ceived the same compliment on his return to that favoured residence. The people, who were of course assembled in great crowds, did not appear to me to look on the magnificent display before them with any feeling of religious awe, or to regard it in any other light than, at the most, a national spectacle. powers and energies which dignify man. They have no enthusiasm, no devoted admiration, or love, for objects unconnected with the neces sities of their mortal being, or the low gratifications of sense. They have a few mighty names to lend them an inspiration, which might supply the place of contemporary genius; and with those, of which they ought to be fond in proportion to their rarity, they appear scarcely acquainted. Of the rich stores of poetry and romance, which they might enjoy from the neighbouring country and almost similar language of Spain, they are, for the most part, unconscious. Not only has the spirit of chivalry departed from these mountains, where it once was glowing; but its marvellous and golden tales are neglected or forgotten. The degradation of the public mind in Lisbon is increased by the notorious venality of the ministers of justice. There is no crime for which indemnity may not be purchased by a bribe. Even offences against the government of the king may be winked at, if the culprit is able to make an ample pecuniary sacrifice. It is a well-known fact that some of the chief conspirators in the plot to assassinate Marshal Beresford, and change the whole order of things in Portugal, were able to make their peace with the judges, and, on the ground of some technical informality, were dismissed without trial. When any one is accused of an offence, he is generally sent at once to prison, where he remains until he can purchase his freedom. There does not seem, however, any disposition to persecution for opinions, or to exercise wanton cruelty. The Inquisition is no longer an engine in the hands of the priests, but is merely a tribunal for the examination and the punishment of political of fences. Death is rarely inflicted; for it brings no gain to the magistrate. Criminals guilty of the highest offences are kept in prison until they are forgotten, without any one knowing or caring about their fate. In the absence of the sovereign almost all the civil authorities have become totally corrupted, for there is no patriot to watch, and no public voice to awe them. The people appear sunk in apathy to all excepting gain; and the greater number of them crawl on with little hope, except to supply the cravings of hunger. The city, notwithstanding its populousness, exhibits all the marks of decay-buildings in ruins amidst its stateliest streets, and houses begun on a magnificent scale, and left unfinished for years. Of the national character of the Portuguese in general, I can say very little, as my personal intercourse with them was extremely limited. Were I to believe all that some English residents in Lisbon have told me, I should draw a gloomy picture of human degradation unrelieved by a single redeeming grace. I should say that the common people are not only ignorant and filthy, but universally dishonest; that they blend the vices of savage and social life, and are ready to become either pilferers or assassins; that they are cruel to their children, lax in friendship, and implacable in revenge; that the higher orders are at once the dupes and tyrants of their servants, familiar with them one moment, and brutally despotic the next; that they are in constant jealousy of their wives, and not without reason; and that even their vices are without dignity or decorum. All this can never be true, or Lisbon would not be subsisting in order and peace. To me, the inhabitants appear in a more amiable light. Filthy and ignorant the common people doubt less are; but they are sober; and those dreadful excesses and sorrows which arise from the use, in England, of ardent spirits, are consequently unknown. They are idle; but the warmth of the climate may, in some degree, excuse them. No rank is destitute of some appearance of native courteousness. The rich are not, indeed, Howards or Clarksons; they have no idea of exerting themselves to any great degree, to draw down blessings on the heads of others or their own; they do not go in search of wretchedness in order to remove it, but when misery is brought before them, as it is constantly here, in a thousand ghastly forms, they are far from withholding such aid as money can render. The gardens of their country villas, which are exceedingly elegant, are always open in the evenings to any of the populace who choose to walk there, so that the citizen, on the numerous holidays which the Romish church affords, is not compelled to inhale the dust in some wretched tea-garden, which is a libel at once on nature and art, but may rove with his children through groves of orange and thickets of roses. When the company thus indulged meet any of the family which reside in the mansion, they acknowledge the favour which they are enjoy-The foreign merchants, especially the British, ing by obeisances not ungracefully made, which are always returned with equal courtesy. I am assured, that this privilege is never abused; even the children walk amidst the flowers and the fruits, without the slightest idea of touching them. This circumstance alone would induce me to doubt the justice with which some have attempted to fix the brand of dishonesty on the inferior classes of Portugal. The people want not the natural tenderness and gentle movements of the heart; all their deficiencies arise from the absence of high principle, the languishing of intellect, and the decay of the loftier who use it as a central port, give it an artificial life, without which its condition would be most wretched. In bidding farewell to this bright abode of degraded humanity, I felt it impossible to believe that it was destined gradually to become desolate and voiceless. Glorious indeed would be the change, if knowledge should expand the souls now so low and contracted, into a sympathy with the natural wonders around them-if the arts should once more adorn the romantic city-and the orange groves and lovely spots among the delicate cork trees, should be vocal with the innocent gayety of happy peasants, or shed their in- and their spirit was regulated by wise and fluences on the hearts of youthful bards. If, beneficent governors, the capital of Portugal indeed, the people were awakened into energy, would assuredly become the fairest of cities. MR. CHARLES LLOYD'S POEMS.* [LONDON MAGAZINE.] THERE is no more remarkable instance of the ciates-offering a child-like feebleness in con"cant of criticism," than the representation trast to Wordsworth's nerve-and ranging currently received as distinctive, whereby through mythologies and strange fantasies, not several authors, chiefly residing in the neigh-only with less dominion than Coleridge, but bourhood of the lakes, were characterized merely portraying the shapes to which they gave as belonging to one school of poetry. In existence, instead of discovering the spirit of truth, propinquity of residence, and the bonds truth and beauty within them. Nor does the of private friendship, are the only circum- author before us, often combined with these stances which have ever given the slightest by the ignorance or the artifice of criticism, colour to the hypothesis which marked them differ less widely from them. Without Wordsout as disciples of the same creed. It is worth's intuitive perception of the profoundest scarcely possible to conceive individuals more truths, or Coleridge's feeling of beauty, he has dissimilar in the objects of their choice, or in a subtile activity of mind which supplies the the essential properties of their genius. Who, place of the first, and a wonderful power of for example, can have less in common than minute observation, which, when directed to Wordsworth and Coleridge, if we except lovely objects, in a great degree produces the those faculties which are necessarily the effect of the latter. All these three rise on portion of the highest order of imaginative some occasions to the highest heaven of thought minds? The former of these has sought for and feeling, though by various processeshis subjects among the most ordinary oc- Wordsworth reaching it at once by the divine currences of life, which he has dignified and wingedness of his genius-Coleridge ascendexalted, from which he has extracted the ing to it by a spiral track of glory winding on holiest essences of good, or over which he through many a circuit of celestial light-and has cast a consecrating and harmonizing Lloyd stepping thither by a firm ladder, like light "which never was by sea or land." that of Jacob, by even steps, which the feet The latter, on the other hand, has spread of angels have trodden! abroad his mighty mind, searching for his materials through all history and all science, penetrating into the hidden soul of the wildest superstitions, and selecting the richest spoils of time from the remotest ages. Wordsworth is all intensity-he sees nothing, but through the hallowing medium of his own soul, and represents all things calm, silent, and harmonious as his own perceptions. Coleridge throws himself into all the various objects which he contemplates, and attracts to his own imagery their colours and forms. The first, seizes only the mighty and the true with a giant grasp;—the last has a passionate and almost effeminate love of beauty and tenderness which he never loses. One looks only on the affections in their inmost home, while the other perceives them in the lightest and remotest tints, which they cast on objects the strangest and most barbarous. All the distinction, in short, between the intense and the expansive-the severe and the lovely-the philosophic and the magical-really separates these great poets, whom it has been the fashion to censure as united in one heresy. If we cast the slightest glance at Southey's productions, we shall find him unlike either of these, his asso *Desultory Thoughts in London. Titus and Gisippus, with other Poems. By CHARLES LLOYD, author of Nuga Canora, and translator of Alfieri's Tragedies, 12mo, 1821. The peculiar qualities of Mr. Lloyd's genius have never been so clearly developed as in the chief poem of the work before us. In his "Nuga Canoræ," all his thoughts and feelings were overcast by a gentle melancholy, which rendered their prominences less distinct, as it shed over them one sad and sober hue. Even, however, in his most pensive moods, the vigorous and restless activity of his intellect might be discerned, curiously inquiring for the secret springs of its own distress, and regarding its sorrows as high problems worthy of the most painful scrutiny. While he exhi bited to us the full and pensive stream of emotion, with all the images of soft clouds and delicate foliage reflected on its bosom, he failed not to conduct us to its deep-seated fountains, or to lay open to our view the jagged caverns within its banks. Yet here the vast intellectual power was less conspicuous than in his last poems, because the personal emotion was more intense, single, and pervading. He is now, we rejoice to observe, more "i' the sun," and consequently, the nice workings of his reason are set more distinctly before us. The "Desultory Thoughts in London" embrace a great variety of topics, associated in the mind of the author with the metropolis, but many of them belonging to those classes of abstraction which might as fitly be contemplated in a desert. Among these are "Fate, free-will, foreknowledge absolute," the theories of manners and morals-the doctrines of expediency and self-interest-with many speculations relating to the imaginative parts of literature, and the influences of religion upon them-all of which are grasped by the hand of a master. The whole range of controversial writing scarcely affords an example of propositions stated so lucidly, qualified so craftily, and urged with such exemplary fairness and candour as in this work. It must, indeed, be admitted, that the admirable qualities of the argument render it somewhat unfit for marriage "with immortal verse." Philosophical poetry, when most attractive, seizes on some grand elemental truths, which it links to the noblest material images, and seeks rather to send one vast sentiment to the heart through the medium of the imagination, than to lead the mind by a regular process of logic, to the result which it contemplates. Mere didactic poetry, as Pope's Essay on Man, succeeds not by the nice balance of reasons, but by decking out some obvious common-place in a gorgeous rhetoric, or by expressing a familiar sentiment in such forcible language as will give it a singular charm to all who have felt its justice in a plainer garb. In general, the poet, no less than the woman, who deliberates, is lost. But Mr. Lloyd's effusions are in a great measure exceptions to this rule;-for though they are sometimes "harsh and crabbed," and sometimes too minute, they are marked by so hearty an earnestness, and adorned by such variety of illustration, and imbued with such deep sentiment, that they often enchant while they convince us. Although his processes are careful, his results belong to the stateliest range of truths. The blind as well might doubt of sense and sight; Of all your arguments ye can't dispute Their singleness of heart: except ye fight 'Gainst facts, ye, self-convicted, must be mute. Who its existence, as a faith, embraced That the heart's treasures there should first be placed. According to thy faith shall it be given To thee, with spiritual glories, to be graced. We know all this; but we know also well, In virtue, and in happiness. Since bless'd God is their rock, their fortress of defence, His pride, a bubble; and his wisdom, folly. Life's gauds to them: the unseen they explore: With ills of body such as few have known;~ To luxuries used, they all aside are thrown ; To poverty devoted, she defies Rooted in heaven, to live is-to adore! Ye, that might cavil at these humble lays, His most laborious reason- Peruse the page of child-like Fenelon! ings lead us to elevated views of humanity-Hear what the wrapped, transfigured Guion says to the sense of a might above reason itself-to those objects which have inspired the most glorious enthusiasm, and of which the profoundest bards have delighted to afford us glimpses. It is quite inspiring to follow him as he detects the inconsistencies of worldly wisdom, as he breaks the shallow reasonings of the advocates of expediency into pieces, or as he vindicates their prerogatives to faith and hope. He leads us up a steep and stony ascent, step by step; but cheers us by many a ravishing prospect by the way, and conducts at last to an eminence, not only above the mists of error, but where the rainbow comes, and whence the gate of heaven may be seen as from the Delectable Mountains which Bunyan's Pilgrim visited. We scarcely know how to select a specimen which shall do justice to an author whose speculations are too vast to be completed within a short space, and are connected with others by delicate links of thought. We will give, however, his vindication of the enthusiastic and self-denying spirit, which, however associated with absurdity, is the soul of all religion and virtue. Reasoners, that argue of ye know not what, Was e'er an instance known, that man could taste Constant coincidence; effect, and cause, Condition indispensable, whence draws Of sight, because the experience of each day And was confounded? cover'd with dismay? Loses he friends? Religion dries his tears! And pains of flesh seem ministers of grace, He had before renounced; thus he can trace He too as much enjoys the spectacle Loses he fame? the honour he loves well Is not of earth, but that which seraphim Might prize! Loses he liberty? his cell, And all its vaults, echo his rapturous hymn: He feels as free as freest bird in air! His heaven-shrined spirit finds heaven everywhere! 'Tis not romance which we are uttering! No; Which maketh him impassive to the test Is not, ought not to be, man's primary rule; To do those things which e'en our reasons fool. God, and he only, sees the consequential; The mind well nurtured in religion's school Feels that He only-to whom all's obedientHas right to guide itself by the expedient. Duty is man's first law, not satisfaction! That satisfaction comes from this perform'd We grant! But should this be the prime attraction That led us to performance, soon inform'd By finding that we've miss'd the meed of action, We shall confess our error. Oft we're warm'd, By a strong spirit we cannot restrain, To deeds, which make all calculation vain. Had Regulus reason'd, whether on the scale Their country's cause, had never been her boast. Shall Christ submit upon the cross to bleed, Of this enlighten'd age! Take off the mask! Thy name, Thermopyla, had ne'er been heard, A theory for a declining race! No, let us keep at least our lips from lies; If we have forfeited Truth's soaring grace, Let us not falsify her prodigies. We well may wear a blush upon our face, From her past triumphs so t' apostatize In deeds; but let us not with this invent An infidelity of argument. Go to Palmyra's ruins; visit Greece, Behold! The wrecks of her magnificence As to betray how soon man's glories cease; The following is only a portion of a series of reminiscences equally luxurious and intense, and which are attended throughout by that vein of reflection which our author never loses: Oh, were the eye of youth a moment ours! When every flower that gemm'd the various earth Brought down from Heaven enjoyment's genial showers! And every bird, of everlasting mirth Prophesied to us in romantic bowers! Love was the garniture, whose blameless birth Caused that each filmy web where dew-drops trembled, The gossamery haunt of elves resembled ! We can remember earliest days of spring, When violets blue and white, and primrose pale, Rising like incense from the breathing world, When a soft moisture, steaming everywhere, To the earth's countenance mellower hues imparted; When sylvan choristers self-poised in air, Or perched on bows, in shrilly quiverings darted Their little raptures forth; when the warmn glare (While glancing lights backwards and forwards started, As if with meteors silver-sheathed 'twere flooded) Sultry, and silent, on the hill's turf brooded. Oh in these moments we such joy have felt, Within that very sanctuary of thine When shapes, and sounds, seeni'd as but modes of Thee!) That with experience gain'd were heaven to me! Oft in the fulness of the joy ye give, Oh, days of youth in summer's noon-tide hours, From insects' drowsy hum, that all my powers Who can have watch'd the wild rose' blushing dye, From white to deepest flush of vermeil stain ? T' imbibe each sweet its beauties did exhale? Who, amid lanes, on eve of summer days, In every satin sheath that helps to raise The fox-glove's cone, the figures manifold The daisy, cowslip, each have to them given- I had a cottage in a Paradise! Onward, in front, a mountain stream did rise Up, whose long course the fascinated mind (So apt the scene to awaken wildest themes) Might localize the most romantic dreams. When winter torrents, by the rain and snow, That towards us with a rapid course it sped, So many voices from this river came In summer, winter, autumn, or the spring; So many sounds accordant to each frame Of Nature's aspect, (whether the storm's wing The low breeze crisp'd its waters) that, to sing Yes,-in such hour as that-thy voice I've known, The breeze that bore it)-fearful as the groans Thy voice I've known to wake a dream of wonder! Of audibility, one scarce could sunder Its gradual swellings from the influence Of harp Eolian, when, upon the breeze, One might have thought, that spirits of the air exhibits the same great intellectual power and ceaseless activity of thought, which characterize the Thoughts in London. Mr. Lloyd has taken the common incident of one lover resigning his mistress to another, and the names of his chief characters from Boccaccio, but, in all other respects, the poem is original. Its chief peculiarity is the manner in which it reasons upon all the emotions which it portrays, especially on the progress of love in the soul, with infinite nicety of discrimination, not unlike that which Shakspeare has manifested in his amatory poems. He accounts for the finest shade of feeling, and analyzes its essence, with the same care, as though he were demonstrating a proposition of Euclid. He is as minute in his delineation of all the variations of the heart, as Richardson was in his narratives of matters of fact; and, like him, thus throws such an air of truth over his statements, that we can scarcely avoid receiving them as authentic history. At the same time, he conducts this process with so delicate a hand, and touches his subjects with so deep a reverence for humanity, that he teaches us to love our nature the more from his masterly dissection. By way of example of these remarks, we will give part of the scene between a lover who long has secretly been agitated by a passion for the betrothed mistress of his friend, and the object of his silent affection whom he has just rescued from a watery grave-though it is not perhaps the most beautiful passage of the poem: He is on land; on safe land is he come : Sophronia's head he pillows on a stone : A death-like paleness hath usurp'd her bloom; Where was he then? From death to life restored! And oft one might have thought, that shrieks were there Issuing from thence, he drank with ecstasy. Of spirits, driven for chastisement along The invisible regions that above earth are. But when the heavens are blue, and summer skies Solemn the mountains that the horizon close, (Or any wondrous spell of heaven or earth, The tale of Titus and Gisippus, which follows, while it is very interesting as a story, Still were they cold; her hands were also cold; He grew, he kiss'd those pale lips o'er and o'er. Their wonted rubeous hue, he dared do more ;- Thou art undone, mad youth! The fire of love She feels the delicate influence through her thrill, |