Alvida. And wilt thou then not pity my estate Cilicia. Ask love of them who pity may impart. Alvida. I ask of thee, sweet; thou hast stole my heart.

Alvida. Ladies, go sit you down amidst this bower, And let the Eunuchs play you all asleep: Put garlands made of roses on your heads, And play the wantons, whilst I talk awhile.

Ladies. Thou beautiful of all the world, we will.
(Exeunt.)

Alvida. King of Cilicia, kind and courteous;
Like to thyself, because a lovely King;
Come lay thee down upon thy Mistress' knee,
And I will sing and talk of Love to thee.

Cilicia. Most gracious Paragon of excellence,

It fits not such an abject wretch as I

To talk with Rasni's Paramour and Love.

Alvida. To talk, sweet friend! who would not talk

with thee?

Oh be not coy: art thou not only fair?

Come twine thine arms about this snow-white neck,
A love-nest for the Great Assyrian King.
Blushing I tell thee, fair Cilician Prince,
None but thyself can merit such a grace.

Cilica. Madam, I hope you mean not for to mock me. Alvida. No, King, fair King, my meaning is to yoke thee,

Hear me but sing of Love: then by my sighs,
My tears, my glancing looks, m.y changed cheer,
Thou shalt perceive how I do hold thee dear.

Cilicia. Sing, Madam, if you please; but love in jest.
Alvida. Nay, I will love, and sigh at every jest.
(She sings.)

Beauty, alas! where wast thou born,
Thus to hold thyself in scorn,
When as Beauty kiss'd to wooe thee?
Thou by Beauty dost undo me.
Heigho, despise me not.

I and thou in sooth are one,
Fairer thou, I fairer none:
Wanton thou; and wilt thou, wanton,
Yield a cruel heart to plant on?
Do me right, and do me reason;
Cruelty is cursed treason.

Heigho, I love; Heigho, I love;
Heigho, and yet he eyes me not.
Cilicia. Madam your Song is passing passionate.

Cilicia. Your love is fixed on a greater King.

Alvida Tut, women's love-it is a fickle thing.

I love my Rasni for my dignity:

I love Cilician King for his sweet eye.

I love my Rasni, since he rules the worid:

But more I love this Kingly little world.
How sweet he looks !-O were I Cynthia's sphere,
And thou Endymion, I should hold thee dear:
Thus should mine arms be spread about thy neck,
Thus would I kiss my Love at every beck.
Thus would I sigh to see thee sweetly sleep;
And if thou wak'st not soon, thus would I weep:

And thus, and thus, and thus: thus much I love thee.

[From "Tethys' Festival," by Samuel Daniel, 1610.]

Song at a Court Masque.
Are they shadows that we see
And can shadows pleasure give?→
Pleasures only shadows be,
Cast by bodies we conceive;
And are made the things we deem
In those figures which they seem.—
But these pleasures vanish fast,
Which by shadows are exprest :-
Pleasures are not, if they last;
In their passing is their best.
Glory is most bright and gay
In a flash, and so away.
Feed apace then, greedy eyes,
On the wonder you behold;
Take it sudden as it flies,
Tho'
you take it not to hold:
When your eyes have done their part,
Thought must lengthen it in the heart.

C. L.

Scylla and Charybdis.

ANCIENT AND PRESENT STATE.

Incidit in Scyllam, cupiens vitare Charybdis. This Latin verse, which has become proverbial, is thus translated :—

He falls on Scylla, who Charybdis shuns.

The line has been ascribed to Ovid; it is not, however, in that or any other classic poet, but has been derived from Philippe Gualtier, a modern French writer of Latin verses. Charybdis is a whirlpool in the straits of Messina, on the coast of Sicily, opposite to Scylla, a dangerous rock on the coast of Italy. The danger to which mariners were exposed by the whirlpool is thus

of fable, changed its name to Messina, (from Messis, a harvest,) because of the great fertility of its fields. It is certainly one of the safest harbours in the world after ships have got in; but it is likewise one of the most difficult access. The celebrated gulf or whirlpool of Charybdis lies near to its entry, and often occasions such an intestine and irregular motion in the water, that the helm loses most of its power, and ships have great difficulty to get in, even with the fairest wind that can blow. This whirlpool, I think, is probably formed by the small promontory I have mentioned; which contracting the Straits in this spot, must necessarily increase the velocity of the current; but no doubt other causes, of which we are ignorant, concur, for this will by no means account for all the appearances which it has produced. The great noise occasioned by the tumultuous motion of the waters in this place, made the ancients liken it to a voracious sea-monster perpetually roaring for its prey; and it has been represented by their authors, as the most tremendous passage in the world. Aristotle gives a long and a formidable description of it in his 125th chapter De Admirandis, which I find translated in an old Sicilian book I have got here. It begins, "Adeo profundum, horridumque spectaculum, &c." but it is too long to transcribe. It is likewise described by Homer, 12th of the Odyssey; Virgil, 3d neid; Lucretius, Ovid, Sallust, Seneca, as also by many of the old Italian and Sicilian poets, who all speak of it in terms of horror; and represent it as an object that inspired terror, even when looked on at a distance. It certainly is not now so formidable; and very probably, the violence of this motion, continued for so many ages, has by degrees worn smooth the rugged rocks and jutting shelves, that may have intercepted and confined the waters. The breadth of the Straits too, in this place, I make no doubt is considerably enlarged. Indeed, from the nature of things it must be so; the perpetual friction occasioned by the current must wear away the bank on each side, and enlarge the bed of the water.

The vessels in this passage were obliged to go as near as possible to the coast of Calabria, in order to avoid the suction occasioned by the whirling of the waters in this vortex; by which means when they came to the narrowest and most rapid part of the Straits, betwixt Cape Pelorus and Scylla, they were in great danger of being carried upon that rock. From whence the proverb, still applied to those, who in attempting to avoid one evil fall into another.

There is a fine fountain of white marble on the key, representing Neptune holding Scylla and Charybdis chained, under the emblematical figures of two sea-monsters, as represented by the poets.

The little neck of land, forming the harbour of Messina, is strongly fortified. The citadel, which is indeed a very fine work, is built on that part which connects it with the main land. The farthermost point, which runs out to sea, is defended by four small forts, which command the entry into the harbour. Betwixt these lie the lazaret, and a lighthouse to warn sailors of their approach to Charybdis, as that other on Cape Pelorus is intended to give them notice of Scylla.

It is probably from these lighthouses (by the Greeks called Pharoi) that the whole of this celebrated Strait has been denominated the Faro of Messina.

According to Brydone, the hazard to sailors was less in his time than the Nestor of song, and the poet of the Eneid, had depicted in theirs. In 1824, Capt. W. H. Smyth, to whom a survey of the coast of Sicily was intrusted by the lords of the Admiralty, published a " Memoir" in 1824, with the latest and most authentic accounts of these celebrated classic spots-viz.:

SCYLLA.

As the breadth across this celebrated strait has been so often disputed, I particularly state, that the Faro Tower is exactly six thousand and forty-seven English yards from that classical bugbear, the Rock of Scylla, which, by poetical fiction, has been depicted in such terrific colours, and to describe the horrors of which, Phalerion, a painter, celebrated for his nervous representation of the awful and the tremendous, exerted his whole talent. But the flights of poetry can seldom bear to be shackled by homely truth, and if we are to receive the fine imagery, that places the summit of this rock in clouds brooding eternal mists and tempests-that represents it as inaccessible, even to a man provided with twenty hands and twenty feet, and immerses its base among ravenous sea-dogs;-why not also receive the whole circle of mythological dogmas of Homer, who, though so frequently dragged forth as an authority in history, theology, surgery, and geography, ought in justice to be read only as a poet. In the writings of so exquisite a bard, we must not expect to find all his representations strictly confined to a mere accurate

narration of facts. Moderns of intelligence, in visiting this spot, have gratified their imaginations, already heated by such de scriptions as the escape of the Argonauts, and the disasters of Ulysses, with fancying it the scourge of seamen, and that in a gale its caverns 'roar like dogs;' but I, as a sailor, never perceived any difference between the effect of the surges here, and on any other coast, yet I have frequently watched it closely in bad weather. It is now, as I presume it ever was, a common rock, of bold approach, a little worn at its base, and surmounted by a castle, with a sandy bay on each side. The one on the south side is memorable for the disaster that happened there during the dreadful earthquake of 1783, when an overwhelming wave (supposed to have been occasioned by the fall of part of a promontory into the sea) rushed up the beach, and, in its retreat, bore away with it upwards of two thousand people.

CHARYBDIS.

Outside the tongue of land, or Braccio di St. Rainiere, that forms the harbour of Messina, lies the Galofaro, or celebrated vortex of Charybdis, which has, with more reason than Scylla, been clothed with terrors by the writers of antiquity. To the undecked boats of the Rhegians, Locrians, Zancleans, and Greeks, it must have been formidable; for, even in the present day, small craft are sometimes endangered by it, and I have seen several men-of-war, and even a seventy-four gun ship, whirled round on its surface; but, by using due caution, there is generally very little danger or inconvenience to be apprehended. It appears to be an agitated water, of from seventy to ninety fathoms in depth, circling in quick eddies. It is owing probably to the meeting of the harbour and lateral currents with the main one, the latter being forced over in this direction by the opposite point of Pezzo. This agrees in some measure with the relation of Thucydides, who calls it a violent reciprocation of the Tyrrhene and Sicilian seas; and he is the only writer of remote antiquity I remember to have read, who has assigned this danger its true situation, and not exaggerated its effects. Many wonderful stories are told respecting this vortex, particularly some said to have been related by the celebrated diver, Colas, who lost his life here. I have never found reason, however, during my examination of this spot, to believe one of them.

For the Table Book.

A FRAGMENT.

648

FROM CORNELIUS MAY'S "JOURNEY TO THE GREATE MARKETT AT OLYMPUS""SEVEN STARRS OF WITTE."

One daye when tired with worldly toil,
Upp to the Olympian mounte
I sped, as from soul-cankering care,
Had ever been my wonte;
And there the gods assembled alle
I founde, O strange to tell!
Chaffering, like chapmen, and around

The wares they had to sell.
Eache god had sample of his goodes,

Which he displaied on high;

And cried," How lack ye?" "What's y're neede?"
To every passer by.

Quoth I," What have you here to sell?

To purchase being inclined;"

Said one,

"We've art and science here,

And every gifte of minde."

"What coin is current here?" I asked,

Spoke Hermes in a trice,

Industrie, perseverence, toile,

And life the highest price."

I saw Apollo, and went on,
Liking his wares of olde;

"Come buy," said he," this lyre of mine,

I'll pledge it sterling golde; This is the sample of its worthe,

'Tis cheape at life, come buy !" So saying, he drew olde Homer forth, And placed him 'neath my eye.

I turn'd aside, where in a row

Smalle bales high piled up stood;
Tyed rounde with golden threades of life,
And eache inscribed with blood,
"Travell to far and foreign landes ;"

"The knowledge of the sea;"

"Alle beastes, and birdes, and creeping thinges, And heaven's immensity;".

"Unshaken faithe when alle men change,"

"The patriot's holy heart;" "The might of woman's love to stay

When alle besides departe."

I next saw things soe strange of forme,
Their names I mighte not knowe,
Unlike aught either in heaven or earthe,
Or in the deeps below;

Then Hermes to my thoughte replied,

Strange as these thinges appeare, Gigantic power, the mighte of arte And science are laide here; Yeare after yeare of toile and thoughte

Can buy these stores alone; Yet boughte, how neare the gods is man,

What knowledge is made known! The power and nature of all thinges, Fire, aire, and earthe, and flood, Known and made subject to man's wille, For evill or for good."