haps the author will now learn for the first time that such rhymes as glade and blade, train and again, recurring frequently in a short poem, are decided defects. The constant change of the vowel, which gives the character to the sound, will always be deemed requisite by a correct and really musical writer; and he will not be satisfied with the bare difference between the last letter or letters of a word and those of its correspondent. Fell and knell, impell'd and rebell'd, would obviously be excluded from the pages of such a writer. Moreover, any unpleasing collision, that can anticipate the idea of a rhyme, or divert the attention from the proper close for an instant, is in bad taste.

How swift Phrosyne thought the moments gone,
That brought the dreaded day of parting on.'

If this objection, at least as here instanced, may be considered
(by any persons qualified to judge) as of too hypercritical a
severity, the following four lines will furnish a sufficient ex-
ample of almost all the faults which we have been specifying:
'Half robb'd of life they saw the fated maid
Her sinking head on Helen's bosom laid;

Clos'd were her eyes, and from their native bed
The withered roses seem'd for ever fled.'

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Here, although the vowel is changed, the whole quatrain is more than half robbed' of harmony by the still remaining similarity of the final sounds; that similarity being rendered additionally offensive by the intermixture of several kindred discords.

Various other objections may be urged against Mr. Knight's heroics: but his stanzaics succeed indisputably better. Often, indeed, with the poet as with the painter, a simple style betrays that want of original power in both which the more com plicated efforts of their art had concealed. In Ilderim, or in Alashtar, we should rarely meet with such specimens of feebleness as the subjoined:

Would rather view her breathless at my feet,

Than see

her

go disgrace and crime to meet.'

The maid had fled, and gain'd the inner room,
Dismay'd with fear, uncertain of the doom.'

We could multiply such nerveless and pointless distichs to a great extent: but we shall present the reader with one better extract from this unsuccessful Grecian Tale, and pass on to Alashtar. Our proposed selection is indeed of a more common and insignificant character than on first perusing it we had imagined: but still it is more classical, more like an

imitation

imitation of the manner of the antient Greek minor poems, than we can elsewhere discover:

The sun was bright - the season in its pride-
Daphne was red on every streamlet's side;
All Nature smil'd the air itself was gay,
And warbling birds sung homage to the day:
Pensive Phrosyne sat and "Oh, thou sun!
Haste thee," she cry'd, "thy onward course to run.
Cease, tedious Summer! cease thy loath'd delay
Swift, with thy gaudy pageants, haste away!
These flow'ry wreaths but on my soul impress
How distant still from me is happiness!

Hence, glitt'ring train! and oh! thou kinder pow'r,
Snow-girted Winter! bring thy darksome hour:
More grateful far thy roughest blast shall sound
Than this soft air that gently steals around;
Thy leafless groves a fairer sight appear
Than the green canopy that shades me here;
Brighter thy gloomy skies than yonder glow
That decks, with living gold, the vale below!
Haste, Winter! haste Phrosyne longs to see

Thy snows for love's sweet triumph comes with thee!" The last line, which ought to have breathed the soul of melody, is an absolute lesson of hissing dissonance. Ali Pacha, the Turkish governor, whose unruly passions gave rise to the tale which we have been criticizing, has lately appeared before the English public in numerous shapes of interest or of horror; as he has happened to strike the imagination rather than to meet the knowlege of our poetical countrymen. This extraordinary man, almost equally the dread of his nominal sovereigns at Constantinople and of his real slaves in Greece, presents a spectacle which future historians must record with minute accuracy, if they wish to secure the belief of their readers. As he already fills no inconsiderable space in the records of a most interesting country, and a country more likely every day to fix the attention of polished nations, it is highly desirable that every transient writer who touches on so strange a name, so unique a mixture of sagacity and savageness, should strictly adhere to the letter of his instructions on the subject; and that he should wholly abstain from embellishing an original, which for extravagance of contrary extremes, and for curious exhibitions of the licentiousness of human power and the perversity of human intellect, must leave far behind them even the most finished portraits of imagination.

Daphne is the Romaic name for the Oleander, which fringes the rivers and streams of Greece.'

"Tanto

"Tanto majores humana negotia ludi !”

We are far from insinuating that Mr. Knight has varied from the fact in this single record of Ali's lust and cruelty: but we wish that the dates, and other necessary confirmations of the events stated, had been appended to his poem.

Alashtar is a composition which furnishes another proof of Mr. Knight's honourable mastery of the difficult stanza of Spenser. He really writes it with great facility and firmness. We shall here, too, abstain from disenchanting the poem by an analysis of its principal features; and we shall be contented with extracting one or two of some happy common-places, in which the author has judiciously indulged:

Oh! thou deceiver, Life, how brightly gay
Thy future scenes on youthful fancies rise,
Till cold experience draws the veil away,
And, drest in all its dread realities,

Dark in our sight the blighted prospect lies:
So from afar the faithless deserts shew

Ideal lakes to cheat the pilgrim's eyes;
Thirsting he toils across the plains that glow,

And finds a waste of sand, where waters seem'd to flow.' The following is perhaps not quite so well, but it is pleasing:

'How sweet is woman's love, is woman's care!

When struck and shatter'd in the stormy hour
We droop forlorn; and man, with stoic air,

Neglects, or roughly aids; then, rob'd in power,
Then Nature's angel seeks the mourner's bower.
How blest her smile that gives the soul repose!

How blest her voice, that, like the genial shower
Pour'd on the desert, gladdens as it flows,

And cheers the sinking heart, and conquers half our woes !' The conclusion reminds us of the well known charade,

"My first doth affliction denote," &c.

We shall now quote a stanza in which the poet betrays some weak conformity to the vicious language of his contemporaries ;

How fair is night to Arab rover's eyes!

What though alone the dreary waste he dare,
Companion'd still he feels, so gemm'd the skies
With myriad habitants, that, sparkling there,
Discomfit darkness, making all the air
One living blaze: nor cloud nor vapour chill
Obscures the azure vault; but harmless flare

The meteor lights that seem to rove at will
Oh! fair is eastern night; so cool, so bright, so still.'

Arab

Arab rover; myriad habitants; eastern night; are specimens, although far from gross, of that mutilated sort of English which Mr. Scott and Lord Byron have taught to the minstrels of the moment. We conclude with an extract descriptive (and, we need not add, panegyrical,) of the Arabian character. The beginning somewhat resembles

Burns's noble song,

"Their

groves of

green myrtle let foreign lands reckon."

'As bounteously the dews of bliss descend *
On the lone desert, as on Tempé's vale:
True joys are of the soul on mind depend,
Nor influence own of scene, or veering gale.
The sons of Greece tell sorrow's bitter tale
Beside the rill, beneath the spreading tree;

In citron groves the Grecian maids bewail;
While speeds o'er sands the Arab blest and free,
And loves his native home the home of liberty.

Free as his winds he roves and if his mind,
Rude as the scene in which his breath he draws,
Owns no subjection, no respect of kind,

And bids defiance proud to social laws,
His sterner virtues still extort applause-
Mankind his common foe, the foe of all

He combats, sever'd from the social cause;
But who so swift to hear the stranger's call?
Who for the suppliant guest to conquer or to fall?
"Fantastic honour, still opinion's child,

Of differing temper in each differing land,
Courage, that loves to quarry in the wild,
Take in the desert's tent a watchful stand.
Generous as brave, nor only free of hand,
But prodigal of life, the weak to aid,

The noble savage leads his wand'ring band;
While, o'er his soul, the sweet poetic maid

Spreads her enchanting spell, and fondly is obey'd.'

We have devoted a large space to the comparatively brief performances of Mr. Knight, because they everywhere bear marks of a cultivated and classical taste; and, if not stamped

"With ALL the Godhead glowing in the mind," (Gifford,) they are yet so clearly at the head of the second rank of genius, that they have deserved the care and the correction

* Would not this line be made more musical by a mere transposition?

'The dews of bliss as bounteously descend.'

which, from the sincerest wish to do a real service to their author, as well as to their readers, we have endeavoured to bestow on this publication.

ART. V. Supplement to the Ornithological Dictionary, or Synopsis of British Birds. By George Montagu, Esq. F.L.S. and M.W.S. 8vo. Bagster, Arch, &c.

I

*

T may be in the recollection of our ornithological readers that, some years ago, we gave a short account of the first part, or rather of the original portion, of the present work. From some accidental circumstances, the Supplement has only now been submitted to our cognizance, though it has been published a considerable time. We regret this delay, both because the volume contains a great diversity of authentic and instructive information, and because its much respected author can no longer participate in those well-earned commendations which are due to his zeal, diligence, and perseverance, or reply to those critical remarks which a paramount sense of duty still extorts from our reluctant pen. These remarks, however, do not affect the accuracy of his statements, which can seldom be questioned, but relate merely to the manner in which he has communicated them. When we mention, therefore, that his style is somewhat heavy and dragging, and often deficient in harmony and correctness, we sufficiently intimate the general amount of the ungrateful part of our verdict: but the candid public will not, we are confident, accuse us of sipping no other drink but gall,' of having our hands continually imbued in blood,' or of stabbing in the dark't, although we should enter our protest against the legitimacy of such modes of expression as the following: it was thought most advantageous to the public to give it in its present state, than to wait;' • each stab and are ;' • innumerate;' the curious conformation rather puzzle than confirm;' ' ossious ;' · delatable;' 'feathers which characterizes ;' rising his body;'- curviture;'-the coverts of the ears is;'-' a projecting callous;'-' its rarity and extreme locality has been;'-In few countries do the value of geese appear;'- where there was scarcely any membranous divisions;'-'In severe winters, moor-game comes lower down and flock together;'-' the size and weight is ;' - not a lesser Guillemot, or a Black-billed Auk, are to be seen;' there appears intermediate local situations ;'

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* See Monthly Review, N. S. vol. xl. p. 137.

+ See the concluding paragraph of the Introduction.