from loss. We presume that a good deal of modern poetry of Byron and Moore, and perhaps Wordsworth, is read among the mechanics and humbler classes, and now and then such reading falls into the way of one who can also write; and when he does, the strange defects of his early education, with the acquired routine of poetical language he has caught, form one of the most strange and anomalous mixtures that can be conceived. We have one of these poems (not Mr. Kenyon's) now before us, in which after passages in which grammar and syntax have been violated in the grossest manner, rhymes rendered laughable by their utter absurdity, words wrongly spelt, wrongly accented, wrongly used, we meet with a few lines like the following:

The sun rose high above the hills, ere he
His palace left: with step elastic light,
He sought the sultan with a heart of glee.
Sweet nature shone before him rich and bright;
A soothing breeze, refreshing, wing'd its flight,
And sung and sported mid the rustling trees;
Small clouds, in clusters, delicate and white,
Kept rising o'er the mounts by slow degrees,
And hidden woodland brooks did sing their
lullabies.

The happy birds, with crests of richest hue,
Beneath the spreading leaves did sport and call,
And swiftly shot the waving branches through,
And flitted o'er the glist'ning waterfall.
The palm and cedar, in their beauty tall,
Rose o'er the whole with rich majestic head,
And like a bright and beauteous golden ball,
High rode the sun, his burnish'd streamers
spread,
[and red.
And tinged the sea and woods with amber deep

Now who could suppose that a person who had taste and education even to write such lines, should also be so ignorant as in the third line to spell sought-saught, and so on through the poem ? From such writers we turn to the one before us, who appears to be a gentleman of education, taste, and learning; speaking in our usual plain and honest manner, we must say that the spark of divine genius is not very brilliant or large. In the car that bears the poet along, we cannot say that the steeds have necks clothed with thunder, or that the wheels glow with fire; but Mr. Kenyon has executed with elegance and fancy the style of poetry he has adopted. We do not like his introductory poem called "Moonlight" so well as some others, as thinking it wanting in interest; but the versification is excellent, and the poetical

language shows discriminating and just taste. Parts of it remind us of the manner of Mr. Rogers's Italy; with which we think the author is familiar. Satires we are not very fond of. They are most difficult of composition, requiring a combination of so many qualities, that it is hopeless often to find; in fact, we have had no satire worth a farthing since the days of Pope. To our minds Byron's English Bards can only boast a few vigorous lines; and Gifford's Baviad is a forced unnatural fire-"killing butterflies upon a wheel." The poems he attacks with such malignant virulence were worthy only of a contemptuous smile; but subjects in his days were scarce, and he had determined to be a satirist. For such a character we think Mr. Kenyon too amiable and too well-bred; and accordingly we find, in his poem so designed, lines more fitting for a pastoral.

Now doubly sweet such refuge found with books,

To stray with mild Piscator up the brooks,
With Cowley muse beneath the greenwood tree,
Or taste old Fuller's wise simplicity;
Or, if his Worthies, though removed their span,
Smack yet too strongly of the living man,
Then backward turn to question Homer o'er,
Or dream of storied ages roll'd before,
Faint-glimmering now, like far-off beacon.
light

O'er misty ocean, scarcely read aright.
But if, perplex'd by history's fabling theme,
Vex'd thought would float entire on fancy's

stream,

To me more dear than all the East e'er gave
Those nightly tales, Arabia's gift, I crave:
With Sinbad let me wander, sailor bold,
And hear his mighty marvels ten times told,
Or read again of Morgiana, who
The robber-chief with whirling dagger slew,
Or fondlier lingering through charm'd hours,
prolong
Of Thalaba the wild and wondrous song,
Thrice summon'd, scarce I quit those Genit
bowers
Most loved, as most unlike this world of ours.

From these very pleasing lines, we turn to the miscellaneous verses, among which are many highly fanciful and elegant; it is as difficult to know which to select for presentation, as we used in our early days to find it to chose our partner among the blooming roses of beauty that sat with blushing cheeks and beating hearts around; let us make our bow to "The Moorland Girl:"

True! she had been in city gay,
And seen whate'er its pomp could show
To win her youthful heart away,
The courtly ball, the flattering beau,

And she hath form and face as fair
As sculpture asks, or painting wills;
Yet, spite of all that flatter'd there,
Her heart was mid her native hills.

Once more amid those native hills,
A Moorland Girl, behold her bound,
While all her heart with pleasure fills
At rural sight or rural sound;
Whether she lift her eye to note
The kite, high circling in the gale,
Or pause to catch the tones that float
From hidden cushat down the dale.

Or if she climb the mountain side
To pluck her favourite heath again,
Or down the alder-valley glide,
Or linger in the fir-tree glen,

In bliss-the haunts of pomp and pelf
May never know-each moment wheels,
While sisters, spirits like herself,
Share and enhance the bliss she feels.

Sweet bud of beauty! Moorland Girl!
Still, still hold on thy dream-like race,
Far from the city's heartless whirl
And all the tribes of common place,
Still mould thine own wild paradise,
Enjoying-living-loving thus,-
And wheresoe'er thy presence is,
Shall still be paradise to us.

We have room to add one more :

Music.

Awake! thou harp! with music stored,
Awake! and let me feel thy power;
Fling forth in turn, from every chord,
The thronging notes in ceaseless shower!
Following thy measures as they rise,
Upfloating forms of every hue
Shall flit before my half-closed eyes,
And I will dream the visions true.

Breathless I list the streaming wires
Responsive to the minstrel-hand,
While faded hopes and young desires
Come stealing back, a pensive band.
Ah! now I know the sounds too well
Thy murmuring strings are fain to move,
For when may memory cease to dwell
On her who loved that lay of love?
For she could win thine every key,
From strains that suit a lady's bower
To fits of wildest minstrelsy
From moonlight glen or lonely tower.
Bold swelling notes of war-yet such
Their sound as told of pity near,
She loved them all-and every touch
Recalls my wandering thoughts to her.
Vain dreams, away! in vacant mood,
Now let my wearied heart recline;
No more I call on Fancy's brood

Like one who drifts in idle boat
Unoar'd, and heedless whither bound,
Thus languid laid, oh! let me float
Adown thy silvery stream of sound.
'Tis soft as evening's dewy sigh,
Sweeter than summer's balmiest breath;
Half-conscious-half entranced I lie,
And seem to touch the verge of death.
And thus beguiled, how bless'd it were
To cross that dark and fated sea!
Then just escaped this world of care
To wake and-Nea! dwell with thee!

The Alternative, Disease and Premature Death, or Health and Long Life. By J. Pinney, Esq.

THE observations we have made on Mr. Johnson's work will apply to the present volume of Mr. Pinney's. To both gentlemen we are obliged for the interest they have taken in the preservation of our health, and some forty or fifty years hence we shall hope to review a nineteenth or twentieth edition of a work that has enabled us to pursue our pleasing avocations when plusquam octogenarius. In the meanwhile we must inform Mr. Pinney that, when at p. 72, he advises early rising with the sun and exercise, however suitable his observations may be for more genial climates, there are few seasons in England in which Aurora does not arise with too cold and damp a countenance to be at all agreeable: we conceive a promenade après déjeûné to be far more advisable. Secondly, at p. 84, Mr. Pinney says, the unwholesomeness of London air is seen in the stunted shrubs, trees, &c. Not so hasty! The carbon with which the air of London is loaded acts prejudicially on some plants, by mechanically stopping up the pores, but not by any unhealthy gases. A few years ago, the inhabitants of Gower-street had fine crops of peaches in their gardens; and even now the fig-tree grows admirably in the confined yards of Bedford-row and even of the city. The plane-tree is totally. uninjured, and is more luxuriant in Cavendish and Berkeley-squares than in the bleaker and more exposed situations of the country. The elms and limes in St. James's Park are injured not by smoke, but by the wood-beetles.

thine.

the particular plants that flourish, or

that appear injured by the confined situation, and how far it affects blossoms, fruiting, &c. Thirdly, at p. 111, we must inform Mr. Pinney that Alexander the Great did not die of drunkenness, as he asserts, but probably of a malignant fever, occasioned by the action of the marsh miasma of the low plain of Babylon on a constitution affected by great exertion of body in so deleterious a climate, and great anxiety of mind. The story of his drunken debauch is a tale got up in later times. His body was conveyed in a magnificent hearse from Babylon to Alexandria, where it was deposited in a coffin or shrine of solid gold; there lay, not the carcase of a drunkard, but the sacred remains, the mortal tenement, the decayed robe which once contained a mind so noble, an intellect so commanding, a will and courage so unconquerable, that have never before or since been possessed by any one, in whose hands the sceptre of dominion has been placed.

Thoughtless we pass'd Mount Sinai :
Loud thunderings smote my ear,
Fork'd lightnings glared before my wan-
But life was in the glare.
[ton eye,

I took alarm-on feet of thought

Jordan's pure stream I sought:

Luther on the Psalms.

WE are obliged to the Rev. Mr. H. Cole for this little work, which he has judiciously selected, and it appears to us carefully translated. All the works of Luther more or less breathe of the greatness of his mind and chiefly the strength of his intellect as well as his fervent piety. This is one of his practical and devotional treatises, in which the subject and contents of all the Psalms are given and elucidated in a manner worthy of his great reputation. The short letter from the great reformer to his friend, which

drought.

III.

I turn'd my steps to Bethsaida,

But found no waters fairNo port-no Ishmaelitish trader Halted his camels there.

illustrative of his history and cha

racter.

"Martin Luther to his Friend.

"I am unwilling to acknowledge that you are right in being so industrious as to publish abroad my poor productions.

The

I fear you are actuated too much by favour towards me. As to myself, I am wholly dissatisfied with my works on the Psalms, not so much on account of the sense I have given, which I believe to be true and genuine, as on account of the verbosity, confusion, and undigested chaos of my commentaries altogether. book of Psalms is a book, my commentaries on which, from want of time and leisure, I am obliged to conceive, digest, arrange, and prepare all at once, for I am overwhelmed with occupation. I have two Sermons to preach in a day; I have to meditate on the Psalms; I have to consider over the letters which I receive by the posts (as they are called), and to reply to my enemies.

I have to attack the Pope's bulls in both languages, and I have to defend myself. (To say nothing about the letters of my friends which I have to answer, and various domestic and casual engagements to which I am obliged to attend.) You do well, therefore, to pray for me, for I am oppressed with many afflictions, and much hindered from the performance of my sacred duties. My whole life is a cross to me! I have now in hand the xxii Psalm- My God, my God!' and I had hopes of completing a Commentary on the whole book of Psalms if Christ should give us a sufficient interval of peace, so that I could devote my whole time and attention to it; but now I cannot devote a fourth part of my time to such a purpose; nay, the time that I devote to it is but a few stolen moments. You do right in admonishing me of my want of moderation. I feel my deficiency myself, but I find that I have not command over my own mind. I am carried away from myself, as it were, by a certain vehement zeal of spirit, while I am conscious that I wish evil to no one, though all my adversaries press in upon me with such maddened fury; so that in fact I have not time to consider who my enemies are, nor what various treatment they require. Pray, therefore, the Lord for me, that I may have wisdom to speak and write that which shall please him and become me, and not what may appear becoming to them.

And now farewell in Christ! "Wittenberg, A. D. 1521."

Architectural Illustrations and Account of the Temple Church, London. By Robert William Billings, Associate of the Institute of British Architects. 4to. 1838.

MR. Billings, who is well known as an architectural draughtsman, publishes this volume with the view of

developing the beauties of one of the most elegant examples of pointed architecture in the land, one which is distinguished by lightness and elegance above its contemporaries, in an age when those characteristics were the leading features of every ecclesiastical structure.

A considerable portion of the work is assigned to an essay by Mr. Clarkson, being an inquiry into the truth of the alleged idolatry of the Templars, which cannot be passed over without observation. The object of this essay is to establish the fact that the Templars were guilty of the charge of idolatry, and that their church furnishes symbolic evidences of the truth of the charge; but as we are not mystagogues sufficient to fathom the hidden meanings conveyed in particular numbers or mathematical forms, all we can do is to attempt the examination of the evidence which Mr. Clarkson considers to exist in the Temple Church of the alleged idolatry, and to glance, as we proceed, at the history of the chivalric order of soldiers to which it owes its foundation. In doing this, we intend equally to avoid the romance which tale-writers have attached to this and other institutions of the middle ages, and the speculations which have arisen from the dreams of German philosophers.

The wealth of the Templars was the real cause of the absurd charges which were brought against them by an unscrupulous despot, aided in his avaricious views by a time-serving pontiff. Philip and Clement dared not meet the Templars in the light of day in a free and open court of law, hence they sought in the gloomy depths of the dungeon, by the aid of cruel tortures, to establish charges which would have only met with the ridicule of the world, if they had attempted to have sustained them by other evidence than the confession of the accused party. Yet we see that when the limbs of the brave and valiant knights had recovered from the pains of the rack, and the soles of their feet no longer felt the effects of the fire with which their tormentors wrung out their confessions, the persecuted soldiers boldly denied the charges which in the extremity of pain they had confessed, and called for an open trial; and as this test would have established

the innocence of the order, it was of course denied: the boldest of the leaders were silenced by means of the flames, and the rest of the brethren either coaxed or frightened into a renewal of their confessions. But what, after all, did the charge of idolatry against the order amount to? why, that they worshipped a wooden head, renouncing at the same time the sublime truths of the Gospel; and this head Mr. Clarkson identifies with the Calf Behemoth, or Apis of the Egyptians. The mystic number five was sacred to this idol: "25 (5 times 5) was his cycle of life and death." Thus having led the reader into the depths of ancient Egyptian mythology or magic, Mr. Clarkson leaves him to infer that the Templars were imbued with sufficient knowledge of the ancient Egyptian rites to enable them in a comparatively dark æra to understand the depth of a subject which has wonderfully puzzled the learned men of the present enlightened age. But the crime of idolatry not being sufficient, the author turns to another charge against the Templars (to wit), that they were identical with the well known Assassins, which, resting on the evidence of the similar organization of the two bodies, the resemblance of certain circular buildings of each order, and the custom of the members wearing a white robe with a red badge, shews how easily coincidences may be discovered in very opposite institutions; as this charge, however, does not depend on architectural evidence, we pass it over, and turn to the proofs deduced from the building; in the language of Mr. Clarkson, "the masonic meaning and symbolic design which crowd upon the eye from every portion of the Temple Church." We will examine these evidences in succession.

"The first singularity which strikes the visitor on entering the circular part of the Temple Church, is the harmonious significance of design which characterizes every feature of the structure. Six columns, subdivided into four, support the centre, but two of the connected columns are larger than the others, and coupled together on the line of the circle. The two smaller columns of the fourfold combination are anterior to, and posterior to, the line of the circle. The object of the architect appears to have been to exhibit a circle of twelve columns twice over. GENT. MAG. VOL. X.

These columns are connected by spring arches, with a larger circle of twelve columns, which are attached to the lateral wall. The extraordinary coincidence of these two circular ranges of pillars with the Druidical circular ranges of pillars, cannot fail to impress the most inexperi. enced observer at the first glance."-P. 9.

Now let not our reader feel disappointment when in plain terms we shew what was the real intention of the architect in the arrangement of these columns, and which is so obvi ous that any one the least conversant in our church architecture will at once perceive that no hidden mystery exists in their construction, but that the design of the architect is palpable and consistent. Premising that our antiquarian readers at least are aware of the fact that in the detail of its architecture, the Temple Church differs not from any other coeval structure. The only singularity is the circular form of what may be styled the nave. The choir is only remarkable for the lightness of its architecture; but in this regard it merely possesses features in common with other structures of the same kind, to instance the Lady Chapels of Southwark and Salisbury.

The architects of those times had a bold conception, which must appear even presumptuous in the eyes of their degenerate successors of the present day: they aimed at sustaining, or rather balancing, the greatest weights on the smallest points of support, and bearing this in mind let us examine the works of the architect of the circular part of the Temple. He had conceived the idea of making the clerestory of his church rest upon the clustered columns which were then in vogue. With regard to the number of the clusters, he could accomplish his object only by using neither more nor less than six; less than that number would have been useless, as he could not place four in a circle, and five would have interfered with the passage from the entrance to the choir; for the same reason seven would be rejected, and eight would have stood too close to each other: he therefore was compelled to adopt six. The number of the columns in each cluster was determined by an equally rational process : it is 2 P