destitute. A sealed packet was also carefully entrusted to her hands, but with strict injunctions that it should not be opened till the attain ment of her eighteenth year; which corresponded also with the particular settlement in the codicil added to the will of Nelson, providing for the maintenance of this very child under the denomination of his adopted daughter." pp. 347, 8.

The

Our biographer fully acquits Lady Hamilton of any share in the infamous publication of Lord Nelson's letters. impartiality which he displays in every part of his instructive performance, makes us willing to dismiss him in the words which Shakspeare puts into the mouth of one not much more injuriously treated than the amiable person whose interests ought inseparably to have been connected with Lord Nelson's, whose affections were most aggrieved by his desertion:

After my death I wish no other herald,
No other speaker of my living actions,
To keep my honour from corruption,
But such an honest chronicler.

Art. IX. 1. Jonah. The Sentonian Prize Poem, for the year 1815; By James W. Bellamy, M. A. of Queen's College, Cambridge. 8vo. pp. 28. Price 5s. 6d. Taylor and Hessey. 1815.

2. Jonah. a Poem. By Edward Smedley, Junior. 8vo. pp. 24. Price 58. 6d. Murray. 1815.

WE

E had occasion, in reviewing the Seatonian prize poem for the year 1814, to notice the difficulties which the candidates have to surmount in producing, on a given subject, and that nominally a scriptural one, a poem possessing ither originality or interest. The present productions may serve to exemplify those observations.

Mr. Bellamy has obviously bestowed considerable pains on the poising of his cadences, and the burnishing of his rhymes: there is a dazzling semblance of poetry in his diction: but we look in vain for any display of fancy, that might compensate for his injudicious deviations from the simplicity of the scriptural nar ve. The character of Jonah, we are sorry to remark, is appropriately delineated, and his history is badly nar

rated.

The following magniloquous lines are substituted for the scripture account of the prophet's fatal voyage. The impressive circumstances of the lot falling upon Jonah, his confession to the mariners, and his directing them to cast him overboard, are wholly omitted.

Launch'd on the main, the seamen woo the gale
To fan, with favouring breath, the swelling sail:
Bounds the light bark the foaming billows o'er,
And wings her way to Tarshish' sheltering shore.
Short blew that prosperous breeze: thick clouds arise,
VOL. V. N. S.

Ꮓ

Scattering their deepening horrors o'er the skies:
Loud and more loud the rattling thunders spread,
Wild howl the winds above the Prophet's head;
Fleet darts the lightning's flash athwart the gloom,
Gilds the wide waste, and lights the watery tomb;
High rides the bark where mountain billows roll,
Then seeks with headlong prow the nether pole.
Rous'd by the storm, that thunder'd long and loud,
As the full peal of Sinai's fiery cloud,

There on the deck the trembling Jonah stood,
Wild with affright and eyed the yawning flood.
Hope fled the guilty breast-Remorse was there,
That bids his victim wake but to despair:

E'en Mercy seem'd to spurn him; Vengeance came
Exultant, arm'd with sword of cherub flame,
And thron'd in terrors on the airy steep,

Hurl'd the red bolt, and dash'd him to the deep.
But from those depths, with Hades near to view,
Leviathan the recreant prophet drew;

His guard commission'd by divine command,

To bear the wanderer to his destin'd strand. pp. 7, 8.

This may suffice for a specimen of the performance. We cannot dismiss Mr. Bellamy, however, to whom, as devoted to the Christian ministry, poetical fame must be a very subordinate object, without one word of severer animadversion, in reference to the passage beginning,

• Ye cheerless blossoms fade, that coldly spread.'

These lines appear to be a palpable, but indifferent, imitation of some of the finest lines in the "Pleasures of Hope,' but they have this further disadvantage; that the total negation of all peculiarly Christian sentiment, the omission of any reference to the dictates of Revelation on the subject of the world to come, is, in a poem professedly founded on Old Testament history, particularly offensive and reprehensible. It indicates, what is obvious from the extract given above, that the poet neither felt nor properly understood his subject. Jonah was indeed a Jew, but if, as our Author has properly represented him, though he makes no use of the reference, he was a type of 'Israel's King', it is not to be supposed that he was unacquainted with the Christian doctrine of immortality, as brought to 'light' by the Gospel. Such lines as the following are destitute of all propriety in a poem on a sacred subject.

'No-beneath Heaven's firm shield, in peril's hour
He treads the tomb, and braves oblivion's power,
Smiles at blind fate, and hails with rapture high
The morning star of immortality, p. 13.

We are much better pleased with Mr. Smedley's performance. Not half of his poem, indeed, is occupied with the subject of Jonah; and he must therefore be considered as having eluded, rather than surmounted, its difficulty as a theme for poetry. Still, in the brief and rapid narrative which he gives of the history, more of the circumstances recorded in Scriptare, are included, than in Mr. Bellamy's diffuse description.

The poem commences with the destruction of Nineveh, as predicted by Nahum, Zephaniah, and Jonah; and a very judicious use is made of the bold and vivid language of prophecy. The transition is then made to the story of Jonah, in the following lines:—

"Yea! Nineveh is fallen !-but not before

The Lord had shewed her that his wrath was sore;
Not till his finger pointed out the thread

By which the vengeance quiver'd o'er her head.
There spake the son of Cushi in his might;
There roll'd the thunders of the Elkoshite;
And there Amittai's trembling seed obey'd
The call reluctantly; as if afraid

Of man, yet fearless to endure the wrath
Of Heaven, which follow'd blasting on his path.
Vainly he wander'd, for the Spirit of God
Was strong within him wheresoe'er he trod;
Whether in Sephor's many-peopled street
He thought to mingle his forgotten feet;
Or fled the presence which his steps pursued
In Asmon's never-beaten solitude.

Nor less when hid within the galley's side
He slumber'd, careless of the raging tide,
Saw not the mighty tempest, nor the wave
With hundred mouths wide yawning to the grave.
Then fear was on the seamen, and despair
Hung on their lips in unaccustom'd prayer;
They sought the guilty whom such wrath pursued
By lot, and tried their divinations rude.

The hand of God was with them, and they knew
The offender; him unwillingly they threw
A willing victim to the gulph, which clos'd
Above him, and in calmness then repos'd.

Strange was the mystery which the Lord prepar'd
To save the Prophet whom his mercy spar'd.
Three days, alive, and yet as in the grave,
He died new death each moment; and the wave
Unceasingly he heard about him roll,

Depth above depth, encompassing his soul.
There the dank sea-weed round his living head
Wrapped its green folds, like shroud upon the dead.
Earth with her bars inclos'd him; ever down,
Down to the mountain bottoms he was thrown,

The flood-springs, and the eternal roots which bound
The innermost secrets of this upper ground.

Three days in bitterness of death he lay,

The fourth the monster yielded up his prey.' pp. 57.

The remainder of the poem is devoted to the death and entombment of "a greater than Jonah," of which the prophet's story is considered as a typical representation. This part of Mr. Smedley's production is entitled to no ordinary praise: it is every way worthy of a Christian poet. The portraits of the Mother of our Lord, the Magdalene, and the beloved disciple, are very finely conceived, and in strict harmony with the Gospel narrative. On perusing these lines, we felt no disposi- · tion to retract what we have remarked respecting the difficulty of treating scriptural subjects, but they convinced us still more strongly, that they are, after all, the finest which can employ the imagination, when no attempt is made, by the injudicious addition of poetical ornaments, to fill up the outline of inspired history, at the expense of its truth and severe simplicity.

We must make room for the concluding lines in the poem.

So they but he for whom they mourn'd had gain'd
The limit of this being, and remain'd

In that unknown, which never mortal eye

Sees till it closes on mortality.

Three days his body slept, and the cold tomb
Held him within its fearful bed of gloom.
Death hover`d over him, but on his face
The foulness of his touch could leave no trace,
Nor did his body see corruption; there
Sate living freshness, and the tranquil air
Of a light slumber, when high visions fill
The fancy, and exalt to Heaven the will;
As if embalm'd by his divinity,

When death began, his body ceas'd to die;
And when his earthly nature did not dwell
Within, the unearthly purified the shell;
Adorn'd it for his triumph, and resum’d
The veil of flesh more holy since entomb'd.

The third day comes-Oh! not within the grave

Look for his body who has died to save;

Seek not in earth the immortal flesh which holds
A Spirit as immortal in its folds.

Won is the Paradise to sin refus'd;

The bruised heel the venom'd head has bruis'd;

Gain'd is the victory now, the battle done;

To us the living and the dead are one.
Lo! on the ruins of the first there stands
A nobler temple, fashion d without hands;
And blazon'd on its everlasting shrine
Beams to our eyes the Prophet Jonah's sign.

Art. X. 1. Report together with the Minutes of Evidence, and an Appendix of Papers, from the Committee appointed to consider of Provision being made for the better Regulation of Madhouses in England. Ordered by the House of Common to be printed, 11th July, 1815 Each Subject of Evidence arranged under its distinct Head, by J. B Sharpe. Member of the Royal College of Surgeons, London. Reprinted for Baldwin and Co. 47, Paternoster-Row. 8vo. pp. 399. Price 13s. 1815.

2. A Letter addressed to the Chairman of the Select Committee of the House of Commons, appointed to enquire into the State of Madhouses; to which is subjoined Remarks on the Nature, Causes, and Cure of Mental Derangement. By Thomas Bakewell, Author of "A Domestic Guide in Cases of Insanity," and Keepe. of Spring Vale Asylum, near Stone, Staffordshire. pp. 100 Stafford. 1815. 3. Practical Hints on the Construction and Economy of Pauper Lunatic Asylums. Including Instructions to the Architects who, offered Plans for the Wakefield Asylum, and a Sketch of the most approved Design, By Samuel Tuke. pp. 55. York, 1815. 4. Observations on the Laws relating to Private Lunatic Asylums, and particularly on a Bill for their alteration which passed the House of Commons in the Year 1814. 8vo. pp 112. price 3s. 6d. Conder, London. 1816.

AFTER a sanguinary conflict, especially when it has been

of unusual and unexpected severity, as in the case of the victory of Waterloo, we hear with horror of numbers, who, although not the immediate victims of death on the field where they had fought and bled, nevertheless, subsequently lose their limbs and their lives for want of timely medicinal aid, and in consequence of that pressure and hurry in the business of healing, which directly succeed to the business of slaying. But the feelings which are excited by this consideration, must sink very low in comparison of those which are occasioned by the reflection, that mental soundness, and mental life, if we may so express it, are frequently lost for want of opportunity and of pecuniary resources, to preserve them How many wretched beings do the wards of a public lunatic asylum enclose, who, having been once as we are, are now reduced to state of orse than brutal ferocity, uttering horrid blasphemies, and denouncing malignant menaces on all who pass by; but who, had their circumstances been such as to cominand the exercise of tenderness and skill equal to the exigencies of their cases, might now have been taking their places in the social circle torined by sympathy and affection, thinking, and feeling, and acting, like ourselves! In the great round of human misery and wo, there cannot surely be found any case that comes at all near to this in dreadful and heart-appalling interest.