It would be necessary to determine whether it would be safe for us to present them with such means of aggrandizement, which it cannot be doubted that they would be anxious to use against us as soon as acquired, and how far it would be consistent with the interests of our West Indian colonies to permit the establishment of an immense French army in their immediate neighbourhood, and with the most ample means of annoyance. It appears in the first place that no danger could arise to us but in the case of their success against the negroes. An immediate and complete conquest would only free us from the risk of the contagion of revolt reaching our islands, to expose us to the scarcely less formidable vicinity of a French army. But any thing shortof complete and immediate success, any alternation of victories and defeats, even any considerable prolongation of the servile war, would at least, whatever might be the ultimate. consequence, produce a temporary benefit to this country.. Such is the nature of state policy, that the humanest patriot could hardly regret to see the victorious armies of the Rhine and the Po melting and dissolving away under the beams of a tropical sun.

On the other hand, if we even are able from our situa tion to prevent the French from attempting the re-conquest of St. Domingo, it is extremely questionable how far we ought to exert such a power. It is doubtful how far we ought to encourage the existence of a populous state founded on principles in direct opposition, nay in actual hostility to those, which have hitherto sustained in a condition of dangerous uncertainty our West Indian possessions. The insular position of St. Domingo, and the want of naval power and skill may for a time delay the communication which is likely to take place between it and the territories where slavery continues to subsist. But this state can only continue for a time, and probably for a moderate time, during which, if we have been unable to remove or mitigate the present causes of alarm, we can no longer hope to retain any influence or authority amongst the Antilles. Nor shall we have to regret the loss alone of fertile countries and of rich possessions, but to these calamities will inevitably be added all the horrors of an insurrection of barbarous slaves against masters far from humane. The condition therefore of the slaves in the West Indies must be improved. By a gradual progress there must be communicated to them certain degrees of freedom; their state must be approximated to that of the ancient villains of Europe, even more than this must be done. In t me, the temptation to revolt must be taken away. The slave must be convinced that he has more to lose than to

gain by rebellion; else, without doubt, and in spite of every obstacle, the scenes of St. Domingo will be reacted in its sister islands. Who would rashly suspend a burning torch over a heap of gunpowder, in the weak hope that perhaps a spark might not fall in the spot of danger? Yet at this moment, and probably for a long future time, the British dominions in the Antilles may be said to exist only in such a precarious and trembling situation. The torch we cannot ourselves, perhaps we dare not permit others to remove; but the gunpowder is in our own hands, and it is with us to continue or to annihilate its inflammability.

In these circumstances it is with peculiar satisfaction that every lover of his country who is unbiassed by the hopes of gain, must regard the late resolutions passed in both houses of parliament, declaring their intention of striking at the root of all the abuses of slavery by abolishing the discreditable trade which gave them the possibility of existence. If by this and other subsequent measures the West India slave is at last put into such a state of comfort, as to remove the constant apprehension of his revolt, it may then prove an advantageous circumstance to this country, that St. Domingo should be inhabited and governed by the race of negroes alone. If the French obtain again possession of that island, we can expect to derive no immediate advantage we shall be excluded from all intercourse with it, and we shall reap only, in the greater safety of our own possessions, the fruits of our forbearance towards them. But if St. Domingo become finally independent, we shall be enabled to establish an extensive commerce with it, which it will not be in the power of the French government to permit or withhold, as it has latterly done that of the greater part of Europe. The negroes who must necessarily for a long time continue to employ the greater part of their capital in agriculture, will present to us a mart for our most valuable anufactures, and give us in return the sugars and the spices of the west; and it may perhaps be doubted whether the actual sovereignty of the whole islands in the gulph of. Mexico, would afford us halt the advantages that, we might derive from an active and liberal commercial intercourse with them.

Considering the great demand for West India commodities, which have latterly become almost necessaries of life, considering also the danger of farther extending the system of slavery, and the impossibility, real or imagined, of a white population performing the necessary toil in these climates, it has been a desirable though a difficult thing to contrive any means of avoiding these inconveniences, and at the

same time attaining the desired end. Very lately we have heard that it is in contemplation to remove a certain number of Chinese to our island of Trinidad. We do not vouch for the truth or even for the probability of this report; but, if the scheme is in contemplation its success will depend on two circumstances, neither of which is easily or indeed at all to be ascertained, unless by making the experiment. The first of these is, whether it will be possible to prevail on the people to go, and on their government to permit them; and the second is, whether their constitutions are fitted to bear labour in a hot climate. We sincerely wish success to the plan, if it is practicable, as a most probable means of ultimately abolishing a cruel and dangerous system.

With regard to Captain Rainsford's work, we have little more to say. Its merits are not very high in any point of view, but it is not without some degree of excellence. As a literary composition we can afford it no praise, though a faithful and copious narration of facts may sometimes excuse the minor errors of composition and style.

ART. II. The Birds of Scotland, with other Poems. By James Grahame. 8vo. Longman. 1806,

THE claims of several modern innovators in the art of poetry have been justly weighed in the balance of criticism, and as justly exposed on the stage of ridicule and satire. It is no longer necessary to determine for the reader to what particular class every new work that comes before our inspection belongs. A short view of the poem itself will in general enable him to form a sufficient estimate, and arrange it on his shelves accordingly.

Mr. Grahame comes before the public not as a young and unfledged candidate for fame, but one who has already attained a considerable share of reputation, and may therefore be supposed desirous of preserving at least the station which he has already acquired, if not of mounting to one yet higher. His last work (the Sabbath*) was on a subject capable of considerable variety, of very high and awful interest, and of occasional flights of affecting and of sublime poetry. How far he made the most advantage of his sacred theme, the public taste has already decided for him. For our own parts, though sometimes offended with conceit and affectation, with thoughts too low for poetical elevation, and with far-fetched strains of sentiment and feeling, we were warmly dis

* See Critical Review for December, 1805,

posed, on the whole, to join in the general voice, that hailed him an accession to our confined list of living poets who are at once natural and pleasing. When the title of the present book was announced, we cannot say we were much allured by the novelty or the variety of pleasure, that we could expect to derive from it. Nevertheless, led away by the good opinion we had conceived of the author, it was natural to persuade ourselves that we should find amends for the barrenness of the immediate subject, in the harmony of the werse, in the beauty of the scenery, to which we were to be introduced, and in that indescribable charm which a genuine poet knows how to throw around the meanest things. We reflected how often, even after admiring a Raphael or a Michael Angelo, a Claude, or a Poussin, our eyes have still rested with pleasure on a group of cattle by Cnyp, or even of dead game by Sneyders; and we had actually wrought our minds into a belief that we were to experience somewhat similar sensations from perusing the book before us. We were also not without great hopes from keeping constantly in our recollection our favourite adage, Ex fumo dare lucem;' but we began to be somewhat damped in our expectation, on finding, by the author's own confession in his preface, that The Birds of Scotland' was a title, the promise of which he is sensible is more extensive than the performance and our spirits were completely exhausted by the time we had got forward enough to be convinced that in this confession Mr. G. has spoken nothing but the truth.

The charm of Thomson, (we should rather say of all poetry, which is merely descriptive of natural scenes and objects,) consists in variety of method, in a selection of the beautiful, the affecting, and the sublime, and in an artful and picturesque grouping of the several features selected for the piece. The field of nature is sufficiently extensive to afford an infinite choice of subjects, and the descriptive poet should make it his first object to fix his choice on some portion of that field, sufficiently extensive for the range of his own genius, and in which he may discover enough of variety and novelty to enrich his poem. Mr. G. fixed his on a little corner, in which naturalists indeed might find and have found materials for volumes, and these materials yet inexhaustible, but in which a poet can scarcely find room enough to turn himself. At least Mr. G. could not. Perhaps the inconvenience of his situation there has taught him before now, the very great difference that exists, and always nust exist, between physical and poetical variety. To change

our metaphor, let us return to Chyp and Sneyders. The admiration with which we view the works of those great artists, consists in the exquisite art of their groups, in the richness of their colouring, and the beauty and propriety of their lights and shades, at least as much as in the justness of their proportions, and the accuracy of their delineations. But let us look for the same animals and the History of three hundred Beasts, Birds, and Fishes.' Is our pleasure the same? It is nearly so with the dry divisions, the methodical particularity of Mr.Grahame. Our ears are no where regaled with the blended and various melody, our eyes no where delighted with the mingling and luxuriant plumage of a thousand different birds; but in one page we have the lark, in the next, the partridge, and then turn over and you shall see the plover; and so on through the book.

So much for Mr. Grahame's excellencies in the way of variety and arrangement. With regard to his harmony of versification, we must in the first place remark, that we join most sincerely in the doctrine which we have often heard laid down, that a poet ought to be well convinced of his own superior powers, and of the decided bent of his genius, before he throws away the useful, natural, familiar, and pleasing aid of rhyme. To write blank verse is, we verily believe, the most difficult of all poetical attainments. To our sad experience, vast numbers of modern poets have thought it the most easy; for we are persuaded, that for one who adopts it out of real conviction of its superiority, or at least out of conviction founded on any rational grounds whatever, an hundred seize it as a mode of unloading their brains, which is at once safe, easy, and expeditious. It is certainly much more than a hundred to one that the product is not poetry, but prose, and very bad and unmelodious prose into the bargain.

Now Mr. G. is not always prose, nor always inharmonious. We will offer as an instance, one of his most pleasing passages;

'O, had I but the envied power to chuse

My home, no sound of city bell should reach

My ear; not even the cannon's thundering roar.
Far in a vale, be there my low abode,

Embowered in woods where many a songster chaunts.
And let me now indulge the airy dream!

A bow-shot off in frout a river flows,

That, during summer drought, shallow and clear,
Chides with its pebbly bed, and, murmuring,
Invites forgetfulness; half bid it flows,

Now between rocks, now through a bush-girt glade,