While forth the milk of human kindness flow'd, An healing ftream, warm from his inmost heart! V. While Content my path illumes, Far hence, Ambition, ftretch thy plumes! * And on Monda's rugged land The fhivering pilgrim refcue from the cold, Of Deity himself transform'd to man! VI. Nor vain his prayer:-For, from their bright abode, And fpotlefs-cinctur'd Faith her forehead rear'd, They came, and on Monceda's fea-beat shore, While pining Hunger + fmil'd, The Christian graces throng'd his dome around, VII. By thee, O Wilfon, check'd, impell'd, refin'd, To virtue's towering height, (Whence beams her radiant light) Ptolemy calls the Ifle of Man Monoda, quafi Mona Remota, to diftinguish it from Mona, Anglesey. The Bishop appropriated half his income for the use of the poor of the Ifle of Man, feeding and cloathing all the poor of the island, though his whole income never exceeded five hundred pounds a year. The Rev. Thomas Wilfon, while curate of Winnick, was tutor to Lord Strange, fon of the Earl of Derby, a very promifing young nobleman, who died at Lisbon while on his travels, in the twenty-first year of his age. Tutor'd Tutor'd by thee, to climb the arduous fteeps of fame Unfeen the mortal arrow flew, And funk the work of wisdom to an early grave. Why fainter glows poetic fire? IX. Or fay, bright effences above? Thus with Affliction's touchstone Virtue prove X. So Wilfon fhone. The mifts of dark disgrace Flew, like fome night-born vapour's floating ftream, *For his ftrenuous exertions in favour of church difcipline, the Bishop was fined by an arbitrary governor, himself in gol. and his two Vicars General in 201. each; on refufing to pay this fine they were fent to the prison of Castle Rufhin, where they were confined two months, till they appealed to King George the Firft, and his Council, by whofe fentence they were honourably acquitted. N. B. A Vicar-General, in the Isle of Man, is an office fimilar to a Bishop's Chancellor in England. The whole of this tranfaction, the author is informed, will be related in his Life, to be prefixed to his Works, now printing by fubfcription, in two Vols. 4to. Mazy Mazy, but juft, are all the ways of heaven! Yet on its head, e'en in this world below, Which banish every mental pain, While in pity to frail man, By thy example taught, and precepts fage, At placid eve, e'en like the gently fetting fun, Mature in heavenly works, thou to thy grave waft borne; Thy mortal part mix'd with its parent earth,- Emma Corbett; or, The Miferies of Civil War. Founded on Some recent Circumftances which happened in America. By the Author of the Pupil of Pleafure, Liberal Opinions, ShenStone Green, &c. &c. In 3 vols. 12mo. Price 7s. 6d. Baldwin. To touch the foul by tender ftrokes of art, To raise the genius and to mend the heart,' Are, faith Mr. Pope, the motives which firft urged the tragic muse to tread the ftage. But, furely these motives. do not more warmly urge the mufe of the theatre, than that pathetic mufe of narration who, with lefs pomp and equal pathos, raises the genius and mends the heart in the CLOSET. The language of the first indeed hath every advantage which can be derived from fcenic decorations, and from oral delivery: the aids of which united, are frequently fufficient to hide a thousand blemishes, no less than to fet off a variety of beauties. On the other hand, as the mufe of narration The Bishop died at the age of ninety-three. depends depends more on the charms of filent eloquence, and hath not one extrinfic ornament to illumine the dead lettered page, (which without any dazzling, is fubmitted to the reader) her talk is proportionably difficult. So too is her honour more diftinguished, when the is, by the force of natural fenfibility, tender ftrokes of art,' which the poet speaks of, able to furmount obftructions, and vie with a rival trick'd off in all the allurements of the drama. The tragic muse adorned in her paraphernalia, refembles fome mighty Sultana, dressed forth for public fpectacle, with every feature taught to attract, and every motion difciplined to feduce. The mufe of narration is like fome more humble fair, who is, literally, 1 "When unadorn'd, adorn'd the moft.' Clad in the native robes of truth and fimplicity, 'her beft attire,' fhe appeals unoftentatiously to the human heart. No public triumphs, no obftreperous fhouts belong to her. One tear fhed in PRIVATE is, fhe thinks, of more value than them all. She flies from the loud huzzas' of the mob; fhe shrinks from the acclamations of an audience, and takes refuge unheard and unfeen, in many a tender bofom: that iş her proper manfion, and from thence the breathes the eloquence, which, though not vociferous, is fweet, and though not vain, is victorious. We are led into these remarks by a perufal of the performance, which is the fubject of the prefent article. It is beyond all lines of comparison the chef-d'ouvre of the ingenious writer; and we affert this, without detracting in any degree, from the merits of his former compofitions, or recanting a fingle fyllable that hath, either by us, or others, been faid in their favour. But we shall not close fo decifively, without more explicit reasons given for, our commendation. To be ingenuous then, we prefer this to every prior effort of our author, not only as it is, abundantly, a more affecting, but as it is a more amiable production; it will have the merit of making the fineft paffions, depictured in their utmost force, move at the command of virtue' love does not here appear as a wanton but as a cherub. The intrigue of the novelift is wholly rejected; it is nature which here speaks to to our senses; it is truth which here dictates to pity, and is heard. The actual, tho' extraordinary, facts which ferve as a foundation to this fuperftructure, do indeed, as the author obferves, faften fo ftrongly on the human feelings, that a heart must be very obdurate not to be penetrated. To anticipate the incidents of the piece, by relating them in abridgement, would would not be very acceptable: for we could not do it without leffening the force of thofe interefting surprises, and affecting turns of fentiment and adventure; which, gradually unfold themselves in the progrefs of the work and yet, as fome fort of analyfis is, officially, expected of us, the pub→ lic purveyors of literary entertainment, it may be proper to fuggeft that, the Hiftory of Emma Corbett is built upon real and recent circumftances. The fate and fortunes of Mrs. Rofs, form the bafis of this beautiful fabric, than which nothing was ever more fortunate, or more feasonable. Fortunate, becaufe Otway himfelf exhibits nothing more truly tender, and feaforable, be cause the common calamity of the times gives to the political traits which are blended with the pathetic, of the characters, a moft remarkable propriety.-It is, in truth, not without admiration we obferve the addrefs with which the author hath interwoven all the circumftances of our national mise→ ries, with the tendereft incidents and deareft interests of private families, fuffering under thofe miferies. The prefs hath, for feveral years, echoed the groans of the nation; and, under every form of publication, teemed with works on the civil broils which fubfift between us and our colonies. The pro, and con, have been agitated with redoubled, and, alas, with unavailing oppofition on both fides. But parties collect and diffolve rage, and are filent without regard and we read of the general ravages of war, confidered merely as an affair of ftaté, with little or no emotion. If we are indeed to feel, and to be made fenfible of our dan gers or our diftreffes, they muft both be brought HOME to us they must be difplayed, with all their horrors, as they tear up the tenderneffes, and difmember the comforts and fupports of private life: they muft fhew the domeftic anguifh of lacerated relations, and of the houfe fet against itself,' as well as draw the portrait of that era when "The fons against the fathers food, And parents fhed their children's blood." This task then was reserved for the author of the volumes before us. -It is not often that an opportunity offers of effecting this. An age might elapfe and furnish nothing fo aufpicious or fofuitable as the prefent inftance; and the author was determined not to let it elude an attention, which, indeed, appears to be unremittingly fixed on, the happiest incidents living as they rife, for, as in morals, the Earl of Chesterfield's Letters had been the butt of general and preceptual criticism, till the world was tired of fuch kind of cenVOL. XI. M m fure, |
