As one, in fairy tale, to whom the key

Of some enchanter's secret halls is given, Doubts, while he enters, slowly, tremblingly,

While they who court the world, like MILTON S

cloud,

"Turn forth their s Iver Ling" on the crowd,

If he shall meet with shapes from hell or heaven-This gifted Being wraps h mself in night,

Let me, a moment, think what thousands live

O'er the wide earth this instant, who would give,
Gladly, whole sleepless nights to bend the brow
Over these precious leaves, as I do now.
How all who know-and where is he unknown?
To what far region have his songs not flown,
Like PSAPHON's birds,' speaking their master's name,
In every language syllabled by Fame ?—
How all, who 've felt the various spells combined
Within the circle of that splendid mind,

Like powers, derived from many a star, and met
Together in some wondrous amulet,

Would burn to know when first the light awoke
In his young soul,-and if the gleams that broke
From that Aurora of his genius, raised

More bliss or pain in those on whom they blazed-
Would love to trace the unfolding of that power,
Which hath grown ampler, grander, every hour;
And feel, in watching o'er its first advance,

As did the Egyptian traveller, when he stood
By the young Nile, and fathom'd with his lance
The first small fountains of that mighty flood.

They, too, who 'mid the scornful thoughts that dwell
In his rich fancy, tinging all its streams,

As if the Star of Bitterness which fell

On earth of old, and touch'd them with its beams,
Can track a spirit, which, though driven to hate,
From Nature's hands came kind, affectionate;
And which, even now, struck as it is with blight,
Comes out, at times, in love's own native light-
How gladly all, who've watch'd these struggling rays
Of a bright, ruin'd spirit through his lays,
Would here inquire, as from his own frank lips,
What desolating grief, what wrongs had driven
That noble nature into cold eclipse-

Like some fair orb, that, once a sun in Heaven,
And born, not only to surprise, but cheer
With warmth and lustre all within its sphere,
Is now so quench'd, that, of its grandeur, lasts
Nought but the wide cold shadow which it casts!

Eventful volume! whatsoe'er the change

Of scene and clime-the adventures, bold and strange:
The griefs-the frailties, but too frankly told-
The loves, the feuds thy pages may unfold;
If truth with half so prompt a hand unlocks
His virtues as his failings-we shall find
The record there of friendships, held like rocks,
And enmities, like sun-touch'd snow, resign'd-
Of fealty, cherish'd without change or chill,
In those who served him young, and serve him still-
Of generous aid, given with that noiseless art
Which wakes not pride, to many a wounded heart-
Of acts-but, no-not from himself must aught
Of the bright features of his life be sought.

ardentes qu'on avait distribuées en petites cellules sous les
terrasses qui couvrent le palais."

1 Psaphon, in order to attract the attention of the world, taught multitudes of birds to speak his name, and then let them fly away in various directions: whence the proverb, "Psaphonis aves."

2 Bruce.

And, keeping all that softens, and adorns, And gilds his social nature, hid from sight, Turns but its darkness on a world he scorns.

EXTRACT IV.

Venice.

The English to be met with every where.-Alps and
Threadneedle-street.-The Simplon and the Stocks.
-Rage for travelling.-Blue Stockings among the
Wahabees.-Parasols and Pyramids.-Mrs. Hop-
kins and the Wall of China.

AND is there then no earthly place

Where we can rest, in dream Elysian,
Without some cursed, round English face,
Popping up near, to break the vision!

'Mid northern lakes, 'mid southern vines,
Unholy cits we're doom'd to meet;
Nor highest Alps nor Apennines

Are sacred from Threadneedle-street!

If up the Simplon's path we wind,
Fancying we leave this world behind,
Such pleasant sounds salute one's ear
As-"Baddish news from 'Change, my dear-

"The Funds-(phew, curse this ugly hill!)
Are lowering fast-(what! higher still?)—
And-(zooks, we're mounting up to Heaven!)—
Will soon be down to sixty-seven."

Go where we may-rest where we will,
Eternal London haunts us still.

The trash of Almack's or Fleet-Ditch-
And scarce a pin's head difference which
Mixes, though even to Greece we run,
With every rill from Helicon !
And, if this rage for travelling lasts,
If Cockneys, of all sects and castes,
Old maidens, aldermen, and squires,
Will leave their puddings and coal fires,
To gape at things in foreign lands
No soul among them understands-
If Blues desert their coteries,
To show off 'mong the Wahabees-
If neither sex nor age controls,

Nor fear of Mamelukes forbids
Young ladies, with pink parasols,

To glide among the Pyramids-2
Why, then, farewell all hope to find
A spot that's free from London-kind!
Who knows, if to the West we roam,
But we may find some Blue "at home"
Among the Blacks of Carolina-
Or, flying to the Eastward, see

That feeling, which, after long years are gone by,

Remains like a portrait we've sat for in youth,
Where, even though the flush of the colours may fly,
The features still live in their first smiling truth;

That union, where all that in Woman is kind,
With all that in Man most ennoblingly towers,
Grow wreathed into one-like the column, combined
Of the strength of the shaft and the capital's flowers.

Of this-bear ye witness, ye wives, every where,
By the ARNO, the Po, by all ITALY's streams—
Of this heart-wedded love, so delicious to share,
Not a husband hath even one glimpse in his dreams.

But it is not this, only-born, full of the light

Of a sun, from whose fount the luxuriant festoons
Of these beautiful valleys drink lustre so bright,
That, beside him, our suns of the north are but
moons!

This entireness of love, which can only be found
Where Woman, like something that's holy, watch'd

over,

And fenced, from her childhood, with purity round,
Comes, body and soul, fresh as Spring, to a lover!
Where not an eye answers, where not a hand presses,
Till spirit with spirit in sympathy move;
And the Senses, asleep in their sacred recesses,
Can only be reach'd through the Temple of Love!
This perfection of Passion-how can it be found,
Where the mysteries Nature hath hung round the
tie

By which souls are together attracted and bound,
Are laid open, for ever, to heart, ear, and eye-

Where hought of those innocent doubts can exist,

That ignorance, even than knowledge more bright,
Which circles the young, like the morn's sunny mist,
And curtains them round in their own native light-
Where Experience leaves nothing for Love to reveal,
Or for Fancy, in visions, to gleam o'er the thought,
But the truths which, alone, we would die to conceal
From the maiden's young heart, are the only ones
taught-

Oh no-'tis not here, howsoever we're given,
Whether purely to Hymen's one planet we pray,
Or adore, like Sabæans, each light of Love's heaven,
Here is not the region to fix or to stray;

For, faithless in wedlock, in gallantry gross,

Without honour to guard, or reserve to restrain, What have they a husband can mourn as a loss?— What have they a lover can prize as a gain?

EXTRACT VL

Rome.

We might fancy, at least, like their climate they Reflections on reading De Cerceau's Account of the

burn'd,

And that Love, though unused, in this region of spring,

To be thus to a tame Household Deity turn'd,

Would yet be all soul, when abroad on the wing.
And there may be, there are those explosions of heart,
Which burst, when the senses have first caught the
flame;

Such fits of the blood as those climates impart,
Where Love is a sun-stroke that maddens the frame.
But that Passion, which springs in the depth of the soul,
Whose beginnings are virginly pure as the source
Of some mountainous rivulet, destined to roll

As a torrent, ere long, losing peace in its course
A course, to which Modesty's struggle but lends
A more head-long descent, without chance of recal;
But which Modesty, even to the last edge attends,
And, at length, throws a halo of tears round its fall!

This exquisite Passion-ay, exquisite, even

Conspiracy of Rienzi, in 1347.-The Meeting of
the Conspirators on the night of the 19th of May.
Their Procession in the Morning to the Capitol.-
Rienzi's Speech.

T was a proud moment-even to hear the words

Of Truth and Freedom 'mid these temples breathed,
And see, once more, the Forum shine with swords,
In the Republic's sacred name unsheathed—
That glimpse, that vision of a brighter day

For his dear ROME, must to a Roman be-
Short as it was-worth ages pass'd away
In the dull lapse of hopeless slavery.

'Twas on a night of May-beneath that moon
Which had, through many an age, seen Time untune
The strings of this Great Empire, till it fell
From his rude hands, a broken, silent shell-
The sound of the church clock,' near ADRIAN's Tomb,
Summon'd the warriors, who had risen for ROME,

1 It is not easy to discover what church is meant by De Cerceau here:-"Il fit crier dans les rues de Rome, à son de In the ruin its madness too often hath made, trompe, que chacun eût à se trouver, sans armes, la nuit du As it keeps, even then, a bright trace of the heaven, lendemain, dixneuvième, dans l'église du château de SaintThe heaven of Virtue, from which it has stray'd-Ange au son de la cloche, afin de pourvoir au Bon Etat "

To meet unarm'd, with nought to watch them there
But God's own Eye, and pass the night in prayer.
Holy beginning of a holy cause,

When heroes, girt for Freedom's combat, pause
Before high Heaven, and, humble in their might,
Call down its blessing on that awful fight.

At dawn, in arms, went forth the patriot band,
And, as the breeze, fresh from the TIBER, fann'd
Their gilded gonfalons, all eyes could see

|And we1-oh shame!-we, who have ponder'd o'er
The patriot's lesson and the poet's lay;
Have mounted up the streams of ancient lore,
Tracking our country's glories all the way-
Even we have tamely, basely kiss'd the ground
Before that Papal Power, that Ghost of Her,
The World's Imperial Mistress-sitting, crown'd
And ghastly, on her mouldering sepulchre !?
But this is past-too long have lordly priests
And priestly lords led us, with all our pride

The palm-tree there, the sword, the keys of Hea- Withering about us-like devoted beasts,
ven-1

Types of the justice, peace, and liberty,

Dragg'd to the shrine, with faded garlands tied. "T is o'er-the dawn of our deliverance breaks!

That were to bless them when their chains were Up from his sleep of centuries awakes

riven.

On to the Capitol the pageant moved,

While many a Shade of other times, that still Around that grave of grandeur sighing roved,

Hung o'er their footsteps up the Sacred Hill, And heard its mournful echoes, as the last High-minded heirs of the Republic pass'd.

'Twas then that thou, their Tribune (name which
brought

Dreams of lost glory to each patriot's thought,)
Didst, from a spirit Rome in vain shall seek
To call up in her sons again, thus speak:-

"ROMANS! look round you-on this sacred place There once stood shrines, and gods, and godlike

men

What see you now? what solitary trace

Is left of all that made ROME's glory then?
The shrines are sunk, the Sacred Mount bereft
Even of its name-and nothing now remains
But the deep memory of that glory, left

To whet our pangs and aggravate our chains!
But shall this be?-our sun and sky the same,
Treading the very soil our fathers trode,
What withering curse hath fallen on soul and frame,
What visitation hath there come from Gov,
To blast our strength and rot us into slaves,
Here, on our great forefathers' glorious graves?
It cannot be-rise up, ye Mighty Dead,

If we, the living, are too weak to crush
These tyrant priests, that o'er your empire tread,
Till all but ROMANS at ROME's tameness blush!"

"Happy PALMYRA! in thy desert domes,

Where only date-trees sigh and serpents hiss; And thou, whose pillars are but silent homes

The Genius of the Old Republic, free
As first he stood, in chainless majesty,
And sends his voice through ages yet to come,
Proclaiming ROME, ROME, ROME, Eternal ROME!"

EXTRACT VII.

Rome.

Mary Magdalen.-Her Story.-Numerous Pictures of her.-Correggio.-Guido.-Raphael, etc.-Canova's two exquisite Statues.-The Somariva Magdalen-Chantrey's Admiration of Canova's

Works.

No wonder, MARY, that thy story

Touches all hearts-for there we see
The soul's corruption and its glory,

Its death and life, combined in thee.
From the first moment, when we find
Thy spirit, haunted by a swarm
Of dark desires, which had inshrined

Themselves, like demons, in thy form,
Till when, by touch of Heaven set free,
Thou camest, with those bright locks of gold,
(So oft the gaze of BETHANY,)

And, covering in their precious fold
Thy Saviour's feet, didst shed such tears
As paid, each drop, the sins of years!—
Thence on, through all thy course of love

To him, thy Heavenly Master,-Him
Whose bitter death-cup from above,

Had yet this sweetening round the brim,
That woman's faith and love stood fast
And fearless by him to the last!
Till-bless'd reward for truth like thine !-
Thou wert, of all, the chosen one,
Before whose eyes that Face Divine,

When risen from the dead, first shone,
That thou mightst see how, like a cloud,
Had pass'd away its mortal shroud,

For the stork's brood, superb Persepolis! Thrice happy both that your extinguish'd race Have left no embers-no half-living traceNo slaves, to crawl around the once-proud spot, Till past renown in present shame's forgot; While ROME, the Queen of all, whose very wrecks, If lone and lifeless through a desert hurl'd, Would wear more true magnificence than decks The assembled thrones of all the existing world-having been written, as Ginguené asserts, to the young SteROME, ROME alone, is haunted, stain'd, and cursed, Through every spot her princely TIBER laves, By living human things-the deadliest, worst, That earth engenders-tyrants and their slaves!

1 For a description of these banners, see Notes.

1 The fine Canzone of Petrarch, beginning "Spirto gentil," is supposed, by Voltaire and others, to have been addressed to Rienzi; but there is much more evidence of its

phen Colonna, on his being created a Senator of Rome. That Petrarch, however, was filled with high and patriotic hopes by the first measures of this extraordinary man, ap pears from one of his letters, quoted by De Cercenu, where he says: "Pour tout dire, en un mot, j'atteste, non comme lecteur, mais comme témoin oculaire, qu'il nous à ramene la justice, la paix, la bonne foi, la sécurité, et toutes les autres vestiges de l'âge d'or."

2 See Note.