And Knowledge spreads them on her ample lap; Stumbling o'er recollections; now we clap The trebly hundred triumphs! and the day Alas, for Earth, for never shall we see That brightness in her eye she bore when Rome was free! Thy country's foes ere thou would pause to feel With all thy vices, for thou didst lay down By aught than Romans Rome should thus be laid? Her warriors but to conquer-she who veil'd Her rushing wings-Oh! she who was Almighty hail'd ! p. 42-45. Here his mind reverts, in its passion, to the great ruling spirits of his own country or age, in whom he discerns a dark and shadowy resemblance to the Syllas and Cæsars of Rome; and, passing from Cromwell to Napoleon, he glances at the French Revolution, and fills several confused and turbid stanzas with political retrospects and prophecies. From these lucubrations, however, we confess we are not unwillingly brought back to the scene before him, by a very beautiful passage, which ends, like so many others, with the powerful expression of his own gloom and misanthropy. This strain, however, is soon discontinued. Among the ruins of Rome there is no stedfast resting-place for the indulgence of individual sorrow; and the pilgrim, rising into a loftier mood, thus blends his spirit with the glorious decay. Then let the winds howl on! their harmony With their large eyes, all glistening grey and bright, What are our petty griefs?-let me not number mine. On what were chambers, arch crush'd, column strown Heart, soul could seek, tongue ask-Away with words! draw near, Admire, exult-despise-laugh, weep,-for here There is such matter for all feeling :-Man! Thou pendulum betwixt a smile and tear, Ages and realms are crowded in this span, This mountain, whose obliterated plan Of Glory's gewgaws shining in the van Till the sun's rays with added flame were fill'd! Where are its golden roofs ? where those who dared to build? Tully was not so eloquent as thou, Thou nameless column with the buried base! To crush the imperial urn, whose ashes slept sublime, Buried in air, the deep blue sky of Rome, With household blood and wine, serenely wore p. 56-59. On the accidental recurrence to his mind of the character of Numa, his spirit falls into a passionate dream of the Egerian Grot, in which there breathes that full, delicate, and perfect sense of beauty which often steals upon him during moods of a very different kind, and wins him, somewhat reluctantly, away into scenes filled with images of stillness and peace. Egeria! sweet creation of some heart Which found no mortal resting-place so fair As thine ideal breast; whate'er thou art The nympholepsy of some fond despair; Or, it might be, a beauty of the earth, Who found a more than common votary there Too much adoring; whatsoe'er thy birth, Thou wert a beautiful thought, and softly bodied forth. The mosses of thy fountain still are sprinkled Of thy cave-guarded spring, with years unwrinkled, The rill runs o'er, and round, fern, flowers, and ivy, creep, Fantastically tangled; the green hills Are clothed with early blossoms, through the grass. Of summer-birds sing welcome as ye pass; Flowers fresh in hue, and many in their class, eyes, Here didst thou dwell, in this enchanted cover, This cave was surely shaped out for the greeting And didst thou not, thy breast to his replying, And Love, which dies as it was born, in sighing, And root from out the soul the deadly weed which cloys? p. 60-62. But he will not allow himself to be held in the innocent enchantment of such emotions, and bursts again into those bitter communings with misery, without which it would absolutely seem he can have no continued existence, till at last he denounces a curse the curse of forgiveness it is said to be-on all that has perturbed and maddened his spirit. We wish to avoid, as much as possible, all reference to such distressing passions. But here they give a dark and terrible colouring to the poem, and it is impossible to misunderstand them. Our business is only with the poetry—at least we desire not to extend our privilege: And of the poetry we must say, that the season when the wild curse is imprecated, midnight; the scene, the ruined site of the Temple of the Furies; the auditors, the ghosts of departed years; and the imprecator, a being whose soul, though endowed with the noblest gifts of nature, is by himself said to be in ruins like the grandeur around him-and even dark hints thrown out, that for its aberrations there may be found the most mournful of all excuses in the threatening of the most mournful of all human calamities;-all this renders the long passage to which we allude, one of the most awful records of the agonies of man-perhaps the most painful and agitating pic VOL. XXX. No. 59, H ture of the misery of the passions, without their degradation, that is to be found in the whole compass of human language. Let us escape from it, and turn our eyes to the moonlight and indistinct shadow of the ruins of the Coliseum. A ruin-yet what ruin! from its mass Walls, palaces, half-cities, have been reared; And marvel where the spoil could have appeared. When the colossal fabric's form is neared: Which streams too much on all years, man, have reft Heroes have trod this spot-'tis on their dust ye tread. away. p. 74, 75. We regret that our limits will not allow us to quote any more of his description of the Ancient City;-not even that of St Peter's-in which the loftiest words and most majestic images render back an image of the august conceptions by which the mind of the poet seems to have been expanded in its contemplation. There are still, however, two passages in the poem which we would wish to lay before our readers-that on the death of our Princess-and that on the Ocean. On the first we have not yet heart to venture-and with the last, therefore, we shall conclude; in which the Poet bids us farewell in a more magnificent strain than we can hope to hear again till his own harp, which has assuredly lost none of its music, be once more struck-and may it then be with steadier hands and a more tranquil spirit! There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, |