of Mr. Garrick, in which tragedy and comedy were represented as contending for his exclusive possession. The disorder which overclouded his intellect for many years, became, at length, so violent as totally to extinguish it; but his personal character was such as to acquire for him the unmixed respect and compassion of those who knew him. He died about 1804. Such is the slender memorial that remains of one of the high-minded and highly gifted of mankind.

The Hurricane, as to its more immediate scope, is an allegorical poem, founded on the singular hypothesis, that each of the continents of the globe has a mind of its own; a peculiar nature, influencing by emanation the disposition and intellect of its inhabitants. Each particular country, in the same manner, has a distinguishing mind, which constitutes its individuality, and gives a character to the whole of its history; and this he supposes to be what the Jewish prophets meant by the tutelary genii of kingdoms and provinces. To this is added, a belief in the excellence of savage compared with civilized life, and, consequently, in the proper superiority of America to the older parts of the globe, more especially to Europe; together with a faith, founded in the system of judicial compensation, that, as the mind of Europe has forcibly overpowered, and, for a time, annihilated that of America, the American mind will, in its turn, overthrow that of Europe, and remain finally predominant. These are reveries, indeed, but not unallied to philosophical truth, and such as an ordinary mind was incapable of conceiving. Various other notions, equally or more remote from common conception, are promulgated, with considerable energy of thought and language, in the copious notes which accompany the poem; but with these we have no concern, nor would the recital of them afford any gratification, except to those who find a gratification of their curiosity, in tracing the wanderings of a superior mind. We have given the above short explanation, as serving to illustrate some of the passages which we shall hereafter quote with another view. We will, however, extract a passage from the preface, as an instance of the forcible manner in which he propounds his theories.

"Suffice it to say here, that the machinery of my eclogue thus proceeds on this doctrine; namely,

“First.—That all countries have a specific mind, or determinable principle. This character may be traced with as much satisfaction in the vegetable as in the animal productions. Thus, strength with its attributes, viz. asperity, &c. is the character or mind of England. Her leading productions are the oak, peppermint, sloes, crabs, and sour cherries. All elegance, all polish, is superinduced; and primarily from France, of which they are natives.

VOL. X. PART I.

M

"Secondly. That a country is subdued, when it's mind or life, it's prince according to Daniel, or it's genius according to the modern Easterns, or its principle according to Europeans, is either supprest, destroyed, or chemically combined with that of a foreign country, in a form that leaves the foreign property predominant; and not till then. And this cannot ensue but upon suicide; upon a previous abandonment, on the part of the nation, of its own principle. For, when the Creator made every thing very good, He also made it tenable, on the one hand; and on the other complete; consequently, without the necessity, without the desire of encroaching; and, also, without the capability, except under the penalty of surrendering, with its own complete roundness, its own tenability. Thus I arrive at a primary law of nature, that every one must fall into the pit that he digs for others; either before or after success, or without success.

"Thirdly-That, in the European subjugation of America, the American mind or life only suffered under a powerful affusion of the European; and, that as the solution proceeds, it acquires a stronger and stronger tincture of the subject, till at length that, which was first subdued, assumes an absolute, inexpugnable predominancy, and a final-inasmuch as the contest is between the two last parts of the world, and there is no prospective umpire to refer to; but it must be decided by the possession of first principles, or the highest mind in the hierarchy of minds; and the European possession of mind having previously arrived at perfection, from her long intercourse with Africa and Asia, and not being able to rescue her from the present grasp and predominancy of American mind, the question is now settled for ever, and Europe yields to the influence, mind, and power of America, linked in essential principle with Africa and Asia, for ever. Besides, Europe had full success in her encroachments; she succeeded in throwing America into the pit; and, of course, it must be her own turn to go in now: she depopulated America, and now America must depopulate her."

But our concern is chiefly with the poetry of The Hurricane. Its character is vivid description, pervaded with moral pathos, and intermixed with passages of pure reflection. Descriptive poetry, which the example of Thomson, almost alone, had maintained in existence during the middle ages of English poetry, was just then reviving under happier auspices. Accordingly there is a fire and a living freshness in his paintings, united, however, with a compactness of manner which his associates wanted. His views of torrid scenery are of a piece with his subject; rich and glowing in all cases, and breathing alternately of the voluptuous calm, and the awful turbulence of the regions he describes. The story of the poem is allegorical; typifying, by the figure of a hurricane in the Island of Antigua, the final conflict which is to terminate in the subversion of Europe by America, and the annihilation of the artificial system of society. The natural or unsophisti

cated state of being is represented under the guise of a young female, preserved from the wreck of a vessel:-this, like the rest of the conception, is sufficiently outré; but the portrait in question is one of exquisite beauty, of that species which the old dramatists and the modern Lake poets delight to describe,-simple, affectionate, guided purely by the impulse of her own heart, and unsuspicious of evil either in herself or in others. We shall omit what may be called the mythological introduction, and pass on to the description of the storm. It will be perceived that the author had peculiar notions of metre. "Metre," he says, "is the focus of union between the sense and the sound: it is a contrivance to throw the accent, not where a common speaker or reader would throw it, but where an impassioned orator or judicious actor would throw it;" and he proceeds to illustrate his meaning by an analysis of some lines of The Hurricane. We shall, however, leave the ear of the reader to decide as to the effect of this singular metrical system.

"The Eastern shore receives the welcome gale; And leads to caverns, or the brow of rocks,

To gravel banks with glittering shell-fish strew'd,
To deep-green mangrove, or the shadowing branch
Of lofty cedar dropping blossoms white,
That tremble as they fall, and meet the wave
Progressive to their root. Here, oft, at even,
When lengthening shadows to the calmy wave
Shot dubious twilight and alluring gloom,
I sat contemplative; and viewed the breeze
Chequer the water with far-streaming light,
That glistened as with gems: I sat and thought
Ambition was a folly; glory, madness;
And all the hopes attending various man
Were robbers of his rest; I thought, that Love
Was all the sum indulgent Heaven e'er made
To constitute his bliss. I thought so and was blest.
For four long days a calm through nature reigned;
A calm as dead as ever struck the deep;

As ever mark'd the silent air with awe,

Or still'd the leaf high trembling on the bough;

The fifth at eve to my accustom'd haunt,
Along the shadow of a cocoa grove,

Down to the beach I stroll'd. The setting sun
Was dyed with crimson; and the full-orb'd moon,
That palely rose above the dusky arch,

Was deeply burr'd. Settl'd, encreasing, black,

The jagged clouds, voluminous and deep,
Scudded along the northern verge of ocean,
And a long labouring swell hove the large
Billow lifeless on the shore, while adverse clouds
In dark battalia swiftly met in air.

Just where the horizon bends to meet the wave,
Within the farthest reach of human ken,
A sail appeared. The mild ray far beaming
From the western sun glanced on her canvas,
And beheld it spread before the rising breeze.
The rising breeze far from the northward mov'd,
Ruffling along, and blacken'd as it came;
The affrighted plover from its blast retir'd;
The lizard nestled in the watchman's hut,
And heavy, awful, gloom pour'd deep'ning on.
Soon reigning darkness o'er creation drew
The deep-black curtain of involving night:
The tempest thicken'd; and the dark wind howl'd
Encreasing horrors and sublimer blasts
Heavy the deep-hung atmosphere along.
Retired as soon as straws around me felt
The wind, I, hence, enjoy'd in silent peace.

The rending gale; but, ever and anon,
Some crash of trees or noise of swift destruction

Met my ear. Soon the expected signals of

Distress roll through the heavy storm; the wind
Almost suppress'd the deep-mouth'd sound it bore.
Reiterate at rapid intervals,

The guns were heard, and oft-times join'd the thunder.

The firing ceas'd. The aggravated storm rode

Wide and unrivall'd through the midnight air;
All else was silence."

Thus ends the first canto; the second introduces us to the young Elmira.

""Twas where the sound of guns had mark'd a wreck,

My own selected path I took, in search

Of objects breathing from the eastern storm.
Wild and tremendous was the nightly sky:
The clouds involv'd in vast confusion, deep
And ripening still for action, ascended
Swiftly from the south and west. Exhausted
To the east they thinn'd, and nearly oped there
The lowering sky; where, dimly seen, one star

Glimmer'd on night's dull brow, and then was hid.
Pale twilight from the shrouded moon discovered
Shatter'd Nature; and, as we near'd the dreadful
Sounding ocean, large torches held aloft
Gleam'd fearful on the loud tempestuous waste.
Ocean, why in darkness hid, sounds so deep
Your midnight roar? Clouds, enclosing warring
Winds, why so solemn flit ye o'er? Tell me
All your mighty ravage! Hear I not some
Female shriek, now faintly sighing on the
Wings of night? Straightly appear'd a gleam of
White before us. Advancing quickly forward,
We saw, on near approach, the tatter'd sail
Of a ship driven by billows over shelves

Of rocks, high up the creek, and lodg'd on shore.
Around, no form of life was seen. 'Twas ravage.
No hand remained. The tempest was her pilot,
And the mighty arm, that wing'd the ruin.
Hung o'er the side, female attire we found
In shreds; its owner sought in vain, was lost.
Within with speed through every hold we search,
And cabin. The first were empty. The last
Repaid my zeal; for here I found, softly
Reclining on a leeward couch, a form
Divine. Wak'd by the noise and lights, her eyes,
As on I came, return'd the beams of mine.

With hurried speed she said—

Elmira.

Where is my mother?

And the captain? How glad I am, that they
Directed you to me!

I.

'Twas no direction

But our own. Come quick, thou mildly-beaming Angel-form, with me-The moments stay notAnd I'll lead thee into peace and safety.

Elmira.

Where is my mother gone? And are we yet In England?

I.

No: with truest friends you are.