He describes the previous night

And there was hurrying, rushing to and fro,
Of man and horse-a people whelm'd in woe!
And men were shouting for their friends; and cries
Of women trembled in the echoing skies !

All ranks abroad, as by one impulse, flocked,
Leaving their dwellings darkened and unlocked-

*

Thousands departed ere the morning rose,
That saw the City traversed by her foes:
'Twas the last day that shone upon her fame-
The evening left her nothing but a name.
That now resounds a warning word to all,
Of the sure causes of a nation's fall.

-

Who lived of her enslavers, fled the first-
The hopeless-reckless-stay'd to brave the worst!
In sullen hate upon the foe they gazed;
And cursed the hostile flag that triumph raised;
Borne by the very hands that oft before
Had lost the trophies Urburgh proudly wore.
In endless columns they advanced along,
Safe in her weakness, and in numbers strong;
Like the fierce torrent that the mountain pours,
Tearing the ravaged vales through which it roars.
The heavy tread of many thousand feet,
Shaking the ground, past on from street to street;
The tramp of steed follow'd the rumbling gun,
And noon was glowing ere their march was done.
The drums that peal'd their thunder on the air,
Roll'd the last echoes of a land's despair;
And the shrill trumpet's loud and piercing breath,
Burst on the fallen like the blast of death!

Yes-there were bitter feelings none could speak-
And proud men look'd the wrath they could not wreak—
And they whose hopes had with their country's grown,
Long'd for a look might turn that host to stone!
The pride of manhood struggled with despair;
And hands were clench'd as if a sword were there;
And the last feeling of the soul was shame,

That thus should set their country's star of fame.

It is not to be supposed that the poet anticipates that London may become the desert which he describes. But where are the cities of antiquity? Tyre and Sidon, and Babylon and Carthage, and Rome and Constantinople! It behoves us to provide against the possibility; and the description which the poet gives of the signs of the times may not be useless, by

way of reference, to warn posterity of the approach of the crisis, when such provision shall be necessary.

From such a land-the seat of strife and woe;

In search of happier climes, the people go.

But much, and long-(though scarce in hope) they bear;
Ere from their fathers' graves their steps they tear-
Ere from the seat of youth's past joys they fly,
Upon some foreign, friendless shore, to die!
A thousand strong attachments rise around,
To chain their footsteps to that hallow'd ground:
Still dear to sight their childhood-scenes appear;
And in the parting moment-doubly dear!"
The barren heath that infant footsteps prest,
May breathe enchantment round the manly breast:
The stream where boyhood plunged his limbs to lave,
In age's eye seems an unalter'd wave-

The trees-the rocks-that rise in native air;
This mystic-nameless sense-appear to share!
The links of friendship-kindred's heartstring ties-
That bind the spirit to its native skies—

And all those feelings tongue can scarce define,
Home's magic charms around the soul entwine-
These may be felt, but scarcely can be told;
Nor oft are sever'd till the breast is cold.

The tale of Eva is in the Spenserian stanza,—the finest, perhaps, in our language, yet at the same time the most difficult. It is no small praise to say that our poet has conquered its difficulties, and given us much of the harmony and grace which are its characteristics. The tale is simple. We will not anticipate any interest which it may possess, by furnishing an outline; and the rather as its merit depends not so much the story, as its colouring and illustrations. Like Childe Harold, its actors are only introduced to furnish occasion for the author's reflections and descriptions.

upon

We can only afford room for two or three of the detached thoughts and descriptions with which it abounds.

Description of her mother's tomb:

There was at home one sacred, little spot,
Eva most idolized, and oftenest sought:
No day unvisited-no hour forgot-

Where in the garden's deepest shade was wrought
A Mother's monument; to which she brought
The fairest of that garden's flowers, to strew
Around the urn. With pious sorrow fraught,
The tears she shed refresh'd them like the dew,
While many a bitter thought across her bosom flew.

Those thoughts she loved to cherish, though they sent
A feeling of bereavement through her soul:
She lov'd to rouse that sorrow, though it rent ;
And once awaken'd, spurn'd the will's controul:
Though but to see that spot was woe-she stole
To ponder there, as 'twere a place of rest ;
Whose sight, instead of wounding, might console!
Lean'd on it as it were a mother's breast-

View'd it as though her eye that mother's form possess'd.

It was possess'd-as if that stone had breath,
She there felt not alone: that cherish'd form
Floated around the urn that spoke her death,
As if the very marble seem'd to warm
Beneath her gaze-as though she could transform
To breathing life that sculptur'd shape of woe!
As if recover'd from the feasting worm,

The buried started forth again to glow;

Past tenderness, and faith, and loveliness, to show. And every tree of dark and mournful hue Hung over it-the cypress cast its shade; Above it waved the melancholy yew, As if its foliage there a pall bad made; The drooping willow by its side display'd Its pendant branches, as in sorrow hung; Behind its lonely seat, a dark stream stray'd The deeply rooted trees and shrubs among: Amidst whose leaves the wind its plaintive murmurs flung. The power of passion in romantic minds

Romantic bosoms soonest feel the power

Of love, and feel it at its fiercest height;
While weaker spirits plod their dull, cold hour:
The highest trees are soonest topp'd with light---
Are first to meet the tempest in its flight-

And fall, wrench'd, crush'd, and levelled by the blast-
While the low shrub, that scarcely meets the sight,
Survives, to flourish when the storm is past;
Above whose bending head its wrath was idly cast.
The widest ocean rolls the vastest waves-
The deepest sea is last to sink to rest-
So when in man the storm of passion raves,
Its wildest throb is in the mightiest breast;
There soonest blazes, and is last represt!
The depth of feeling, and the range of thought-
Th' omnipotence of spirit-is imprest
On all it shows; whether with rapture fraught,
Or in its bursting rage to maniac fury wrought.

The volume contains a Poem on Electricity. "However unpoetical the theme may sound," the poet observes,—“he believes that there is more poetry in science, than most people are aware of." We believe him, and are happy in being able to illustrate his remark by the following extract from the same poem, which so forcibly describes the direness of the death by lightning:

And, oh! has fate a death so dread-so dire!

As thus to wither in this fatal fire?

Life closed at once-'midst all its hopes and fears-
Perchance white picturing future blissful years:
Even while fancy paints some dear delight;
Dash'd down for ever as it springs to sight!
Affections sundered in their fondest dream-
A midnight shot across noon's brightest beam-
Cut off unwarn'd, whether the passing thought
Be in a mood of good or evil wrought-
That thought itself unfinish'd, as it past
Across the mind that dream'd not of its last:
Hurried at once before the Judge of all-
Unthinking of th' irrevocable call:
No time allow'd to pour one instant prayer,
To plead beforehand for the guilty there;
No crime confess'd to smooth the path to peace;
That joy might waken, or despondence cease:
No moment given to breathe one swift farewell
To all those kindred beings loved so well-

To send one wish-the last-and from the heart-
To those from whom 'twas worse than death to part!
The thousand ties that link the soul below,

Annihilated by one instant blow:

Denied whate'er might sooth the bed of death,
And mingle comfort with the latest breath;
But in the twinkling of au eye to be
Living-a corse-and in eternity.

In days of heathen darkness thus to die

Consign'd the corse untouch'd-untomb'd to lie;
Fenced round as if abhorrent to the sight,
Tempting the vulture from his lofty flight;
Bereft of all the honors of the dead;

To them, far more than death, a source of dread.
Deeming that Jupiter his bolt had hurl'd,
To smite in wrath th' accursed from the world,
Friends left his bones to whiten where they fell;
And fear'd to drop one tear, or sigh farewell.

200

Pride shall have a Fall; a Comedy, in Five Acts, with Songs. Dedicated by permission to the Right Hon. George Canning, &c. &c. &c. First performed at the Theatre Royal Covent Garden, March 11th, 1824. Fourth Edition. London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co.

THE golden age of the British Drama has long since past away; the period of its existence was short, but its brilliancy compensated for its brevity. The writers who adorned it take their place among the classics of the English language, and, wherever sound taste and good feeling shall prevail, will be studied with delight, and regarded almost with reverence.

The reigns of Elizabeth and of the two first Princes of the House of Stuart were eminently fertile in the production of genius of almost every kind; and, while Bacon was introducing mankind into the magnificent temple of philosophic truth, every division of the garden of poesy was cultivated by men, upon whom Nature had stamped the impress of intellectual power, and for whom Learning had opened all her resources. But, amidst this blaze of mental splendour, the drama is surrounded by such pre-eminent lustre, as almost to cast into the shade every other branch of literature. In an age of intellectual giants, the dramatists challenge the highest place. Next to the political institutions of his country, if there be one thing of which an Englishman should feel proud, it is of its early dramatic literature. In nature, in vigour, in beauty, in originality, no other nation, of modern times at least, can boast of any thing comparable with it. The humour of Jonson, the wit and poetry of Beaumont and Fletcher, the eloquence of Massinger, the pathos of Ford,-and the union of all these, with ten thousand other excellencies, in SHAKSPEARE, -exhibit a constellation of dramatic genius of unrivalled brilliancy and grandeur. Round these great lights of the drama revolve a host of minor luminaries, each of whom in later times would have been a sun; but, overpowered by the superior splendour of their cotemporaries, their works are disregarded, and their names almost unknown,

A cry has been raised by some fastidious critics against the immorality of these writers; nothing was ever more unjust, and the charge evinces a total want of discrimination in those who make it. That in the works of our early dramatists we meet with language which to modern ears is coarse and indelicate, cannot be denied; but such language was not then regarded as criminal, or even indecorous. Innumerable instances of its use might be produced from writers far more grave than