own, we have found it impossible to comprehend. The following is in better style, though inconsistent with the character of the hero, who is supposed to look with as much abomination as the Rev. Blanco White himself on the established religion of Spain:

'Sounds of triumphant praise! the mass was sung

Voices that die not might have pour'd such strains!
Thro' Salem's towers might that proud chant have rung,
When the Most High, on Syria's palmy plains,
Had quell'd her foes!-so full it swept, a sea
Of loud waves jubilant, and rolling free!

- Oft when the wind, as thro' resounding fanes,
Hath fill'd the choral forests with its power,

Some deep tone brings me back the music of that hour.'

p. 27. This solemnity, too, formed part of that bloody ceremony which the hero witnessed with so much horror, and from which he afterwards fled, as indeed well he might have fled from such an unholy exhibition, like one half distracted. The stanza which we have just cited is the only one out of at least fifty which are occupied with the auto-da-fé, worthy of favourable notice. Mrs. Hemans has here indulged herself after the example of Mr. Southey, with pouring forth a great deal of those meditative effusions on sacred subjects, which, to say the least of them, are very much out of place in compositions of this description. True piety, whatever be its source, is always best seen or heard of in action, or in the influence by which it subdues the passions, and directs the natural benevolence of the heart. We have no taste for the commixture of sacred writ with that sort of poetry which is or ought to be intended for the amusement of cultivated minds. But we return

with our hero to a more agreeable theme.

my

child,

'I sought my home again : and thou,
There at thy play beneath yon ancient pine,

With eyes, whose lightning laughter hath beguil'd
A thousand pangs, thence flashing joy to mine;

Thou in thy mother's arms, a babe, didst meet

My coming with young smiles, which yet, though sweet,
Seem'd on my soul all mournfully to shine,
And ask a happier heritage for thee,

Than but in turn the blight of human hope to see.

Now sport, for thou art free-the bright birds chasing,
Whose wings waft star-like gleams from tree to tree;
Or with the fawn, thy swift wood-playmate racing,
Sport on, my joyous child! for thou art free!
Yes, on that day I took thee to my heart,
And inly vow'd, for thee a better part
To choose; that so thy sunny bursts of glee
Should wake no more dim thoughts of far-seen woe,
—as now they flow.

But, gladdening fearless eyes, flow on

• Thou hast a rich world round thee: Mighty shades
Weaying their gorgeous tracery o'er thy head, yo
With the light melting through their high arcades, u

As through a pillar'd cloister's: but the deaded
Sleep not beneath; nor doth the sunbeam passing zook
To marble shrines through rainbow-tinted glass;
Yet thou, by fount and forest-murmur led

To worship, thou art blest!-to thee is shown it ad
Earth in her holy pomp, deck'd for her God alone.

grab
pp. 4

pp. 48, 49.

At home he remained but a little time, when he incurred the suspicions of the Inquisition, and was conveyed to a dungeon. We shall close our extracts from this poem with the description of the fugitive's feelings immediately after he effected his escape from imprisonment. It is without comparison the most powerful, we had almost said the only powerful, passage of the whole composition. We quote it cheerfully; and it would have afforded us gratification if we could have discovered any other lines in the second part of this production worthy of a similar distinction.

I had gain'd

The covert's heart with swift and stealthy tread:
A moan went past me, and the dark trees rain'd
Their autumn foliage rustling on my head;

A moan

a hollow gust-and there I stood

Girt with majestic night, and ancient wood,
And foaming water. Thither might have fled
The mountain Christian with his faith of yore,
When Afric's tambour shook the ringing western shore!

But through the black ravine the storm came swelling
Mighty thou art amidst the hills, thou blast!
In thy lone course the kingly cedars felling,
Like plumes upon the path of battle cast!
A rent oak thunder'd down beside

my cave
Booming it rush'd, as booms a deep sea-wave;
A falcon soar'd; a startled wild-deer pass'd;
A far-off bell toll'd faintly through the roar

2

How my glad spirit swept forth with the winds once more!

And with the arrowy lightnings!

for they flash'd,

Smiting the branches in their fitful play,

And brightly shivering where the torrents dash'd

Up, even to crag and eagle's nest, their

spray!

And there to stand amidst the pealing strife,

The strong pines groaning with tempestuous life,
And all the mountain-voices on their way,

Was it not joy?'twas joy in rushing might,

After those years that wove but one long dead of night!
There came a softer hour, a lovelier moon,

And lit me to my home of youth again,

Through the dim chesnut shade, where oft at noon,
By the fount's flashing burst, my head had lain,

In gentle sleep: but now I pass'd as one

That may not pause where wood-streams whispering run,
Or light sprays tremble to a bird's wild strain,

Because the avenger's voice is in the wind,

The foe's quick rustling step close on the leaves behind.

With the soul's lov'd ones be a mournful thing,
When we go forth in buoyancy of heart,
And bearing all the glories of our spring
For life to breathe on, is it less to meet,

When these are faded? who shall call it sweet?

-Even though love's mingling tears may haply bring
Balm as they fall, too well their heavy showers
Teach us how much is lost of all that once was ours!

Not by the sunshine, with its golden glow,
Nor the green earth, nor yet the laughing sky,
Nor the faint flower-scents, as they come and go
In the soft air, like music wandering by ;

-Oh! not by these, th' unfailing, are we taught
How time and sorrow on our frames have wrought,

But by the sadden'd eye, the darken'd brow,
Of kindred aspects, and the long dim gaze,

Which tells us we are chang'd,-how chang'd from other days! 'Before my father-in my place of birth,

I stood an alien. On the very floor

Which oft had trembled to my boyish mirth,
The love that rear'd me, knew my face no more!
There hung the antique armour, helm and crest,
Whose every stain woke childhood in my breast,
There droop'd the banner, with the marks it bore
Of Paynim spears; and I, the worn in frame
And heart, what there was I?—another and the same!
Then bounded in a boy, with clear dark eye-

- How should he know his father? - when we parted,
From the soft cloud which mantles infancy,
His soul, just wakening into wonder, darted
Its first looks round. Him follow'd one, the bride
Of my young days, the wife how lov'd and tried!
Her glance met mine I could not speak · - she started
With a bewilder'd gaze ; until there came
Tears to my burning eyes, and from my lips her name.
'She knew me then! - I murmur'd" Leonor!"

And her heart answer'd! Oh! the voice is known
First from all else, and swiftest to restore
Love's buried images with one low tone,

That strikes like lightning, when the cheek is faded,
And the brow heavily with thought o'ershaded,
And all the brightness from the aspect gone!

Upon my breast she sunk, when doubt was fled,
Weeping as those may weep, that meet in woe and dread.

For there we might not rest. Alas! to leave
Those native towers, and know that they must fall
By slow decay, and none remain to grieve
When the weeds cluster'd on the lonely wall!
We were the last my boy and I-the last
Of a long line which brightly thence had pass'd!
My father bless'd me as I left his hall

With his deep tones and sweet, tho' full of years,

He bless'd me there, and bath'd my child's young head with tears.'

pp. 60-65. We have already told the rest. Leonora perished on the voyage, and the father and child found, after various wanderings, a sanctuary in the forest.' Of the minor compositions at the end of the volume, we are disposed to think very favourably. In truth, Mrs. Hemans is likely to be more successful in a short poem, for which a single hint and a few happy thoughts are sufficient, than in a longer work, which requires a prolific invention, and an ardent, adventurous, lofty imagination.

ART. V. History of the Commonwealth of England, from its Commencement to the Restoration of Charles the Second. By William Godwin. Vol. II. 8vo. pp. 696. London. Colburn. 1826.

It is about two years since the first volume of Mr. Godwin's History of the Commonwealth of England was reviewed in the pages of this Journal*; and in now taking up the continuation of his labours, after so considerable an interval of time, we have been careful to subject them anew, in this second volume, to a distinct and dispassionate judgment. But after diligently examining the progress of the work, we can only confirm and extend the strictures passed by our predecessors upon the earlier portion. A recurrence to their opinion has left us something to add, but nothing to reverse or to modify; and we find Mr. Godwin's second volume compiled with exactly the same overweening pretensions, and the same mistaken estimate of the value and novelty of his undertaking, which were justly remarked in the first. That he still fancifully and pertinaciously imagines it reserved for himself to rescue the history of the Commonwealth and the character of its leaders from oblivion and calumny is evident in various ways. Such are the repeated boasts of his motto, "to attend to the neglected, and to remember the forgotten," his contemptuous and sweeping depreciation of historians as a body, and his total omission to notice with applause the productions of writers who have anticipated him on his own side of the political question, with the benefit of precisely the same materials to work upon, and with at least an equal measure of

-

* See Vol. civ. p. 242. of the former Series of the Monthly Review.

ability, industry, and zeal. Among these need be instanced only Mrs. Macauley in the last century, and Mr. Brodie in our own times:

to say nothing of the masterly and philosophical though rapid view of the great features and principles of the contest between Charles I. and the Parliament, which was prefixed by Mr. Fox to his life of James II.

In the first portion of his work, Mr. Godwin was pleased to proclaim to the world his indifferent opinion of the careless and imi tative set of men that we call historians.' Therein he proceeded no farther than to exhibit his complacent conviction of his own superiority over all that despised and vituperated race. But his second volume has, it seems, a higher object than this: it is replete with profound and original remarks upon the province and true business of history itself, which are evidently intended for the improvement of so neglected a science, and the edification and correction of its unworthy professors. Thus, we are for the first time instructed, that (p. 7.) the historian treats of facts, not fictions ;' that (p. 78.) it is the duty of the historian to glean up incidental points of information;' that (p. 431.) it is the province of history to distribute justice with discernment;' and, lastly, we are indebted to him for a hint for which his own work may sufficiently afford some practical exercise, that (p. 529.) it is not unworthy of notice to remark the style in which history is written by party men.' From these and similar new and important discoveries some individual of more leisure than we possess may extract from Mr. Godwin's pages a whole code of maxims and precepts for the better writing of history in future: but lest, after all, the gleaner should be disposed to estimate too highly the value of the instruction which he may thus collect from the perfection of the science, let him learn from this great authority how vain and impotent are its best conclusions:

'It is thus that history is obliged to grope its way, in treating of the most considerable events. We put together seemings, and draw our inferences as well as we may. Contemporaries who employ themselves in preserving facts are sure to omit some of the most material, upon the presumption of their notoriety, and that they are what every body knows. History in some of its most essential members dies, even as generations of men pass off the stage, and the men who were occupied in the busy scene become victims of mortality. If we could call up Cromwel from the dead, nay, if we could call up some one of the comparatively insignificant actors in the time of which we are treating, and were allowed the opportunity of proposing to him the proper questions, how many doubts would be cleared up, how many perplexing matters would be unravelled, and what a multitude of interesting anecdotes would be revealed to the eyes of posterity! But History comes like a beggarly gleaner in the field, after Death, the great lord of the domain, has gathered the crop with his mighty hand, and lodged it in his garner, which no man can open.'- pp. 29, 30.