VOL. I. Lo! your pale corpses cumber all the plain--- A bloody harvest soon to writhe in dust-- Another trumpet shakes the sounding air!-- Of conquering Saul, that widely flashes there! Of Moab and of impious Amalek, Edom-and Zobah--that his power defied! As the fierce torrent, bursting from the chain Which lingering Winter strives to bind in vain, Thus in the tide of wo His haughty crested foe The monarch sweeps in one o'erwhelming wreck! Life, as in past years I was wont to live, Thrills in my veins. Alas! who now would speak The old man to their shades. David. We sing of peace- Wearied---beside the verdant shore Of his own native river laid, The champion dreams of victories o'er His children stand the warrior near They kiss away each starting tear,- So sweet the gloom that shades each face, So soft of every tear the trace, 'Tis scarcely marked the while. His daughters with fond hands undo The lingerings of some fairy dream! And grieve that 'tis to each denied Superior tenderness to prove, And be the closest to his side. His graceful sons!--One strives apart, Its mirrored brilliance to restore To that blood rusted steel once more. Another asks, with swelling heart When he shall whirl the lance and shield, Which now his arm in vain essays to wield? While thus his tardy youth he chides, A third, with infant wile Behind the ponderous armor hides 46 Tears that the depths of bliss bespeak, Oh, beauteous peace! where'er we roam, As in this bower of home? But lo! beneath the tranquil deep The sun has set :---o'er tree, and hill, Saul.---Oh happy father of a race so noble! Blest peace of mind! A tranquil sweetness glides Shall Saul waste thus in weak domestic ease His powers? For him, must war's dread implements The minstrel, adapting his style and measure to the changing humor of the king, in a glow of splendid poetry again calls up visions of glory and victory. Again Saul's jealousy takes the alarm, and with menaces and bursts of ungovernable fury, he drives David from his presence. The stings of a guilty conscience kindle anew all his frantic hatred, he raves at the thought that his youthful rival may have perhaps already received the kingly unction, bitterly exclaiming that David shall die, ere he obtain the crown, although he confesses a secret influence which restrains and calms him in his presence. The last extract our limits will allow us to give, is part of the scene between Saul and the high priest Achimileck, who is brought a prisoner to his presence, and in our opinion a finer scene is not to be found in any tragedy of ancient or modern days, with the superb contrast between the calm and stern inflexibility of the priest, and the ungovernable fury of the devoted king, and lastly the sublime denunciation which the prophetic pontiff thunders forth against the hardened sinner, who, already blinded and maddened by the avenging justice of his God, is rushing headlong to the doom, which that very madness is bringing to its season of fulfillment. Ye ruthless priests? Blasphemous, thirsting still In Samuel's eyes that I had not destroyed Of Samuel plunged the steel. These,---cowards,---traitors,--- Steeled 'gainst its rightful king, will ever find In you defence, help, counsel! * * A race debased and cruel, Who scoff at perils in which ye sustain No part or share !-Who safely wrap yourselves Beneath our weapons!-Us, who in the storm Our children, and for you, lead dismal days Our swords and us! Ach. And who art thou? A king On earth thou art-but in God's mighty presence A naked man-a crowned thing of dust. I in myself am nothing---but the bolt Of fiercest vengeance---whirlwind, tempest, wrath, If the Lord deign to utter, or fulfil His dread intents by me. That God who made thee !- His impious steps. Unto a sinful king His foeman bears? Whence the consuming terror No less than Israel, is the instrument Of his most righteous ire. Tremble, thou, Saul! Lo! on the blackening cloud that broods above thee His wings of fire! With one dark hand he bares * Thou, urged by evil fate Hast spurned the sole support of thy frail fortunes 'Tis based upon the dark and treacherous wave, It shakes--it falls---is nought! each lingering vestige Is swept away forever! How noble the saintly fortitude with which Achimilech, supported by the lofty consciousness of right, receives the sentence of death, and is led forth to suffer! The redeeming trait in Saul's character, for which, in spite of his blasphemy and wickedness, our sympathies are interested for him, is his affection for his children. It is for them alone he deems life worth preserving, and, though in his bursts of passion, he treats them frequently with great harshness, and unkindness, yet his tender solicitude for their safety accompanies him in situations of the most appalling danger, and is strong in death itself. Thus in the last act, when his reason abandons him, and he sees in imagination the awful shade of the prophet Samuel, frowning upon him, he beseeches him to turn away the avenging sword of the Almighty, not from him, but from his innocent offspring, who are, as he pleads, guiltless of his crime!-then seeing his daughter beside him, he fancies that his prayer has been partially granted, and implores more earnestly that vengeance may not be visited on them, consenting even, in his agony, to yield his throne to his rival, if that may purchase safety for his children. And his last words, when all hope is lost, before he yields to the suggestions of his despair and falls on his own sword,- —are a charge to Abner to protect his daughter, bidding him, if she have fallen into the hand of the enemy, to proclaim her not-as the child of Saul-but as the wife of David, whose name he believed would command the respect of the Philistines! The specimens which we have here placed before our readers, selected not for the purpose of giving any idea of this play as a connected piece, but simply to exhibit the beauties of style, and method of treating the subject, although scarcely worthy to be compared, even at the most remote distance, with their magnificent original,-may still afford some conception of the powers of language, and the depth of sentiment, which are peculiar to this masterly poet. Severe, and chaste in his style, he draws no gorgeous veil over the limbs of his creations, but sets them forth "then most adorned, when unadorned the most." It is to the proportions, the grace, the vigor of the form itself, that his admirers must look; for in the works of Alfieri there will be found no illusive drapery to conceal a blemish, or give a fictitious beauty to that, which if viewed alone, would be nerveless or inelegant. Content to sway the mind by the agency of high emotions,-by grief, by terror, and despair, he has perhaps neglected the softer influences, which soothe, rather than excite the soul. But in excluding sentiment and softness, he has by no means shut out true pathos; and more, far more, than he has lost in sweetness, he has gained in grandeur, and sublimity. It would be useless to comment upon the sublimities of language, or the powerful exhibitions of intense passion which abounds in this tragedy,those who have read it, will have felt its beauties—and to those who have not, we fear that all our attempts to convey an adequate idea of its merits, will be fruitless; although these beauties are alone sufficient to have stamped Victor Alfieri, a poet unsurpassed even by those glorious spirits, who have rendered the name of Italy a holy word, consecrated forever by the harps of poets unnumbered as autumnal leaves, that strow the brooks In Vallombrosa, where the Etrurian shades High overarched, imbower. E. F. E. THE ARMENIANS AT CONSTANTINOPLE. BY THE AUTHOR OF THE SKETCH OF SOCIETY AT PERA, IN NUMBER V. THE genius of the Armenian is essentially mercantile, but many of them, having a mechanical talent, are employed as jewellers, gold and silver smiths, and the various other trades called for by the luxuries and the necessities of a great capital; and being of strong frames, the lower and poorer classes are employed almost exclusively as hamals, or porters, for the purpose of transporting the heaviest burthens through the steep and narrow streets of Constantinople, Galatea, Pera, and the neighbouring towns. Where money is to be gained, Armenians are to be found employed. There is no financial occupation however exalted that is beyond the reach of their mercenary ambititon; and none too vile or base, for their acceptance, where money is their object;-from the superintendance of the mint, to the filthy and contemptible employment of cleansers of common sewers; and all the intermediate gradations of employment, are sought by the strong built, industrious, avaricious Armenians. The Turks, in their application of a term which they conceive suitable to the Armenian caste in general, call them Bakji Bokji a phraze indicative of the most filthy of all of their employments. But commerce in all its various and extended branches is most congenial to the Armenians, in pursuit of which they brave the frosts of Russia, the deserted regions of Asia Minor, where fever lurks in every vale ;-the heats of Syria, and the Simooms and droughts of the Arabian desert ;-disease in every shape; the dysentery; the cholera, and the plague. The rapine of professional robbers, and the rapacity of pachas, and governors, through whose territories these roads lay, all are encountered in the hope of gain, and when the Armenian has arrived at the uttermost limits of the Ottoman empire, he appears but to have reached the place, from whence to start in fresh pursuit of his object, until India and Japan furnish the merchandise destined to be vended in the khans and bazaars of Constantinople. Endowed with great personal strength and passive courage, the Armenian undertakes these dangerous journies, with a forethought of the risks and the difficulties he has to encounter, and occupies his mind on his journey, in calculating as every danger is past, and every loss sustained, the additional per centage necessary to be charged on what remains of his merchandise, to enable him to make good the losses which he has suffered, from accident, rapacity, or whatever other cause. Thus patient as the camel he bestrides, and enduring as his pack-saddle, months are spent in making those tedious and dangerous journies; and while a being less mercantile would reap intellectual stores from observations on men and customs, the only stores he thinks of are those within his bales, and the stores of paras he will receive for them, while comfortably seated in his little shop at the bazaar. Industry is the inheritance of the Armenian, and in Turkey resolves itself into four principal branches; to wit,-banking, and the administration of public and private estates for the Turks; the coining of money; the manufacturing of muslins and stamped cloths; goldsmith's work and jewellery, and the greater part of the mechanical arts, and other |