and forgetting what had passed, he raised her in his arms, and seated her by his side; but, though she did not resist, her tears continued to flow.

66

'Why do you weep, dearest?" exclaimed Franz, pressing her to his bosom.

"The Lion, the Lion," said she, pointing to the sky.

Franz looked, and saw the constellation of the Lion shining in solitary splendour in the heavens.

"But why this deep sorrow, beloved?" said he.

"The stars can

have no real influence over our destiny; and if they have, we can easily find a favourable constellation to watch over our fate. Venus rules the sky, as well as the Lion."

"Venus hath set, and the Lion is risen; and look, look," said she, mournfully, and pointing towards the horizon, "Who can resist that which approaches?"

Franz looked where she pointed, and saw a black shadow, which seemed in the distance surrounded by a halo of fire.

"What is that object?" said he in amazement.

Destiny," replied she; "who advances to seize its victim." What victim?' sayest thou. "That one which I shall offer. Have you not heard of the young Austrians who have entered my gondola, and never re-appeared ?"

"Yes, but that rumour was surely false."

"It is true; I must destroy, or be destroyed. Each youth of your country who loves me, and is unloved by me, dies.-And whilst I do not love, I live, and I destroy; and when I love, I die.-It is my destiny."

"Oh! God, who art thou, then ?"

"How it advances! in a moment it will be upon us. Listen, listen."

The dark shadow bore down with inconceivable rapidity, and now appeared as a large vessel. It seemed illuminated with a red flame on all sides, black shadowy figures stood immoveable on the prow, and a vast quantity of oars rose and fell with a measured cadence, falling on the ear with a boding sound; hollow voices chaunted the Dies Iræ, accompanied by the clanking of chains.

"Oh! Life! life!" exclaimed the unknown in despairing accents, Franz, dost thou not recognize that vessel?"

66

Its phantom-like appearance makes my blood run cold, but I do not recognize it."

"It is the Bucentaur. The same which has engulphed all your comVOL. I.-No. 3.

2 A

patriots. They were all here, sitting in this same seat, at the same hour, near me, in this same gondola. As the vessel approached, a voice demanded, Who goes there,' I replied, Austria; then the voice said, 'Dost thou love or hate,' I have replied, I hate; and the voice has said Live ;' then the Bucentaur has run down the gondola, engulphed your countrymen, and carried me in triumph over the waters."

"And to day?"—

"Hark, they speak."

A deep mournful voice stilling the funereal noise on board the Bucentaur spoke, and said,

"Who goes there?"

"Austria,” replied the trembling accents of the unknown.

A chorus of maledictions broke from the Bucentaur, which was approaching with increasing rapidity; there was then silence again, and the same voice spoke, and said,

"Dost thou love or hate?"

The unknown hesitated a moment, and then, with a voice of thrilling power, she said, "I love."

"Then thy destiny is accomplished.-Thou lovest Austria.-Perish Venice!"

A bitter cry, a sound as of terror and despair, rang through the air, and Franz sank beneath the waves. When he rose to the surface, he could see nothing, neither the Gondola, the Bucentaur, nor his Beloved. He at last perceived some feeble lights in the distance, which proved to be the lanterns of the fishermen of Murano; and by vigorous swimming he contrived to reach their island. Alas for Venice!

Beppa finished, the tears again streaming from her eyes. We watched her in silence, not attempting to console her. But suddenly she dried her tears, and turning round with capricious vivacity, said,` "Well, what makes you all so sad? Is it the effect fairy tales commonly produce on you? Have you never heard of the Orco, the Venetian Trilby? Have you never met it of an evening, in the cathedrals or canals? It is a good spirit enough, only doing evil to traitors or oppressors; one might call it the guardian demon of Venice, But the Viceroy, hearing of the perilous adventure of Count Lichtenstein, sent to request the Patriarch to perform a grand exorcism on the Lagunes; and since that time the Orco has never re-appeared!"

E. A. A.

ART. V.-LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME: By Thomas Babington Macaulay. 8vo. London. 1842.

We have long been warm admirers of Mr. Macaulay. Though those compositions to which he principally owes his claim to literary distinction have appeared anonymously, as is the custom with respect to contributions to the higher departments of our periodical literature, Mr. Macaulay wears a transparent disguise, and his incognito, like that of some travelling potentate or prince, though it may save him from the impertinent notice of the curious, and the annoying remarks of the obtrusive, is little calculated to conceal his identity. His logical acuteness; his style, sometimes concise, pithy, and sententious ; —at other times, brilliant, picturesque, rich in poetical imagery, and sonorous as majestic music,-always clear, energetic, and impressive; above all, his unrivalled power of illustration, whether he applies some familiar instance to bring home a remote truth with startling vividness and distinctness, or draws from his richly-coloured fancy, from his philosophical intellect, or from his vast and varied stores of knowledge, some dazzling image, some unexpected and lively embellishment, or some new and striking analogy, cannot be mistaken. Should Mr. Macaulay's works be collected, and published in such a form as will lay them open to and challenge criticism, we may express minutely our opinion, both of their great and exceeding merits and of their faults; at present we shall content ourselves with remarking, that we should find it difficult to point out another person who has reasoned so well on so many different subjects, who has read so variously, and has his store of acquired knowledge so completely at command, who has so often aimed at effect, and so rarely failed in producing it, who is so uniformly clear and spirited, intelligible, forcible and impressive, whatever may be the subject of which he treats.

The volume now before us is a successful attempt to versify some of the highly poetical legends, which Livy and Dionysius of Halicarnassus have related as the history of the earliest ages of Rome. It is certain that the records of those ages were almost entirely destroyed at the time of the great invasion of the Gauls ;-and the researches of modern scholars have rendered it highly probable, that the annalists who furnished materials to the authors of the histories that have come down to us, supplied the want of more authentic information, by borrowing freely from the ballad poetry, which, in Rome, as in other

countries, had grown up and flourished in an early stage of the progress of the people towards civilization. Mr. Macaulay begins with a brief exposition of this Theory, and the principal arguments by which it is supported; and then announces his design of reversing the process by which these romantic fictions lost their poetical form, and assumed the graver shape of history, and of reproducing some of those rude but spirited and picturesque poems, which were neglected and suffered to fall into oblivion in their native country, when the national taste became directed towards Greek models, and the progress of letters and refinement led men to look with contempt on the uncouth compositions that had delighted their ancestors, but which were deplored as an irreparable loss in after ages, when they would have been prized as venerable remains of antiquity, and esteemed as bearing the stamp of the manly virtues and elevation of character, which the later and degenerate Romans admired in the founders of the Roman power.

Such an attempt as Mr. Macaulay's must bear the character of being in some degree a tour de force; without reference to the poetical merit of his work, he had a great number of what may be termed mechanical difficulties to overcome ;-difficulties demanding rather cleverness and versatility, than genius to contend with them. It is obvious, that to compose, in these days, a poem having the character of a genuine ballad, implies powers of a peculiar description on the part of its author. He must isolate himself from the situation which we hold in the progress of civilization, and, by a kind of analysis, must reproduce that state of simplicity, in which the mind has received culture enough to stimulate, but not to exercise its faculties, and in which the fancy and feelings are all the more easily and deeply impressed, because their susceptibilities are not exposed to the various sources of excitement, which flow from a highly civilized condition of society. The difficulty arising from this cause is greatly increased, when the poet has to adopt the style and sentiments, not merely of another generation, but also of a people whose manners and national character differ widely from our own, and among whom the names of persons and of places, and the technical terms of civil and military life, are connected by association, rather with learned and scholarly research, than with poetry or

romance.

The manners and sentiments of the feudal times were different from those which prevail among ourselves; but they were the lineal ancestors of the latter, and the likeness is still preserved in their descendants; just as in a series of family portraits, we may trace the contour of some mail-clad warrior, or grim and bearded baron, in the more placid

and amiable, but perhaps less striking features of a bold dragoon, or respectable squire. History, also, and Fiction, which every one has read in his earliest years, and has almost by heart, have gone far towards rendering us familiar with the modes of thinking and living of our forefathers; and the very name of Chivalry, with its thousand glorious and graceful associations, enlists our sympathies and excites our imaginations. But a modern work constructed of classical materials stands on quite another footing. The classical nations differed from those of modern times in many essential points of character; in those, especially, with which poetry is most conversant. Patriotism, the love of liberty, and the fear of despotism, which with us are generally steady and regular principles, burned among them with the fire of intense sentiments and passions, and usurped in their minds the place which the tender affections and romantic sensibilities occupy in our own. Again, though the classics are much and early studied in this country, few have sufficient familiarity with the habits and spirit of the Greeks and Romans, to enable them to follow a fiction constructed upon them, with that ease and freedom, without which the mind is incapable of being thoroughly animated and interested. The very names and terms which a writer in Mr. Macaulay's situation is obliged to employ, are unfavourable to his purpose. A pilum is a less poetical weapon than a lance; and a consul a far less romantic personage than a knight errant. The localities, also, which Mr. Macaulay introduces with an unsparing hand (like all writers of ballads, a kind of fiction in the first instance essentially local, and in which the poet excites and aids the imagination, by connecting his fictitious characters with natural objects and scenery, familiar both to himself and his audience,) have an obsolete sound. Their names are not like the names of any places now on the face of the earth; and it is proportionally difficult to give them a vivid and picturesque effect.

Mr. Macaulay has certainly overcome with admirable skill the numerous difficulties with which his undertaking was beset. His poems have the spirit, and soul-stirring energy, as well as the simplicity of genuine ballads. The rich vein of thought, the brilliant powers of description which he possesses, have found their appropriate development in these "Lays," without producing anything inconsistent with the natural and unsophisticated cast of ideas and sentiments, which his attempt required. We may observe that something of manner, some images and circumstances, Mr. Macaulay professes to have borrowed from our own old ballads, more from Sir Walter Scott, whom he justly terms the great restorer of our ballad poetry, and still more from the