Phoebus had rais'd and fixt them, to surround He saw the land of Pelops, host of Gods, And poplar-crown'd Spercheus, and reclined And, looking up, held fast the bridal vest; He heard the roar above him, heard the roar Beneath, and felt it too, as he beheld, Hurl, from Earth's base, rocks, mountains, to the skies. 'Meanwhile the Nymph had fixt her eyes beyond, As seeing somewhat, not intent on aught. He, more amazed than ever, then exclamed "Is there another flaming ile? or this Illusion, thus past over unobserved ?" "Look yonder," cried the Nymph, without reply, "Look yonder!" Tamar lookt, and saw afar Where the waves whiten'd on the desert shore. When from amid grey ocean first he caught The hights of Calpe, sadden'd, he exclamed, "Rock of Iberia! fixt by Jove and hung With all his thunder-bearing clouds, I hail Thy ridges rough and cheerless! what tho' Spring Nor kiss thy brow, nor cool it with a flower, Yet will I hail thee, hail thy flinty couch Where Valour and where Virtue have reposed." Gebir, tho' generous, just, humane, inhaled ' And now the chariot of the Sun descends, Atlas and Calpe close across the sea.'-pp. 57–61. If the story of the poem be in itself devoid of connexion and interest, we must admit that such passages as these, which are not equalled every day, go far towards redeeming its imperfections. We need only add that the arts of Dalica are successful. On the day appointed for the visit of Charoba to the camp of Gebir, he is invested by Dalica with the fatal robe, by the operation of which he soon expires. The moral of the tale shews the miserable end at which ambition arrives, while the humble life of the shepherd is crowned with happiness. The moral is common enough; but the fable out of which it is spun, is singularly wild. The tragedy of Count Julian is a much less meritorious performance. It is a series of mere dialogues, without a particle of dramatic interest. The plot is taken from a passage in the Moorish history of Spain. The Count Julian, having been deprived of his daughter, by Roderigo the King of Spain, turns traitor and joins the Infidel invader, by whose side he carries on the unnatural war with success. In a long interview which takes place between Roderigo and the Count, the former offers to divorce his wife, Egilona, and to marry Covilla, the Count's daughter, whom he had already seduced, if he would quit the Moorish host and return to his allegiance. The pride of the father repels this and other similar overtures, and the tragedy ends, as it began, in his obstinate resistance to his sovereign. We suppose that the following extract from a dialogue, which takes place between the Count and his daughter, will sufficiently gratify the curiosity of the reader, as to the character of this composition. 'Not remember! What have the wretched else for consolation! What else have they who pining feed their woe? Swelling so sweet; when rang the vesper-bell, My prayers and my repentance? where besides Friends, brethren, parents. . dear indeed, too dear 'JULIAN. 'Wide are the regions of our far-famed land: 'O! for one moment in those pleasant scenes Outcast from virtue, and from nature too!'-pp. 108, 109. The tragedy is followed by two dramatic sketches: the first upon the exhausted subject of Ines de Castro; the second is taken from the story of Ippolito di Este. In neither of these compositions, no more than in the tragedy, do we recognize the genius of Mr. Landor. The small poems which fill up the volume, he says, he publishes merely to please himself. It is well if they accomplish that object; but if they do, we can only say that Mr. Landor is much more easy to be pleased than we had thought him. 227 ART. VI.-Sketches in Spain and Morocco. By Sir Arthur de Capell Brooke, Bart., M.A., F.R.S., &c. In two volumes. 8vo. London : Colburn and Co. 1831. THE author of these volumes is a well experienced traveller. The reader may possibly have a favourable recollection of his tour to the North Cape of Europe, and his Winter in Lapland, which have been before the public for some years. If not particularly distinguished for simplicity of style, those works, as well as that which now lies before us, must always hold a respectable rank in our literature. As far as Sir Arthur describes what he sees with his own eyes, his reports of the different countries which he has visited may be considered as literally correct. He is evidently a man without prejudices; seems to have been everywhere well treated; and, consequently, he generally dwells with more delight upon the agreeable features of the picture of mankind, than upon those of a repulsive character. But while we do justice to this amiable trait in his disposition, we must not pass over an egregious fault which he possesses, in common, we regret to say, with too many of our voyagers by sea and land. He seems to have fixed it as a principle. in his mind, that a day or two after he sets his foot upon a foreign shore, and forms an acquaintance with one or two of its inhabitants, he is authorized, from such data as he can thus collect, to write a general essay upon the virtues and vices, the public and domestic habits, of the whole nation. Hence, for example, within a few hours after his arrival in Cadiz, the baronet, never having been in Spain before, enters into a regular disquisition upon the manners of the fair sex in that city, informs us of the mode in which they spend their days and nights; compares their beauty with that of the ladies of Northern Spain, and with those of Mauritania ; assures us that the marriage vow is with them a mere trifle, to which they attach no sort of importance; that they are ever on the look out for intrigues; that their husbands are a degenerate race; and then he gives us the most minute information, as to the way in which the husbands and wives, not merely of Cadiz, but of the whole Peninsula, consult their mutual convenience, in lightening the pressure of the matrimonial yoke! It is obvious that a report of this kind has been drawn up hastily, to say the least of it; that it is founded, not upon the personal knowledge of the author, for he could not have had time or opportunity to acquire it;-but upon the loose answers which were given to his questions, perhaps by the English consul, or some of his clerks, or other British residents at Čadiz; who, if they were acquainted with the character of the respectable classes in that place, could hardly be considered as authorities with respect to every other part of Spain. That vice prevails in that country to a great extent, we do not mean to deny ; but we, who sojourned perhaps a longer period in different parts of the Peninsula than Sir Arthur Brooke, will take it upon ourselves to say, that vice is neither so common as he represents it, nor in any degree so extensive in proportion to the population, as it is in England, and the northern countries of Europe. If our information be correct, and we feel that it is, what becomes of the general picture which he has here given of eleven millions of people? It is the more to be wondered at that he should have fallen into this indiscretion, as from his own representation he was manifestly ignorant of the Spanish language, and had not an opportunity of visiting a single Spanish family at Cadiz, during the short time of his stay there. He had but one letter of introduction, certainly to a family of considerable respectability and wealth, that of Senor Gargollo, who was so much indisposed during the whole time, that he could not even once have the honour of receiving the baronet ! If travellers persisted much in this plan of generalizing upon the character of nations, we should be without any thing like accurate information concerning them. The libel of the first is transmitted to the second, who takes it all for granted as true and incontrovertible. Parts of it are, perhaps, confirmed by the representations of some of those disappointed adventurers, who are to be found in every sea-port, and who are always disposed to tell the worst that they know of the people amongst whom they are tolerated, carefully suppressing the redeeming points, if with any of these they chance Thus the falsehood gathers strength from what may seem to be accidental circumstances; the traveller sets it down in his note-book as authentic, and circulates it through the world, without previously thinking himself bound, as in honour and conscience he must be, to test it by his own further enquiries, or by the experience of more competent testimony. to be conversant. Guarding the reader against this fault of precipitate judgment, which is conspicuous in many parts of the present work, and refers equally to Morocco as to Spain, we still may recommend Sir Arthur to his attention as a pleasant and gentlemanly traveller. He usually seizes those points of view which are most likely to attract our curiosity, and if he could have exchanged his love of pompous phraseology for more familiar terms, and communicated his observations in a less ceremonious and author-like form, we should have hoped that his work might stand a chance of popularity. One of the vices of the age is amplification in the art of bookmaking. From this Sir Arthur is by no means free. Assuredly he must have known that the public had very lately received from a very entertaining writer, the "Young American," a very full and most entertaining account of Spain, in which nothing was omitted that tended to display the leading peculiarities of that country or of its people. Knowing this, Sir Arthur might very well have reduced his two volumes within the compass of one; he might have avoided his elaborate descriptions of Cadiz and Seville, and, |