Twice, as with agitated step she went,

The lamp, expiring, shone with doubtful gleam,
As though it warned her from her rash intent:
And twice she paused-and on its trembling beam
Gazed with suspended breath, while voices seem,
With murmuring sound along the roof to sigh;
As one just waking from a troublous dream,
With palpitating heart and straining eye,

Still fixed with fear remains, still thinks the danger nigh."

pp. 37, 38

The description which follows, of the discovery of Cupid, is languid and dilated, and far inferior to that we have before given. The termination of the scene however is with much violence and convulsion, and in this respect better imagined perhaps (though this is small praise) than that in Apuleius.

"From her trembling hand extinguish'd falls
The fatal lamp-he starts-and suddenly

Tremendous thunders echo through the halls,

While ruins hideous crash bursts o'er the affrighted walls." p. 40.

From this moment Mrs. Tighe leaves her guide, and rushes into the indefinite and undefinable mazes of allegory. In Spencer's verse, and with more than Spencer's mystery, the dangers, and duties, and happiness of love are explained by conflicts with wild beasts, and men more savage-by escapes from pit falls and floods-by travels through desarts, and voyages over tempestuous oceans-and by the supports and pleasures of virtuous constancy.

The object of the wanderer now is to recover the favor of Venus. Of this she can have no hope, until she has performed certain mystical rites, compounded of the third and fourth labors in Apuleius. She is required to place an urn,

"Filled from immortal beauty's sacred spring,"

on an altar raised to Venus;

"Where perfect happiness, in lonely state,
Has fixed her temple in secluded bower,

By foot impure of man untrodden to this hour." p. 44.

To execute this apparently impracticable requirement, she sets out on her journey, ignorant what course to pursue, for she was commanded to go, where human footsteps and frailty had never preceded her, and careless of consequences, because she despaired of obtaining the only object which was worth exertion. Despair however soon gives place to hope, and repentance procures her the direction of Innocence in the form of a dove.

In the third Canto, Love, disguised as a knight, and attended by a page, who proves to be Constancy, offers himself as her champion, and defends her from the violence of Passion, who immediately attacks her in the guise of a lion. He afterwards escapes with her from the bower of sensuality, and rescues her from the grasp of Ambition, into whose power she had been betrayed by Vanity and Flattery. The personification of Ambition, and the description of his palace and overthrow, are among Mrs. Tighe's happiest efforts.

"High o'er the spacious plain a mountain rose,

A stately castle on its summit stood:

Huge, craggy cliffs behind their strength oppose

To the rough surges of the dashing flood;

The rocky shores a boldly rising wood

On either side conceals: bright shine the towers,

And seem to smile upon the billows rude.

In front the eye, with comprehensive powers,

Sees wide extended plains enriched with splendid bowers.
Hither they bore the sad reluctant fair,

Who mounts, with dizzy eye, the awful steep;
The blazing structure seems high-poized in air,

And its light pillars tremble o'er the deep:
As yet, the heavens are calm, the tempests sleep,

She knows not half the horrors of her fate,
Nor feels th' approaching ruin's whirlwind sweep:
Yet, with ill-boding fears she passed the gate,

And turned with sickening dread from scenes of gorgeous state.

While yet he spake, loud bursts the groaning hall,

With frighful peal, the thundering domes resound,

At the opening of the fourth canto, the adventurers meet Slander and Credulity. The knight comes off from a contest with the former victorious, but not unhurt, while Psyche is diverted from the path, and separated from her champion by the latter. During her absence from his protection, she suffers severely in the castle of Suspicion, and after mingling in the motley train of Inconstancy, she at last falls a victim to Jealousy. In the cave of the latter, she learns that her knight was no other than Love himself, and at the moment of conviction and repentance, he is restored and reconciled to her.

She

In canto fifth, they reach the palace of Chastity, and are admitted by Hymen. But her penance forbids her stay. The remainder of her dangers are encountered on the ocean. sets sail, and is near being wrecked on the coast of Spleen; but is sheltered by Patience, who is described with appropriate images.

More sweet than health's fresh bloom the wan hue seemed,

Which sat upon her pallid cheek; her eye,

Her placid eye with dove-like softness beamed,
Her head unshielded from the pitiless sky,

Loose to the rude wild blast her tresses fly,

Bare were her feet, which pressed the shelly shore
With firm unshrinking step; while smilingly

She eyes the dashing billows as they roar,

And braves the boisterous storm so oft endured before. p. 120.

The

In the sixth canto she pursues her voyage; but is gradually becalmed, and carried to the island of Indifference. knight again rescues her. After this, she concludes her voyage, Constancy fills her urn from the mysterious fountain, and with Love she finds the unpolluted altar.

"Scarce on the altar had she placed the urn,

When lo! in whispers to her ravished ear

Speaks the soft voice of Love! Turn, Psyche, turn!

And see at last, released from every fear,

Thy spouse, thy faithful knight, thy lover here!'
From his celestial brow the helmet fell,

In joy's full glow, unveiled his charms appear,
Beaming Aelight and love unspeakable,

While in one rapturous glance, their mingling souls they tell.

p. 142.

The poem, considered as a whole, is of nearly equal merit. It would be easy, however, to point out its particular defects, and show that in many cases the allegory is incongruous, and that in some it fails entirely. There are faults of this kind which lie on the surface of the

to the criticism of every reader.

work, and which are obvious

Mrs. Tighe is such a poet as a person of correct taste and the power of versification may become by the diligent study of English poetry. Her thoughts are not unpleasing, her language is poetical, and her verses are elaborate, but they are for the most part languid and diffuse, and seldom animated by much of the spirit of original conception. She resembles in English the modern writers of Latin verses, who borrow from the ancients their language and modes of phraseology, without venturing on any new combinations, and whose thoughts are tamed and enfeebled by the difficulty and constraint which is found in their expression. Her personifications are unsubstantial and unsatisfactory; and her descriptions are too minute and dilated. Still many of Mrs. Tighe's readers may be pleased, though we believe none will be delighted.

The minor pieces, which fill the remainder of the volume, are of various merit; but they possess the same general character as the principal poem. Some of them however have a particular interest, from the circumstances in which they were written, in sickness and in the near prospect of death. From these and from the whole volume we receive the impression, that its author, if not very eminent as a poet, was a woman of amiable feelings, and elegant mind.

INTELLIGENCE.

HARVARD COLLEGE.

THE number of students who have entered the Freshmen class the present year is sixty nine. The whole number of undergraduates of the university is at present two hundred and eighty, viz.—

This is a larger number than there has been at any former period.

In consequence of the increased number of students, two new tutors, in the Latin and Greek languages, were added to the offices of instruction at the Commencement in 1811. Two additional tutors, one in Mathematics and Natural Philosophy, and another in the department of Rhetoric and Oratory have been added the present year. Beside the five medical professors, and the instructer in the French language, the present number of governors and instructers, who are constantly resident in Cambridge, is eighteen.

The number of resident graduates, students in theology, is sixteen.

By a new regulation the library is opened during six hours each day (except the Sabbath) for the purposes of reading and the consultation of books.

THE REV. WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING of Boston has been appointed to deliver the Dexter Lectures on Biblical Criticism, in the room of the late Rev. Mr, BUCKMINSTER,