ly admitted to his sanctuary on high, and clothed in the garments of immortality."*

The volume which we now proceed particularly to notice, is introduced by a well prepared memoir, the work of a clergyman of Philadelphia. The materials appear to be faithfully collected, and judiciously arranged, and the author modestly disavows all merit, save that of arrangement.

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The volume contains "Palestine," the prize poem of Heber, Europe," several fugitive pieces-hymns which were intended for public worship, translations, both from Pindar and the Hindoostanee, and explanatory notes. The first of the poems, entitled "Palestine," is the largest and most important of the collection, considered in its literary aspect, for it is distinguished throughout by the classic chasteness and grace of its stylethe simplicity of its plot, and the nice discrimination of its ornaments. It was recited in the University Theatre at Oxford, and first appeared in 1802,† in a work entitled "the Poetical Register and Repository of Fugitive Poetry." The poem commences with a brief survey of the present wretched condition of the Holy Land-he then takes back the attention to the record of her past and almost forgotten glories; and concludes with a rather too rapid, but still felicitous description of those transcendent glories which are to characterize her future years, in those days of prophetic anticipation, when Judea's olive tree is to revive from the death of so many generations, and the sun once more illumine the heights of Carmel, and the cedars of Lebanon. We shall make brief extracts.

The opening lines are perhaps too abrupt, but easy and graceful; and the invocation to the "Warrior Sons of Heaven," with which the author precedes his brief view of the unhappy condition of the Holy Land, is of a fine order of poetry:

"Ye guardian saints! ye Warrior Sons of Heaven,
To whose high care Judea's state was given!
O wont of old your nightly watch to keep,
A host of gods on Sion's towery steep!
If e'er your secret footsteps linger still
By Siloa's fount, or Tabor's echoing hill;
If e'er your songs on Salem's glory dwell,
And mourn the captive land ye love so well;
(For oft, 'tis said, in Kedron's palmy vale,
Mysterious harpings swell the midnight gale,
And, blest as balmy dews that Hermon cheer,
Melt in soft cadence on the pilgrim's ear ;)

Memoir prefixed to the volume under Review, p. lvii.

In the "Memoir," it is stated, that "Palestine was written and recited in the University Theatre in 1803." We have now before us, the second edition of "the Poetical Register and Repository of Fugitive Poetry for 1802," which contains this poem of Heber, with a mass of trash by other hands, entirely unworthy of such good company. There is some chronological error, therefore, though where we are not able to tell.

Forgive, blest spirits, if a theme so high,
Mock the weak notes of mortal minstrelsy!
Yet, might your aid this mortal breast inspire,
With one faint spark of Milton's seraph fire;
Then should my muse ascend with bolder flight,
And wave her eagle plumes exulting in the light.”

In these days of peace, and of peace societies, "the Warrior Sons of Heaven" may seem an unhappy phraseology, but the author successfully defends the term in a note, where he quotes from the sacred volume. In the first edition of "Palestine," which now lies before us, the term "warrior sage" was applied to Solomon, following the rich and fascinating descriptions of the Arabian mythology. In the present edition, we find the substitution of the term, "the kingly sage"-more agreeable to scripture certainly, but neither so harmonious in the verse, nor preserving so much unity in the action.

We have looked with an intense interest on one portion of the poem, because it was there, that we anticipated a failure, from the very nature of the subject. Splendid as is the celebrated picture of Christ healing the sick, by our countryman West, we apprehend, that, in most persons, there is a transient feeling of disappointment, when they contemplate the countenance of the master figure of the piece. This originates entirely from the undefined and indefinable associations connected with the character of the Saviour. It is not the fault of the painter; it is the unapproachable sublimity of the subject. So of a portion of the "Palestine" of Heber. It is hardly possible even for the highest order of poetry to come up to the majesty and the mysterious sublimity of the crucifixion. If therefore there is failure at all, it is here. Still the transition from the peaceful and happy influences of the Messiah's advent, to the direful circumstances of his death, is conceived and executed with considerable effect:

"Thou palsied earth, with noon-day night o'erspread!

Thou sick'ning sun, so dark, so deep, so red!

Ye hov'ring ghosts, that throng the starless air;

Why shakes the earth? why fades the light? declare!

Are those his limbs, with ruthless scourges torn?

His brows all bleeding with the twisted thorn?
His the pale form, the meek forgiving eye,
Rais'd from the cross in patient agony ?-

Be dark, thou sun-thou noon-day night, arise,
And hide, oh hide, the dreadful sacrifice!"

There is, towards the close of the poem, a brief invocation to the spirits of the Crusaders, and we allude to it rather to introduce the note of Bishop Heber, in which he very strikingly defends the Crusades from some common objections, and shows the benefit they have brought to Christianity, notwithstanding all that can reasonably be urged against them :

"The world has been so long accustomed to hear the Crusades considered as the height of phrenzy and injustice, that to undertake their defence might be a hazardous task. We must however recollect, that, had it not been for these extraordinary exertions of human courage, the whole of Europe would perhaps have fallen, and Christianity been buried in its ruins. It was not, as Voltaire has falsely or weakly asserted, a conspiracy of robbers; it was not an unprovoked attack on a distant and inoffensive nation; it was a blow aimed at the heart of a most powerful and active enemy. Had not the Christian kingdoms of Asia been established as a check to the Mahometans, Italy, and the scanty remnant of Christianity in Spain, must again have fallen into their power; and France herself have needed all the heroism and good fortune of a Charles Martel, to deliver her from subjugation."

We have only room for the concluding lines of this poem, in which, after briefly depicting the present condition of the Holy Land, the author, following the track of inspiration, points out the future triumph of the Messiah:

"Yet still destruction sweeps the lonely plain,
And heroes lift the generous sword in vain.
Still o'er her sky the clouds of anger roll,
And God's revenge hangs heavy on her soul.
Yet shall she rise;-but not by war restor❜d,
Not built in murder,-planted by the sword.
Yes, Salem, thou shalt rise; thy Father's aid
Shall heal the wound his chastening hand has made;
Shall judge the proud oppressor's ruthless sway,
And burst his brazen bonds, and cast his cords away.
Then on your tops shall deathless verdure spring;
Break forth, ye mountains, and ye valleys, sing!
No more your thirsty rocks shall prove forlorn,
The unbeliever's jest, the heathen's scorn;
The sultry sands, shall tenfold harvest yield,
And a new Eden deck the thorny field.

E'en now, perchance, wide-waving o'er the land,
That mighty angel lifts his golden wand,
Courts the bright vision of descending power,
Tells every gate, and measures every tower,
And chides the tardy seals that yet detain
Thy Lion, Judah, from his destin❜d reign.

"And who is he? the vast, the awful form
Girt with the whirlwind, sandal'd with the storm
A western cloud around his limbs is spread,
His crown a rainbow, and a sun his head.
To highest heaven he lifts his kingly hand,
And treads at once the ocean and the land;
And, hark! his voice amid the thunder's roar,
His dreadful voice, that time shall be no more!
Lo! cherub hands the golden courts prepare,
Lo! thrones arise, and every saint is there;
Earth's utmost bounds confess their awful sway,
The mountains worship and the isles obey;

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Nor sun, nor moon, they need,-nor day, nor night;
God is their temple, and the Lamb their light:
And shall not Israel's sons exulting come,

Hail the glad beam, and claim their ancient home?
On David's throne shall David's offspring reign,

And the dry bones be warm with life again.
Hark! white-rob'd crowds their deep hosannas raise,
And the hoarse flood repeats the song of praise;

Ten thousand harps attune the mystic song,
Ten thousand, thousand saints the strain prolong;
Worthy the Lamb! omnipotent to save,

Who died, who lives, triumphant o'er the grave!'"

"Europe," though marked by the same classic elegance, and judicious arrangement, is a poem, the peculiar interest of which has already passed away. The prejudices, and the predilections of the author, will be most prominent in the mind of the reader, for the lapse of twenty years has destroyed all the warmth of those political associations, which must have given the poem, on its first appearance, an ephemeral popularity. We say not this, to detract from the merit of the work, as a literary production. It will, in this particular, bear a comparison with "Palestine," and, indeed, in some respects, may be considered its superior, an effort of the author's more matured taste and judgment; but as the subject has lost its greatest hold on our attention, the literary merit of the poem, will scarcely redeem it from comparative neglect. Apart from the by-gone interest of the subject, these are adventitious circumstances, which should, nevertheless, cause it to find peculiar favour in our eyes. Heber appears in it, the advocate of freedom, and an enthusiastic defender of those, who, through peril unto death, stood forth its champion. Unhappily, his sympathies appear wasted, and Spain has proved herself unworthy of his enthusiasm. Bonaparte is not the worst enemy she has ever had; and while we say it with deep regret, we are compelled to think that the epithets in the following line, are more like satire than truth, and its conclusion but a poor specimen of prophetic inspiration:

"But Spain, the brave, the virtuous, shall be free."

It is the remark of a transatlantic critic "Troja fuit-there was a period when Spain was entitled to all the martial celebrity which the historian or the poet could bestow. But her spirit has decayed with her power, and now it is to be feared that she has neither virtue to deserve freedom, nor courage to win it."

There are, however, with all these disadvantages, many powerful passages; indeed, more powerful, because the very circumstances of the writer, amidst the scenes of his poem, caused him to pour forth his strains with peculiar feeling and enthusiasm. The whole soul of the author appears in the few concluding lines, which are marked by great energy and beauty, though they contain the line above quoted:

"No! by his nerveless arm whose righteous care,
Defends the orphan's tear, the poor man's prayer;
Who, Lord of nature, o'er this changeful ball
Decrees the rise of empires, and the fall;
Wond'rous in all his ways, unseen, unknown,
Who treads the wine press of the world alone;
And rob'd in darkness, and surrounding fears,
Speeds on their destin'd road the march of years'

No! shall yon Eagle, from the snare set free,
Stoop to thy wish, or cower his wing for thee?
And shall it tame despair, its strong control,
Or quench the nation's still reviving soul?
Go, bid the force of countless bands conspire
To curb the wand'ring wind, or grasp the fire!
Cast thy vain fetters on the troubled sea!

But Spain, the brave, the virtuous, shall be free!"

The faults of the poem are so few as scarcely to deserve our notice. There is but one essentially defective line, and that is so palpable, as to accentuation, that it will not escape the observation even of the most careless reader.

"Untam'd Austria bids her clarion sound."

Here, to preserve the rythm, it is necessary to place the accent on the second syllable. The only way of reading the line with any satisfaction to the ear, is to alter the form of the first word, and read it

"Untamed Austria," &c.

Our author is by far too fond of the Alexandrine-it recurs in almost every dozen lines of the poem.

Among the miscellaneous poems in the volume, will be found a magnificent description of the passage of the Red Sea, too long to quote in this place, and of a character which does not well admit of extract. We have also "Lines spoken in the Theatre, Oxford, on Lord Grenville's installation as Chancellor.”—“ An Epitaph on a Young Naval Officer;" "An Evening's Walk in Bengal," and "Lines to his Wife," while on a visit to Upper India. These "Lines," are so exquisitely beautiful, and so full of heart, that we cannot resist the pleasure of presenting them to our readers, before we proceed to notice the concluding portion of the volume :

"If thou wert by my side, my love!

How fast would evening sail,
In green Bengala's palmy grove,
Listening the nightingale!

If thou, my love! wert by my side,
My babies on my knee,

How quickly would our pinnace glide
O'er Gunga's mimic sea!

I miss thee at the dawning gray,
When, on our deck reclin'd,
In careless ease my limbs I lay,
And woo the cooler wind.

I miss thee when by Gunga's stream

My twilight steps I guide,

But most beneath the lamp's pale beam,

I miss thee from my side.

I spread my books, my pencil try,
The lingering noon to cheer,
But miss thy kind approving eye,
Thy meek attentive ear.