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Amid thy white-robed choir of sacred maids,
Like the presiding swan on smooth Cayster,
And bless Apollo, that hath stamp'd thy soul
His own.

MAR. (apart). Ah me! and how t'unbarb the dart,
Which I must strike into his inmost soul !

CAL. Thrice-dearest of our god!

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Those tender maids led forth to sacrifice,

To bear upon their blushing, delicate limbs
Rude stripes and shameful insults, have they not
Fond parents, loving as thyself, whose hearts

Weep blood, more fast than even their flowing wounds?
Oh, think on her, thy Margarita, her-

The breathing image thou hast often call'd her

Of thy youth's bride-exposed to pain, to death!
To worse to nameless shame!

CAL.

Hath from her God revolted, I'll endure

Even that, or more.

MAR.

When Margarita

No, father, no, thou couldst not,

Thou wilt not, when she meets her Christian brethren,

Patient to bear their Master's mournful lot

Of suffering and of death

CAL.

How? what? mine ears

Ring with a wild confusion of strange sounds

That have no meaning. Thou'rt not wont to mock

Thine aged father; but I think that now

Thou dost, my child.

MAR.

By Jesus Christ-by him

In whom my soul hath hope of immortality,
Father! I mock not.

CAL.

Lightnings blast-not thee,

But those that by their subtle incantations

Have wrought upon thy innocent soul!—Pp. 45—47.

Hymns, both of the Heathens and the Christians, are thickly interspersed through the volume. The following is a favourable specimen of Mr. Milman's lyrical style :

II.

Come away, the heavens above
Just have light enough for love;
And the crystal Hesperus
Lights his dew-fed lamp for us.
Come, the wider shades are falling,
And the amorous birds are calling
Each his wandering mate to rest
In the close and downy nest.
And the snowy orange flowers,
And the creeping jasmine bowers,
From their swinging censers cast
Their richest odours, and their last.

III.

Come, the busy day is o'er,
Flying spindle gleamus no more;
Wait not till the twilight gloom
Darken o'er th'embroider'd loom.
Leave the toilsome task undone,
Leave the golden web unspun.
Hark, along the humming air
Home the laden bees repair;
And the bright and dashing rill
From the side of every hill,
With a clearer, deeper sound,

Cools the freshening air around.-Pp. 88-89.

The concluding scene of the death of the martyred Christians is got up with considerable pomp and power. We can afford room only for the account of Margarita's death.

OFFICER.

Hear me but a while.

She had beheld each sad and cruel death,
And if she shudder'd, 'twas as one that strives
With nature's soft infirmity of pity,

One look to heaven restoring all her calmness;
Save when that dastard did renounce his faith,
And she shed tears for him. Then led they forth

Old Fabius.

When a quick and sudden cry

Of Callias, and a parting in the throng,

Proclaim'd her father's coming. Forth she sprang,
And clasp'd the frowning headsman's knees, and said—
"Thou know'st me, when thou laid'st on thy sick bed
"Christ sent me there to wipe thy burning brow.
"There was an infant play'd about thy chamber,
"And thy pale cheek would smile and weep at once,
"Gazing upon that almost orphan'd child-
"Oh! by its dear and precious memory,
"I do beseech thee, slay me first and quickly:
""Tis that my father may not see my death."

CAL. Oh, cruel kindness! and I would have closed
Thine with such a fond and gentle pressure;

eyes

I would have smooth'd thy beauteous limbs, and laid
My head upon thy breast, and died with thee.

OLYBIUS. Good father! once I thought to call thee so, How do I envy thee this her last fondness:

She had no dying thought of me.—Go on.

OFF. With that the headsman wiped from his swarth cheeks A moisture like to tears. But she, meanwhile,

On the cold block composed her head, and cross'd
Her hands upon her bosom, that scarce heaved,
She was so tranquil; cautious lest her garments
Should play the traitors to her modest care.
And as the cold wind touch'd her naked neck,
And fann'd away the few unbraided hairs,
Blushes o'erspread her face, and she look'd up
As softly to reproach his tardiness:

And some fell down upon their knees, some clasp'd
Their hands, enamour'd even to adoration

Of that half-smiling face and bending form.

CAL. But he-but he-the savage executioner-
OFF. He trembled.

CAL.

Ha! God's blessing on his head!

And the axe slid from out his palsied hand?

OFF. He gave it to another.

CAL. And

OFF. It fell.

CAL.

I see it like the lightning flash-I see it,

I see it,

And the blood bursts-my blood !-my daughter's blood!
Off-let me loose.

OFF. Where goest thou?

CAL.

To the Christian,

To learn the faith in which my daughter died,

And follow her as quickly as I may.—Pp. 159–162.

Notwithstanding what we have said, we do not deny the Martyr of Antioch considerable merit of tenderness and purity, if we cannot concede to it the higher praise of power or pathos. It does not make our heart beat, and our thoughts glow, as such a subject ought to do; but it contains much amiable and pure writing, and we doubt not that it will please many gentle and pious people. If Mr. Milman would slacken the rein of his imagination—would be less sententious, and more impassioned-in short, if he would write more as he did in Fazio, he would shortly rank in the very first class of our poets. He has shewn that he has genius, if he would but give it play--poetic fire, if he would permit it to burn freely. But he dreads so much to be extravagant that he becomes cold: he reminds us of that class who

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In rant and fustian, they ne'er rise to feeling"

in a word, he has been so fearful of taking too lofty a flight, that he has clipped his wings, and now does not rise from the ground. It is seldom that critics have to preach self-confidence to poets; but in Mr. Milman a small addition of that quality, so superabundant in most others, does seem necessary to draw forth those powers which he is known really to possess.

150

MEMOIRES DE M. LE DUC DE LA UZUN. 1 Vol. 8vo. Berrois L'ainé. A Paris, 1822.

OUR readers need not fear that we are going to disgrace our page by any extracts from this book, or even by any detailed account of it. We merely wish to make known its nature and character, that no one may be led to read it in ignorance.

The Memoires du Duc de Lauzun are written by himself. They exhibit the revolting spectacle of a man recording in age the profligacies of his youth, and gloating over the lewd recollections of a vicious life. At the time when the Duc de Lauzun wrote this book, he must have been of an age which could not, in the course of nature, be many years distant from the close of life. At this time,-when the fires of youth are burnt low, and the passions which have hurried us into sin are cooled within us ;-when death is drawing fearfully near, and we have but scanty time to close our this world's reckoning :-at this period, one would think, the soul would look remorsefully back on the errors and crimes of earlier years, and would devote the brief remaining space of mortality to atonement and repentance. But this man, with sins in number and in blackness such as we hope few have to answer; whose whole life had been one course of offence to Heaven, and of wrong towards his fellow-man-this man devotes the last days of his profligate existence to relating his evil deeds with self-glorying satisfaction and pride, and clothing them in the colours most calculated to render them objects of imitation to others, as they had been of exultation to himself.

But, perhaps, the most disgusting part of this odious publication is the manner in which M. de Lauzun makes public the unhappy persons who had been so unfortunate

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