Thus in some village church-yard briefly fade
Spring's puny flowers, ill-mated with the scene;
While, children of the mighty forest-glade,
The massive yew and holly evergreen

From year to year spread their ancestral shade
Over the good man's grave:-the breeze, between
Their foliage whispering, seems at Heaven's behest.
To breathe of peace, and everlasting rest.

THE LAST MOMENTS OF ANDREA ZURBARAN, THE CELE-
BRATED SPANISH PAINTER.

(SUGGESTED BY THE BEAUTIFUL PICTURE OF MR. Haghe.)
BY THOMAS ROSCOE, ESQ.

1.

CHILD of a dark and stormy sire,*
With soul of conquest, flashing

A flame that quench'd e'en Eastern fire,
Where rival worlds were clashing;

And rival faiths fought to the death,
To plant the cross or crescent,

And love and knighthood pour'd their breath
Where woman's eyes shone present:

Land of the fiery brave--of love,
Sweet Eden clime-around-above!
How many a wild and thrilling tale,
Dark passion pour'd upon thy gale,

Till thy bright daughters' cheek flush'd red-
Grew pale with fear-new glory shed
Its splendour o'er each patriot muse,
Thy high-soul'd genius dared to choose.
But ne'er its notes are strung to gladness
Of such sweet force, to deeper sadness-
Love more intense, adventurous spirit-
Strange woes, than when thy sons inherit
The fire once kindled in thy breast,
In thy grand painter's fate express'd!

II.

Say, mighty genius-what the guerdon
For faith, toil, sufferings-works divine?
For love scarce less than such as dared on
Horeb's and Calvary's mounts to shine?
When prophet bards shed Heaven's own splendour
On Earth's cold sphere-'twas still the same
Dark world you fill'd with light-to render

Back ingrate storms of death and shame.
And long that world in guilt and woe,
Rued 'neath its giant kings the blow,

Which struck at Heaven's own legates-Mind,
Love, Genius, Truth, to death consign'd.
On such a world, so stain'd with crime,
Faith's high-strung souls of every clime,
Wreck'd ere their noon of fame beam high,
Like him, Spain's poet-painter, die ;
(Who on his death-couch grasp'd a name,
The world that scoffd must still proclaim ;)

* Spain's conquest by the Goths.

Still hold aloft a guiding star
To souls of beauty, in their war

Of love and light with earth's vain show,
Idols of clay that rule below.
Ambition, hate, pride, envy, rear
Fame's trophies to the minds they fear,
And rivals wreathe the crown that glows
Immortal on truth's painter's brows.

III.

Say, was the love too strong for death,
Deep, self-devoted, bent on high;
Victor o'er nature's dying breath,

And glorying in the heart's last sigh,
To find on earth a resting place?
In woman's arms a home of peace?
To gaze on nature's varying face,
Whose brightest, loveliest, soonest cease?
No! on His boyhood's visions broke
Forms that the fervid spirit spoke,
Predoom'd to run a brief career
Of all most painful, yet most dear.
Passions that scar-to hurl from high!
Proud hopes that mock-joys near that fly,
And seen at distance thro' the gloom,
Flashes of glory from the tomb!

Say, what his dreams of youth's bright morn,
Ere manhood woke to aims new born?
Ah! if they shadow'd forth the scene-
The storm without-the fire within-
With half the speaking force and truth,
That in his forms of deathless youth
Still breathe-dark was that startling dream,
With auguries fraught, sad as my theme;
For love had taught his heart to fear,
And spirit-words first met his ear.

IV.

"Thine evil-genius of the earth

Bids thee awake-go on thy way, With long farewell to boyhood's mirth, Youth's soul-born joys that may not stay.

Farewell the visionary bliss,

Unutterable thoughts that beam

On love and genius! ere at this

Dark eclipse of their glorious dream,—

I come thy destined path to trace,

And read the dark lines of thy face;

That brow that marks thee for my own,

With me to traverse earth alone:

Not one to feel--to sympathise

With thy fond nature's smiles or sighs

To aid thy daring hope of fame,

Shield from the cold world's scorn and blame.

For thee ambition-grandeur shine?

They worship at another shrine;

But in their intervals of rest,

Still point the thorns that pierce thy breast,

And while thy works adorn their pride,

Thy genius, like thy wants, deride.

The friend shall hurl pale Envy's dart,
In each thou lov'st a rival start;
And start'st thou as her name I breathe?
Another claims that bridal wreath.
Nor in yon bright and festal throng,
Thy spirit drinks love's rapturous song;
Nor thou the sordid father's care,

Who dooms her young heart to despair;
Whilst thou a toil-worn exile driven,

Like some doom'd thing from hopes of Heaven,
Wear'st out thy manhood's joyless day;
Then diest! but how, I dare not say,

Lest mad despair my victim seize,

And earth's vow'd vengeance e'er should cease
To dash proud genius' towering hopes,
And close the prisou gate that opes
But on the tomb!"-The vision fled,
Time past-the lover's heart hath bled,
All but the painter's fire is dead!
His glorious morning dreams are o'er,
Ere noon the evening shadows low'r;
And hour by hour, and day by day,
His fate's unravell'd threads betray
The colour of his lot foretold,

His youth's warm fancies, all grown cold.
But wheresoe'er love's exile roam,
In his sad heart hath made its home,
One deep enduring faith-a love
That builds its sabbath home above,
And with his art beloved will dare
To battle with the fiend, Despair;
The dream that o'er his memory's waste,
Its darkest hues of sorrow traced;
The haunting voice of happier years,
That turns all else to dust and tears;
While ever at the wanderer's side,
That world-born spirit will deride

Those ills, which the world's tools declare
Souls not of clay must ever share;
And faster as Fate's arrows sped
Their malice on the sufferer's head,
From the deep fount of love within,
Heaven's hymns of rapturous joy begin.
Earthly love and fame no more,

Bound the wing'd spirit to Time's shore;
All other lights of Heaven grew dim
Before the splendour beams of him
Whose brightness shone in living power,
On the worn pilgrim's dying hour.
And when the notes of ecstacy,
Trembled on lips that scorn'd to sigh,
And the world's tutor'd voice again
Said that he raved-out flash'd it then,
The beaming thought of purest fire,
Whose seraph-wing still mounting higher,
Than e'er its loftiest flight, now shed
Undying radiance round that head
Of holiest majesty and love:
Then rose his spirit-song above;
With that one grand rebuke of earth,
His genius sought its heavenlier birth.

BEAUCHAMP;

OR,

THE ERROR.

BY G. P. R. JAMES, ESQ.

CHAP. I.

THE ATTACK AND THE RESCUE.

It was in the reign of one of the Georges-it does not matter which, though perhaps the reader may discover in the course of this history. After all, what does it signify in what king's reign an event happened, for although there may be something in giving to any particular story "a local habitation and a name," yet there is nothing, strange to say, which gives one-I speak from my own experience-a greater perception of the delusiveness of every thing on earth, than the study of, and deep acquaintance with the annals of a many-lined monarchy. To see how these spoilt children of fortune have fought and struggled, coveted and endeavoured, obtained or have been disappointed, hoped, feared, joyed, and passed away-ay, passed, so that the monumental stone and a few historic lines from friend and foe, as dry as doubtful, are all that remains of them-it gives us a sensation that all on earth is a delusion, that history is but the pages of a dream-book, the truest chronicle, but a record of the unreal pageants that are gone.

However that may be, it was in the reign of one of the Georges-I wont be particular as to the date, for Heaven knows I am likely to be mistaken in the curl of a whig, or the fashion of a sleeve-button, and then what would the antiquaries say?

It was in the reign of one of the Georges-thank Heaven, there were four of them, in long and even succession, so that I may do any thing I like with the coats, waistcoats, and breeches, and have a vast range through a wilderness of petticoats (hooped and unhooped, tight, loose, long, short, flowing, tucked up), to say nothing of flounces and furbelows, besides head-dresses, in endless variety, patches, powder, and pomatum, fans, gloves, and high-heeled shoes. Heaven and earth what a scope!— but I am determined to write this work just as it suits me. I have written enough as it suits the public, and I am very happy to find that I have suited them, but in this, I hope and trust, both to please my public and myself too. Thus I wish to secure myself a clear field, and therefore to declare, in the first instance, that I will stand upon no unities of time or place, but will indulge in all the vagaries that I please, will wander hither and thither at my own discretion, will dwell upon those points that please myself as long as I can find pleasure therein, and will leap over every unsafe or disagreeable place with the bound of a kangaThat being settled, and perfectly agreed upon between the reader and myself, we will go on if you please.

roo.

It was in the reign of one of the Georges-I have a great mind to dart away again, but I wont, for it is well to be compassionate-when a gentleman of six or seven-and-twenty years of age, rode along a pleasant Aug.-VOL. LXXIV. NO. CCXCVI.

20

country road, somewhere in the west of England. It was eventide, when the sun, tired with his long race, slowly wends downward to the place of his repose, looking back with a beaming glance of satisfaction on the bright things he has seen, and like a benevolent heart, smiling at the blessings and the benefits he has left behind him.

The season of the year was one that has served poets and romancewriters a great deal, and which with very becoming, but somewhat dishonest gratitude, they have praised ten times more than it deserves. It was, in short, spring-that season when we are often enticed to wander forth by a bright sky, as if for the express purpose of being wet to the skin by a drenching shower, or cut to the heart by the piercing east wind-that coquettish season that is never for ten minutes in the same mind, which delights in disappointing expectations, and in frowning as soon as she has smiled. Let those who love coquettes sing of spring, for my part, I abhor the whole race of them. Nevertheless, there is something very engaging in that first youth of the year. We may be cross with its wild tricks and sportive mischief, we may be vexed at its whims and caprices as with those of an untamed boy or girl, but yet there is a grace in its waywardness, a softness in its blue violet eyes, a brightness in its uncontaminated smile, a lustre even in the penitential tears, dried up as soon as shed, that has a charm we cannot, if we would, shake off. Oh yes, youth and spring speak to every heart of hope, and hope is the magic of life! Do you not see the glorious promise of great things to be done in that wild and wayward boy? Do you not see the bright assurance of warmer and mellower days to come in that chequered April sky? Youth, and spring, and hope, they are a glad triad, inseparable in essence, and all aspiring towards the everlasting goal of thought -the Future.

It was the month of May-now if poets and romance-writers, as we have before said, have done injustice, or more than justice to spring, as a whole, never were two poor months so scandalously overpraised as April and May. The good old Scotch poet declares that in April,

Primroses paint the sweet plain,

And summer returning rejoices the swain,

but rarely, oh, how rarely, do we ever see primroses busy at such artistical work; and as for summer, if he is returning at all, it is like a boy going back to school, and lingering sadly by the way. Such, at least, is the case nowadays, and if the advice of another old poet, who tells us,

Stir not a clout,

Till May be out,

would seem to prove that in ancient times, as well as at present, May was by no means so genial a month, as it has pleased certain personages to represent it. Nevertheless, we know that every now and then in May, comes in a warm and summer-like day, bright, and soft, and beautiful, full of a tempered sunshine, appearing after the cold days of winter, like joy succeeding sorrow, and entendered by the memories of the past, such was the sort of day upon which the traveller we have spoken of rode on upon his way through a very fair and smiling country. The season had been somewhat early in its expansion; the weather had been unusually mild in March; frequent and heavy showers had succeeded in April, and pouring through the veins of the earth the bountiful libation of the sky, had warmed the bosom of our common mother to a rich and