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and his right supporting his head, and giving new lustre tol his beautiful face. His breath, as he sleeps, is sweeter than ambrosia. Then come I down, as softly as possible, and treading on my tip-toes that I may not wake and disturb him! You know the rest, in short, I am dying for love of him. The latter part, in particular, is vilely translated. The Greek has the very softness and caution of the gentlest footing. Albano painted this, and sweetly. It was soft moonlight, and sleep, and love, and Dian's beauty.

NAT. But this is Lucian's picture of words, not his description of a picture actually painted.

IDE. True and if you are not tired of Lucian, we will turn to his description of a picture, which he says he saw in Italy. The picture is by Etion-the marriage of Roxana and Alexander. Raffaelle was so pleased with this description, that he painted a picture of it, which was hung in his own room. The only alteration made by Raffaelle being, that he transferred the scene from an inner chamber to a camp.

Such was the perfection of the picture, that Proxenidas, the chief judge, was charmed with it to such a degree, that he gave Ætion, who was a stranger, his daughter in marriage:

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The scene," says Lucian, is a handsome inner chamber, with a nuptial bed in it, on which Roxana, a most beautiful virgin, is reclining, with her eyes fixed on the ground, as ashamed of looking up to Alexander, who stands by her. She is attended by several smiling cupids, one of whom is behind, lifting up her veil, and discovering her beauties to the bridegroom; whilst another, in the character of a slave, pulls off her slipper, that she may lie down another lays hold on Alexander's robe, and seems drawing him, with all his strength, towards the bride. He has a garland in his hand, which he offers to her. Hephæstion stands close to him with a torch in his hand, and leaning on a beautiful youth, whom I take to be Hymen, though there is no name inscribed over him. In another part of the picture are a number of cupids sporting with Alexander's armour, two of them-like porters sweating under a burthen-carrying a spear, with two more at a little distance, one lying upon his shield, and borne, like a

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king in triumph, by several who take hold of the handles of it, whilst the other 'gets into his coat-of-mail, and conceals himself, as if with a design to frighten the rest if they come that way; nor are these sports without design, as the artist meant by them to point out the hero's passion for war, and to show that how much soever he might be in love with Roxana, he had not forgot his arms. The picture, it may be observed, had something nuptial in it, which might recommend Etion to the daughter of Proxenidas, as the marriage of Alexander was a type of his own, and the hero, whose wedding was represented, a kind of bridesman to the painter, who went away equally happy. This of Franklin's is not the most elegant translation; but does it serve to reconcile you to the machinery of cupids, which, unless you have advanced, are a step or two beyond your limits of the natural? »

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NAT. I see you are determined to decide for me; but has not this same Lucian a description of a portrait, and a defence of the flattery, in which there is no such cupid machinery? IDE. The Portrait, which is so much a work for the painter that the translator «humbly inscribed the translation to his friend the great portrait painter of England, Sir Joshua Reynolds. But are you quite correct as to the machinery? It is not a description, but directions how to paint it; and all art, all beauty, all wisdom, gods, goddesses, the most noted philosophers, and most fascinating of woman kind, are called upon to contribute, even Dædalus and his wings, which, by-the-by, offers the translator an opportunity of a far grosser flattery than could be charged against his original, and is certainly a specimen of the bathos. Thus, in a note on Dædalus's wings, he says: This is to the last degree elegant: the whole description is, indeed, inimitable. It is perhaps impossible for an English reader at the present juncture, to read the latter part of it without applying it to the best of women, our own amiable and beneficent Queen Charlotte. » The passage that called out this nonsense runs, and thus she also gains universal admiration, for all wish those wings may ever remain unhurt which scatter blessings on every side of them; and by this, you, my friend Naturalist, will learn

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two things--that The Portrait does refer to things

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little

out of your nature, and that flattery will never want an avenue to enter in at. And you may perhaps add, that what was impossible for an English reader at one juncture, is very possible at another; and thus you may be led to question some other of your impossibilities.

NAT. Yon certainly do not consider any conceptions good and worthy of representation, but those of a sound mind. For that, sanity, is necessary to a genius. Yet you must admit--for, as a strong case, I return to the Centaurs that the conception of these monsters arose from terror, which is not the sane state of the mind. It is a state in which we see things not as they are. The enemy that first made their appearance descending from the hills on horseback, in the terror caused by the strangeness of the object, were taken, man and horse, for one creature. Here fear set aside reason; and it is surely doubly absurd to perpetuate, when reason returns, what could only be conceived in the absence of reason.

IDE. Well, we will say that terror was the parent of the idea; but I cannot admit that terror is not à sane state of the mind; it is the very condition of human nature to be subject to terror-moreover, it is enough for my purpose in the argument to show that it is natural. To express the ideas that the mind naturally under any circumstances conceives, is legitimate to the province of poetry and painting. Nor are you prepared to say that the mind in a state not sane, may not conceive ideas grand and beautiful, and such as might find a ready reception in all minds, and create for themselves a sufficient belief. But mark how some action given to the crea— ture, shall bring forward the power and grandeur of it, so as at once to take out of you the conceit of your knowledge, that the creature never could be. You see it has life and motion, and you question no further.

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Ceu duo Nubigenæ cùm vertice montis ab alto
Descendunt Centauri; Homolem Othrynque nivalem
Linquentes cursu rapido: dat euntibus ingens 17

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' S Syivaldcum, let magno cedunt virgulta fragoren-Pirgil

Here you see two cloud-born creatures, from the brow of

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a lofty hill, descend. You know not what-you wonder, are amazed are prepared for something extra-human, and the next word tells you they are Centaurs. Then you see them in their rapid course too rapid to allow you to scrutinize their forms quitting Homole and the snowy Othrys, they enter the woods, the woods give way as they pass, and you hear nothing but the crash of branch and leafage. Away they fly. The vision has passed; but the remembrance of it never and will you coolly turn round, and swear you could have seen nothing for the creatures must have had each two stomachs, and think it an impossibility? We are all apt to yield a more ready belief to fancy, than you give even yourself the credit for doing. It is natural we begin it with infancy, and if we lose the power, it is only in a morbid state of knowledge. Some are, fearful we shall believe too much in works of fancy-you too little for enjoyment. Bottom thought that Snug, the joiner, should show half his face through his lion's mane, and advertise himself to the ladies as a man, as other men are, for wild-fowl than your lion living.» give a little credit to fancy, one's stick and flounder in the mire of what we choose to term realities. It is a pleasant refuge, sometimes, from the damp dispiriting streets and alleys, and vexatious business of every-day life, to go off with fancy to the woods and wilds, to the sea and to, the rivers, that are not within geographical limit, to see the pastimes of Silenus and his satyrs, wood nymphs and water nymphs'; to hear, as. Wordsworth says in one of his sonnets, old Triton wind his wreathed horn; and see. Proteus coming from the sea and gathering his phocæ around him. Keep your fancy healthy whathever you do, and do not take every waking dream for a symptom of disease. We are, as I think Wordsworth says, too much of the world, and the world is too much with us. Come and race with that wild Bacchante, that on a Centaur's back is goading him on with a thyrsus. Do you doubt its reality, because you see it is a copy from a picture from Pompeii or Herculaneum? Then you will be happier in your dream if you can keep up the

there is not a more fearful After all, it is better to own or of others, than to

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truths of nature.

For so to interpose a little ease, let our frail thoughts dally with false surmise..

chase, and even when you wake, believe it to be one of the

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NAT. Farewell then, you have more than, half brought on somnambulism, for I feel myself sleepy.

(BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE.)

JOHN BULL IN TARTARY. (

BY THE AUTHOR OF HAJJI BABA, " "ZOHRAB, " ETC.

In various parts of Tartary are to be found small Khans and Chieftains, who, though nominally under the dominion of the kings of Persia or Bokhara, are in fact independent chiefs. Their seclusion from the world renders them totally ignorant of what is doing in it beyond their own immediate dependence; despotic in their sway, the principal object of their lives is plunder and man-stealing.

It was in the courtyard of the habitation of one of these chiefs, situated in a small fortified village, that, in the early dawn of a spring morning, two individuals met the one a Persian Mirza or man of the pen, Timour by name; the other, Omar, was a tall, heavy man, and appeared just come off a journey, armed at all points.

Timour, with surprise in his countenance, greeted the other, saying, Omar Aga, welcome! your place has been empty. What news? »

.

"Well found, O mirza!-what news do you ask? Here are strange things come to pass. We have seen marvellous things!

(') The following tale was suggested by reading Lieut. Barnes' Travels in Bokbara. 17

VOL. III.

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