habit, and the burning sky that glows over their heads. That proneness to excessive ornament, which seldom allows Mr. Moore, to be perfectly simple and natural, that blending of fanciful and transient feeling, with bursts of real passion-that almost bacchanalian rapture with which he revels amid the beauties of external nature, till his senses seem lost in a vague and indefinite enjoyment-that capricious and wayward ambition which often urges him to make his advances to our hearts, rather by the sinuous and blooming bye-ways and lanes of the fancy, than by the magnificient and royal road of the imagination-tnat fondness for the delineation of female beauty and power, which often approaches to extravagance and idolatry, but at the same time, is rarely unaccompanied by a most fascinating tenderness-in short, all the peculiarities of his genius adapt him for the composition of an oriental tale, in which we are prepared to meet with, and to enjoy, a certain lawless luxuriance of imagery, and to tolerate a certain rhapsodical wildness of sentiment and passion. But although this poem abounds with exquisite specimens of every good quality in poetical composition, we are compelled to admit that it is not without faults. The bad rhymes are numerous and many instances occur in which the pauses are not happily chosen; sometimes we are clogged with Darwinian sweets or smile at Wordsworthian simpleness; in one passage he is as plain a proser as a "special pleader," Among the last of whom, the silver veil,-&c. and of the following we venture to acknowledge an opinion which the author seems to have anticipated: Like the faint, exquisite music of a dream. Lalla Rookh (tulip cheek) is a young Princess who is betrothed to the son of an Emperor. On her journey to the court of her intended spouse, she is entertained by a number of tales, which are recited to her by a poet, called Feramoz, who turns out to be no other than the Prince himself. We shall not enter into any of the particulars of any of these Persian tales, because we have preferred the selection of one of them, which will be found entire in the poetical department, of this Journal. It is the story en titled Paradise and the Peri, which we have selected:-a poem which, beyond all comparison, is the most beautiful in the volume. While its wildness delights, its refined simplicity transports and its tenderness steals irresistably to the heart. Those who enjoyed the pleasure of an acquaintance with this highly gifted writer, some years since, in this city, will recognize in this narrative, all those exquisite touches of feeling and fancy, which rendered his society so captivating. As an evidence of the avidity with which English books are received in this country, we may state that in about seventy days from the date of the dedication of these poems, they were read, from the first American edition, by two of the friends of the author in the interior of this Commonwealth. If he should be desirous of knowing the dramatis persona, he may view a representation of the hospitable mansion where the scene is laid, in our number for June 1816. On a spot which, but a few years ago, afforded nothing but a lair for the tiger or a cabin for the wandering savage, the muse of Lalla Rookh was hailed as leading her child from the mists of delusion to the ethereal regions which are inhabited by virtue and enlightened by truth: juvat integros accedere fontes Atque haurire, juvatque novos decerpere flores-Lucret. CRITICISM.-I. The Emerald Isle a Poem. By Charles Phillips, Esq. Barrister at Law. Dedicated by Permission to the Prince Regent. London 1813. Embellished with a full length portrait of Brian Borhoime, king of Ireland. 4to. pp. 159. II. The speech of Mr. Phillips, delivered in the Court of Common Pleas in Dublin, in the Case of Guthrie versus Sterne; with a short preface. 8vo. London. pp. 42. III. Speeches of Mr. Phillips on the Catholic Question; with a preface. 8vo. London. pp. 40. IV. An Authentic Report of the Speech of the CELEBRATED and ELOQUENT Irish Barrister, Mr. Phillips, delivered at Roscommon Assizes. 8vo. London pp. 20. V. The speech of Counsellor Phillips on the state of England and Ireland, and on a reform in Parliament; delivered at Liverpool, Oct. 31, 1816 8vo. London. pp. 16. [From the Quartely Review.] WE have really been at a loss in what light to consider the series of works before us; they are all planned and constructed on a scale of such ridiculous exaggeration, there is so little law in the pleadings, so little poetry in the poem, and so little common sense in the prose, that we almost suspected that they were intended to ridicule that inflated and jargonish style which has of late prevailed among a certain class of authors and orators in the sister kingdom. But in opposition to this internal evidence, there are so many circumstances of external testimony, that we have been reluctantly driven to conclude that Mr. Charles Phillips is not a censor, but a professor of the new school; and that having lost his own wits, he really imagines that the rest of the world may be brought to admire such fustian in verse and such fustian in prose as cannot, perhaps, be equalled except in Chrononhotonthologos, or Bombastes Furioso. Our readers must be aware, that we are generally inclined (though we do not shrink from giving our own honest opinion) to permit authors to speak for themselves; and to quote from their own works such passages as may appear to us to justify our criticism. We will not be more unjust with Mr. Phillips, and shall, therefore, select from his poems and pamphlets a few of those parts which are marked by his peculiar manner, and which we are well assured he considers as the most admirable specimens of his genius. We shall begin with the following panegyric upon a certain king of Ireland called Brian Borhoime, whose age was as barbarous as his name; and whose story is as obscure as Mr. Phillips's eulogy. Look on Brian's verdant graveBrian-the glory and grace of his age; Brian-the shield of the emerald isle; The lion incensed was a lamb to his rage, The dove was an eagle compared to his smile! Tribute on enemies, hater of war, Wide-flaming sword of the warrior throng, Soul of the Seneacha, "Light of the Song." 1-10,11. The darkness which envelops the history of old Brian may be pleaded in excuse of the above passage, but what shall be said for the following apostrophe to the late bishop Berkiey?-the Emerald Isle is, we ought to acquaint our readers, a series of apostrophes to Irish worthies, from Fin Macoul and Brian Borhoime, down to Mr. Curran and the wretched Dermody. 'And Berkley, thou, in vision fair, And, in it, own that thou could'st view The following invocation to Farquhar, on the comedy of the Recruiting Serjeant, which was finished in his last illness, is a fine specimen of the grandiloquence in which Mr. Phillips delights to envelop the commonest ideas. 'Swan of the stage! whose dying moan And stayed his dart to hear THE SONG!'-1.-36. The song! what song? serjeant Kite's is the only one we recollect in the piece, which, for a dying moan,' is comical enough. Every one remembers Cooke the actor. He was remarkable for playing one or two parts with considerable force and skill, but his general character, even as a player, was certainly not very preeminent. He had, however, it seems, the good fortune to be an Irishman, and accordingly hear in what numbers Mr. Phillips lauds him. "Lord of the soul! magican of the heart! Beguiled by thee, old Time, with aspect blithe,' &c. &c. 1.-39. and soforth for six lines more, with which we will not afflict our readers. We shall conclude our poetical extracts with the description of a traitor, which will remind our readers of some of the most splendid passages of lord Nugent's Portugal. -the traitor's impious soul Deifies guilt and mortgages its God!"-1.-67. We shall now give a few instances of the nonsense on stilts, which Mr. Phillips believes in his conscience to be English prose; and however he may differ from us in his opinion of their merits, we venture to assert that he will not accuse us of having selected the worst passages." Magna est veritas et prevalebit is a trite proverb, and no very complicated idea; yet this simple sentence is in Mr. Phillips's version bloated out to the following size. Trath is omnipotent, and must prevail; it forces its way with the fire and the precision of the morning sun-beam. Vapours may surround, prejudices may impede the infancy of its progress; but the very resistance, that would check, only condenses and concentrates it, until at length it goes forth in the fullness of its meridian, all life, and light, and lustre-the whole amphitheatre of nature glowing in its smile, and her minutest objects gilt and glittering in the grandeur of its eternity.'-III.—20. Goldsmith had compared his Parish Priest To some tall cliff that lifts its awful form, Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm; This is one of the most simple and sublime passages in English poetry: Mr. Phillips-who, by the way, is as great a plagiarist as Sir Fretful, and somewhat in his manner-thus adopts it as his own. 'The hand that holds the chalice should be pure, and the priests of the temple of Religion should be spotless as the vestments of her ministry. Rank only degrades, wealth only impoverishes, and ornaments only disfigure her; her sacred porch becomes the more sublime from its simplicity, and should be seated on an eminence, inaccessible to human passionseven like the summit of some Alpine WONDER, for ever crowned with the sunshine of the firmament, which the vain and feverish tempest of human infirmities breaks through harmless and unheeded.'-III.—34. In this same style of travestie, Mr. Phillips renders either unintelligible or ridiculous every thing he touches. He censures Mr. Grattan because,' as he elegantly expresses it, 'an Irish native has lost ITS raciness in an English atmosphere.'-II.-15.— When he alludes to Monseignor Quarantotti's letter, he will not condescend to mention it but as the rescript of Italian audacity.' When the Duke of Wellington invades France, we are told that an Irish hero strikes the harp to victory upon the summit of the Pyrenees. p. 35. And when he would say that Mr. Grattan is an ornament to his country, it is expressed that he poured over the ruins of his country the elixir of his immortality!”—III.—35. When some injudicious persons at Liverpool toast the health of this wild ranter, he modestly and intelligibly describes the effect which this great event will have in Ireland— 'Oh! yes, I do forsee when she (Ireland) shall hear with what courtesy her most pretentionless advocate (Mr. Phillips) has been treated, how the same wind that wafts her the intelligence, will revive that flame within her, which the blood of ages has not been able to extinguish. It may be a delusive hope, but I am glad to grasp at any phantom that flits across the solitude of that country's desolation!!'-V.-2, There is, it seems, a certain Irishman of the name of Casey, resident in Liverpool, and, we presume, he was one of the promoters of the before mentioned toast; for Mr. Phillips, after a magnificent description of this worthy gentleman, exclaims, in an agony of patriotism, Alas, Ireland has little now to console her except the consciousness of having produced such men'—as Mr. Casey of Liverpool! We reserve for the last example of Mr. Phillips's style, two passages which, we are informed by Mr. Phillips himself or his editor, (if indeed Mr. Phillips be not his own editor,) were receiv |