minister of the parish. The Large Declaration declares, that according to the rate of purchasing in Scotland, the price of tithes was estimated to the uttermost farthing; and undoubtedly, if the rate of interest, and the burdens to which the tithes were liable, be taken into the account, there is every reason to suppose that they were not estimated much below their value. It is not surprising, therefore, to find, that there are few sales previous to the Union. Sir John Connell mentions that he found only two sales prior to the Restoration, and four between the Restoration and the Union; subsequent to which period they continued to increase, both where the tithes had been valued, and where a valuation had been demanded for the first time. The reduction in the rate of interest, and the fall in the value of money, while the rate of purchase continued the same, gave every day additional advantage to the proprietor; and, during the eighteenth century, sales were very numerous. Where the tithes, too, were vested in the patrons by the acts already mentioned of William and Mary, the proprietor purchased on yet easier terms, because the patron was obliged to sell the tithes he acquired under these statutes at the rate of six years' purchase. Still the tithes so purchased remain liable for the stipend of the minister, to the extent, that is to say, of their valued rent. And, as the circumstances of the country have led to a constant augmentation of stipend, and at no distant intervals, the advantage of the purchase was not so great as it at first sight appears. The tithes which belonged to the bishops, and which became vested in the Crown on the abolition of Prelacy, and those belonging to colleges, or destined to pious uses, were not liable to be sold, but were only subject to valuation. Sir John Connell states, that almost all these tithes are now valued. Of course, the proprietor is liable only for the amount of the valuation, whether the tithes remained entirely with the titular, or have been, in whole or part, allotted to the minister as stipend.

As already mentioned, we have been led into these details, in order to furnish some information not easily accessible to most readers, but very much desired by those who, struck with the contrast which this country exhibits to England and Ireland in the administration of the tithe laws, naturally expect to find in our system some suggestions that may be useful in reforming the evils which they feel daily from their own. Their expectation is reasonable, and we hope the information may not be altogether without advantage. At the same time, we are afraid that Scotland in this respect must remain an object of envy rather than of imitation; and that they cannot, by adopting our

system now, procure to themselves those advantages which have mainly arisen from its prevalence here for two hundred years. Our meaning will be perfectly evident, if it be considered, that if there had been a valuation of the corn tithe in England during the first ten years of this century, the rent or annual compensation paid to the Church would have been more oppressive now, in the depressed state of agriculture and diminished cultivation, than the levying of the tithe itself. As it is, the grievance appears to us intolerable; and, exempted as we are from its oppression here, we only wonder how our fellow-citizens can submit to it in the other parts of the empire. We believe they will not long submit to it,-because we think it cannot be submitted to. And whatever may be the prejudices of men, and whatever the learning and ingenuity with which these prejudices have been roused and strengthened, we deem it quite impossible, in this age, that the wealth of the Church should be promoted and upheld, as in the darkest eras of human history, to the impoverishment of the whole country. Let it not be imagined, that we would countenance in any degree the atrocity of interfering with the interests of present incumbents; but we think it melancholy at this time to hear it maintained, as it often is, that the Church, separately from the interest of these incumbents, and as a society, has property and possessions independent of the State, and with which the Legislature has no right, without her special and separate consent, to interfere. The days in which her revenues, particularly her tithes, were held of Divine appointment, are pretty well gone by, though some murmurs and insinuations may still be heard on that head: We believe it only wants public and direct discussion, to put down the pretensions founded upon what is called the original and inherent independence of the Church, and the imagined conditions of her alliance with the State. That discussion has, in some degree, commenced, and we shall endeavour not to be wanting in bearing our part in it. For it is to its success, and to the acknowledgment of the great principle, that the State may legislate as freely upon the revenues of the Church, as upon the interests of any other class of men in the kingdom, or upon any other description of public property, that England and Ireland must look for ultimate and effectual relief from one of the great grievances under which they now suffer.

ART. II. 1. Loves of the Angels. A Poem. By THOMAS MOORE. 8vo. pp. 148. London, 1823.

2. Heaven and Earth. A Mystery. By LORD BYRON. 1823.

T is curious to see two writers, so very able, and so very

different, both treating the same singular, and (as one might be tempted to suppose) almost intractable subject. All things, however, are possible to genius, and come within the range of poetry. We may set the reader's mind at once easy by stating, that there is nothing (or next to nothing) of that speculative daring in Lord Byron's present production that gave such just offence in his MYSTERY of CAIN; and that Mr Moore, in his new Poem, has kept his amatory vein within the strict bounds of decorum. There is nothing equivocal in it but the title; and that may occasion some idle flutter and some trifling disappointment. The first of these very extraordinary performances may be read without incurring a frown from the brow of piety, and the last without calling up a blush in the cheek of modesty. Considering the nature of the subject, and the temper of the authors, this is a great and a rare merit. Perhaps they found themselves so near the edge of a precipice, that they were afraid, if they made one false step, of being hurled down ten thousand fathom deep.' To whatever cause we may attribute this cautious reserve and self-denial, we have to thank them for saving us a world of moralizing—a tone in criticism we do not much affect, unless when it is forced upon us, and which we would gladly leave to the Pulpit, or to the Chairs of Moral Philosophy.

Mr Moore, in his Preface, informs us, that he had somewhat hastened his publication, to obviate the disadvantage of coming after his friend Lord Byron; or, as he ingeniously expresses it,

By an earlier appearance in the literary horizon, to give himself the chance of what astronomers call an Heliacal rising, before the luminary, in whose light he was to be lost, should appear.' This is an amiable, but by no means a reasonable modesty. The light that plays round Mr Moore's verses, tender, glancing, and brilliant, is in no danger of being extinguished even in the sullen glare of Lord Byron's genius. An aurora borealis might as well think of being put out by an eruption of Mount Vesuvius. They are both bright stars in the firmament of modern poetry, but as distant and unlike as Saturn and Mercury. Their rising may be at the same time, but they can never move

in the same orb, nor meet or jostle in the wide pathless way' of fancy and invention. Let Mr Moore then shine on, and fear no envious eclipse, unless it be from an excess of his own Light!

We conceive, though these two celebrated writers in some measure divide the Poetical Public between them, that it is not the same Public whose favour they severally enjoy in the highest degree. They are both read and admired, no doubt, in the same extended circle of taste and fashion; but each is the favourite of a totally different set of readers. Thus a lover may pay the same outward attention to two different women; but he only means to flirt with the one, while the other is the mistress of his heart. The gay, the fair, the witty, the happy, idolize Mr Moore's delightful Muse, on her pedestal of airy smiles or transient tears. Lord Byron's severer verse is enshrined in the breasts of those whose gaiety has been turned to gall, whose fair exterior has a canker within, whose mirth has received a rebuke as if it were folly, from whom happiness has fled like a dream! If we compute the odds upon the known chances of human life, his Lordship will bid fair to have as numerous a class of votaries as his more agreeable rival! We are not going to give a preference, but we beg leave to make a distinction on the present occasion. The poetry of Moore is essentially that of Fancy; the poetry of Byron that of Passion. If there is passion in the effusions of the one, the fancy by which it is expressed predominates over it: if fancy is called to the aid of the other, it is still subservient to the passion. Lord Byron's jests are downright earnest; Mr Moore, when he is most serious, seems half in jest. The latter plays and trifles with his subject, caresses and grows enamoured of it: the former grasps it eagerly to his bosom, breathes death upon it, and turns from it with loathing or dismay! The fine aroma, that is exhaled from the flowers of poesy, every where lends its perfume to the verse of the Bard of Erin, The noble bard (less fortunate in his Muse) tries to extract poison from them. If Lord Byron flings his own views or feelings upon outward objects (jaundicing the sun), Mr Moore seems to exist in the delights, the virgin fancies of nature. He is free of the Rosicrucian society; and enjoys an etherial existence among troops of sylphs and spirits, and in a perpetual vision of wings, flowers, rainbows, smiles, blushes, tears and kisses. Every page of his works is a vignette, every line that he writes glows or sparkles; and it would seem (so some one said who knew him well and loved him much) as if his airy spirit, drawn from the sun, continually fluttered with fond aspirations, to regain that

native source of light and heat.' The worst is, our author's mind is too vivid, too active, to suffer a moment's repose. We are cloyed with sweetness and dazzled with splendour. Every image must blush celestial rosy red, love's proper hue, '-every syllable must breathe a sigh. A sentiment is lost in a similethe simile is overloaded with an epithet. It is like morn risen

on mid-noon.' No eventful story, no powerful contrast, no moral, none of the sordid details of human life (all is etherial), none of its sharp calamities, or, if they inevitably occur, his Muse throws a soft, glittering veil over them,

Like moonlight on a troubled sea,

Brightening the storm it cannot calm.

We do not believe Mr Moore ever writes a line, that in itself would not pass for poetry, that is not at least a vivid or harmonious commonplace. Lord Byron writes whole pages of sullen, crabbed prose, like a long dreary road that, however, leads to doleful shades or palaces of the blest. In short, Mr Moore's Parnassus is a blooming Eden; Lord Byron's is a rugged wilderness of shame and sorrow. On the tree of knowledge of the first, you can see nothing but perpetual flowers and verdure; in the last, you see the naked stem and rough bark; but it heaves at intervals with inarticulate throes, and you hear the shrieks of a human voice within.

Critically speaking, Mr Moore's poetry is chargeable with two peculiarities. First, the pleasure or interest he conveys to us is almost always derived from the first impressions or physical properties of objects, not from their connexion with passion or circumstances. His lights dazzle the eye, his perfumes soothe the smell, his sounds ravish the ear: but then they do so for and from themselves, and at all times and places equally-for the heart has nothing to do with it. Hence we observe a kind of fastidious extravagance in Mr Moore's serious poetry. Each thing must be fine, soft, exquisite in itself, for it is never set off by reflection or contrast. It glitters to the sense through an atmosphere of indifference. Our indolent, luxurious bard does not whet the appetite by setting us to hunt after the game of human passion, and is therefore obliged to pamper us with dainties, seasoned with rich fancy and the sauce piquante of poetic diction. Poetry, in his hands, becomes a kind of cosmetic art -it is the poetry of the toilette. His Muse must be as fine as the Lady of Loretto. The naked Venus to some eyes would seem a dowdy to her! Now, this principle of composition leads not only to a defect of dramatic interest, but also of imagination. For every thing in this world, the meanest incident. or object, may receive a light and an importance from its asso

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