Amid thy white-robed choir of sacred maids, MAR. (apart). Ah me! and how t'unbarb the dart, CAL. Thrice-dearest of our god! Those tender maids led forth to sacrifice, To bear upon their blushing, delicate limbs Weep blood, more fast than even their flowing wounds? The breathing image thou hast often call'd her Of thy youth's bride-exposed to pain, to death! 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, 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 III. Come, the busy day is o'er, 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, One look to heaven restoring all her calmness; 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, CAL. Oh, cruel kindness! and I would have closed eyes I would have smooth'd thy beauteous limbs, and laid 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 And some fell down upon their knees, some clasp'd Of that half-smiling face and bending form. CAL. But he-but he-the savage executioner- 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. 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 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 |