the author seems exhausted, and returns unrecruited to the beloved scenery. Page 61 presents some pretty lines surrounded by a motley group of thoughts Greek and German. The following are pleasant:

Oh! could you view the scenery dear,
That now beneath my window lies,
You'd think, that nature lavish'd here
Her purest wave, her softest skies,
To make a heaven for love to sigh in,
For bards to live and saints to die in!
Close to my wooded bank below,

In glassy calm the waters sleep,
And to the sun-beam proudly show

The coral rocks they love to steep!
The fainting breeze of morning fails,
The drowsy boat moves slowly past,
And I can almost touch its sails

That languish idly round the mast.

But soon after Mr. Moore wishes to mount to heaven in a boat such as the angel gave to him, who

'Sail'd o'er the Sun's ethereal wave

To planet isles of odorous-light!

By the help of a note we learn the angel's name to be Cosmiel, the name of him to be Theodidactus, and that the boat was made of asbestos; that Kircher in his exstatic journey to heaven was the inventor of this story, and that there are some very strange conceits in this work of Kircher.'

All this may be true. But how came the poet to talk thus intimately of the dreams of a drunken German? After ranging within the ambrosial orb of Venus,' and traversing the sky (of which, by the way, our author is much more fond than of feeling his ground), he turns giddy with the elevation, and comes down to earth as Hudibras would have descended :

But whither means the muse to roam ?
'Tis time to call the wanderer home,
Who would have ever thought to search her
Up in the clouds with father Kircher ?'

It is not from Bermudan scenery or mangrove shades, or from the deafening cataract of Niagara; far less is it from the flying fish, snakes, and other natural curiosities peculiar to another hemisphere, that a writer will imbibe new ideas. A poet of a very middling size, who has detected his thoughts in succeeding for ever in the same train, might

fancy to himself some relief from what must at length become loathsome in its own deliciousness,' even to himself and admirers, in recounting wonders, and in surprising, instead of being natural. All those whose names rest on a solid basis, are indebted for that solidity to the general view which they have taken of nature, and the embodying' what oft was thought' by others.

Sancho somewhere says, it is folly to look for better bread than what is made of wheat.' There is every where wholesome food for him whose palate is not vitiated.

'Est hic, est Ulubris.'

It were to be wished indeed, for the benefit of common decency, that Mr. Moore's productions had still been numbered among

Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme.'

Yet there are some pleasing sensations suggested to us by their innate vulgarity, that they convey in themselves a bane and antidote together.

How could such a writer, if thoroughly known, have presumed to offer a compliment to Mrs. Henry T-ghe, the authoress of Psyche? That poem, intended to give pleasure only to a private circle of friends, and concealed from the public eye by the timid modesty of a lady who blushes even at her own perfections, spreads its wings too wide for the nest, and will soon, it is hoped, be permitted to escape from privacy and confinement to that general admiration which awaits it. The incense offered by Mr. Moore could not have had a pleasant savour to a poetess, who, in treating the subject of love, becomes the championess of delicacy and purity; and who inculcates sentiments so chaste, tender, and moral, that no better antidote to the poison of these poems could be devised, than the precepts and the poetry of Psyche.'

ART. II.-The Science of Legislation, from the Italian of Gaetano Filangieri. Svo. 2 vols. Ostell. 1806.

IT has been remarked, that while in every other science and in every mechanical art, a long experience and much labour is allowed to be necessary for the attainment of an ordinary degree of excellence, in the important and difficult science of legislation these means are neglected in the pursuit of the same end, and the most unqualified, fancying themselves endowed with instinctive, talents which fit them for immediate action, enter with confidence upon the business of government, and the details of administration. To this

very circumstance, however, that the accidental advantages of birth, fortune, or natural abilities have been held paramount to every other consideration, have been traced numberless political errors which have proved the abundant spring of national misfortunes.

If we look around us and examine the condition and merits of those men, who in the narrow circle of particular governments occupy the responsible station of legislators to their country, and consider that of this numerous body, a very small part has attained it otherwise than by some unexpected concurrence of events, and that of those whose views have been long and steadily fixed on these situations, a still smaller proportion distinguish themselves by expedients or schemes of policy, such as the public interest requires in opposition to those which suit the confined interest of individuals, we shall, perhaps, at first sight, not be inclined to question the accuracy of either of these general positions. While, however, we allow that public injuries must follow as the inevitable consequence of this indifference and want of knowledge, we may upon farther inquiry cease to imagine that a supposition really exists, than which none can offer a greater insult to common sense, or a more direct contradiction of the truth of those general laws which are acknowledged to regulate the course of human events. We may, perhaps, discover other causes for the boldness with which men enter upon these important trusts, and for their supineness under them, than a belief that no preparation is necessary for such situations, and shall no longer conceive that it is in consequence of supposed competency, that the unqualified and ignorant fancy themselves in this business on a level with the intelligent and informed. We may be inclined to ascribe in a great measure to the corrupt means by which governments recompense their partisans, to the facility with which honours are attained, and to a vanity and indolence natural to man, the adherence to an error so dangerous, and the avowal of a supposition so insulting. While these causes, at least, continue to operate, and while vanity may be gratified without the expence of indolence, we shall see no reason to hope for reformation, nor to expect the acknowledgment of this evident truth, that ignorance unfits a man for the office of a legislator, and that political wisdom consists in that knowledge of mankind and the arts of government, which study and experience alone can give.

To whatever cause, however, we may be disposed to attribute it, the fact is not the less certain that the education CRIT, REV. Vol. 9. October, 1806.

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of legislators as such is, in general, either entirely neglected or conducted upon mistaken principles.

In this education the means are in most instances mistaken for the end. The duties and responsibility of the station are overlooked, and orators are formed by the neglect of those very pursuits upon which alone true eloquence is founded. In these duties and in the nature of that responsibility, the legislators of their day were instructed by the invaluable lessons of a Bolingbroke and a Burke, at a period when the united efforts of their contemporaries were required for the establishment of important principles, and their adaptation to existing circumstances, and when they were found unwilling to contribute their services or incapable of affording assistance. The same truths remain to be again repeated to thosewho followed and are following in the same unserviceable career. While the ancient orators are carefully perused as a necessary part of education, while the structure of sentences and choice of words and figures, occupies no inconsiderable share of attention, those other arts to which the antients rendered their eloquence subservient, that acquaintance with human nature and with foreign and domestic relations, which constituted the persuasive power, the security and dignity of their eloquence, are generally overlooked or held at a cheap rate. From this cause it happens that in our days a man endowed with any extraordinary facility of elocution is considered by the experienced part of the community as a dangerous member of society, and his eloquence dreaded as a national disaster. The sage and experienced observers fear it as a wise tutor fears the effects of personal or bodily accomplishments, which he considers as hazardous, qualities productive of indifference to all moral excellence and mental acquirement. While at the same time the Timons of their country cry out to every Alcibiades, whose low ambition is gratified by the applause bestowed on a few splendid but unmeaning paragraphs, Go on boldly, my son; mayest thou increase in credit with the people; thou wilt one day bring them calamities enough.'

In the acquisition of political knowledge, the chief errors seem to be such an attention to the details of business, as prevent enlarged and enlightened views, or the deductions of principles from data which are themselves insufficient or erroneous. That details are not calculated to enlarge the mind unless they are pursued according to some previously established principle, and with one end which is always kept in view, we discover in the most ordinary transactions of life. Can they be considered as less dangerous in the

more complicated scheme of legislation? To the want of general principles acquired previously to the entrance upon the details of business, we may certainly attribute the inconsistency and superficiality, the confusion and inactivity which appears in the conduct of mankind. Can it be doubted whether in this science general principles are less calculated to direct the acquisition and facilitate the application of knowledge, than in every other part of human conduct where their value is acknowledged? In this science it happens unfortunately and not unfrequently that the historian, whose memory is richly laden with precedents, is apt to fancy himself a profound politician, and the mathematician whose acuteness can unravel long and complicated ac counts, to believe himself an enlightened financier. Legislators have in general known as little as the metaphysicians of the darker ages what were the proper objects of their pursuit. From an ignorance of the principles of their science it has continually happened, (and from the operation of the same causes the same effects will again follow,) that, crossed and harassed by the difficulties of actual circumstances and by the multiplicity of affairs, pressed by the severe exigencies of the times, and wanting grace to avow their ignorance and perplexity,they have rushed headlong into measures subversive of every constitutional right of the subject, and have framed laws in open violation of the natural and acknowledged privileges of man. They have gone on floundering from error to error, till necessity has stopped the barbarous career, and the same pressure of the times has imposed laws which human ingenuity and knowledge could at that period, perhaps, never have devised.

The same difficulties in its attainment which formerly existed can fortunately in our days be no more urged as an excuse for the neglect of proper knowledge. Philosophy has applied herself to these high subjects, and has investigated the nature of legislation. In the slow but efficacious progress of human improvement, a variety of principles have been laid down, and their truth has been established by long and universal experience. Aware of the tendency of man to forget the nature of the end in the keen pursuit after means, many enlightened individuals, who, at a distance from the world's debate,' have preserved clear and distinct views of the several phenomena and their various relations, have employed their time in the arrangement of these gene. ral principles into laws, which they have again collected into systems.

Much, indeed, has been urged against the value of general principles and of system in the science of which we are