'An instantaneous shout re-echoed round, Still round the thorn the jovial song was heard; Dance, rhymes, and fame, they scorn'd such things as these, As if 'twere worse than shame to want repose: We conclude with assuring our readers that they will not find many pleasanter modes of whiling away a gloomy afternoon in Autumn than in the perusal of May-Day with the Muses.' ART. XV. Memoirs of the Author of "Indian Antiquities;" comprehending the History of the Progress of Indian Literature, in Britain, during a Period of Thirty Years. To be comprized in Three Parts. 8vo. Parts I. and II. 7s. each, sewed. Rivingtons. IT T is scarcely necessary to state to our readers that the author of "Indian Antiquities" is the Rev. Thomas Maurice, assistant-keeper of the MSS. in the British Museum, and that he has long been advantageously known in the literary world by that splendidly written work. If it be too exclusively founded on English researches, if deficient in arrangement and compression of topic, if somewhat tinctured with ecclesiastical prejudices, and if less critical than eloquent, still it asserts an elevated rank for comprehension of materials and richness of composition. The author of such a production may well expect that some public curiosity will attach to his biography. Mr. M. is descended, he informs us, from Welsh princes, but was born at Hertford, on the 25th of September, 1754. His father, a clergyman and schoolmaster, gave him good domestic instruction, but died during his boyhood, and he was then placed by the interest of guardians in Christ's Hospital. The mother, however, who was methodistically disposed, and indeed liable to fits of aberration of mind, chose to remove her son to Mr. Wesley's seminary near Bristol and Kingswood. During his stay there, Mrs. Maurice married Joseph Joseph Wright, an Irishman, and a local preacher among the Methodists: a connection which deprived the author of much of his inheritance, and which was contracted not only under the influence of a corrupt conspiracy, but while Mrs. Maurice was in a state not fit to form such an engagement. It was ultimately set aside by the Court of Chancery: but the waste of property which it occasioned is lamentable. Mr. Maurice was afterward placed under the celebrated Dr. Parr at Stanmore, of which residence he thus speaks: That the democratic spirit somewhat prevailed, though to no culpable extent, among the gentlemen about that period educated at Harrow, may in some degree be accounted for by their being so well read, under the tuition of their learned deceased master, in Greek history, by which they were naturally interested in the fate of liberty that liberty whose cause was so well supported by its orators against the armies of the Persian satrap, and the insidious designs of Philip. The power of gold had also been recently, and to an alarming extent, tried in their own country by the daring minister who is said to have affirmed that every man had his price. In one of those accomplished scholars *, it is well known, that Isæus, the master of Demosthenes, afterwards found an elegant translator of his eloquent orations. A very different doctrine from that promulged by the minister aforesaid is inculcated throughout those spirited Alcaic verses commencing with What constitutes a state? Not high-rais'd battlement, or labour'd mound and those that, in still more energetic strains, rehearse the sublime praises of the subverters of the tyranny of the Pisistratidæ. • Pre-eminent among these worthies of Stanmore were William Julius, the captain, and Walter Pollard, two most excellent scholars natives of the tropic - "Souls made of fire, and children of the sun;" the latter of whom only expired with the last expiring year, 1818. He was early honoured with the confidence of Sir W. Jones, and became, at Cambridge, the personal friend of Mr. Pitt, by whom he was made Comptroller of the Exchequer, in which situation he died. I shall have much to say of him presently, for of him much is worthy to be said. To associate with young men so accomplished as these, was gradually to advance in knowledge. Though much their junior, by my kind instructor's recommendation I obtained that permission; I was even placed, however unworthy, in the same exalted class with them; and seeing me earnest, industrious, and inquisitive, they assisted me in my studies, which for a time were laborious and unremitted. I had frequent invitations, also, to dine and drink tea with the great archi-didaskalos himself, who condescended to indulge me with private instructions in his study. A considerable latitude was given to this upper part of the school by a * Sir William Jones.' master master who well knew when to straiten and when relax the reins of government, nor was it ever abused to any considerable extent. Our morning breakfast-parties, and our numerous evening-conversaziones, were of a nature highly social, yet still of a literary cast; the varying merits as well as style of the different British writers were dispassionately discussed; and Johnson and Addison, Hume and Robertson, had each their respective partizans among us. Young men of that age will dare to think for themselves; and, therefore, it cannot excite wonder if Bolingbroke, also, had his advocates, and Akenside his admirers. Our more convivial meetings, (for we had them unknown to our Argus,) our Attic symposia, at least while Pollard remained among us, were also regulated by the laws of decorum, and no intemperate mirth disgraced the scholars of philosophy and Parr! At a later period, a Greek play, (the first instance of the kind in England, I believe,) the Edipus Tyrannus of Sophocles, the most admired tragedy of antiquity, was performed before a vast body of assembled literati; and the incomparable scholar, Gerald, went eloquently through a part of eight or nine hundred lines, without a pause or a blunder -- would to God he had acted his part with equal correctness in the great drama of life. It was, indeed, impossible, while we were construing the choruses, and often very sublime speeches of the Aytas, or Messenger, in the Greek tragedians, for the most stupid boy not to be deeply affected with the mode in which Dr. Parr-for so I shall venture to call my revered friend, as a title more dignified, and more familiar to me, though he did not take that degree till several years afterwards with the mode, I say, in which he treated the subject of our instruction. For, in our progress through the interesting drama, to the antient Greek and Roman authorities, brought in illustration of the author, were added similar passages, generally imitations, to be found in modern writers, principally English as, for instance, in respect to the tragedy just mentioned, the Edipus Tyrannus, all the pathetic ejaculations of Milton, relative to his blindness, were adduced to increase the interest, from Paradise Lost, and the Samson Agonistes. This was done in the most impressive manner by an instructor, who, in addition to his profound knowledge of Greek lore, accurately knew, and strenuously exerted, all the powers of the English language, to enforce them on his pupils. During his eloquent recitations, I have known youths of feeling affected by them even to tears; and, I believe, none who heard them ever after forgot them.' Anecdotes of Sir William Jones and some of his early letters are given, including fragments of unpublished poems, which will be read with interest. In the second part of these Memoirs, the author reaches, Cambridge, where he was entered a commoner at St. John's in 1774. Many of his juvenile poems are inserted, many of his juvenile freaks are frankly related, and many of his illustrious acquaintance are agreeably characterized: but there is much much of excursion in all this, and some garrulity. The author's travels in Derbyshire, to Manchester, Liverpool, the Lakes, and elsewhere, are not pregnant with interesting remarks or uncommon occurrences. A summary view of the antient distractions on the borders of Scotland forms another episodical insertion of eight pages; and fragments of occasional poems diversify the narrative, which is chiefly faulty for its exuberance. A life of Chatterton, with extracts from his works, repeats for the tenth time a tale which surely can please so often no where but at Bristol. Letters from Dr. Pretyman, when Bishop of Lincoln, adorn several pages; and others from Lords Liverpool, Auckland, and Spencer. On the whole, the lovers of unimportant anecdote, and of chit-chat concerning eminence, will find much in these volumes to gratify an innocent though trifling taste for such personalities; and, as we observe that the memoirs are printed on the author's own account, we sincerely wish them a profitable career. MONTHLY CATALOGUE, FOR SEPTEMBER, 1822. POETRY and the DRAMA. Art. 16. Letters to Julia, in Rhyme. Third Edition. To which are added, Lines written at Ampthill Park. By Henry Luttrell. Crown 8vo. 8s. 6d. Boards. Murray. 1822. This is an amended, and to a considerable degree a newly modelled, edition of a poem which acquired rapid popularity some months ago, under the title of " Advice to Julia." Its plan, however, appeared to many readers to be exceptionable, because the heroine, beautiful and interesting as she was drawn, was still in too nameless and equivocal a relation to the principal character to sustain the dignity requisite for the poetical station assigned to her. In the reformed publication before us, she is no longer his mistress, but a young, rich, handsome widow, basking in the full sunshine of prosperity, and spoiled from her first entrance into life by indulgence and admiration. She has taken a sufficiently high degree in the college of fashion to make her ambitious of one still higher;' and the shortest way of effecting this object is to obtain Charles as a husband, who, being at the head of the bon ton, would confer on her all the privileges of the caste. Having hooked her fish, she plays him, like a true coquette, even at the risk of losing him for ever: but Charles, though a man of pleasure and of the world, is "over head and ears in love." Of a subject necessarily so limited, this agreeable and harmonious versifier has made the most. He has thrown around it every REV. SEPT. 1822. H every illustration and ornament which a playful and lively style of poetry could confer; and he has contrived with great art to interweave into the poem those nice and correct notices of life and manners, which bespeak the hand of one who is himself not uninitiated in the mysteries of fashion; - those lightly touched but exquisite sketches, which denote a consummate ease and freedom of design that can be imparted only by long and active familiarity with the gay and polished scenes which he delineates. In point of execution, it is systematic and finished: its symmetry is not disturbed by careless or slovenly rhymes; nor is its flow imWe may peded by any violence or harshness of construction. add that it is full of those original thoughts, and epigrammatic turns, which forcibly remind us of the admirable though neglected poem of the Spleen, by Green of the Custom-house, first published many years ago in Dodsley's Collection. The well-known rendezvous, in chaotic confusion, of horses and carriages at Apsley Corner in the Park, and the difficulties which beset the aspirants to Almack's, that steep and almost inacces sible of fashion, are thus admirably described : apex But when from violated May Winter's rude form is chased away, When skies more blue and bright appear, In the world's lottery when lost, Say you, to whom in beauty's pride This paradise is opened wide, Are closed against less favoured mortals, Has spoiled a blooming nymph's complexion? Have |