lution to attack the English again, and it is agreed between him and Bruce, in the hearing of their men, that they shall meet again in a few hours. At this fecond interview, Bruce, in strong terms, laments his having been feduced by the false infinuations of the king of England, and his inability to withdraw his forces, his fon being a hoftage; but vows not to act offenfively against his countrymen in the approaching battle.

Wallace furprites the English near Linlithgow, Edward calls upon Bruce for his affiftance, who gives it only in appearance: Edward urges him to more vigorous action; Bruce demands to have his hoftage delivered up, and promiies, upon that condition, what he had fworn to Wallace not to fulfil, that he would attack the Scots, and recover the day. Henry perceives his defection, and, as the Author fays, confines him as a prifoner at large," at the fame time being himself obliged precipitately to retreat over the Solway home.

Wallace returns to Edinburgh, and in a fit of difcontent soon after retires to France.

In the third book Robert Bruce, the hero, first makes his appearance, and the Reader muft fuppofe the action of the poem not yet commenced.

Bruce the father being dead, and Bruce the fon in France, Scotland is again invaded by the English, who, in this poem, are affectedly called Saxons; and Bruce, as his father had done, takes part with the invaders: they overrun almost the whole country, and Henry removes the coronation-chair, and many Scots archives, from Scone.

In an interview between Bruce and Cumbernald, both having pretenfions to the crown, Cumbernald offers either to give up his own lands and property to Bruce, upon condition that Bruce refigns his pretenfions to him, or to refign his own pretenfions to Bruce, upon condition that Bruce should make over his private inheritance in return.

Bruce agrees to give Cumbernald his inheritance, and Cumbernald makes over his title to Bruce by proper inftruments under hand and feal.

Bruce then returns to England with king Edward, determined to affert his right on the firft opportunity: but the goddess of Difcord influences Cumbernald not only to violate his agreement with Bruce, but to fend the contract to Edward. Edward, provoked at the fuppofed treachery of Bruce, determines to put him to death, but the angel Ariel preferves him by a fecret influence over Henry's council, and by infpiring Montgomery with a fudden friendfhip for him. In confequence of which he fends him a purfe and a pair of fpurs, not daring to trust any one with a verbal or written meffage, intending by thefe fym

bols

bols to intimate that he fhould immediately leave the kingdom. Bruce, being affifted by his tutelar angel, difcovers the meaning of the prefent, and fulfils the precept it was intended to convey: he arrives fafe at a feat belonging to his family in Scotland, with only two fervants. Some of his friends next morning feize a messenger that had been dispatched by Cumbernald to Edward, admonishing him to put Bruce to death speedily, as delay would be dangerous. Bruce rides directly to Cumbernald, and having reproached him with his perfidy, ftabs him. He then publishes a manifefto, is proclaimed King by his party, and prepares to eftablish his claim. He firft proceeds to Scone, where he is crowned, and then to Perth, which was held for the English by Pembroke: he fummons the place to furrender, a battle enfues in the foreft of Methuen, the Scots are defeated, and retreat to Aberdeen.

Bruce is foon after driven from Aberdeen to Kildrummy,. and from Kildrummy into the weftern Highlands: he there wanders about, ready to perish with hunger and cold, while Kildrummy is befieged by the English under the son of king Edward, afterwards Edward the fecond. The place is gallantly defended by a brother of Bruce; Edward marches at the head of another army, but dies on the way: Kildrummy at length furrenders, fays the poet, on terms,

But haughty Edward, who no terms obferv'd,

Some hang'd, fome quarter'd, fome in prison starv'd.' In the mean time, Bruce having, as the poet expreffes it, feized fome victuals, goes firft to Arran, and then to Carrick. At Arran, fays the poet,

Rich English victuals load the homely board." And the king having first filled his belly,

Each individual next fhar'd boil'd and roaft.'

Bruce, upon his landing at Arran, is met by a prophetefs, who kept an inn, and whom therefore with great propriety the Poet calls an hoftefs; the affures him of final fuccefs, and he immediately takes Carrick, which, though the original property of his family, was then held for the English by Percy.

The fifth book contains, by way of epifode, an expedition of Douglas to recover his inheritance from lord Clifford, in which he fucceeds. This epifode is curious. Douglas arrives with a few friends at Douglafdale, where he meets with an old fervant of his father's, who tells him his name is Tom Dickson, a council is held in Tom's barn, for which the Poet apologizes by obferving that it was the largest room:

Now down in Dickson's barn the council fate,
Largeft the room, and fitteft for debate.'

Dickfon not only furnishes a council-chamber, but raises fome men, and they get into the enemy's church the next Sunday,

Cc 2

and

maflacre the congregation. From church they proceed towards the castle, and the Poet, not willing to pass by any circumstance of importance and dignity, tells us that in their way thither they met a cook and a porter: they killed not only the porter, but the cook, though the poet very pertinently asks,

6

but why not fpare an unoffending cook?'

and made hafte to devour the meal he had prepared for his lord: they also furnished themselves with clothes from the wardrobe, and then fet the castle on fire.

In the mean time, Bruce continues at Carrick; the English endeavour in vain to force the place: they hire a boor to affaffinate him, who fails in the attempt; Bruce leaves Carrick, and gaining the victory in an important action, becomes mafter of the western quarter of the country.

In the fixth and laft book, the King marches northward, but as he is paffing the mountains falls fick: the earl of Buchan takes advantage of this to attack him, but is repelled by the King's forces, which he commanded in a litter. He fubdues Forfar and Perth, makes himself master of Edinburgh and its castle, with the South Country. England and Scotland collect their whole force for a decifive action, which takes place at Bannockburn, and Bruce obtains a complete victory.

Such is the action or fuch are the actions of this epic, which seems to be made with great exactness after the receipt to make epic poems, given in the xvth chapter of the great Scriblerus's treatise on that art, which this Author has fo happily illuftrated in particular inftances. Some have been already cited, but it would be injurious both to the Author and Reader to omit the following:

The unintelligible:

The crowd in peals of loud applauses rife.'

That a crowd of people fhould rife from the earth in a peal of applaufe, is more incomprehenfible than that a heavy carriage fhould go up a hill without horses.

High in their glitt'ring arms the chiefs appear,

And from the walls annoy the hoftile war.'

We query, with Scriblerus, what it is to annoy a war? Our Bard, among many other descriptions of the evening, has the following:

'Now Cynthia, filent, sheds a filver light, Gilds the expanfe, and azures all the night.' What can be more in the fpirit of the Bathos, than to reprefent the moon as making night blue by gilding it with a filver light?

Our Bard exhibits a picture of unfading laurels withered. Speaking of Edward's expedition to Palestine in the holy war, and his fubfequent injurious invafion of Scotland, he fays,

• Then

Then bays unfading grac'd thy awful brows,
Now lawless might and fraud the scene o'ercaft,
Wither thy laurels'-

Our English Homer has this verse,

"And scenes of blood rife dreadful in his foul."

The Brucian bard fays of this, hero, that

Future fields run crimson in his foul.'

Thefe running fields afford a fine inftance of the unintelligible, and thus has our Bard fulfilled another precept of his great mafter, "read Shakespeare, Milton, and Dryden, fays he, to bury their gold in your own dunghill."

Our Author has in another place confounded land and water: he fays that

'Mangled steeds and warriours chok'd the fhore."

Ideas vulgarized by a fingle word,

To rooms of state afcends the royal guest,
Where boards flood loaded with a rich repast.'

At once the monarch and the chiefs drew near,
And, courteous hail, and hug the loyal peer.'

The fervants led the victuals from the main'

But fpoil'd th' attendants, and the viduals gain'd-
Quite through the foremoft's gullet glanc'd the dart.'
Strong by connection; like to toughest cords,
Strain only one, one no defence affords ;
Unite them firm, behold a strenuous rope.'

Scriblerus advifes his Author rather than fay Thetis faw
Achilles weep, the beard him weep." Our Bard profiting by
this advice, fays that he jees flame crackle, rather than bear it:
Suddenly a mighty flame he fpies

Burft from the roof, and crackle in the skies.'

Scriblerus alfo advifes above all to obferve a laudable prolixity, prefenting the whole and every fide of an image to view; our Bard therefore having described the arms, the steeds, the men, and the leaders of an army, proceeds thus,

'Three hundred waggoners, unwarlike croud,
Upon the hill, retir'd, at diftance stood.'

The metonymy, or inverfion of caufes for effects, &c.
Where oaks fuperb, the pride of England ride.'

The following paffages are fo modern, that, like fome mentioned by Scriblerus, they cannot be reduced to any rule. Ladies are reprefented not as dreffing the wounds of their heroes only, but the fears:

By tender hands each fear and bleeding wound
With ftudious care is tented, bath'd, and bound.'

Cc 3

Laftly,

Laftly, our Author has prefented us with a new weapon, and feveral new words.:

Charg'd, in his hand, a lance he bore on high.'

a charged lance we confess never before to have heard of. He uses infcious for ignorant:

Entirely infcious of the lowland ftate.

And invious for impaffable:

"In woods, and invious hills, and barren vales.'

Thus have we given our Readers an account of the Bruciad. An Epic does not appear every day, and therefore we hope we fhall not be thought to have beftowed too much attention upon it, or at least that we shall not be feverely cenfured for a work of fupererogation.

MONTHLY

CATALOGUE,

For NOVEMBER, 1769.
POETICA L.

Art. 12. Occafional Attempts at Sentimental Poetry, by a Man in Bufi-
nefs, with fome Mifcellaneous Compofitions of his Friends.
2s. 6d. Durham. 1769.

8vo.

HE word fentimental is, like continental, a barbarifm that has but lately difgraced our language, and it is not always easy to conceive what is meant by it. We have before feen a Sentimental Novel, and a Sentimental Journey; and now we have Attempts at Sentimental Poetry. Our own old English word fentiment means only thought, notion, opinion; the French word fentiment feems to mean intellectual fenfation; a fenfe of conduct and opinion, diftinct from the sense of qualities that affect us by the tafte, fight, fmell, touch, and hearing: it has a place in the cant of our travelled gentry, many of whom fhew, by their use of it, that they neither know the meaning of it in Englith nor French: to the fashionable ufe of the word fentiment, however, we owe the word fentimental, which, from polite conversation, has, at length, found its way to the prefs.

As used by the man in bufinefs,' whose work is now before us, it feems to mean fomething diftinct from defcription and narrative; he has attempted little, he fays, at defcriptive poetry, both for want of capacity and inclination; and it appears from the fituation in which he wrote, that he had not leisure to concatenate events. The account he gives of his performance is to this effect; while he was learning his profeffion he was much employed in writing, but when he began bufinefs for himself he had not occupation fufficient to give employment to his thoughts or his pen; and having read that without fome -kind of purfuit for the imagination, the mind of a young man would foon become wafte, he took to rhyming,' as he expreffes it, by

of exercifing his invention, and keeping his quill in ufe;'I compofed,' fays he, while I was walking the crowded, noify, muddy ftreets of London, or riding on the dusty road of its environs, and at my return tranfmitted my viatic compofitions to paper.' He thinks, if more leifure had been allowed, his performances might have been

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