but most allowably borrowed from a former work of this author, and with a manly and well-deserved tribute of praise to the Royal patron of the Academy; whose speech at the anal dinner in May 1811 (when that best stimulus to the arts, he countenance of a Prince speaking in the name of the Gove 1ment and of the country, was eloquently administered,) receives the grateful notice which it demands from the friends, the inheritors, and the supporters of genius..

We now return to that passage in the second part of the poem, which stamps high honour not only on the strong mol feeling but on the energetic style of the author; and we are so unwilling to weaken the effect of the whole train of thought, that we must give it as it stands in the work, although the extract is of more than usually admissible extent. To Sir Joshua, and to Mr. Shee himself, it raises, in our opinion, no common trophy. May all our artists feel and emulate the force and dignity both of the sentiments and the expression !

Hail, Beauty, hail! Etherial beam that plays
On human hearts, and kindles Passion's blaze!
His fires to thee, immortal Genius owes,
Of thee enamoured still his bosom glows;

Blessed in thy smile, he burns with double flame,

And tastes his heaven on earth in love, and fame
The only joys a care-worn world can give,
Which make it bliss to feel, and life to live.
Sun of his world! as to the orb of day,
The flower reverting, drinks its vital ray,
To thee, the painter, turns his eye-his heart,
His lamp of life!-his light and heat of art!
Thy visions beaming o'er his fate, diffuse
The glow of taste the lustre of the muse;
They chear his arduous progress, and repair
The wrongs of fortune, in his course of care.

Warm at her shrine, when Reynolds early paid
His ardent vows, and first invoked her aid,
The goddess, soon, her favourite's claim allowed,
And drew her votary from the vulgar crowd;
Led him to fields, which no rude step defiles;
On Nature's lap, where infant Beauty smiles;
To secret bowers, where oft', reclined of yore;
For Zeuxis' sake, fair Helen's form she wore :
Where full revealed-in all her heaven of charms,
She blessed Apelles-in Campaspe's arms.
Where Titian too, more recent, wont to rove,
'Midst loves and graces-favourite of the grove;
Her image traced, thro' every form and hue,
With rapture wrought, and rivalled as he drew.

• Here,

• Here, Reynolds oft' with taste delighted strayed,
And caught some nymph divine, in every shade.
To meet his eye, where'er the master moved,
The bowers grew brighter, and the paths improved ;
In glowing groups, the Graces sought to shine,
And asked for life-in his immortal line.

Fired by the scene, he seized the sportive band *,
The gay creation bloom beneath his hand,
As round his magic glass the nymphs repair,
And Love, and Beauty, leave their image there.

Here, first, in cool embowering shade reposed,
Her form unveiled- her eyes in slumber closed,
A nymph, he found, with Iphigenia's air †,
And drew with faithful hand the dazzling fair,
As Sol, to aid him, sent a golden gleam,
And thro' the burning branches shot his beam;
While Cymon, stealing soft-by Cupid led,
To view the beauty, on her flowery bed,
With wonder gazes, and as passion fires,
To win the glorious prize of love aspires.
Yet, true to moral, tho' with humour sly,
Expression's pencil marks the meaning eye;
Tho' cloudless there-in all the blaze of light,
The orb of beauty bursts upon the sight,
No touch impure pollutes the pencil's aim,
Or burns on virgin checks the blush of shame
Disdaining all the coarse allures of sense,
A polished archness sports without offence,
Aspires to touch with chaster hand the heart,
And hits the mark-but not with poisoned dart.

No painter, he, who does not love to trace
The form of Beauty-bright in native grace,
Fresh, as from Nature's hand, the fair is found,
A living lustre!-beaming heaven around :
And pure, the glowing toil, when undebased
The heart of genius, and the hand of taste :

*To particularise the various subjects of this kind, which in the present collection deserve attention and admiration, would too much extend this work, and occasion an ungraceful repetition of the terms of art, but no praise can exaggerate the merits of the "Nymph and Boy," ,"" the Snake in the Grass," "Venus and Cupid," and the Sleeping Boy."

+Cymon and Iphigenia. This splendid example of all that is warm, rich, and harmonious in colouring, is in the collection of the Marchioness of Thomond. Her Ladyship contributed more largely than any other person to the magnificent display of art which reflected so much honour on the genius of her uncle, and which she must have witnessed with such peculiar exultation.'

But

But sure, no scorn too bitter can pursue,
Or hiss, reviling, from the public view,
The venal slave, who, sold to sin and shame,
The scandal of his country, and his name;
To purpose base can prostitute his art,
And in the painter act the pander's part.
The desperate wretch, who rushes wild abroad,
And risks his life, to rob the public road,
While starving infants stretched beneath his shed,`
In piercing peal, vociferate-for bread:
The profligate, in vice and folly, deep,
Who lulls his conscience and his creed asleep,
Who wastes his life in outrage, and offence,
And riots in each rank debauch of sense;
Have, each, some specious palliative to plead,
Some powerful passion or imperious need,
Which finding Virtue's vulnerable part,
By sap, or storm, subdues the enfeebled heart;
They pay, themselves, the forfeit of their crimes,
A warning, not a wound, to future times.
But he, who, at his easel, safe retired;
By neither want impelled, nor passion fired;
Can there, the noblest gifts of heaven employ,
To poison deep the purest springs of joy :
Who, like the mad Ephesian, in his aim,
Wou'd launch thro' time a reprobated name,

Wou'd fling his brands -'gainst Dian's temples hurled,
And fire the moral structure of the world:

For him, who, virtue's most degraded foe,

Corrupts e'en taste, to strike the coward blow;
The cold-blood culprit, whose ambitious crime,
Wou'd stimulate the lust of future time;
For him, no hope of pardon can remain,
And mercy pleads for his offence in vain.'*

We have little room left to notice the remaining pieces in this volume. The Shade of Nelson' is an animated effusion, and was one of the earliest, if not the very earliest, that ap

*In a former publication the author has touched on this subject, but no opportunity should be lost, to guard the honourable purity of the British school from this foreign pollution: to hold up to contempt and detestation an offence which degrades the noblest of arts to an immoral engine of the most pernicious influence, and sinks the painter and his patron to the same low level of vulgar depravity. Among the many eminent native artists, whose genius, at present, reflects lustre on this country, the author declares with pride, that he believes, there is not one example of a mercenary departure from the moral dignity of the arts, or one instance in which the pencil has been dishonoured in the service of sensuality.'

peared

peared on the lamented occasion; and the lines on the death of Opie are feeling and good: but the poem called Ellen' (suggested by a melancholy occurrence in real life) is in another style, and not so happy. The author should adhere to the old established regular English heroic couplet; and we should still be very glad to see some well-digested and long composition on the subject of his art, or indeed on any subject, from his experienced pen.

ART. VIII. Narrative of a Tour taken in the Year 1667, to la Grande Chartreuse and Alet, by Dom Claude Lancelot, Author of the Port Royal Grammars; including some Account of Dom Armand Jean le Bouthillier de Rancé, Reverend Father Abbé, and Reformer of the Monastery of Notre Dame de la Trappe; with Notes; and an Appendix, containing some Particulars respecting M. du Verger de Hauranne, Abbé de St. Cyran; Cornelius Jansenius, Bishop Ypres ; and also a brief Sketch of the celebrated Institution of Port Royal. 8vo. pp. 261. 8s. Boards. Arch. 1813. THE HE present volume cannot be an imitation of the original page, nor yet a selection from it. it properly: let the reader collect of it given by the editor:

called either a translation or work mentioned in its titleWe are at a loss to designate what it is from the account.

• Dom Lancelot's tour to Alet is one of the smaller productions edited with his " Memoires de St. Cyran, in 1738."'—

This little piece, like the other productions of Port Royal, is characterized by the spirit of piety which pervades it. The new field also which it presents to the generality of English readers, renders it curious. Both the customs alluded to and the persons described are little known in this country.

Like the other works too of Port Royal, Dom Lancelot's tour is diffuse and prolix. It is encumbered by a profusion of extraneous matter, and fatigues by the minute detail of particulars from which the lapse of an hundred and fifty years has taken away all interest. Whole pages are filled with tedious and abstruse disquisitions on a controversy long since dismissed from public attention.

Other passages weary by the enumeration of ceremonies confined in England to a small portion of its inhabitants, and the minute details of which would be wholly unintelligible to a Protestant public. But above all, it is tedious from the protracted relation of petty occurrences relating to a numerous circle of undistinguished private acquaintance. These ought to have been suppressed by the French editor.

The tour to Alet was never intended for publication by its author. It was a confidential letter to an highly respected and intimate friend. Whilst then it partakes of the piety of the writer, and relates many curious circumstances, it cannot excite wonder to find

them

them buried and almost suffocated beneath a load of minutiæ solely interesting to the peculiar age, and the identical circle in which it was written.'.

Where a passage appeared peculiarly striking, or free from digression, it has been rendered with a degree of fidelity approaching to the accuracy of translation.

Under other circumstances a different method has been pursued. Where the original appeared involved with extraneous subjects, and encumbered by detail, or where it seemed needful to elucidate Lancelot's idea by combining it with information derived from other sources, a greater latitude has been allowed. In this case the fact or sentiment alone has been preserved, and an entire liberty has been used as to the expression. This occurs in a very great number of instances.

A considerable number of passages have been wholly suppressed. They appeared entirely destitute of every claim on the curiosity or interest of a modern reader.'.

By this means the original work became curtailed nearly one half.

Whilst so much has been on the one hand suppressed, nearly as much has, on the other, been added.'.

A list of the works whence the added matter is taken is prefixed to the volume; and the editor states that, as much of the French literature, current in England, has been tinctured with the venom of infidelity, it was believed that it would not be unacceptable to parents to be furnished with a list of works of a different description;-authors who convey much curious information, and whose works are all calculated to impress a pious spirit.' The style of the Port Royal writers, he continues, is marked by a decided religious phraseology; which, if literally translated, would have presented peculiarities foreign to that of Protestant readers. The substitution of that of any other denomination, would have been equally objectionable to those not belonging to it. Nevertheless, the adoption of the style suited to literature or science would have entirely destroyed the religious character of the original.' In order to obviate these inconveniences, the editor has omitted the technical terms, and substituted scriptural phraseology in the room of them.

To the liberties here acknowleged to have been taken with the original, except perhaps as to leaving out passages which at this day can have no interest, we cannot give our approbation. To add to the text of an author, especially one so respectable as Dom Lancelot, to whom we are indebted for the Port Royal grammars, is on every ground highly objectionable, and ought in no case to be allowed. The charge which the editor makes against French literature is well founded, but we

much