too composed a poetical version or paraphrase of remarkable portions of the Bible: the earliest specimen of Saxon poetry extant. It was published by Junius, at Amsterdam in 1665. St. Cuthbert's Gospels, called the Durham Book, and consisting of the four Gospels in Latin, was written about the same time by Egbert or Eadfrid, a monk of Lindasterne. It is in the British Museum, a superb MS., of beautiful penmanship, and the ink still as black as ebony. Its ornaments of gold and diamonds have, however, long been plundered. Chad's Gospels, of the same kind and age, were preserved at Litchfield. About this period Glastonbury and Malmsbury Abbeys flourished prodigiously. Aldhelm, Abbot, of the latter, was a poet and musician. It is related of him that he used to stand on the bridge and sing little pieces of his own, interspersed with passages of Scripture, and by his pleasing voice got his rude neighbours to listen to this device for conveying instruction. Some of his works still remain.

St.

Since it is the design of your correspondent F. J. to offer his sentiments on what he conceives to be the miseries of the marriage state, allow me, as prefatory to his ramarks, to beg the insertion of the following brief observations:

On the perusal of his letter, in a late number of your miscellany, in which he strongly exemplifies the insincerity and perverseness of the fair sex, I was led to examine the justness of the imputation, and how far it may be applicable to their character.

That an odium is reflected on the other sex as combining in their dispositions every evil tendency calculated to warp the happiness of their domestic

alliances, is sufficiently evinced by our intercourse with society. We every

where hear of the broken pledges, changed affections, and petulant dispositions which excite the murmurings of the married, and which are all chargeable to woman. We hear of marriage vows violated, virtue divorced, and families rendered miserable through the interference of fickle and volatile woman. Thus she is branded with the epithets of termigant" and "shrew," and reprobated as the spoiler of those ties of affection which promised mutual felicity.

66

However unjust this imputation may appear to that part of society, who, like myself, see the virtues of the softer sex through the simplicity and innocence of their outward demeanour; still, it is a very difficult task to palliate the affront in the face of the many, who, blind to their own foibles, and deaf to the admonitory councils of their conscience, stamp the face of purity with such unwarrantable and abusive charges. It would, however, be equally erroneous to assert that woman is proof against every temptation of evil. In our intercourse with the world, we witness too many instances of the growing depravity to which their minds are exposed, when suffered to imbibe the loose notions of the licentious part of society. We need only look into the lower classes, where education has been less assiduous in clearing away the dross that clings to their minds, before we are disgusted with the execrable scene of lewdness and debauchery. Some defect in their training, with its concomitant evils, will effectually shade those touches of modesty and humanity which are natural to them. That they are all liable to err in every situation, is not my intention to deny; and that they may be implicated in many of the family broils which so frequently excite our pity, is equally true. But, I am inclined to think (and no doubt with many others) that those men who declaim most against the conduct of their wives, are the very seed and culture of those grievances of which they complain. Whether they be drawn aside by the blandishments of fashion, or by the alluring vices of the world, which makes their conduct reproachable, and, consequently, wedlock unhappy; yet by a pliancy of disposition in the sterner sex towards the failings of their partners, they may not only materially lessen the

anguish of both, but, in time, prove a preventive to its recurrence. This congeniality of sentiment and desire for obliging others, never fails to give to the marriage state every comfort which such an alliance can produce. The want of it, however, in either one or the other, is the chief cause of those petty animosities which ruin the peace of families, and which, the more it is cherished, the more it detracts from the respect which ought reciprocally to flow.

It has been the object of moralists to regulate by rule the conduct of opposite dispositions, but notwithstanding their efforts, there seems to be none more calculated to promote harmony than by laying a constraint upon our passions and inclinations, and endeavouring to mould our dispositions with those of our associates. A man who does this will seldom find cause to censure the dis

position of his wife. Though he is most defective of natural complacency, yet it must necessarily be found to operate in both sexes, before conjugal felicity can purely flow.

That woman combines every quality in her character which can ensure man's happiness, you have sufficiently elucidated in one of your former Essays; and that these qualities cannot cease to operate while excited by an equal return of kindness, is obvious to every unprejudiced mind.

These brief considerations will, I hope, have the effect of mitigating much of that censure to which the female character is at present exposed-and in conclusion allow me to assert, that if your correspondent is possessed of the requisite self-complacency, he need no longer be afraid of uniting himself to "insincere, changeable, and volatile VERITAS.

woman."

Poetry.

OSMYN.

(A Persian Tale.)

The sun was wheeling up his golden sphere, Whelming the twilight stars-the scatter'd

rear

Of night's blue regions. Earth was bath'd in

rose.

The west was wall'd with hills, whose crown. ing snows

Hung high in morn, unmelted by its beams.
Solemn the echo of the thousand streams
That down their sable sides, like strings of
pearl,

Glitter'd and shook in every passing whirl
Of the light dallying wind, then rushed ariver
Proud and deep channel'd: many an empty
quiver,

And shield and helmet-crest in carnage dyed,
And broken spear-shaft eddy'd down that tide.
Darkly the blood of battle stain'd the foam
As it danced onwards to the cavern'd dome,
Delved in the bosom of the precipice,
Where toss'd from bed to bed, with flash and
hiss,

The cataract its freight of corpses hore.

Young Osmyn stood upon the sanguine shore
Rapt in the feverish, dim imaginings
That sorrow on the youthful spirit brings-
The midnight of the mind. So stood he mazed;
And as upon the crowded stream he gazed,
Sweeping the dead beneath the gloomy arch,
He thought he saw a living army's march;
And then he would have follow'd, and defied
The sadness of his spirit in the tide
Through sick world-weariness. A feeble gleam,
Catching his eye's droop'd beauty, broke the
dream.

He saw a targe among the sedges thrown,
It bore a diamond cypher-'twas his own!
Then, like the sudden lifting of a shroud,
Or the night's awful countenance when the
cloud

Melts in the wind-the fearful past was clear.
Upon that champaign, morn had seen him rear,
His royal banner for the Persian throne,
The banner that the evening saw undone.
Press'd to that bank, and cumber'd with the
dead,

He made his final desperate stand, and shed,
Till
spear and shaft were gone, the Turkman's
gore;

Then plunged within the stream, and felt no

more.

But softer memories came: he ask'd the wave For what sweet vale beyond it left the cave. Along the mountain ridge he strain'd his eyes, And thought upon his Peri Paradise!

He stood alone;-the satrap and the slave Lay round him: What was earth? A mightier grave!

He wander'd like the final wreck of man.
The jackall, with his jaws gore-dripping, ran
Sporting around the wanderer in wild rings:
The vulture on the corpse upraised his wings,
Then, cower'd again upon his ghastly food:
The wolf glared on the man of solitude;
Then with strange fearlessness, that seem'd to
feel

A ruin'd presence, tore his way through steel,
And gorged upon his check'd repast of blood.

The mists roll'd off; the sudden sunbeams show'd

The heron-plumage waving o'er his tent,
That, with its tapestries gold and ruby blent,
Look'd like the cloud-pavilions, when the sun,
Grown old, reposes on his western throne.
All now was desolate its halls around;
The ever-echoing trumpets, and the sound
Of the imperial crowding chieftainry,
Were gone: he saw upon the champaign lie
Peasant and noble, mouldering bone by bone,
And felt in soul that he was all undone.

But plunderers had been busy there: the floor Glitter'd with fragments that the victor tore From the gem-crusted throne, and starry roof; And blood was smoaking still; the sullen proof Of the barbarian's quarrel for the spoil.

He heard a distant cry: the wild turmoil Came near, the clash of swords, and shout and ban.

He grasp'd a spear, and rush'd amid the clan; Their arrows shower'd upon him, and he fell, Calling for death in mercy. But their yell Told that they knew their captive.

ground

On the

They chain'd him, dropping blood from many a wound;

Then sprang upon their rugged steeds, and bore The prince where camp'd their Turkman em

vane;

For now had come the hour of Moslem prayer;
And, flushing in the western purple glare,
Myriads of proud dark faces were upraised
With silent lips, and solemn eyes, that gazed
As if they saw a parting God. The Sun
Died in the west; the evening rite was done.
Then torch and cresset sent their colour'd rays
Through the tent-curtains; and the wood-fire's
blaze

Show'd the rude warriors in their loosen'd mail,
Listening with eager ears to jest and tale

Of Indian mimes, that in their circle bow'd, Subtle as tigers crouch'd; then clanging loud," With lifted arms, the cymbals' quivering rims, Writhed, serpent-like, their lithe and glossy limbs.

Thus pass'd they many a furlong, and the

tents

Still cluster'd round them. The chained ele

phants

Lifted their trunks, and roar'd, as they pass'd by:

The muzzled bloodhounds set up ban and cry :
The dromedaries, flung their loads aside
Like stranded barks, heaved up: with eye of
Pride

And red small nostril snuffing the cool air,
The Arab charger bounded from the lair,
His rider's weedy bed. Anon a lamp
Rose on their eyes, as when the vapoury swamp
Sends up its meteor, rivaling the moon.
Above the Sultan's tent that glory shone.

They reach'd the central camp: the centinel Gave the more piercing challenge; and the swell

Of the chill breezes labour'd heavily

Through the thick erouding standards, that on high

Lifted their folds, then sank them, like the Wings

Of mighty night-birds. There in lingering rings,

Sitting upon their chargers, with their swords Dropping from sleepy fingers, watch'd pale

hordes,

REVIEW OF

SARDANAPALUS, AND THE TWO FOSCARI

If the present age resembles the age of usurpation; if the modern Infidel resembles the factious puritan, in any thing not essential to human nature, it is in the amazingly prolific powers of their pens, and in the factious cavils against every thing which is so vile as to be established. The works of Prynne and Bastwick are outdone, whether in virulence or number, by those of the English School of Literary, Constitutional, and Theological Reformers. But, though the parallel may be pursued to a great extent without fear of injustice, yet, we shall leave it to our readers, and proceed in our analysis of Lord Byron's two tragedies, bearing the above-mentioned titles.

The Noble Lord has always, even from his first Essay in the poetical world, displayed such a deep intensity of feeling, as few, if any of the moderns, have ever done. Whoever has travelled through Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, must be aware of the more than human passion that breathes in that poem, and have feltit at times like a material engine, wringing the last drop of life from the quivering heart; or, have been elevated to a pitch of the most romantic enthusiastic ardour in the pursuit of some fleeting pleasure, which enjoyment broke the charms of, and made it seem like others. The sentiment and pathos with which he speaks of woman, have often impressed upon our feelings something which was neither of earth nor heaven, of this world nor of any other--a sort of indefinite and unearthly emotion, the object of which seemed to be some flitting seraph in the roseate twilight of a July evening; and awaking from the trance of feeling into which he had

lulled us, we found ourselves surrounded by the common forms of woman-still lovely, but woman still. Even in the poems before us, notwithstanding the debasement of their author's noble feelings into mere sensuality, as degraded as are the beings among whom he has latterly associated, there are many touches of the unsullied pencil of the once amiable and promising Lord Byron: but the far greater part of them are miserable daubings in the most wretched style of the demoralized Venetian School. The thoughts, the sentiments, the language, all bear marks of the dire effects of his lordship's unhappy change; and all the good qualities of his heart, his head, his whole functions, seem to diminish in a constant ratio, and we may indeed exclaim, "How are the mighty fallen!”

We always thought his lordship much disposed to be too diffuse; and in looking over his Italian productions, we cannot but be sure. Indeed, the present dramas may be justly censured on this account, and we think not easily with too much severity. Beings, supposed under the influence of the most intense passion, are made to reason as deliberately, and to pile one metaphor on the back of another, till we should much sooner suppose their speech was a leaf torn out of a common place book of similes, than that it was expressive of the feelings of the speaker under the circumstances indicated in the tragedy. Many instances will occur in our progress through the two tragedies, but we will quote them in their due order.

The first of the tragedies in the volume before us, is " Sardanapalus." Concerning the hero of the piece, history says but little, and that little very indefinitely. He is represented as a prince luxurious, almost beyond example, even in the ardent countries. of the Asiatic division of the globe.

66 A monument representing Sardanapalus was found there, warranted by an inscription in Assyrian characters, of course in the old Assyrian language, which the Greeks, whether well or ill, interpreted thus: "Sardanapalus, son of Anacyndaraxes, in one day founded Anchialus and Tarsus. Eat, drink, play all other human joys are not worth a fillip.""

But after all, Lord Byron's reasoning in the conclusion of the paragraph seems to have some plausibility in refutation of such a notion.

"Supposing this version nearly exact, (for Arrian says it was not quite so), whether the purpose has not been to invite to civil order a people disposed to turbulence, rather than to recommend immoderate luxury, may perhaps reasonably be questioned. What, indeed, could be the object of a king of Assyria in founding such towns in a country so distant from his capital, and so divided from it by an immense extent of sandy deserts and lofty mountains, and, still more, how the inhabitants could be at once in circumstances to abandon themselves to the intemperate joys, whieh their prince has been supposed to have recommended, is not obvious; but it may deserve observation that, in that line of coast, the southern of Lesser Asia, ruins of cities, evidently of an age after Alexander, yet barely named in history, at this day astonish the adventurous traveller by their magnificence and elegance. Amid the desolation which, under a singularly barbarian government, has for so many centuries been daily spreading in the finest countries of the globe, whether more from soil and climate, or from opportunities for commerce, extraordinary means must have been found for communities to flourish there, whence it may seem that the measures of Sardanapalus were directed by juster views than have been commonly ascribed to him; but that monarch having been the last of a dynasty, ended by a revolution, obloquy on his memory would follow of course from the policy of his successors and their partisans."

Whatever Lord Byron's real opinion may be as to the character of Sardanapalus, he still adopts the common notion respecting him as better suited to dra

matic effect: it is, indeed, a well chosen subject, as the received notions of the fall of the line of Belus is capable of so powerful an infusion of eastern magnificence and eastern figure; yet, strange as it may seem, Lord Byron with such ample stores has been singularly sparing;-a circumstance for which it is not easy to account. It is, however, time to bring before the reader the

plan of the tragedy, after doing which,

we shall make a few extracts.

The dramatis personæ are Sardanapalus, King of Nineveh and Assyria, &c.-Arbaces, the Mede who aspires to the Throne-Beleses, a Chaldean and Soothsayer-Salemenes, the King's Brother-in-law--Altada, an Assyrian Officer of the Palace-Pania-Zames-SferoBalea Zarina, the Queen-Myrrha, an Ionian female Slave, and the Favourite of Sardanapalus-Women composing the Harem of Sardan: palus, Guards, Attendants, Chaldean Priests, Medes, &c. &c.

The piece opens with a reverie of Salemenes after which, Sardanapalus enters effeminately dressed, his Head crowned with Flowers, and his Robe negligently flowing, attended by a Train of Women and young Slaves, and gives orders that the pavilion over the Euphrates "be garlanded, and lit, and furnished forth for an especial banquet," which is to take place at midnight, with much Asiatic splendour. Myrrha is invited and much" sweet, romantic, tender talk" ensues; Salemenes breaks in upon them, and by some bitter remarks upon the "Ionian minion," calls forth the indignation of the Royal Lover, in the following beautiful passage:

Sardanapalus.

Thou hast no morc eyes than heart to make her crimson

Like to the dying day on Caucasus,

Where sunset tints the snow with rosy shadows, And then reproach her with thine own cold blindness,

Which will not see it. What, in tears, my Myrrha ?

When Salemenes takes an opportunity of informing the King of a plot formed against his crown and person. A long dialogue ensues wherein Sardanapalus with the utmost tenacity adheres to his plan of the mignight banquet, calls his subjects by a variety of opprobrious epithets, expatiates upon the humanity of his own government, execrates the notion of conqueror, yields to the solici