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dull and common-place ode selected from Luis de Leon, the facile princeps of Spanish lyric poets. It seems to possess no recommendation but its rarity (being taken from an unpublished manuscript), and is in every respect inferior to those selected by Bouterwek and Sismondi, and the fine odes in Quintana's collection. We cannot resist the temptation of attempting to supply this defect by some extracts from the ode entitled "Noche Serena," which appears to us the finest of all.

"Quando contemplo el cielo."

I GAZE upon yon orbs of light-
The countless stars that gem the sky;
Each in its sphere serenely bright
Wheeling its course-how silently!
While in the mantle of the night
Earth and its cares and troubles lie.
Temple of light and loveliness,

And throne of grandeur, can it be
That souls, whose kindred loftiness
Nature hath framed to rise to thee,
Should pine within this narrow space,
This prison of mortality?
What madness from the path of right
For ever leads our steps astray,
That, reckless of thy pure delight,
We turn from this divine array,
To chase a shade that mocks the sight-
A good that vanisheth away?

Awake, ye mortals! raise your eyes
To these eternal starry spheres:
Look on these glories of the skies,
And see how poor this world appears,

With all its pomps and vanities-
With all its hopes and all its fears.
Who can look forth upon this blaze

Of heavenly lamps, so brightly shining,
Through the unbounded void of space-
A hand unseen their course assigning,
All moving with unequal pace,

Yet in harmonious concord joining.
Who sees the silver chariot move

Of the bright Moon; and, gliding slow,
The star whose influence from above
Sheds knowledge on the world below;
And the resplendent Queen of Love
All bright and beautifully glow:-
Or, where the angry God of War
Rolls fiercely on his bloody way,
And near the mild majestic star

That o'er the Gods of old held sway;
That beams his radiance from afar,

And calms the heavens beneath his ray.
Where Saturn shews his distant beam,
God of the golden days of yore;
Or where the countless stars, that seem
Thick as the sand upon the shore,

From their eternal seats a stream
Of glory and of radiance pour.
Who that hath seen these splendours roll,
And gazed on this majestic scene,
But sigh'd to 'scape this world's controul,
Spurning its pleasures poor and mean,
To burst the bonds that bind the soul,

And pass the gulf that yawn'd between ?

Our readers will, perhaps, remark the striking coincidence between the last of these stanzas and some lines of the brilliant moonlight scene in the "Siege of Corinth."

"Who ever gazed upon them shining,
And turn'd to earth without repining,
Nor wished for wings to flee away,
And mix with their eternal ray?"

The didactic poems, which form the second division of Faber's work, are the least interesting part of the collection. And if, as the author informs us in his preface, they contain the quintessence of human wisdom, we cannot help thinking that it is here alloyed by an uncommonly liberal allowance of tediousness and common-place. We shall hardly think of extracting poems upon death, where the reader is consoled for that inevitable consummation by the assurance that Samson, Hercules, Gideon, Judas Maccabæus, Cassandra, Helen and the Virgin Mary, for such is the orthodox arrangement of Fernan Perez de Guzman, have preceded him. We are not a little tempted, however, to enlighten them by a very luminous production of Cartagena, in which the great question of man's freewill is discussed in four stanzas, the combat between our good and evil inclinations being likened to a game at rackets, and God's prescience, by a very conclusive analogy, compared to the knowledge of a spectator, who infers from the superior dexterity of one of the parties that he will be the conqueror, but whose knowledge does not in any way influence the issue of the game. This, we certainly think, sets the question at rest. One of the most poetical pieces in this department is the old poem of Don Jorge Manrique on the death of his father Don Rodrigo, which breathes a fine spirit of pathos and morality, and wears an air of venerable simplicity. We have attempted to translate the opening stanzas, following the peculiarities of the rhyme; but we fear our readers will perceive more good sense than good poetry in our translation.

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And while we eye the rolling tide,

Down which our hasting minutes glide
Away so fast,

Let us the present hour employ,
And deem each future dream of joy
Already past.

Let no vain hope deceive the mind,
No happier let us hope to find
To-morrow than to-day :

Our golden dreams of yore were bright;
Like them the present shall delight,
Like them decay.

Our lives like hasting streams must be,
That into one engulfing sea

Are doom'd to fall:

The sea of death, whose waves roll on

O'er king and kingdom, crown and throne,
And swallow all.

Alike the river's lordly tide,

Alike the humble riv❜lets glide,

To that sad wave;

Death levels poverty and pride,

And rich and poor sleep side by side

Within the grave.

The following little ode of Francesco de Medrano is written with much tenderness and simplicity.

"O mil veces con migo reducido."

O tried in good and evil hour,

My partner through life's thorny track,
Propitious to my prayer, what power
Hath given thee to thy country back?

O partner of my soul, how soon
With thee the dancing moments flew ;
Unfelt the burning breath of noon,
Unfelt the icy breezes blew.

Companions in calamity,

We fled the stormy ocean's roar :
Me from the terrors of the sea

Fate bore in safety to the shore.
Thee hapless, the retreating wave
Swept to the ocean as it pass'd,
Again the watery war to brave,
Again to buffet with the blast.
Santiso, let thy grateful vow,

Thy thankful tear and prayer be given.
Safe at the last I see thee now,

And pour my silent thanks to Heaven.

O might we find in this repose

A home and harbour for our age,
Here might we rest, and calmly close
Our passions with our pilgrimage!

Here, where the early roses blow,

The first to bloom, the last to die :
Here, where the favouring heavens bestow
A constant spring and cloudless sky.

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Then come, the hasting moments flee,
The rustic board and wine invite :
How sweet with such a friend as thee
To steep those moments in delight!

The amorous poems are in general exceedingly interesting. Though disfigured by occasional conceits or agudezas, as they are gently styled by the Spanish critics, their defects are much more than redeemed by frequent pathos, and by a constant gracefulness of conception and expression, which is very much increased by the melody of the regular recurrence of the rhymes and choruses. The following anonymous little piece affords a fair specimen of this class.

"Ebro caudaloso."

O! broad and limpid river,
O! banks so fair and gay,
O! meadows verdant ever,

O! groves in green array,
O! if in field or plain

My love should hạp to be,
Ask if her heart retain
A thought of me.
O! clear and crystal dews

That in the morning ray,
All bright with silvery hues,
Make field and foliage gay:
O! if in field or plain

My love should hap to be,
Ask if her heart retain

A thought of me.

O! elms that to the breeze

With waving branches play,
O! sands, where oft at ease
Her careless footsteps stray:
O! if in field or plain

My love should chance to be,
Ask if her heart retain

A thought of me.
O! warbling birds that still
Salute the rise of day,
And plain and valley fill
With your enchanting lay:
O! if in field or plain
My love should hap to be,
Ask if her heart retain

A thought of me.

We shall conclude our extracts with two "chanzonetas" from the

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Aunque con semblance ayrado.”

Bright Eyes! though in your glances lie

Disdain and cruelty:

Bright Eyes! ye cannot now deny

That ye have look'd on me.

Though death within that frozen air,

And angry glances lay:

What woe could with the bliss

Of gazing on their ray?

compare,

Though pierced with mortal agonies
My wounded bosom be,

I smile amidst my pain-bright eyes!
For ye have look'd on me.

Ye look'd on me with angry gaze,
And hoped to work me woe,

But good for ill, those heavenly rays,
And life for death bestow :

For though your angry glances shew
Disdain and cruelty;

Fair Eyes! I cannot feel my woe,
Since ye have look'd on me.

The next forms an excellent pendant to the preceding.

"Ojos bellos no os ficis."

Fair Eyes! be not so proudly gay

In these your golden years:

The smile that gilds the cheek to-day,
To-morrow turns to tears.

My love thou knowest not, thou art
So used to victories,

How heavy on a lover's heart

His love's unkindness lies.

Soon will thy coldness waste away
My few remaining years,

And thou, when I have pass'd away,
May'st yet lament in tears.
Thou art so strong in loveliness,
So bright with beauty's arms,
Thy haughty coldness is not less
Than thy resplendent charms.
Yet think, ere death at rest shall lay
My sorrows and my fears,

That thou, when I am gone for aye,
May'st yet lament in tears.

Thy mirthful mood shall change when thou
Shalt with sad eye discover

The death, alas! not distant now

Of thy too faithful lover.

Then shall the cold disdain give way

That in thine eyes appears;

Fair Eyes! although in smiles ye slay,
Ye shall repent in tears.

More deep, more bitter grows my care,

As grows thy cruelty;

My sighs are scatter'd on the air,
My hopes decay and die.

And can thy cheek be calmly gay
While mine such sadness wears?
And canst thou bid me die to-day,
To wail that death with tears?

ON LIPS AND KISSING. "But who those ruddy lips can miss,

Which blessed still themselves do kiss."

As the Editor of the New Monthly Magazine inserted a paper upon Noses in one of his earlier numbers, I hope he will think I am rather advancing than receding in dignity of subject, if I request admission for a few remarks on lips, an appendage that ministers so much more copiously to our gratifications than that cartilaginous projection which in many human subjects may be defined as a mere carneous snuff-box, affixed between the two eyes. How various, delicate, and delightful, on the contrary, are the functions of the lips! I purpose not to treat them anatomically, or I might expatiate on the exquisite flexibility of those muscles, which by the incalculable modulations they accomplish, supply different languages to all the nations of the earth, and hardly ever fatigue the speaker, though they so often prove wearisome to the auditor. Nor shall I dwell upon the opposite impressions which their exercise is calculated to excite, from the ruby mouth of a Corinna "warbling immortal verse and Tuscan air," to the lean-lipped Xantippe deafening her hen-pecked mate, or the gruff voice of the turnkey

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