er brother, Paulo, who comes as his proxy to take the bride to Rimini; and it is to the mistaken impression thus made on her mind that all the subsequent distress is owing. His person, his dress, the gallantry of Paulo's demeanour, are very vividly described, and the effect of his appearance on the surrounding multitude.

And on a milk-white courser, like the air,

A glorious figure springs into the square;
Up, with a burst of thunder, goes the shout,
And rolls the trembling walls and peopled roofs about.
And see, his horse obeys the check unseen;
And with an air 'twixt ardent and serene,
Letting a fall of curls about his brow,
He takes his cap off with a gallant bow;
Then for another and a deafening shout;

And scarfs are waved, and flowers come fluttering out;
And, shaken by the noise, the reeling air

Sweeps with a giddy whirl among the fair,

And whisks their garments and their shining hair.
With busy interchange of wonder glows
The crowd, and loves his brilliance as he
goes,-
The golden-fretted cap, the downward feather,-
The crimson vest fitting with pearls together,-
The rest in snowy white from the mid thigh:

These catch the extrinsic and the common eye.'

The Second Canto gives an account of the bride's journey to Rimini, in the company of her husband's brother, which abounds in picturesque descriptions. Mr Hunt has here taken occasion to enter somewhat learnedly into the geography of his subject; and describes the road between Ravenna and Rimini, with the accuracy of a topographer, and the liveliness of a poet. There is, however, no impertinent minuteness of detail; but only those circumstances are dwelt upon, which fall in with the general interest of the story, and would be likely to strike forcibly upon the imagination in such an interval of anxiety and suspense. We have only room for the concluding lines.

• Various the trees and passing foliage here-
Wild pear, and oak, and dusky juniper,
With briony between in trails of white,
And ivy, and the suckle's streaky light,

And moss, warm gleaming with a sudden mark,
Like flings of sunshine left upon the bark,

And still the pine, long-haired, and dark, and tall,
In lordly right, predominant o'er all.-
Much they admire that old religious tree
With shaft above the rest up-shooting free,

And shaking, when its dark locks feel the wind,
Its wealthy fruit with rough Mosaic rind.

At noisy intervals, the living cloud

Of cawing rooks breaks o'er them, gathering loud
Like a wild people at a stranger's coming;
Then hushing paths succeed, with insects humming,
Or ring-dove, that repeats his pensive plea,
Or startled gull, up-screaming tow'rds the sea.
But scarce their eyes encounter living thing,
Save, now and then, a goat loose wandering,
Or a few cattle, looking up aslant

With sleepy eyes and meek mouths ruminant;
Or once, a plodding woodman, old and bent,
Passing with half-indifferent wonderment;

Yet turning, at the last, to look once more;
Then feels his trembling staff, and onward as before.

So ride they in delight through beam and shade;-
Till many a rill now passed, and many a glade,
They quit the piny labyrinths, and soon
Emerge into the full and sheeted moon:
Chilling it seems; and pushing steed on steed,
They start them freshly with a homeward speed.
Then well-known fields they pass, and straggling cots,
Boy-storied trees, and passion-plighted spots;
And turning last a sudden corner, see
The square-lit towers of slumbering Rimini.
The marble bridge comes heaving forth below
With a long gleam; and nearer as they go,
They see the still Marecchia, cold and bright,
Sleeping along with face against the light.
A hollow trample now-a fall of chains-
The bride has entered-not a voice remains :-
Night and a maiden silence wrap the plains.

We have detained our readers longer than we intended, from that which forms the most interesting part of the poem, the Third Canto, of which the subject is the fatal passion between Paulo and Francesca. We shall be ample in our extracts from this part of the poem, because we have no other way of giving an idea of its characteristic qualities. Mr Hunt, as we have already intimated, does not belong to any of the modern schools of poetry; and therefore we cannot convey our idea of his manner of writing, by referenc to any of the more conspicuous models. His poetry is not like Mr Wordsworth's, which is metaphysical; nor like Mr Coleridge's, which is fantastical; nor like Mr Southey's, which is monastical. But it is something which we have already endeavoured to sketch by its general

features, and shall now enable the reader to study in detail in the following extracts.

The first disappointment of the warm-hearted bride, and the portraits of the rival brothers, are sketched with equal skill and delicacy.

Enough of this. Yet how shall I disclose

The weeping days that with the morning rose,
How bring the bitter disappointment in,-~
The holy cheat, the virtue-binding sin,-
The shock, that told this lovely, trusting heart,
That she had given, beyond all power to part,
Her hope, belief, love, passion, to one brother,
Possession (oh, the misery!) to another!
Some likeness was there 'twixt the two-an air
At times, a cheek, a colour of the hair,
A tone when speaking of indifferent things;
Nor, by the scale of common measurings,
Would you say more perhaps, than that the one
Was more robust, the other finelier spun ;
That of the two, Giovanni was the graver,
Paulo the livelier, and the more in favour.
Some tastes there were indeed, that would prefer
Giovanni's countenance as the martialler;
And 'twas a soldier's truly, if an eye
Ardent and cool at once, drawn-back and high,
An eagle's nose, and a determined lip,
Were the best marks of manly soldiership.
Paulo's was fashioned in a different mould,
And finer still, I think; for though 'twas bold,
When boldness was required, and could put on
A glowing frown, as if an angel shone,
Yet there was nothing in it one might call,
A stamp exclusive, or professional-

No courtier's face, and yet its smile was ready→→→
No scholar's, yet its look was deep and steady-
No soldier's, for its power was all of mind,
Too true for violence, and too refined.
A graceful nose was his, lightsomely brought
Down from a forehead of clear-spirited thought;
Wisdom looked sweet and inward from his eye;
And round his mouth was sensibility ;-

It was a face, in short, seemed made to show
How far the genuine flesh and blood could go ;-
A morning glass of unaffected nature,—
Something that baffled every pompous feature,-
The image of a glorious human creature.

The worst of Prince Giovanni, as his bride
Too quickly found, was an ill-tempered pride..

Bold, handsome, able if he chose to please,
Punctual and right in common offices,
He lost the sight of conduct's only worth,
The scattering smiles on this uneasy earth,
And on the strength of virtues of small weight,
Claimed tow'rds himself the exercise of great.
He kept no reckoning with his sweets and sours ;-
He'd hold a sullen countenance for hours,
And then, if pleased to cheer himself a space,
Look for the immediate rapture in your face,
And wonder that a cloud could still be there,
How small soever, when his own was fair. '
Yet all the while, no doubt, however stern
Or cold at times, he thought he loved in turn.
And that the joy he took in her sweet ways,
The pride he felt when she excited praise,
In short, the enjoyment of his own good pleasure,
Was thanks enough, and passion beyond measure.-
She, had she loved him, might have thought so too;
For what will love's exalting not go through,
Till long neglect and utter selfishness
Shame the fond pride it takes in its distress?
But ill prepared was she, in her hard lot,
To fancy merit where she found it not-

She who had been beguiled-she who was made
Within a gentle bosom to be laid—

To bless and to be blessed-to be heart-bare

To one who found his bettered likeness there-
To think for ever with him, like a bride-

To haunt his eye, like taste personified-
To double his delight, to share his sorrow,

And like a morning beam, wake to him every morrow.' Paulo's growing passion for Francesca is described with equal delicacy and insight into the sophistry of the human heart. He is represented as first concealing his attachment from himself; then struggling with it; then yielding to it

Till 'twas his food and habit day by day,
And she became companion of his thought;
Silence her gentleness before him brought,
Society her sense, reading her books,
Music her voice, every sweet thing her looks. '
He wished not to himself another's blessing,
But then he might console for not possessing;
And glorious things there were, which but to see
And not admire, was mere stupidity;
He might as well object to his own eyes
For loving to behold the fields and skies,

His neighbour's grove, or story-painted hall;
'Twas but the taste for what was natural.

But we hasten on to the principal event and the catastrophe of the poem. The scene of the fatal meeting between the lovers is laid in the gardens of the palace, which are here described with the utmost elegance and beauty.

So now you walked beside an odorous bed

Of gorgeous hues, white, azure, golden, red;
And now turned off into a leafy walk,
Close and continuous, fit for lovers' talk;
And now pursued the stream, and as you trod
Onward and onward o'er the velvet sod,
Felt on your face an air, watery and sweet,
And a new sense in your soft-lighting feet;
And then perhaps you entered upon shades,
Pillowed with dells and uplands 'twixt the glades,
Through which the distant palace, now and then,
Looked lordly forth with many-windowed ken;
A land of trees, which reaching round about,
In shady blessing stretched their old arms out,
With spots of sunny opening, and with nooks,
To lie and read in, sloping into brooks,
Where at her drink you started the slim deer,
Retreating lightly with a lovely fear.
And all about, the birds kept leafy house,
And sung and sparkled in and out the boughs;
And all about, a lovely sky of blue

Clearly was felt, or down the leaves laughed through;
And here and there, in every part, were seats,

Some in the open walks, some in retreats;

With bowering leaves o'erhead, to which the eye
Looked up half sweetly and half awfully,-
Places of nestling green, for poets made,
Where when the sunshine struck a yellow shade,
The slender trunks, to inward peeping sight,
Thronged in dark pillars up the gold green light.
But 'twixt the wood and flowery walks, half-way,
And formed of both, the loveliest portion lay,
A spot that struck you like enchanted ground :-
It was a shallow dell, set in a mound
Of sloping shrubs, that mounted by degrees,
The birch and poplar mixed with heavier trees;
From under which, sent through a marble spout,
Betwixt the dark wet green, a rill gushed out,
Whose low sweet talking seemed as if it said
Something eternal to that happy shade :

The ground within was lawn, with plots of flowers
Heaped towards the centre, and with citron bowers;