THE LION'S HEAD. Retrospect of Commerce. OUR Commercial friends will see that we are not so wholly devoted to Literature, as to be indifferent to their gratification; and we appeal to them, whether a connected and comparative view of the course of prices for the last Six Months be not more satisfactory and useful, than the isolated records of monthly sales. We shall continue this kind of retrospect every half year at least; which, in conjunction with our monthly reports, will give all the information that an amateur can require. The practitioner will have earlier, and, we hope, better intelligence than any Magazine can aspire to give. We have received a long four-sided letter from Mr. Youatt, " Chairman of the Sub-committee of the Western Philanthropic Institution"—written all on one side-on that of Mr. Macready. He labours to assure us, that the playbill was the composition of the committee, and not of Mr. Macready; but as we stated this before it would be idle to repeat it. We really think that Mr. Youatt is a well-intentioned man, and therefore shall not help him to get himself a bad name by printing his extremely tedious letter, which appears written for no other purpose than to prove what we first asserted-to laud Mr. Macready's condescension-and to attempt another Benefit in our Magazine for the Western Philanthropic Institution. Some months ago we received a letter from the editor of a well-known periodical work published in America, asking whether the candidates for literary fame on that side of the water would be allowed, on certain terms, to tourney with their elder brothers in the lists of the London? Our answer was in the affirmative, and we suppose that the following poem, dated from the United States of America," has been in consequence sent us. LINES FROM THE PORT-FOLIO OF H A sense it was, that I could see Had fallen on my hours; And that all hope would be most vain of finding in my path again Its former vanish'd flowers. But thou, the idol of my few And fleeting better days,— The light that cheer'd, when life was new, My being with its rays; And though, alas! its joy be gone,— Like storm-clouds on the wind!— Is thy life but the wayward child In part, a crowd of fancies wild, And, oh! are such familiars thine, Doth hope in birthless ashes lie, I trust, not so-though thou hast been Let all of good the world has seen The firstlings of my simple song Yet may thy wandering thoughts restore And now farewell! and although here I hold thee and thy follies dear, For my misused and blighted powers, I will accuse thee not The fool who could from self depart, I reck of mine the less, because A doubtful question of its cause And nature on me steal : An ancient notion that Time flings Our pains and pleasures from his wings, And that in reason, happiness, Both of accession and decrease A. We have billeted this Stranger on the Lion's Head, because he arrived late, and we had no room for him anywhere but at head-quarters. We are sorry we cannot admit the following articles : Allschang; A Rural Dialogue; R. T.'s Poetry, &c.; Simon; Adelmar's Song of the Nightingale ; L.'s Sonnet and Address to the Stars; Translations from the Alpine Dialect; Hauteur; Song by T. W.; Aulus Atticus; Irish Characters; Stanzas to Sarah; British Liberty; On a Fly which had survived the Winter; Tom Thumb's Lines to Greece; G- e's Paraphrase. X-x may be sure that it is with reluctance we refuse an old Friend and Correspondent. The best and kindest advice we can give F. B. is to recommend her not to write at all. THE London Magazine. JUNE, 1823. SPANISH ROMANCES. No. III. No man has probably done so much for the revival of old Spanish poetical literature as Böhl de Faber. His Floresta de Rimas Antiguas Castellanas is a collection of uncommon value; and it is to be regretted that his critical remarks are so scanty. There is a taint of mystical and superstitious feeling in them, with which it is difficult to sympathize; but his industry has preserved many a beautiful fragment from oblivion, to be admired by those whose devotion has any of the ardour of his own. The schools which were formed in Spain on the Latin and the Italian models are little worth. The extravagancies, and even the affectations, of the truly Spanish poets, are tenfold more agreeable than the heavy pedantry which was brought from ancient, and the imitative foppery which came from modern Rome. In the peninsula the wildest flowers are the sweetest. There are hedges Fertiliza tu vega De la fertil vega Vierta el alba perlas desde sus balcones JUNE, 1823. of myrtles, and geraniums, and pomegranates, and towering aloes. The sun-flower and the bloody-warrior (Aleli grosero) occupy the parterre. They are no favourites of mine. Flowers! what hundreds of associations the word brings to my mind. Of what countless songs-sweet and sacred-delicate and divine, are they the subject. A flower in England is something to the botanistbut only if it be rare; to the florist but only if it be beautiful; even the poet and the moralizer seldom bend down to its eloquent silence. The peasant never utters to it an ejaculation--the ploughman (all but one) carelessly roots it up with his share -no maiden thinks of wreathing it— no youth aspires to wear it. But in Spain ten to one but it becomes a minister of love-that it hears the voice of poetry-that it crowns the brow of beauty. Thus how sweetly an anonymous cancionero sings: |