had gone as far as they could, and farther than we are willing to follow them, in their affectations, both of style and versification, the song-writers of France and England endeavoured to unite with the polished style and strict versification of the langue d'oc, that "naïveté charmante," which, as M. Roquefort truly says, "fit le caractère distinctif de la langue Françoise dans les douzieme et treizieme siècles, mais qu'elle paroit avoir perdu, sans retour."

This new style of French poetry appears to have quickly become fashionable among the higher classes in England. Chaucer made it the model of his shorter pieces; and traces of its prevalence may be found in all the song-writers even of the sixteenth century. The French, in which these "balades" are written, is that of the fourteenth century; but there are frequent insertions of English words, even these two decidedly English "ease" and "comfort," are introterms, duced an interesting proof how much better suited to the poet was the copious language of his native land, than the more restricted, though more polished, language of the trouveurs of Normandy.

The first to which we shall call the reader's attention, bears a striking resemblance to the of that metaphysical school, of poems which Donne has furnished both the best and the worst specimens:—the refrain has been retained in its original French, from the difficulty of giving the precise words within the limits of a single line.

A wondrous wight is Love, I ween

A thousand thousand forms he weareth;

A tricking sprite, full often seen

And known, though ev'ry name he beareth:

He's rich, he 's poor-he's noble, and he 's meanThe thornless briar-the nettle's rose is he,

En toutz erreurs Amour se justifie.

His gall is honey-sweet-his honey sour—

His toil is ease, and yet his calm is painfulHis griefs are pleasant, but his changeful power Makes surety dangerous, yet losses gainful,And high things low, and low things high to towerWeeping to laughter, sense to scorn turns he, En touts erreurs Amour se justifie. Aye, Love doth cheat his votaries wofully: The nigh is far, what seemeth far is near; A hateful face he wears-then suddenly He smileth on his humble worshipper; His meekness pride is-pride humility; A wrathful lamba gentle lion he, En toutz erreurs Amour se justifie. Now doth he salvage seem-a meek dove now; O! who can tell all his strange witcherie! For slave is he, yet lord of all below,

En toutz erreurs Amour se justifie. In the next specimen, not only the cadence of the verse and the metre has, as in the preceding, been preserved, but the alternate rhyming throughout is given as in the original. A version of the greater part of this 'balade" appeared, about two years since, in the Edinburgh Review: it was, however, singularly rugged in versification, and in some parts incorrect. It may be remarked, that the verse in the original is always remarkably sweet and flowing; and it may be doubted whether Alain Chartre, or Pierre Ronsard himself, ever sang a more graceful madrigal:

To what shall I compare thee, merry May
Methinks I'll call thee Paradise, for ne'er
Chanted the merle and thrush a sweeter lay;
Nor greener were the fields, nor flowers more fair:
Nature hath trickt herself beyond compare;
And Venus bids all lovers suit to pay;
And none, when Love doth call, should ever answer nay.
When all around I see how Nature, gay,
And fresh, and jocund, riseth to repair
The wrongs of winter, I sigh, Well away!
For I am overwhelmed with grief and care,
All joyous are, while I alone must fare

Even as a frail barque 'neath the raging wind,
Upon the wide seas, rocketh to and fro,
Lady, thus quaked my heart, thus tost in mind,
Heard I that bitter speech which caused my woe:
That cruel blast hath laid my barque full low ;
Nor dare I put forth sail; yet, sure, 'tis said,
The shipwrecked one is lost, unless he challenge aid.

I've read how wise Ulysses cautiously

Steered onward, fearing much the treacherous main,

Not for its rocks and quicksands, but lest she,
The fatal Circe, and the Siren train,

Should wreck his barque-thus hath one light breath slain

My budding hopes: I stand distrest, dismayed;
Yet he that's wrecked is lost, unless he challenge aid.
A desolate mariner of love am I:

No word of comfort soundeth in mine ear:
Like salvage lion dost thou scorn reply

To him who danger threaten'd, wild with fear, Still toward the wished for haven on would steer, Though faint, and lost to hope-O! is 't not said, The shipwrecked one is lost, unless he challenge aid. To thee, sweet lady! still I turn. To send This simple lay, lest thou it scorn, afraid: O frown not!-thou alone canst succour lend, For I the wrecked one am, and, lady, thou must aid.

"BUTCHER!" "BAKER!"

In a sixth-rate lodging-house, in the backroom, in the fourth floor, vegetated Mr. Sadi Babel, a great, though yet unacknowledged orientalist. At the time we write, he was engaged on a grammar and dictionary of the Arabic-a translation into Hindostanee of the Economy of Human Life (on the interlinear system,) for the use of the Company's cadets, an essay on the antiquity and use of Suttees, and Exercises in the Syriac, for the scholars of Mrs. Bluestocking's academy, Peckham Rise. These labours were surely enough for one set of brains, even though working in the inspiring quietude of academic groves: but in Mrs. -'s lodging-house, the work was tremendous. There were about seven different families, enjoying the sacredness of seven different fire-sides, under the same hospitable roof, to which Mr. Sadi Babel was the nearest inhabitant. Unhappily, no two of the families agreed in the respective merits of the neighbouring tradesmen; hence each circle displayed the ostentation of a separate butcher and baker. Mr. Sadi Babel, with an indecision distinguishable of his class, had not, though he had lived in the house for two years, elected either butcher or baker;— hence, the knocker never sounded for "the gentleman at the top of the house." Unfortunately, however, for the peace of our orientalist, the knocker gave a loud and frequent summons to every other lodger; but none of them wrote eastern grammars, or cared for the "Economy of Human Life." The noise of the knocker was not the only annoyance; and yet that alone destroyed in our scholar more thought in its infancy than did King Herod ;-for never did a fine idea fly exulting, like a game bantum on a paling, to the top of Sadi Babel's pia mater, than "rap" went the knocker, and down came the thought

Now, let us suppose that a man has oneand-twenty ideas a day-(we know that many, very many, contrive to do with an infinitely less number)—is it not a lamentable matter that so many stars should be whirled from out the moral system by impinging on a half-quartern loaf and a neck of mutton? The loss and confusion to Mr. Sadi Babel were incalculable. He would be hard at work-all the lore of the burning east would be fusing in his brain, and trickling, in golden drops, from the stump of his pen-when the knock and the two syllables would dart though his system like electric sparks. Brahma, with all his mystic glories, would vanish from the page, and in his place, would rise a spectre in a blue apron. The fine Arabic character-and no one traced it better than Sadi Babel-would lengthen into loins and curl into fillets. Scarcely had the ghosts vanished, and the mere ink again appeared, than another knock-another dissyllable-would shoot through the poor scholar's veins,—and he would sit cringing and starting, a victim at every fresh assault. Imagination that busy fiend in a hungry stomach

would give a meaning to the voices not intended by their owners. One man-at least to the mind of poor Sadi Babel-would call forth his trade as though in mockery of the student's pocket; another, he thought, would have a touch of compassion, a semi-tone of sympathy; in a third there sounded an encouragement- -a good-nature worthy of a trial.

Thus would our orientalist sit, ostensibly at work, on his grammar or dictionary of the Arabic-his Hindostanee edition of the Economy of Human Life-or the Exercises in Syriac for Young Ladies; but, really, with his mind conversing with the tradesman at the door-step, and his eyes rivetted on visionary legs of mutton.

At length, amidst the thunderclaps from iron knockers - amidst continual pelting showers of tantalizing dissyllables, Mr. Sadi Babel sent his last proof of his dictionary of the Arabic to press, and was now wholly bent on his Exercises in the Syriac. The dictionary came out, was reviewed, and found wanting. Though a work of considerable erudition, it was condemned as a hasty and crude production.

In an evil hour Mr. Sadi Babel looked in upon his publisher. He had just cast down the damnatory review, was inflated with wrath against the luckless orientalist, and he abused him from a very copious, though not well assorted, vocabulary.

And what said Mr. Sadi Babel?

Why, he owned that his work contained some errors-"but," said he, pacifically to the bookseller, and the tears sprang to the scho

EDINBURGH REVIEW-STATISTICS OF SPAIN.

THE monstrous absurdities put forth by the author of an article on Spain, in the last number of the Edinburgh Review, have in

duced us, with some labour, to prepare a short statistical account of that kingdom. Our authorities are the Diccionario geográfico-estadístico of Miñano, the Diccionario de hacienda of Canga, the excellent Geogra

fia de España of Antillon, and some articles in the Correo. Nonsense enough on this subject has heretofore appeared in our public journals, but it assumes a questionable shape when sent forth on the authority of the Edinburgh Review.

The superficial extent of Spain, is by the best writers computed at 15,762 square leagues (20 to a degree); its length from E. to W., from the extreme point of Catalonia to that of Galicia, is 660 miles; and the greatest breadth from N. to S., 580. Ac cording to the Spanish geographers, the Spanish coast on the Mediterranean, from the Straits of Gibraltar to Rosas, in Catalonia, is 252 leagues, having 20 principal ports; the coast on the Atlantic extends 234 leagues, having 63 principal ports.

It is extremely difficult to determine the real amount of the population of Spain. It has long been the custom there, to tax the towns according to their population. It is therefore the interest of the inhabitants, to reduce the number as low as possible. The best information may perhaps be collected from the yearly returns made by the rectors to their bishops; and after a careful examination of many of these returns and other important documents, Miñano is of opinion that the population of Spain at present exceeds 14 millions. We doubt if he be correct in some of the inferences deduced from his authorities, but believe that the population at the present moment may be fairly estimated at 13 millions.

The civil and ecclesiastical divisions of Spain are about as unequal as our own. The province

Here, dismissing the Edinburgh Review, we shall conclude our brief notice. Accord

of Zamora, for instance, contains only 71,000 inhabitants, while that of Catalonia has more than 860,000; Avila has 118,000, while Ga-ing to the last census, the number of married licia exceeds 1,200,000. Each province is men was one-third less than that of the single governed by an Intendente. In the ecclesias- men, and the number of women exceeded, tical division, while the archbishopric of very considerably, both together. There Toledo contains 811 parishes, and the bishop- were 1,323 grandees, or persons with the ric of Calahorra 965, Tarragona has only title of marquis, count, viscount, or baron; 129, and Iviza only 20. There are eight 402,059 persons having the rank of noblearchbishops, and fifty-four titular bishops, men; 27,243 placemen; 5,883 magistrates together only sixty-two, although there are sixty-five cathedrals; but Calahorra and Calzada are united under one bishop; and Alcalá la Real, though considered as a cathedral, has not a titular bishop, and Roda has no bishop at all. There are also seven bishops in partibus, of whom one is the Abbot of Alcalá, another the Abbot of St. Ildefonso, and the rest act as auxiliary to certain archbishops. The Archbishop of Toledo, for instance, has two, one for Toledo, and one for Madrid; and to make our account of numbers correct, we may add to these the Patriarch of the Indies, who is also a bishop.

There are, in addition, 122 collegiate churches, governed by dignitaries, and 187 chapters in all. There are 2,363 canons, 1,869 minor canons; there are only 16,481 rectors of parishes, although there are 19,186 parishes, but they have, in addition, 4,929 curates, and 26,499 clergy, without cure of souls. Of

convents and monasteries there are 2,050, with 61,300 monks or friars; of nunneries 1,070, with 31,300 nuns.

If the above numbers be compared with the account in the Edinburgh Review, it is impossible not to wonder at the absurd and monstrous exaggerations of the latter. Here are bishops, archbishops, auxiliary bishops, dignitaries, canons, rectors, priests, monks and friars, "black, white and grey, with all their trumpery," enough in all conscience; and we refer for our authorities to the works already mentioned, and the 'Guia del estado eclesiastico secular y regular de España,' or the

and advocates; 9,633 notaries; 13,274 other persons connected with the administration of justice; 4,346 physicians; 9,772 surgeons; 3,872 apothecaries; 5,706 veterinary surgeons; 29,900 students; 364,514 landed proprietors, cultivating their own lands;" 527,423 tenants; 805,235 labourers; 25,530 proprietors of sheep; 113,628 shepherds; 6,824 merchants; 18,851 retail dealers; 5,899 persons connected with the fine arts, and 489,493 manufacturers, handicraftsmen,

and mechanics.

We may not have described some of these professions very clearly, but it is difficult to find a title that shall explain in English an office which does not exist in England; and our notice is necessarily hurried.-The value of this notice will, we trust, be acknowledged, when such statements as we have adduced are put forward in such a work as the Edinburgh Review.

SONNET.

WHERE are ye gone, O young and feathered Hours!

Who hovered o'er the green world in its prime? In what dull Hades will ye sleep, till time Bring round the golden year? And you, fair flowers,

Strange lilies with no parent, root, nor seed, None save the sudden spring, when first ye fell Down like a dream of Paradise, indeed, Embroidering every slope and showered dell,Will ye-(in what returning orb or age?) Resume the looks ye wore in our young world, Ere yet the serpent round your white leaves

curled?

Tell us;-or shall we seek that pagan sage, Who once foretold such things must come to pass?

Ecclesiastical Directory of Spain,' where the names of the parties are to be found; but the writer in the Edinburgh is perfectly insane in his exaggerations, and in-Speak thou, immortal old Pythagoras! proof we will submit some few of his assertions to the test of truth, in a brief table :

......

..92,600

181,000 ..400,000

...512,000

177,880!!!

307,400 464,091 !!!

summer madness. The writer further states, that there are 7000 hospitals in Spain. It is difficult to know what establishments he includes under the general term hospital: however, in every sense he is in error, for according to the latest reports, there are 2,200 general hospitals, 67 foundling hospitals, and 138 charitable foundations. There are besides, 383 public establishments for

B.

DREAMS, DREAMING, AND DREAMERS. [Concluded from page 538.]

In general, dreams are common-place affairs, made out of our recollections or our wishes that which we think much of, we dream much of; and we are not, perhaps, cheated oftener in slumber by belief, than when awake by hope or fear. Many of the dreams that have been put on record, may be referred to one or other of these sources of illusion-how the mind is acted upon by them, is another affair. Thus, the nine beautiful women that Hesiod saw in a dream, were only the nine Muses whom he invoked when awake; Clytemnestra's vision of her husband wearing a dragon's head, and ready to devour her, was but her conscience taking a bodily form; and Gracchus, when meditating the overthrow of the Roman senate, receiving in a dream a prediction of approaching death, merely dreamed of the fate his enterprise must have taught him, when awake, to anticipate. In modern times, we find, under different forms, the same kind of dreams that gained attention in pagan days,

We have histories of the discovery of treasure and title deeds-of murders revealed deaths predicted-good or bad fortune pointed out. Grosser forms of superstition may be on the wing, but this has yet a strong hold on the minds of our peasantry, and more especially on the peasantry of Wales; I have, myself, shaken the faith of several dreamers in this rank of life, by obstinately remaining alive after they had severally, in their slumbers, prepared my grave. An old and faithful servant of the family has received strict orders to dream about somebody else, or dream in a more agreeable manner; owing to which injunction, it is twelvemonths since I was last put in my shroud. Goldsmith has made a fine use of this species of credulity in his' Vicar of Wakefield,'" telling fortunes by the tea-cup" being included in his daughters' accomplishments; the old lady's dreams, always apropos to her wishes, and the Vicar's own bias towards belief, whilst he shelters himself in a grave look and a wise saying, are among the touches that make us feel how real was the simplicity of the whole group, and how far we are removed from the popular modes and habits of a hundred years ago. Were a premium offered by the Horticultural Society for the discovery of one of this species of PRIMROSE, the most enterprising tourist would fail in the attempt to gain it. He might as well look for another Sir Roger de Coverley rebuking John Matthews in church-time, or for a John Matthews bearing the rebuke with reverence. Alluding to the Spectator,' it would seem, from a pleasant paper in the seventh volume, that dreams, dreaming, and dreamers, were then much in vogue, and even amongst people who ought to have known better. Addison ridicules those whose waking thoughts are employed about their sleeping ones, in a letter purporting to be addressed to him by an oneirocritic, or interpreter of dreams, who thus sets forth his claims to skill and credit -"I hope I am pretty well qualified for this office, having studied by candlelight all the rules of art which have been laid down on the subject. My great uncle by my wife's side, was a Scotch highlander, and secondsighted. I have four fingers and two thumbs on one hand, and was born on the longest night in the year. My christian and surname begin and end with the same letters. I am lodged in Moorfields, in a house that for these fifty years has been always tenanted by a conjuror." The professor then proceeds to state what he undertakes to perform. "I shall, in the first place, tell those persons what they dreamt of, who fancy they never dream at all. In the next place, I shall make out any dream on hearing a single circumstance of it; and in the last place, shall expound to them the good or bad fortune which such dreams portend. If they do not presage good luck, I shall desire nothing for my pains; not questioning but those who consult me will be so reasonable as to afford me a moderate share out of any considerable estate, profit, or emolument I may discover to them. I interpret to the poor for nothing, on condition that their names may be inserted in public advertisements, to attest the truth of such my interpretations. I set aside one day in the week for lovers; and interpret by the year for any gentleman turned of sixty, after the rate of half-acrown per week, with the usual allowances

Had Dr. Franklin's paper on the art of procuring pleasant dreams,' then existed, the professor and his pupils would have found their labour shortened, for the utilitarian doctor makes agreeable dreaming a very unspiritual affair, depending on exercise, temperance, light bed-clothes, and, above all, fresh air; in furtherance of which theory, he tells, or invents, the following story: "It is recorded of Methusalem, who, being the longest liver, may be supposed to have best preserved his health, that he slept always in the open air; for when he had lived five hundred years, an angel said to him, 'Arise, Methusalem, and build thee an house, for thou shalt yet live five hundred years longer.' But Methusalem answered, "If I am to live but five hundred years longer, it is not worth while to build me an house, I will sleep in the air, as I have been used to do.'" Charles Lamb, whose fine spirit hovers over so many ages without belonging entirely to any one, his knowledge being of the present time, his tastes and prejudices all coloured with the past-Elia, with his innocent hankering after old forms of vagabondism that commend themselves to the free state of the imagination, but not to the police office of the judgment has a leaning towards dreams, and boldly proposes to judge of poets by their's. This would be too severe an ordeal-it was only for Pindar to dream that bees settled on his lips and left their honey there;-this instance, however, places us between the horns of two theories: Dr. Franklin would attribute the dream to Pindar's sleeping in the open air-Charles Lamb would aver that it arose from supreme possession of the gift of poetry. What were Shakspeare's dreams? they would be worth knowing. What were the sleeping visions of Milton?-even better worth knowing-since his day-dreams carried him so immediately amongst celestial

scenes and natures

The helmed cherubim,

And sworded seraphim. One would expect his night visions to be grand Hebraic trances. He appears to have thought with Charles Lamb, for, in L'Allegro, not satisfied with "dewy-feathered sleep," he solicits "some strange mysterious dream." Shakspeare, who was entirely a man made up of sympathy with his fellow men, represents Queen Mab dispensing dreams according to the dreamer's profession and this may do very well for the poet

the divine-the lover-the soldier-or the traveller-but what is to become of worthy people whose professions and callings are less connected with mind and imagination? Must the druggist have his nights as well as days impregnated with unsavory drugs? must his sleep be brayed in a mortar? must his dreams be decoctions of senna? Again, must the ears of the poor schoolmaster be vexed, even in slumber, with undelectable Delectus?-and his scholars, imps as they are in the day-time, may not darkness be suffered to change them into the admirable urchins we meet with in books, and never in real life? exquisite little reasoners-wranglers for truths, not apples-and delighting in general knowledge far more than in gingerbread? The London Magistrate, may he

not in visions dwell amongst honest men?Must even Morpheus be leagued with Mr. Peel's policemen, and bring before him an array of pickpockets? Shakspeare's rule will not bear general application-it is the rule of contrary, not the rule of practice.

Margaret of Navarre, a queen and woman of letters, considered striking dreams as an appendage of high rank; like Washington Irving's retired citizen, she conceived that the Deity was, of necessity, on the side of the government, even if she did not go so far as the French marchioness, who thought that He must like human prayers according to the elegance of their language. "The Almighty," says this regal interpreter of visions,

particularly protects the great, and gives them secret forewarnings of future events, be they good or bad." Then follows an anecdote of Catherine de Medicis, who dreamed of the victory of Jarnac the night before the battle was fought, she lying ill of a fever at Metz. "For myself," adds her daughter, "I declare, that every signal accident of my life, happy or otherwise, has always been presaged to me by a dream or some other method." Voltaire, the antipodes of the devout and credulous princess, was not able to shake himself entirely free from an impression, that there might be more in dreams than comported with his philosophy; and many an esprit fort went incognito to the celebrated devineresse who lived in Paris towards the close of the last century, consulting her on their fate, intrigues, and probable length of life. This is readily accounted for so long as the human mind retains apprehensions of death, it must also retain a painful curiosity concerning the future; on this apprehension, and this curiosity, soothsayers have in all ages founded their fortune and reputation. Astrologers were always better paid than astronomers, -those who flattered human pride, by representing the stars as interested in human affairs, than those who represented them as simply fulfilling a passive and appointed course. Nor is such ambition limited to great estates or great minds; if a king or a general have been interested, in supposing, from the flight of an eagle, that celestial intelligences were aroused for his support, many an old washerwoman has derived dignity from a strange dream, fancying with Sir Roger de Coverley, that "there is something in it." She has been her own soothsayer, and, by deceiving herself, saved herself the expense of being deceived.

On a Man with a large Beard.

That beard so thick, so strong, so coarse,

Amazes every gazer;

Your barber must procure perforce

A scythe, and not a razor.

On a large Nose.

For every implement of trade
I swear that Castor's nose is made:

A spade for digging, scythe for mowing;
When he's asleep, a trumpet blowing;
An anchor sure to hold its ground,
A plough to which no match is found,
A hook with ready bait for fish,
A fork and spoon to sweep the dish;
Builders may use it as a prop,
Farmers as harrow for the crop;
'Twill serve as battle-axe in war,
Or when at home the gates will bar;
Ever prepared, himself he shows,
For every implement's his nose.
Another.

To name small from great is the plan
That all our grammarians propose;
So we must not say nose of this man,

But, in justice, say man of this nose.
On a bad Physician.
You seek for revenge on your insolent foe-
Invoke not the powers of evil-

As a patient to Simo persuade him to goYour revenge is complete, for he'll very soon know

That the doctor is worse than the devil.

MEMOIR OF SHELLEY.

[Concluded from p. 537.] SHELLEY, though an outcast from his family, the continual object of the persecution of the press, and a mark for the calumny and detraction of the world, imbibed none of the gloom and misanthropy common to little minds on the contrary, we can trace in his works no anger or dissatisfaction with the world-none of the fret or fever of disappointed ambition: every line he wrote breathes a spirit of benevolence, a love for the whole creation, animate and inanimate. Almost any but a Promethean spirit would have sunk under the weight of his misfortunes and injuries, and that past events should occasionally cast their shadows over him, was natural; but nothing could long ruffle the azure and calm depths of his soul.

Shelley had at command the same weapons which Byron used: but he disdained the arm of satire, and treated his critics with a noble scorn; he says to one of them—

The grass may grow in wintry weather
As soon as hate in me.

Byron had more of the cynicism of Apemantus than the real sense of injury that drove Timon into misanthropy. This is perceptible in all his writings-that Shelley could wield a lash of bronze for others, he proved in Adonais, and not excepting even the strongest lines of our English Juvenal, Churchill, perhaps the stanzas on Keats's Reviewer cut nearer to the bone than any in our language. Among the few satirical poems he wrote, was one on the Court of Chancery, on being robbed of his children; but, great as his wrongs were, even this he never published, though it should have found a place among his posthumous works. This satire was an abstraction, but of awful power. Another I will give on two politicians, of whom Lord Castlereagh, whom he used to call Πυργοάναξ, was one;

Similes.

With a Ha, and a Hum,

We come! we come!
From the ends of the earth-

In some of the scenes, the swinish multitude are introduced before the monarch. But I have altogether forgotten the plot.

Yet, though Shelley despised the sort of criticism with which he was all his life assailed, he was not insensible to the injustice of the world. But what could he expect from the reviewers, after telling them almost in the outset of his career that the system of reviewing was incompatible with poetry, and sprung up in that torpid interval when poetry was not;-that Longinus and Homer could never have existed together, &c.—was it not natural that he should be attacked? Yet, writing with the hell of reviews before his eyes, nothing could ever induce him to throw a bone to the Cerberuses-to change one tittle or iota in order to deprecate their animosity. Nor was it vanity or longing after fame, the common incentives of authors, which made him continue to publish. However visionary might be Shelley's theories of reform, they sprung from a mind in which selfishness never entered-a mind ardently devoted to what he considered the vital interests of humanity. I look upon most of his poems to be a comment on the Phædo and Republic of Plato, and that they have a tendency to promote liberty, and with it that greatest and best of truths, the immortality of the soul. The sincerity of his opinions, however erroneous, was proved by the willingness with which he submitted to obloquy and reproach, in order to inculcate them. Shelley attributed the vice and misery of mankind-the degradation of the many for the benefit of the few-to an unnatural state of society-to a general misgovernment in its rulers-to the superstition and bigotry of a mercenary and insincere priesthood. With a poet's eye he foresaw a millennium the perfectability of the human race, when man would be happy, free, high, and majestical.

Pure and moral himself, loving virtue for her own sake, and not from fear, he thought no other ties were necessary than the restraints imposed by a consciousness of right and wrong implanted in our natures, and could not see that in the present state of the world, and in the default of education, such a system was fallacious.

His tenets, therefore, should have been looked at as those of Owen of Lanark are with us, or those of St. Simon in France, as the aspirations of the philanthropist; and the critic might have said with Maddalo You talk Utopias,

instead of calumniating the man and attributing to his speculations the desire of corrupting youth, which could be as little said of him as it was untrue of Socrates. Besides, it should have been considered that works so abstruse, so subtle, so profound and metaphysical, are far beyond the capacities of the many, and can only be thoroughly comprehended by those who have made the Platonic philosophy the study of their lives. Even the Quarterly reviewers, in 1810, confessed that there was no danger in his writings.

Shelley lived in a world of his own, and, believing with Berkley only in the existence of mind, it was with an effort to himself that he descended to matter and the realities of life;-hence, he used to say, that 'The Cenci' was a heavy task, and produced with infinite labour. Yet he proved in that tragedy no less an acquaintance with the workings of the human mind than he had done in displaying the secret springs of nature. He laboured at his Charles I.' for months, and yet made little progress, whilst The Revolt of Islam' only occupied six months, and the 'Prometheus Unbound' fewer weeks.

It was said of Heraclitus, by Socrates, that where he understood his works he found them magnificent, and where he did not, he supposed them to be equally so. Thus, the subtlety of Shelley's poetry escapes from common intellects the brilliancy of his ideas, the prodigality of his imagination is lost on common minds. His talents were developed by an unwearied and unceasing cultivation. Poetry was not the amusement, it was the serious occupation of his life-the object of his waking and dreaming thoughts. He exercised the severest self-criticism on every thing he wrote, and his MSS., like that of Tasso at Ferrara, are scarcely decipherable. It has been supposed also, that Byron improvised his poems. This is a great mistake, and I am told, that in the Proofs sent him, he made what the painters call innumerable

"Pentimentos."

Shelley, as a poet, stands alone. He is to be tried by the test of no other writer. Like Byron, he belongs to no school. The world now begins to do him justice, and assign him the place he deserves a niche by the side of his friend. Byron could set bounds to his imagination, control it at will. Shelley was carried away by his. Byron shuddered at the name of Swift, and was always, but without cause, terrified at the idea of ending life in madness or idiotism. Insanity hung as by a hair suspended over the head of Shelley.

The Greeks were right about Trophonius's Cave. No man was ever a great poet who had not, as Shakspeare says, a fine frenzy. Almost all Shelley's and Byron's finest things were written under the effects of a temporary

derangement. Perhaps few will agree with me in thinking Shelley the second master spirit of the age. His creations remind me of the ideal beauty of some of Raphael's Madonnas. Byron's, of Titian's Venuses. Shelley's figures possess all the classical truth that distinguished Nicholas Poussin's, whilst his landscapes combine Martin's wild imaginations with Turner's gorgeous sunsets filled with deepening gold. Byron could be a Salvator or a Claude. Both, like Guido, could give to every subject they touched a portion of their own elastic minds-convert everything into beauty. Neither Byron nor Shelley would have been the poets they were, but for a certain poetical education. They both drank their inspiration from true and pure sources-from all the wild and the wonderful and the beautiful of nature. The memory of Switzerland was ineffaceable in both. In his books Shelley used to scrawl pines and alpine summit raised upon alpine summit, only to be scaled by the Oceanides, with some spectral being stalking from peak to peak.

to

with the wisdom of the serpent-the playfulness of the boy with the profoundness of the philosopher. In argument he was irresistible, always calm and unruffled; and in eloquence surpassed all men I have ever conversed with. Byron was so sensible of his inability to cope with him, that he always avoided coming any trial of their strength; for Shelley was what Byron could not be, a close, logical and subtle reasoner, much of which he owed to Plato, whose writings he used to call the model of a prose style. He was not likely to have lived long. His health had been impaired by what he had undergone, and by the immoderate use he once made of laudanum. He was, besides, narrow chested, and subject to a complaint which, from day to day, might

have cut him off. Its tortures were excruciating, but, during his worst spasms, I never saw him peevish or out of humour—indeed, as an Italian said to me, he was veramente un Angelo.

But thou art fled,

Like some fair exhalation,

The brave, the gentle, and the beautiful,
The child of grace and genius:

Thou canst no longer know or love the shapes
Of this phantasmal scene, who have to thee
Been purest ministers; who are, alas!
Now thou art not.

These affecting lines would have furnished his most appropriate epitaph. I have never been able to read them without applying them to Shelley, or his tribute to the memory of Keats, without, under the name of Adonais, impersonating the companion of my youth. There was, unhappily, too much similarity in the destinies of Keats and Shelley: both were victims to persecution-both were marked out for the envenomed shafts of invidious critics

extracts:

Methinks I sate beside a public way,
And a great stream

Of people there were hurrying to and fro,
All hastening onward, but none seemed to know
Whither:

Old age and youth, manhood and infancy,

With steps towards the tomb,

Cardan, in his chaste Latinity, says"Illuscente Aurora, visus sum toto humano genere, maximaque turba mulierum, non solum ac virorum sed puerorum atque infantium, juxta radicem montis qui mihi à dextera erat, currere. Cum, admiratione captus, unum à turbâ interrogarem, quonam omnes tam præcipiti cursu tenderemus; Ad mortem, respondit."

It is to be lamented that no bust or portrait exists of Shelley, though the infinite versatility and play of his features would have baffled either sculpture or painting. His frame was a mere tenement for spirit, and in every gesture and lineament showed that intellectual beauty which animated him. There was in him a spirit which seemed to defy time, and suffering, and misfortune. He was twentynine when he died, but he might have been taken for nineteen. His features were small; the upper part not strictly regular. The lower had a Grecian contour. He did not look so tall as he was, his shoulders being a little bent by study and ill health. Like Socrates, he united the gentleness of the lamb

both now sleep together in a foreign Peace to their mares!

THE CHARRUA INDIANS.

Ar a late meeting of the Academy of the Arts and Sciences in Paris, the Minister of the Ma

rine announced the arrival of one of the natives of this savage race at Brest, and, at the same time, presented a memoir respecting them, which had been drawn up by Captain Barral, who brought the stranger to Europe.

It appears, from this memoir, that the Charruas inhabit the banks of the Uraguay, on the northern frontier of the Monte-Videan republic; and that, formerly, their hostility was so formidable, as to occasion the Spaniards, as the Chevalier d'Azara himself admits, a greater loss of men than fell in the conquest of Mexico and Peru together. They have neither been civilized, nor entirely subdued, to the present hour. They are excellent horsemen, ride without cloth or saddle, despise European arms, and use a spear from ten to twelve feet long, a lacet or noose, a bow, or a common sling, for all offensive or defensive purposes. Their bodies are covered with vermin, and not a woman amongst them ever thinks of washing either herself or her clothes; indeed, it is not possible to conceive a more disgusting object than one of these savages. Yet nature has endowed them with a handsome person, regular features, and fine black eyes; but their aspect is ferocious. They marry very young, and have a plurality of wives; but a divorce is readily effected. Their food is limited to beef and horse-flesh, raw or half-roasted, ostrich eggs, and partridges; and their favourite beverage is Chicha, a species of brandy, which they mix with fermented honey and water. Branches of trees, covered with ox and horse hides, form their habitations, which are dens of disgusting filth. At the decease of their parents

or adult brethren, the females of the family cut off a piece of one of their fingers at the uppermost joint, beginning with the little finger; and besides this visible token of affliction, they plunge their departed relative's spear or knife into various parts of their arms, bosoms, and sides; keeping their cabins closely for days together, whilst the mourning lasts, and using rigid abstinence. The husband does not bewail the loss of his wife; but when a son loses his father, he has a reed driven through his flesh, from the elbow to the shoulder, in which state he observes the customary period of mourning-passing the first night in a hole, buried as deep as his breast. The next day he draws the reed out of his arm, and then remains for two days longer without either eating or drinking: he lives another fortnight on light food; and at the end of that time has completed his course of lamentation. These Indians, as Azara affirms, are unacquainted with either singing or dancing, and are destitute of any religion whatever, or of any laws or leaders. They bear relentless hatred to the Christians, whom they consider as their worst enemy. Their whole government consists in occasional meetings of the heads of families; and they act in concert when any warlike enterprise is in hand. The men roam in a state of nature, or wear a poncho; and the female is clad in a calico garment, which is generally pilfered from their fathers or husbands. The Charruas have destroyed the ancient Yarou and Bohannés Indians, and incorporated the Minnanes with their own race. Every attempt to domesticate or civilize them has failed. The native, Mutaojo, whom Capt. Barral has brought over with him, would never work whilst on board; and, whenever pressed to do so, began crying, and roaring out, "I'm a poor fellow-a poor fellow!" He was eager after raw meat-took a special liking to the master of the vessel, and thought that he was paying him a compliment, by promising to ease him of his wife when he reached France. His great anxiety was to know whether such a thing as a horse was to be found in that quarter of the globe.

OUR WEEKLY GOSSIP ON LITERATURE AND ART.

In

THE clamour of electioneering has drowned the song of the bard, and lessened the dread of the cholera; old Lydgate says, that discord is the bane of literature and art, and we have it in full action: the contest rages far and wide in country and in town; and a strong fear has come upon electors, that the reform bill will disfranchise them for seven long years. There seems little hope of the country's coming to itself before the spring. the midst of these heart-burnings, it is pleasing to hear of deeds of kindness in matters of literature: Lord Milton has, we understand, bestowed on John Clare, the Northamptonshire poet, a handsome house, with a garden and large orchard, amounting in all to six or seven acres, and when this is considered, in addition to a small annuity-some thirty pounds per year or so-we are bound, not only to praise Lord Milton, but put his name down among the public benefactors to the muse. The Ettrick Shepherd has a farm, value an hundred a year or thereabouts, at the rate of an annual sixpence, from the Duke of Buccleuch-when we hear of other instances of generosity we will mention them.

A statue, in memory of Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, formerly Governor of Java, has just been erected in Westminster Abbey, beside the monument of the last of the Lords de Courcy. It is as large as life, and from the chisel of Chantrey: the posture is easy and