rites are concluded, the scene changes to the palace of Sidonia, where his other daughter is about to wed Sebastian.

Now down the mountain's side, that splendid wave

Of beauty and bright chivalry is rushing, To where Sidonia's palace gates are flushing

In the red setting of the summer sun.

In the midst of the festivities attendant on the preparations for these nuptials, the lady's steed takes fright, and she is killed!-This is a strange and rather revolting incident. Indeed it will occur to the reader, that all this part of the poem is awkwardly introduced; and it is, besides, perfectly gratuitous, and unnecessary to the after purposes of the story.

It appears that Sebastian had not loved Maria;—and after a cold and formal tribute of tears to her grave, he departs to join the war that was then raging between Charles of Austria, and the grandson of Louis XIV. who were struggling for the succession to the Spanish crown. The effects of this war on the face of Spain are described in lines of great pathos and elegance.

Her heaven and earth were changed; the crystal well

Was now a grave, a purple pit of slain;
The hamlet was a waste, the forest cell
Was now the pining peasant's chilling lair;
Along the thymy slope, where gentle eyes
Oft watched the rising of the evening star,
Signal of love, and lover's melodies,
Now shot at eve the burning chapel's glare.

Sebastian collects his father's fol

lowers, and eagerly takes part in these wars, until the evening of a meditated attack on Granada.

On that last eve There was a banquet in Valverde's halls, The city's noblest name.

At this banquet he encounters a mysterious being in a moorish garb, who, after attracting and fixing his attention, escapes through the crowd and is lost. The following passage, though not without defects, is undoubtedly given in a highly poetical spirit.

Sebastian wander'd forth; the garden air Rush'd on his cheek, nor cool'd the fever there;

He gasp'd for breath. A sparry fountain

shot

Its waters in the moonlight: by its grot He stood, as if the sounds his heart would lul

His face, so sad, so pale, so beautiful, Fix'd on the moon, that in her zenith height Pour'd on his naked brow a flood of light: Shrined, moveless, silent, in the splendid beam,

He look'd the marble Genius of the stream. Silence all round; but when the night wind sway'd,

Or some roused bird dash'd fluttering thro' the shade,

For those he had no ear; the starry vault, The grove, the fount, but fed one whelming thought,

Time, fate, the earth, the glorious heaven Breathed but one mighty dream,—that above,

dream was love.

That his light pressure on the streamlet launch'd,

Bounded in joy; his deep and burning sigh Rose thro' the vine-leaves that gave sweet reply.

A sudden meteor sail'd across the heaven, He hail'd its sign; to him, to him 'twas given,

Omen of joy, bright promise of bright years.

Sebastian is waked from this ecstacy by the sound of a sudden bugle. He started from his dream. The yellow dawn

Wander'd along night's borders, like the fawn,

First venturing from its dappled mother's side.

He joins the battle long wished for, but now no longer welcome-storms the gates of Granada-and is borne away wounded. He is attended by a young peasant who had followed the camp, and quickly recovers from

his wounds.

One evening as the sun was setting sweet, Making its rays a coronet for the hill, he has wandered forth beneath the walls of the Alhambra, when his attention is attracted by a voice which sings some touching lines. The minstrel is no where to be seen; and,

vexed and bewildered, Sebastian enters the walls of the Alhambra.-In this part of the poem there occurs some very powerful and splendid writing.

In this particular style of composition it might be difficult to point out, any where in modern poetry, two finer passages than the following:

Palace of beauty! where the Moorish Lord,
King of the bow, the bridle, and the sword,
Sat like a Genie in the diamond's blaze.
Oh! to have seen thee in the ancient days,
When at thy morning gates the coursers
stood,

The "thousand," milk-white, Yemen's fiery blood,

In pearl and ruby harness'd for the king; And thro' thy portals pour'd the gorgeous flood

Of jewell'd Sheik and Emir, hastening, Before the sky the dawning purple show'd, Their turbans at the Caliph's feet to fling. Lovely thy morn,thy evening lovelier still, When at the waking of the first blue star That trembled on the Atalaya hill,

The splendours of the trumpet's voice arose, Brilliant and bold, and yet no sound of war; It summon'd all thy beauty from repose, The shaded slumber of the burning noon.

Then in the slant sun all thy fountains

shone,

That had no rival, and no second ?—gone! Thy glory down the arch of time has roll'd, Like the great day-star to the ocean dim, The billows of the ages o'er thee swim, Gloomy and fathomless; thy tale is told. Where is thy horn of battle? that but blown Brought every chief of Afric from his throne; Brought every spear of Afric from the wall; Brought every charger barded from the stall, Till all its tribes sat mounted on the shore; Waiting the waving of thy torch to pour The living deluge on the fields of Spain. Queen of earth's loveliness, there was a stain Upon thy brow-the stain of guilt and gore,

Thy course was bright, bold, treach'rous, -and 'tis o'er.

The spear and diadem are from thee gone; Silence is now sole monarch on thy throne.

There is a proud, pompous, and at the same time, melancholy flow in the versification of these passages, which blends very harmoniously with the feelings and associations called forth by the thoughts and imagery,and they cannot fail to give a strong impression of the writer's powers.

To pursue the story :

Sebastian wandered on; he had no thought, No eye for earthly glories; had that spot Been Paradise he would have wandered on.

Twice, in threading the mighty mazes of that palace, he encounters the form of which he is in search; and as often losing it again, returns to his sleepless couch. Here a rather confused and indistinct colloquy takes place between Sebastian and his peasant attendant; during which we have the first notice that Floranthe, who had taken the veil at the commencement of the story, had left her convent immediately after the fatal catastrophe of her sister, and had not

since been heard of. It had been reported, that she had left it accompanied by a page as a paramour; and the attendant of Sebastian, in order ́ to shield her from this obloquy, now confesses that he was that page; and endeavours to excite Sebastian's sympathy towards her. But Sebastian expresses himself indignantly respecting her conduct, and the colloquy ends.

The next morning the page is missing, and is seen no more; lace of Sidonia, finds that the daughand Sebastian on revisiting the pa

ter of that Nobleman had returned.

She came in purity, but came to die.

The reader must have already anticipated that Floranthe, the page, and the Moorish unknown, are one and the same.— -While relating, or rather, confessing her story, (secretly, with her dying breath, as she believes) she is overheard by Sebastian, who recognises "his lost, his lovely, his beloved."-The lady recovers; and the tale now ends by the lovers being, contrary to our expectations, united and made happy.

Upon the whole, we close these poems with a very favourable impression of the writer's talents. He is evidently a person of a most elegant and accomplished mind, who feels

WE shall have recourse to the lively and elegant work, whose title is subjoined in a note, for matter for two articles, which the readers of our magazine, we are sure, will have much gratification in perusing. The first will comprehend the Island of Sicily -the cradle of pastoral, the interesting scene of history, the abode of ancient and modern beauty, the theatre of volcanic terror and sublimity. We certainly have never encountered a traveller who possessed more of the art of carrying his readers with him, than Mr. Hughes, and few indeed have it in an equal degree. He is worthy to have wandered amongst the scenery and the objects he describes-and when it is considered what these are, it will be seen that higher praise cannot be given.

Greece and Albania we must leave to our next number: there is no bringing them into the tail of an article, and it would be profanation to squeeze them up in a corner.

On a fine evening in May, 1813, the author tells us, he cast anchor in the Bay of Palermo; and he strikingly and elegantly describes the aspect of beauty that beamed on his regard, when he thus first came into the glorious presence of Italian nature, presiding in one of her most majestic and voluptuous seats. The city of Palermo is described by Sicilian poets as a beauteous pearl, set in a golden shell. The high estimation in which the beauty of this part of Sicily was held in ancient times, may be learned from Athenæus." Here," says Rosacci, contend, as it were, all amenities, and all riches-and therefore is it called the shell of gold." Our author remarks with pain

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The extreme imbecility of the reigning family, and the dissolute morals of the nobles, the perversion of justice, the iniquity of the laws, and the general venality and corruption in a country which requires only the co-operation of man with the bounty of Providence, to make it a paradise upon earth. He bears testimony, however, to the efforts made by Great Britain, to recover her ally from this state of national degradation. Under the influ

ence of her councils, Ferdinand had resigned the authority, retaining the name of King; the Queen had been detected in her plots, deprived of all that gave her the power to do mischief, and admonished by the hanging of some of her agents. But Mr. Hughes regards the experiment, which was then tried, of establishing a representative government in this island, as a very unsuccessful one in fact, and he seems to incline to the idea that it was not very judicious in conception. He alludes, modestly enough, and in the tone of a man who would rather turn out to be wrong than right in his impression,to the distinction of character between the northern and southern people, that would almost seem to be indelible, and which is now so much discussed with reference to their respective literatures. The deliberative assembly, the suffrages of independent men, seem, from time immemorial, to have entered into the political framework of northern nations; while in the south, the strong and single coercion of monarchical power has ever been the most prevalent principle of government. In the case of the Sicilians, however, it is very evident that there was a greater necessity for giving the people schools than a House of Commons; it was, naturally enough, "found impracticable to engraft an enlightened code on a nation immersed in ignorance, superstition, and immorality." Our readers will be amused by the following sketch of the proceedings of the Sicilian Parliament;-though we have lately seen so much boyish impatience and irregularity,-so much empty indecorous laughing, so much indecent zeal, and foolish interruption, displayed, to the scandal of a great nation, in an assembly not so new to its functions, as the Parliament of Palermo, that it would ill become us to speak very contemptuously, at this moment, of the patriotic impetuosity of the Sicilian members. "No words," says Mr. Hughes,

Can describe the scenes which daily occurred upon the introduction of the re

ondon. Mawman. 1820.