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brother, contrives to dismiss him, and re-
mains alone upon the spot.

"This is the very earth that covers her,
And lo! we trample it like common clay!
When I last stood here,
Disguised, to see a lowly girl laid down
Into her early grave, there was such light
As now doth show it, but a bleaker air,
Seeing it was December. "Tis most strange ;
I can remember now each circumstance
Which then I scarce was conscious of; like words
That leave upon the still susceptive sense
A message undelivered till the mind
Awakes to apprehensiveness and takes it.
'Twas o'er-the muttered unattended rite,
And the few friends she had beside myself
Had risen and gone: I had not knelt, but stood
With a dull gaze of stupor as the mould
Was shovelled over, and the broken sods
Fitted together. Then some idle boys,
Who had assisted at the covering in,

Ran off in sport trailing the shovels with them,
Rattling upon the gravel; and the sexton
Flattened the last sods down, and knocked his
spade

Against a neighboring tombstone to shake off
The clinging soil, with a contented air,
Even as a ditcher who has done his work.
O Christ!

How that which was the life's life of our being
Can pass away, and we recall it thus !"

Whilst reading this play of Isaac Comnenus we seemed to perceive a certain Byronian vein, which came upon us rather unexpectedly. Not that there is any very close resemblance between Comnenus and the heroes of Lord Byron; but there is a desperate wilfulness, a tone of skepticism, and a caustic view of human life, which occasionally recall them to mind. We turned to the preface to Philip Van Artevelde, where there is a criticism upon the poetry of Byron, not unjust in the faults it detects, but cold and severe, as it seems to us, in the praise that it awards; and we found there an intimation which confirmed our suspicion that Isaac Comnenus had been written whilst still partially under the influence of that poetry-written in what we may describe as a transition state. He says there of Lord Byron's poetry, "It will alway produce a powerful impression upon very young readers, and I scarcely think that it can have been more admired by any than myself, when I was included in that category." And have we not here some explanation of the severity and coldness of that criticism itself? Did not the maturer intellect a little resent in that critical judgment the hallucinations of the youth?

Perhaps we are hardly corrrect in calling the temper and spirit we have here alluded

to Byronian: they are common to all ages and to many minds, though signally developed by that poet, and in our own epoch. Probably the future historian of this period of our literature will attribute much of this peculiar exhibition of bitterness and despondency to the sanguine hopes first excited and then disappointed by the French Revolution. He will probably say of certain regions of our literature, that the whole bears manifest traces of volcanic origin. Pointing to some noble eminence, which seems to have been eternally calm, he will conjecture that it owed its elevation to the same force which raised the neighboring Etna. Applying the not very happy language of geology, he may describe it as a crater of elevation;" which, being interpreted, means no crater at all, but an elevation produced by the like volcanic agency; the crater itself is higher up in the same mountain range.

There still remains one other small volume of Mr. Taylor's poetry, which we must not pass over entirely without mentioning-The Eve of the Conquest, and other Poems. The chief piece here is of the nature of a dramatic scene. Harold, the night before the battle of Hastings, converses with his daughter, unfolds some. passages of his past life, and vindicates himself in his quarrel with that William the Norman who, on the morrow, was to add the title of Conqueror to his name. But as it will be more agreeable to vary the nature of our quotations, we shall make the few extracts we have space for from the lyric poems which follow.

The "Lago Varese" will be, we suspect, the favorite with most readers. The image of the Italian girl is almost as distinctly reflected in the verse as it would have been in her own native lake.

"And sauntering up a circling cove,
I found upon the strand
A shallop; and a girl who strove
To drag it to dry land.

I stood to see-the girl looked round-her face
Had all her country's clear and definite grace.

"She rested with the air of rest

So seldom seen, of those
Whose toil remitted gives a zest,

Not languor, to repose.
Her form was poised, yet buoyant, firm, though
free,

And liberal of her bright black eyes was she.

"The sunshine of the Southern face,
At home we have it not;
And if they be a reckless race,
These Southerns, yet a lot

More favored on the chequered earth is theirs ;
They have life's sorrows, but escape its cares.
"There is a smile which wit extorts

From grave and learned men,
In whose austere and servile sports
The plaything is a pen;

And there are smiles by shallow worldlings worn,
To grace a lie or laugh a truth to scorn:

"And there are smiles with less alloy
Of those who, for the sake
Of some they loved, would kindle joy
Which they cannot partake;
But hers was of the kind which simply say,
They came from hearts ungovernably gay.'

The " "Lago Lugano" is a companion picture, written "sixteen summers" after, and on a second visit to Italy. One thing we notice, that in this second poem almost all that is beautiful is brought from the social or political reflections of the writer: it is not the outward scene that lies reflected in He is thinking more of England

the verse. than of Italy.

"Sore pains They take to set Ambition free, and bind The heart of man in chains.'

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"In every change of man's estate
Are lights and guides allowed;
The fiery pillar will not wait,
But, parting, sends the cloud.

"Nor mourn I the less manly part
Of life to leave behind;
My loss is but the lighter heart,
My gain the graver mind."

Poetry is no longer the most popular form of literature amongst us, and the drama is understood to be the least popular form of poetry. If this be the case, Mr. Taylor has the additional merit of having won his way to celebrity under singular disadvantages. But, in truth, such poetry as Mr. Taylor's could never appeal to the multitude. Literature of any kind which requires of the reader himself to think in order to enjoy, can never be popular. It is impossible to deny that the dramas we have been reviewing demand an effort, in the first instance, on the part of the reader: he must sit down to them with something of the spirit of the student. But, having done this, he will find himself amply repaid. As he advances in the work, he will read with increased pleasure; he will read it the second time with greater delight than the first; and if he were to live twenty years, and were to read such a drama as Philip Van Artevelde every year of his life, he would find in it some fresh source of interest to the last.

As we have not contented ourselves with selecting beautiful passages of writing from Mr. Taylor's dramas, but have attempted such an analysis of the three principal characters they portray as may send the reader to their reperusal with additional zest, so neither have we paused to dispute the propriety of particular parts, or to notice blemishes and defects. We would not have it understood that we admire all that Mr. Taylor has written. Of whom could we say this? We think, for instance, that, throughout his dramas, from the first to the last, he treats the monks too coarsely. His portraiture borders upon farce. His Father John shows that he can do justice to the character of the intelligent and pious monk. Admitting that this character is rare, we believe that the extremely gross portraiture which we have elsewhere is almost equally rare. This last, however, is so frequently introduced, that it will pass with the reader as Mr. Taylor's type of the monkish order. The monks could never have been more ignorant than the surrounding laity, and they were always something better in morals and in

true piety. We are quite at a loss, too, to understand Mr. Taylor's fondness for the introduction into his dramas of certain songs or ballads, which are not even intended to be poetical. To have made them so, he would probably contend, would have been a dramatic impropriety. Very well; but let us have as few of such things as may be, and as short as possible. In Edwin the Fair they are very numerous; and those which are introduced in Philip Van Artevelde we could gladly dispense with. We could also very willingly have dispensed with the con

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versation of those burgesses of Bruges who entertained the Earl of Flanders with some of these ballads. We agree with the Earl, that their hospitalities are a sore affliction. Tediousness may be very dramatic, but it is tediousness still-a truth which our writer, intent on the delineations of his character, sometimes forgets. But defects like these it is sufficient merely to have hinted at. That criticism must be very long and ample indeed, of the dramas of Mr. Taylor, in which they ought to occupy any considerable space.

From the Edinburgh Review.

THE METAMORPHOSES OF APULEIUS.*

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Os inquiring lately at an old book-shop for an Apuleius, we were told by the bookseller that since the appearance of this translation, he had disposed of many copies of the original which had long been a dead weight on his shelves. Sir George Head has recalled his author to the attention of scholars, and may, with good reason, feel flattered by this success, even if disappointed in his expectation that readers will resort to the book for "the light and amusing qualities of a romance.' The Metamorphoses of Apuleius are not suited to modern taste, though they well deserve notice. Cervantes probably drew from them a hint for Don Quixote's adventure with the wine-skins; Boccaccio undoubtedly had read them; and the legend of Cupid and Psyche furnished subjects for the frescoes with which Raphael adorned the walls of the villa at Rome, which is now called the Farnesina. The structure of the story is like that of Gil Blas. In both the adventures of the hero form the groundwork; but in both also, more than half the book consists of stories and incidents from their own lives, told by the different personages. This resemblance is probably due to the fact, that Apuleius, like Le Sage, worked up into his book materials provided by preceding novelists.

The Metamorphoses of Apuleius. Translated from the Latin by Sir GEORGE HEAD. London:

1851.

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There existed at that time a class of liter

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ary compositions, called Milesian Tales, the character of which we are at no loss to determine from incidental notices, though no specimens are now extant. Aristides of Miletus, an author whose date is not precisely known, first composed them, and to him they owe their designation. followed by other writers, whose names the curious may find preserved in the Bibliotheca Scriptorum Græcorum. The only circumstance worth our observing is, that this species of literature sprang up at the point of meeting between the Grecian and Eastern worlds. Owing partly to their adoption of Persian habits, and partly also to their p litical insignificance, the Greeks of Asia Minor turned their attention more and sooner than the Athenians to pursuits which minister to the refinement and elegance of life. We have a curious proof of this in the impression produced in Athens at an earlier period, by the accomplishments of the ladies of Ionia. Aspasia was a native of Miletus, and not only was her house the resort of the philosophers of the day, but according to Plato, she even gave lessons in rhetoric to Pericles and Socrates. We do not suppose he is to be taken to the letter, but the story shows that education in Ionia was less exclusively directed than in Athens towards public life, in which men alone could engage; but embraced within its sphere a dilettante study of

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morals, unaccompanied by the severity of practice, and also of philosophy clothed in that light and graceful drapery in which eloquence can disguise it. To this same turn of mind we attribute the productions of which are speaking. They first appear in Greek literature at a time when all interest in politics had died out, and men, instead of living in public, as their forefathers had done, courted retirement and privacy. In many cases, such a life was one of voluptuous indulgence; in most, a life of intellectual poverty; and these tales became popular, because they relieved the ennui of idleness. This sufficiently explains their character. They were familiar, trifling compositions, containing descriptions of the laughable inci; dents of life, amusing pieces of fiction, and adventures in love and intrigue, mixed with great licentiousness. The Romans first became acquainted with them during their campaigns in Lesser Asia. Plutarch tells us that the officers of Crassus's army carried the novels of Aristides in their knapsacks. Their popularity induced Sisenna, the historian of the expedition, to translate them into Latin; but though Ovid mentions the fact of their publication, we hear no more of them during the golden period of Roman literature. In the next century, however, they again came into vogue, and must have been well known to the readers of Apuleius; for in his preface, he promises to string together his stories in the Milesian strain, and charm their ears with a merry whispering.

ancient and modern times; but on any other supposition a large portion of the book is unintelligible, and inconsistent with what we know of his character. Our best plan will be to tell the story, and then give the explanation; following his own words as far as possible, though at the risk of falling into his faults of style. It is but fair to add, that in our quotations we have taken great liberties with Sir George Head's translation.

Lucius, the hero of the novel, is introduced to us mounted on a milk-white steed, upon a journey from Corinth to Thessaly. In the way he overtook a commercial traveller, engaged in earnest conversation with a friend. The subject of their discussion was suited to the spot in which they were travelling, for they were discussing the pretensions of magic on the borders of Thessaly,-the chosen home of witchcraft from the days of Medea even to the present hour. Lucius overheard the loud laugh th which the friend scouted the merchant's story, and was tempted, by his thirst for the marvellous, to introduce himself to them as a man cager for information. He reproved the unbelieving listener in words, which, though intended to convey to us the real skepticism of the novelist, flattered the speaker into repeating his tale. It related the untimely death of an acquaintance, brought about by the incanta tions of a hag,—a fact of which the merchant had been himself a witness on some former expedition into Thessaly, to procure the honey and cheese for which the district was He has kept his promise. His story con- famous. The story was good enough to betains a pleasant account of the habits, the guile the remainder of a toilsome journey, but follies, and even the vices of his contempo- is not worth our repeating. It is enough to say, raries. He had enjoyed extensive oppor- that, though supported by the devout belief of tunities for observation, for he spent his early the narrator, and the common talk of all the years in Africa, studied at Athens, and, for people of Thessaly, it failed to convince the some years, practised at the bar in Rome; skeptical companion, while the cautious Luand as the result, he exhibits to us a collec- cius, when appealed to, gave his verdict that tion of portraits taken from different classes nothing is impossible, but all things proceed of society, sufficiently resembling the sketches according to the decree of fate; for," conmade by the satirists of the preceding centinued he, occurrences happen in the extury, to convince us of their truth, but less perience of us all, so wonderful, as to have harshly drawn. There is the usurer,-the been within an ace of never happening at all." enchantress taking vengeance on her lover,— The tale thus ended, Lucius parted comthe harsh stepmother, the hectoring sol-pany at the entrance of Hypata, and inquired dier, the oppressed provincial,-the Chris- for the house of Milo, to whom he had a tian woman, the interior of a workshop,- letter of introduction. Milo was one of a and the juggling priests of the Syrian god- numerous and powerful class, which owed dess. Every picture tells its own date; the its origin to the imperfect state of comgallery was made under the Empire. mercial credit, and the difficulty of finding But Apuleius was a philosopher as well as secure and ready investment for capital una satirist, and desired, in portraying, to re- der the Roman Empire; he was a miser and form his generation. We are aware that a money-lender. The influence and extor this has been denied by many critics, both in i tions of his order had more than once invited

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the interference of stringent laws, and ex- | rious witch-the mistress of every sepulchral posed its members to popular hatred; and incantation. By the slightest puff of her the old inn-keeper, who directed Lucius, did breath upon a branch or a stone, or any not miss the opportunity of speaking an ill other inanimate object, she could extinguish word of her wealthy neighbor, who kept one the light of the heavenly bodies, and plunge maid for himself and his wife, and dressed the world in the darkness of chaos. She =like a beggar. became enamored of every handsome youth she met, and if he refused to gratify her passion she changed him into some brutish form. Fotis was her mistress's confidante, and herself an adept in magic; but her knowledge was not accompanied by the impatience and dark temper which characterized Pamphile. On the contrary, she was pert and coquettish, and readily responded to, if she did not anticipate, the advances of Lucius. His fancy was taken by her elegant figure, her graceful motions, and, above all, her luxuriant and unadorned tresses, to the praises of which he has devoted a chapter; and he determined to follow up an intimacy, which, besides its own attractions, promised him an opportunity of gaining the knowledge he was in search of. We shall presently see what were its consequences.

The door of the house was bolted fast; but, after a parley with the maid, who mistook him for a customer come to borrow, Lucius was admitted to see Milo. The money-lender was reclining upon a tiny couch, on the point of beginning his evening meal. His wife was sitting at his feet, and before them was a bare table, to which he pointed, and said, "You see all we have to offer." Then, bidding his wife rise, and dragging his unwilling guest into her place, he apologized for the want of furniture, on the ground of his dread of robbers, and, after a compliment on the handsome figure of Lucius, and his almost feminine delicacy of manners, invited him to occupy a nook in his cottage. Lucius accepted the invitation; but, observing Milo's parsimonious style of living, determined to forage for himself on his way to his evening bath. Accordingly he went to the market, and bought a basket of fish. Just then he was recognized by an old friend, named Pythias, whose dress and retinue showed him to be a magistrate. The two had not met since their school-days at Athens, and Pythias had now become an ædile and an inspector of the market. He caught sight of the basket, and inquired what had been given for the bargain. The price was exorbitant; and, on hearing it, he grasped Lucius by the hand, and leading him back to the stall, in the harshest tone which the majesty of the ædile could assume, threatened to show the fishmonger how rogues should be treated. Then, emptying the basket in the middle of the road, he ordered one of his attendants to trample upon the fishes; and, satisfied with his own sternness, advised his friend to come away, adding, "The disgrace is punishment enough for the old fellow." Lucius stood aghast at this rigorous system of administration; but there was no help for it; so, deprived alike of his money and his fish, and wearied by his long journey and an evening without any supper, except Milo's conversation, he betook himself to rest.

One incident during his stay in Hypata is too important to the plot to be omitted. There was a noble and virtuous matron, named Byrrhæna, who took a deep interest in him, and warned him against the dangerous company he had fallen into. It chanced that this lady gave a magnificent entertainment, at which all the fashion of the place was to be present, and she invited Lucius to join the party. Fotis, though unwillingly, gave her consent, on condition that he would return early, for fear of the madheaded band of young nobles who infested the streets and massacred the passers-by. The supper was excellent; the wine flowed freely; one of the guests told how he had lost his ears and his nose, owing to a witch; jokes were bandied from side to side, and it was late before Lucius, with dizzy head and uncertain step, returned to Milo's house. There he saw three tall figures, to all appearance robbers, dashing against the door with the utmost violence. Without a moment's delay he charged into the midst of them, and engaged each in turn, till all three fell, pierced with wounds, at his feet.

Aurora was already shaking her rosy arm above the glowing trappings of her horses, -the fine writing is Lucius's, not ours,—and We will take this opportunity of making mounting towards the top of heaven, when our readers more intimately acquainted with night restored him to day. His mind was the female portion of Milo's household agitated by the remembrance of the last Pamphile and Fotis. The popular belief of night's deed. With his legs bent under Hypata represented the former as a noto-him, his hands clasped and resting on his

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