Zoné, a Levantine Sketch, and other Poems. 12mo, pp. 110. -London, Knight and Lacey, 1825.

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THE short preface, prefixed by the author to this poem, will best explain his object.

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"The following Sketch was written to illustrate the union of sentiment and the controlling influence of virtuous refinement over ardent admiration. It is presumed, that the allusion to the doctrine of Plato may not be deemed of too grave a character to be associated with the friendship of Alfieri and of Petrarch, and even with this simple tale; since the essence of the Athenian philosophy consists in the superiority of mental enjoyment over the pleasures of sense-effects which may be synonymous with the influence of reason and of instinct on humanity.

"The instances of Natural History are introduced as emblematical of that love with which creative power has endowed the universe: the perfections of woman completing the charm.

"These stanzas (for the deficiency of incident must vitiate the appellation of a story) are presented with all the tremulous diffidence which must ever attend the introduction, much more the intrusion, of a stranger on public notice, and, above all, of one who is conscious of his inability, either

"To point a moral, or adorn a tale.""

If the attempt be not eminently successful, it is perhaps as much so as was to be expected: it is, at least, not a failure. It is a subject not, indeed, the most easy to treat in an interesting manner. We opine that this is not the age of Platonic love: if it ever existed, save in the dreams of poets and anchorites, it is by-gone now. Who can look on woman, and yet be Plato? If Zoné possessed but half the charms which our author has bestowed on her, one look from her-one kiss, (and her lover Melander does venture to snatch that unplatonic felicity,) would be sufficient to unsettle the resolves of the hardest heart. Such love was surely not made for man ;-woman may do as she pleases; that is, if man will let her.

The poem is written in the Spenserian stanza, generally correct, and often harmonious. If some of the similes are a little strained and fanciful, others are natural and appropriate. The author, like most poets, is a great admirer of moonlight, and his descriptions of the queen of night are poetical and natural,-qualities, which, like the relations of man and wife, ought never to be sundered,

The second line in the following stanza is very good.

1

Oft have I gaz'd upon that crescent light,

Smiling the requiem of yon orb of gold;
The idol of her ever chaste delight,

Embedded in the ocean's purple fold:ut und Her dewy pearls dropt in ethereal cold,...

Till, breaking over her empyreal dream,

She sees, athwart the orient enroll'd,

The gorgeous lustre of his glory stream,

Then, waning, melts amid the ardour of his beam.

The appeal to reason against the witchery of love is well made in the following, though we are afraid it will not often be successful:

Throughout the secret chambers of the will,
Instinct has breath'd her ever wild desire.
And man, all-conscious moralist, is still
Incited by the witchery of its fire.

Come, then, thou heav'nly Reason, oh! inspire
The heart, and all its recreant wish control,
Else where the pow'r to chain voluptuous ire,

Else lost to all, 'twixt India and the Pole,

1

Thy antidote to vice-the nightshade of the soul!
For even love, instinctive love, what more
Than the automaton of passion's play;
A spell, that sheds its sensual poison o'er
The path of youth, in Nature's opening day?
Oh! like the wintry storm o'er flow'rs in May,
Its desolation blights the mental bloom;
Obscur'd the beam of sweet Contentment's ray,
Blithe Memory shrouded in oblivion's tomb,

The load-star and the gem of sublunary gloom. uk qui

The following is better, being equally poetical, and more morally useful:

1

Call it not love, when man's seductive pride

Lures beauty's favour with the gilded toy':
Call it not love, when, o'er the blushing bride,
Excitement flings her floating films of joy,
To vanish with the moon -no cold alloy

Of errant thought can round that heart entwine,
Nor frosty age its vernal hopes destroy,

Where life's congenial sympathies enshrine
Affection's sigh and kiss with sentiment divine.

Yes, there is yet a flame of purer glow,
Like that of angels in their azure sphere;
Chaste as the moonbeam on the midnight snow,,...
Delicious still as orient atmosphere.

1

Bright and unsullied as the crystal fear,enge ni
ur sweet,

Of infant sorrow, yet as odour
vor buA
Wash'd from the cinnamon flow'rs of rich Cashinere;
The flame of Psyche, not the blighted heat A

In the voluptuous bun of cloister'd Paraclete.

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The description of Zoné is very poetical, though it only serves to paint the cruelty of the Platonic system in darker colours :

Her youth was like the garland time of May,

One blushing sun-shine,-peace, and hope, and joy,
Were her spring flow'rs; as oft the tender ray:
Of friendship, radiant as the Ionian sky,

Call'd all her beauty forth;-but if a sigh
Of drooping sorrow its pathetic tale

Of woe breath'd feebly,-sensibility

Confess'd her sweetness as her cheek grew pale,

And cold as vapour clouds, when beams of day-light fail.

She look'd the deity of ev'ry spot,

She smil'd upon-within an island cave

She seem'd a Nereid in her coral grot,

Where the funereal plumes of cypress wave,
O'er scatter'd roses, like young beauty's grave,
A Dryad musing on her sylvan dream,
Where tear-like rills the cheek of Ida lave,
She were th' embodied Naiad of the stream,
The living prototype of poet's fabled theme.

Caught by the magic of her pencil's art,

The tints of nature on her tablet bloom'd ;
And her wild song, ideas of the heart,

Hung on her lip, and by that lip perfum'd,
A breathing lyric. Oft when Sol illum'd

The isles, she ponder'd in her lone alcove,
On Sappho's fate, on youth in sighs consum'd,
Till, startled by the carols of the grove,

She blush'd like Galatea, into life and love.

Melander, however, resigns himself to his fate more readily than some we know would be able to do, though not without repining. But her father,-(oh, these cruel fathers! they never will remember that they once were young,)—her father had devoted her to a life of virgin purity, and the lovers are too virtuous to disobey.

"It may not be a wither'd parent's will be
Has doom'd thy spotless youth to solitude: 769 9a) wal
Yet, Zone, I may love thee, love thee still, bo6M3vDB
As when, 'nridst myrtle flowers, Melander woo'd, 1970я

In sighs, with love, with changeless love endu'd,
And vows of truth,-oh! is it nothing worth
To breathe those perfun'd flow'rs thy soft hands strew'd
Around the home that gave thy beauty birth,

And kiss thy spirit there, thou paragon of earth?

"Yes, memory, my influential star

vino Will light my dreams of thee, and o'er my sleep 99760 Steal all thy dear perfections from afar.

Yet think not that my eyes will never weep,
Or, that the worm of sorrow ne'er shall creep
Among life's roses :-yes, reflèction's tear
Will fall, but hope's bright fountain, pure and deep,
Flows round my heart, and sweetest forms appear

Of Zone and of love, in heaven's bright atmosphere."

There is much poetical feeling and natural description in the volume, which is no way discreditable to the author's. talents. His verse in general flows smoothly, and is never harsh nor unmusical. We have not found him, in any in-. stance, to descend below mediocrity. The minor pieces, which conclude the volume, are entitled to the same praise.

The New Practical Builder, and Workman's Companion, in Carpentry, Joinery, Bricklaying, Masonry, Slating, Plumbing, Painting, Glazing, Plastering, &c. &c.; including New Treatises on Geometry, Trigonometry, Conic Sections, Perspective, Shadows, and Elevations; with the Theory and Practice of the Five Orders, as employed in Decorative Ar chitecture; illustrated and embellished with numerous Plates, from original Drawings and Designs, made expressly for this Work, by M. A. Nicholson, R. Elsam, W. Inwood, and other eminent Architectural Artists. 4to. pp. 593.London, Kelly, 1823.

The Practical Builder's Perpetual Price-Book; elucidating the Principles of correctly ascertaining the average Value of the different Artificer's Works usually employed in Building; with the Customs of Measuring and Valuing in the various parts of the United Kingdom, &c. &c. 4to. pp. 180 London, Kelly, 1825.

AT such a period as the present,-when capital is so abundant, that the wealthy scarcely know how to employ their riches to advantage; and the demand for labour is so great, that the working classes are almost universally insisting on a rise of

wages,-whatever is calculated to give direction to the wealth of the one, and to multiply occasions for the occupation of the other; to improve the judgment of the employer, and increase the skill of the builder and the workman, will naturally attract, as the works before us have done, a considerable share of the public attention.

When, indeed, we consider further, how important it is, in regard equally to taste and utility, that correct ideas, with respect to the construction and decoration of buildings, should be impressed on the minds of those who are at all concerned in the erection either of public or private edifices, a publication which teaches both the theory and practice of building, as well in its details as in its leading outlines, may justly be regarded as nationally interesting, and cannot fail to become a permanent and standing work: The taste of its architecture involves the honour of the country; the firmness of private dwellings is no less connected with individual interest; and a work which has relation to both, possesses, on the broadest grounds, a strong claim to general consideration. But, in proportion as the nature of an undertaking is important, so ought the execution of it to be complete and accurate. This we conceive to be the case with "The Practical Builder;" and we doubt not that our opinion will be fully warranted, if not by the short sketch to which our limits necessarily confine us, yet, certainly, by that minute examination, which, we are quite sure, the best judges will bestow upon the production itself.

As the basis of the art of Building, in almost all its branches, the work commences with a short Treatise on Geometry, theoretical and practical, so far as that science is necessary to be understood by architects, builders, and workmen. This is obviously a very judicious commencement of such a work; for, unless those who are concerned in buildings be acquainted with the elements of Geometry, and are capable of applying them to practice, it is impossible they can discharge their duty with credit to themselves, or benefit to their employers.

Carpentry and Joinery being, in many respects, the most important branches of the constructive art, they are treated of at considerable length. Under these heads, a very minute explanation is given of the covering of solids, of groins and arches, of flooring, of lengthening timbers, of roofing, of niches, of bracketing for coves and cornices, of the various sorts of stairs and staircases, together with numerous particulars respecting these and other parts of buildings, into the details of which we cannot now enter, and must therefore refer our readers to the work itself, where they will find a scientific development of these several subjects. We cannot, however, refrain from particularly adverting to the instructions which are given with