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 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 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, The sweetness of the violet's deep blue eyes, Kiss'd by the breath of heaven, seems coloured by its skies. 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, The purity of heaven to carthly joys, 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, What I can ne'er express, yet can not all conceal. Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean-roll! Calm or convuls'd-in breeze, or gale, or storm, Of the Invisible; even from out thy slime And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy And trusted to thy billows far and near, And laid my hand upon thy mane-as I do here. The spell should break of this protracted dream. He wore his sandal-shoon, and scallop-shell; If such there were-with you, the moral of his strain! p. 92-96. The Pilgrimage of Childe Harold has now been brought to its close; and of his character there remains nothing more to be laid open to our view. It is impossible to reflect on the years which have elapsed since this mysterious stranger was first introduced to our acquaintance, without feeling that our own spirits have undergone in that time many mighty changessorrowful in some it may be, in others happy changes. Neither can we be surprised, knowing as we well do who Childe Harold is, that he also has been changed. He represented himself, from the beginning, as a ruin; and when we first gazed upon him, we saw indeed in abundance the black traces of recent violence and convulsion. The edifice has not been rebuilt; but its hues have been sobered by the passing wings of time, and the calm slow ivy has had leisure to wreathe the soft green of its melancholy among the fragments of the decay. In so far, the Pilgrim has become wiser. He seems to think more of others, and with a greater spirit of humanity. There was some |