66 wain of poets succeed each other. We say the seeming neglect, for Dr. Aikin assures his correspondent, that he has in fact proceeded by a method, perhaps scarcely perceptible to her, but never absent from his own mind." The leading principle of his method appears to be, after forming the ear to a nice feeling of the harmony of verse, to lead on the expanding mind from the simplest to the most complex and recondite forms of the poetic art. Thus, from shorter essays in the heroic he measure, goes on to the epic translations of Pope-to his satires and those of Young. To rhyme succeeds blank verse and its great master, and after the standard of excellence in this style has been fixed, the immortal Milton, his imitator Philips, some other didactic poets, Akenside, Thomson, and Young's Night Thoughts, follow. The masters of the lyric strain succeed. From personification to allegory the step is easy, and the venerable Spenser arises attended by his circle of satellites. The deepest mazes of the Parnassian Grove are now unthreaded, and disclose to view the Witty Poets." Some minor bards then approach in a mingled throng, and Goldsmith, Johnson, and Cowper, the glory of modern times, conclude with dignity the long procession, and rest their immortal works on the altar of the muses. Such is the plan of the volume before us. With regard to execution, its style is marked with the clearness, nervous conciseness, and easy elegance of the writer. Some, perhaps, will wish that the remarks had been multiplied and farther extended, and that a larger number of quotations had been interwoven ; but it appears to have been our author's aim rather to point out the sources whence rational entertainment might be derived, and a correct taste acquired, than autho. ritatively to lay down a poetical creed, and require an uniformity of sentiment from his young pupils on points which may well be left to the different decisions of different minds. It must not, however, be imagined, that the candour of our author has prevented him from expressing in strong terms his admiration and his dislike, or that his remarks are wanting in originality, because usually in conformity with the public taste, and the judgment of enlightened critics. But the following examples will better explain his views, and exemplify his manner, than any remarks of ours. "I now, my dear Mary, mean to treat you with a rarity-a writer perfect in his kind. It may be a doubt whether perfection in an inferior branch of art indicates higher talents than something short of perfection in a superior; but it cannot be questioned that, by way of a study, and for the cultivation of a correct taste, a perfect work in any depart- . ment is a most valuable object. "Dean Swift is in our language the master in familiar poetry. Without the perusal formed of wit and humour moving under of his works no adequate conception can be. the shackles of measure and rhyme with as much ease as if totally unfettered; and even borrowing grace and vigour from the constraint. In your progress hitherto, although it has been through some of our most eminent poets, you cannot but have observed, that the necessity of finding a termination to. a line of the same sound with that of the employment of an improper word, such as preceding, has frequently occasioned the without this necessity would never have suggested itself in that connexion. Indeed, it is not uncommon in ordinary versifiers to find a whole line thrown in for no other purpose than to introduce a rhyming word. How far rhyme is a requisite decoration of English verse, you will judge from your own. perceptions, after perusing the best specimens of blank verse. It is manifest, however, that when employed, its value must be in proportion to its exactness, and to its coincidence with the sense, In these respects, Swift is without exception the most perfect rhymer in the language; and you will admire how the very word which by its meaning seems most fit for the occasion, slides in without effort as the echo in sound to the terminating word of the preceding line. Even double and triple rhymes are ready at his call, and, though suggesting the most heterogeneous ideas, are happily coupled by some of those whimsical combinations in which comic wit consists. "The diction of Swift is the most complete example of colloquial ease that verse writers are apt to run into quaintness and affords. In aiming at this manner, other oddity; but in Swift not a word or phrase. occurs which does not belong to the natu ral style of free conversation. It is true, this freedom is often indecorous, and would at the present day be scarcely hazarded by any one who kept good company, still less by make distinctions; and while many of his a clergyman. Yet he has known how to tainted with indelicacies, some of his best satirical and humorous pieces are grossly and longest compositions are void of any thing that can justly offend. It is evident, indeed, that Swift, though destitute of genius for the sublimer parts of poetry, was sufficiently capable of elegance, had he not preferred indulging his vein for sarcastic wit. No one could compliment more delicately when he chose it, as no one was a better judge of proprieties of behaviour, and the graces of the female character. "From the preceding representation, you will conclude that I cannot set you to read Swift's works straight forwards. In fact, your way through them must be picked very nicely, and a large portion of them must be left unvisited. It should be observed, however, to do him justice, that their impurities are not of the moral kind, but are chiefly such as it is the scavenger's office to remove." After recommending the perusal of Pope's translations of the Illiad and Odyssey, he thus proceeds. "If the task which I have enjoined you should prove tiresome before it is finished, you may interpose between the two translations the perusal of the remaining original works of the same poet; such, I mean, as I can properly recommend to a lady's view. Whether the Epistle of Eloisa to Abelard' be among this number, is a point which I feel a difficulty in determining; yet its celebrity will scarcely suffer it to be passed over in silence. They who are afraid of the inflammatory effect of high colouring applied to the tender passion, will object to a performance which, as the most exquisitely finished of all the author's productions, is, from its subject, rendered the more dangerous on that account. And true it is, that if the picture of violent desires, unchecked by virtue and wisdom, is to be re garded as too seductive, notwithstanding any annexed representation of the sufferings to which they give rise, not only this poem, but much of the real history of human life, should be concealed from the youthful sight. But surely such a distrust of good sense and principle is unworthy of an age which encourages a liberal plan of mental cultivation. To be consistent it ought to bring back that state of ignorance, which was formerly reckoned the best guard of innocence. The piece in question, it must be confessed, is faulty in giving too forcible an expression to sentiments inconsistent with female purity; but its leading purpose is to paint the strug gles of one, who, after the indulgence of a guilty passion, flew to a penitential_retreat without a due preparation for the change; of a -wretch believ'd the spouse of God in vain, Confess'd within the slave of love and man.' Such a condition is certainly no object of emulation; and the poet has painted its miseries with no less force than the inconsiderate raptures which led to it. The impression supposed to be left by the story upon better regulated minds, is that which prompts the prayer, O may we never love as these have lov'd! writer an heroi-comical poem, though one of "The Rape of the Lock, styled by the his early productions, stands the first among similar compositions in our language, perhaps in any other. Besides possessing the an thor's characteristic elegance and brilliancy of expression in a supreme degree, it exhibits a greater share of the inventive faculty than any other of his works. The humour of a piece of this kind consists in the mock dignity by which a trifling subject is elevated into importance. When such a design is executed with judgment, all the parts should correspond; the moral, therefore, should be ironical, and the praise satirical. For attaining consistency in these points, the spirit of the age and the character of the poet were well suited. "I must here let you into a secret, which, while it may justly excite your indignation, may preserve you from deception That extravagant devotion to your sex which, perhaps, was a serious passion in the age of chivalry, came in process of time, and especially the French nation, to be a mere affair of comas modified by the licentiousness and levity of pliment. The free admixture of women, which gave so much splendour and amenity to the French court, soon vitiated their man ners; and even while they enjoyed the greatest influence, they ceased to be respectable. Wholly occupied with the care of rendering themselves desirable to the men, they neglected the culture of their minds and the duties of their sex. They who possessed beauty, relied upon that solely for their power of atsought a compensation in the graces. Altraction; while those less favoured by nature though thus really debased, they did not exert a less absolute dominion over courtiers and men of pleasure as frivolous and vitiated as themselves; but in the mean time they lost the attachment of the sober and rational, and became objects of contempt to men of wit. In this state of things, the high-flown language of adoration was intermixed with sly strokes of satire; and at length, so much irony was joined with the praise, that a woman of sense would have regarded it as an insult. school of literature. His earliest ambition "Pope had been educated in the French was to be reckoned a man of wit and gallantry in the modish sense; and having naturally a cold and artificial character, he was well the interests of his reputation. The personal fitted to assume the part most conducive to disadvantages, too, under which he laboured, and which precluded his success as a real lover, accustomed him to fiction in his addresses to the sex, and probably infused a secret exasperation into his feelings when they were concerned. "These observations are meant to be introductory, not only to the burlesque poem before us, but to other pieces, in which the female sex is mentioned in a more serious manner." Every mother will feel her obligations to Dr. Aikin for the care with which he has excluded every thing absolutely unfit for the eye of her daughters, and the skill he has here employed in extracting an excellent moral from a piece of a dubious kind, which its celebrity did not allow him to omit. Every woman ought to express her thanks for the merited stigma which he has affixed on the contemptuous insulters of her sex. With his observations on the first volume of Cowper's poems, which may serve to shew our author's power feel. ingly to appreciate, and accurately to discriminate the peculiar beauties and characteristic features of a real poet, we conclude our extracts and our article. dependence. Keen and sagacious reflections upon life and manners, and frequent sallies of genuine humour, are interspersed, which must be relished by readers who are no friends to his system of divinity: yet even the latter doctrines, and presents only sentiments of in many instances stands apart from peculiar pure and exalted piety. "The verse is heroic couplet, generally of a loose and careless structure, and the diction is for the most part simple and prosaic. There are, however, strains of poetry wrought with care, and glowing with the fervour of whole; and though well acquainted with genius. An air of originality pervades the classical literature, no writer is less of a bor rower. All the pieces under the enumerated heads will amply repay the perusal: but you will perhaps find most to please you in those of Charity, Conversation, and Retirement. In the first of these are some admirably energetic lines against the slave trade, which was an object of his rooted abhorrence. The "Conversation' abounds with excellent sense and humour. You will be diverted with the picture of the formal visiting party, where, circle formed, we sit in silent state, Like figures drawn upon a dial-plate;' and from which, The visit paid, with ecstasy we come, "The great popularity which the name of Cowper has obtained is a sufficient testimony to the merit of his productions, which were so far from appearing with any peculiar advantages, that his first publication had nearly sunk under the dislike attached to a narrow and gloomy system of religion. The lament-The ed anthor passed his life in an obscure retreat from the world, doubly darkened by the shades of a morbid melancholy; and nothing could have forced him upon the public view but a blaze of genius not to be repressed by unfortunate circumstances. His works are now become an inseparable part of the mass of approved English poetry, and they could not fail to engage your notice without any care of mine to point them out. I cannot hesitate, therefore, to include among the subjects of my observations, an author who sooner or later must come into your hands, and has so good a claim to the reputation he has acquired. "The pieces principally composing the first volume of Cowper's poems are arranged under the heads of Error, Truth, Expos tulation, Hope, Charity, Conversation, and Retirement. These topics are treated in a familiar and desultory inanner, with a continual reference to those religious principles which are commonly termed methodistical; and a vein of severe rebuke runs through them, which the author himself afterwards admitted to be too acrimonious. Yet in the midst of his doctrinal austerity, a truly benevolent heart is perpetually displaying itself, Joured with a noble spirit of freedom and in "Of the serious parts, you will, doubtless, distinguish the Disciples at Einmaus, as a story told with the grace of true simpli city. "The exquisite representations of the Melancholy Man, in Retirement,' were too faithful copies of what the writer saw and felt in himself. How poetical, and how touching, are the following lines! Then, neither heathy wilds, nor scenes as As ever recompensed the peasant's care, groves, And waft it to the mourner as he roves, CHAPTER XIV: MISCELLANIES. THE most important article in this department of our work, is the series of British Essayists from the Tatler to the Mirror, edited by Mr. Chalmers. The periodical essays, which under various names, and with various degrees of merit, have issued from the British press during the last century, form too striking a feature in our national literature to be ever forgotten or neglected; and the public, we doubt not, will be sensible of its obligations to Mr. C. for his convenient and correct edition of these esteemed writings, which though it cannot be considered as perfect, is unquestionably the best that has hitherto been published. The Prize Essays of the College of Calcutta will excite an interest, exclusive of their intrinsic merit, as the first fruits of an institution most truly honourable to its noble founder, and more indicative of a great mind than the most splendid conquests. The only remaining works that require to be noticed are those under the name of Selections, Beauties, or Anas; the compilers of which contrive to gain a disho nourable livelihood, by basely stealing the most attractive passages from our standard authors, in order to pamper the idleness and imbecility of those to whom the labour of thinking for themselves is an intolerable burthen. ART. I. An Accurate Historical Account of all the Orders of Knighthood, at present existing in Europe. To which are prefixed a Critical Dissertation upon the Ancient and Present State of those Equestrian Institutions, and a Prefatory Discourse on the Origin of Knighthood in general; the whole interspersed with Illustrations and Explanatory Notes. By an Officer of the Chancery of the Equestrian, Secular, and Chapteral Order of Saint Joachim. 8vo. 2 vols. PP. 555. MR. BURKE was in an error when he stated the age of chivalry as gone! Upwards of twenty orders of knighthood have been created within the last century; two of them owe their origin to the gallant achievements of the British arms within the last four years. The Sicilian Order of St. Ferdinand and of Merit was instituted in the year 1800, in honour of Lord Nelson, who safely conducted the royal family of Naples from a merciless enemy to the shores of Sicily. The other to which we allude was also created in honour of the same hero this is the Imperial Order of the Turkish Crescent, instituted in the year 1799 by Sultan Selim III. It is a remark which could not escape the compiler of these volumes, that this event forms a memorable æra in the annals of the eighteenth century; for it is singular enough that the Ottomans, against whom the first order of knighthood, that of Malta, was professedly established, should have instituted a military one to recompense the bravery of a christian and a hero, and expressly to commemorate a victory gained on their own coasts, and upon which depended their existence as a nation. If the age of chivalry had really expired, such a work as the present would have been interesting to the historian, as concentrating in a small compass many authentic documents respecting the ori gin and constitution of those establishments, which have produced so sensible an effect on the state of society in Europe; if on the contrary the age of chivalry is actually reviving, a double interest must be excited: institutions of this sort, indeed, are not likely to moulder away so long as the profession of arms is honourable, and military enterprize held high in admiration. Orders of chivalry existed in very remote antiquity, and to trace the origin of them would be an enquiry rather curious than useful. Romulus established an order of Equites consisting of three hundred noble youths; the members of this order had a horse and ring presented to them at the public expence, on condition that they appeared on horseback whenever the state required their services; and Dionysius in describing the transvectio, which was a solemn proces sion, instituted in honour of Castor and Pollux, says that every man bore the ornaments which had been presented to him by the general as a reward of his valour. Plutarch also tells us, that when the Equites had served out their legal time, it was customary for their horse to be led to the seat of the two censors in the forum, where each gave an account of his services, and after an examination into his merits, was discharged accordingly with glory or disgrace. The investiture of the sword and shield among the Germans, as mention ed by Tacitus, was obviously an order of merit, at once the reward of valorous atchievements, and an incentive to the performance of them. The spirit of chivalry which took its rise in times of turbulence and barbarism will not be suffered to languish even in periods of peace and civilization: among barbarous nations, arms, as it is the most useful, so it is the only honourable profession: it is well known that during several centuries, in those ages when science was uncultivated, and the arts of peace were considered as ignoble, every high-born gentleman in Europe was a soldier; his body was trained to feats of hardihood and prowess, and his whole mind was given to the acquirement of military skill. His sports were military: tournaments and jousts were at once an exercise and an amusement to him. In the feudal ages the weak were exposed to the insolence and rapacity of the strong; all was anarchy and violence, till the sallies of an oppressor upon the innocent and defenceless were repulsed by some more generous and more powerful individual. For the purpose of protecting the oppressed, and of securing their own possessions from rapine and plunder, individuals of rank associated, and strengthened their association by a religious ceremony; admission into these associations was deemed the highest honour, the qualifications required of the candidate were not of vulgar attainment, and the ceremonies of his admission were solemn and impressive. That these chivalrous institutions should be preserved in periods of peace and civilization will not surprise us, if we consider that the virtues of knight, hood have led to that civilization which we now enjoy, and must ever be essential to its existence Humanity, generosity, courtesy, and fidelity, were no less knightly virtues than valour and prow ess: to the genius of chivalry we are indebted for the high sense nse of honour which peculiarly distinguishes military men, and for that humanity with which the operations of war itself are carried on, and which strips it of half its horrors. Orders of knighthood however were not always instituted for military purposes, the support of the christian religion being generally a partial object at least: the most noble Order of the Garter had its origin in the gallantry of Edward the third," a virtue for the refinements of which we are also indebted to chivalry, and the order of St. Lazarus of Jerusalem was instituted upon a principle of benevolence. The particular duty of the last fraternity was to superintend and heal those who were labouring under the ravages of the leprosy; and to that end a celebrated hospital at Jerusalem, of which St. Lazarus was the patron, was especially consigned to the patron, as a receptacle for lepers." That other than military objects were in view, and the extermination of the enemies of christianity by the sword is indisputable, since the order of knighthood is yet conferred on females, and there are in existence at this day four orders solely instituted for the ladies. 66 These were doubtless deviations from the original institution, in whatever age or in whatever country that institution sprung. In the feudal times men of opulence, in addition to the superiority of their armour and their weapons over the common people, had also the advantage of fighting on horseback. This was so striking a distinction that an equestrian order would obviously arise from it. Mr. Gibbon says, that between the age of Charlemagne and that of the Crusades, a revolution had taken place among the Spaniards, the Normans, and the French, which was gradually ex |