it to this day. The certain inference was, that these were the very children whom the trumpeter had enclosed in the mountain, and led by a subterraneous passage under several countries, till they arrived at this remote place. Kircher affirms that this man was certainly Satan, to which one of his commentators assents, by saying, that his hand is on the descendants of these children to this day, as they are all inveterate heretics. To complete this extraordinary chain of evidence, the very tomb of this minstrel, who seemed to have lived to a supernatural age, is pointed out at Pavia, in the church of St. Lawrence, where the following epitaph is to be seen :-" Valentino Grævio, alias Backfort de Transylvania, Saxon: German: colonio orto, quem fidibus novo et inusitato artificio canentem audiens, ætas nostra ut alterum Orpheum admirata obstupuit, ob. an. MDLXXVI." The account given by G. Haner, in his Ecclesiastical History, is somewhat more probable, but hardly more satisfactory. In the thirteenth century, Bela Geyza succeeded to the crown of Hungary when a youth, and was threatened by Conrad, the Emperor of the Romans, and Henry, Duke of Austria, with a 'powerful invasion. In this extremity he applied to the ancient colonists of Transylvania, called Szaszones, for assistance, and they furnished his army with every fifth man in the country; by this aid he obtained a signal victory over the invaders, and granted to the Szaszones, as a reward, a variety of privileges, which they still enjoy, having changed their name, by a slight variation, to Saxons. Bonfinius + says that they were actually Saxons, transferred from the north of Germany by Charlemagne ; and others again, that they were the Saci, an ancient people of Dacia. "To these conflicting opinions, in which there is nothing certain, except that their origin is very obscure, I may be allowed to add one more, and that is, the account given me by one of themselves, at Hermanstadt. In the early period of the Reformation, several families, who had embraced the reformed doctrines, were driven from Saxony, and obliged to seek a retreat as far as possible from their persecutors. After wandering through Europe, without finding rest for the soles of their feet, they made their way to the confines of Christendom, and were suffered to establish themselves at the mouth of the great pass through which the Mahomedans always issued to carry terror and desolation among the Christians. Here they were placed, as a kind of forlorn hope, in the fore front of the battle, apparently with a view that the sabres of the infidels might destroy those whom the Inquisition could not reclaim; but in this they disappointed expectation. These men brought with them the same fearless and unyielding spirit that they had displayed in abandoning their own country; and they formed a barrier against the inroads of the Turks, and so became a defence to all Christendom. For this important benefit, they had many important priviliges and immunities conferred upon them. They were made free citizens and peasants, and held their lands by freehold. They had their own municipal corporation, and the free election of their public functionaries; they were allowed the full exercise of their own religion, both in faith and practice, and the choice of their own pastors and clergy; they were exempted from all taxes, except such as they laid upon themselves for their own local benefit; and excused from all military service, except against the Turks, to meet whom they always continued armed, and on the defensive. Notwithstanding this, we find the Protestants of Transylvania frequently supported by the Turks in the divisions * Hist, Eccles. Trans. p. 100. + Rer. Hung, Dec. 1, 1.9. which agitated the country under Ragotski; and they are reproached by their adversaries with having made this unnatural alliance against their Christian brethren. "Their original privileges were enlarged and confirmed at different times, particularly by Isabella and John Sigismund; so that the historians of Transylvania say-Immunitatibus et privilegiis omnes nationes superant. These were never infringed by any subsequent government; and they are naturally strongly attached to the Austrians, from the benefits they enjoy under them. Under the genial influence of these benefits, they prospered and multiplied exceedingly. They possessed seven principal towns, forming a Heptarchy, with a number of villages attached to each, which are enumerated in the Saxon Chronicles, as amounting to 114; and they composed the great political classes of the country, being, according to their charter, neither nobles nor subjects, but under Thane's. "Besides these villages and towns, which are governed by their own municipal laws, and almost entirely Protestant, the Saxons are widely scattered through all the other towns and villages in Transylvania; so that the reformed population of this province alone, amounts to about half a million of souls.These men retain all the distinctive character of their ancestors, and differ little in air, manner, and dress, from the primitive Reformers. They are of a very grave demeanour, with serious thinking faces; they have, in general, aquiline noses, dark and somewhat stern countenances, to which black mustachios give a sombre cast; their persons are large and robust, and their very gait has a certain air of sturdy independence; they wear large round felt hats, from under which their long strait hair hangs down loose about their face and shoulders; short coats and large breeches, like the doublet and hose of their forefathers: in fact they resemble the figures represented in the wood cuts to be seen in the "black letter" histories of the early Reformers; they use boots or shoes shod with iron, which clatter as they walk along, and induced Laurence Toppeltin, their countryman, to say with exultation, Si stratam Saxis viam agminatim terunt, strepitum equis ferocibus parem edunt, et nescio quid generosi sonoris ad aures perigrini adpellunt. "Their houses bore the characteristic marks of those of the country from whence they came ;-the windows were high from the ground, like those in the north of Germany; the roofs were tall and narrow, and there was an air of neatness, comfort, and propriety about them, that always marks and distinguishes the progress of the Reformation on the continent. The houses looked as if they had all been fresh painted and whitewashed; the windows were glazed with glass, and ornamented inside with snow-white muslin curtains; and over the outside was generally some moral or religious sentence from the Bible, neatly written in gilded or black letters, in the German character. The houses had that uniformity of comfort, and a certain degree of opulence, which marked a happy equality of circumstances. All were neat, and roomy, and none were mean or splendid: we did not see a hovel or a palace in the country. The farmers are all proprietors of the soil, and their lands are without enclosures, as if there was a community of goods; but their properties are distinguished by certain land-marks, which are not visible. It is in the ground about their houses, however, [that this sense of property is conspicuous: in the rear is a large farm-yard filled with stacks of corn and other produce of their farms; and in front, or at the sides, are gardens, orchards, or pleasure-grounds, laid out with that taste and variety which people indulge who feel the value of property, and know that their time and money are expended on what is their own. But the object which particularly distinguishes these towns is the church = this is always very large, built in an ornamental style of architecture, with a high steeple, and kept in the most perfect state of repair and neatness: it usually stands upon an eminence, in the midst of the village, and seems the rallying point round which the people thronged and their houses were built, as if the inhabitants considered it as the most striking and important object, and placed it before them to cherish and keep alive their religious impressions. "The first of these large villages which we arrived at after leaving Hermanstadt, was Christiana; the very name of which, imports it to have been peopled by a serious religious sect. It was very populous, and its church was very conspicuous for its size and neatness. The country was an extensive and rich plain between two ranges of hills, with woods and streams intersecting it, and, at small intervals, wells of abundant sweet water; thus affording to the inhabitants, from the hands of Nature, wood, water, fertility, and agreeable prospect; which their own industry had everywhere wrought to the highest state of im, provement. In about an hour more, we arrived at Salesti, situated below us among the woods, on a margin of the river at the base of the mountains. It extended to a considerable distance among the trees, and looked not only highly picturesque, but very rich and populous. In the course of six hours, we counted six of these large and populous towns or villages, some of which we passed through, and some we left on our right or left hand; and this was a greater number than I had met with in Turkey in as many days, from the Sea of Marmora to the Balkan Mountains. The countries resemble each other in flatness and fertility, and both are equally capable of supplying all the necessaries of human life to an abundant population; but ignorance and oppression have depopulated the one, and knowledge and freedom have peopled the other. It was gratifying to the best feelings of the heart, to see at length, a people enjoying every good the free bounty of Providence had conferred upon them; to know that we were among men whose ancestors had sacrificed every thing to preserve their civil and religious independence, and who themselves stil maintained it, though hemmed into a remote corner on the confines of Christendom, and surrounded on each side by some of the most depressed and degraded peasantry in Europe."-pp. 307 to 317. We now take our leave of the very interesting volume, which to read has been a pleasure, to review a privilege. The Course of Time: a Poem, in Ten Books. By Robert Pollok, A. M. It has been often asserted, that the sources of poetry are nearly exhausted; that human nature has been represented in every possible situation; that the stores of fancy have been drawn upon, until scarcely any thing new can be found; that language has been used, and expression changed, until novelty is impossible; that the secret resemblances which natural and metaphysi cal things bear to each other are all discovered; and that the images and combinations of fiction have been so often recast and modified, that it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to lay claim, as a poet, to the character of originality. These observations, however, are true only to a certain extent, and may be applied to the difficulty, but not to the impossibility of a poet's becoming original. The ideal world is inexhaustible; and as long as fancy, invention, and imagination are given to man, so long will he be able to create around him these fascinating conceptions of light and graceful beauty-of dark and awful magnificenceof simple majestic grandeur, by which mankind are always delighted. Variety is as infinite as space; and we might as well wonder why, within the fixed lines that describe the human countenance, there should exist such an inconceivable diversity of expression, as that new combinations of thought and fancy should take place, differing from each other so distinctly, as to produce pleasure in the mind by their novelty and beauty. It cannot be denied, however, that true excellence in the walks of poetry is of much more difficult attainment now than at any former period; and that it requires more vigorous intellectual struggles to arrive at it where many have been successful, than where only few have gained the prize. Every succeeding age, and every succeeding excellence lengthens the race of rivalry, and makes competition more difficult. But on this subject the public opinion can scarcely ever be considered as fixed; because every standard whereby we judge it is only comparative, and consequently changeable. Had Homer not existed, the laurel would have crowned some less deserving brow; had Shakespeare not written, the estimate of our own dramatic excellence would have been formed from some less splendid model; and had Milton never produced his Paradise Lost, we would probably have still been ignorant that our language was capable of such strength, simplicity, and grandeur. To hold rank, therefore, among the first-rate poets of the present day, where so many have attained to well-merited eminence, is no ordinary task-no ordinary honour. It is a task; however, which the author of the poem before us has accomplished—an honour which he has won. No one will question, that a work, which, among so many rival claims on the attention, is capable, by its intrinsic merit, to throw the charm of pleasure so strongly over the mind of its reader, and to bind him down to its pages by the interest which it creates, must possess a degree of excellence far beyond the common run of similar publications. The "Course of Time" certainly possesses this excellence, despite of its irregularity, and the difficulty of the subject. We grant that there are many good poets now living, and yet the merit of this poem, which is perhaps inferior in many passages to no production of any living poet, does not proceed from a conformation to the present taste. On the contrary, when we consider the loose and irregular standards of that taste-the evident decline of our language from purity and correctness-the mania that exists for the morbid, gloomy, and impassioned school-the insanity of its metaphors, despite of some good poetry-the straining of its comparisons in attempting to be original-and the glare of its false imagery,when we consider this, I say, and find a poem, not only full of energy, fire, feeling, and elevation of thought, but free from the influence of this distempered taste, we hail its appearance with encouragement and pleasure, as well for the sake of its own beauty, as because it proves that it is possible to succeed as a poet, without complying with the fickle opinion of literary fashion; and to produce a poem wherein God's dealings with man are vindicated, the sanctions of true religion enforced, and the name of the Lord Jesus Christ magnified. Having premised so much, we shall proceed to give an analysis of the poem, and afterwards such extracts as the limited space of a periodical will admit yet such, we trust, as will enable our readers to form a just opinion as to its merit. The poem opens with a beautiful and appropriate invocation to the eternal Spirit, the God of truth: The prophets eye unscaled, that nightly saw, In holy vision tranced, the future pass Before him, and to Judah's harp attuned Then, after purporting to sing, "The course of time," "The second birth, and final doom of man," the scene is laid in heaven, where, long after the volume of time is supposed to be rolled up, the history of human nature from the creation and fall of man, until the redemption-from the Redemption till the Millenium-and from that until the final judgment, is thus introduced: Two" youthful sons of paradise," walking abroad through the fields of heaven, observe a happy spirit approach from one of those worlds, whose existence was not limited by the duration of earthly time. He is welcomed by them on his arrival, and, in the course of their heavenly converse, proceeds to inform them of the strange impressions made on him, by seeing a place of torture, which, by his description-and an awful one it is the reader perceives to be hell. The youthful angels, being "creation's younger sons," and "but of yesterday," (a phrase rather equivocal in its application to those who measure not eternity by the vicissitudes of time) conduct him to "an ancient bard of earth," (Milton, we presume) to whom he recapitulates the sufferings of those whom he had seen immersed in the dark, sulphury, and tempestuous lake. He then enquires, "What place is this? what beings there lament? |