Poetry.

LEGENDS OF THE RHINE.-LURLINE.

"BRIGHT is my home, 'neath the deep-blue wave
Flashing with jewels my coral cave!
Pearls from the ocean, gems of the sea!
Priceless the treasures, I've gathered for thee!
Come, love, come, I have waited long,
Breathing in sadness my lonely song!
Hast thou courage, fair stranger!

Wilt thou dare

Her immortal home with Lurline to share?
If jewels and gold have no charms for thee,
I have Beauty and Love!-Wilt thou come with me?
Come to my home, 'neath the azure Rhine!
-A word-a whisper-and, I am thine!"

Nearer, boatman, nearer still!

Why rests thy brawny arm?

Art tired? Art wearied of thine oar,
Why gaze with such alarm?

Nearer, I tell thee, loose thine hold!
Give me the oars, I pray,-

See'st thou yon form of beauteous mould,
Hear'st thou that wond'rous lay?"

"Nor tired, nor wearied, of his oar

Is the Boatman-toil is play.

But back, young Sir, near yonder shore,

I dare not longer stay!

For I gaze on no form of beauteous mould,

I see but the blinding spray,

The dash of the wave 'gainst the rocks firm hold

'Tis the Lurline's mocking lay!

She is heard but seldom by mortal ear:

Still rarer,-her form is seen;

But he, who beholds her - his doom is near,

One victim the more for Lurline."

"Nearer! I tell thee, nearer still!

Thy croaking is all in vain,

Be silent!-Hush!--Let me hear once more!
The sound of that dying strain !"

"Back! "Tis a demon tempts thee now:

-One step-and thou meet'st thy doom,—
Has the future no hope, that wildly thou,
Must rush to a watery tomb ?"

"Release thy hold !"-the boatman fell!

"Lurline!-I am thine-I am thine!"

One moment, he rose on the wave's rough swell,
Then sank 'neath the deep blue Rhine!

M. A. C.

How many captains, with their joyous bands,
Have sail'd exulting for far distant lands,

Beyond this dark horizon to go down!
How many, through their cruel fate's decree,
In deepest waves, upon a moonless sea,

Have sunk 'neath ocean blind for ever gone!

How many chiefs there with their crews have past,
Each page from out their life torn by the blast!

And, by a breath flung scattered o'er the wave,
Plung'd in the dread abyss: their end none tell;
Each passing wave 's with booty laden well:

One is the skiff's, and one the sailors' grave!

Gone! gone for ever! None your fate may know,
Ye roll the ocean's sombre depths below!-

Your dead brows strike against an unknown shore.

Many the parents who have hoping died,

While watching daily by the sad sea side,

For them-the lost-who may return no more!

Sometimes a circle gay yet speaks of ye,

Seated on rusty anchors by the sea

Your names, tho' but through dreamy distance seen,
Are mixed with songs and careless laughter's peal,
As kisses from your promised brides they steal,

While ye lie sleeping 'neath the seed-weed green.

They ask, "Where are they? Kings in some far isle?
Or, are they gone where fairer regions smile?"

Remembrance, then, by slow degrees grows less.
As in the sea the dead all nameless fall,
Time, which a deeper shadow throws o'er all,
Flings o'er the dark sea dark forgetfulness.

Your memory soon has ceas'd a shade to throw-
Has not this one his bark; and that his plough?
Lonely, in nights of storm, one sits apart—
Your snow-brow'd widow, who alone remembers,
Dreams yet of you, stirring the smould'ring embers
Of her now dreary hearth and lonely heart!

And when she, too, within the tomb is gone,
Your name exists no more-not e'en a stone
In the small churchyard, where the echo rings;
Not e'en a willow-tree above ye falls!
Not e'en the simplest song your name recalls,
Which on the ancient bridge the beggar sings.

Where are the seamen in the night gone down)
Oh! waves, what mournful stories have ye known!
Deep waves! dread of the kneeling mother's soul!
Ye to each other doleful tidings bear,

And thence arise those voices of despair,

Ye take at night, when on our shores ye roll.

E. DE C.

TRANSLATION FROM HORACE.-Book I., ODE 8.

LYDIA! by all the gods I pray thee tell

Why fatally thou dost such haste employ, On Sybaris to cast thy potent spell,

And bring destruction on the amorous boy.

Say, why does he, whom sloth should court in vain,
Betimes inured the dust and heat to bear,
Dislike, of late, to brave the sunny plain,
No longer seeking manly pastime there?
Why does he not in warlike splendour ride
Among his young compeers of Roman name?
Why strives he now no more, with decent pride,
The bitted mouths of Gallic steeds to tame?

Why does he fear to touch the yellow flood

Of Tiber? Why from hardy wrestler's oil,
More than he would from deadly viper's blood,
When urged to combat, warily recoil?

Or why, his pliant arms to crowds well known,
Still black from weapons, does he cease to wave;
Those arms, which oft, by quoit and jav'lin thrown
Beyond their marks, such proofs of vigour gave?

Why does he lie concealed, as some declare

The son of Thetis, great sea-goddess, lay,

Ere Troy's sad fall, lest virile garb and air

To death and Lycian bands should speed his way?

SHE IS SAD.

SHE is sad in her turret chamber high,

And she watches the clouds in the troubled sky
As they hurry in heavy sadness by.

Now and then a ray from a straggling star
Lights faintly a spot in the space afar-
Anon and it seems to be lost for ever,

Whelmed in the darkness it sought to sever.
"My heart like thy light yon star is clouded,
"The woes of my being its hopes have shrouded,
"But it battles still with its stormy trial
"And lives, though its light's obscured awhile."

She mused and mourned, but that star's fond light
Ne'er gleamed again on her longing sight-
Sad omen, her sorrowing heart bethought
Of the grief which destiny then had wrought;
For like, as the maid, on the Ganges stream,
When lit by the soft moon's fairest beam,
Will launch her bark, and with tenderest gaze
Follow its course, lest the trembling rays
It bears to the goddess whose favouring smile
She would by such offering pure beguile,
Expire, on the frail thing cast to the wave
'Neath the warm flood sink to its golden grave,
And her darling hope, and passionate prayer,
Return to her bosom unanswered there-
So each poor heart hath its speck on some tide,
And in feeblest fancies will oft confide.

H.

B. *

Reviews.

Fosteriana-thoughts, reflections, and criticisms of John Foster.

H. G. Bohn. London: H. G. BOHN.

Edited by

In addition to the general interest attaching to those memorabilia, popularly known as Ana"-whether relating to the personal habits and constitutional tendencies of distinguished individuals; or embodying their occasional opinions and favourite maxims-there is a peculiar attraction, created by local association, in right of which this volume recommends itself to our readers in our own immediate neighbourhood. There are many still among us, we hope-many who have sojourned long enough in this incomprehensible old world, to remember the Rev. John Foster, if not as an alumnus of the Baptist College in Stoke's-croft; at least, as minister of the Downend chapel, and a resident, during many of the later years of his life, in the quiet and picturesque village of Stapleton. To these, and in fact to readers in general, it is scarcely necessary to say that the present selection of the choicest morceaux from his voluminous writings must be a welcome present. The deep and well-matured philosophy of John Foster upon a great variety of speculative subjects; and the almost incredible assortment of information which he brought to bear upon numerous topics of history and antiquities, are facts now so widely recognized, that it only remains for us to bear testimony to the sound judgment and correct taste displayed by Mr. Bohn in the selection of the several extracts. The work forms a scrap-book of a most interesting and instructive character, which may be taken up at any spare moment with advantage, and supplies the quintessence of a large number of elaborate essays on questions not only of perpetual importance, but on many to which public attention happens just now to be particularly directed; including together with several psychological and ethical disquisitions, valuable observations on India, Southern Africa, Australia, Russia, the Universities, the French Revolution, the American Indians, &c., &c.

Letters, Conversations, and Recollections of S. T. Coleridge. Edited by Thos. Allsop. London: GROOMBRIDGE & SONS, 5, Paternoster-row. ORSINI and his confederates, in their desperate and atrocious attempt to assassinate the Emperor of France, made themselves responsible for consequences which could hardly be included in their calculations of risk. We say nothing here of the important political and international controversies which have arisen but refer rather to indirecter and more accidental results. This republication for instance, though occasioned by the dreadful crime of the 14th of January, was assuredly not expected to follow it by those who were responsible for its commission. The book is a second edition of a work originally issued in the year 1836. by Thomas Allsop-a notorious name just now. This edition is given to the world by his son, from a motive which is thus explained :

"It having been stated that Mr. Thomas Allsop was cognizant of and sanctioned the attempted tyrannicide of the 14th January, which resulted (as it could hardly have failed to do) in the death of innocent persons, I deem it my duty, by the republication of this work, to show to the world what manner of man he is, and in what estimation he was held by one of the greatest philosophers and most profound thinkers of this or any age."

To an indifferent, and perhaps even an impartial reader, this apology would cause some amusement. People will hardly be able to see how the fact of Thomas Allsop having been in early life an intimate friend of Samuel Taylor Coleridge can have anything whatever to do with the question of his guilt or innocence of the accusation under which he now suffers, and from the legal investigation of which, it should be remembered, he has absconded. If there be

any truth in the traditions of the world, Satan was once the most intimate friend of Jehovah; but if he were to remind the world of that fact in a tone of selfapology, and with the view of proving himself immaculate, his defence would certainly break down. Of course, we do not say that Thomas Allsop is guilty of the crime of assassination, we only say that the fact of his having thirty or forty years ago received a series of letters from Samuel Taylor Coleridge is no proof of his innocence. Neither will the verdict of the literary world be more favourable on the other point on which its judgment is challenged. We are favoured with this work that we may know what sort of a man this Thomas Allsop is. Well: apart altogether from the circumstance that twenty years may show a great change of character, we are inclined to fear that the book does not reveal any very striking indications, either of the intellectual or moral superiority which the son, with the most pardonable loyalty, but not with the best taste, ascribes to him. As a writer, we have seldom met with one more clumsy. He is obscure, not from profundity, but from simple incapacity to express his thoughts. We will give a specimen or two. The following is an entire paragraph from the preface-which seems to be partly an address to the writer's children, and partly an explanation of his general objects to the public :-" Of the no less loving, not less to be loved Charles Lamb, having been housemates, your recollections need not this aid. I stood beside the grave, and saw when it received their loved forms, and, since then, I seem to have lived on their memories." A simple reader would imagine from this that Mr. Allsop had been blind ever before and ever since Messrs. Coledridge and Lamb were buried together in one grave! That Mr. Allsop should have a high opinion of S. T. Coleridge can occasion no surprise, but the way in which he speaks of him indicates such an inordinate and indiscriminating reverence as to lead to the suspicion that he is rather a weak man-one of those wonder-ridden simpletons to whom a man great in monologue, as Coleridge unquestionably was, finds he can talk for ever without exciting the slightest impatience. He calls him "that mightiest master of Poetry and Philosophy in its truest and only valuable sense:"-[by the way, does the sense apply to the Philosophy or to the mastership therein ?]—“The Ancient of Days”—which is rather profane; "this wonderful, this myriad-minded man," &c., &c. These tributes are excusable coming from a devotee, but what sort of a man do they show Mr. Allsop to be? We fear, they imply that Coleridge was the only great man with whom he was acquainted, and that he was imposed upon by the vagrant pretensions, and pedantic volubility of the old talker. True, we have here also a great deal about Charles Lamb; but Mr. Alisop's weakness in hero-worship degenerates into silliness when he comes to speak of a spirit and form less lofty and more familiar. What do our readers say to this as a specimen of personal analysis and exalted critical power?

"I have said that I never knew any one who at all approached or resembled our delightful housemate. I am wrong; I once met a man with his smile,HIS smile. There is nothing like it upon earth; unless, perchance, this man survives. And yet how unlike in every other regard personal and mental; not that the man, who had by some most extraordinary means acquired or appropriated this sunshine of the face, was at all deficient in mental qualities. He seemed amiable, thoughtful, and introspective; a man better than his condition, or rather, his calling. He was, I believe, a stock-broker, and had been with his son to traverse the haunts of his childhood, near Lymington; with his son, afflicted with a sudden and complete deafness; hence, perchance, these sweet smiles springing from, and compounded of, love and pain. Yet this man had never known Lamb; still his smile was the same-the self-same expression on a different face,-if, indeed, whilst that smile passed over it, you could see any difference. I mentioned this strange encounter to Coleridge, and he immediately constructed a most delightful theory of association, and corroborated it with so many instances, that he must have been sceptical that could at the moment have refused him credence. To those who wish to see the only thing left on earth, if it is still left, of Lamb, his best and most beautiful remain,-his mile, I will indicate its possessor,-Mr. Harman, of Throgmorton-street."