cious and unlike Noah-and declares he will only take

"His scrip and staff, and lyre of heavenly sound,

And one young friend of tried fidelity." So off they set he and Irad-for Gal-Cainah, the metropolis of Shalmazar's empire.

Books IV., V., and VI., are occupied with a detail of the adventures of the minstrels-for in that character they travel-and some of these are, as might be expected, of no common kind:

"Their dress bespoke them of the minstrel race;

The robe of green, the vest of azure hue, The yellow sandals, and the jet-black

hood

Encircled with the laurel coronet

Unfailing emblem of the fame which forms The special guerdon of the sons of song. Thus habited, with buoyant hearts and bold,

Their harps upon their graceful shoulders slung,

They forward on their perilous journey set."

It would appear that up to this time they had seen little of their own Armonia, and they are delighted with its beauties, which are fluently described; till," on the orient boundaries of the sons of Seth," they come to the border of a sandy waste, which it takes them twelve long weary days to traverse in thirst and toil-but then they behold a lovely lake sleeping in a flowery plain, "with shelving sides of a luxuriant sylvan-covered hill." Japhet asks

"Canst thou conjecture, Irad, by what

move

To where the glittering vision disappeared; And soon, within an arbour wreathed around

With blossomed woodbines, roses full in bloom,

And variegated lilies in their pride,
Again the radiant strangers they behold.
The beauteous females sat on verdant
banks,

With thyme all fragrant, and with asmadine,

Whose odorous sweetness angels once admired.

This was a native flower of Paradise,
The favourite long of Eve in innocence,
And deemed the brightest in that gay par-
terre,

Whose tendence was her pure and blissful task,

Ere hellish fraud seduced her into sin. Even when expelled that happy residence, By Heaven's indulgence it was spared to her

And her fair daughters, through all Eden's clime,

Until, with many a sweetly-kindred plant That blest the vales, and charmed the sons of men,

The avenging Deluge swept it from the earth,

No more to solace a degenerate world.

"Embowered in fragrance here, these radiant nymphs,

Named Zaries, from the effulgence of those charms

By which, in this love-breathing clime, they held

Graceful dominion o'er the

Heaven,

sons of

But one less fearful than the rest withstood.

She, sweetly scornful, smiled, and thus she said :

"What fear ye, Zaries? Sons of Seth

are men,

Not ruffians; and to us no violence
Will offer, nor intrude if we forbid.
Why from the approach of men should we
withdraw?

Men, made by nature to adore our sex! Ye should have more reliance on those charms

Which captivated angels, and which o'er The hearts of men are still omnipotent. For me, I'll see these strangers.-Orpheal, go,

And with due courtesy conduct them here.'"

Rather a pretty pic-nic party-though scarcely in the style of Watteau or Stothard.

Ulsannah, and she was their queen. The Zarie who spake was named Her father was the chief of Benashaar, a Cainite province,

Where true piety

Was found to linger, after it had fled From all the rest of fierce Shalmazar's realms."

The angel Orpheal had seen her one vernal morning gathering flowers in a grove near the palace garden, fell in love with her on the spot, wooed, and won her

"And then it was That woman's love first made an angel blest."

His example was soon followed by a banished from heaven for their frailty, great number of angels, who were but not, like them who fell through pride or ambition, to remediless perdition, but to the Isle of Love, where they

"Were only destined to be woman's slaves,.
To her caprice subjected, and to dwell
With her on earth, partaking all her cares,
And tortured by her fickleness of mood."

"Here tarnished of their glory, did they dwell

In rigid servitude to woman's will. Oh! happy slaves! whose welcome chains were forged

By woman's love, and gilded by her charms!" Orpheal now instantly obeys Ulsannah's mandate, and ushers Japhet and Irad into the festal bower. No sooner has Ulsannah gazed upon the prince, than,

"struck with his manly grace, she heaves a sigh." Over head and ears she falls with him in a moment, and the angel Orpheal seems stale beside the son of Noah. Japhet, too, is smitten with the Zarie queen, though not so fatally, and, looking unutterable things, they "make babies in each other's eyes." Ulsannah says eagerly;

"Zaries and angels, think ye not we should Infringe the laws of hospitality,

Did we not for these strangers spread the feast

Of choicest viands in our brightest bowers? The first we've had of human visiters Must not with churlishness be driven away: 'Tis right we to our island now return, And bear with us these minstrels as our guests.'

Assent was yielded, for the queen's desire But echoed that of her attendant nymphs, Against whose will the angels had no voice; Slaves to the fair, submission was their doom.

Soon in the air the winged car arose,
And on the lake the bounding boat was
launched,

And half reluctantly the minstrel pair,
Seated amidst the gay alluring train,
Were borne triumphant to the Isle of
Love."

The Fortunate Youth sit down to a
sumptuous banquet, and feast-
"On grateful viands, fitted to increase
At once, and gratify, the appetite
With rich enjoyment, and supply the frame
With rich nutrition; then the pilgrim

guests

Quaff the brisk nectar, sparkling in gay cups Of polished jacinth, angel workmanship, And by attendant angels served around."

Isradell, “sweet angel of the lyre," sweeps the gold strings, and sings a song of his own composition, in praise of "lovely woman." The whole party, a little elevated, repair to the sward, and get up a country dance. hands, down the middle, boulangez, set corners, and reel-to antediluvian tunes, corresponding to our Honeymoon and the Devil among the Tailors.

cross

"The joyous dance upon the flowery sward,

In evening's luscious hour, succeeded next.

Then were elastic motions, easy, light, And gladsome, like the linnet's fairy print

Upon the violet, by woman shown,
In every graceful attitude of form,

And every figure of inventive mirth,
Where gaiety and elegance combine.-
The square, the cross, and the swift
winding wheel,

And angle everchanging, yet preserved,
In gay eccentric regularity.
Japhet and Irad joined the mirthful band
Hilariously, for spirits, buoyant with
Ethereal lightness, all their frames en-
dued,

And gave to jocund frolic all their souls.
The angels also mingled in the scene
Of joyance, with the inspirers of their
love:

And heavenly natures from terrestrial sports,

Which woman's loveliness had dignified, Drew pleasure; for in every gesture, they

Beheld new fascination, and adored."

The minstrels remain in the Isle of little of Irad, but of Japhet and UlLove precisely one week. We hear sannah perhaps rather more than enough. The Doctor, at the commencement of Book V., exclaims"What man e'er felt life's current in his veins,

And did not feel the power of woman's charms?

Ah! no, though virtue's ardent votary,
And resolute to keep in duty's path,
Hath not been tempted by the blandish-

ments

Of smiling beauty into pleasure's arms, Though conscience blamed and piety forbade."

So much the more merit in Japhet's rejection of the proffered love of Ulsannah. "By every token fondness could devise, the beauteous queen betrayed the new-born flame," and we fear to follow the impassioned Doctor

in his enumeration of all her allure

ments. Japhet was far from insensible to the lavish display of her charms.

"But piety, habitual in his heart, Preserved true reverence for the will of Heaven,

And made the consciousness of doing right

More dear to him than all the enrapturing

charms

Of love and beauty in that blessed isle."

The Queen, being urgent, the Prince resolves to be off and communicates to her his mission to Shalmazar's court.

"A sudden faintness o'er Ulsannah came; It pass'd; but left her all confused and grieved

To find the man she loved, already tired

Of her endearments, and so little moved By all her lavished favours on him heaped, In the fond hope of gaining love for love.'

But the moment she is told by Japhet that he is a "heaven-commissioned" messenger, she consents to his departure; for she is represented as a most pious lady, and though her heart is breaking, she exclaims

"Oh! let it, rather than a wilful crime I should commit against the King of hea

ven.

All this time the angel Orpheal either keeps in the back-ground, or, if in attendance, winks at the amournay, he encourages it, and appears delighted that his dear Ulsannah, whose slave he is, should have found a man so entirely to her liking—young, fresh, warm, human flesh and blood, so superior in her fancy to a seraph's! He is almost as unhappy as his wife, at the thought of Japhet leaving the Isle of Love; and, since the Flood, we

venture to say, there has been no such accommodating husband.

For the seraph is uxorious in the extremeand would only be too happy to assist the interesting stranger to partake in his marital rights. We cannot doubt that there is a profound moral in all this; for Dr M'Henry is a most pious poet, and, "with respect to the incidents, characters, sentiments, and scenery of this poem," says, "that he has endeavoured to preserve them in due consistency, not only with themselves, but with the ideas generally entertained in Christendom of the rich re

gions and the momentous period to which they relate."

The "pilgrim minstrels," led by Orpheal, at the command of the chaste and pious Ulsannah, from the Zarian Isle, traverse an immense waste, ne'er trod before by human foot, till they come to the margin of a lake full of breakers and whirlpools, unsailed as yet by "bark of human fabric." How are they to get across? The angel wrenches a towering cedar from its site, and flings it into the foaming flood. The trunk expands into a spacious hull-the root becomes the stern, "where moves the guiding rudder" -the top the sharpened prow-the firmer branches the masts-the pliant twigs the ropes and cordage - the gay garniture of rustling leaves the sails. It becomes a noble ship-the three embark-Orpheal takes the tiller,

and, after a pleasant voyage of a few minutes' duration, her Majesty's ship the Cedar, comes to anchor in an opposite bay.

66

Upon a flowery bank, beneath the shade Of a fair spreading tree, the pilgrims rest, And take refreshment, by the angel served, Choice and abundant."

The Doctor attends carefully to their dietetics on all their journeys; and we happen to be aware, though he does not mention it, that the pilgrims had in their pockets each a box of pills and a paper of aperient powders, besides a supply-condensed into cakes of the size of a crown-piece-of portable soup.

After lunch, Orpheal discourses at

"To me 'twere sorrow not to be appeased, But that I hope by penitence, and proof Of virtue, to regain an entrance there.” He then returns his most grateful thanks to Japhet for his visit, and assures him that it has served his poor Angelship much-by affording him

proof of the firmness, even while most he feared the feebleness, of his own virtue.

"I knew Ulsannah loved thee, yet my breast

Repelled the approach of every jealous thought,

Nor aught but kindness for a rival felt, Who had deprived me of espoused love. Nor was Ulsannah's love for thee a Although to me her nuptial faith was

crime:

due,

And chastely, with unwavering firmness, kept,

For thee the emotions of her heart were

To charm each other with love's holy spell,―

Nature's sweet impulse irresistible,
The soul-subduing sympathy of sex,
Whose force divine inspired her love for
thee.

This knowing, from my heart all self I tore,

And planted there my rival as my friend.

For this I am accredited in heaven. Ulsannah too hath met with favour there For the great conquest o'er her passion gain'd,

When she, at duty's call, resign'd thy love,

Which o'er her heart such mastery possess❜d,

That death to her more welcome would

When, with her spirit, I should re-ascend And find admission to my native heaven." Comment would be thrown away on such a revelation as this-yet we cannot but refer, in a single word, to Orpheal's delicate, judicious, and just compliment to Ulsannah's chastity his victorious vindication of her preference and passion for a human being, and his profound reflections on the mutual influence and reaction of sex on sex-which must have had all the charm of novelty to Japhet-innocent, as he was, as a sucking-dove.

Japhet, however, had remarked a singular deficiency in the domestic life of the tenants of the Isle of Love, and summons up courage to say to Orpheal

"A venturous wish

"Thy question I will answer," Orpheal said,

"All, freely-for it is a theme I love." The answer is unambiguous, but verbose, and may be thus abridged, without insertion of the more affecting sentiments :—" We angels were guiltless of all offence, except in loving

that dear sex which God created for the bless of man. Exile from heaven, and "servitude to woman's wish on earth," atoned for that offence. As for "those fair ones," they sinned not in joining their fate with ours"ours was the fall, the exaltation theirs." Our offspring are numerous, and sinless; for neither the penalty of their sins, nor their mother's stain of earth applies to them: therefore, the great Sire of all

"Still at their birth, ere from their mother's breast

They draw pollution, calls them to himself."

The Doctor informed us, in his Preface, that "those very records, from the sacred nature of their character, increased the difficulty (of bringing before the public the affairs of our world, concerning which so few records remain'), by obliging the details to be in strict conformity with their testimony; and, consequently, limiting the creations of fancy to a rigid consistency with the particulars of Scripture history."!

We cannot say that this scriptural explanation is as satisfactory to us as it would seem to have been to Japhet. Orpheal, that is, Dr James M'Henry, does not make out a good case for either angel or Zarie; and there is something here peculiarly revolting in his theology.

which

With kind reply thou wilt indulge, and thus

The charm of thy discourse to me prolong.
Say, what the cause, that in this blissful
Isle,

Appears no offspring of your angel ráce ?
Not unprolific, sure, your beauteous wives,
Nor wanting in maternal tenderness
To nurse their children in those happy
bowers."

That is a question to be put cautiously, and with a guarded expression of countenance; but Orpheal was prepared for it

sex which God created for the bliss of man. What right, pray, had they to come sailing down the sky like so many vultures, and to carry off honest men's daughters, and honest men's sweethearts at that rate, thereby necessitating swarms of old bachelors? We boldly declare, that exile from heaven was but a secondary punishment for a primary crime-and that they should have been all sent to hell. Servitude to woman's will on earth was exactly what they desired; and though Orpheal says he sorrowed for the loss of celestial bliss, we say he