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It is curious to observe what an ef- its perplexing remoteness. We hold fect this rage for antiquity produces, not converse with human flesh and and how it is capable of altering our blood, but with heroic spectres, “who estimation of the intrinsic value of pace about the hills continually," and things, as if either age or scarcity ought that come to us from the breast of to confer true value on things which the ocean. There are neither cities, must have been, and ought ever to be nor civilization, nor society ; but the considered as trifling ; yet they do so, wanderings, and wars, the impulses of whether it be on a cracked Roman jar, nature, and passion in its untamed or a Queen Anne's farthing. An addi- einpire. Mossy stones mark out the tional eclogue of Virgil would weigh dwellings of the dead; the wind curls down, in our eyes, a whole bale of the wave, swells the sail, and agitates common-place Herculaneum manu- the forest; and the silence of night is scripts, whether rolled or unrolled ; broken by gibbering voices, and « airy

suppose I have not the least tongues that syllable mens' names on chance of ever being numbered among sands, and shores, and desert wilderthe associates of the Antiquarian So- nesses." ciety.

Yet, in the narration of the advenVerily, Mr North, the mind of man tures, and in the construction of the is a strange thing, and a heterogeneous fables, a wonderful stretch of invencompound. In confirmation of this tion is exhibited ; and a method is in particular tendency in our nature of sible, even in the most irregular and which we are now speaking, we have inconsistent parts, which is not a litalmost uniformly found, that they who tle surprising. The Epic of Fingal believe in the age and authenticity of contains some passages of heroic beauOssian, will award him no lower a sta- ty, which would thrill the blood of a tion than among the Homers, Dantes, coward, and make him long to be a Miltons, and Shakespeares; whereas, soldier; while the Songs of Selma such as consider him a modern fiction, abound in touches of the most deep will be contented with nothing less and the most artless pathos. than a condemnation of the whole It is strange that Wordsworth, who mass, as little better than rant, bom- has studied so profoundly, and so sucbast, and fustian,--merely because it cessfully, the philosophy of the mateis written by Macpherson ; as if there rial world, should make the never-endwas no such thing as sterling merit, or ing delineation of natural objects and as if a standard of real poetical excel- appearances in these works, the theme lence could exist only in the reader's of his scepticism as to their authentiimagination. We remember a speech city, and of his non-belief concerning of Lord Chatham's, which says, that the blind Ossian, as if blindness is « youth cannot be imputed to any not affirmed of Homer, and known of man as a reproach ;” nor can recent Milton. If Wordsworth has ever dipproduction, we should suppose in the ped into the poems of Blacklock-who same way, be considered a blemish, was born blind-he may there disco(as Mr Hazlitt would fain have it,) in ver that a power of describing the maany work. It is surely no fault in terial world, in all the variety and viScott, Byron, or Campbell, that they cissitude of its presentations, may be have not lived and been gathered to attained, either from a successful mentheir fathers some thousand years tal effort in retaining the delineations ago.

of others; or, by a kind of intuitive The works of Ossian, in the state perception,-though, after the experiin which they are served up to us byment of Locke with his blind man, Macpherson, may be considered rather who thought scarlet colour like the as the raw materials of poetry, than as sound of a trumpet, we would rather exhibiting that art, condensation, and imagine not. selection of thought, which are requi- Moore, in his Introduction to his site to form a finished composition. Irish Melodies, has thrown out a need There is a thronging a profused as- less sarcasm in saying, that if Ireland semblage of lofty and magnificent ima- could have Burns, she would willinggery, seen in the distance, rapidly ly give up all claim to Ossian, as if shifting, shadowing, and indistinct. there was one point of similarity in “ The glory and the splendour of a the constitution of their genius, or as áream," united with its obscurity and if one point of comparison could be si suggested between them. After these invigorate his martial spirit, slept with si insulting taunts, it is but a poor set- a copy of Fingal under his pillow, a off, that Madame de Stael could con- during his Italian campaigns. ceive the absurdity of Milton having

Yours, &c. the possibly derived advantage from Os

CelticuS. sian, in the composition of Paradise Inverness, Nov. 1, 1821. Lost; or that Buonaparte, in order to

ADDRESS TO THE MOON.
Daughter of heaven, fair art thou, &c.-.-Darthula.
Daughter of beauty, born of heavenly race,
Sweet is the silence of thy midnight fače,
Fair in the east appears thy silvery ray,
The gems of evening hail thee on their way,
The bending clouds their darker tints destroy,
Smile in thy face, and brighten into joy.
Who, in the sky, can match the Queen of night?'
The stars obscured are feeble in thy sight;
Far from thy glance a banishment they seek,
And hide their eyes, in low submission meek ;-
Where, when thy face of beauty melts away,
Where dost thou fly, and whither dost thou stray ?
Hast thou a hall like Ossian there to go,
Or dost thou dream within the shade of woe ?
Hath every sister lost a heavenly throne,

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Or why, at eve, rejoicest thou alone? -
Yes, sweetest beam, their glories now are low,
And oft thou leavest heaven to tell thy woe!
But thou shalt also know eternal wane,
The twilight sky shall court thy steps in vain ;
Thy sinking in the west no more to rise,
Will cause the stars to triumph in the skies ;
They, whom thy lovely beams could once destroy,
Will lift their heads, and weave the song of joy!

TO THE SETTING SUN.

Must thou leave thy blue course in heaven, &c.

Carric-Thura.
And must thou leave thy azure course on high,

Bright child of heaven, with locks of golden ray?
Have the gates open'd in the western sky,

That there to rest thou shapest thy weary way?
The waves their blue-green watery heads uprear,

And throng around to see thy glory shed,
Approach thy presence with a holy fear,

And view thy beauty, slumbering on its bed ;-
Bright in the morn thy beamy car display,--
Smile from the east, and all mankind are gay !

TO THE EVENING STAR.

Star of the falling night! fair is thy light, &c.

Introduction to Songs of Selma.
Fair in the west thy lovely light appears ;

Serene, above the summit of the hill,
Soft Star of Eve, thy beaming chariot steers ;-

What dost thou see? the bursting winds are still,

The distant torrent now is thundering ;

The rock is now besieged by the main ; The flies of evening, borne on feeble wing,

Hum on their drowsy course along the plain :

Thou smilest on the home-returning swain,Heaven thou behold'st around, and earth without;

Thou sink'st,—the western wave surrounds thy train;
Thy hair the wave encompasseth about :

Daughter of Eve! thou glory of the dell,-
Star of declining Day, thou silent beam, Farewell !

ALPIN'S LAMENTATION FOR MORAN.

One of the Songs of Selma.
My tears, oh Ryno ! are for the dead, &c.
TEARFUL, oh, Ryno, is my joyless day;
For those who flourish'd, and have pass'd away,
I raise the song,—Thou on the mountain tall,
And fair like Morar, shalt like Morar fall;
The pensive mourner, at the twilight gloom,
Will weep for thee, and rest upon thy tomb;
The hills forget thy voice,-in silent hall
Thy bow shall hang unbended on the wall !
Swift as the desert roe could Morar fly,
Dread as the meteor of the stormy sky;
Thy wrath was like the raging of the main,
The bursting cloud, or lightning on the plain;
Thy voice, the stream by tempests render'd deep,
Like thunder echoing from the distant steep!
When war was on thy brow, ah ! must I tell
How warriors trembled, and how heroes fell?
But, when the battle ceased, thy placid cheek
Could all thy heart's tranquillity bespeak :
Thy face was like the beaming Lord of Day,
When rain-swoln clouds have shower'd, and pass'd away;
Still was thy look, and gentle was thy sight,
As when the moon-beam silvers o'er the night,-
Calm as the lake, when scarce a zephyr blows,
And weary winds are taking their repose.

bosom roam,

No hopes, no fears, across
Lonesoine, and dark, and narrow is thy home;
Where now, oh, Morar! is thy generous heart?
With trebled step I compass all thou art.
How little now hath all thy glory wore,
Oh, thou so mighty, and so great before !
Four stones, with aged heads of mossy green,
Are all that tell to man that thou hast been !
A shrivell'd trunk, with scarce one leaf behind,
The tall rank grass that whistles in the wind,
Point to the passing hunter's haughty eye,
Where Morar, once so mighty, now can lie !

Oh, Morar, Morar, thou art truly low!
No female breast comes here to vent its woe;
Gone is thy mother to the realms of sleep;
No maid comes here to bless thee, and to weep!
Propp'd on the staff of age, who totters by,
The swelling tears hang heavy in his eye ;

His hoary locks bespeak his lengthen'd years,
Why quakes his step, or why gush forth his tears ? :
Ah! Morar, 'tis thy sire, in lonely age,
No son hath he his sorrow to assuage !
Weep, hoary father, he deserves thy tears,
In misery weep,-although no Morar hears !
No dreams across the silent mansion roam,
The dust their pillow, for the grave their home ;-
All in that dreary region is forgot ;
Call on thy Morar—but he hears thee not !
When from the east shall rays of joy be shed,
To bid the sleeper leave his dewy bed ;
Farewell to thee, the mightiest of the hill
Knelt at thy feet, and own'd thee greater still !
No son hast thou to imitate his sire,
Endued with all thy virtues, and thy fire !
No son hast thou, but still the song shall flow,-
Remotest ages thy renown shall know,
And wrapt in wonder at thy nighty name,
Admire thy valour, and preserve its fame!

ROUGE ET NOIR.* The host of tourists who have ma- Or any thing, in short, in which he shonerauded on the continent within these He answered— Cun he win at Rouge et few have inade us familiar with

Noir 2 years, its sights, and weary of thein. Paris, His keen eye finishing the phrase — if so, as the most accessible, has been the He does what no one else can do, you

know.'" most infested ; and its caveaus anil caffés, its spruce theatres, and squalid This is neatly expressed, and the churches, have been reiterated on us description of the Board, probably a in every existing dialect, froin Mayfair difficult task in poetry, our author has to Whitechapel

. But after this cum- executed very cleverly.-P. 35-28. brous plunder, there are left rare bi- The Palais Royal next comes under jour, and the eye which will look into this pleasant pen, and its world of the interior of Parisian manners, may wicked wonders is described with unbe pronounced to have entered, as old usual spirit. We are not exhausted by Vestris said of the Minuet, on a study a toilsome and feeble recapitulation of extensive enough to last him his life. the absurdities or allurements of a

The author of the present poem has place, over which the spirit of the Reapplied himself to a fragment of the gent Orleans seems still to hover; the Palais Royal, and from this has gene- poem strikes at once upon its characrated a volume of verses, alternately teristics, and then darts away in purpathetic and jocular, moral and satiri- suit of the original topic. cal. The mention of Frescati, and the Sulon, is a mere digression; the syste

“ It forms an oblong square with a piazza, matic interest is gathered 'round the Parterres and lime tree alleys in the centre:

There's not an inch, I'm sure, from Ghent two apartments in the Palais Royal,

to Gaza, where so many miserables of all ages

Where youthful blood so much requires a and tongues are undone in the inost

Mentor: expeditious manner every night of the Among a thousand other things, it has a year. His theme is the Rouge et Noir Superb jet d'cau, which strikes you as you table, at which, he protests, that no man can win, and quotes an authority But closely wedged Boutiques and Cafés high among the mighty and undone lend it gamblers of mankind.

An air, I think, much more bizarre than “ 'Tis said, when any told Napoleon

splendid. That such or such a man had talents, or " It is a focus where each principle Whose depth of head might be depended on Of thought and act concentrate to a spot : In mathematics, diplomacy, war,

Where gold is most omnipotent, and will A Poem ; in six cantos, with other Poema. London. Olliers. Pp. 213. 12mo.

enter :

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sees :

Buy love or lace—there's nothing can't be bability, have slept unthanked, but for
bought :

Lord Byron and
Mr Frere. After all

, A world in miniature, where equal skill

this is an idle delicacy, the stanza is 192 Is taught in sin and science-buth are

free to the human race, “ like a wildtaught ! With dancing, fencing, metaphysics, cheat- Îmitation is of an altogether different 103

goose flies unclaimed of any man." ing, And other things which don't abide re

family. If this were the place to it peating.

trouble ourselves with laying down the En “ It is the heart of Paris, and impels

law on this subject, we should say, 13 Warm poision through her wanton arteries; that there is no imitation except where The honeycomb of vice, whose thousand the peculiarities of an author are transcells

ferred. Crabbe's clearness of rustic i Pour forth the buzzing multitude one description, his vigorous seizure of the lines

form and pressure of village habits

, Loose-trowser'd beaux, and looser-morald and his shrewd and simple pleasantry belles ; on obscure ambition and petty vanity

, With ancient quizzes underneath the trees may attract authorship to the investiReading the daily journals, or conversing; gation of rural life. But the similarity And, here and there, a black-eyed Grisette of subject is not imitation, nor is the nursing.”

encreased acuteness of inquiry, nor is In the Paluis Royal, the Nos. 109, the more pointed vigour of versificaand 154, have probably had a larger tion, nor is the mixture of seriousness proportion of visitants of all nations and pleasantry; for all of those may than any other spot in Paris. Their have arisen naturally in the course of charm is the possession of the Roulet, the general and individual improve and Rouge et Nvir tables. If there ment of poetry. It might as well be ever should be a general history of asserted, that every man who looks vice, the annals of those two suites of through a telescope, is a degraded imi. rooms may form the most pregnant and tator of Galileo; or that the whole most original portion. Half the crimes, rising generation, with their unshatterand all the suicides of Paris, are con- ed faces, are nothing better than pluncocted within those walls. They stand derers of Jenner, and the Glostershire in the centre of the most profligate milk-maids. spot in Europe, and they deserve to The true imitation of Crabbe would stand in its centre. The whole district be in his pressure of trivialities into is the classic ground of iniquity, but the service; in his sending out, stamped within those boundaries are the Campi with equal labour, the unimportant Phlegræi.

and the valuable specimens of his naFrom the Palais Royal the poet mismata rustica ; in the Dutch delight strays to Frescati, the fantastic name of his painted straws, and flies on tanof a celebrated gaming-house on the kards, and red-nosed Boors in extravaBoulevards, the resort of the better gant frolic or maudlin repentance. dressed ruffians of Paris, and of Lon. Lord Byron's strength of expression, don. Want of room prevents us from and that decision of view by which giving a number of other extracts he passes over the feebler features of froin this clever and ingenious volume, the terrain, and seizes on the commandwhich we understand is from the pen ing points, are common property

, neiof a gentlemen of the name of Read, ther his discovery nor that of any man and which does equal honour to his living, but as old as poetry and nature. head and heart.

He may, like other men of talents, The selection of the Ottava Rima have assisted in leading the authorship was judicious, from the general facility of England back into the original track of the measure, and perhaps from it from which bad taste and evil times having become popular through Beppo had turned it away, yet to which it and Whistlecraft. But the use of any was rapidly reverting. But he was not thing that has been used before, seems the earliest even of his day, who stood to sit painfully on the author's con- upon the hill and made signals to the science, and he accordingly attempts multitude wandering through the shade to lighten his obligation to the mo- and the valley. The “ Lay of the Last derns, by shewing that they were in- Minstrel,” if we are to distinguish a debted to a remote ancestry. But peculiar agency, was the morning star Chaucer and Fuirfur would, in all pro- of the modern age. But the transit of