The tears thou sheddest feel as though I wrung them
From mine own heart, my life-blood's dearest drops)-
They slew them, Miriam, at the mother's breast,
The smiling infants ;-and the tender maid,
The soft, the loving, and the chaste, like thee,
They slew her not till-

Miriam.

Javan, 'tis unkind!
I have enough at home of thoughts like these,
Thoughts horrible, that freeze the blood, and make
A heavier burthen of this weary life.

I hoped with thee t' have passed a tranquil hour,
A brief, a hurried, yet still tranquil hour!

-But thou art like them all!'-p. 16, 17.

Javan still reminds her that the father, for whose sake she is willing to expose herself to these horrors, is unworthy of such boundless affection. Her answer is beautiful, though the last line is somewhat awkwardly expressed.

'Oh cease! I pray thee cease!

Javan! I know that all men hate my father;
Javan! I fear that all should hate my father;
And therefore, Javan, must his daughter's love,
Her dutiful, her deep, her fervent love,
Make up to his forlorn and desolate heart
The forfeited affections of his kind.
Is't not so written in our law? and He
We worship, came not to destroy the law.
Then let men rain their curses, let the storm
Of human hate beat on his rugged trunk,
I will cling to him, starve, die, bear the scoffs

Of men upon my scattered bones with him.'-p. 21.

She conquers, therefore, his objections, and returns laden with the provisions. In the next scene, she reappears in the house of Simon. Her description of the ruinous passage which had conducted her thither, of the feelings which had formerly endeared it to her, and of the change which had taken place in it, will strike every one who recollects his own feelings as a child, and the fondness with which we all, in our time, have clung to some little secret recess, where none of our rivals or playmates could interrupt us, and where we could at once enjoy the sense of exclusive property, and the romance of voluntary solitude.

'When yet a laughing child,
It was my sport to thread that broken stair
That from our house leads down into the vale,
By which, in ancient days, the maidens stole
To bathe in the cool fountain's secret waters.
In each wild olive trunk, and twisted root

Of

Of sycamore, with ivy overgrown,

I have nestled, and the flowers would seem to welcome me.
I loved it with a child's capricious love,

Because none knew it but myself. Its loneliness

I loved, for still my sole companions there,

The doves, sate murmuring in the noonday sun.

Ah! now there broods no bird of peace and love!
Even as I pass'd, a sullen vulture rose,

And heavily it flapp'd its huge wings o'er me,

As though o'ergorged with blood of Israel.'-p. 23, 24. Miriam now meets her sister Salone, an enthusiast for the law of Moses; her feelings strung to the highest pitch of frantic excitement, by vain anticipations of the future glory of Israel; and by a secret passion of a more earthly nature, which is artfully blended with her religious madness, and which leads her to mix her dreams of conquest and renown with softer whispers of bridal songs, the lute, the harp, and the dulcimer.—But her language is so beautifully characteristic that, in justice to the author, we must subjoin a few lines from the opening of the scene.

'Miriam. Sister, not yet at rest?

Salone.

Miriam.

At rest! at rest!
The wretched and the desperate, let them court
The dull, the dreamless, the unconscious sleep,
To lap them in its stagnant lethargy.

But oh! the bright, the rapturous disturbances
That break my haunted slumbers! Fast they come,
They crowd around my couch, and all my chamber
Is radiant with them. There I lie and bask
In their glad promise, till the oppressed spirit
Can bear no more, and I come forth to breathe
The cool free air.

Dear sister, in our state
So dark, so hopeless, dreaming still of glory!
Salone. Low-minded Miriam ! I tell thee, oft
I have told thee, nightly do the visitations
Break on my gifted sight, more golden bright
Than the rich morn on Carmel. Of their shape,
Sister, I know not; this I only know,

That they pour o'er me like the restless waters
Of some pure cataract in the noontide sun.
There is a mingling of all glorious forms,

Of Angels riding upon cloudy thrones,
And our proud city marching all abroad

Like a crown'd conqueror o'er the trampled Gentiles.'

p. 24-26.

Miriam deprecates her indulgence in such visions, and imputes them to the length of time, (two days,) which had elapsed since the

last

last supply of provisions. Salone resents her unbelief, taxes her with being a Christian, and threatens to denounce her to their father, who now enters, and relates to them how he had been engaged with John and Eleazar, in searching the dwellings of the citizens for concealed provisions. One of his exploits follows:There sate a woman in a lowly house,

Miriam.

And she had moulded meal into a cake;
And she sat weeping even in wild delight
Over her sleeping infants, at the thought
Of how their eyes would glisten to behold
The unaccustomed food. She had not tasted
Herself the strange repast; but she had raised
The covering under which the children lay
Crouching and clinging fondly to each other,

As though the warmth that breath'd from out their bodies
Had some refreshment for their wither'd lips.

:

We bared our swords to slay but subtle John
Snatch'd the food from her, trod it on the ground,
And mock'd her.

But thou didst not smite her, father?

Simon. No! we were wiser than to bless with death

A wretch like her.

But I must seek within

If he that oft at dead of midnight placeth

The wine and fruit within our chosen house,

Hath minister'd this night to Israel's chief.'-p. 30.

These are powerful lines, and the effect which they are made to produce on Salone not only conduces to the progress of the drama, but is, in itself, extremely touching and natural.

32.

Oh, Miriam! I dare not tell him now! For even as those two infants lay together Nestling their sleeping faces on each other, Even so have we two lain, and I have felt Thy breath upon my face, and every motion Of thy soft bosom answering to mine own.'-p. 31, But we notice the passage not so much for its intrinsic beauty, as on the old and familiar principle of finding fault, and to point out what we think the error of making the stern Pharisee the historian of his own deeds of horror, and (which is still less probable) relating them in language calculated to excite the sympathy of his hearers. We allow that the picture of distress and fiendish cruelty here offered to us, is such as completely accords with the temper of the times, and the man to whom it is imputed, and that it is such as might be easily paralleled or surpassed by a reference to Josephus. But, though it is certain that men have been sometimes. led by a mistaken religious zeal to actions the most diabolical, it

will never be found that they have described minutely, and with apparent feeling, sufferings for which they desired their auditors to entertain no pity. It would have been more natural if Simon had himself, in a slight and hurried manner, informed his daughters that he had been executing the usual severities on those who withheld food from the public store; while the detail of horrors might have been given to his followers, who, less answerable for the cruelty, might, when their chief was withdrawn, have burst forth into exclamations against the nature of the service which they had been performing.

As Salone thus relinquishes her purpose of impeaching Miriam, the hoary assassin returns, having washed his bloody hands and said his prayers,' and summons his daughters to the repast which his angelic guardian had again provided. Miriam, however, lingers behind, and, when alone, addresses a song to the Messiah, which, if it somewhat too closely reminds us, in a few passages, and in its general tenour, of Milton's glorious hymn on the nativity, will bear no unfavourable comparison with that or any other similar composition in our language.

Oh Thou! thou who canst melt the heart of stone,
And make the desert of the cruel breast

A paradise of soft and gentle thoughts!
Ah! will it ever be, that thou wilt visit

The darkness of my father's soul? Thou knowest
In what strong bondage Zeal and ancient Faith,
Passion and stubborn Custom, and fierce Pride,
Hold th' heart of man. Thou knowest, Merciful!
That knowest all things, and dost ever turn
Thine eye of pity on our guilty nature.

For thou wert born of woman! thou didst come,
Oh Holiest to this world of sin and gloom,
Not in thy dread omnipotent array;
And not by thunders strow'd

Was thy tempestuous road;

Nor indignation burnt before thee on thy way.
But thee, a soft and naked child,
Thy mother undefil'd,

In the rude manger laid to rest

From off her virgin breast.

The heavens were not commanded to prepare

A gorgeous canopy of golden air;

Nor stoop'd their lamps th' enthroned fires on high:
A single silent star

Came wandering from afar,

Gliding uncheck'd and calm along the liquid sky;

The Eastern sages leading on

As at a kingly throne,

Το

To lay their gold and odours sweet
Before thy infant feet.

The Earth and Ocean were not hush'd to hear
Bright harmony from every starry sphere;
Nor at thy presence break the voice of song
From all the cherub choirs,

And seraphs' burning lyres

Pour'd thro' the host of heaven the charmed clouds along.
One angel troop the strain began,
Of all the race of man

By simple shepherds heard alone,
That soft Hosanna's tone.

And when thou didst depart, no car of flame
To bear thee hence in lambent radiance came ;
Nor visible Angels mourn'd with drooping plumes :
Nor didst thou mount on high

From fatal Calvary

With all thine own redeem'd outbursting from their tombs.
For thou didst bear away from earth

But one of human birth,

The dying felon by thy side, to be

In Paradise with thee.

Nor o'er thy cross the clouds of vengeance brake;
A little while the conscious earth did shake

At that foul deed by her fierce children done;

A few dim hours of day

The world in darkness lay;

Then bask'd in bright repose beneath the cloudless sun:
While thou didst sleep within the tomb,

Consenting to thy doom:

Ere yet the white-robed Angel shone

Upon the sealed stone.

And when thou didst arise, thou didst not stand
With Devastation in thy red right hand,
Plaguing the guilty city's murtherous crew;

But thou didst haste to meet

Thy mothers coming feet,

And bear the words of peace unto the faithful few.
Then calmly, slowly didst thou rise

Into thy native skies,

Thy human form dissolv'd on high

In its own radiancy.'-p. 33-37.

The next scene introduces Simon at his early devotions, indulging in the anticipation of the Messiah's speedy coming, according to the notion of the Jews, as a temporal prince, to rescue his people and city, and destroy their Gentile invaders. His soliloquy contains many splendid passages, but it is expressed in a temper

hardly