6 6 Soon after the time of Alexander, (according to the authorities cited by Sale in his historical sketch prefixed to the Koran;) a catastrophe took place in the kingdom of Yemen, which led to the emigration of eight tribes, and the foundation of the kingdoms of Ghassan and Heirah.. Abdus-Shemss having built the city from him called Saba, and afterwards Mareb, ◄ made a vast mound or reservoir to receive the water which came down from the mountains, not only for the use of the inhabitants and watering the land, but also to keep the country they had subjected in greater awe by being masters of the water. This building stood like a mountain above the city, and was by them esteemed so strong, that they were in no apprehension of its ever falling. This water rose to the height of almost twenty fathoms, and was kept in on every side by a work so solid that many of the inhabitants had their houses built upon it. Every family had a portion of this water distributed by aqueducts. But at length, God being highly displeased at their great pride and insolence, and resolving to humble and disperse them, sent a mighty flood, which broke down the mound by night, while the inhabitants were asleep, and carried away the whole city with the neighbouring towns and people.' No specific date is assigned to this catastrophe, which is stated to have led to the emigration of several whole tribes; a circumstance not likely to have been produced by such an event. Merab, in fact, was not destroyed at the time of the Roman invasion of the peninsula in the reign of Caligula, for it is stated to have been at that period six miles in circumference, and its destruction is ascribed by other writers to these foreigners. According to Abulfeda, it had not recovered from its overthrow so long after as the fourteenth century. If there be any truth in the story of the bursting of the reservoir, it was very probably effected by the enemy; but it is not improbable, that the mighty flood which the Arabian historians speak of, was no other than the Roman army itself, concerning the presence of which in their country, the influence of national pride has led them to observe a total silence. The emigration, too, which is said to have followed the inundation, is more satisfactorily explained by referring it to the desolation spread by the invaders. Ælius Gallus, the Roman general, is recorded to have landed near Medinah, and to have marched nearly a thousand miles into the region between Mareb, the capital of the Sabæans, and the sea, reducing, in his progress, several cities. He must, if so, have marched through nearly the whole of Hedjaz, and then probably, after traversing the Tehama or tierra caliente of Yemen, have turned up into the mountains near Loheia. He is acknowledged by Pliny to have been the only one that ever led a Roman force into this country, and the legions of Augustus,' says Gibbon, melted away in disease and lassitude." The Arabian capital, however, was destroyed, and with it, apparently, fell the pomp and power of the Sabean monarchy of Yemen, after having existed, under various dynasties, for a period, reckoning from Abdus-Shemss, of above 2000 years, or 1600, reckoning from Hareth ul Rayesh. We have now, so far as our materials have enabled us, brought down the history of Yemen to the Christian era, and have succeeded, we flatter ourselves, in making out something like an intelligent and consistent, though necessarily defective sketch, from the confused accounts of the native chroniclers. It remains for us to examine the period intervening between the Advent of our Lord and the birth of the Koreishite Impostor; but our readers will have had enough of Arabian history for the present. We may, perhaps, resume the subject. In the mean time, we must express our acknowledgements to the learned and laborious Translator for this opportunity of consulting the materials he has brought forward. We can easily conceive that it must have cost him no small labour and pains to make these abstracts, imperfect as he confesses them to be. Although the public in general may not take a lively interest in such inquiries, literary men will appreciate his services, and be thankful for this contribution to the fund of historical information. We shall be very glad if the hints and suggestions we have thrown out as we went along, should enable him, by following up those hints as a clew, to throw further light on this portion of ancient history. Art. V. Jerusalem Delivered; an Epic Poem, in Twenty Cantos, translated into English Spenserian Verse from the Italian of Tasso; together with a Life of the Author, interspersed with Translations of his Verses to the Princess Leonora of Este; and a List of English Crusaders. By J. H. Wiffen. In 2 vols. Vol. I. pp. elvi. 468. London. 1824. 8vo. WE have recently had occasion, in noticing M. Sismondi's Historical View of Italian Literature, to advert to the celebrated poem of which M. Wiffen has here presented to us a new and elegant translation. We shall take the present opportunity to offer a few additional remarks on the two different styles of poetry, the romantic and the classical, which had at that period their contending partisans,.. In the sixteenth century, the Romantic poetry was paramount In Italy. The chevaleresque fictions, imitated by Tasso in the Rinaldo, influenced greatly the design and embellishments of his great epic work. The outline, according to M. Sismondi, is classical; the filling up romantic. It was conceived in the spirit of antiquity, and executed in that of the middle ages. The objections made by Garzaga, Sperone, and their co-revisers to the Gerusalemme Liberata before its publication, and the sorry wit launched by the Della Crusca academicians against the dialogue of Pellegrino,* distressed poor Tasso dreadfully. Nor has the controversy about the claims of the Classics and the Romantics yet been dropped in Italy. Four different origins of the poetry of Romance have been contended for. Mallet and Percy derived it from the Scandinavians. Warton fancies that the chevaleresque tales, the offspring of Arabian imagination, were introduced by the Saracens in the eighth century into Spain, and, kindling the ima gination in their progress, were diffused through Europe. This system, accounting for the coincidence between the Scandinavian and the Oriental fictions from an old Scaldic fable which brings Odin out of the East, makes the stream of romance, running in two distinct and widely different channels, receive, in its double course, the various impressions, on the one hand, of the enthusiasm of northern courage; on the other, of all the brilliancy and voluptuousness, the extravagance and caprice, and the occasional sublimity, also, of southern genius According to Dr Leyden, this style of poetry was indigenous in Britanny; while Dr. Southey, developing a system formerly laid down, traces the spells, enchantments, giants, dwarfs, griffins, hippogriffs, and magic structures of the metrical tales to classic sources. Without staying at present to examine any of these theories, we shall endeavour to fix the distinctive nature and respective claims of the Classic and Romantic poetry. The Germans first came to the conclusion, that each style is excellent in its kind. We assent to their conclusion; although we do not admit the correctness of the position, that any one emotion runs through them so predominantly as to determine their opposite character. Schlegel adopts the theory which makes the character of the classic poetry consist in gayety, the character of the romantic, * Crescembeni gives an account of the books written_on_the_controversy raised by the dialogue of Pellegrino.-Volgar Poesia. Venezia. 1730. Vol. II. pp. 453-9. See Tiraboschi. Storia della Poes. Ital. Vol. III. in melancholy. The Greeks, living in the full health of existence, under a genial sky, with exquisitely susceptible senses, and without any distinct belief in immortality, gave into a refined sensuality. The stern aspect of nature in the Northern climes, threw man back upon himself; and Christianity came in aid of the interior sense. The religion of the senses,' he continues, had only in view the possession of outward and perishable blessings; and immortality, in so far as it was be⚫lieved, appeared in an obscure distance, like a shadow, a 'faint dream of its bright and vivid futurity. The very reverse of all this is the case with the Christian; every thing finite and mortal is lost in the contemplation of infinity; life be⚫ comes a shadow and darkness, and the first dawning of our real existence opens in the world beyond the grave. Hence, the poetry of the ancients was the poetry of enjoyment; ours is that of desire. The former had its foundation in the scene which is present, while the latter hovers between recollection and hope. If this representation were accurate, gayety should be amply shewn by Pindar, who says that lyric poetry was used to raise it. Χαίρω δὲ, πρόσφορού Nemea. Od. VIII. 83-6. Pindar is not merely the most moral poet of antiquity; he teaches the doctrine of future bliss and misery as awarded to the good or the wicked. The dreadful images which he employs for portraying the abode of the wicked, and the imaginative embellishments of the poetic heaven, were Schlegel's theory true, that the gayety of the Greek poetry arises from the exclusion of any notions of a future life, must have awaked emotions precisely the reverse of mirthful. His lyric hymns taught the people to deem themselves happy when they had wealth and fame; but they represented misfortune as impending over the heads of mortals by a hair. It would require a contempt of the morrow more magnanimous than the theory charges on these old down-looking Greeks,' to derive food for mirth from such pictures. And the mirth would become madness, if it could be excited by such monitions as he has given respecting the shortness of life, in images which might seem to put all festal gayety to flight, before the emotions, joyous or sad, inspired by the state beyond death. 1 But we need seek no better proof of the incorrectness of Schlegel's theory, than his own notion of the essence of the Greek tragedy. He says: • Inward liberty and external necessity are the two poles of the tragic world. Each of these ideas can appear in the most perfect manner only by contrast with the other. As the ⚫ feeling of internal dignity elevates the man above the un⚫ limited dominion of impulse and native instinct, and, in a word, absolves him from the guardianship of nature, so, the Necessity which he must also recognise, ought to be no mere natural necessity, but to lie beyond the world of sense, in the abyss of infinitude; and it must, consequently, be re⚫presented as the universal power of fate. Hence, it extends also to the world of the gods: for the Grecian gods are mere powers of nature, and although unmeasurably higher than mortal man, yet, compared with infinitude, they are on an equal footing with himself.' The contest between an omnipotent principle, pervading all nature, and the greatest created powers, a contest dreadfully grand from the potent spiritual energies engaged in it, and carried on with as complete certainty as to the ultimate result, as if the mighty agent had to war with a few helpless fantoccini figures, when exhibited, with impressive theatrical aids, before large assemblies, must have had an effect the very opposite of gayety. No ideal portraiture of suffering could be better fitted to awake tragic emotions than the dramas of Eschylus. The representation of Prometheus, chained to a naked rock, visited by all the great Beings in the Universe, resisting grandly the combined and inexorable powers of nature,' may be called tragedy itself. The figures which Sophocles brought on the stage were less gigantic; yet, Antigone regretting the necessity of giving up the enjoyments which the gods scatter through life; Ajax wrestling with fate, rejecting all pity, and therefore wakening it the more; and Edipus fixing his doom by the very things he does to avoid it, raised feelings less grand, but more pathetic, than the Titans of Eschylus, inasmuch as the struggle between human wills and the dreadfal power that warred with and subdued all things, came more home to their business and bosoms.'.. That part of the theory which relates to the Chevaleresque poetry, is not less incorrect. A vein of gayety runs through the romances of Chivalry; the marvels must have raised absolute laughter. The Italian romances, too, are free from melancholy. Pulci is alternately bas et burlesque, serieux et plat.' Boiardo and Ariosto are the very spoilt children of imagination. A kind of melancholy pervades a great part of the popular German poetry, but does not give a character to the Spanish, Italian, or English romantic literature. The elements of poetry are the same in every age. The |