SONNET.

(THE IDEA PARTLY SUGGESTED BY A PASSAGE IN SACONTALA.)
What prompts the tear, the involuntary sigh,
The far dim dreams that float in mingling maze,
And sweetly make us mourn we know not why
While music breathes the balm of happy lays,
Or spring returns, or evening paints the sky?—
Fond memory holds the scenes of early days,-
The heart is as the harp of harmony

That strikes upon its cords a thousand ways:
Yet are such feelings scarce of this, or springing
From earthly origin, but seem to flow

From some dear source to which our souls are clinging

Where we have been or whither we would go;

Surely the babes of Paradise are flinging

Flowers of Eternal Life that fade below.

TO THE GRASSHOPPER.

FROM THE GREEK OF ANACREON.

Blest, Oh, Grasshopper! art thou,
Seated on the lofty bough,
Sipping glittering drops of dew,
Singing songs for ever new.
Like a king thou look'st around
O'er the finely-cultured ground:
Whate'er the laughing seasons bear,
As they pursue the circling year;
The rose, the olive, and the vine-
All, all thou ever seest is thine.
The rough rude tiller of the earth
Joys to hear thy harmless mirth:
Nay, thy sweet prophetic song
Foretelling summer-days, among
The green leaves floating, mortals all
Cheering, soft, delightful call.
The very muses, and their king
Phoebus, love to hear thee sing-
Nay, the latter taught, they say,
Thy merry song to wind away.
Old age on thee, and on thy strain
Exerts its withering power in vain,
Thou earth-born master of the lay,
All unlike a child of clay !
Unsuffering, fleshless, free, thy fate
Is like the happy gods' estate.

SONNET TO MINERVA.

Stern Maid of Heaven, protectress of the wise,
Why didst thou e'er forsake Athena's towers?
Why from her mart of thought, her olive bowers,
Didst thou avert thy lore-inspiring eyes?

Is it that fickleness usurps the skies;

Or that all states have their unhappy hours;
Or that the Gods withdraw their sacred dowers,
When man from virtue's narrow pathway flies ?
Be as it may, return thee to the spot;
Think of no ancient wrongs, O Goddess, now.
Be all her failings-be thy wrath forgot;
And what thou canst for fallen Athena show.
Extend thy ægis o'er thy ruined fane,
And give its ancient glory back again.

THE SIGH.

When I think on the days that are past,
On the days of my childhood gone by,
On their joys, which so shortly did last,
The retrospect causes a Sigh.

On my own native country so dear,
Could I once again cast my fond eye,
Recollection would ask for a tear,
Accompanied too with a Sigh.

But I think of her oft in in my dreams,
And often her shores I descry;

I behold her rude mountains and streams,
Then starting, I wake with a Sigh.

When I think, too, on friends who are gone
To a happier world on high,

I could wish that my race too were run,
And I follow my wish with a Sigh.

R. P.

I. C. S.

FROM AN EPIGRAM OF ABULFADHEL AHMED, SURNAMED AL HAMADANI,
RECORDED IN D'HERBELOT.

HAMADAN is my native place;

And I must say, in praise of it,

It merits, for its ugly face,
What every body says of it.

It's children equal it's old men
In vices and avidity;

And they reflect the babes again
In exquisite stupidity.

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Printed by C. W. REYNELL, Broad-street, Golden-square.

THE

LITERARY EXAMINER.

No. VI. SATURDAY, AUGUST 9, 1823.

REVIEW OF BOOKS.

Don Juan. Cantos IX. X. XI.
(Continued.)

THE poet commences Canto X. with a digression upon gravitation, which diverges as usual into a great variety of incidental handling, including a very pleasant allusion to the old fracas with the Edinburgh Review. We quote the conclusion, which is very beautiful; and will be felt to the core by every heart north of Tweed :

And all our little feuds, at least all mine,
Dear Jeffery, once my most redoubted foe,
(As far as rhyme and criticism combine

To make such puppets of us things below)

Are over. Here's a health to " Auld Lang Syne!"
I do not know you, and may never know
Your face, but you have acted on the whole
Most nobly, and I own it from my soul.

And when I use the phrase of " Auld Lang Syne!"
'Tis not addressed to you-the more's the pity

For me, for I would rather take my wine

With you, than aught (save Scott) in your proud city.
But somehow, it may seem a schoolboy's whine,

And yet I seek not to be grand nor witty,

But I am half a Scot by birth, and bred

A whole one, and my heart flies to my head,

As "Auld Lang Syne" brings Scotland, one and all,

Scotch plaids, Scotch snoods, the blue hills, and clear streams,
The Dee, the Don, Balgounie's Brig's black wall,*

All my boy feelings, all my gentler dreams

Of what I then dreamt, clothed in their own pall,
Like Banquo's offspring;-floating past me seems
My childhood in this childnessness of mine:

I care not 'tis a glimpse of "Auld Lang Syne."

*The brig of Don, near the "auld toun" of Aberdeen, with its one arch and its black deep salmon stream below, is in my memory as yesterday, I still remember, though perhaps I may misquote the awful proverb which made me pause to cross it, and yet lean over it with a childish delight, being an only son, at least by the mother's side. The saying as recollected by me was this, but I have never heard or seen it since I was nine years of age:

"Brig of Balgounie, black's your wa',
"Wi' a wife's we son, and a mear's ae foal,
"Doun ye shall fa!”.

VOL I.

6

And though, as you remember, in a fit

Of wrath and rhyme, when juvenile and curly,
I railed at Scots to show my wrath and wit,

Which must be owned was sensitive and surly,
Yet 'tis in vain such sallies to permit,

They cannot quench young feelings fresh and early:
I'" scotched, not killed" the Scotchman in my blood,"
And love the land of "mountain and of flood."

Returning to Don Juan, we find him in great favour, and fulfilling his high destinies in the legitimately regulated establishment of Catherine, with infinite eclat. The following is pleasant:

He wrote to Spain:—and all his near relations,
Perceiving he was in a handsome way
Of getting on himself, and finding stations
For cousins also, answered the same day.
Several prepared themselves for emigrations;
And, eating ices, were o'erheard to say,
That with the addition of a slight pelisse,

Madrid's and Moscow's climes were of a piece.

Donna Inez, the prudent and pious mother of Juan, eminently preserves the devout ingenuousness and decorum, which the reader will recollect are made her prominent characteristics :

"She also recommended him to God,

"And no less to God's Son, as well as Mother;

"Warned him against Greek-worship, which looks odd

"In Catholic eyes; but told him too to smother

"Outward dislike, which don't look well abroad:

"Informed him that he had a little brother

"Born in a second wedlock; and above
"All, praised the Empress's maternal love.

"She could not too much give her approbation

"Unto an Empress, who preferred young men
"Whose age, and, what was better still, whose nation
"And climate, stopped all scandal (now and then):-
"At home, it might have given her some vexation;
"But where thermometers sunk down to teu,
"Or five, or one, or zero, she could never
"Believe that virtue thawed before the river."

Oh! for a forty-parson power to chaunt
Thy praise, Hypocrisy !

The narrative proceeds: poor Juan falls sick, and

Low were the whispers, manifold the rumours:
Some said he had been poisoned by Potemkin;
Others talked learnedly of certain tumours,
Exhaustion, or disorders of the same kin;

Some said 'twas a concoction of the humours,

Which with the blood too readily will claim kin;
Others again were ready to maintain,

""Twas only the fatigue of last campaign."

But here is one prescription out of many :-
“ Sodæ-Sulphat. 3. vi. 3. s. Mannæ optim.

"Aq. fervent. F. 3. ifs. 3ij. Tinct. Sennæ

"Haustus" (And here the surgeon came and cupped him)

"R. Pulv. Com. gr. iii. Ipecacuanha"

(With more beside if Juan had not stopped 'em)

"Bolus Potassæ Sulphuret sumendus,

"Et Haustus ter in die capiendus."

This is the way physicians mend or end us,

Secundum artem: but although we sneer

In health-when ill, we call them to attend us,
Without the least propensity to jeer:
While that" hiatus maxime deflendus,"

To be filled up by spade or mattock, 's near,
Instead of gliding graciously down Lethe,
We teaze mild Baillie, or soft Abernethy.

The youthful minion however gradually recovers; but as the physicians prescribe travel in milder climates, with great consideration his imperial mistress determines to send him on a mission. FortunatelyThere was just then a kind of a discussion,

A sort of treaty or negociation

Between the British cabinet and Russian,
Maintained with all the due prevarication

With which great states such things are apt to push on;

Something about the Baltic's navigation,

Hides, train-oil, tallow, and the rights of Thetis,

Which Britons deem their" uti possidetis."

Juan accordingly sets out for Great Britain in the high style of a Russian favourite, accompanied by the little Leila, who, we suspect, is to be something extraordinary in the sequel :

Poor little thing! She was as fair as docile,

And with that gentle, serious character,

As rare in living beings, as a fossil

Man, 'midst thy mouldy Mammoths, "grand Cuvier!"

Ill fitted with her ignorance to jostle

With this o'erwhelming world, where all must err:

But she was yet but ten years old, and therefore

Was tranquil, though she knew not why or wherefore.

Don Juan loved her, and she loved him, as
Nor brother, father, sister, daughter love.

I cannot tell exactly what it was;

He was not yet quite old enough to prove
Parental feelings, and the other class,

Called brotherly affection, could not move

His bosom, for he never had a sister:

Ah! if he had, how much he would have missed her!

We shall omit the description of the journey, and suppose our traveller on his passage from Helvoetsluys, watching for the white cliffs of Albion:

At length they rose, like a white wall along

The blue sea's border; and Don Juan felt-
What even young strangers feel a little strong
At the first sight of Albion's chalky belt-
A kind of pride that he should be among

Those haughty shop-keepers, who sternly dealt
Their goods and edicts out from pole to pole,

And made the very billows pay them toll.

We are of opinion, that many an English heart beats in unison with that of the indignant poet, when he alludes to the suppressed feelings of hatred and resentment, which agitate the bosom of hopelessly enslaved millions, all over the continent, when they reflect on the political part enacted by Great Britain on the fall of Napoleon. The following stanzas are powerful :

Alas! could She but fully, truly, know

How her great name is now throughout abhorred;

How eager all the earth is for the blow

Which shall lay bare her bosom to the sword;