Must then ensue, and chance or chaos-Again I saw him. Oh, the sight! how (haply Both then would prove the same) would claim the whole. Had I a muse of fire, that could ascend less too; Yet tho' my strongest pow'rs may fail to paint Him, Still will I praise him with my utmost fervour, And I will call on nature to unite In the delightful theme and first, O sun! Thou flaming emblem of his love and prowess, First let me call on thee; when thou dost come Forth from thy chambers with fresh strength attir'd, In thy new lustre tell the gladsome morn Who fram'd thy sphere, and when thou dost decline, Then in thy silvery mantle let the moon That rear their lofty heads up to the skies, And bounteous fields, and teeming trees, and flowers Emitting fragrance; let your diff'rent odours, By gentle zephyrs wafted, soar to Him, Mingled with melody from unnumber'd sources. Thou glorious Parent of all things existing, Inspire my soul with pure celestial ardour, And draw my mind from every frivolous subject, To centre, gracious Sire, alone on Thee. THE MANIAC. YES, once I saw him; every happiness And virtues added such as heaven approves ; changed! I saw him in a maniac's dreary cell! But with a wild and frantic cry, he said, My children! ah, my children"!-The great deep Contain'd them;-and their mother lay SAY, what is Heaven?-A place of pure delight, Of perfect joy, of harmony, of peace; Of the Almighty, Great, Eternal, ONE. And injure none, and none shall know decay; L. THE DEVELOPMENT OF INTELLECT. Thy intellect shall stretch; The well-spoke laws of heav'n; And from them knowledge draw; On splendid treasures seize at school, On couch of ease shall rest, And scoff at those who pass their time Whilst he with ease is blest. Perhaps the flowers of virtue's grove The vale of pain, death's frigid zone, And breathe adieu in groans ;- Yea, when on vitals stern disease The human system wear; DESPAIR. MOMENTS on moments still and still succeed, And with new points to make the wretched bleed; Tedious they creep, yet bear my life away, The sun awhile his trembling footsteps guides, In vain he tries to keep his tott'ring feet, burns: THE talent of this author is great, and of a peculiar kind, consisting as much in what he conceals, as in what he discloses to the reader. Some of his tales break off abruptly, leaving the reader to form the conclusion for himself, thus conferring upon them a greater interest than they would have, were they fully narrated. We sat down to the perusal of these volumes, expecting a high treat, and were certainly not disappointed; for, though inferior in some respects to his former productions, and though the subjects of many chapters have been often repeated in other works, yet by the manner of handling them, they are made to possess all the charms of novelty, joined to a style which Addison himself would not have been ashamed to own. and made the shadow of the tongs on the opposite wall look like a long-legged giant. My uncle now clambered on the top of the halfscore of mattresses which form a French bed, and which stood in a deep recess; then tacking himself snugly in, and burying himself up to the chin in the bedclothes, he lay looking at the fire and listening to the wind, and thinkhow knowingly he had come over his friend the marquis for a night's lodging;-and so he fell asleep. a fox-hunting English 'squire, where Thirdly: The Italian Banditti,-ad- As it would be absurd to attempt any further analysis of a work, consisting of nearly forty tales, we shall merely give extracts from some of the best of them; first from the Adventure of my Uncle, who is just shewn to his chamber in an ancient French chateau: "The chamber had indeed a wild crazy look, enough to strike any one who had read romances with apprehension and foreboding. The windows were high and narrow, and had once been loop-holes, but had been rudely enlarged, as well as the extreme thickness of the walls would permit; and the ill-fitted casements rattled to every breeze. You would have thought, on a windy night, some of the cld leaguers were tramping and clanking about the apartment in their huge boots and rattling spars. A door which stood ajar, and, like a true French door, would stand ajar in spite of every reason and effort to the contrary, opened to a long dark corridor, that led the Lord knows whither, and seemed just made for ghosts to air themselves in when they turned out of their graves at midnight. The wind would spring up into a boarse murmur through this passage, and creak the door to and fro, as if some dubious ghost were balancing in its mind whether to come in or not. In a word, it was precisely the kind of comfortless apart ment that a ghost, if ghost there were in the chateau, would single out for its favourite lounge. 66 My uncle, however, though a man accustomed to meet with strange adventures, apprehended none at the time. He made several Not attempts to shut the door, but in vain. that he apprehended any thing, for he was too old a traveller to be daunted by a wild-looking apartment; but the night, as I have said, was cold and gusty, and the wind howled about the old turret pretty much as it howls about this old mansion at this moment; and the breeze from the long dark corridor came in as damp and chilly as if from a dungeon. My uncle, therefore, since he could not close the door, threw a quantity of wood on the fire, which soon sent up a flame in the great wide-mouthed chimney, that illumined the whole chamber, "He had not taken above half of his first nap, when he was awakened by the clock of the chateau, in the turret over his chamber, which struck midnight. It was just such an old clock as ghosts are fond of. It had a deep, dismal tone, and struck so slowly and tediously that my uncle thought it would never have done. He counted and counted, till he stopped. The fire had burnt low, and the was confident he counted thirteen, and then it blaze of the last faggot was almost expiring, burning in small blue flames, which now and then lengthened up into little white gleams. My uncle lay with his eyes half closed, and his nightcap drawn almost down to his nose. His fancy was already wandering, and began to mingle up the present scene with the crater of Vesuvius, the French opera, the coliseum at Rome, Dolly's chophouse in London, and all the farrago of noted places with which the brain of a traveller is crammed ;-in a word, he was just falling asleep. "Suddenly he was aroused by the sound of footsteps, that appeared to be slowly pacing along the corridor. My uncle, as I have often heard him say himself, was a man not easily frightened. So he lay quiet, supposing that this might be some other guest, or some servant on his way to bed. The footsteps, however, approached the door; the door gently opened, whether of its own accord, or whether pushed open, my uncle could not distinguish. A figure If those of our readers who have not already read it wish to see the sequel, we refer them to the work itself.-Vol. I. p. 27. The other extract shall be from the Mysterious Picture. The nervous gentleman has retired to his chamber, fallen asleep in his chair, and has just awoke, when he finds that "The light on the mantel-piece had burnt low, and the wick was divided; there was a great winding-sheet made by the dripping wax on the side towards me. The disordered taper emitted a broad flaring flame, and threw a strong light on a painting over the fireplace, which I had not hitherto observed. It consisted merely of a head, or rather a face, that appeared to be staring full upon me, with an expression that was startling. It was without a frame, and at the first glance I could hardly persuade myself that it was not a real face thrusting itself out of the dark oaken panel. I sat in my chair gazing at it,and the more I gazed, the more it disquieted me. I had never before been affected in the same way by any painting. The emotions it caused were strange and inde. finite. They were something like what I have heard ascribed to the eyes of the basilisk, or like that mysterious influence in reptiles term- | rite subject, are most splendid, and, ed fascination. passed my hand over my when large paper and illustrated copies, eyes several times, as if seeking instinctively most superb. This one, however, in to brush away the delusion,-in vain. They instantly reverted to the picture, and its chill-point of paper, &c. is altogether infeing, creeping influence over my flesh and rior to his others; with respect to the blood was redoubled. I looked round the advice and information contained in it, room on other pictures, either to divert my we leave that to his brethren of the attention, or to see whether the same effect black letter, but we beg to offer a would be produced by them. Some of them were grim enough to produce the effect, if the few remarks to those who wish for a mere grimness of the painting produced it. good not a scarce library, lest they No such thing;-my eye passed over them all should purchase this volume as a with perfect indifference, but the moment it guide to its formation, when they will reverted to this visage over the fireplace, it most certainly be disappointed was as if an electric shock darted through me. The other pictures were dim and faded, but this one protruded from a plain back ground, in the strongest relief, and with wonderful truth of colouring. The expression was that of agony, the agony of intense bodily pain; but a menace scowled upon the brow, and a few sprinklings of blood added to its ghastliness. Yet it was not all these characteristics, it was some horror of the mind, some inscrutable antipathy awakened by this picture, which harrowed up my feelings."-Vol. I. p. 87-89. The mystery is explained in the next chapter; but it would be in vain to attempt it here, without a longer" long, dull, and old," many of them extract than we have space remaining for. Our readers will see by these extracts, that in whatever qualities these tales may be deficient, and notwithstanding their acknowledged inferiority to Bracebridge Hall and the Sketch Book, yet they abound with that for which such works are chiefly read, a deep, thrilling interest, amply rewarding the reader for the time, and even the money, which he has spent upon them. REVIEW.-The Library Companion; or the Old Man's Help, and the Young Man's Comfort, in the Formation of a Library, By T. F. Dibdin. London. 1824. MR. DIBDIN, in one of his former works, divides the Bibliomania, or book-madness, into several classes. "There is, first," says he, a passion for large-paper copies; secondly, for uncut copies; thirdly, for illustrated copies; fourthly, for unique copies; fifthly, for copies printed upon vellum; sixthly, for first editions; seventhly, for fine editions; and, eighthly, for books printed in the black letter." Mr. Dibdin need not yield to any of the Roxburgh Club, of which he is president, in his ardour in the pursuit of all these. The works which he has produced upon this, his favou In the department of Ecclesiastical History, no mention is made of MILNER's, though we have a long list of other authors, many of them long since gone by and obsolete. Among the commentators, no notice is taken of SCOTT, whose notes contain a vast body of critical, explanatory, and practical matter. But if the reader turn to the list of historians of Great Britain, how will he be astonished,— he will see a long list of chroniclers, extremely scarce and expensive, while Camden's Britannia, Hume, Lingard, and a few others, would probably give us the substance of all of them. In short, if one wishes to form a library of scarce, expensive, and obsolete books, he will find this a useful work; but those who wish to form a library in which they can find instruction and amusement, and which they intend to READ, must not depend upon Mr. Dibdin for a monitor. REVIEW.-Conversations of Lord By ron; noted during a Residence with his Lordship at Pisa, in the Years 1821 and 1822. By Thomas Medwin, Esq. of the 24th Light Dragoons, Author of "Ahasuerus the Wanderer." Second Edition, 4to. London. Henry Colburn, New Burlingtonstreet. 1824. Ar length Lord Byron has descended to the tomb, and the star of his brightness has been quenched for ever, afar off in a foreign country. Dare we ask the solemn question, what is now the state of that towering spirit, the halo of whose gloomy grandeur shed forth a mystic gleaming over every object which came within its sphere, and reflected deathless glory on his native island? May we press the inquiry farther, and ask whether, as one disembodied and released from the thraldom of mortality, he hath happily passed into the dazzling regions of that heavenly abode, of whose sublime magnificence his soaring mind hath had such glorious imaginings,— thereof transferring to his pen the most vivid and shining descriptions; or, whether he hath miserably realized an entrance into the gloomy and terrific scenery of that lower abode, whose eternal horrors on earth he pictured with such appalling distinctness? These are inquiries of awful moment, whose decision is the exclusive prerogative of Omnipotence. one The late Lord Byron is now gone whither he can rightly appreciate the realities of that state, which, we regret to say, his proud and intolerant spirit of sceptical hardihood, so openly manifested on earth, either contumaciously neglected or impiously derided. Unsatisfied with his efforts to destroy his individual hopes of future happiness, and constraining himself to look on death as a mere leap in the dark, when the spirit which animated the rebellious clay shall be at once annihilated, he endeavoured, with the whole collected energies of his intellectual mightiness, to instil this deathful opinion into others. For this dark purpose, he embodied into palpable shape and form, not of solitary appearance, but perpetually recurring in his works, his conception of " who lived without hope in the world.” The character of this being, poetically viewed, was grand and magnificent; his mind was lofty and daring; yet its energies were wholly exerted in setting at defiance all ties, moral and religious, and living and dying in their open violation. Over this splendid but monstrous abortion he threw a bright and flashing radiance, a gorgeous but deceitful lustre, calculated to excite our wonder, tempt imitation, and induce everlasting destruction. We know this appears a startling, but it is not a rash, assertion. It is idle in any to deny that what we have just stated is the main object of his Lordship's writings. See it boldly illustrated in his principal agents: what are his Conrad," his "Lara," his " Childe Harold," '—cum multis aliis, but so many variations and deeper shades of the character of a gloomy atheistical misanthrope; and that, in many instances, palpably and knowingly assimilating to his own private personal 66 character? Who can discover his delineation of a hero great and good, in the true and legitimate sense of the words? It is wofully apparent to the most superficial observer, that the grand corner-stone of all his Lordship's works, stands confessed in that word of terrible meaning, Atheism. On this foundation he erected the superstructure of all his descriptions of human character. He revelled, he madly rioted, in the exuberance of his infidel feelings. If he thundered forth his resounding couplets, with eloquent and overpowering vehemence, or marched along in stately and majestic epics,-he did it in praise of infidelity! When he wished to depict a vile and hateful character, he grovelled into the meaner walks of satirical poetry,and, with deliberate and bitter derision, ridiculed the Christian? "Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo!” Oh! where is the man who hath not wept at this wilful perversion of intellect of the very highest order? And we cannot but make the mournful inquiry in the beautiful lines of Mrs. Hemans: "And shall the spirit, on whose ardent gaze The day-spring from on high hath pour'd its blaze, Turn from that pure effulgence, to the beam Of earth-born light, that sheds a treacherous gleam; Luring the wanderer from the star of faith, For the high birthright of its hope in heaven? It is true, the work before us, in detailing one of its Editor's conversations with Lord B. records his saying, "I am not an infidel. And I am much fitter to die than people in England may suppose." What! and is this casual, flimsy assertion, (almost the only two lines on religious subjects in the book, by the way,) rashly hazarded perhaps in one of those fits of despondent superstition, to which it is well known that his Lordship was addicted; or perhaps merely spoken to conciliate the religious feelings of his auditor;is this, we again ask, to be placed in the balance against seven-and-thirty years spent in flat contradiction thereof? If not an infidel himself, whence originated his sedulous and continual endeavours to inculcate those notions |