FROM RODERICK, THE LAST OF THE GOTHS. LANDING OF THE MOORISH ARMY IN SPAIN.1 Syrian, Moor, Saracen,2 Greek renegade, In whom all turbulent vices were let loose; 3 Thou, Calpe, sawest their coming: ancient Rock Thou sawest the dark-blue waters flash before White turbans, glittering armour, shields engrailed 1 Count Julian, a Spanish noble, for an injury done him by the Gothic king Roderick, invited the Moors of the Caliphate from Africa to avenge him. The Gothic king was defeated at the fatal battle of Xeres in 713, and a great part of the country subjected for about eight centuries to the Mohammedan dominion. The last Moorish kingdom, Grenada, fell before the arms of Ferdinand and Isabella in 1492. The incidents in Southey's poem turn on the tradition that the defeated Roderick survived the engagement. 2 The Arab Mohammedans; an epithet of the Arabians understood to imply plunderers. The Copts have been alleged to be the descendants of the ancient Egyp tians. 3 Calpe (Gibraltar Rock) is said to be the same word, with a guttural aspiration, as Abyla or Alyba (Cape Serra), the Carthaginian name of the opposite African promontory, which itself is a Punic appellative for any high mountain, and contains the root of Alp-Anthon's Lempriere. Gibraltar, from Arab. Djibel, a hill, and Tarik, the name of the invading Moorish general, who landed there in 710.-See Gibbon, ch. li. The mythological tale of the rending of the capes by Hercules originated the name Pillars of Hercules. The classics do not seem to contain any associations of Kronos or Briareus with Calpe : Southey refers to the "Historia de Gibraltar, by Don Ignacio Lopez de Ayala." 4 Verses of the Koran were inscribed on the Mohammedan standards. SCOTTISH MUSIC. 429 JOHN LEYDEN, M.D. LITERATURE has seldom to mourn more truly over genius early blighted by death than in the case of John Leyden. He was the son of humble parents, and born at Denholm, on the banks of the Teviot, in Roxburghshire, where a monument has been erected to his memory. His powerful talents, while he was yet young, amassed a singular amount of classical and oriental literature. He was destined for the church, but suddenly exchanged his profession for that of medicine, on a prospect of obtaining an appointment in the East. He proceeded to India, and acted in different capacities in various quarters of that country for several years, hiving up daily stores of oriental learning. He died of fever during the English expedition against Java in 1811. "A distant and a deadly shore Holds Leyden's cold remains."-Scott, "Lord of the Isles." Leyden's principal poem is "Scenes of Infancy;" he left also a number of ballads,1 sonnets, etc. He is an elegant and pleasing but not forcible writer. SCOTTISH MUSIC, AN ODE. AGAIN, sweet siren, breathe again Such was the song that soothed to rest, The Celtic Warrior's parted shade; When shipwrecked mariners are laid. Ah! sure as Hindu legends tell,* Immured in mortal forms to mourn. 1 His knowledge of ancient traditions rendered him a valuable contributor to Scott's Border Minstrelsy. 2 Ianthe (Gr. ion-anthos), violet flower. 3 The Flathinnis, or Celtic paradise; innis (inch) is island. 4 "The effect of music is explained by the Hindus as recalling to our memory the airs of paradise, heard in a state of pre-existence." Some of Wordsworth's poetry is tinged with the same beautiful superstition. Or if, as ancient sages ween, Can mingle with the mortal throng, I hear, I hear, with awful dread, They leave the amber fields of day: That murmurs round the mermaid's grave, Sweet sounds! that oft have soothed to rest And charm'd away mine infant tears: That in the wild the traveller hears. And thus the exiled Scotian maid, To visit Syria's date-crown'd shore, Soft syren! whose enchanting strain Through scenes that I no more must view. FROM SCENES OF INFANCY.-PART III. SCOTLAND. Land of my fathers!-though no mangrove here Nor scaly palm her finger'd scions shoot; Nor luscious guava wave her yellow fruit ; Nor golden apples glimmer from the tree ; Land of dark heaths and mountains, thou art free! 1 Leyden alludes to a pretty story, from an old author, of an English gentleman hearing this strain warbled by a woman sitting at her door in Palestine. She was a Scottish woman, whose fortunes had made her the wife of a Turkish officer.-See author's quotation from "Verstegan's Restitution of Decayed Intelligence" (Antwerp, 1605). OLD FAMILIAR FACES. Untainted yet, thy stream, fair Teviot! runs, 431 CHARLES LAMB. (1775-1834.) His FEW men have been more beloved in their sphere of friends, and consequently more lamented in removal, than Charles Lamb. Full of quaint humour and practical kindliness of heart, and characterised by every attractive peculiarity of temperament and disposition, he was formed to be the pet of friendship. Born in comparatively humble circumstances, and educated in Christ Hospital, he was destined for the ecclesiastical profession; an impediment in his speech precluded this prospect, and his life was devoted to the desk of a clerk in the India House. affectionate care of his sister, to one of whose fits of insanity her mother had fallen a victim, forms the most beautiful trait in Lamb's character. He had the feelings rather than the formal accomplishments of a poet; and he had dived with true relish into the spirit and essence of the elder English writers. He was the dearest friend of his school-fellow, Coleridge, whose genius he almost idolised, and whose reputation in the criticism of early English literature he shares. Lamb's most popular works are his charming essays under the whimsical signature of Elia; his selections from the early dramatists; and the tales compiled by himself and his sister from Shakespeare's plays. OLD FAMILIAR FACES. I HAVE had playmates, I have had companions, I have been laughing, I have been carousing, I loved a love once, fairest among women; I have a friend, a kinder friend has no man; . Ghost-like I paced round the haunts of my childhood; Friend of my bosom, thou more than a brother, How some they have died, and some they have left me, HESTER. When maidens such as Hester die, A month or more hath she been dead; A springy motion in her gait, I know not by what name beside Her parents held the Quaker rule, A waking eye, a prying mind, A heart that stirs, is hard to bind : |