Yes, I remember when the dreariest waste,-
The heathery moorland with its mossy stones,
Where, here and there, with gelid dew o'ercast,
The hart's-tongue, or the flagging grass, atones
For the wide barrenness; where plaintive moans
Of chilling breeze perpetually are heard

Yes, I remember well, (e'en though with groans
Of wailing sprite that chilling breeze had stirr'd,)
When I to brightest scenes, such prospect had preferr'd,
I had a store of joy within me then,
An inexhaustible and salient spring;
And e'en whate'er I felt of bodily pain,

Or of that deeper which the heart doth wring,
Seem'd, in profound subserviency, to bring
New zest to pleasure, pampering its caprice:
'Twas like a man wilfully shuddering,
Giving, by warlock tales, to wassail bliss
And Christmas blithe fire-side, a spectral emphasis.
"Yet, is it not, oh God, in part to hold

With Thee communion, thus thy works to feel?
And can those souls be of an earthly mould,
Thus rapt above mortality, that steal,

When Thou thy natural wonders dost reveal?
Is it not, in novitiate of learning,

To gain a 'vantage post in Fortune's wheel?
Is there not promise in this nature-yearning,

Which always doth imply from art a scornful turning?
Then why should I be to all pleasure dead
To such an inexpressible degree?

I? Though I grant, as wiser men have said,
That 'tis a world in ruin that we see.
Why should 1, that have felt such ecstasy,
Be sunken now so low? Is it t' enforce

The doctrine, that each project which can be
Content with aught save wisdom's primal source,
Is like a pile on sand, which storms will soon disperse?
So seems it! What with all my dreams am I?
It was on real objects that I gazed;

Yet have they ended more in vanity,

Than the most doting visions of the crazed,

Or all the structures by fanatics raised.

Now had I rather mope where Penury

In rags, filth, smoke, and sickness, is emblazed,

Screams in the ballad's rude discordancy,

The howl of curs, coarse oaths, and the scold's ribaldry,-
So that new feelings might at least be mine;
Than live in some contemplative recess,

Where mountains, forests, rocks, lakes, streams, combine
With human beings, deeply to impress.

Is this, oh God, to shew the nothingness
Of fairest hopes of man?-how soon the stream
Most copious, and most promising to bless,
Exhausted, if from earth alone it teem?

Thus, when I thought to drink, I drank but in a dream.' Extended as this article is, we must leave our task but halfperformed. We have scarcely touched upon the contents of the more recent volume, and can now only briefly advert to them. The "Desultory Thoughts in London" are divided into three books, comprising altogether upwards of four hundred stanzas of the difficult construction borrowed from the Italians, which has of late become so fashionable with our versifiers. Though not unsusceptible of dignity and sweetness, it is best adapted to the humorous, or, at least, the sportive, its distinguishing fea ture being lightness, while it seems to be considered as admitting of a license bordering on the Hudibrastic. Nothing can be more free, and various, and negligent than Mr. Lloyd's versification : it is sometimes gracefully playful, but sometimes too, its play is scarcely suitable to the solemn or pathetic cast of the sentiment, while at other times it sinks quite below the level of serious poetry. The thoughts are so very desultory that it would be difficult to frame an argument of the poem. The Author has not ventured to expose to view the heterogeneous contents in a bill of fare, aware, perhaps, that common readers would anticipate little gratification from such subjects as the following: A walk in the park; Methodist chapel; a portrait; consecration of Solomon's temple; influence of imagination; unfortunate females; election and reprobation; faith; free-will; the second advent," &c. Such are the running titles of the first sixty pages of the volume; and very injudiciously are they' so printed, as they will excite in the minds of nine persons out of ten, only ridiculous' ideas, which will prejudice then, unwarrantably, but perhaps effectually, against the volume. The chief fault of the poem is,' that it wants relief: the didactic is not, at least in the first two' books, sufficiently intermixed with the picturesque. The charm of "The Task" is, that it takes us out in the open air. Cowper is, indeed, the most delightful of field-preachers; and his descriptions always predispose the reader to receive the sentiments which seem to rise out of them. Lord Byron pleases by' the same method; but his philosophy is more dramatic, and his very sentiments are picturesque. If Mr. Lloyd had, as he well might have done, thrown into the first part of the poem more of the recollected scenes of his early life, (such as that near the Lake of Winandermere, which he describes in the third book,) he would have rendered it much more attractive. And the motto prefixed to the first book, excites the expectation that he would do so: Si je veux peindre le printemps, il faut que je sois en

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hyver; si je veux decrire un beau paysage, il faut que je sois dans les murs.' On what, therefore, should Thoughts in • London' so naturally dwell, as on solitude, and nature, and the spring?

One remark more. Mr. Lloyd apologises for having expressed himself unadvisedly on the doctrine of Election and the subject of moral evil: he wishes that he had not so expressed him

self as he has done in the passage alluded to.' This frank retractation must disarm his critic of all disposition to severity; but we still regret the appearance of the passage, and wish that Mr. L. had kept clear of polemics. On these awful and inscrutable topics, feeling is a very unsafe guide, although to feel rightly,' is indispensable as a pre-requisite for thinking wisely:' the first crude conclusious which even an honest and acute mind may come to in pursuing such investigations, are not fit to be promulgated in poetry. We earnestly recommend that the greater part of pp. 49-62, should be cancelled in a future edition. The following remark does credit to the Author's acuteness, which invariably shines out in his prose.

-The Author feels that he is wrong. Remorse, as distinct from regret, is a passion inalienable from human nature; and this passion tells us, by its awful voice, that it is for sin that we are tormented; and though the reasoning of necessity may make us anticipate that we never should feel remorse, yet, if we do feel remorse, hypothesis there is contradicted by fact, and the whole falls to the ground.'

p. vii.

Titus and Gisippus is a very interesting tale, founded on a hint borrowed from a story in Boccaccio, but original in its details, and enriched with that ample store of metaphysical sentiment in which Mr. Lloyd resembles and rivals our elder poets. This poem would sufficiently attest the undiminished vigour of the Author's faculties. There are detached passages, however, in the Desultory Thoughts, quite equal to any thing in either of the volumes: we may refer, in proof of this assertion, to the conclusion of the first book, and the description of the lake scene, with the pathetic address to his children, which occupies nearly the whole of the third. As we have charged Mr. Lloyd with being deficient as a colourist in language, we must, in justice, lay before our readers a specimen of what he can, when he pleases, achieve as a landscape-painter. Nothing can be more perfectly beautiful than the following romantic description. To a reader of any poetical feeling, it will render all further commendation of the volume superfluous.

I had a cottage in a Paradise!

'Twere hard to enumerate the charms combin'd Within the little space, greeting the eyes,

Its unpretending precincts that confin'd.

Onward, in front, a mountain stream did rise
Up, whose long course the fascinated mind
(So apt the scene to awaken wildest themes)
Might localize the most romantic dreams.

When winter torrents by the rain and snow,
Surlily dashing down the hills, were fed,
Its mighty mass of waters seem'd to flow
With deafening course precipitous: its bed
Rocky, such steep declivities did shew

That towards us with a rapid course it sped,
Broken by frequent falls; thus did it roam
In whirlpools eddying, and convulsed with foam.
• Flank'd were its banks with perpendicular rocks,
Whose scars enormous, sometimes grey and bare,
And sometimes clad with ash and gnarled oaks,
The birch, the hazel, pine, and holly were.
Their tawny leaves, the sport of winter's shocks,
Oft o'er its channel circled in the air;
While, on their tops, and midway up them, seen,
Lower'd cone-like firs and yews in gloomiest green.
So many voices from this river came

In summer, winter, autumn, or the spring;
So many sounds accordant to each frame
Of nature's aspect, (whether the storm's wing
Brooded on it, or, pantingly and tame,
The low breeze crisp'd its waters,) that, to sing
Half of their tones, impossible! or tell

The listener's feelings from their viewless spell.

• When fires gleam'd bright, and when the curtain'd room, Well stocked with books and music's implements,

When children's faces, dress'd in all the bloom

Of innocent enjoyments, deep content's Deepest delights inspir'd; when nature's gloom To the domesticated heart presents

(By consummate tranquillity possessed)

Contrast, that might have stirr'd the dullest breast;
Yes, in such hour as that, thy voice I've known,
Oh, hallow'd stream! fitly so nam'd, since tones
Of deepest melancholy swell'd upon

The breeze that bore it; fearful as the groans
Of fierce night spirits. Yes, when tapers shone
Athwart the room, when, from their skiey thrones
Of ice-pil'd height abrupt, rush'd rudely forth,
Riding the blast, the tempests of the north,—

Thy voice I've known to wake a dream of wonder !
For, though 'twas loud, and wild with turbulence,
And absolute as is the deep-voic'd thunder,
Such fine gradations mark'd its difference

Of audibility, one scarce could sunder
Its gradual swellings from the influence

Of harp Eolian, when upon the breeze
Floats in a stream its plaintive harmonies.

• One might have thought, that spirits of the air
Warbled amid it in an undersong;

And oft one might have thought, that shrieks were there
Of spirits, driven for chastisement along
The invisible regions that above earth are.
All species seem'd of intonation, strong
To bind the soul-imagination rouse,
Conjur'd from preternatural prison-house.

But when the heavens are blue, and summer skies
Are pictured in thy wave's cerulean glances,
Then, thy crisp stream its course so gayly plies,
Trips on so merrily in endless dances,

Such low, sweet tone, fit for the tune, does rise

From thy swift course, methinks, that it enhances
The hue of flowers which decorate' thy banks,

While each one's freshness seems to pay thee thanks.”

Art. III. EYPITTIAOY ATTANTA. Euripidis Opera omnia; ex Editionibus præstantissimis fideliter recusa; Latina Interpretatione, Scholiis antiquis, et eruditorum Observationibus, illustrata; necnon Indicibus omnigenis instructa. 9 Vol. 8vo. 10l. 10s. Lond. [Priestley.] 1821.

THE remains of the Greek theatre present to us the im

paired but majestic fragments of one of the noblest structures of human genius. Its primary characters comprehend nearly all that the imagination can conceive of loftiness and power, mingled with a large measure of beauty and pathos. When Eschylus had presented to his audience the tremendous picture of Prometheus chained to the rock by the appalling agency of the symbolic messengers of vindictive Jove, he mitigated its terrors by the lovely forms and ministrant sympathiies of the ocean nymphs; and even amid the overwhelming horrors of the Eumenides, the bright vision of Apollo, and the persuasive mediation of Minerva, are introduced with exquisite skill and effect. If the niajestic simplicity of Sophocles, less daring in its inventions, and more equal in its range, did not indulge in contrasts so marked and impressive, yet, the power to blend the stern and fearful with the gentle and touching, was the decided prerogative of that illustrious dramatist. The miseries of the blind and fated dipus are alleviated by the devoted and self-renouncing tenderness of his daughters; the deep painting of the despair and agony of Ajax dishonoured, is relieved, and yet strengthened, by the affection of his wife, and the innocent helplessness of his child; nor is there one among the productions of this consummate inaster of his art, in which equally beautiful traits of unforced emotion