The disappointment the lady must have felt, being so trifled with, is well and naturally enough imagined, of whom she says pathetically, that he "Cou'd act the tenderness he never felt, "In sorrow soften, and in anguish melt. "The sigh elaborate, the fraudful tear, "The joy dissembled, and the well-feigned fear, "The conquest once atchiev'd, the brightest fair, "When conquer'd, was no longer worth his care." Under the agonies of dereliction, the damsel is supposed to sing "Then hasten, righteous powers! my tedious fate, "Shorten my woes and end my mortal date : Quick, let your power transform this failing frame, "Let me be any thing but what I am!" The lady now transformed into a stone, the faithless Polydore visits his petrified Ianthe, and plunging a dagger into his own side, which struck also the rock, from the collision issued the purpureous spring. Thus the legend of the well, and the true story so modern and so well known, furnish her with materials for a short poem, in the description of the circumstances of which, she displays more genuine feeling than in any other. Her ODE to DRAGON, Mr. Garrick's housedog, is a misnomer. The idea is grovelling, and the poem too long for an ode. Was there no other method of flattering Mr. and Mrs. Garrick, without being metamorphosed from a cruel stone into a dog of either gender? The Epitaph on C. Dicey, Esq. "O pause! repent, repent, resolve, amend ! "Life has no length, eternity no end! I would recommend Mrs. More to get engraved, and to wear on her bracelets as long as she lives. The CARPENTER, although there is much Sternhold and Hopkins in it, I like best of any of her pieces. She has adopted Swift's verse, and Swift's mode of mysterious matrimony; and this in the non-descript phraseology, is called " marrying in the Lord." Compared with women in general, Mrs. More must be allowed merit, but she is far behind the first. With Aspasia, Propertia de Rossi, Madame Rolande, and many of our own country-women, she is not to be named. Her books are ephemeral, of improvisatore merit, and mortal like herself. There is no line I should choose to transcribe for private use, or pleasurable recitation. And when we consider what actions, the atchievement of which her heart has dictated, her merits and supposed excellence vanish with the news of a day. In divine poetry she is altogether unsuccessful, for who excelled in that department. Buchanan, Johnstone, and Watts, and a late collection of psalms and hymns, in the dissenting church, is all that can be named, and they are excellent; for the merit of both our old and new version of the psalms is humble. In VILLAGE POLITICS, there are some just remarks; and the endeavour to turn the popular mind from a tendency to riot and rebellion, if ever in this country it had such a bias, was becoming any dutiful subject. But in this little tract, which C Sir A. Elton's injudicious praise induced me to read, is contained so much nonsense or real ignorance, that I cannot avoid saying it disgustingly lies throughout. That she was paid there can be no doubt. No hireling, to render the war popular, (and the child unborn may rue the day it became so) could be more venal, or less respect truth and decency. Christianity and philosophy owe her no obligation, she has profited little from both; and in H. More's VILLAGE POLITICs, they are equally unamiable. If she had any regard for human happiness, or her own reputation, for truth or intelligence, she would, instead of introducing it into her works, have disowned the piece. She, however, appears not to be ignorant of what liberality and charity mean; and this renders her perversion of fact, and studious and deliberate falsehood, the more lamentable. In a work of imagination, she was at liberty to form and cast her characters in her own moulds; but in an argument of facts to falsifie, is a demonstration of wretched venality. Although but few Britons covet republicanism, no man but for hire will deny that mankind have lived as happily under a democratical form of government as any other. Had she forgot, or did she ever learn, that the world owes all its knowledge in arts and science, all its civilization to the Grecian and Roman republics? Has man tasted no happiness in Carthage, Venice, Switzerland or Holland; and are the inhabitants of the United States, because their government is representative, to be wretched and contemptible? The writer of this is a sincere and strenuous friend to the mixed form of government established in Britain; and he belongs to two privileged orders; but he is also a friend to truth, justice, and liberality. Excellence, sublimity of genius, elegant taste, eminence in arts and sciences, are confined to no coun try or political constitution. But the war-whoop of party must be sung; the dogs of war must be let loose; France was a fine subject of partition, a spacious theatre for the ambitious, an immense source of endless plunder for the rapacious soldier: war is an inexhaustible mine for the voracious contractor, who is to be enriched by the ruin of millions, to be made happy by the miseries of mankind, and for the hordes of the profligate and needy, ready at all times to engage in any cause where exists the prospect of fattening on slaughter, and revelling in blood, rising on their country's ruin; and H. More, must also, for a mite, sound her hoarse ministerial rattle, shew herself a woman of contracted philosophy, of religion without charity, of piety without mercy, of knowledge without discrimination, by joining in the cry, and vociferate, with Amazonian fury, Hark! forward! Out come "Tommy Bull's advice to Johnny Bull;" Village Politics, and other trash, of a more fatally inebriating quality than the gin of which she complains; and Jack Anvil, and Tom Hod, and millions more, are infatuated and deluded to join in the chace, and continue in the delirious attempt of teaching others how to arrange their domestic affairs and cook their victuals, what they shall eat and drink for nine long years, till after having had their own heads and their neighbour's broken, and spent more money than they will be ever able to pay, when they return from the public-house, and find that the OLD MANSION, the constitution, instead of being improved in their absence, has greatly dilapidated by their dissipation and neglect. How much more amiable and becoming her profession of christianity, and more characteristic of female feeling; how much would humanity now owe to her, supposing her to have influence, if she had exerted herself in favour of peace, and against the shedding of human blood! But her innate disposition and her venality, led her to sanguinary deeds, and whenever she heard of a battle, instead of retiring to shed tears over the miseries which pride, ambition, and injustice, were bringing on the human race, and praying that the whole earth might be re-christianized, and the kingdoms of the world become kingdoms of Christ, she brought her punch in a "lordly dish," and like the uneducated and unbaptized companion of an Indian chief, boasting of her number of scalps, she rejoiced over the havoc, and taught the people to thirst for more! This is well known. Not such the conduct of the brave and virtuous, the true christian. In this manner a revolution become necessary by ages of tyranny, effected without a drop of bloodshed, by promising immediate happiness not only to twenty-four millions of Frenchmen, but probably to all the nations of the earth, became an object of envy and hatred to the surrounding nations; individuals, therefore, conspire against it, and crusades are undertaken to defeat its establishment, and |