Of a tumultuous sea they roll and rush!— In flame and smoke the imperial city sinks ! Her walls are gone-her palaces are dust— - The desert is around her, and withinLike shadows have the mighty pass'd away!" Any man with any tolerable command of words could write so; but it will have its admirers. All is ordinary and commonplace-no felicitous flash of imagination in a moment doing a week's work of the senses-no selection of circumstances with a creative power of their own unconsciously urged by genius on its entranced gaze-round which would instantly gather and expand the whole vision of a city— nothing of that mortal gloom belonging to the poet as it was God-given to destruction. But in the midst of it all, we see Mr Atherstone now mending the nib of his pen-now dipping it into the ink-(Oh! how unlike to Shelley's great painter"who dips His pencil in the gloom of earthquake and eclipse," a line of itself enough to make a man immortal,) now pulling out from the slit a provoking hair-and finally, on finishing the paragraph, rising up from his chair, and with much complacency spouting it aloud to his own delight, no less than to the astonishment of the cook down stairs, who wonders if her master be mad. But another vision of Nineveh comes upon his soul;" and though we cannot help thinking that a little more variety would be refreshing, yet, as we wish to give all the best parts of the poem, here is Vision Second "But joyous is the stirring city now: The moon is clear, the stars are coming forth, The evening breeze fans pleasantly. Retired Within his gorgeous hall, Assyria's king Sits at the banquet, and in love and wine Revels delighted. On the gilded roof A thousand golden lamps their lustre fling, And on the marble walls, and on the throne Gem-boss'd that, high on jasper steps up raised, Like to one solid diamond quivering stands, man's garb The sensual king is clad, and with him sit A crowd of beauteous concubines. They sing, And roll the wanton eye, and laugh, and sigh, And feed his ear with honey'd flatteries, Bright-hued and fragrant, in the brilliant And laud him as a God. All rarest flowers, light Bloom as in sunshine: like a mountain stream, Amid the silence of the dewy eve vale, With dream-like murmuring melodious, In diamond showers a crystal fountain falls. All fruits delicious, and of every clime, Beauteous to sight, and odoriferous, Rose-hued, or golden, for the feasting Gods Invite the taste; and winds of sunny light, Fit nectar: sylph-like girls, and blooming Flower-crown'd, and in apparel bright as boys, spring, Attend upon their bidding: at the sign, From bands unseen, voluptuous music breathes, Harp, dulcimer, and, sweetest far of all, This is rather fluent, and we request our readers to admire it as much as they possibly can-nay, to get it off by heart as an exercise of the memory-and a hard exercise they will find it-for, as in looking at it, every word goes in at one eye and comes out at the other, so is it with your ears, in recitation. What a hubbub of ineffective words! Gilded -golden-sun-splendours-brighthued — brilliant light-sunshine diamond showers-sunny light, &c. Why, ten times the effect of all that laboriously accumulated, but most monotonous imagery could have been produced-has been produced-by Milton, in one short sentence! Yet Mr Atherstone had all the while a description by Milton in one eye, while he was squinting at his own Vision with the other. As to his ears, their drums must be indeed made of leather. Gorgeous-beauteous-melodious-delicious-odoriferous-voluptuous-mellifluous-all in one single page! Then observe how he hastes back and forward in his chase of images, Reader, do not, unless you be a dunce, a chance blockhead reading Blackwood, cry-"Pshaw! mere verbal criticism!" For to such a test as this must all poetry and painting be rigorously subjected; else the Fine Arts are the coarsest of all human inventions; and the "whole world of eye and ear" a mere mockery, which may be made to shift at the pleasure of pen or pencil, without fear or love of nature, and in violation of all her essential and eternal laws. But each terpres ac minister; and he will shew true poet and painter is, naturæ inthat in every word he utters, be he tain, a bee-cell or a man-city, the speaking of a molehill or a mouncaterwauling of cats or of concubines, the destruction of a gnat or a Nineveh. Sardanapalus, while thus feasting and philandering in his palace, has called round Nineveh the whole armies of all the tributary princes of the Assyrian empire. These, with his own Assyrian troops, amount to two nounced his royal will that they shall millions of fighting men. He has anall march in one vast body for four days round and round the city walls. But many of the chiefs, especially of the Medes and Babylonians, are ripe for revolt and rebellion; and two of baces, are brought before us, with the most powerful, Belesis and Arsome little spirit, in the First Book. Belesis is a Babylonian prince, highpriest and warrior, and skilled in all seers!" Arbaces, tracing his birth from "the dark learning of Chaldea's the long line of Median kings, had sat on a throne had not Media been in thrall to the Assyrian tyranny. During midnight, Arbaces had sought the palace of Sardanapalus—that he might see what sort of a looking personage he was-who, invisible in his harem, tyrannized over the world. Nigh to the palace, Belesis stands waiting his coming forth "The palace gate at length wide open flies, And, like a youthful giant, in bright arms Comes forth the heroic Mede. A cubit's "Unseen of that loose revelry." All right. He was a spy. But how, we ask Mr Atherstone, could a heroic Mede, like a youthful giant in bright arms, have escaped the notice of Sardanapalus, and of his concubines, and his guards? Impossible-We beg leave, therefore, to correct this oversight, and to assure the public that if Arbaces was indeed in the palace, he was up in one of the galleries, in disguise, among the fiddlers. Arbaces instantly breaks out into violent abuse of Sardanapalus-as well he might-calling him "This drunkard-this effeminate-this thing, Man-limbed and woman-hearted." But the parson is more prudent, lays his fingers on his lips-bids the young giant jump into his chariot-and away they drive into the country. The whole operation is thus circumstantially described, and looks as if from the pen of a hackney coachman. "That said, in haste, Communing as they went, their way they take. They mount their chariot: thunder o'er the bridge, That spans broad Tigris: on the ample road, Palm bordered, swiftly urge their smoking steeds, Till, far behind, the mighty city's roar "I see the dark veil drawn-I see a throne Dash'd to the earth-I see a mighty blaze, As of a city flaming to the heavensAnother rises-and another throneThereon a crowned one, godlike—but his face With cloud o'er-shadowed yet-ha! is it thou? Hark! hark! the countless nations shout for joy! I hear their voices like the multitudes Of ocean's tempest waves-I hear-I see" Satisfied with what he has seen, he falls down in a breathless trance, and for no reason whatever that we can discover, as he had been prerits, lay senseless and motionviously in excellent health and spiless." Meanwhile Arbaces walked to and fro, impatient of the coming of the priest-and at last he too has a vision-Vision Fourth-of course in its general features the same as the three preceding-but as longin description at least-as all three put together-and minute to a degree of tiresomeness, that throws into the shade all other possible prosing, past, present, and to come. If "He feels the hot blood in a torrent burstHe sinks, he groans-he seems to pass away." Mr Atherstone then launches out into a medical report of the recovery of Arbaces from the imaginary woundand at its conclusion, treats us with a full and particular account of his widowed mother, and his sister and his sweetheart (by name Hamutah) forming a family-party-far far off at home, and wondering when he will return from Nineveh. But we must give a little bit: "He sees them looking for his glad re He at his heart still wore; a curl of gold, From his imperial brow, in happy hour Transplanted, in her bosom · fragrant grew." That is something new. Think of a lover transplanting a lock of his hair into his mistresses bosom-of its absolutely taking root there-and growing! What length do you suppose it was? a foot long? six inches? Did Hamutah expose her bosom sufficiently, to exhibit this tuft of hair, not originally her own, between her breasts? Did she duly put it at night into papers, and duly at morning light comb it out with an ivory smalltooth? Did she bathe it in L'Huile des roses, and brush it up with a patent scrubber? What was thought of it by the Median maids in general? And did lovelocks of that kind become fashionable among all virgins whose lovers were at the wars? Mr Atherstone, we pause for forms Arbaces that he, the Mede, is a reply. Belesis reappears, and indelegated by Heaven to be the overthrower of the Syrian empire; and after much tedious palaver, they remount the chariot and return to the camp. Five days seem to elapse between the close of the First Book and the opening of the Second. Almost all the Second, which is not so dull as the First, because shorter, is occupied by farther description of the debaucheries of Sardanapalus, and his and jealous Queen Atossa. And it marriage-quarrels with his haughty concludes with a description of the first day of the grand review. Two million men are put into motionby the moving of the Assyrian flagstaff in the hand of Sardanapalus, who takes his station on a mount conspicuous to all the army. This flagstaff though" tall as a mast"—Mr Atherstone does not venture to go on to say with Milton, " hewn on Norwegian hills," or "of some tall ammiral," though the readers' minds supply the deficiency-this mast was, we are told, for "two strong men, a task;" but it must have been so for twenty. To have had the least chance of being all at once seen by two million of men-it could not have been less than a hundred and fifty feet high-and if Sardanapalus waved the royal standard of Assyria round his head, Samson or O'Doher What think ye of that, Mr Audubon, Mr Charles Buonaparte, Mr Selby, Mr James Wilson, Sir William Jardine, and ye other European and American ornithologists? Mr Atherstone, did you ever see an eagle-a speck in the sky? Never again suffer yourself, oh, dear sir! to believe old women's tales of men on earth shooting eagles with their mouths; because the thing is impossible, even had their mouth-pieces had percussion-locks, and had they been crammed with ammunition to the muzzle. Had a stray sparrow been fluttering in the air, he would certainly have got a fright, and probably a fall-nor would there have been any hope for a tom-tit. But an eagle -poo, poo-he would merely have muted on the roaring multitude, and given Sardanapalus an additional epaulette; while, if a string of wildgeese at the time had been warping their way on the wind, why, they would merely have shot the wedge firmer and sharper into the air, and answered the earth-born shout with an air-born gabble-clangour to clangour. Where were Mr Ather stone's powers of ratiocination, and all his acoustics? Two shouts slew an eagle. What became of all the other denizens of air-especially crows, ravens, and vultures, who, VOL. XXVII, NO, CLXI, seeing two millions of men, must have "come flocking against a day of battle?" Every mother's son of them must have gone to pot. Then what scrambling among the allied troops! What, pray, was one eagle doing by himself " up bye yonder?" Was he the only eagle in Assyria-the secular bird of ages? If so, it was a shame to shoot him-especially at two shouts. Who was looking at him, first a speck-then faltering-then fluttering and wildly screaming--then plump down like a stone? Mr Atherstone talks as if he saw it, which is absurd. And what, pray, have we to do with his " sunny eye growing dark?" That is entering too much into the medical, or rather anatomical symptoms of his apoplexy, and would be better for a medical journal than an epic poem. But to be done with it--two shouts that slew an eagle two miles up the sky, must have cracked all the tympana of the two million shouters. The entire army must have become as deaf as a post. Sardanapalus himself, on the mount, must have been blown into the air as by the explo sion of a range of gunpowder-mills; the campaign taken a new turn; and a revolution been brought about, of which, at this distance of place and time, it is not easy for us to conjecture what might have been the fundamental features on which it would have hinged-and thus an entirely new aspect given to all the his tories of the world. What is said about the lion, is to our minds equally picturesque and absurd. He was among the far-off hills. How far, pray? Twenty miles? If so, then, without a silver ear-trumpet, he could not have heard the huzzas. If the far-off hills were so near Nineveh as to allow the lion to hear the huzzas even in his sleep, the epithet far-off, should be alteredand, indeed, the lion himself removed more into the interior: for, we do not believe that lions were permitted to live in dens within ear-shot of Nineveh. Nimrod taught them "never to come there no more”—and Semiramis looked sharp after the suburbs, But, not to insist unduly upon a mere matter of police, is it the nature of lions, lying in their dens among far-off hills, to start up from L |