borated in a style superior to any thing he has elsewhere exhibited, and scarcely inferior, we must add, to any thing we can remember in the poetry of his most celebrated contemporaries. Nothing, we think, can be more exquisitely written than the apostrophe to the old Moorish palace of the Alhambra, which occurs at page 78, and yet the beauty of the writing is far from being even the chief of its merits. Palace of beauty! where the Moorish Lord, King of the bow, the bridle, and the sword, Sat like a Genie in the diamond's blaze. Oh! to have seen thee in the ancient days, When at thy morning gates the coursers stood, The thousand," milk-white, Yemen's fiery blood, In pearl and ruby harness'd for the king; And thro' thy portals pour'd the gorgeous flood Of jewell'd Sheik and Emir, hastening, come, Like hearts by love and destiny enslaved, That see, and shrink,-and yet will seek their doom. Then was the harping of the minstrels heard, And told of eastern glories, silken hosts, Tower'd elephants, and chiefs in topaz arm'd; Or of the myriads from the cloudy coasts Of the far western sea, the sons of blood, The iron men of tournament and feud, That round the bulwarks of their fathers Gloomy and fathomless; thy tale is told, Where is thy horn of battle? that but blown Brought every chief of Afric from his throne; Brought every spear of Afric from the wall; Till all its tribes sat nounted on the shore; Brought every charger barded from the stall, Waiting the waving of thy torch to pour The living deluge on the fields of Spain. Queen of earth's loveliness, there was a stain Upon thy brow-the stain of guilt and gore, Thy course was bright, bold, treach❜rous, and 'tis o'er. Silence is now sole monarch on thy throne! The spear and diadem are from thee gone; Neither do we recollect any one specimen, even of Lord Byron's power of rapid sketching, more admirable than the following one of the assumption of the veil by a daughter of the house of Medina Sidonia. The porch is fill'd with rich escutcheon'd cars, And glossy jennets, plumed and ribbon. rein'd, Pure Arab blood, their broad fronts bright with stars, Quick-eyed, full-crested, high and purple vein'd; They stand with nostrils wide and chests thick panting; For all their passage up that causeway slanting Had been a mimic combat, many a spear Had cross'd the saddle in that gay career. The sight within was splendid; from the porch The aisle's long vista shew'd the lamp, and torch, And silver urn of frankincense and myrrh, Filling the air with fragrance and with gloom, And, twined round shrine and time-worn sepulchre Within the stone what darker mockeries lie And ermined cap, and mantle stiff with gold, For there the tide of knights and dames had roll'd, And there had stopp'd: beyond was like a tomb, Shut from the daylight, high barr'd, silent, cold; And in is beings scarcely of man's mould Her eye was firm, yet those who saw it near, With quick, strange force her slight hand to her breast, And her wan cheek was redden'd with a glow That spread its crimson to her forehead's snow, As if the vestal felt the throes that wreak Their stings upon young hearts about to break; She struggled, sigh'd; her look of agony Was calm'd, and she was at Sidonia's knee. Her father's chasing tears upon her fell; His gentle heart abhorr'd the convent cell; Even now he bade her pause. She look'd to heaven, One long, wild pressure to his cheek was given, Her pale lip quiver'd, would not say "farewell.' The bell gave one deep toll, it seem'd her knell ; She started, strove his strong embrace to sever, Then rush'd within the gate-that shuts for ever. But so much of the merit of Sebastian lies in the story itself, that we shall not diminish the interest with which our readers will read it, by quoting more, or by any attempt at analysis. We have already, we are sure, done enough to call attention to Mr Croly's volume, and that is all the service of which such a volume can ever stand in need. We regard it, indeed, as the earnest of far better things; but even if nothing more were to follow, we feel satisfied that it would entitle its author to a permanent and a lofty place among the poets of his country. It is very delightful to us, and we are sure it will be so to all men of right feeling, to observe, that all the rising poetical genius of England is not infected either with the affectations or the bad principles of those who would fain be considered as haying taken the lead in a sort of poetical revolution amongst us. On the contrary, of the four young poets who have made any impression lately on the public mind, there are three to whose writings we can turn with well MILnigh unmingled satisfaction. MAN, CORNWALL, and CROLY, are all, so far as we can see, possessed of a proper sense of that great responsibility under which every English poet lies, and determined to conduct themselves as becomes their dignity. In all the writings of these men, it is easy to discover faults of youth; but in all of them, the faults are of the right kind-faults, namely, of redundance, not of poverty-faults of careless execution, not of cold conception. They are all of them imitators of the great poets that have immediately preceded them in the march of our literatureit was impossible, probably, that they should have been otherwise-but none of them are servile in their imitation, and they are all, in the best sense of the word, original poets. They may all, without doubt, become still more so-and we hope they will. Of the three we know not which is our chief favourite, or even on which of them our greatest expectations depend. Mr Cornwall has many beauties of a more delicate order than either Mr Milman or Mr Croly has ever exemplified, and we rather think he has more of the dramatic tact than either of them is ever likely to attain. Mr Milman, again, has a richer eye, and a more powerful grasp than either of his rivals-he is the likeliest of the three, in our opinion, to produce a great narrative poem, destinel to take its place among the nμara is au of our liter ature. Mr Croly, too, has points on which he appears superior to both of these. He comes nearer than either of them to the burning intense rapidity of Lord Byron's outline, and has a march in his versification that is as graceful as energetic. We observe that he has in the press, Specimens of the living English Poets," on the plan of Mr Campbell's work; and from the power of thought and the accuracy of taste displayed in the present volume, we are inclined to augur very highly of his success in this bold attempt. HUBERT; Or, The Veteran of India. PART I. WHERE Indian village 'mid the grove of palms, Disparts from sparkling eye his clustered locks, A The areca palms, though scarcely thicker than a man's arm, rise to the same height with the tall cocoa nut and date palms around them; and the number of their long slender stems, intermingled with the other trees, adds much to the romantic appearance of the Indian gardens. Not being of sufficient strength to bear a man's weight, (though the wood is slow of growth and extremely hard), their nuts are gathered by the bandarries, or climbers, by reaching from the adjacent trees, In childhood came to Ind: can recollect Or antique spire of grove-embosomed church; Of mother dead in early infancy; Or like the dream mid reaper's hour of rest, Is deck'd with pictured scenes of British clime; Or, haply, scene of many a childish sport, That, scattered lonely o'er some range of heath, And careless laugh, and think their frames are made Have taught that Heaven has power to try him still; To tame; and sees, when comes the softening spring, To stronger height, and richer harvest grown. D To thoughts submiss; had lived in deathful lands With him had reared the tent, had strewed the couch, That, ominous of death, alighting pressed His moveless lips. What though her cheek was dark ? Can grateful give? Or can her fondling pride From him whom thus she loved? Beside him now, Beneath the cooler shade, and, pleased, beholds Here too, at times, the Veteran's daughter comes * Phoolranee, the Queen of Flowers: it is used by the Hindoos rather as a term of endearment than as a proper name. 7 |