.

the glee—

How

How Clara's heart rejoiced when Chester smiled,
Cheer'd by the labours of his darling child,
With him the goods of bounteous Heaven to share,
And pay with soft return a father's care;
To mark the soldier's pallid features shine
Once more with cups of renovating wine!
And sweet to him to see his Clara bloom
In robes light woven from her simple loom.
In neat and artless elegance attired,
Her cherub face and graceful limbs required
No mincing milliner's fantastic aid;

By her own pure, ingenious hands array'd,
Her fairy form in snow or azure moved,
Those tender colours that her father loved,
Border'd with mimic rose or primrose sweet,
Till Flora blush'd to view the fair deceit.
Chapeaux de paille she wove with airy grace,
Light as Livorno's boasted web; and lace,
Transparent as the net of Indian fan,
Floating like filmy folds of Abrovan,
Whose slender links on blade or blossom lie
Clear, yet invisible to mortal eye.'

War next breaks out, and Chester, again called to buckle on the sword, embarks with his daughter to join his regiment in South America. The fleet is described with much poetical pomp; and the captain of Chester's ship (Marlow Sidney) very naturally falls in love with Clara, by whom his attachment is not unrequited. The rest of the story, (if it can be called by that name,) though dispersed over two books, may be rapidly summed up. They arrive first at St. Jago, whence they sail for St. Helena, and at length anchor in the river Plate: the incidents of the voyage, viz. a naval engagement, a ship on fire, the Imperial Exile, &c. &c. afford ample space for the excursions of the most indefatigable Pegasus that any bard ever mounted; and the third book, besides sketches of Monte Video, the storming of Buenos Ayres, the vampirebat, savannahs, the mammoth, electric eels, &c. ends with a brace of weddings.

With all the disadvantages which the writer, himself a military man, has so unnecessarily incurred, the volume abounds with portions of poetry that bespeak uncommon powers of fancy and of description. It is preceded also by a lively preface, in which some excellent lines of a lighter cast are introduced. We can afford space only for a few stanzas.

'What tyrant first in servile chains

The bard's aspiring pinions bound,

And screw'd his wild, impassion'd strains
With rivets to the sordid ground?

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• Perhaps

"Perhaps some stripling crost in love,
Who, roving round the convent's cell,
Invented jingling rhymes to move
The bosom of the captive belle,
Who, leaning from the lattice-bar,
Drank deep the moonlight serenade,
As Florio tuned his sweet guitar
To charm the Lusitanian maid.
'Perhaps some wand'ring muleteer
By Tejo's pure, romantic stream,
Who sought with tinkling chimes to cheer
The spirit of his drowsy team.

Tight strapt and buckled up in rhymes,
With pain my laboured verses flow,
Like languid flowers of foreign climes,
When frost forbids the gem to blow.

Rhyme's like a Calvinistic boot,

Whose squeezing measure sorely pinches,
Which causes bitter pain to shoot,
And cramps the tortured feet to inches,

'Tis like the jailor's iron hand,
That shuts the light of cheerful day,
Or block of ice, or bank of sand,
That checks the towering vessel's way.

'Tis like the stocks that bind the feet,
The pillory that pains the head,
The cul de sac" that ends the street,
Or torment of Procrustes' bed.

Tis like a dam, whose folding gate
Obstructs the flow of mountain-streams;
A night-mare crushing with its weight
The splendour of poetic dreams.

This rhyming spell the muse o'erwhelms ;
Her ear is stunn'd, her eye is blind;
Suppose I seek through British realms
The spirit of a master mind,

To guide the helm of nations fit,
Nor let the state's protectors rob it;
Plain sense would point to Fox or Pitt,
But rhyme perversely answers C—t,
Or one to guard a kingdom's weal,
Palladium of our sacred isle,

Reason says Liverpool or Peel,

But rhyme, the jester, cries C-e.' &c. &c.

The ensuing lines on Music, in the first book, will shew that

our estimate of the author's talents is not too partial :

Through

< Through Nature's realms mysterious music flows,
In woods, in waves, in every gust that blows,
From the sweet buzzing of the golden bee
To solemn ocean's thund'ring harmony.
No creature dwells on earth, in air, or bower,
But feels the pulse of music's magic power.
The sober herd, that crop the dewy plain,
List to the minstrel's fascinating strain,
Forsake their pastures, and collect around
In silent groups, to drink the lulling sound.
The serpent issues from his dusky cell,
Enchanted by the charm of music's spell,
In spiry dance his painted volume twines,
While his sleek skin with sunny splendour shines.
When the proud war-horse in the battle's storm
Feels to the madd'ning charge his spirit warm,
And the brave blast of martial trumpets hears,
He bounds undaunted on the hostile spears,
In dust and gore expends his latest breath,
And springs with joy to victory or death.
Oh ! Music sweetest source of pleasing pain,
In courtly hall, in camp, on sylvan plain,
Whate'er thy shape-from groves or echoing caves,
From midnight storms, or lapse of shining waves;
From larks, whose airy tongues salute the morn,
Soft flutes, soul-thrilling harps, or hunter's horn;
From thundering peals, that o'er the welkin roll,
And shake the solid earth from pole to pole
Still sweet, still pure, majestic and sublime,
The charm of every age and every clime.
The voice of angels! concord of the spheres!
Sole language pleasing to immortal ears!
Methinks I hear thee on that awful day,
When stars and flaming suns have past away,
Inviting those, beloved of Heaven, to share
Eternal joys, when mortal pain and care
Fly like the wintry clouds on stormy wing,
Chased by the rosy breath of genial spring.'

The verses on the tea-fever in the second book (p. 146.) are avowedly an imitation of Crabbe, and form an admirable piece of Dutch-painting: - but we must now close our extracts and our remarks; trusting that our admonitions will not be thrown away on the ingenuous mind of this luxuriant and spirited writer. Compression, arrangement, and the due subordination of topics, are the points in which he is most deficient. The sacrifice of first thoughts is a hard duty to require of an author; not unlike the Roman severity which immolated a child for the preservation of discipline, Yet, whatever it may cost the feelings of the poetical parent, we

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heartily

heartily advise him for the future to commit to the flames a third at least of his intellectual progeny, before he again presents any of it to the public.

ART. IV. Journal of a Horticultural Tour through some Parts of Flanders, Holland, and the North of France, in the Autumn of 1817. By a Deputation of the Caledonian Horticultural Society. 8vo. pp. 590. With Engravings. 16s. Boards. Longman and Co. 1823.

IN

N the wide diversity of human pursuit, few objects more agreeably combine the utile and the dulce than the art of gardening, and few afford more unmixed gratification to the old and the young, to the grave and the gay, to the poet and the sage. The recent institution of horticultural associations, and the popular interest which attaches to their proceedings, are therefore creditable alike to the taste and to the patriotism of all concerned. It is now our pleasing duty to record the progress of a mission from one of these respectable bodies to foreign countries, with the view of extending and improving the culture of fruits and useful vegetables in the northern districts of our island. This scheme was suggested about eight years ago by Sir John Sinclair, who had made the tour of the Netherlands for the specific purpose of observing the modes and state of Flemish husbandry; and it was seconded by the discriminating recommendation of Mr. Jeffrey, who pointed out Mr. Neill and Mr. Dickson, the two secretaries of the Caledonian Horticultural Society, as well qualified to discharge the duties of such a journey: but Mr. Dickson having unfortunately died in 1817, Mr. Hay, planner in Edinburgh, and Mr. Macdonald, principal gardener to the Duke of Buccleuch, were named in his room. Owing to some unforeseen delays, they did not take their departure till the first of August. Although their observations, conducted with reference to an experimental garden, which is still seriously contemplated, were not intended for the press, yet, at the request of the council of the Society, Mr. Neill engaged to prepare them for publication: but he had scarcely applied himself to the task, when illness compelled him to suspend it for more than a year. In consequence, however,' says he,of this delay, and of my having made a second trip to the Continent in 1821, I have been enabled to supply an account of some of the excellent horticultural establishments at Paris, which we were obliged to leave unvisited in 1817.'