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the people which they always reserve to themselves , as that of their trial pet pares , &c . I speak of a judgment beginning and ending here . " I offer not this to the end that the judgment might be receded from , but that the good and tender people of this nation may be provided for , for the future ; that it may not be drawn into precedent , to the prejudice of the good people of the nation . "—Pp . 274 , 275 . We laave quoted rather largely from the debate on this subject , as the one most indicative of the religious zeal and temper of the times . In a future number we shall probably resume" our review of this book , and be more miscellaneous in our selections .
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394 Review : ~—Montgomery s Petfcan Island .
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Art . II . ;—TIte Pelican Island and other Poems . By James Montgomery . Longman and Co . 1827 . Pp . 264 . This is a Poem which we fear will not be generally popular , and yet it will probably meet with some warm admirers . All whose love of choice poetry is really deep-seated , who can be content to consider a subject over and over , who delight to recur hundreds of times to an exquisite piece of
description , who never forget the impression which detached beauties have made upon them , and are more grateful to an author for bright ideas than for impassioned and exciting incident or language , will prize ** the Pelican Island . " It is , however , much too long , and too hazardous a trial of strength . The formation of a coral reef , and the birth and death of a series of pelicans are subjects which none but a most imaginative mind would have thought of expatiating upon at all ; but yet all this is by far the finest and most interesting part of the poem . When human beings are at last introduced , we look back with regret to the lovely island , its capillary
architects , and the maternal birds that wage no warfare with the instincts of nature , and are tempted to wish the song had begun and closed with them . Indeed , we cannot help suspecting that Mr . Montgomery ' s original intention was to do no more than to sketch a picture ; and that the three last cantos have been superadded for the sake of a moral . There is at least a want of force and distinctness in the impression left by the whole , which seems to infer no very determinate plan in the mind of the author . Still , in rising through the varieties of being , from the coral worm to the sage ardently seeking the blessing of acquaintance with his Creator , he has pursued a track which could not fail to lead him through scenes physically and morally
interesting . The subject of " the Pelican Island" was suggested by a passage in Captain Flinder ' s Voyage to Terra Australis , descriptive of two islands near the coast of New Holland , which appear to have been selected for ages as the breeding place of numerous flights of pelicans , and , from the number of skeletons and bones scattered about , it would seem , for the closing scene of their existence also . Upon this slight foundation Mr . Montgomery has constructed his poem 5 first , however , describing the creation of the island itself , originally thrown up b y the labours of the coral worm . The account of the progress of the reef is highly beautiful :
MEvery one , By instinct taught , performed its little task : —To build ita dwelling and its sepulchre ,
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1828, page 394, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2561/page/34/
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