Then who shall limit e'en his human flight? Who mark the Rubicon of marching thought? Of daring language, nature's utmost height? Who tell what all united, will have wrought, On human hearts with smother'd instincts fraught,

When many an age has added light to light? Back shrinks the soul! she feels her power is nought,

If fancy dimly pour upon her sight, Her forms of life afar, indefinite, though bright.

Grant him progressive, and immortal too! To what stupendous glory shall he climb, When time's cold hand shall wave her last adieu,

When springs his spirit from her earthly clime, To heaven's high realm, on angel wing sub

lime,

Where souls redeem'd with thought for ever

new,

And joy and hope in everlasting prime,
Will lead him onward, kindred truths to view,
And purer love to feel than ever mortal
knew."

No one who reads the above will fail to perceive a monotony in the rhymes. There is a continual recurrence not only of the same sounds, but of the same words. Some of these terminations are so remarkable for their frequency, that we were led to note them as we read. We found that of seventy six stanzas, of tain the rhyme of ime, and seventeen of which the whole poem consists, ten conind-and that the sound of longi is heard in the final syllables of more than half of

the lines in the book.

E.

THE author of this work, which has not

the merit of being either fact or fiction, but which is an undistinguishable mixture of both, was origilly in the wine trade at Manchester, but, failing in his business, turned his attention to the stage. He became an actor in a provincial theatre, and also a lecturer or reader of entertainments. He has published some songs and comic pieces. The first part of the Itinerant was published in 1808, and was dedicated, as is also the sequel, to Mr. Roscoe. In it Mr. Ryley describes his own adventures, under the assumed name of Romney; and having thus, in the outset, deviated from truth, seems to have availed himself of a similar license in embellishing real oceurrences, and in occasionally introducing episodes purely fanciful. In this manner, whatever value his biography might have possessed, is, in our opinion, destroyed; for his narrative, so far from being a history of incidents which actually befell him, is a romance which has no type in life.

There is, nevertheless, some entertainment in these volumes; and, among many vulgar and flippant remarks, not a few just observations may be found. The author evinces good natural sense and a degree of humour. Wanting dignity, however himself, he cannot confer it on the multitude of insignificant persons whom he essays to commemorate, and whose relations with him are but an

He has, however, indulged his vanity in publishing several laudatory letters, received after the appearance of the first part of the Itinerant, from Mr. Roscoe, the Rev. Melville Horn, Mr. Cross, &c. &c.; and, with a candour deserving praise, and which extenuates his previous ostentation, has introduced two letters from Miss Anna Seward, of a very different stamp. As we accord, in the main, with this lady's sentiments, though we think a mortifying truth might have been more courteously expressed, we will copy this correspondence; which was commenced by Mr. Ryley's addressing a letter to Miss Seward.

"MADAM,

"To have been in the slightest degree noticed by your patronage I esteem one of the most flattering circumstances of my life; and although

my unfortunate situation, for such I must call it, prevented the presumption of inquiry, I have frequently felt a wish to know whether health, the greatest of all earthly blessings, still renders your life as pleasing to yourself as it is valuable to those who form your society, and are favoured with your friendship; and although a mercenary motive prompts this intrusion, I hope it will be no improbable conclusion to suppose, that, had I esteemed myself equal to the task, and in a situation of life that would have entitled me to the favour, your correspondence would have been an indulgence of the most grateful kind.

"I take the liberty, madam, of sending the first volume of the Itinerant; the work will be completed in June, when I shall have the honour of calling with it, on my way to London; mean

fime, if it suit your convenience to procure a few subscribers, it will be an obligation.

"A judgment like yours, will, I doubt not, be as merciful as it is powerful; not examining with the strict eye of criticism a first effort, which the pressure of many unpleasant circumstances rendered too premature to bear any marks of perfection. As my first-born, I commit it to your attention; and, though not the legitimate offspring of science or literature, I trust you will find it a natural child, whose gambols may serve to relax the imagination after more solid studies.

"Setting every paltry, pecuniary motive aside, I know few circumstances that would flatter my vanity more than your approbation. In anxious. doubt, and with very sincere wishes for your health and happiness, I have the honour to subscribe myself,

"Madam,

"Your obliged and very faithful servant, "S. W. R. "Liverpool, April 20, 1803."

SIR,

"Litchfield, May 1, 1808.

"Pardon my observing, that it is only those who have celebrity, professional or literary, that possess a shadow of right to tax their acquaintance and the public with their own biography.

"It would be an injury to those who have long assailed, and who yet assail me in this way, and in a more modest manner, were my name to appear in subscription to the written life of a person much less distinguished than themselves.

"My income is but competent to my establishment, after a portion has been set apart for subscription to the writings either of my personal friends or authors of note. If I were to pass that limit, and comply with the request of all who ask my contribution, I should deeply feel the inconvenience, and one-fourth of my annual fortune would not answer the demands. You, Sir, do not even ask my consent to enrol me on your list, but seem to consider me as a subscriber, and expect me to draw upon my acquaintance in support of a claim so utterly unfounded. If I were not to decline doing this, even for the writings of my friends, and for authors of eminence, I should be shunned like a bailiff by my acquaintance here; since, though they would refuse my solicitation, refusal is always a jar upon the feelings of the refuser.

"The only comedian I recollect to have known, of the name of R-, was one, who was with a company of Itinerants, in Litchfield, between 1780 and 1790. He seldom, if ever, appeared on the stage, through illness and want of theatrical talents, though a well-behaved sensible man. His wife, the daughter of the late Mr. Frodsham, manager of the York theatre, was a very pleasing actress. Strongly recommended to me, I sometimes asked herself and husband to dinner. I heard that he died soon after he left Litchfield, and that the widow had married again.

Had that Mr. R been living, my acquaintance with him was too slight, too evidently on his wife's account, to have justified the liberty in him, which you have taken with me. I am, Sir, "Your humble servant, "ANNA SEWARD."

me once more to intrude upon your leisure, and to explain away, if possible, what appears to have been an impertinence, very far from my thoughts.

"I take blame to myself for not having been more explicit; had my letter been explanatory, perhaps it might in some degree have softened the severity of your reply, and saved me a part of the mortification I acknowledge to have felt, without having deserved, except in the circumstance of having troubled you with my subscription list, for which freedom I beg your pardon.

"I am by no means, madam, inclined to yield that implicit obedience to the aristocracy of literature, on which you lay so much stress. It is possible, nay, it is a fact, that the biography of an individual, without celebrity in the republic of letters, may force as great a claim on public attention as that of Johnson, Goldsmith, Savage, or Darwin; and, with respect to professional celebrity, I call your attention to the memoirs of celebrated theatrical characters-Foote, Lee Lewis, Mrs. Baddely, Mrs. Crouch, &c. What are they? a farrago of nonsense, Grub-street catch-pennies, that would never have been read, but for the names of the people they were meant to celebrate.

"The few pleasant and useful hours I spent in your society, will never be effaced from my mind, but my vanity is considerably hurt by finding myself so totally unknown, that, even by name, you can only recognise one R, and that one I have not the smallest ambition to per

sonate.

"The insignificant individual who has had the temerity to address you, spent a never to be forgotten evening at your house in Litchfield; at that period, about the year 1800, he was manager of a company of comedians at Shrewsbury. The following summer he had frequently the honour of seeing you at Buxton; and afterwards endeavoured to procure a license to perform plays at Litchfield, through your medium, on which business he was honoured with the inclosed letter.

"If these various circumstances recal not the smallest recollection, I have only to grieve and submit.

"So far, madam, from wishing to trespass on your bounty for the subscription, I meant to have pressed the volumes upon your acceptance, and if they afforded you the smallest amusement, my highest ambition would have been gratified. For the boldness of my presumption in wishing you to recommend the work, I feel ashamed, and again solicit you to forgive, and, if possible, forget, the impropriety of the request.

"I have the honour to be,
"Madam,

"SIR,

"Your faithful and obedient servant, "S. W. R."

"Litchfield, May 9, 1803.

"I feel at once concerned and ashamed of the involuntary oblivion of my memory; it was, even in youth, perpetually faithless to me respecting names. Time, and a long continuance of ill health, have deplorably increased that deficiency. It was in vain that I endeavoured to recollect, on receiving your first letter, having ever known any gentleman of the theatre who bore your name, except the person mentioned in my last, and I fancied I might have been misinformed respecting his death, and that, in reality, he was the individual who then addressed me 36

Under that idea, I wrote. I now remember the respectable manager of the company of comedians at Buxton, and that he once applied for my interest with our corporation, (interest which I never possessed) to obtain for him our unfrequenied Theatre here-but the name was gone from me past recall. My letter, which you enclosed, is as an upbraiding spectre; it convicts me of a strong error, for which I can only plead that it was not wilful, yet I ask your pardon.

"I am so often ill and incapable of writing, that my scanty leisure is become utterly incompetent to the claims upon it, which are most oppressively extensive. I look towards my bookcase with longing eyes in vain: epistolary duties forbid my access to it. If I had subscribed to your book, I should not have had time to explore it.

"As to the inferior examples you plead for your biography, I should think they would operate as warnings. Garrick and Foote were first rate people, yet even Garrick was too delicate to stand forth the herald of his own actions.

"I have frequently been urged to write my life, but I never thought myself of sufficient consequence to the public to obtrude upon it with

egotistic presumption. It is difficult for any per son to speak or write of themselves with grace, and without disgusting their readers.

"If you really think yourself an equal object of attention to the public as Johnson, Goldsmith, Savage, or Darwin, that consciousness must be at least an agreeable, if not a just idea, and I wish experience may not show you its fallacy. Not one, however, of those justly celebrated men was his own biographer. The vanity of Cumberland made him guilty of that obvious indelicacy, but it was in some degree recompensed by the spirit of the composition, and Cumberland is a distinguished, though not an amiable cha"I remain, Sir,

racter.

"Your humble servant,

"ANNA SEWARD." To which party the charge of arrogance may be most justly applied, we shall leave the reader to determine for himself.

E.

THOUGH this address does not stand conspicuous among the occasional offerings of the theological press, for ability or elegance, yet it is certainly respectable both for the thoughts and style-the former being, in the main, just and pertinent and the latter, on the whole, easy and perspicuous. But the subject of Sunday Schools is interesting, and we have selected the Rev. Rector's discourse, not so much on account of its literary merits, as for the sake of uniting with him in recommending that subject to general consideration, if, haply, any thing we can say may conduce to that end. It is the misfortune of most practical truths to be so plain as to be underrated, or to have become so familiar as to be disregarded, in either case failing to produce their legitimate effects. The old adage, de gustibus non est disputandum, "there is no disputing taste," seems to be quite as fully verified in regard to opinions as fashions; and on those very points, in the settlement of which, a plain man would think the employment of his reason most reasonable, there very often does not appear to be a more careful exercise of it, than in the cut of a doublet or the garnish of a table. Because an opinion is rational, it is scarcely to be presumed that it will obtain, and even when it meets a general assent from the tongue, it is but too frequently contradicted in conduct. There

does, now and then, appear to prevail some foolish predilection in matters of doctrine, as there always does, among the dainty and ostentatious, in regard to articles of food or clothing, of which nothing meets the wishes of either that is not far-fetched and dear-bought, while substantial, nutritious aliment, or comfortable apparel, if either be homely and easily obtained, is rejected for foreign rarities of no value but such as may be affixed to them by the caprice of folly. So, the nice in opinions are prone to misapprehend unobvious and remote conclusions for deep discoveries; and seek wisdom in refined speculations and transcendental conceits, rather than in the near and obtrusive deductions of common sense, drawn from experience and observation. Among the truths which have had the hard fortune to stand in the strength of demonstration, when considered speculatively, but yet have been, till very recently at least, entirely disregarded in the arrangements made by corporated societies and municipal authority, as well as in the exercise of private bounty, the impolicy of an indiscriminate and gratuitous disposal of alms is particularly prominent. This subject, though collateral, is very nearly connected with that of the address under consideration. The treatment of the poor, as all confess, is a point, in the economy of society, not

only deeply interesting to the humane and the prudent, but it is also intimately connected with the public welfare; and no plan, for their support and regulation, can promise great permanent utility, that does not combine, with establishments for their education, a judicious method of supplying their corporeal wants. A system of alms-giving that tends directly to encourage idleness and beggary-that extinguishes those feelings of independence which give dignity to the man and value to the citizen, must clearly frusstrate the good designs of those who would fain benefit the poor by furnishing them with the means of knowledge; and on the other hand, all attempts to supply their external necessities, in any wise manner, must be greatly embarrassed, and their good consequences retarded, by neglecting to accompany such attempts with provisions for their educacation. We do not think, indeed, that a well-arranged system of supplying paupers with subsistence, through the medium of their own labour, would be wholly fruitless, even without its being connected with a school establishment; for no individual, though he never enjoyed the tuition of any preceptor but experience, if he be not an ideot, nor insane, can probably be found in any state of society, certainly not in the present state of society in this country, in whom the human faculties have been so blasted in their growth, or have so run to ruin, as to leave him beyond all reach of motives, if judiciously presented,-no one, who has not remaining some spot, over which the crust of apathy has not yet spread, and who might not be roused to the employment of his capacity however small, and converted to a convenient and useful member of society. Besides, though ignorance, and the brutish condition in which too many of the poor are suffered to live, particularly in large cities, may have nearly effaced all trace of" reason's mintage" in the soul, and left them insensible to the attractions of virtuous character, yet hunger may stimulate them, cold may constrain them to bestir themselves, and to suffer even such ignoble motives to lie idle, is error, if not breach of duty; for such motives, though low, are proper, and may ultimately lead to a condition that will render efficacious the use of such as are more worthy of a rational, immortal. and accountable being. But, though even they who have passed on through the greater portion of their lives, shut out from the fair light of knowledge, may not be quite beyond the reach of aid, yet it is on the

young, and through the medium of edu cation, that, in any given state of society, the hopes of amelioration must be principally founded. As a means of improving the young, Sunday Schools are doubtless, greatly worthy of support; and they are particularly favourable to the inculcation of moral and religious truth, not only on account of the fidelity with which those who undertake the office of instruction are likely to fulfil their task, but also on account of the many serious and impressive associations connected with the season of Sabbath. He, even the child, who can be induced to reflect on the nature of that day-who can have brought before his mind the reverend origin and the venerable antiquity of the institution-who can be taught to contemplate the throng of nations, shining with the illumination of science, and graced with the embellishments of art, which on that day crowd the courts of so many temples erected to the service of one God-who can advert to the glorious spectacle of social order and domestic concord which that day exhibits, and can consider the pious aspirations and philanthropic sentiments, the humankindness and devotion, which on that day swell so many hearts, exalt so many souls, and pour from so many tongues, mingled with the sound of organs, and voices melodious with praise, and not be deeply moved, nor feel his nature aggrandized,cannot be human, cannot have been hurt and healed, cannot have prospered and been smitten, cannot have been a lover or a friend, nor ever hope to taste the pleasures of sympathy, or feel a throb of joy. But, notwithstanding such high considerations are calculated to extend an influence so beneficial, we can hardly expect to witness their full and legitimate effect upon the minds of children, under the most favourable concurrence of circumstances in Sunday Schools, with the most assiduous endeavours of instructors and superintendents, not merely on account of the indocility of the pupils, but in a more especial manner, on account of the small portions of time during which their instruction can be attended to, in these establishments, and the long intervals between them. A very rapid advancement of the children of the poor, therefore, cannot be looked for, without the general adoption of some system of tuition, under which instruction may be more frequently imparted, and which will permit a more continuous enjoyment of the means of education. A system of education, also, calculated principally for the poor, should embrace in its arrangements the whole