Bear'st thou not thence along
My dark-brow'd sister's song,

Her song so potent gentle hearts to move;
Whose sweet and maiden tone

Perchance hath sweeter grown,

Now blended with the quiet sighs and tender notes of love?

Or she, the mild-ey'd maid,
Perchance by moonlight stray'd,

Quietly gazing at the silent sky;

When thou didst catch her thought,
With such calm rapture fraught,

To breathe it o'er my weary soul, deliciously.

Oh! thou hast nought to do

Upon the ocean blue,

Filling with busy breath the mariner's sails;

No worldly dull employment,

Thou bodyless enjoyment,

Is thine, nor aught hast thou to do with wild and warring

gales.

But peacefully thou roamest,

And wheresoe'er thou comest,

Breathest around the freshness of the skies;

And on our hearts dost fling,

From thy enchanted wing,

Remembrances of absent love, calm thoughts, and happy sighs.

I know that thou art come

From my far distant home,

And thy calm breathings tell what peace is there;
But, gentle, say, returning,

Say not my soul is burning

With disappointment's bitter sting and comfortless despair.

Say that my spirit knows
Sweet moments of repose;

That dear and happy musings still are mine;
That Hope's bright dreams are flown,
But many a lingering tone

Of Memory's music lulls me yet to ecstasies divine.

JUAN.

Caernarvon Castle.

EMBLEM of Cambria's bondage! loftiest pile!
That rear'st thy head above the Menai's roar;
And look'st with frowning aspect on yon isle-
The Druids' sacred haunt in days of yore-
Can thy proud battlements, thy castled height,
Checking each manly thought, each feeling bright,
Grant to the despot, in his power elate,
Requital for an injured people's hate?

Oppression's strong resistless hand first traced
Thy firm foundation on the sea-girt plain;
And each rude stone upon its bosom placed,
Added a link to Cambria's lengthening chain.
Where is thy former greatness? where the pow'r
Which menaced vengeance from thine ancient tow'r?
Where is the might which freeborn souls enthrall'd?
And e'en Llewellyn's bravest bands appall'd?

Faded are now thy glories! nought is left
Of gilded pomp, of pageant, or of pride!
Thou stand'st, of all dismantled and bereft,
A lonely monument on Sciont's side!
Still art thou dignified! majestic still!
And long thy fabric will an awe instil
On minds subdued by Fancy's airy wand,
Amidst thy ruins beautifully grand!

No banners on thine Eagle Turret wave,
Plucked by a victor's hand from fields of blood!
Thy sturdy bulwarks now can only brave

The dashing foam of Menai's angry flood.
No beacon blazes with its guardian light

From thy lone watch-tow'r. The approaching fight No longer with its martial din alarms,

Nor calls thy hardy veterans to arms.

While on thy shatter'd battlements I gaze,

And mine eye wanders through thy vacant halls, My musing' mind reverts to other days,

And all thy grandeur, all thy pomp recalls.

There warriors bold have stalk'd in armour mail’d—
There festive mirth and laughter have prevail'd-
There kings have ruled in majesty and pride-
And courtly knights at Beauty's feet have sigh'd.

Where o'er the moat the drawbridge once was seen,
And ponderous gate on massive hinges stood,
Through yonder portal, enter'd England's Queen,
Pregnant with hapless Cambria's servitude.
Alas! poor Eleanor! thy deepest throes
Were more embitter'd by a Nation's woes;
The pangs,

which in thy bosom thou didst nurse, Were made more poignant by a Nation's curse.

Hark! what wild shrieks from yonder lowly cell
Through stately halls and fretted galleries flow;
Resounding far with agonizing yell,

From triple Snowdon's Height to Penmaen's brow.
Deep in each soul hath sunk that groan of death,-
The struggling effort of expiring breath!
Woe to their Country! at that fatal stroke
The tuneful chord of Cambria's harp was broke.

Insatiate Monster! could the hoary head

Receive no reverence from a heart like thine? Was not the Royal Chief in fetters led,

An ample victim at thine honour's shrine?
Could'st thou not quench the spark of Freedom's flame,
Which shed its lustre o'er the Cambrian name;
Till ceased the note responsive to its cries,
Rousing to vengeance for thy cruelties?

In those proud times, when Fortune's partial sun
Illum'd thy stately structure with its ray,
Full many a wretch, ere half his days were done,
Has in thy donjon pined his hours away.
Oft, amidst scenes of havoc, hast thou view'd
The dire effects of rage and deadly feud;
Oft hast thou screen'd the Murderer's guilty hand,
And shelter'd in thy walls the Robber's band.

Now that thy power is gone, thy greatness fled,
Around thy turrets fearlessly I rove;
And the calm stillness from thy ruins shed
Enters my soul, and melts my heart to love.
Happy amidst such scenes I could reside,
Nor heed the waves of Fortune's adverse tide;
Were Ellen's sparkling eyes and image here,
To glad my spirits, and my heart to cheer.

F. J

ON THE DIVINITIES OF THE ANCIENTS.

To a person inquiring into the manners and customs of ancient nations, the Religion which they professed, and the Gods which they worshipped, will always appear objects of the greatest curiosity. And this will not be wondered at when we remember how intimately the religion of a State must necessarily be connected with its civil policy. In former times, when ignorance and superstition flourished, side by side, the aid of a Divinity was required for the carrying into effect of the most frivolous designs. No poem could succeed until the Muses were called upon in a well-rounded hexameter; no war could prosper until Mars was propitiated by a sufficiency of roast beef. The ancients appear to have had some faint idea of the ubiquity of the Deity; but not comprehending how such a faculty could be vested in a single Divinity, they formed to themselves a set of superior Powers, calculated to attend upon every emergency, from Jupiter the God of thunder to Tussis the God of coughing. It is therefore evident that the consideration of the religious ideas of the ancients must be inseparably united with the study of the other parts of their history.

I

In the remarks which I am about to make upon this subject, must request that one or two preliminaries may be kept in mind. First, that the characters of the constant supporters of " The Etonian" may not be implicated in the blunders of an occasional correspondent; and, secondly, that I may not be understood as endeavouring to compose a regular essay or treatise upon the topic which is before me. I have no more the inclination than I have the ability to attempt such a task. The observations, which I shall have occasion to make, will be merely the unripe fruit of an hour of leisure; merely a few unconnected hints, thrown out at random for your amusement, Mr. Editor, and that of my fellowcitizens. If they are pleased with them, they will thank me, and I am sufficiently repaid: if not-n'importe ;-they will at least give me credit for good intentions.

The first point which I shall notice is the opinion which the ancients entertained of the power and authority of their heavenly rulers. And as the study of fallen religions is principally useful as it shows to us the superiority of that religion which can never fall, let us first see upon what footing Christianity stands in this respect. In my eyes, and in the eyes of every one upon whom the light of Revelation has dawned, the mention of a God presupposes an idea of infinite, irresistible, indisputable Power. One cannot form the most remote conception of a Deity, whose powers or existence should be in any way limited. One of the

distinguishing attributes of Christianity is, that with its God nothing is impossible. He is Omniscient, Omnipresent, Omnipotent. Can we say the same of the gods of the heathen-" the gods of wood and stone, the work of men's hands?"

Alas! alas-they raised ghosts, and they raised tempests; they scolded, and they thundered; they drank nectar, and drove doves: but when any thing serious was to be done, when a battle was to be decided, or an empire overthrown, they were frequently as powerless to slay or to save as the sceptre which they wielded, or the cloud which they bestrode. Let us call before us some of the most formidable, and examine into their pretensions to Olympus.

Come down then, Jupiter, from the little pedestal on which I have placed your plaister effigy! Come down, Father of men and Gods, counsel-giving, wide-thundering, cloud-compelling! Come down, thou who overthrowest the Titans and abusest thy wife; thou who art so fond of the voice of prayer and the smoke of hecatombs; thou who hast so many epithets, and so many sons; thou, who governest Olympus, and meritest Bridewell! Where are thy frowns and thy nods, thy muscles and thy sinews, thy darts and thy decrees? Where are the looks which appal-the blows which destroy? Where is the unbroken chain, the insatiable vulture? Where are the Cyclopes who forge the lightning, and the poets who forge the Cyclopes? Alas! Jupiter, amidst all your terrors, in Heaven or on Ida, in feasting or in wrath, in poetry or in prose, thou wert a Quack, Jupiter, a most contemptible Quack; so utterly destitute of every thing that could ensure respect; so miserably deficient in every thing that could inspire fear; such a pitiful compound of ignorance and knowledge, of strength and imbecility, of vanity and vice,-that if the days of thy sovereignty could return again, if thou couldst again be fed upon sacrifice and flattery, I swear by thine own beard I would as soon be an Irus as a Jupiter.

The truth is, that the religion of the ancients, as far as it can be collected from their writings, partook in no small degree of predestination. Yet it is enveloped in so much obscurity, that it is very difficult for us,-nay, it might have been very difficult for them, to define, where the supremacy of Fate should stop, and the authority of the Gods commence. We find some unfortunate Divinity perpetually endeavouring to overthrow some State which is destined to stand, or to destroy some Hero who is destined to live; although the said Divinity has an innate perception that his struggles in either instance must eventually be fruitless. I know that these ideas may be said to be founded solely on the marvellous fictions of the poets; but, let me ask, would Diomedes have ever inflicted a wound upon Mars, if Homer had seen in Mars a formidable being? or would Juno have ever strutted and stormed