ey were only second cousins;
or so at least we interpret the following precious piece of theogony.

Akin they were,--yet not as thus it seemed,
For he of VALOUR was the eldest son,
From Arete in happy union sprung.
But her to Phronis Eusebeia bore,
She whom her mother Dice sent to earth;
What marvel then if thus their features wore
Resemblant lineaments of kindred birth?
Dice being child of Him who rules above,
VALOUR his earth-born son; so both derived from Jove.
p. 29.

This, we think, is delicious; but there is still more goodly stuff
toward. The two heavenly cousins stand still without doing any thing;
but then there is a sound of sweet music, and a whole "heavenly company"
appear, led on by a majestic female, whom we discover, by the emblems on
our halfpence, to be no less a person than Britannia, who advances and
addresses a long discourse of flattery and admonition to the Royal
bride; which, for the most part, is as dull and commonplace as might be
expected from the occasion; though there are some passages in which the
author has reconciled his gratitude to his Patron, and his monitory duty
to his Daughter, with singular spirit and delicacy. After enjoining to
her the observance of all public duties, and the cultivation of all
domestic virtues, Britannia is made to sum up the whole sermon in this
emphatic precept--

Look to thy Sire, and in his steady way
--learn thou to tread.

Now, considering that Mr. Southey was at all events incapable of
sacrificing truth to Court favour, it cannot but be regarded as a rare
felicity in his subject, that he could thus select a pattern of private
purity and public honour in the person of the actual Sovereign, without
incurring the least suspicion either of base adulation or lax
morality....

It is impossible to feel any serious or general contempt for a person of
Mr. Southey's genius;--and, in reviewing his other works, we hope we
have shown a proper sense of his many merits and accomplishments. But
his Laureate odes are utterly and intolerably bad; and, if he had never
written any thing else, must have ranked him below Colley Cibber in
genius, and above him in conceit and presumption. We have no toleration
for this sort of perversity, or prostitution of great gifts; and do not
think it necessary to qualify the expression of opinions which we have
formed with as much positiveness as deliberation