In the first part, the author pays a respectful tribute to the virtues of our ancestors. We wish how ever that he had inherited so much of their spirit, as to have avowed his political creed. We praise no political writer, whose

opinions are not clearly exhibited, and who does not breathe the sentiments of those sages, who formed the federal compact, and to whom we are indebted for every existing relick of national glory.

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One God in one perfon only and Jefus Chrift a being diftinct from God, dependent upon him for his exiftence and his various powers; maintained and defended. By John Sherman, pastor of the first church in Mansfield, Connecticut. Worcester. I. Thomas, jun. 1805. 8vo. pp. 198.

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A new and much improved edition of Morfe's Univerfal Geography; or a view of the present state of all the enpires, kingdoms, ftates, and republicks in the known world, and of the United States of America in particular. In 2 parts. The whole comprehending a complete and improved fyftem of modern geography, calculated for Americans. Illuftrated with 6 maps, and accompanied by a new and elegant General Atlas of the World, containing (ia a feparate quarto yolume) 63 maps, and comprising all the new difcoveries to the prefent time. Fifth edition, corrected and improved. Boiten. Thomas & Andrews. Price 12 dols. 50 eta, Without the atlas 6,50.

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The hiftory of the Bible and of the Jews till the final deftruction of the temple of Jerufalem: with which are

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Memoirs of C. M. Talleyrand de Perigord, one of Bonaparte's principal fecretaries of state, his grand chamberlain, and grand officer of the legion of honour, ex-bishop of Autun, ex-abbè of Celles and St. Dennis, &c. Containing the particulars of his private and publick life, of his intrigues in Boudoirs as well as cabinets. By the author of the Revolutionary Plutarch. 1 vol. 8vo. pp. between 3 and 400. Price to fubfcribers 1,50 in boards. Boston, David Carlisle.

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Complete Letter Writer. Charleftown. Etheridge. 12mo.

even in the collective mass of literary production.

The fable of Madoc has much peculiarity. It is the conquest of Mexico by Cortes, antedated. It has two parts. In the former, Madoc narrates to his brother, the Welsh King, both the matives and confequences of his voyage of difcovery, and collects a fresh supply of colonifts to fettle the country he had found. His departure from Wales terminates this divifion of the poem, which has eighteen books. The finest of them are entitled Cadwallon, Llewellyn, Llaian, Rodri. The ftory of the blind Cynetha, the interview with the

rightful heir of Wales, the difcovery of Hoel's child, and the farewell of Rodri, are among the most pathetick scenes in the whole compass of epick poetry. The fault of this part confifts in its dwelling too little on the voyage, which is the proper business of the poem; and too much on the internal feuds of Wales, the result of which are not to occupy the reader's attention. There is alfo an improbable resemblance between the feveral female characters introduced. In the fecond part, Madoc and his new affociates arrive in Aztlan, but find the natives no longer in a friendly and hofpitable temper. Their fuperftitious prejudices have been alarmed, and they are confederating to expel the chriftian intruders. A war begins. Madoc is taken prisoner, and on the point of being facrificed to idols. The courage and skill of the few Welsh at length triumph over the favage hordes, who agree to evacuate a province in favour of Madoc and his companions. This divifion of the poem has twenty-feven books; thofe might have been much condenfed, which are subsequent to the refcue of Madoc; for the event is from that time decided, and the intereft de cays. The Snake-God, the Battle, the Victory, are good cantos; and the epifode of Coatel and Lincoya is affecting. The characters of the fayages are well drawn; they are more difcriminate and various than thofe of the Europeans.

The total abfence of mythology, the confonance with chronicle and tradition, and the antiquarian fidelity of coftume, with which the manners both of the Welth and of the Indian nations are depicted, give to this poem an impreflion of reality attained in no other fimilar work. The degree of illufion approaches that produced by the hiftorick plays of Shakespeare: it bears to thofe epick poems, in which fupernatural machinery is employed, the relation which a tragedy bears to an opera. Ariftotle defines the epopea to be tragedy in recital; this definition applies clofely to Madoc.

With the exception of marvellous interpofition, this poem has many refemblances with the Odyfley, the Eneid, and the Lufiad; and will, we think, Eventually be ranked by criticism be

tween the first and last of these poems, It has the advantage over them all in the character and majesty of the chief perfonage. With Gama one hardly becomes acquainted; he is no more of a hero than the name of his ship. Æneas never interests but on his way to hell: his civility to Palinurus (except the ipfe fubibo bumeris,) is the only trait of heart in his character. The rapacity, the selfish unfeeling, the low cunning of Odysfeus degrade him from that moral rank, which is effential to fympathy. Sophocles felt this deficiency of Homer; and in a fine fcene of his Philoctetes, has contrafted the fincere and generous Neoptolemos with the infidious and crafty Odyffeus. Madoc is fuch a Neoptolemos in middle age: he interests at once and all alone, by his affections, his refources, his difficulties, and his virtues.

The ftyle is equal, as in Leonidas; not various, as in Thalaba: it is correct, not daring: it is most fuccefsful in the defcriptive paffages, which are every where vivid and picturesque: the metaphors are few; the epithets are inlaid with novel aptnefs. The language is rather trailing like that of Spenfer, than condenfed like that of Milton; it is fomewhat deficient in rapidity, vigour, and fplendour, and would gain by the infertion of more imitations, fimilies, and bursts of diction. The oratory too should be fuller of thought, argument, and maxim. The poet has pursued to excefs the praife of invention and originality; he has difdained tranfplantations from the works of his predeceff ors, though Taffo wrought fo beautiful a patch-work with fhreds. It is in literature as in the world, he ranks higheft who spends most; no matter whether he borrows, or owns, what he beftows. Plagiarism is even a fource of reputation; for the well read criticks have in all ages taken pleasure to indicate the tubence of ftolen paffages, and therefor edit and annotate most willingly the purloiner.

Had Mr. Southey got this poem done into Welsh by Mr. Owen, or fome other zealot of Myvyrian Archaiology; had he so published it with a Latin inter, pretation, and then given us the origin al as amere verfion from fome old bard; envy would have been cheated and curiofity aroufed, and Madoc would foon

have furpaffed in Europeanity of reputation the pretended works of Offian. In its prefent fincere form it will win a lefs eafy way of fame; but it will not have to make a returning step.

It is easier to blame than to praise; canker like to nibble at the laurel-leaf, than to water its varnish into higher luftre but our limits forbid the detail

ing of those scattered paffages in which we wished for abbreviation. As a whole, the cenfure of Madoc is difficult; one must make a grievance of the levelness of manner, of the extent of narration, and of the absence of the wonderful, in order to provide the hoftile converfer with topicks of invective. Against fuch cavils, the philofophick criticifm of Hobbes has fuggefted an appropriate reply. "There are fome (fays be) who are not pleased with fiction unless it be bold; not only to exceed the work, but alfo the poffibility of nature. They would have impenetrable armours, inchanted castles, invulnerable bodies, iron men, flying horfes, and a thousand other fuch things, which are easily feigned by them that dare. I diffent from thofe who think that the beauty of a poem confifteth in the exorbitancy of the fiction. For as truth is the bound of hiftorical, fo the refemblance of truth is the ⚫ utmost limit of poetical liberty. In old time, among the heathens, fuch strange -fictions and metamorphofes were not fo remote from the articles of their faith, as they are now from ours, and were therefore not fo unpleafant. Beyond the actual works of nature a poet may now go; but beyond the conceived por fibility of nature never."

To all the other epopeas conftructed on this principle, fuch as the Henriad, the Araucana, the Pharfalia, Mr. Southey's is far fuperiour. Since the appearance of Milton's Paradife Loft, no poem has quitted the English prefs equal in merit to Madoc. It is a great and a durable acceffion to our literature, a fit object of national pride, and of European gratulation.

Mr. Palmer, of Hackney, who has a large collection of the late Mr. Job Orton's Letters, in his original hort hand, is preparing a felect number of them for the prefs, under the title of "Letters to Diffenting Min

Mr. Salmon, author of Stemmata Latinitatis, propofes to publish Inveftigations on the Origin of French Particles, fimilar in plan to the Diverfions of Purley.

Mr. P. Homer has circulated a Letter on the subject of fome editions of the Latin Clafficks that were published by his late brother Henry, Fellow of Emanuel College, Cambridge. In his life-time he had edited feveral, and at his decease he left feveral others, unfinished. The moft expenfive and voluminous of thefe were an edition of Livy in 8 volumes large octavo, and one of Tacitus in four. His brother had printed off a small portion of the text of Livy, and the whole of that of Tacitus, and had just begun a died of a decline, which was certainnew Index to the latter, when he ly haftened, if not occafioned, by too close an attention to his literary pur fuits. His father, who furvived him but a few weeks, continued the works, which were then in the prefs, as long as he lived; and at his deceafe, his brother Dr. Homer, him. felf, and fome others of the family, completed the editions that were left unfinished. "They have (fays Mr. Homer) now been published for more than twelve years, and the fale of them has been fo unequal to our expectations, that we have hitherto lo by them more than three thousand pounds. From refpect to his memory, and from the natural with to prevent the total lofs of what he had