Hadst thou been born a Persian maid, God! who could then this sword withstand? sunder'd And then, then only, true to love, No-sacred to thy soul will be All but that bleeding land for thee! When other eyes shall see, unmoved, Her widows mourn, her warriors fall, Thou'lt think how well one Gheber lov'd, And for his sake thou'lt weep for all! But look With sudden start he turn'd And pointed to the distant wave, While lights, like charnel meteors, burn'd Bluely, as o'er some seaman's grave; And fiery darts, at intervals, Flew up all sparkling from the main, As if each star, that nightly falls, Were shooting back to heaven again.My signal lights!-I must away Both, both are ruin'd, if I stay! Farewell-sweet life! thou cling'st in vainNow-vengeance !-I am thine again.' Fiercely he broke away, nor stopp'd, Nor look'd-but from the lattice dropp'd Down 'mid the pointed crags beneath, As if he fled from love to death. While pale and mute young HINDA stood, Nor mov'd, till in the silent flood A momentary plunge below Startled her from her trance of wo." The length of these extracts prevents us from quoting the whole description of the hero Hafed; but the following lines will shew that he was worthy to be the lover of Hinda, and the chief of the Fire-Worshippers: Such were the tales that won belief, And such the colouring fancy gave For happy homes and altars free, His only talisman, the sword, His only spell-word, Liberty! Of sainted cedars on its banks! The pageant of his country's shame ; Fell on his soul like drops of flame; And as a lover hails the dawn Of a first smile, so welcom'd he The sparkle of the first sword drawn For Vengeance and for Liberty!" The description of the Hold of the Ghebers is vivid and picturesque : "Around its base the bare rocks stood, Like naked giants, in the flood, As if to guard the Gulf across ;While on its peak that brav'd the sky, A ruin'd temple tower'd, so high, That oft the sleeping albatross Struck the wild ruins with her wing, And from her cloud-rock'd slumbering Started-to find man's dwelling there In her own silent fields of air! Beneath, terrific caverns gave Dark welcome to each stormy wave That dash'd, like midnight revellers, in ;And such the strange mysterious din At times throughout those caverns roll'd,-And such the fearful wonders told Of restless sprites imprison'd there, That bold were Moslem, who would dare, At twilight hour, to steer his skiff Beneath the Cheber's lonely cliff. On the land side, those towers sublime, That seem'd above the grasp of Time, Were sever'd from the haunts of men By a wide, deep, and wizard glen, So fathomless, so full of gloom, No eye could pierce the void between ; It seem'd a place where Gholes might come With their foul banquets from the tomb, And in its caverns feed unseen. The sound of many torrents came; Or floods of ever-restless flame. That from its lofty altar shone,- Like its own God's eternal will, We shall conclude our extracts with the following exquisite description of a calm after a storm, and of Hinda awaking from a swoon of terror on board of the war-bark of Hafed; than which last it is difficult to conceive any thing of the kind making a nearer approach to the definite distinctness of the sister-art of painting. "How calm, how beautiful comes on When, "stead of one unchanging breeze, As if the loveliest plants and trees Such was the golden hour that broke Beneath no rich pavilion's shade, * "A precious stone of the Indies, called by the ancients Ceraunium, because it was supposed to be found in places where thunder had fallen," &c. But the rude litter, roughly spread On looking back to our extracts, we powers and qualifications are exhibited in their utmost perfection, throughout the progress of a wild and romantic tale, in which we are hurried on from one danger to another, from peril to peril, from adventure to adventure, from hope into sudden despair,-from the exaltation of joy into the prostration of misery,-from all the bright delusions and visionary delights of love dreaming on the bosom of happiness, into the black, real, and substantial horrors of irremediable desolation,from youth and enjoyment, untamed and aspiring, into anguish, destiny, and death. Indeed, to us the great excellence of this poem is in the strength of attachment, the illimitable power of passion, displayed in the character and conduct of Hinda and Hafed,-feelings different in their object, in minds so differently constituted as theirs, but equal in the degree of their intensity. From the first moment that we behold Hinda, we behold her innocent, pure, and spotless; but her heart, her soul, her senses, her fancy, and her imagination, all occupied with one glorious and delightful vision that forever haunts, disturbs, and blesses,-which has, in spite of herself, overcome and subdued, what was formerly the ruling emotion of her nature, filial affection, and which at last shakes the foundation even of the religious faith in which she had been brought up from a child, and forces her to love, admire, and believe that creed, of which there had been instilled into her mind the bitterest abhorrence, till she sees nothing on earth or in heaven but in relation to her devoted hero. Hafed, on the other hand, has had all the energies of his soul roused by the noblest objects, and the imperious demand of the highest duties, before he has seen the divine countenance of Hinda. His soul is already filled with a patriotism which feels that it cannot restore the liberties of his country, though it may still avenge their destruction, with a piety that cannot keep unextinguished the fires sacred to its God, but hopes to preserve the shrine on which they burn unpolluted by profane hands, and finally to perish an immolation in the holy element. He feels that with him any love must be a folly, a madness, a crime; but above all, love to the daughter of the VOL. I. enemy of his country, his religion, and his God. Yet the divine inspiration, breathed from innocence and beauty, has mingled with his existence; and though there can be no union on earth between them, he wildly cherishes and clings to her image,-shews his devotion, his love, and his gratitude, even after the fatal horn has sounded unto death, and abandons her in that extremity, only because he must not abandon the holy cause of liberty and truth. a creed And here we may remark, that our full and perfect sympathy goes with the illustrious Gheber, both in the objects to which he is devoted, and the feelings with which that devotion is displayed. His is no cause of doubtful right of equivocal justice. He is not a rebel dignified with the name of patriot, nor a wild enthusiast fighting in support of an absurd or wicked faith. He is the last of a host of heroes, who perish in defence of their country's independence ;-the last of an enlightened priesthood, we may say, who wished to preserve the sanctity of their own lofty persuasion against" of lust, and hate, and crime.” The feelings, therefore, which he acts upon are universal, and free from all party taint, a vice which, we cannot help thinking, infects several of Mr Moore's shorter poems, and mars their eminent beauty. Perhaps there are a few passages of general declamation, even in this poem, coloured by what some may think party rather than natural feelings; but they are of rare occurrence, and may easily be forgiven to a poet who belongs to a country where pride has long struggled with oppression, where religion has been given as a reason against the diffusion of political privileges, and where valour guards liberties which the brave are not permitted to enjoy. Another great beauty in the conduct of this poem is the calm air of grandeur which invests, from first to last, the principal agent,-the utter hopelessness of ultimate success, yet the unshaken resolution of death, and the unpalpitating principle of a righteous vengeance. From the beginning we seem to know that Hafed and his Ghebers must die, yet the certainty of their death makes us feel a deeper interest in their life: they move for ever before us, like men under doom; 3 T and we foresee the glory of their end in the heroic tranquillity with which they all contemplate it, and at last are satisfied with the sweeping destruction of the final catastrophe, which leaves not one freeman in a land of slaves. But we are transgressing our limits, and have really left ourselves no room for pointing out the faults of this poem, and of Mr Moore's poetry in general. We must delay this ungracious task to our next Number, or some other opportunity. Indeed we almost think this task would be idle as well as ungracious, and feel as if we would shove it off entirely upon the shoulders of more fastidious critics. We have not left ourselves room for an account of the remaining poem, "The Light of the Haram." It does not seem to require any. It is a graceful and elegant trifle, that ought to be perused in a drawing-room, richly furnished with all the ornaments and luxuries of fashionable life. There doubtless is nature in it, and therefore it must give pleasure to all kinds and classes of readers; but it is nature wholly under the influence of art and artificial feelings; and the poet has taken the same pains, and perhaps exhibited the same power, in describing whim, caprice, folly, and extravagance, that he has exerted on the legitimate subjects of his art. We think he might have been better employed, though we know nobody who could have wrought such a piece of fanciful embroidery but himself. But the tinkling of a guitar cannot be endured immediately after the music of the harp; and we dislike to see an accomplished performer wasting his powers on an insignificant instrument. But they who love to read of lovers' quarrels, may here find them gracefully narrated-may learn how the Son of Acbar became displeased with the Sultana Nourmahal,-how the Feast of Roses at Cashmere lost all its delights in consequence of this coolness,-how Nourmahal got from an enchantress a wreath of flowers, which bestowed on her an irresistible and subduing spirit of song,-how she assumed the disguise of a lutanist from Cashmere, and sung to the Emperor so bewitching a strain, that "Selim to his heart has caught, In blushes more than ever bright, His Nourmahal, his Haram's light." For ourselves we have but small liking for such things, and consider it less a proof of versatility than inconsistency, that a poet, capable of simple, manly, elevated, noble, and heroic sentiments, and familiar with the grandest regions of the human soul, should condescend to trifle away his time with such sickly affectations, however graceful, and to pursue diseased and effeminate feelings through all the flowery alleys of an artificial fancy. But we are determined to part with Mr Moore with pleasure and complacency, and therefore take leave of him and our readers with a quotation from this very poem which has thus excited our spleen; and, truly, if it contained many such passages, it would have admirers enough in spite of our criticism. Dissension between hearts that love! Yet in a sunny hour fall off, A word unkind or wrongly taken- A breath, a touch like this, has shaken. The sweetnesses of love afe gone, As though its waters ne'er could sever, Breaks into floods, that part for ever!" Elements of the Natural History of the Animal Kingdom. By CHARLES STEWART, Fellow of the Linnæan and Wernerian Societies. 2 vols 8vo. Second edition. Edinburgh, Bell and Bradfute. London, Longman and Co., 1817. A PROPER elementary work on Zoology has long been one of our principal desiderata in natural history: and the want of such a work in English has no doubt contributed material ly to thwart the progress of science in this country. The Handbuch der Naturgeschichte of Blumenbach is an excellent book; but a knowledge of the German language is in Britain confined to a very few, and no translation of that, or of any of the other German manuals of natural history, has hitherto been executed. In 1801, a work appeared, entitled, "Elements of Natural History," being a translation in part of the generic and specific characters in Gmelin's edition of the Systema Naturæ. To these characters were added short and judicious notices of the habits and manners of the different species, and such as are natives of Britain were particularly enumerated and described; by which means, the work, besides being an introduction to systematic zoology, served, at the same time, in a great measure, as a Fauna Britannica. In 1802, a second volume made its appearance, comprising Entomology, Helminthology, and Testaceology, which, in conjunction with the former volume, containing the mammiferous animals and birds, and the Linnæan amphibia and fishes completed the zoological department. This production was executed with skill and accuracy, and the introductory chapters contained a short and useful exposition of the anatomy and physiology of the different classes. The great attention, however, which the study of natural history has of late years excited in every country of Europe, has of course effected considerable changes in the science. Certain opinions, which at one period were deemed incontrovertible, have been proved by the sure tests of observation and experience to be unfounded, and others, which at the same period were looked upon as the wildest chimeras of the imagination, have been shewn to have their foundation in nature and in truth. It results, as a consequence of this progressive state of the science, that a systematic work, however meritorious at the time of its publication, must, after the lapse of a certain number of years, contain much that is obsolete and inconsistent with what is known to be really true. The improvements in the principles of arrangement, and the additions which have been made to zoology in recent times, rendered a corrected edi tion of the "Elements of Natural History," as a general work, exceedingly desirable,-while the many interesting papers which had been published in the transactions of the Linnæan and Wernerian Societies, admitted of many important alterations and improvements in that work as a Fauna Britannica. It was with no small degree of pleasure, therefore, that we observed a second edition announced by the author, (Mr Charles Stewart of this city) under the more appropriate title of " Elements of the Natural History of the Animal Kingdom;" auguring, from the zeal and diligence which he had manifested in the compilation of the former one, that he would have introduced into this, such of the recent discoveries as clearly illustrated the progress of zoological science,-or at least, that he would have removed the objection which had been made to the original work, as containing many species, which the most incontestible evidence had since been adduced to prove were not really distinct from some others from which they had been separated. On a careful perusal, however, of the second edition, we are sorry to find that this has not always been done. With regard to the general principles of arrangement, Mr Stewart has judiciously adopted the leading features in the classification of Blumenbach; the generic characters are also correct, and he has wisely avoided the injurious and infinite divisions of the French writers; but many species are again given as distinct, which it is now generally admitted should be referred as synonyms to other species; and several important discoveries in the zoology of Great Britain, particularly in the ornithological department, have been entirely overlooked and omitted. This is the greater pity, as Mr Stewart's book is still the only one of the kind in this country to which the young student can refer; and from the author's well known talents and acquirements, much confidence is placed in it. We are moreover informed, that it is used as a text-book by the students who attend the lectures of the Professor of Natural History in this university; and although the attainments in every branch of natural history, of the accomplished Mineralogist who now fills the chair, enable him to |