of public applause. The characteristics of Mr. W.'s muse are simple
and flowing, though occasionally inharmonious verse, strong, and
sometimes irresistible appeals to the feelings, with unexceptionable
sentiments. Though the present work may not equal his former efforts,
many of the poems possess a native elegance, natural and unaffected,
totally devoid of the tinsel embellishments and abstract hyperboles
of several contemporary sonneteers. The last sonnet in the first
volume, p. 152., is perhaps the best, without any novelty in the
sentiments, which we hope are common to every Briton at the present
crisis; the force and expression is that of a genuine poet, feeling
as he writes:--

"Another year! another deadly blow!
Another mighty empire overthrown!
And we are left, or shall be left, alone--
The last that dares to struggle with the foe.
'Tis well!--from this day forward we shall know
That in ourselves our safety must be sought,
That by our own right-hands it must be wrought;
That we must stand unprop'd, or be laid low.
O dastard! whom such foretaste doth not cheer!
We shall exult, if they who rule the land
Be men who hold its many blessings dear,
Wise, upright, valiant, not a venal band,
Who are to judge of danger which they fear,
And honour which they do not understand."

The song at the Feast of Brougham Castle, the Seven Sisters, the
Affliction of Margaret ---- of ----, possess all the beauties, and
few of the defects, of this writer: the following lines from the last
are in his first style:--

"Ah! little doth the young one dream
When full of play and childish cares,
What power hath e'en his wildest scream,
Heard by his mother unawares:
He knows it not, he cannot guess:
Years to a mother bring distress,
But do not make her love the less."

The pieces least worthy of the author are those entitled "Moods of my
own Mind." We certainly wish these "Moods" had been less frequent, or
not permitted to occupy a place near works which only make their
deformity more obvious; when Mr. W. ceases to please, it is by
"abandoning" his mind to the most commonplace ideas, at the same time
clothing them in language not simple, but puerile. What will any
reader or auditor, out of the nursery, say to such namby-pamby as
"Lines written at the Foot of Brother's Bridge?"

"The cock is crowing,
The stream is flowing,
The small birds twitter,
The lake doth glitter.
The gr