Felt on your face an air, watery and sweet,
And a new sense in your soft-lighting feet;
And then perhaps you entered upon shades
Pillowed with dells and uplands, 'twixt the glades,
Through which the distant palace, now and then,
Looked lordly forth with many-windowed ken;
A land of trees, which, reaching round about,
In shady blessing stretched their old arms out,
With spots of sunny opening, and with nooks
To lie and read in, sloping into brooks,
Where at her drink you started the slim deer,
Retreating lightly with a lovely fear.

And all about the birds kept leafy house,

And sung and sparkled in and out the boughs,

And all about a lovely sky of blue

Clearly was felt, or down the leaves laughed through;
And here and there, in every part, were seats,

Some in the open walks, some in retreats.

But 'twixt the wood and flowery walks half way,
And formed of both, the loveliest portion lay,
A spot that struck you like enchanted ground :-
It was a shallow dell, set in a mound

Of sloping shrubs, that mounted by degrees,
The birch and poplar, mixed with heavier trees;
From under which, sent through a marble spout,
Betwixt the dark wet green, a rill gushed out,
Whose sweet low talking seemed as if it said
Something eternal to that happy shade.

The ground within was lawn, with plots of flowers
Heaped towards the centre, and with citron bowers,
And in the midst of all, clustered with bay,
And myrtle, and just gleaming to the day
Lurked a pavilion,- -a delicious sight-

Small, marble, well-proportioned, mellowy white,

With yellow vine-leaves sprinkled,—but no more,—
And a young orange either side the door.

The door was to the wood, forward and square,

The rest was domed at top and circular;

And through the dome the only light came in

Tinged as it entered, with the vine leaves thin!"

In this delicious retreat, Francesca is one summer's afternoon, reading in "the bright romance" of Sir Launcelot of the Lake, about the love of Queen Geneura for that knight, when Paulo follows her. The poet

is indebted to another source than his own invention, for the beautiful incident which hurries on the catastrophe, but the delicacy of sentiment, and grace of narration are all his own; and his also is the creation of the shadowy forebodings, and varying moods of mind which prepare us for the event:

"Ready she sate with one hand to turn o'er
The leaf, to which her thoughts ran on before,
The other propping her white brow and throwing
Its ringlets out, under the sky light glowing.
So sat she fixed; and so observed was she
Of one who at the door stood tenderly,
Paulo-who from a window seeing her

Go straight across the lawn, and guessing where,

Had thought she was in tears, and found that day,

His usual efforts vain to keep away.

'May I come in ?' said he: It made her start,

That smiling voice; she coloured, pressed her heart

A moment, as for breath, and then with free
And usual tone said, "O yes, certainly.'

There's wont to be, at conscious times like these
An affectation of a bright-eyed ease,

An air of something quite serene and sure,
As if to seem so, were to be secure :

With this the lovers met, with this they spoke,
With this they sat down to the self-same book,
And Paulo, by degrees, gently embraced
With one permitted arm her lovely waist;
And both their cheeks like peaches on a tree,
Leaned with a touch together thrillingly,
And o'er the book they hung and nothing said,
And every lingering page, grew longer as they read.

"As thus they sat, and felt with leaps of heart
Their colour change, they came upon the part
Where fond Geneura, with her flame long nurst,
Smiled upon Launcelot when he kissed her first :-
That touch at last through every fibre slid;

And Paulo turned, scarce knowing what he did,
Only he felt he could no more dissemble,

And kissed her mouth to mouth all in a tremble.

Sad were those hearts, and sweet was that long kiss :
Sacred be love from sight, whate'er it is.

The world was all forgot, the struggle o'er

Desperate the joy-that day they read no more."

There is nothing in the poem finer than the calm, deep, and gently manifested remorse, and the dying scene of Francesca. From a representation of the sorrow of her lover we come thus upon her despair:

"But she, the gentler frame-the shaken flower,
Plucked up to wither in a foreign bower,-
The struggling, virtue-loving, fallen she
The wife that was, the mother that might be,—
What could she do, unable thus to keep
Her strength alive, but sit, and think, and weep,
For ever stooping o'er her broidery frame
Half blind, and longing till the night time came,
When worn and wearied out with the day's sorrow
She might be still and senseless till the morrow.

And oh, the morrow! how it used to rise!
How would she open her despairing eyes,
And from the sense of the long lingering day,
Rushing upon her, almost turn away,
Loathing the light, and groan to sleep again!
Then sighing once for all to meet the pain,
She would get up in haste, and try to pass
The time in patience, wretched as it was;
"Till patience self in her distempered sight,
Would seem a charm to which she had no right,
And trembling at the lip and pale with fears,
She shook her head and burst into fresh tears,
Old comforts now were not at her command:
The falcon reached in vain from off his stand;
The flowers were not refreshed; the very light,
The sunshine, seemed as if it shone at night;
The least noise smote her with a sudden wound;
And did she hear but the remotest sound
Of song or instrument about the place,
She hid with both her hands her streaming face;
But worse to her than all (and oh, thought she,
That ever, ever, such a worse should be!)
The sight of infant was or child at play;

Then would she turn, and move her lips, and pray
That heaven would take her, if it pleased away.

I pass the meetings Paulo had with her :-
Calm were they in their outward character,
Or pallid efforts, rather to suppress

The pangs within that either's might be less;
And ended mostly with a passionate start

Of tears and kindness when they came to part.
Thinner he grew, she thought, end pale with care;
And I, 'twas I that dashed his noble air!'
He saw her wasting, yet with placid show,
And scarce could help exclaiming in his woe:

'O gentle creature! look not at me so!'"

}

One thing has been omitted in this notice of the new edition of Mr Hunt's Poems. It was intended, by the publication, to indemnify him in some measure for his sufferings, pecuniary as well as personal, in the cause of truth; and it will not be the fault of those whose sympathy he is most likely to prize, if this generous purpose fail. The list of his guinea subscribers is a right Catholic calendar. Still, without exertions, to which every right-minded and just-hearted man should lend his heartiest aid, the plan must prove abortive. We have small hopes even of the success of that devised for the benefit of the family of Sir Walter Scott. Sincerely, nevertheless, do we wish that Mr Moxon's subscription list for this edition may number tens of thousands of names, and thus contribute to the ease of his mind who has so long imparted knowledge and ministered delight to hundreds of thousands. Why should not all book clubs and subscription libraries order this edition of Leigh Hunt's Poems? Their small mites might not amount to much; but as he himself says, in writing to a friend, "The affair may not come to any thing; but the kindness shewn does so much good to one's heart."

MR. STUART'S THREE YEARS IN NORTH AMERICA.

THIS is the very book that was wanted to counteract the poison of our Halls and Trollopes. Mr. Stuart's name will command the attention even of the most aristocratical reader. He is a man of good family, and accustomed to the best society. No one can deny that he knows the feelings of a gentleman, and has, on all occasions, proved himself to be actuated by them. But he has claims upon the attention even of the rational portion of the public. Mr. Stuart is a man who has borne up against severe and undeserved reverses of fortune, without falling into sour or desponding views of society. He is a man of sterling principle, and habits of cool, steady observation. His mind is of the strong built undazzling kind; it possesses no one faculty or quality which is not common to the mass of society, but it possesses all that they do, in the healthiest and fullest proportions. His tastes are correct and highly cultivated. He is an experienced man of business, a sound lawyer, an experienced farmer, and well acquainted with the workings of our monetary system. Lastly, he is independent and fearless in the expression of his opinions; yet not one of those who derive pleasure from the mere excitement of saying strong things. This is the man qualified to pronounce a fair judgment on America. His liberal and rational views secure him from prejudice, while his conversance with the niceties of refined society render him alive to all deficiencies on the score of the

minor morals. His habits of business make him a valuable evidence on testimony on every thing that regards the working of the constitutional and judicial system of America. His sound sense, and even his want of fancy and imagination, give a homeliness to all his remarks, which stamp them with the character of truth.

Mr. Stuart landed at New York on the 23d of August 1828. He sailed from the same port on the 17th of April 1831. From the time of his landing, till the end of January 1830, he remained principally at New York, making, however, long and frequent excursions into the interior of the States, and through the most important districts of New England, and one journey to Washington. At the close of this period, he set out on a tour through the Southern and Western States, in the course of which he visited Virginia, the Carolinas, Mobile, Louisiana, Illinois, and Ohio; returning through Philadelphia to New York. In the course of these wanderings, he mixed in the freest and most unreserved manner with all classes of Americans; and the observations which he made, and the reflections which they have suggested, he now submits to the public, in two post octavo volumes. It would be utterly hopeless for us to attempt conveying to the reader, in our brief limits, any thing like a correct outline of the varied and interesting information amassed by Mr. Stuart. We will attempt, however, by means of extracts, to offer him a succedaneum, in " a taste of the author's quality."

Respecting the comparative interest of a journey through the Northern and the Southern States of the Union, Mr. Stuart thus expresses himself:

"It will appear from the preceding journal, that there is far less to interest a traveller in the Southern States of North America, including Virginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Louisiana, than in the other parts of the Continent which I visited. There is, too, greater difficulty, and greater expense in travelling through the Southern, than the Northern division of the United States. I incline therefore to think, that the fatigue and expense of a journey to the South is hardly repaid by the sight of any thing that is not to be found in the Northern States. I would therefore recommend to persons from Britain travelling to the United States for amusement, and who have no business or avocation that calls them to the south, to confine their journeying to Washington, and that part of the States to the northward of it, on the eastern side of the Alleghanies; and on the western, to limit their travels to the line of the River Ohio, and to the States to the northward of that river, and of its confluence with the Mississippi, which they ought by all means to see. In this way a traveller may obtain as perfect a notion, and as perfect a view of the great American rivers, as by descending the Mississipi to New Orleans. All travellers should see the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri, and the beauties of the prairies and country in the neighbourhood of St. Louis, St. Charles', and in the Western States. There are objects here of the most magnificent description, quite unlike any thing to be seen in Europe. Louisville, Lexington, and Frankfort, are quite in the way of a traveller in going up or down the Ohio, and ought to be visited; but, above all, let the traveller see New York and its vicinity, and New York State, and New England and its villages, well and thoroughly.

"If he takes pleasure in the most beautiful scenery in the world, he will be amply repaid for the inconveniencies necessarily attending his passage from Europe, by a day's voyage on the glorious Hudson. On arriving at New York, supposing him to arrive in summer, as most travellers do, he will find the heat at first very intolerable, and the noise very irksome, from carriages, carts, and waggons, all of which move at a trot. I would therefore advise him, instead of domiciliating himself in a great boardinghouse or hotel at New York, to betake himself to a quiet house on the terrace at Brooklyn, or to some such one as that of which we were inmates at Hoboken. Should he go to a private boarding-house, he may require a little wine. It is always very high-priced, owing to the trifling demand for it, and often not of the best quality in such places; but at any wine-merchants, Madeira and sherry may be procured of good quality. Port and claret are not so easily to be had.

In this opinion we coincide, with a slight modification. To a person of Mr. Stuart's kind and rational, but somewhat an imaginative turn of mind, the Northern States afford a pleasing field for the exercise of the benevolent emotions, the deprivation of which in the South nothing can repay. Yet, even amid the unhealthy swamps, and slavery-begotten immorality and despotism of the latter half of the Union, there occur, even in Mr. Stuart's own book, sketches of irregular picturesque character, eminently qualified to stimulate and gratify the fancy. Take, for example, his picture of a coach-driver in the back woods:

"Here the most lawless of all the drivers I had yet met got the charge of the stage. At the distance of two or three miles from the house, at a point where the road was covered with stumps of trees, he drew up, and tying the reins up at the front window, he said to me, the only passenger, Look to the reins till I come back.' He was obliged to go a little way to give out some sewing, as he said. There was neither a house nor a human being in our view, and I felt it unpleasant to be left alone in the forest; but there was no alternative, for the driver was out of sight behind the trees in a moment. He did not return for thirty-five minutes; and then, feeling some apology to be necessary, he said, I was obliged to hear her story. The fact is, I keep a girl a little way off. I have built her a house, and we have a negro wench to attend her. Yet the people are making a mighty fuss about it. How do they manage these matters in the North, Sir?' I of course advised him to marry, as they do in the North; but he said the girl's family were not equal to his, and he could not think of disgracing himself, though he was very fond of her. The great fault, however, which the public have to find with this person, whose name is Symes, is that of leaving the whole southern mails at the mercy of a stranger, of whom he knew nothing, and who could not be expected to make any extraordinary exertion, if any attempt had been made to carry them off."

This is as striking a picture, as we can well imagine, of the struggle between pride and principle in a bold mind, placed in a society sufficiently numerous and powerful to make its opinion felt, yet too weak and scattered to erect it into a complete check. We sympathize with the young man's attachment, irregular though it be: we smile at the simplicity of his question, "How do they manage these things in the North, Sir?" -and we foresee suffering and shame in his aberration from the straight path of virtue. This is the first scene in a tragedy repeated in all ages. The steady, serious deportment of worthy Duncan Macmillan, an innkeeper in the same wild district, contrasts finely with the young Backwoods' man :—

"It being dark when we arrived, Duncan himself came out to welcome me, and, as soon as he discovered that I was from Scotland, he gave me his hand; and his pleasure on seeing me was increased, when he found that I could ask him how he was to-day in Gaelic.

"Duncan came from Argyle when he was very young. He is married to an American woman, whose parents were Scotch; but she, as well as he, can speak Gaelic. He settled in this country about ten years ago, and has seventy acres cleared by his own industry, and a considerable tract of wood-land. He was very inquisitive respecting his native country, but he did not hint at any wish to return to it. He was, he said, under a good government, that did justice to all, and he had many advantages. He never went to market, but for coffee. He grew both sugar and cotton on his own plantation; and, being a member of a temperance society, he did not taste fermented liquor. Coffee was, he said, the best stimulant; and very good coffee he gave us. The drivers, both Mr. Lolly and he who was to be charioteer next morning, were, of course, at supper with us; and I was glad to find that Mr. Macmillan had so much influence with them, as to put an entire stop to their rude, boisterous swearing.

"Mr. Macmillan promised me a separate bed-room, and he was as good as his word; but it was a very small apartment, thinly boarded, with hardly any room for chair or any thing else. He said, however, that he was a man of invention; and, taking his carpenter's tools with him, he in a moment put up pins for a looking