of the verfification but little can be faid. The following speci men will probably fatisfy the reader : Indeed 'twas time Tobias fhould return, For his long abfence made his parents mourn. The wife conducted Tobit on the way. The Spanish Courfer, and the French Pullet, are poems of fome humour, and the tranflator has more merit here than in his graver compofitions. This work must have been published at no finall expence; the typography is good, and the engravings not ill executed. The author and his friends will of course be gratified, but we fear the public will be ungracious enough not to receive the volume, with all thefe recommendations, into general circulation. ART. 17. The Fig Leaf, a fatirical and admonitory Poem. Dedicated, without Permiffion, to the fashionable World. 16 pp. IS. Vernor and Hood, &c. 1805. How often muft we, and all other Critics, repeat, that ftringing measured lines together, with or without rhymes, is not writing poetry? The author calls this "a fatirical and admonitory Poem." But a poem it certainly is not; and hardly can be called fatirical, from the extreme feeblenefs of its style and plan. Yet fo little is he conscious of its demerits, that he prints fome of his worst lines in the title-page, as a motto; and in a private letter has entrusted us with his name: the concealment of which is, in our opinion, the greatest boon we can fhow him. His motto, of twenty lines, ends thus: Methinks each buxom damfel will at laft Bid bold defiance to the northern blaft; We thus give part of his own fpecimen, which is furely fair. What this author begins with vain attempts at jocularity, he ends by the most folemn and awful religious topics: thus difgracing the facred name, which every good man reveres, by the moft indecent and unneceffary introduction. This is characteristic of a certain fect of religionists, to which doubtless the author belongs. Let it not be fuppofed that we defend the fashions he attempts to fatirize; we only with that the reprehenfible parts of them were well attacked by a real fatirist. ART. 18. Ode to Time, 1805. 8vo. thorne. 1805. 8 pp. 6d. Cawa So little can be faid either for or against this Ode, that the fooner we difmifs it the better. It is followed by two Epitaphs; fomething against both of which might eafily be faid, but it does not feem to be worth while. DRAMATIC. ART. 19. The Honey Moon. A Comedy, in Five Acts, as performed at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, with universal Applaufe. By the late John Tobin, Ejq. 8vo. 81 pp. Longman and Co. 1805. 2s. 6d. It is impoffible to read this Comedy without feeling a deep regret at the confideration that it is pofthumous. A taste fo formed on our beft dramatic models, and an imitation of them conceived and executed with fo much genius, gave an earneft of excellence which death only could difappoint. That the Honey Moon owes much to the prior efforts of Shakspeare cannot be denied, and requires not to be excufed. We trace the author in the Taming of the Shrew, and in Twelfth Night; yet he has imitated like a man who was able alfo to invent, and by no means makes a fervile copy of his original. It was, perhaps, his intention to fhow in how different a way the defign of taming a froward female might be conducted, and the attempt is by no means unfuccefsful. The Duke, in this Comedy, fucceeds by the union of reafon and tendernefs, with firm refolution; Petruchio chiefly by terror. The plot is flight, and is divided into three actions; but that from which the play is named is clearly the principal. The chief part of the dialogue is written in eafy blank verfe; a practice which we have often wished to fee revived, as raifing the ftyle, and by no means lowering the humour of Comedy, as may be abundantly feen in this example. To fhow how clofely Mr. Tobin could follow his mafter, without fervile imitation, let us take the following fpeech refpecting a disguised lady: -Yet 'tis faid She kept it [the fecret] to her death; that oft as love Till, in the fight of him her foul most cherish'd, If this be not equal to "She never told her Love," it is ftill extremely beautiful, and what only an original genius could have written. For humour, the following fpeech of a hungry apothe tary has much merit: "Hoftefs. Why, truly You look half ftarv'd; Lampedo. Half ftarv'd! I wish you'd tell me Than an old horse, that has been three weeks pounded. Painted my fhop, that it looks like à rainbow - (For midwife is grown vulgar?)-Yet they ail not As if there was no cordial virtue in them. They fhun, as 'twere a tolling bell, or death-watch, This is much in the fpirit of Beaumont and Fletcher. We are happy to meet with any thing dramatic which we can praise, Had the author been living, we should have given his drama a more confpicuous place in our pages to encourage him to fresh efforts: ART. 20. Cuftom's Fallacy. A Dramatic Sketch, in Three Acts Never performed. 8vo. 97 PP. 2s. 6d. Barker. 1805. In a fhort preface to this Drama, we are told, that, after a part of it had been printed, it was put into a channel for reprefentation at Drury Lane Theatre, and had not been rejected by the managers; when "the horror of fufpence acting powerfully on the weak nerves" of the author, he (as we collect his meaning) withdrew it. In our opinion, he is indebted to his nerves for faving him from difappointment and mortification; fince this picce, although not fo replete with abfurdities as many which have been applauded on the stage, wants that flippancy of dialogue and fre quency of incidents, which (we prefume) are the causes of their fuccefs. With fome alterations, however, it might be made more readable than most of the Farces in five acts, which the custom of the prefent age (in no instance more fallacions) has honoured with the name of Comedies. DIVINITY. DIVINITY. ART. 21. A Charge delivered to the Clergy of the Diocese of Ox ford, by John, Lord Bishop of that Diocefe, at his triennial Vifitation. Published at the Request of the Clergy. 4to. 3% PP. Is. Hanwell and Parker, Oxon; Rivingtons, London. 1895. A wife and prudent folicitude for the welfare of Church and State, found opinions, and language at once dignified and im preffive, are the trong characteristics of this difcourfe. * The Bishop begins by adverting to the ftate of public affairs, and clerical duties, between his firft Charge and the prefent; and he remarks, that the revolutionary principles, though "renounced by thofe who firft difperfed and propagated them, or kept under by the iron hand of defpotifm, have gone abroad through the rest of Europe; and, though they have now few open advo cates, are yet feen every where in their effects." P. 5.-To the fecret effects of this fpirit, the Bishop of Oxford attributes the ill. advised conduct of those who call themselves evangelical teachers. "Even thofe," he says, "who seek to correct the faults of the times by a ftricter religion (I fay this, wishing to think and fpeak charitably of them,) have fallen into the fame error, in endeavouring to attain their end by feparation rather than union. Members of a Church, the purity of whofe doctrines, and rectitude of whofe difcipline they allow, whilft they fhelter themfelves under its wing fo far as fuits their convenience, they are in fact fapping its very foundations, and are become more dangerous enemies, than a confcientious diffenter from it. They err thus, whilst they feek for confederacy among themfelves, and the exclufive name of Evangelical Minifters, fo as to bring into dif repute the beft and ableft minifters not of their ftamp, and to draw off their congregations, venturing fometimes openly to pro claim, and hold out to the ignorant, that the true gofpel is preached in their affemblies only. What then, in the name of our common Lord and Mafter, is the aim of the church itfelf, and of every ferious minifter of it? Or on what are thefe exclufive pretenfions founded? We hear much among them of the name of Chrift, as thrown into technical expreflions; but in their inter pretation of his Revelation, and in their mode of teaching, they ftand more apart than others from that great Exemplar, and from the fimplicity of the gofpels." P. 6. But the chief part of the Charge is employed on the fubject of the Residence Bill, which the Bifhop confiders, as a juftifiable interference of the State, with refpect to ecclefiaftical duties, for. See Brit, Crit. vol, xx, p. 268, the the performance of which the fame power allows emoluments, &c. He confiders it alfo as a relief from a prior law," in the highest degree oppreffive, partial, and vexatious." He explains the neceffity for a difcretionary power, with refpect to indulgence, and justifies the measure of placing that in the hands of the Bishops. What he fays refpecting epifcopal jurifdiction, in p. 20, &c. is in the highest degree important, and, to our apprehenfion, no lefs juft. "Let it not be thought," he fays, "that in this I am contending for power for myself, or my brethren of the fame order. To them it is an increase of anxiety, trouble, and care. They can have little inducement to claim and maintain it, but from a fenfe of duty, and a conviction that it belongs to the office they bear in the Church of Chrift. To the clergy I confider it as a relief, though it may not operate always precifely in the fame way fo far as it operates at all, it reaches out indulgence to them." P. 23. Other very material confiderations fucceed, which we earnestly recommend to the confideration of the clergy, but which we cannot with propriety abridge. The conclufion is, in our opinion, a model of epifcopal language, firm, yet modeft; dignified, yet liberal. We cannot forbear to cite it. "These things then, Rev. Brethren, as I have freely spoken, neither fearing to affert the authority invefted in me, nor fhrink. ing from any admonition which feemed neceffary and useful; fo, on the other hand, I would be understood to submit them to your free confideration; only requesting, that you would weigh them well, without any private view or bias, looking to the true conftitution of the Epifcopal Church established in thefe realms, and the nature of the office which you respectively hold in it; being perfuaded myself, that, in adhering firmly to the funda mental principles, and even ancient customs of fuch a church, and in promoting religion by the inftrumentality of the fame, maintaining alfo unity among ft ourfelves, we fhall moft effectually fulfil our part in the fervice of God and our country at all times, more especially in this crifis, and go through our course with prefent fatisfaction, and future hope." ART. 22. War inconfiftent with Chriflianity: A Faft Serman. By the Rev. Richard Warner, of Bath; preached May 25, 1804, and February 20, 1805. Being the twelfth Year of the prefent War. Fifth Edition, with large Additions. 8vo. 36 pp. 25. Cruttwell. 1805, Give a weak man a general truth, and he will quickly make both folly and mifchief out of it, for want of difcriminating powers. This foolish chemiftry is exhibited in the prefent Sermon by a double procefs. That war is a great evil, one of the greatest that this world knows, (though Mr. Warner cannot con 0 3 trive |