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resist, and that they would occupy a large portion of your time. only way to ensure his company, my dear sir, is to marry him to a steady, amiable young woman, who, not having been thrown into the vortex of fashion, will find pleasure in domestic life. Then her husband will become equally domestic, and you will be all very happy together.' Your father agreed with me, and appeared very anxious that it should take place. I then very carefully introduced Miss Temple, saying, that I knew you had a slight partiality in that quarter, highly commending her beauty, prudence, &c. I stated, that feeling an interest about you, I had gone down into the country where she resided, and had made her acquaintance, and had been much pleased with her; that since she had come up to town with her relations, I had seen a great deal, and had formed so high an opinion of, and so strong an attachment to her, and had felt so convinced that she was the very person who would make you happy and domestic, that having no family myself, I had some idea of adopting her. At all events, that if she married you, I was determined to give her something very handsome on the day of the wedding."

"But, my dear sir, why should you not have said that Susannah Temple was left an orphan at seven years old, and her fortune has accumulated ever since; it is by no means despicable, I understand, from Mr. Cophagus; and moreover, Mr. Cophagus intends to leave her all his property."

"I am very glad to hear it, Japhet, and will not fail to communicate all this to your father, but there is no reason why I may not do as I please with my own money—and I love that girl dearly. Bythe-bye, have you ever said any thing to her ?”

"O yes, sir, we are pledged to each other."

"That's all right; I thought so, when I saw your fingers hooked together in the carriage. But now, Japhet, I should recommend a little indifference-not exactly opposition, when your father proposes the subject to you. It will make him more anxious, and when you consent, more obliged to you. I have promised to call upon him to-morrow, on that and other business, and you had better be out of the way."

"I shall be out of the way, sir; I mean to go with Harcourt to Lady de Clare's. I shall ask for the carriage."

"He will certainly lend it to you, as he wishes to get rid of you; but here we are. God bless you, my boy."

(To be concluded in our next.)

FAMILY PORTRAITS.

BY MRS. ABDY.

DIM portraits of an age past by,
How oft in childhood's artless days,
Would thy grave stateliness supply

Themes for my wondering awe and praise!
Each spreading hoop and tightened waist,
And sweeping train were prized by me,
And much I censured modern taste,
Vain of my gorgeous ancestry.

Yon splendid dame in plumes and pearls,
Seemed by the Graces' hand arrayed,
Who could resist such powdered curls,
Or gaze unmoved on such brocade?
And the trim courtier by her side,

Some score of hearts I deemed had won,
In wig, and sword, and ruffles wide,
He looked a very Grandison!

Fain would I here some annals trace
Of wonder, peril, or mischance;
But 'tis in vain-our luckless race
Boasts not one story of romance.

And if it did, romance I fear

Has almost lost its spell for me, The tales I tell, and those I hear, Are now of plain reality.

Yet even in this time of truth,

These portraits cause my heart to thrill,

Not with the ecstasies of youth,

But with a holier feeling still.

The dreams have fled that wrapped me then, But in their subjects I can claim

A race of honourable men,

And matrons of unblemished fame.

'Twas theirs in tranquil ease to move, Yet their calm ways could brightened be By many a kindly deed of love,

And prayer of fervent piety.

Malice ne'er dared their lives to scan,
In duty's hallowed path they trod,
Their actions were approved by man,
Their souls, I trust, received by God.
Oh! may their honoured names obtain
No spot from thought or deed of mine,
May I the principles retain,

Transmitted from a worthy line.

And may I meet and recognise
Hereafter in a happier sphere,

The forms that pleased my childish eyes,
And won my simple homage here.

MISS LANDON'S VOW OF THE PEACOCK.

The Vow of the Peacock, and other Poems. By L. E. L. Author of the "Improvvisatrice," "The Golden Violet," &c. Saunders and Otley, Conduit Street.

A DESCRIPTION at once accurate and comprehensive, has often been demanded, of " What is Poetry?" We believe that the world has not yet had an answer, that may be justly called universally satisfactory. We have a reply ready, to which, at least, a very extensive circle will make no cavil it is, "Miss Landon's feelings verbally expressed." If it be asked still further, where they are so verbally expressed, we respond, at once, in the book now under our notice. This definition, it may be urged, is comprehensive enough, and any thing but accurate. We, however, assert it to be true, as far as accuracy implies truth. That beautiful tact, the offspring of exalted sentiments, of making the true, by means of the false, lovely and triumphant, is most eminently hers. The power of transforming mere matter into mind, and sublimating dull reality into inspired idealty, she possesses in a degree not surpassed by any living writer, and approached but by few of the aspirants for poetical fame.

As, at the first beams of the sun, the wide landscape, before but so dimly seen, starts into life, and light, and beauty, so does her mind flash into poetry the moment her eye rests upon any object that contains even but a little of the Promethean fire. She saw Mr. M'Cliso's picture of the "Vow of the Peacock," the electric spark was communicated to her soul, and the world has the beautiful poem, the title of which heads this article.

But, after all, grateful as the world will be to her for this production, how little has that world received of the gorgeous images, the lofty aspirations, that must have swelled her bosom even to ecstasy, when she sate down to pen the crowding and many-tinted thoughts, that must have made her waking dream an actual visitation to Paradise. How poor and insignificant must be the unexpressed, and the inexpressible, when compared with what the poverty of the language will permit her to pour forth in her musical numbers, to an applauding world! Of the picture to which we are indebted for so much pleasure, we shall say but little. The brand may be mean that lights up the altar fire, the incense of which ascends into heaven. If we do not speak in raptures of this painting, that has been the cause of so many, Miss Landon will forgive us, and we will, for her sake, henceforward remember it only through the medium of her own sweet poetry.

The poem of the "Vow of the Peacock" opens with a fine burst of false philosophy, yet of the most genuine and elevated poetry. In this case, the poetess has thrown all the gorgeous beauty that really exists in the true, over the false. We read, we become impassioned, and in love with that morbidness of mind, that sees nothing good or glorious in the resplendent present that a beneficent Deity has so bounteously

spread out before us. But even this distaste for the present, and adoration for the past, involves an absurdity, for we feel a high present pleasure in the very act of asserting, (for we go along with the author,) that this same present has not pleasure to administer. The past is made most beautiful by the beauty of the present.

The metrical tale of the "Vow of the Peacock," is fabled to have been sung by a young page to a queen; and this slight introduction is made touching by many quiet, tender, and beautiful thoughts. He sings to this effect, that the Queen of Cyprus has been traitorously dispossessed of her throne by her uncle-guardian, and barely escapes from death, or perpetual incarceration, by means of flight, she repairs to Venice, and finds there Count Leoni, about to celebrate a splendid tournament. She petitions him by his vow of knighthood, to turn the gallantry of a pageant into the heroism of actual war, for the vindication of her right. The request is joyfully acceded to. Love suddenly usurps the bosom of the distressed queen and her noble vindicator; and he, and all his martial followers, take the "Vow of the Peacock." True love, though shared by queens and belted knights, will run not the more smooth on that account. Count Leoni has brought up an orphan, much younger than himself, upon whom, as he lavishes the endearments grown people give to children, she in return lavishes upon him every feeling, thought, and affection that women know. She at once, at the festal commemoration of the "Vow," understands her lost situation. She cannot wholly resign, whom she knows she can never possess. She darkens her complexion, and sails disguised as a page, with the lovers to Cyprus.

For once might and right are on the same side. The usurper is slain; and then, when ambition and love are about to crown the conqueror, he discovers whom the devoted being is that has so zealously attended them. However, the struggle between the point of honour and passion is not long. The orphan herself cuts the gordian knot that tied up the fates of these three persons so perplexingly. An assassin enters Leoni's tent in the dead hour of night, and the orphan and hopeless one saves the loved life of her early protector, by interposing her own. By this sacrifice, so emphatically a woman's, all difficulties are removed. The count and queen marry, and happiness is the result, so say the chronicles and Miss Landon, to all parties, not excepting those most interested, their mutual subjects.

This abridgment, that must appear so dry to the reader, is merely the bare walls of a splendid and elegant temple that Miss Landon has erected to poetry, in which she has crowded a profusion of beauties, and built up an altar to the deity of that passion, who is with her so refined and exalted-Love.

Were we to make a selection of all the excellent passages of this poem, peradventure we should offend her publishers, as they might have some objection to our transcribing the whole work. But a few we must appropriate to our pages. As Miss Landon is so passionately enamoured of the past, our readers shall briefly know why, in the following quotation.

"The past! ah, we owe it a tenderer debt,
Heaven's own sweetest mercy is not to forget;

Its influence softens the present, and flings
A grace, like the ivy, wherever it clings.
Sad thoughts are its ministers-angels that keep
Their beauty to hallow the sorrows they weep.
The wrong, that seemed harsh to our earlier mood,
By long years with somewhat of love is subdued ;-
The grief, that at first had no hope in its gloom,
Ah, flowers have at length sprung up over the tomb.
The heart hath its twilight, which softens the scene,
While memory recalls where the lovely hath been.
It builds up the ruin, restores the grey tower,
Till there looks the beauty still from her bower.
It leans o'er the fountain, and calls from the wave
The naiad that dwelt with her lute in the cave ;-
It bends by the red rose, and thinketh old songs:-
That leaf to the heart of the lover belongs.
It clothes the grey tree with the green of its spring,
And brings back the music the lark used to sing.
But spirits yet dearer attend on the past,

When alone, 'mid the shadows the dim hearth has cast;
Then feelings come back, that had long lost their tone,

And echo the music that once was their own.

Then friends, whose sweet friendship the world could divide,
Come back with kind greetings, and cling to our side.

The book which we loved when our young love was strong;-
An old tree long cherished, a nursery song ;-

A walk slow and pleasant by field and by wood ;-
The winding 'mid water-plants of that clear flood,
Where lilies, like fairy queens, looked on their glass,—
That stream we so loved in our childhood to pass.

Oh! world of sweet phantoms, how precious thou art!
The past is perpetual youth to the heart.

The past is the poet's,-that world is his own;
Thence hath his music its truth and its tone.

He calls up the shadows of ages long fled,

And light, as life lovely, illumines the dead.

And the beauty of time, with wild flowers and green,

Shades and softens the world-worn, the harsh and the mean.
He lives, he creates, in those long-vanished years-
He asks of the present but audience and tears."

Miss Landon is always peculiarly happy in her graphic manner of portraying nature, and giving her scenes a brightness more sweet and beautiful, than even that of sunshine. The following lines display a picture that ought to make a young painter wild with excitement; though, we fear, did he ask his palette for colours to perpetuate it upon canvass, he would be wild with despair.

"It was an eve when June was calling

The red rose to its summer state.

When dew-like tears around are falling--
Such tears as upon pity wait.

The woods obscured the crimson west,

Which yet shone through the shadowy screen

Like a bright sea in its unrest,

With gold amid the kindling green.

But softer lights and colours fall

Around the olive-sheltered hall,
Which, opening to a garden, made
Its own, just slightly broken, shade.
Beneath a marble terrace spread,
Veined with the sunset's flitting red.

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