it was erected as a fitting mausoleum over the bones of the departed hero. The beautiful passage we subjoin is descriptive of the country of Egypt, as seen for the first time by the invading host.

"Around its marge a realm of plenty glowed,

With breadths of corn and regions rich with dew:
While, to the south, a gloried City rose,

Deep harboured, and with many a marble round

Of citadel and turret, shrine and bower.

A space of splendour seemed it, a bright land

Of palaces and waters; by its shores

A wide armada, many-masted, lay

Glooming the sea; while inland stretching far,
Thick-fruited woods, with sultry tracts of spice,
Scented the sky up to the morning clouds.
Awhile, in wonder, gazed we on this scene,
Then pushing nearer to a shadowy steep,
That sentinelled the city, gazed below.

Broad through its streets a plenteous river flowed,
Fed with the rains of southern hills beyond,

And mirroring many a temple on its wave,

While conch-shaped barges ebon-ribbed with gold,
Came oared along the shining space beneath

The crimson floating of their gonfalons.
High o'er the roofs, just glittering in the morn,
A pillared shrine upon a steep arose,
White as some surging pile of Summer cloud,-
Levels of flashing steps ascending shone
Up to its spacious portal, swarmed with shapes
In many-coloured garbs, and glittering arms;
While rolling outward from its doomed hall,
Filled with the dawn, a golden gong swung forth
Its globe of tone, widening in circles down
O'er hill and river and across the sea,

As though a Sun were sounding; while afar,
Upon an azure-waved promontory,

The last of land that jutted oceanward,

An altar plumed with smoke arose, and priests
White-garbed around it in the sacred calm.

Our last extract shall be taken from the lively Poem, "China," descriptive of the habits and scenes, both urban and pastoral, of Chinese life; in this last the author of the "Versicles" will be found faithful to those fascinating beauties which stud his every page.

While soft the parting splendours fall
Upon each crescent pencill'd brow,
And eyes of glossy ebon small.
Now where yon blue pagoda's spires
Adown the hill their shadows fling,
The perfumes mist the altar fires,

The myriad bells of silver ring:
And on the spacious river bright

The fishing bird is seen to dive,
And through the thymy air and light
The bee sails toward the garden hive;
Till o'er the fretted temples brood

The sparkling orient stars, and soon
By many a stream and musky wood
Aflame with silver, floats the moon,
Though mighty azure ranges rolled,
Whence come from the Tartarean lea
The caravan with fur and gold,

The camel weighed with silk and tea.

We now bid farewell to Charles Mackay and Thomas Irwin, and in doing so, we take the liberty of wishing them God speed in their journey up

"The steep, where Fame's proud Temple shines afar."

Both have their faults as well as their beauties, and strangely enough, one possesses in extravagant abundance a quality in which the other is often singularly deficient; in the one instance, the pruning shears must be used with no dainty fingers; in the other, the plants must be cultivated with care, well watered, and a warmer atmosphere induced. The essential properties of the poet belong to both, and with them it rests to use them in such a manner as may win for each an exalted rank among their tuneful brethern. What we have said as to the absence of mystification in Irwin, applies equally to Mackay, and it cannot be too often mentioned to the honor of these men, that when almost every poetical writer of the day, from Tennyson to the humblest poetaster, has been mumbling like the inmate of a mad-house, they have kept aloof from the "profanum vulgus," and maintained inviolate, the dignity and majestic simplicity, which was bequeathed to them by the bards of a more inspired age. They have other claims upon our gratitude, and those are that they have evinced some deference to human sympathies and inclinations in the choice and treatment of their subjects; that they have succeeded in imparting instruction, as well as in giving pleasure; and above all, that they have been firm in their maintenance of truthful principles, cheerful hope, and sound morality. They are not indeed transcendental theorists, or the founders of chaotic systems, but they are the lucid expositors of those sublime realities, which are ever renewing and transforming, like the earth, their freshness and their beauty; and which like it possess at all times, new food for contemplation, new themes for wonder, new reasons to excite our love for him who has established them. They are not seekers after the philosopher's stone, nor do they chamelion-like aspire ardently for the possession of those realms somewhere mid-way between earth and sky, where everything is subject to atmospheric influences, and where they may watch for ever the habits and customs of the stars; but on the contrary, their endeavour is to demonstrate how happily we may live in our own planet, and how, to use a homely but a golden saying, "we may go

farther and fare worse." They seemingly prefer to unite more closely the bonds of universal love, to remove the fetters from our kindly impulses, and to scatter broadcast the seeds of a more generous confidence in each other, than to encourage scepticism in theological matters, openly promulgate pantheism, or insidiously endeavour to shake our faith in one another, and in God.

We have truly become very learned! There is an immense amount of enlightenment in this nineteenth century; nevertheless, we are no very sincere believers in the efficacious tendency of every phase of this learning, and of this enlightenment. We labor under "the atrocious crime of being a young man," and to us would not be applicable the proverb, senes laudant antiqua ;" yet it is not at all so evident to us that there is more solid happiness in the world now than formerly. We do not sigh for Arcadian bliss, and the mellifluous sounds produced by shepherds' reeds; but to our poor simple taste, men lived more wisely, and more pleasantly, before the remorseless chains of restraint flung their chilling links around us, checking the genial, healthy flow of social intercourse, and substituting pomp, prudery, and an artificial elegance, for natural grace and majesty, unaffected modesty, and the easy interchange of ideas. We shall soon become as stiff as mediaeval painting, and will require all the assistance of our vaunted science to give us the use of our limbs again; it is well for us, no doubt, that our locomotives form such a contrast to our languishing manners, or we know not in what it would all end. We fear the earth in its rotations would leave us behind it, and that we should roll down its sides, rather precipitately, into that "broad space," of which we have lately become such enthusiastic admirers. One thing appears to us quite clear, and that is that until we have unlearned much of our present so-called knowledge, we should not seek the acquisition of more; we know a great deal upon matters which are neither calculated to improve our minds or to encrease our happiness, and utter obliviousness of such attainments would not be attended with the slightest disadvantage. We must endeavour to become more natural in an intellectual view, as well as in a social one, less guided by conventional rules, and more by kindly impulses ; more swayed by ideas which grow out of the consideration of humanity, than by those of an abstractedly mental order.

We must substitute practical philanthropy, for idle vapouring; acts coming from the heart, for words proceeding from the lips; candor for equivocation, and simplicity for affectation. If we can succeed in achieving this reformation, our literature will have "renewed its youth like the eagle," and will enter again into the possession of that freshness, that lucidity, and that vigor, which formerly adorned it. Our ambition must be truly great, if it aspires at outrivalling our predecessors in the sphere of poetry; but if such be the object of its aim, strict adherence to the rules which guided them is the sole method by which it can be attained. We can only hope and pray for the speedy arrival of such a desirable result, and should we be so fortunate as to behold its realization, no inconsiderable source of pleasure will be afforded to us in the fact, that in our humble way we have been among the very few, who have boldly and frequently held up to public reprehension, the fatal, and rapidly extending vices which disfigure the pages of our Poets of the present day.

N. J. G.

ART. IV. THE REV. CHARLES WOLFE.

A close investigation into the annals of literature, would, we believe, have the effect of shewing that many of the choicest productions in prose and verse, have emanated from authors, who, in their life-time, were scarcely known beyond the narrow circle of family relations, and personal friends. It is not, however, our intention to examine into the causes of that neglect, which so many writers have experienced, until death has rendered them famous; still less, to make any allusion to the now thread-bare topic of the " calamities of authors," they are familiar to everyone in the least acquainted with the histories of the literary worthies of modern days. The subject of the present memoir was a striking exemplification of our opening remark. His life, spent as it was in the quiet retirement of a student, and the unobtrusive discharge of his sacred functions, presents scarcely an incident of any interest for his biographer to recount; and were it not for the fame he

has subsequently acquired, by the beauty of some of his poetical effusions, his brief career might-to use the language of Addison-"be comprised in those two circumstances, common to all mankind-that he was born upon one day, and died upon another." But he deserves more than a mere passing notice, when in him we consider the poet who at an early age had produced one of the most beautiful odes in the English language, and whose talents promised to place him in the very front rank of living authors; and still more, when we revere in him the exemplary minister of religion, whose untimely death was, in great measure, caused by his zealous devotion to his sacred duties.

Charles Wolfe, the author of the well known ode on the Burial of Sir John Moore, was born in Dublin on the 14th of December 1791. He was the youngest son of Theobald Wolfe, Esq., a gentleman of the County of Kildare, who had married a daughter of a clergyman named Lombard. His father's family was one of respectability, and although it seems doubtful that it was in any way connected with that from which had sprung the illustrious hero of Quebec; Mr. Wolfe was certainly a near relation of Lord Kilwarden, whose tragical fate is so well known. Wolfe at an early age had the misfortune to lose his father, and soon after his death the family left Ireland, and resided for some years in England. When ten years old, the subject of this memoir was sent to a school in Bath, where, however, he remained but for a few months, as in consequence of the delicate state of his health, he was obliged to return home. His recovery seems to have been tardy, as we learn from his friend and biographier, Archdeacon Russell, that his education was interrupted for a year. his health was sufficiently re-established to enable him to leave his home, he was sent to Salisbury, in which city he remained, under the tuition of Dr. Evans, until the year 1805, when he entered Hyde Abbey School at Winchester as a boarder. This school was then presided over by Mr. Richards, with whom Wolfe seems to have soon become a special favorite; indeed, from a very early age he appears to have displayed that sweetness of disposition and amiability of character for which he was always remarkable, and which justly endeared him to all who could boast of his friendship. With his mother he was deservedly an idol, and of his conduct towards her we have the following touching testimony from his sister:

When