Art. IV. Napoleon and other Poems. By Bernard Barton. 8vo. pp. xvi, 256. Price 12s. London. 1822.

W E have few readers who will not welcome another volume from Bernard Barton, the poetical Friend. But what have we here? Napoleon, a poem, dedicated to George the Fourth! 7 Lurks there ambition, then, beneath the ample beaver and quiet manner of this follower of Penn, which has prompted this high and courtly flight? Not so. Friend Barton has only taken occasion from the death of Napoleon, to advocate the cause of Peace; and with an honest and upright zeal, he in- › scribes the poem, with all due respect,' to the monarch of a› 'nation eminently distinguished by its high profession of Chris-› tianity, and its zealous efforts to extend the Gospel.'

• The Author is aware that a poem under the designation of NAPOLEON, may suggest anticipations which his performance was never intended to realize and should he be compelled to plead guilty to a misnomer, he trusts his more candid readers will accept as his apology the simple statement of the fact, that the death of Napoleon actually gave rise to the reflections contained in the poem; and that its design was less" to adorn a tale," than to " point a moral," which the chequered lot of this extraordinary man had strikingly suggested.

With respect to the sentiments expressed in the poem on the subject of war, the Author rather wishes to submit them to the indulgence of his readers, and respectfully to request for them their serious reflection, than argumentatively to attempt their defence. He admits them to be the sentiments of one to whom all war, under the Christian dispensation, is unlawful. But as this opinion is the avowed and well-known tenet of a religious society, with which he has never concealed his own connexion, and whose faith and doctrine on this important topic is cordially assented to by him; he can hardly conceive it possible for what he has written either to excite surprise, or to give offence.'

They will, assuredly, have neither of these effects: they are sentiments which claim, and will ensure respect where they fail to produce conviction. For our own part, although we cannot go the length of the Peace Society, in some of their positions on the subject of War, there are few cases in which we should be found practically to differ from them. In the general tenor of Mr. Barton's sentiments, we entirely coincide. But when he argues that ⚫ all war is still

Forbidden by the law which says Thou shalt

not kill,'

he appears to us to forget that that law was given under a dispensation which expressly sanctioned war, even to the extent of a judicial extermination of the heathen nations, and which made the extinction of life by the sword of the magistrate, the penalty

1.

of various offences. The letter of the sixth commandment cannot, therefore, extend to war as war, any more than to capital punishments, because that would be to make the Divine law, under the Jewish dispensation, inconsistent with itself.

That the occasion of war is in all cases purely evil, and that wars and fightings have uniformly originated in men's evil passions, will readily be admitted. Still, such an admission fails to supply any ground for the conclusion, that all war is unlawful. All physical suffering has its origin in moral evil. The occasion of even just punishment, is evil. War, equally with criminal punishments, is, professedly and ostensibly, a remedial measure its occasion is crime. But whether it be in its own nature essentially criminal, must be determined by other considerations. It is at least not self-evident.

The Society of Friends consistently deny even the right of the magistrate to take away life. Our readers are sufficiently aware that we are no advocates for capital punishments. But if the execution of a malefactor were incompatible with the doctrine of Christian forgiveness, or the exercise of Christian charity, then, all punishment that had not the good of the offender for its measure and ultimate object, would be liable to the same objection. The reformation of the offender ought never to be lost sight of by human laws; but there are some cases in which that is rendered hopeless by the character of the offender, and some in which it must be sacrificed to other and more peremptory considerations. The primary end of punishment is, most assuredly, to deter others from offending; and the principle on which all punishment proceeds, is, not that of ill-will to the culprit, but of regard to the general weal. And for this purpose the sword is entrusted to the magistrate by God himself. There is nothing inconsistent, therefore, in praying for the very criminal whom we are the instrument of delivering up to justice; nothing incompatible in our forgiving him the personal wrong for which the laws justly visit him with punishment. To suppose every prosecutor instigated by malice, would be equally erroneous and uncharitable.

Now, in a strictly defensive war, it appears to us that the injury inflicted on the aggressor by repelling his attack, even when it extends to taking away his life, can no more be chargeable upon private malice or vindictive feeling, than the punishment of a malefactor. In point of fact, even in unjust and unjustifiable warfare, personal enmity has seldom any influence on the combatants. The conduct of our British sailors more especially towards their fallen enemies, has proverbially been characterized by magnanimity and kindness. We can perceive no necessary inconsistency in a good man's praying for the

very enemies he is about to combat, supposing his cause to be good, and his engaging in the warfare involuntary. The familiar case of an invasion would, in our view, place him in such a predicament. But if such a case be imaginable, the argument against war as war, drawn from the doctrine of Christian forgiveness, falls to the ground. It would equally apply to all sorts of punishment,-to the infliction of privation, not less than of positive injury, on those who oppress, attack, or offend against us.

Praying now with Huss,

And then with Zisca fighting,'

is indeed a flagrant and monstrous discrepancy. Nothing can be more plainly forbidden than the attempt to extend the cause of Christ by violence. When Paul stood upon his rights, it was not as a Christian, but as a Roman, a citizen of no mean city. And so, "if any man suffer as a Christian," that is, on account of his religion, the duty of an unresisting submission appears to us to be manifest. "If ye suffer for righteousness' sake, happy are ye." All religious wars, as they have been termed, as well as all penal laws and proceedings in matters purely religious, are in the most flagrant contrariety to the express mandate, as well as the spirit and example of the Saviour. All private resistance to even unjust laws is forbidden by the same authority. But war, as war, comes under neither class of prohibitions, and must be deprecated on other grounds.

It is only as to the abstract question, however, that real Christians of every denomination will be found to differ. As to the true character of wars in general,—their unjustifiable origin, barbarous and unprincipled nature, and ruinous consequences, we are ready to concede all that Mr. Barton wish. The line he quotes from Cowper, is a text which would furnish a still more ample commentary than he founds upon it:

War is a game, which, were their subjects wise,
Kings would not play at.'

can

We shall not enter further into the argument of the leading poem. We applaud the Author's spirit and his motives; his sentiments are unexceptionable, whatever may be thought of his arguments; and there is much in the execution to command and to repay repeated perusal. The didactic nature of the subject has given a heaviness to some passages of the poem, which was scarcely avoidable; and Mr. Barton has occasionally ventured upon a colloquial freedom and fluency in his versification, which can be pardoned only when eloquence is substituted for poetry, Stanzas 33, 34, 39, and 41, supply instances of a rhythm too closely bordering on prose. Yet, with all these

deductions, the poem is worthy of its Author; and this, after the opinion we have more than once expressed respecting Mr. Barton's talents, is no equivocal praise. We subjoin a few

stanzas.

What is Napoleon now,-admitting all

His former talents, enterprise, and power?
The time has been, nor distant, when the thrall
Of his portentous name made monarchs cower,
And tremble in the proudest palace-tower:
Fate seemed his fiat, fortune as his guide;
And empire, held by suffrance, was the dower
Which, when he took unto himself a bride,

He spared an elder throne, with cool contemptuous pride.
What is he now? Ten years ago his death

Had spread through Europe with a voice of thunder;
Fame's trump had blazon'd with her loudest breath
The tale; and many a captive, groaning under
The conqueror's yoke, had snapt his chains asunder.
Stupid indifference now supplies the place,

In many minds, of that mute vacant wonder

They then had known, what time they paused a space,
Before they deem'd him dead, with solemn doubtful face.

He dies upon a surf-surrounded rock!

Far from each court, and every courtly ring;
Far from the fields where once, in battle's shock,
Death stalk'd around him, a familiar thing:
His eagle long before had furl'd his wing;
His star of honour set, to rise no more!
Nor could a hope remain that time might bring
Glory to either spell, as heretofore;
Therefore to him the life of life itself was o'er.

And we who of his death the tidings hear,
Receive them as a tale of times gone by,
Which wakes nor joy, nor grief, nor hope, nor fear :
And if in nobler hearts a passing sigh

For such a lot reflection may supply,

Few follow up that feeling to its source :

The multitude, with undiscerning eye,

See all around pursue its usual course,

And care not for his death, nor thoughts it should enforce.'

We now turn with pleasure to the minor poems which compose the bulk of the volume. In the very front, its proper station, we have a noble poem to the Sun, from which we cannot resist making a long extract.

"Monarch of day, once rev'rently adored

By virtuous Pagans, if no longer thou

With orisons art worshipped, as the lord
Of the delightful lyre, or dreadful bow;
If thy embodied essence be not now,

As it once was, regarded as divine;
Nor blood of victims at thine altar flow,

Nor clouds of incense hover round thy shrine,

Yet fitly may'st thou claim the homage of the Nine.

• Nor can I deem it strange, that in past ages

Men should have knelt and worshipp'd thee; that kings, And laurell'd bards, rob'd priests, and hoary sages,

Should, far above all sublunary things,

Have turn'd to thee, whose radiant glory flings
Its splendour over all. Ere Gospel light

Had dawn'd, and given to thought sublimer wings,
I cannot marvel, in that mental night,

That nations should obey, and nature own thy right.
For man was then, as now he is, compell'd
By conscious frailties manifold, to seek
Something to worship. In the heart, unquell'd
By innate evil, thoughts there are which speak
One language in Barbarian, Goth, or Greek:
A language by the heart well understood,
Proclaiming man is helpless, frail, and weak,
And urging him to bow to stone, or wood,

Till what his hands had form'd his heart rever'd as good.
Do I commend idolatry?-O no!

I merely would assert the human heart

Must worship that its hopes and fears will go

:

Out of itself, and restlessly depart

In search of somewhat which its own fond art,
Tradition, custom, or sublimer creed

Of Revelation brings, to assuage the smart

With which its inward wounds too often bleed;

When nature's boasted strength is found a broken reed.

Can it be wondrous then, before the name

Of the ETERNAL GOD was known, as now, That orisons were pour'd, and votaries came To offer at thine altars, and to bow

Before an object beautiful as thou?

No, it was natural, in those darker days,

For such to wreathe around thy phantom brow

A fitting chaplet of thine arrowy rays,

Shaping thee forth a form to accept their prayer or praise.

Even I, majestic Orb! who worship not

The splendour of thy presence, who control

My present feelings, as thy future lot

Is painted to the vision of my soul,

When final darkness, like an awful scroll,

Shall quench thy fires;-even I, if I could kneel