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if we had to do with a young man going out into publick life, we would exhort him to contemn, or at least not to affect, the reputation of a great scholar, but to educate himself for the offices of civil life. He should learn what the constitution of his country really was; how it had grown into its present state; the perils that had threatened it; the malignity that had attacked it; the courage that had fought for it; and the wisdom that had made it great. We would bring strongly before his mind the characters of those Englishmen who have been the steady friends of the publick happiness; and, by their examples, would breathe into him a pure, publick taste, which should keep him untainted in all the vicissitudes of political fortune. We would teach him to burst through the well paid, and the pernicious cant of indiscriminate loyalty; and to know his sovereign only as he discharged those duties, and displayed those qualities, for which the blood and the treasure of his people are confided to his hands. We should deem it of the utmost importance, that his attention was directed to the true principles of legislation; what effect laws can produce upon opinions, and opinions upon laws; what subjects are fit for legislative interference; and when men may be left to the management of their own interests. The mischief occasioned by bad laws, and the perplexity which arises from

numerous laws; the causes of national wealth; the relations of foreign trade; the encouragement of manufactures and agriculture; the fictitious wealth occasioned by paper credit; the laws of population; the management of poverty and mendicity; the use and abuse of monopoly; the theory of taxation; the consequences of the publick debt. These are some of the subjects, and some of the branches of civil education to which we would turn the minds of future judges, future senators, and future noblemen. After the first period of life had been given up to the cultivation of the classicks, and the reasoning powers were now beginning to evolve themselves, these are some of the propensities in study which we would endeavour to inspire. Great knowledge, at such a period of life, we could not convey; but we might fix a decided taste for its acquisition, and a strong disposition to respect it in others. The formation of some great scholars we should certainly prevent, and hinder many from learning what, in a few years, they would necessarily forget; but this loss would be well repaid, if we could show the future rulers of the country that thought, and labour, which it requires to make a nation happy: or, if we could inspire them with that love of publick virtue, which, after religion, we most solemnly believe to be the brightest ornament of the mind of man.

FROM THE QUARTERLY REVIEW.

WASHINGTON, OR LIBERTY RESTORED: a Poem in ten Books. By Thomas Northmore, Esq London. 1809. pp. 264.—Baltimore reprinted, 1810.

MR. Northmore, having fortunately discovered, in the course of his reading, that Eschylus "wrote his patriotick tragedy of Prometheus, to confirm the Athenians in the love of that liberty which they enjoyed,” has, after much study and

fatigue, produced an epick poem, in ten books, to excite his countrymen, as he informs us, " to struggle for that liberty which they have lost."

It is our misfortune, scarcely to have heard of Mr. Northmore before, though he has been neither

silent nor inactive. His life has been spent, he says, in combating "the malignant effusions of corruption," and, as he pathetically adds, to very little advantage! p. iv. This obscure warfare never extended, we suppose, beyond the scene of action; yet, Mr. N. with a vanity very excusable in so pugnacious a character, has fully persuaded himself, that the report of it has reached the criticks, and will subject his work "to censure and abuse." p. iv.

From the lentum duellum, just mentioned, to the vigorous onset before us, is a prodigious advance towards final success; and unless some of Mr. N's antagonists speedily produce an epick poem of equal length in favour of George III. we shall feel ourselves obliged, in justice, to award him the victory.

It may be objected, Mr. N. observes, that the subject of the work is too near his own times; but to this he replies, very triumphantly, that if the poem had been put off till he was dead, he could not have written it at all. Other petty cavils, such as, that the Americans were enemies to this country, and the author no great friend to it, are disposed of very succinctly; they are the suggestions of malice and ignorance, and, therefore, deserve no answer.

Mr. Northmore has adopted "the imagery of Paradise Lost." The language and versification of that poem he seems to have found somewhat too incorrect for his He has purpose. "taken fewer liberties," he tells us, ❝than Milton, and no liberty which is not to be found in him." P. vii. As the author's notions of liberty are peculiar to himself, we will not dispute the point with him.

WASHINGTON, like Paradise Lost, opens with a grand view of the infernal regions. Satan bursts upon us, surrounded by his compeers, and here occurs a remarkable improvement on Milton. In hell, as described by that trivial poet, no information could be gained of what was

transacting elsewhere, and, there fore, Satan is involved in a long and perilous expedition to procure it. After traversing "millions of leagues," he reaches the sun, whence he is directed to this globe, a star among the stars, by an angel. The eyes of Satan, and his compeers, have been washed in euphrasy since that period, for they not only see the earth from Pandemonium, but every man on it; nay, they even see a sound in one of the American woods, which disconcerts their councils, and alarms Satan with the fear of death, so that he hastens to make "his last speech." This is somewhat abruptly terminated by the appearance of Seraphick Splendour, who "glides down the western sky, and halts over Yorktown," where Cornwallis was defeated: (for Mr. N. very judiciously begins his poem at the end of his subject.) At this sight, Satan "trembles in all his pond'rous limbs,” and exclaims:

"Moloch, why sleepest thou? Beelzebub!
Mammon and all ye potentates of hell,
Rouse, rouse your energies.
E'en hell itself's in danger; saw ye not
The archangel, Liberty?
That Liberty's our death! Then farewell

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I trembled not, because Seraphick Light Hath halted over Yorktown. If it have, Moloch will meet it there.

This is the first time that Moloch branded stood

With sleepy cowardice, and this the last!

p. 7. From some unaccountable caprice, the author has judged it expedient to print his work in lines of various lengths. This disposition we have deemed it our duty to follow, though it subjects us to considerable difficulty: for, as we have neither rhythm nor metre to direct us, we are obliged to trust solely to the capital letter which begins the line, and which may sometimes elude our best care. With this apology for any incidental oversight, we return to Moloch, who, after a gentle admonition from Beelzebub, grows "temperate," and acquiesces in the notion of dying; with this characteristick addition, however:

"And if we are to die, let's die the death Of unextinguish'd hate!"

We have now more last words from Satan, and, we are sorry to add, very scurrilous ones, where this country is concerned; he terms her governours "money'd muckworms, merchant ministers," &c. and expresses a great dislike of our paper currency, though in the same breath, he compliments the American secre

tary:

66

financier Morris, who doth seem

To have found the talisman of making gold."

Indeed, this is not the only instance of his inconsistency; for after celebrating the patriotism of the "pure and virtuous" citizens of America, who stripped themselves of every thing to support the army, he tells us, that the troops were actually left to starve: insomuch, that had not Washington fed them without food, they

must have sold themselves to the accursed gold of Britain.

"Sometimes, indeed,

By their great leader's foresight, they regaled

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Here Satan interrupts his interminable harangue to transact a little business, namely, "to enrol the title of Arnold in the state office of hell," for Satan makes princes almost as compendiously as Buonaparté. Arnold, therefore, is constituted, by patent (without his fees) prince Appollyon!

66 Instant, hell's palace rang with loud acclaim,

Apollyon! Apollyon! was cried
Hail, our new prince," &c.

He then proceeds to inform his legions, that they must prepare to combat Washington, backed by "Mi

chael, and all the host of heaven."

"Clothed in new arms, of which they stand in need,

Since erst with well-devised engin❜ry, Them of their ancient armour we despoiled"

Here Azazel, a cherub tall, who still retains the rank conferred on him by Milton, prepares to unfurl the glittering ensign; when he is prevented by Mammon, who makes a very prosing speech, by anticipation, from the history of one Belsham, a great favourite in hell, it seems, and a pestilent scribbler upon earth; in which he points out the proper method of framing acts of parliament, securing majorities, &c. &c.After venting a torrent of abuse on his "favoured isle" as he calls Britain, he starts up, fills a couple of empty coffers with gold, and hurries away with them to the court of St. James's.

Azazel now unfurls the standard for good and all, when it is instantly consumed before his eyes: upon which Moloch "wrapt in himself," seizes the staff (for in affirming it to be consumed, the author spoke by a figure) whirls it round his head, and, shouting "victory or death!" sets all

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hell in motion. Beelzebub rushes forward with the van; Moloch leads on the main body, " hissing slaughter from his horrid jaws;" and Chemos and Belial bring up the rear with the artillery and heavy baggage. Satan, thus left alone, gazes pensive ly on his splendid palace, which is forthwith swallowed up by a hell quake; at this, he bursts into a flood of tears, and turns towards the next article of finery, a glittering car, of which the axle "was formed of platina," and the body "of some new discovered substance," which the chymists, according to Mr. N. have not yet had an opportunity of analyzing, and which therefore he very prudently forbears to name.

Into this car, Satan leaps: "And the etherial steeds, who know his will,

And need nor goad nor spur, no sooner feel

The awful presence of their mighty chief,
Than, quick as forked lightning, with one
bound
Spring from hell's confines to Columbia's
Alps. p. 43."

Where Satan procured those etherial steeds, Mr. N. does not inform us. We never heard of them before, nor of any of their race. They are certainly most wonderful animals.

Book II. Mr. N. having halted Seraphick Splendour over Yorktown, placed Michael and his angels by the side of Washington, and "the devil and his angels" by that of Cornwallis, deems it a fit opportunity to take a retrospective view of what was done in Switzerland five hundred years ago; and gives us a dogged account of William Tell and his apple, from that rare and authentick document, Salmon's Modern History. No mention of Satan occurs in this book. There is, indeed, much abuse of religion, but not by him; there is also a rapturous panegyrick, in prose, on the benevolent and pacifick nature of Buonaparté, who is clothed with the attributes VOL. III.

2 I

of divinity, and very properly opposed to his Britannick majesty, the great disturber of the peace of mankind.

Book III. contains the speeches of Philip of Spain, and his brother John, on the novel and interesting subject of the war in the Netherlands. Philip's case, as far as we understand it, seems somewhat pitiable.

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Spain's despot saw, but harden'd at the sight,

Seeing, saw not, for tyranny is blind.”

Queen Elizabeth also makes speeches, but her's are in favour of the rights of the people, as opposed to the prerogatives of the prince; than which nothing, as every one knows, can be more germane to her real sentiments on the subject.

Book IV. takes a leap of two centuries, and brings us at once to the administration of lord North, who is honoured with the tender epithets of fool, dolt, idiot, knave, &c. as, indeed, is every one who has the misfortune to differ from Mr. N. and his oracle Belsham. As these gentle terms appeared to offer a fit occasion, the author checks his narrative, to animadvert, with becoming warmth, on the use of hard language, which, as he truly remarks, serves only to exasperate and inflame. Recollecting, too, the mild and conciliating, the polite and generous language, of Buonaparte's bulletins and manifestos, he reprobates with just indignation the outrageous intemperance of our own; and hints, with equal patriotism and sagacity, that such virulence only serves to make the day of retribution more just. It certainly does; and we cannot therefore sufficiently applaud the saving prudence of Mr. N. who, on the expected entry of Buonaparté into St. James's, may conscientiously assure that divine hero, "who knows how to distinguish," that his whole vocabulary of opprobrious terms (no very confined one, by the by) had

been carefully reserved for the government of his own country.

Book V. continues the patriotick abuse of England, raked from the columns of some crack-brained gazeteer, and put into the mouth of Franklin. The cowardice of the British is a favourite theme. It is thus classically illustrated by "that modest sage:"

"If all your foes were tenfold multiplied; And you yourselves divided in ten parts, One single part in freedom's glorious cause Would gain an easy victory o'er the whole." p. 130.

It subsequently appears, however, that this great calculator, "at whose side sat Wisdom clothed in light," had admitted some errour into his statement; for at Bunker's hill, where this ten times ten fold disproportion did not exist, the Americans, Mr. N. says, would have been entirely defeated, had not the archangel Liberty taken upon himself the shape of Warren, and drove, as he well might, the English before him like a flock of sheep! Accident alone saved them from total destruction. Their good friend the devil, happened to be turning over "the book of life" (how it got into his hands, nobody knows) when just at the critical minute, he observed the ink, with which the name of Warren was written, turn pale:

gladden'd at the sight, Instant to Death he cry'd: My son, my son ! The hard fought day is our's." p. 141.

He then orders Death "to poise a dart with fate" and despatch him. Instead of aiming at the archangel, from whom all the mischief proceeded, Death unfortunately strikes down the real Warren, who was perfectly harmless This, however, terrifies the counterfeit so effectually, that he retires from the field; and the "host of disciplined warriours" is permitted to repel the "few raw troops" of the enemy. Mr. N. however, com

forts himself by adding, "that the dead on the English side surpassed their foes thrice told."

Book VI. opens with a hymn to the "pure soil of Virginia," which being more crouded with slaves than any other of the American states, is judiciously described as glowing, above them all, with "the divine love of freedom." The song then ascends, with equal propriety, to Washington; and celebrates his utter abhorrence of all restrictions on the natural rights of man, in the most forcible and impressive manner. Mr. N. now, as persons of a certain description are said to rush in where angels dare not tread, speeds to heaven, exalts the American chief to the office of MEDIATOR, and assures us that he is employed in supplicating mercy over the sins of men, once his fellows. p. 152. Arnold and Clinton now make their appearance (not in heaven, the reader may be pretty confident) and encourage each other to mutual horrours. This introduces the mention of the loyalists, who having the folly to preserve their throats (at least to attempt it) and the presumption to differ from Mr, N. are described as "fired by revenge, fury hot from hell," &c. and the book ends with a pious ejacula tion for justice upon them, which he seems to think has been somewhat too long delayed.

Book VII. Washington prays for advice, and the archangel Liberty, who is forthcoming on all occasions, is instantly at his side. From what he says, it would appear that the cause of the United States, notwithstanding the folly, knavery, and cowardice of the English, and the wisdom, virtue, and bravery of the Americans (to say nothing of "the host of heaven" marshalled on their side) had really been in some danger: for the archangel remarks, with uncommon exultation, that he now "came with tidings of great joy;" tidings not only that Russia (the eternal enemy of slavery) had "resolved to defend

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