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excuse to say that he was hired? We sincerely wish that the speculation of the one may be as unprofitable, as the work of the other is immoral. Avarice is so given to over-reaching, that, perhaps for the very love of the thing, it sometimes over-reaches itself; like the miser, who was so fond of eating at other people's expense, that he used to crib the cheese out of his own mouse-traps. The price of this book, which truly is its best recommendation, because it will tempt no body to buy it, is fixed so high, in the hope of extravagant profit, as to place it beyond the reach of almost all, but those persons of rank and fortune, with whom the author would persuade us that he is in habits of friendship and familiarity. Indeed, on seeing the noble names which are so ostentatiously blazoned throughout these unhallowed pages,

one

might imagine that Mr. M. being himself unable to blush, had resolved to blush by proxy; for he has left his patrons no alternative, but to disown him or to blush for him. Among these it is shocking to observe the names of ladies, so indicated by letters & dashes, that they may be conveniently filled up by the ingenuity of slander, and attached to persons, by whom the libertine and his song ought to be held in equal scorn and detestation. If Mr. M., as we are assured, be indeed an acceptable companion among the great and illustrious, the moral character of our highest circles must be placed on a far lower rank, than is consistent with our aristocratic prepossessions.

Among the paths of literature, there are only two short and ea

In

sy ones to popularity-personalsatire and licentiousness. the first, there have been many successful adventurers among recent authors. In the last, Mr. Moore out-strips all rivals, and leaves even his friend Lord Strangford at a hopeless distance behind him. The poems of the late Thomas Little (the first publication of the present Thomas Moore) are now in the eighth edir tion the same talents more honourably employed, would probably not have produced one eighth of the reward, in fame to the poet, or money to the bookseller, which they have gained in about five years, by such shameless prostitution. To the success of that meretricious volume, may be attributed the mercenary munificence which rescued the present from oblivion. The eagerness with which Thomas Little's 'Juvenile Indiscretions,' were purchased at seven shillings, naturally enough induced the publisher to imagine, that Thom, as Moore's manly irregularities would fetch a Guinea and a Half; for the former were only the abándoned abortions of folly without thought in a boy, while the latter are the avowed offspring of folly matured by reflection in a man. But in this golden expectation, the adventurer will probably be disappointed. This volume is too unwieldy to be a pocket companion, or a bosom friend; it cannot conveniently be secreted in the drawer of a toilette, or read by stealth behind a fire-screen ; and were a second edition to reduce it from the dignity of a royal quarto to foolscap octavo, (the rank of its predecessor) still the quantity of matter must either burst it in twain, or swell it to such

an unfashionable bulk, as would exclude it from all polite circles; for so refined is the sense of propriety among the beau monde, that even profligacy is not admitted into good company, except it be dressed a-la-mode. Besides, the very sight of so much at once of what he loves best, would sicken even to loathing the young and impatient voluptuary; so that perhaps not one sensualist will be found, who with appetite unsated and insatiable, can riot through all the courses of this corporationfeast of indelicacies, unless it be some hoary debauchee,-the lukewarm ashes of a man, from which, though the fire of na ture be extinct in them, the smoke of impurity still rises as they cool for the grave.

Yet let not virtue exult, nor Thomas Moore despair. has shot his arrows at youth and innocence; and the young and the innocent will yet be his victims. Poison so exquisitely malignant, and prepared with such incomparable skill, can hardly fail of being as widely pernicious, as his fond imagination ever dreamed in his most sanguine moments of anticipation. Though the formidable size of this volume will equally deter the gay and the indolent from toiling tho' its labyrinths of seduction, though it cannot be named in any decent family, though none but the most undaunted can apply for it, and though no bookseller will produce it, who has the fear of the Society for the suppression of vice before his eyes, yet its most inflaming contents will be reprinted in newspapers, magazines, and miscellanies, recited and sung in

convivial companies, and circulated in manuscript among friends; insidiously assailing the purity of the fair sex, and completing the corruption of youth, which is so auspiciously begun at our public seminaries. -Thus will the plague of this leprosy spread from individual to individual, from family to family, from circle to circle, till it mingles and assimilates with that general mass of corruption which contaminates society at large, and which eventually may be aggravated, in no small degree, by this acquisition of new snares for virtue and new stimulants to sensuality. This is no fanciful speculation. The mystery of iniquity,' here published to the world, will operate beyond the search of human reason the wisdom of God alone can comprehend the infinite issues of evil; the power of God alone can restrict them.

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It is unusual for us either to praise or condemn a publication of magnitude, without endeavouring to establish the reasons we assign by quotations from the work itself; for every author is best judged out of his own mouth. Our deviation in the present instance will be readily excused; the very passage of an impure thought through the mind leaves pollution behind it, and a momentary indulgence of it, brings guilt, condemnation, and remorse. While, therefore, . we are warning our friends against straying into this forest of wild beasts, it would be madness in us to turn a few of the lions loose among them, on the open plain, to prove the ferocity of the species. But if there be one among our readers who will

not take our word for it, that this is a book of ill fame, which no modest woman would read, and which, therefore, no modest man ought to read, let him judge for himself at his perillet him remember that indelicacy cannot be admitted into the heart with impunity, for it cannot be imagined with indifference; it is always either the parent or child of unholy feelings. If then, in the perusal of these voluptuous poems, he finds himself fascinated with their beauty, let him tremble, let him fly; it is the beauty, it is the fascination of the serpent, of the Old Serpent, which ought to inspire terror and repugnance, while it is tempting, attracting, delighting him into destruction.

We shall briefly characterize the contents of this volume.It contains irregular odes, epistles, and amatory verses. The author has had the rare felicity to make the former nearly unintelligible of themselves, and utterly so, with the help of notes. The epistles are his least offensive writings in this collection, though most of them are mildewed with uncleanness. But it is in his amatory verses, that Mr. Moore unblushingly displays the cloven foot of the libidinous satyr; in these he chants his loves to a thousand nymphs, every one of whom either has bad, or is welcome to have, a thousand gallants besides; for as there is no romantic constancy of passion in himstlf, he is not so unreasonable as to prohibit a plurality of attachments in them. His "dear ones" are all

"Bright as the sun, and common as the air."

In every page the poet is a libertine; in every song his mistress is a prostitute; and what the poet and his mistresses are, he seems determined that his readers shall be; and verily we wish that none but such may be his readers.

Let not our cautions be misconstrued, by our readers, into an unworthy suspicion of the stability of their virtue, or too high a compliment to the talents of this syren seducer. When we stand in the confidence of our own strength, the weakest temptation will overcome us; when we fly, the strongest cannot overtake us. The danger lies in dallying with sin, and with sensual sin above all other: it works, it winds, it wins its way with imperceptible, with irresist ible insinuation, through all the passes of the mind, into the innermost recesses of the heart; while it is softening the bosom, it is hardening the conscience; while, by its exhilaration, it seems to be spiritualizing the body, it is brutalizing the soul, and, by mingling with its eternal essence, it is giving immortality to impotent unappeasable desires; it is engendering "the worm that dieth not," it is kindling the "fire that is not quenched."

Wantonly to assail, or basely to profit by the weakness and degeneracy of his fellow creatures, Mr. Moore has lavished all the wiles of his wit, all the enchantments of his genius ; but both his wit and his genius have been vitiated by the harlotry of his muse; and his pages glitter almost as much with false taste as false fire. With Darwinian smoothness of numbers, and

pictorial expression, he unites the tinsel of Italian conceit, and the lead of Della Cruscan bombast; mingling with all a pruriency of thought, and a modesty of impudence, peculiarly his own.

If a heart rotten in sensuality, could yet feel alive to the remonstrances which indignation and pity would urge us to utter, we should warn Mr. M. how dreadful to himself, how hateful in the sight of heaven and earth, are talents thus sold to infamy; -talents that might have been employed in furnishing the sweetest aids to virtue, the noblest ornaments to literature. He knows now that his gaudy pictures of the pleasures of sin are as false, and he will know

soon that they are as dangerous, as the delusions of a calenture;

in which the patient, sailing under the vertical sun, sick of the sea, and a hundred leagues from shore, dreams that he is surrounded by green fields and woods that invite him to delicious enjoyments, and in the rapture of delirium steps from the deck

into the gulph!-Into a more perilous gulf will he fall, who, bewildered by the visions of this volume, steps into the paradise of fools, which it opens around him; for through that paradise lies the "broad road that leadett. to destruction :" and if any traveller wants an infallible guide on his journey thither, let him take his own heart,* corrupted by licentious poetry.

Review of New Publications.

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no cautions, no directions, no exhortations are alone sufficient. Still they may be useful; and the discourse under consideration may be read with advantage by all, who mourn the loss of pious friends, especially the bereaved husband.

For his theme the author has chosen Gen. xxiii. 2. "And Sarah died in Kirjath-Arba-and Abraham came to mourn for Sarah and to weep for her."

In an appropriate introduction he observes ;

"The feelings of friendship are not weakened, but exalted and sancti fied by religion. There are none who There are none who know so well the value a friend so highly, as the saints.

* Genesis, vi. 5.-Jeremiah xvii. 9.

advantages, or so exquisitely enjoy the delights of reciprocal affection. Accordingly the people of God are the sincerest mourners-Jesus, weeping at the grave of Lazarus, sanctioned all the tears, by which his people, on similar occasions, express the tenderness and sorrow of their hearts."

At first view this example may not seem to the point. It was not on a funeral occasion, that Jesus wept. It cannot be supposed, that he felt any grief on account of the death of one, who was immediately to be raised to life. His were tears of sympathy, and teach us to weep with them that weep. Still they may be considered as "sanctioning" the tears of those, who mourned the death of a brother.

"The father of the faithful had liv ed happily with Sarah, his wife, for many years. When she died, how amiable did patriarchal tenderness appear in the melting tenderness of grief."

The "design" of the discourse "is to justify the tears of Abraham at the grave of Earah, or to show, with what singular propriety a husband mourns the death of a discreet and pious wife."

This he shows generally in few words.

"All that can be said on the excellence and happiness of friendship in general, may, with eminent propriety, be applied to the friendship, which exists in the matrimonial state. It is there that friendship is found in its highest purity and force; there it is productive of its best joys. How highly does the pen of inspiration honour marriage by representing it, as resembling the sacred and holy union between Christ and his church.

The married state is designed by God

as the consummation of human love. Kind heaven has wonderfully combined the interests and feelings, the joys and sorrows of the husband and the wife, so that they are one. If therefore bereavement in any other relation ought to be deeply felt; more so in this. If a man is justified, or

excused for mourning the loss of any other friend; his sorrow for the death of a discreet and pious wife is com mendable and dignified.”

He then proceeds to take a more particular survey of her "amiable character and usefulness."

In lively, but not gaudy colours he paints her loveliness. the character of a wife, uniformly "What encomium is too high for good-Her modest, gentle, and peaceable temper has a never fading beauty, a charm infinitely superior to that of a fair countenance and splen did apparel. Above all, how ornamental is the spirit of piety, which raises her eyes and her heart to God; which consecrates to him all her af fections and all her actions; which prompts her diligently to perform every domestic duty, as unto God, and to seek purity of heart, as well as blameless deportment. Religion imparts uniformity to her conduct, and the highest excellence to her character. Every person acquainted with her worth. But no person so clearly her, is constrained to acknowledge discerns her amiable temper, or so highly esteems her character, as her partner. He has the nearest survey of those virtuous qualities, which adorn her mind. In her life the graces of Christianity flourish before his eyes. He prizes her above rubies. How grievous, then, his bereavement, when she departs. How affecting the moment, when so much loveliness expires. When her heart, so full of kind affection, ceases to beat, and her eyes, which bespoke the sensibilities of her heart, are closed in death; how great must be his sorrow. With what propriety does he weep at the grave of so much excellence."

The author of this excellent discourse is equally happy in describing her usefulness in "domestic concerns," in educating children; in preserving her husband "from the snares of the world;" in his "perplexing cares" in "prosperity;" and in "affliction."

"But," continues our author,

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