productions. But this is not the way to judge rightly; let it be examined by itself, without reference to preceding efforts. Though "The Forest Sanctuary" may possess less interest for some readers than if the story had been made more of, by the introduction of startling incidents and passionate details, the author has looked upon it in a different point of view; and while dealing less minutely and more generally with her subject than some may think right, has given us a poem which throws no discredit on her well-deserved reputation.

The scene of "The Forest Sanctuary" is laid in Old Spain, in the sixteenth century. The time is during the short reformation, which cast upon that now most degraded of nations, a casual brightness only to render the succeeding gloom more hideous. The curse of priestcraft and superstition, the infamous connection of political and religious power, for the purpose of enchaining and debasing the human mind, inactive for a moment to recoil with more hellish violence, had allowed the light of the reformation an interval to cast one feeble flash before it was utterly extinguished. It was at that period a priest, named Gonzalez, and his two sisters were burned near each other, for the reformed faith; and upon this incident Mrs. Hemans has founded part of her poem, with those additions and alterations of poetical invention, which were needed to work out her design. The hero of the poem is a reformed Spaniard, and it commences by his address to his son, followed by a retrospective view of the sufferings of his three friends Alvar and his sisters, and his own imprisonment and ultimate flight to America. The opening stanzas are very beautiful :—

"The voices of my home!-I hear them still!

They have been with me through the dreamy night

The blessed household voices, wont to fill

My heart's clear depths with unalloy'd delight!

I hear them still, unchang'd :—though some from earth
Are music parted, and the tones of mirth-

Wild, silvery tones, that rang through days more bright!
Have died in others,-yet to me they come,

Singing of boyhood back-the voices of my home!

They call me through this hush of woods, reposing
In the grey stillness of the summer morn,

They wander by when heavy flowers are closing,

And thoughts grow deep, and winds and stars are born;
Ev'n as a fount's remember'd gushings burst

On the parch'd traveller in his hour of thirst,

E'en thus they haunt me with sweet sounds till worn

By quenchless longings, to my soul I say

Oh! for the dove's swift wings, that I might flee away,

And find mine ark !-yet whither?-I must bear
A yearning heart within me to the grave.

I am of those o'er whom a breath of air

Just darkening in its course the lake's bright wave,

And sighing through the feathery canes-hath power

To call up shadows in the silent hour,

From the dim past, as from a wizard's cave !—

So must it be!-These skies above me spread,

Are they my own soft skies?—Ye rest not here, my dead!"

The whole poem is descriptive of mental suffering rather than of action. In this Mrs. Hemans has followed what is at present, perhaps, the popular taste, but by so doing has rendered her subject less striking than it would have been had it unfolded a succession of forcible details. There was a good opportunity for poetical description in the preparatory horrors of the Auto da fè; but respecting this dreadful scene, Mrs. Hemans is brief; fearing, no doubt, to injure her main effect. The Spanish narrator of his story dwells upon the fate of his friends, martyred for embracing the Protestant doctrines. The descrip

tion of the brother and his two sisters is good; that of Inez, indeed, so beautiful that we must copy it here.

"And she to die !-she loved the laughing earth

With such deep joy in its fresh leaves and flowers!
-Was not her smile even as the sudden birth
Of a young rainbow, colouring vernal showers?
Yes! but to meet her fawn-like step, to hear
The gushes of wild song, so silvery clear,
Which, oft unconsciously, in happier hours
Flow'd from her lips, was to forget the sway
Of Time and Death below,-blight, shadow, dull decay!
Could this change be?—the hour, the scene. where last
I saw that form, come floating o'er my mind:
-A golden vintage-eve;-the beats were pass'd,
And, in the freshness of the fanning wind,
Her father sat, where gleam'd the first faint star
Through the lime-boughs; and with her light guitar,
She, on the greensward at his feet reclin'd,

In his calm face laughed up; some shepherd-lay
Singing, as childhood sings on the lone hills at play.
And now-oh God! the bitter fear of death,
The sore amaze, the faint o'ershadowing dread,
Had grasp'd her!-panting in her quick-drawn breath,
And in her white lips quivering;-onward led,
She look'd up with her dim bewilder'd eyes,
And there smiled out her own soft brilliant skies,

Far in their sultry southern azure spread,

Glowing with joy, but silent !-still they smil'd,

Yet sent down no reprieve for earth's poor trembling child."

The refinements of inquisitorial cruelty, the depraved inventions and studies in blood of priests, kings, and inquisitors, to render the agonies of expiring nature more intense, the horrible delay in proceeding to the place of execution, and fiendish mummeries attendant upon it, afford fine scope for poetical description. Mrs. Hemans has avoided these, evidently with design. They were too ungentle for her muse, and would have disturbed the placid feeling, which it was no doubt her wish to produce on the mind of the reader; a feeling in itself consonant with that Christian resignation, with which she has invested the hero of her verse. After condemnation, the three prisoners are led to the place of death. On their way, when near to the fatal pyre, the trampling of a horse is heard. Its rider flings himself off, and rushing towards Inez, clasps her in his arms. He endeavours to persuade her to abjure her new faith, and live for him. In her struggle between "love, faith, fear, and a dream of life," nature gives way, and she expires in her lover's arms. The survivors are led to the stake, and the narrator flies from the horrid sight, which he has not energy to behold.

"Away-away I rush'd;-but swift and high
The arrowy pillars of the firelight grew,
Till the transparent darkness of the sky
Flush'd to a blood-red mantle in their hue:
And, phantom-like, the kindling city seem'd
To spread, float, as on the wind they stream'd,
With their wild splendour chasing me!-I knew
The death-work was begun-I veil'd mine eyes,
Yet stopp'd in spell-bound fear to catch the victims' cries.
What heard I then ?-a ringing shriek of pain,
Such as for ever haunts the tortur'd ear!
-I heard a sweet and solemn-breathing strain
Piercing the flames, untremulous and clear!
-The rich, triumphal tones!-I knew them well,
As they came floating with a breezy swell!

Man's voice was there-a clarion voice to cheer

In the mid-battle-ay, to turn the flying

Woman's-that might have sung of Heaven beside the dying!
It was a fearful, yet a glorious thing,

To hear that hymn of martyrdom, and know
That its glad stream of melody could spring
Up from th' unsounded gulfs of human woe!
Alvar! Theresa!-what is deep? what strong?
-God's breath within the soul!-It fill'd that song

From your victorious voices !-but the glow

On the hot air and lurid skies increased

-Faint grew the sounds-more faint-I listen'd-they had ceas'd!" The narrator is next found in a cathedral, meditating religiously and alone. He prays; is comforted by his devotions; and returns to his habitation. There are some very beautiful passages in this part of the poem.

The second canto, for we should have before this observed, that the poem consists of two cantos, opens with an invocation to Nature, to assist him in looking back on "a dungeon's air;" where, it appears, he endured a long imprisonment after the martyrdom of his friends. There is an indistinctness about some parts of the story, detaching the attention from the movements of the narrating Spaniard, arising from the too general description and want of minuter detail respecting personal incidents. But it is probable that, as the narrator speaks only from recollection of the past, and neither he nor the author is describing passing events, that this was designed. However it may be, we, on this point, must be satisfied with the gift she has made us of a new and delightful addition to our rich stock of poetry from the modern female pen.

From his dungeon the Spaniard, after a tedious confinement, the history of which is well told, and where the captive exclaims,

"How oft would Sorrow weep

Her weariness to Death, if he might come like sleep," proceeds to his family in the mountains, and embarks with them for America, to enjoy there, in the bosom of a primeval nature, amid woods and savage fastnesses, that "free thought" which God gave to all men, but which felon despotism even in our time seeks to rifle us of;-that free worship, which, amid the pomp, and hypocrisy, and persecution of nations styling themselves civilized, priests and kings refuse to their fellow men. In that wild asylum, with his altar under the open heaven, he enjoys his faith, and prepares for old age and death. Before he embarks, he musters up his recollections of the bygone time, of his country and native soil, of his boyhood and love, of his sufferings and those of his friends, of his father's hall, and his own ancestral fame. Then in his own words

"O'er the blue deep I fled, the chainless deep!"

On his passage he loses his Leonor, his wife. His reflections respecting her are very touching, but we cannot give them room, any more than many detached stanzas of great beauty. We are unable to resist extracting the last four or five with which the poem concludes :

"And we have won a bower of refuge now,

In this fresh waste, the breath of whose repose
Hath cool'd, like dew, the fever of my brow,
And whose green oaks and cedars round me close,
As temple-walls and pillars, that exclude
Earth's haunted dreams from their free solitude;
All, save the image and the thought of those
Before us gone; our lov'd of early years,

Gone where affection's cup hath lost the taste of tears.

I see a star-eve's first-born!-in whose train

Past scenes, words, looks, come back. The arrowy spire

Of the lone cypress, as of wood-girt fane,

Rests dark and still amidst a heaven of fire;

The pine gives forth its odours, and the lake
Gleams like one ruby, and the soft winds wake,
Till every string of nature's solemn lyre

Is touch'd to answer; its most secret tone

Drawn from each tree, for each hath whispers all its own.

And hark! another murmur on the air,
Not of the hidden rills, or quivering shades!
-That is the cataract's which the breezes bear,
Filling the leafy twilight of the glades

With hollow surge-like sounds, as from the bed
Of the blue mournful seas, that keep the dead :
But they are far!-the low sun here pervades
Dim forest-arches, bathing with red gold
Their stems, till each is made a marvel to behold.
Gorgeous, yet full of gloom !-In such an hour,
The vesper-melody of dying bells

Wanders through Spain, from each grey convent's tower
O'er shining rivers pour'd, and olive-dells,

By every peasant heard, and muleteer,

And hamlet, round my home:-and I am here,

Living again through all my life's farewells,

In these vast woods, where farewell ne'er was spoken,
And sole I lift to Heaven a sad heart-yet unbroken!

In such an hour are told the hermit's beads;
With the white sail the seaman's hymn floats by:
Peace be with all! whate'er their varying creeds,
With all that send up holy thoughts on high!
Come to me, boy!-by Guadalquivir's vines,
By every stream of Spain, as day declines,
Man's prayers are mingled in the rosy sky.
-We, too, will pray; nor yet unheard, my child!
Of Him whose voice we hear at eve amidst the wild.

At eve?-oh! through all hours!-From dark dreams oft
Awakening, I look forth, and learn the might

Of solitude, while thou art breathing soft,

And low, my lov'd one! on the breast of night:

I look forth on the stars-the shadowy sleep

Of forests-and the lake, whose gloomy deep

Sends up red sparkles to the fire-flies' light.

A lonely world!-ev'n fearful to man's thought,

But for His presence felt, whom here my soul hath sought."

As a whole, this poem will be read with delight. It may not astonish, but it will charm; it may not attract the lovers of passion and whirlwind, of Sapphic fury or fearful mystery in poetry, but it will be enjoyed by the pure in heart, by the lovers of the tranquil, and moral, and beautiful; by those who are possessed of true and genuine feeling: and if our readers do not join us in this sentiment, upon their perusal of it, they may be possessed of taste, but it is of a kind very inferior to what we give them credit for.

The shorter pieces, at the end of this volume, have many of them embellished our pages. Respecting them there can be but one opinion;-they are among the sweetest things in the circuit of our later poetry. Rich as the additions to it have been, and exhaustless as its resources seem to be, poetical talent in the female sex was never seen before in equal variety and excellence. The applause which would in past time have been shown to such a female pen, is now increased and scattered over a larger surface, and become less marked perhaps in its action upon the individual; but is better bestowed, and of a quality, from the present state of knowledge, far superior to what it has ever been before. From this cause it is that we would infer such a writer as Mrs. Hemans has not added tenfold to that interest for which the public already owns itself so deeply in her debt.

SPECIMENS OF A DICTIONARY OF LOVE AND BEAUTY.

"I tell thee, love is nature's second sun,

Causing a spring of virtues where he shines.
And as, without the sun, the world's great eye,
All colours, beauties, both of art and nature,
Are given in vain to men; so, without love,
All beauties bred in women are in vain,
All virtues born in men lie buried:

For love informs them, as the sun does colours.
And as the sun, reflecting his warın beams
Against the earth, begets all fruit and flowers,
So love, fair shining in the inward man,
Brings forth in him the honourable fruits
Of valour, wit, virtue, and haughty thoughts,
Brave resolution, and divine discourse."

We have been several times requested by our readers to write upon more subjects of a similar purport and equal interest with those of the Criticism on Female Beauty." If they had said "articles as well written," there would be no difficulty. We trust we have

"Five hundred as good as they."

But subjects of equal interest with Female Beauty, it is not so easy to Does he not feel the diffifind. Could the reader point them out? culty to be the greater, the more he wishes it were less? If we could think of any subject as well calculated to "come home to men's business and bosoms," we should be glad to take it up. Or if we could all change natures for a time, by dint of imagination, with birds, or fishes, or spirits, and discover what it is that enchants those creatures the most, we might run through a series of master-subjects, and be delighted accordingly. There was a bird this instant, as we dipped our pen in the ink, who set a bough dancing at our study-window-a bough of a green-gage tree, covered with blossoms, and looking filled with sunshine. Why could we not pitch ourselves into the bird's nature, like the king in the Eastern tale, and learn, and help others to learn, all the pleasure it took in that dancing bough and the exuberant blossoms? O to be able to relate stories of the healthy and happy fish in the sea, rejoicing with easy mastery in their Atlantic billows, or touched with sunshine through the lucid Mediterranean; little golden creatures, that we have seen in a gulf of the sea, as in a basin in a parlour-window; or gambols of young whales, as full of tricks as kittens, making a toy of the ship to play at hide and seek under! As to spirits, we could say a good deal about them, and hope to do so, being very conversant with them and their beauties; but, as we must own at the same time, that we know nothing about them more beautiful, or even more spiritual, than the look from a kind eye, we give up all hope of surpassing our former subject by the help of their wings, however angelical. Were a soul to look out of a window from Heaven, it could hardly be more a soul, than when it opens its present earthly casement, and beams upon us with a morning tenderness.

But though it would be difficult to find a subject of equal interest, there are many of an interest kindred to it, and thousands that may be brought to bear upon it; and of these we have only to hope that our readers may be as willing to hear, as we are to discourse. Their wish