The Sun.
London, England, 1828-08-28 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

POEMS, BY AIRS. G. G. RICHARDSON.
EDINBURGH, 1828.
We have been much pleased with this little
unassuming volume, which contains many Poems
of a respectable calibre, and some few of superior
talent. All, however—and this is no slight
praise—are characterised by sweetness and pro-
priety of feeling. The stanzas on the Death of
that most promising young Poet, Pollok, are
rather of a high order, and possess a justness of
thinking, and occasionally a strength of expression,
that do credit to the heart and head of Mrs.
Richardson. But it is too long—far too long,
for any purpose of extract ; so we must content
ourselves instead, with giving the following
Poems, the former of which is simply and un-
affectedly beautiful:--
SONNET.

My darling boy ! light of my sinking heart !
Through shades of hov'ring death, still sweet to me !
Tho' from thy dearer father warn'd to part,
Death seems more cruel when I gaze on thee ! -
Yet thou, (the only one of all I love !)
Wilt sigh ngt, pause not, drop for me no tear—
A'broken toy, a scattei'd flow r, will move
In thee more sorrow than thy mother's bier !
Fantastic thought ! and yet how strangely sad—
That when in death's cold clasp, all faded lies,
Thy youthful mother—once in thee how glad !
Thou may'st as now, gaze on with laughing eyes—
Peering on arduous tip-toe o'er her bed—
Unconscious that she never more shall rise !

A MOTHER'S DIRGE.
What to me are daisies springing?
Lambs that frolic o'er the lea?
Merle and throstle gaily singing ?
Bring they aught of joy to me?
! such sights and sounds of gladness,
Warbling groves, and flowery• bloom,
Mock the mourner's settled sadness,--
Mock the winter of :he tomb !

Hush'd she lies, whose notes resounding
Vernal joy, could most delight ;
Still she lies, who, blithely bounding,
awed the swallow on his flight :
She, whose buds of soul and feature
Far mare precious ! charm'd my view,
Breathes no more the breath of nature—
Sleeps beneath the mournful yew.
Lambkins ! near the turf resorting,
Where my darling's ashes are,
Gaze awhile, nor cease your sporting !
Kindred innocence lies there !
Not unenvying can I view ye,
All unconsciously at play ;
Grief, nor care, nor thought pursue ye,
Thro' your brief and jocund day.
Ev'ty birth of Spring that's breathing,—
Ev'ry eye that meets the sun,—
Sv'ry shoot its tendrils wreathing,
That. has yet its course to run :
Glitt'ring myriads all employing,
Nature's boon and bounteous store
All, a share of time enjoying,
Tell me, darling ! thine is o'et!.
We are glad to find that in these days of the
false, the affected, and the exaggerated in poetry,
Mrs. Richardson gives fair play to the healthy
and natural emotions of her mind. She describes
impulses as they rise instinctively within her, not
as they are forced up on a hot-bed of maudlin
sentimentality. This may at first give to her
poems an air of feebleness; but nature will find
her level, and a little consideration on the part
of the reader, prove that our fair Authoress has
rightly applied, not distorted, the powers of her
mind.

DOMESTIC POLITICS.

The speech of Mr. George Robert Dawson, in•
serted in our publication of Monday last, has been
followed by a mass of conflicting and most furious
comments, the like of which we scarcely ever re-
member to have seen during our acquaintance with
the Press. The cause of all this is obvious enough.
Those persons who are anxious for the Catholic
cause, think they see in Mr. Dawson's conduct, a
proof that the Government of the country is coming
round to the measure, while those who are hostile to
Emancipation, although they cannot disguise from
themselves a conviction of the same kind, are, on
this very account, equally vehement in their re-
proaches against a gentleman, whom they were ac-
customed to regard as one of their most strenuous
and eloquent leaders.
It seems to us, that the Government is at length
resolved to set about settling this question. We
are aware of the difficulties attending it—but our
neighbours, perhaps, see more than after all will be
found to exist. It will be impossible fur England
to assume the station which she ought in the So-
ciety of nations, and which she will lose, if she do
not speedily bestir herself) while Ireland remains,
not in a state of disturbance indeed, but of great
agitation.
No reasonable man can feel a doubt, that if this
country which will this year save England from the
horrors of famine—which has withiii herself so many
natural resources of all kinds, which is, in point of
fact, one of the finest and most friltful islands in the
world—no man, we say, can entertain a reasonable
doubt, that in the process of a few years, if peace
and harmony, good fellowship and good feeling, were
restored to the land, that she would speedily be-
come as remarkable far manufacturing industry, as
she is now for her agricultural produce. All that is
wanting to bring forth her latent capabilities is capi-
tal—that she cannot have—that she cannot expect
to have, while the People of England continue to
regard this country as the focus of agitation. It is
not to be exoectea that with the character Ireland
has obtained for disturbances, capital can flow into
her with a view .to manufacturing speculation. No
doubt these representations are frightfully exagge-
rated. We always maintained they were so, and
more especially when the People of England were
throwing their money into the American mines—
we said, that they could find a more beneficial in-
vestment in the mines of Ireland, in erecting
cotton mills here, and for other purposes that
would prove equally serviceable to the speculator
and the country. But the constant voice of con-
tending parties—the uproar generated by political
questions in Ireland, subdued the still small voice of
reason ; anti, upon a sober estimate of the matter, we
do not really feel surprised at the mistakes, as we
still think them,- of our fellow-subjects in Great
Britain. Not a Newspaper crosses the Irish Chan-
nel that is not fraught with party politics ; nor do
we blame our cotemporaries ; it can be scarcely
otherwise, when we consider that party politics is
the first, the last, and, seeing that We have not much
other business to attend to, almost the only thing
thought of, or spoken about, in Ireland.
Let us hope, that a better order of things is ap-
proaching—that a new era is coming round, in
which the contentions of Irishmen shall be confined
to the peaceable struggles between individuals and
bodies of men, in winch the question will not be,
What is your Creed ? but what is your Trade ? in
which People will not place so great a stress upon
the opinions or declarations of a Secretary of the
Treasury—or upon the ' Lord High Treasurer him-
self, but upon their own industry—their own efforts,
on their own capital, credit, and commerce. Such a
period, notwithstanding all the lets and hindrances
by which the prospects of the country are obscured
and impeded, is, we are fully persuaded, near at hand.
—Dublin Morning Advertiser.

Madame PASTA iS now ill Paris, but the ma-
naqer of the Italian Opera House, not feeling it prudent to
comply with the enormous terms which ski demands, the
Parisians are not likely to have an opportunity of hearing
her during the present season.