toric merit will be found invulnerable, and consonant to each other.

May I observe, incidentally, of the Nightingale, that I think an admirable Poet, when speaking of it as a creature of a fiery heart, seems not perfectly to have attended to the circumstance in, which it differs most characteristically from, perhaps, all other birds the variety of its expression. Bold, animated, free, lively, it is true, but often in its prolonged notes exquisitely delicate, soft, and even plaintive. That its character of song is, however, on the whole not melancholy, I shall readily admit. And indeed Love, and Joy, and Gratitude (if I may hazard the expression), seem to be the inspirers of the song of birds.

Mr. URBAN,

A

C. L.

July 12. SI have through life cultivated a small parcel of land, and spent a considerable portion of my time in the country, the useful receipts of your late Correspondent A. B. at tracted my notice; his intention is indubitably good, and he deserves the thanks of your readers; but 1, who have tried nearly all of these recommended useful practices, which are too often published at random, must beg leave to caution him and your readers at large, that too many of such useful things are really of no use at all.

To instance the mode of cutting Cauliflowers recommended, my experience has been, that they afterwards produce only a number of heads like brocoli heads, which can scarcely be called cauliflowers; nor are they worth keeping the land engaged, being a most exhausting crop. Those who want cauliflowers beyond their usual season, will only find their purpose answered by a succession of them.

The sowing of Radishes, &c. also, among Turnips, under the idea of the By preferring the former, appears to be a groundless and ridiculous notion; for an explanation of which, I refer your curious readers to the last edition of the New Farmer's Calendar. Yours, &c. CLERICUS.

died in the Scholes, a few years since at the advanced age of 105; she wa a woman well skilled in herbs, and ob" tained her livelihood by gathering them in their proper seasons; she retained her faculties to the last, and followed her trade of herb-gathering' within a short time of her death. Anne was the daughter of Barnard Hartley, who lived 103 years, and lies buried in Wigan Church-yard; Anne had several children, four of whom are now living at Wigan in good health; viz. Anne, aged 91; Catherine, 82; Sarah. 75; and Elizabeth, 72. Old Anne Glave buried her husband Robert at the age of 84; he was a fisherman, ad famous for making rhymes. JOE RUDD.

Mr. URBAN,

July 11. IVE me leave to inform some of

your Botanical Correspondents,

that I have for several years past been an attentive observer of the Sunflower, and have generally found that it followed the course of the sun, being turned towards the East in the morning, towards the South about noon, and Westward in the evening. But this has never been the case, where the plant has grown in shaded, or otherwise unfavourable situations. Concerning the Heliotrope, Pliny says, "Dedi tibi berbas horarum indices; et ut ne quidem soli peulos tuos a terrâ avoces, heliotropin ae lupinum circumaguntur cum illo." Lib." xviii. cap. 27: and again, Heliotropis miraculum sæpiùs diximus cum sole se circumagentis; etiam nubilo dic." Lib. xxii. cap. 6. I could never perceive myself, however, that the Heliotrope was influenced much by the The insertion of this will inuch

sun.

oblige

S. R. Mr. URBAN, C. Surrey, July 5. AMONG the many fatal instances of

Hydrophobia, I do not recollect to have heard of any person having beca bit by a Pug dog, although they have been for some time past the most" fashionable favourites; the only probable reason that occurs to me is that the breed of those dogs are not so numerous as spaniels, terriers, &c. &c. If you think proper to give this observation a place in your Magazine, it may probably call forth an answer from some person who may be enabled to give it to the satisfaction of S, B.

Mr.

Mr. URBAN, Shrewsbury, July 4,
N your vol. LXIX. p. 113, ap-

I peared an
peared an account of HALES
OWEN Abbey, co. Salop, accom-
panied with a view of the Abbey
house, &c. The inclosed view of
the remains of the Abbey-Church is
sent as an appendage to it. The
Church, when entire, must have been
a stately edifice: the Chancel (and
probably other parts of the floor)
was paved with curious painted tiles;
many have been discovered in re-
moving rubbish from the ruins, some
of which are preserved at the Abbey
House. The following persons of
distinction appear to have been bu-
ried here, viz. Jolm Lord Bote-
tourt, Baron of Weoleigh; Sir Hugh
Burnell, Baron also of Weoleigh;
who married Joyce, daughter and heir
of the before-named Lord John Bote
tourt; Sir William Lyttelton of
Frankley, and Elianora his first wife;
the figure of this lady (in a cumbent
position) was removed from the
ruins in 1753, and placed in the
Church-yard at Hagley, by order of
the late George Lord Lyttelton.

Sir Thomas Lyttelton, by will, dated August 22, 1481, "bequeaths to the Abbot and Convent of Hales Owen his Book called Catholicon to their use for ever; and another Book, wherein is contained the Constitutions Provincial, and De gestis Romanorum, and other treatises therein; which he wills be laid and bounded with an iron chain in some convenient part within the said Church, at his costs, so that all Priests and others may see and read it when it pleaseth them.

The Commune Sigillum, or Chapter Seal in the reign of Henry IV, was a representation of the Blessed Virgin, in a sitting posture; on her left knee, the infant Christ; in her right hand, a sceptre. The Arms of the Abbey, according to Tanner, were, Azure, a chevron Argent, be tween three fleurs-de-lis Or.

she had any acquaintance, personal or by pen, with that gentleman *.. ERTAIN tasteless, self-contra dicting, and unjust criticisins on Madoc, in one of the periodical tracts, have recently been forced upon my attention. Conscious of the high. estimation in which you hold that Poem, I persuade myself you will be interested by an impartial ana lization of its claims to instant pa tronage and celebrity in the nation, and in the period honoured by its production.

My utter inconnection with the Author must have beft my judg ment unbiassed; and my whole life's intimacy with the writings of our most celebrated Bards, is not likely to have produced indiscriminate, and over - valuing admiration of new poetry; but I exult, unenvying, in the effusions of rising and exalted Genius, disdaining to wait the tardy universality of prai e, ere I assert their power and extent.

Now, respecting the Strictures mentioned above, with evident reluctance, and as evidently with a view to give groundless censure the colour of impartiality, their Writer confesses Madoc to contain many beauties, but alledges that it is defective in those very points where genuine taste and sensibility perceive it eminently excellent. He pronounces the subject ill-chosen, and brings the heavy charge of want of connection in the story and in the interests of the Cam brian and Indian personages; ob. serves that the sense is often wiredrawn, and rendered obscure by verboseness; that the language is meanly familiar; wants strength and elevation; that the characters are not discriminated; and that the incidents are plagiarisms from the history of Columbus.

If these charges were just, the accuser must have some difficulty in producing those many beauties, the existence of which he confesses, In addition to those unfounded accusations, we find absurdly ridiculed as impertinent and irrelevant to the subject, the enquiries made by the Cambrian Prince on his return home, after two years of uncorresponding

GENT. MAG. July, 1808.

absence,

absence, concerning the situation of his country and family, which he had left in a state that threatened the renewed horrors of civil war. Those enquiries were not only natural but inevitable. The brief answer to them conveys to the reader those prelusive circumstances which it was necessary to the immediate comprehension, and to the opening interest of the story, that he should learn. Our Censor also pronounces the incidents improbable, though with that inconsistency which generally marks every species of falsehood. He had said they were plagiarisms from the History of Columbus; and again, that the specified means of the British conquest were inadequate to its achievement.

Entering the lists with this unjust accuser, let us first consider the subject of the poem, and it will be found the happiest which perhaps the stores of antient or modern history could yield to the British Muse; viz. the discovery of the Western world by a Prince of the Country's antient lineage, nearly for centuries ere Columbus and his followers explored those regions; especially since there is resistless evidence of the authenticity of the fact, though it vanished from the consciousness of the English Historians, in consequence of the Colonizers not having kept up any intercourse with the Mother Country; and of course no commercial advantages resulted to her, as they did to Spain and Portugal, from the adventure. The Welsh Historians speak decidedly concerning this voyage of discovery. The concurrent testimony of English travellers uphold its verity by mentioning the existence, in the 18th century, of a clan in America, some hundred leagues up the river Missouri, the people of which have the European complexion, and speak the Welsh language, and in whose settlements are found remains of intrenchments, and other vestiges of very antient European warfare. To these anti-fabulous testimonies, may , he added George Wharton's Gesta Britannarum, published in Charles the Second's rein, 1662. It contains a list of the Welsh Monarchs, from the departure of the Romans till the final dissolution of kingly sway in that country. The following sentence is on the list: "1159, David ap Owen Gwineth; in his time, MADOC his brother discovered part of the West

Indies." This old record is in the possession of the Rev. H. White, of Lichfield. Thus is Mr. Southey's spirited epic poem built on no vague tradition, but on an ascertained adventure, which removes the glory of primal discovery from Columbus to a British Prince; and hence it has high claim upon the attention of every British reader-upon the feelings of every British heart.

The plot of the poem, MADOC, is grandly simple; and so far are the means of his conquest in India from being insufficient to its attainment, that amidst multitudes of the natives, "naked or vainly fenced," the subduing effect of the iron armour and steel weapons; of military discipline ; able generalship, by arrangement, and vantage-ground, victory was inevitable. Its means were increased by a triple superstition in the foe, viz. an idea of supernatural interference in the cause of the strangers, an idea inspired by objects so novel, august, and incomprehensible, as European ships; next, the sudden sickness of the King of Aztlan, on the very morning when his tribes were on their outset to attack the enemy; and lastly the failure of the arrow of the omen, when, though winged by an unerring archer against the bosom of the second British chief, it fell ineffectual to the ground, broken and shivered by the iron shield. Of that defence the Aztecas were wholly unaware, and continued in the course of the battle to perceive with consternation that the strokes of their stone-set clubs, and their showers of wooden arrows, were repelled from the breasts of the strangers, while by their swords, spears, and iron arrows, the Indian multitudes fell in heaps on every side. What marvel that these combined circumstances should produce dismay, rout, and overthrow, without the aid of gunpowder explosion; that they fled "s many from so few;" that victory was with the few who under skilful generals formed an impenetrable phalanx; especially when we reflect that it stood in a concave of rocks, the horns of the crescent nearly approaching the edge of that lake which separated the domain of the Hoamen, on whose party Madoc and his people fought, from the immense plain of Aztlan, and its hundred inferior cities? To the iñadequacy of numbers against even the

single

single circumstance of local advantage, let the action at Thermopyle bear witness! to the above circumstan ces we should add the arrowy shower upon the yielding Aztecas from the bows of the Hoamen, stationed on the rocks above, Not less strikingly unjust is the charge of indiscrimination in the characters of the Britons and the Americans. Their characters are kept perfectly distinct, while their destinies and interests are blended, first by peaceful league after the first contest, and stipulation for the freedom of the conquered province of the Hoamen, amid which the Cambrians had settled themselves, also for the abolition of human sacrifice; and after that league had been broken by the craft and influence of the priests, and a fiercer struggle, of much longer duration, had ensued. Yet, amid this clash and involution of their mutual destinies, so discriminated are the characters, that the virtues and vices of the Indians have the utmost local distinction, not only in the bold outlines, but in those nice and subtle disclosures of the heart and its passious, conveyed by pic turesque description of looks and gestures, and by short sentences, which seem to escape the speaker, rather than to have been purposely uttered. The well-meaning King of Aztlan; the more intrepid and virtuous Yuhidlhiton, each influenced by their priests to break the pacific league with the strangers, as impious towards their own gods; the wise and firm Queen of the HOAMEN; the dark, sullen, and malicious Amalata; the faithful, affectionate, and gallant youth Lincoya; his betrothed Coatel, in all her wild graces, her gentle kindness, heroic compassion, and filial duty; Tezonzomoc, the crafty and sanguinary high priest of Aztlan; Ayuyaca, chief of the Pabas, or priests of the Hoamen, of gentle and ingenuous temper; Neolin, next to him in place and power, cunning, artful, fierce, and treacherous; Tlalala, in his pride of youth, of enterprise, and burning valour, "the tiger of the war," the Achilles of Aztlan-all-all are Indian, the traits of savage life and manners discernible in every pictured look and gesture.

To the imputed plagiarism of incidents from the history of the Spanish discovery it may with truth be

replied, that History is the poet's happiest basis,, and that his superstructures never rise fairer than from that foundation. The Iliad and Eneid have the same sort of obligation to the histories and traditious of their country, and in muca greater extent than either MADOC, or than Paradise Lost to the records of Moses. Here let me observe that, if Milton's great work excels Madoc in the sublimity of particular passages, the latter is every where more original and more interesting.

If, which I much question, the Critic be sincere in his description of the style, he can have neither ear nor taste. If the elegance of the verbiage be now and then a little injured by the use of obsolete words and phrases, it is generally harmonious in its construction as original in its character, is luminously perspicu ous, dignified though simple, and never attenuated, never verbose. the style of Madoc, the Critical Re view for January 1806 justly observes, "the harmony of the verse is exquisite. Here Mr. Southey has shewn himself a complete master

Of

"Untwisting all the chains that tie The hidden soul of Harmony--" and there is scarcely a single page without some striking beauty, some delightful picture, some sublime description, or some forcible appeal to the heart." We must lament to find that stricture in the Critical Review, so just to Madoc respecting style, picture, and sentiment, so unjust to it as a whole work, and so flippant, and so mistaken, in its condemnation of the manly and noble prelude.

Madoc is certainly not the blankvere of Milton, Thomson, Young, Akenside, Cowper, or Crowe; yet has its unimitative structure every charm for a correct ear, though we inay, in a very few instances, meet with a line systematically harsh, aud neglectful of quantity. However, for one harsh line that occurs in Madoc, we meet with fifty in the Parudise Lost, amid all the glories of its versification. The style of Madoc most resembles that of the Bible Poetry the simplicity of the language in the narrations, and, on great occurrences, all its bold sublimity.

Though the Author fastidiously disclaims the title of Epic for his Ma doc, and abjures in his preface the

rules

rules of Aristotle, yet has the poem all the epic requisites. Though he divides it into two parts only, it has, in reality, the three which are demanded of epic story, and which constitute the beginning, the middle, and the end. It opens, like its Greek and Latin predecessors, in the midst of the adventure. It bears striking resemblance to the plan of Virgil's poem; with the arrival of Madoc at his brother's court, like that of Æneas at Carthage. David makes the same request to him, that Dido makes to the Trojan Prince: each, in consequence, relates the circumstances of his eventful story, and a vast superiority of interest and grandeur of event appears to me to rest with the Cambrian Hero. This part includes the motives of his voyage, its heartaffecting particulars, the arrival in South America, the primal and victorious contest there, and the subsequent establishment of the Britons in that region. These events form the first actual division of the poem.

Those lovely and pathetic incidents in Wales, which ensue in Madoc's preparation for his second voyage, and delightfully fill up the time it must necessarily take, constitute the second division. Of them the Poet is the historian, as he is of the residence of Æneas at Carthage. Madoc's return to his American colony; the reinforcements he carries thither; the revolt of the Aztecas, and the far more desperate conflict he then sustains; his captivity; his combat on the stone of sacrifice, his bonds and deliverance, the spirited and pathetic episodes involved in the conflict, and accessary to its fate; the destruction of idol worship; the terrible graces attendant, which, with the advantage of credibility, more than recompense the absence of supernatural machinery; the final conquest obtained by Madoc and his folTowers; the expulsion of the subdued Aztecas, with the grandest of all suicides, that of the fierce, but not ignoble, Tlalala, constitute the third division. Infinitely more diversified by interesting events, by variety of characters, and by scenery, is this third part, than the third division of the Eneid, viz. the conquest of Italy. Turnus sinks before Yuhidthiton, both as a valorous and a virtuous warrior. Ambition, and the lust

of conquest, forming no part of Madoc's inducement to recover the Aztlan territory, but rather the injuries inflicted on its antient possessors the Hoamen, and the desire of planting the Christian faith on the ruins of dark and bloody idolatry, leave the Cambrian Hero in full possession of our esteem and lové. He subdues Aztlan for Erylliab and her people, and incorporates his subjects with hers; while all that belongs to the sanguinary priestcraft of the idolatrous worship is painted with the force of Dante's Muse.

You will agree with me that the sentiments of this new epic touch every feeling heart, and perpetually fill the eye of sensibility with those tears which it is luxury to shed; and this, either by their generous elevation, or natural tenderness; that its pictures start from the page, and live and move before us, and that its exquisite landscapes possess the singular property of not being introduced and insulated, but of rising out of the subject, and of being connected with the story; also that a noble strain of pious morality runs through the whole work. The strange criticism which I have been endeavouring to refute, after accusing the poem in question of want of dignity in style, stigmatizes one passage of the utmost genuine sublimity, with inflexion and incomprehensible bombast. It is where Madoc describes to David his sensations and ideas during the terrible storm in the first voyage, amid seas till then unexplored, and before the formation of the earth was known, or its self-balancing power understood. Those conjectures, and the communication of them to his brother, are perfectly natural; and the elevated language suited to the vastness of the objects, and the awful terrors they awakened; for it is solemn and magnificent.

The same contemptuous accusation is brought against that charming passage which describes so concisely, and so very poetically, the first rise of that impulse, which stimulated the daring adventure, when Madoc and Cadwallon were sitting on the sea shore.

Then the poet is censured for the names of his personages, particularly in the regal family of Owen. They were, doubtless, their real names in

the