army, and sought eagerly to gather tokens of its defeat. He heard of the revolt of Genoa with emotions of transport. His whole heart and soul were in the triumph of their cause. We were living at Pisa at that time; and several well-informed Italians, at the head of whom we may place the celebrated Vaccá, were accustomed to seek for sympathy in their hopes from Shelley: they did not find such for the despair they too generally experienced, founded on contempt for their southern

countrymen.

While the fate of the progress of the Austrian armies then invading Naples was yet in suspense, the news of another revolution filled him with exultation. We had formed the acquaintance at Pisa of several Constantinopolitan Greeks, of the family of Prince Caradja, formerly Hospodar of Wallachia, who, hearing that the bowstring, the accustomed finale of his viceroyalty, was on the road to him, escaped with his treasures, and took up his abode in Tuscany. Among these was the gentleman to whom the drama of Hellas is dedicated. Prince Mavrocordato was warmed by those aspirations for the independence of his country, which filled the hearts of many of his countrymen. He often intimated the possibility of an insurrection in Greece; but we had no idea of its being so near at hand, when, on the 1st of April, 1821, he called on Shelley; bringing the proclamation of his cousin Prince Ipsilanti, and, radiant with exultation and delight, declared that henceforth Greece would be free.

Shelley had hymned the dawn of liberty in Spain and Naples, in two odes, dictated by the warmest enthusiasm ;-he felt himself naturally impelled to decorate with poetry the uprise of the descendants of that people, whose works he regarded with deep admiration; and to adopt the vaticinatory character in prophesying their success. "Hellas"

was written in a moment of enthusiasm. It is curious to remark how well he overcomes the difficulty of forming a drama out of such scant materials. His prophecies, indeed, came true in

their general, not their particular purport. He
did not foresee the death of Lord Londonderry,
which was to be the epoch of a change in English
politics, particularly as regarded foreign affairs;
nor that the navy of his country would fight for ¦
instead of against the Greeks; and by the battle
of Navarino secure their enfranchisement from
the Turks. Almost against reason, as it appeared
to him, he resolved to believe that Greece would
prove triumphant ; and in this spirit, auguring |
ultimate good, yet grieving over the vicissitudes to
be endured in the interval, he composed his drama.
The chronological order to be observed in the
arrangement of the remaining poems, is inter-
rupted here, that his dramas may follow each
other consecutively. "Hellas" was among the
last of his compositions, and is among the most
beautiful. The choruses are singularly ima- !
ginative, and melodious in their versification.
There are some stanzas that beautifully exemplify
Shelley's peculiar style; as, for instance, the
assertion of the intellectual empire which must be
for ever the inheritance of the country of Homer,
Sophocles, and Plato :

But Greece and her foundations are
Built below the tide of war;
Based on the crystalline sea
Of thought and its eternity.

And again, that philosophical truth, felicitously imaged forth

Revenge and wrong bring forth their kind,
The foul cubs like their parents are;
Their den is in the guilty mind,

And conscience feeds them with despair.

The conclusion of the last chorus is among the most beautiful of his lyrics; the imagery is distinct and majestic; the prophecy, such as poets love to dwell upon, the regeneration of mankind— and that regeneration reflecting back splendour on the foregone time, from which it inherits so much of intellectual wealth, and memory of past virtuous deeds, as must render the possession of happiness and peace of tenfold value.

THIS Tragedy is one of a triad, or system of three Plays, (an arrangement according to which the Greeks were accustomed to connect their Dramatic representations,) elucidating the wonderful and appalling fortunes of the SWELLFOOT dynasty. It was evidently written by some learned Theban, and from its characteristic dulness, apparently before the duties on the importation of Attic salt had been repealed by the Bootarchs. The tenderness with which he beats the PIGS proves him to have been a sus Baotic; possibly Epicuri de grege porcus; for, as the poet observes,

"A fellow feeling makes us wond'rous kind."

No liberty has been taken with the translation of this remarkable piece of antiquity, except the suppressing a seditious and blasphemous chorus of the Pigs and Bulls at the last act. The word Hoydipouse, (or more properly Edipus,) has been rendered literally SWELLFOOT, without its having been conceived necessary to determine whether a swelling of the hind or the fore feet of the Swinish Monarch is particularly indicated.

Should the remaining portions of this Tragedy be found, entitled, "Swellfoot in Angaria," and "Charité," the Translator might be tempted to give them to the reading Public.

SCENE I.

A magnificent Temple, built of thigh-bones and death'sheads, and tiled with sealps. Over the Allar the statue of Famine, veiled; a number of boars, sows, and suckingpigs, crowned with thistle, shamrock, and oak, sitting on the steps, and clinging round the Altar of the Temple. Enter SWELLFOOT, in his royal robes, without perceiving the Pigs.

SWELLFOOT.

THOU Supreme Goddess! by whose power divine
These graceful limbs are clothed in proud array
[He contemplates himself with satisfaction.

Of gold and purple, and this kingly paunch
Swells like a sail before a favouring breeze,
And these most sacred nether promontories
Lie satisfied with layers of fat; and these
Boeotian cheeks, like Egypt's pyramid,
(Nor with less toil were their foundations laid,*)
Sustain the cone of my untroubled brain,
That point, the emblem of a pointless nothing!
Thou to whom Kings and laurelled Emperors,
Radical-butchers, Paper-money-millers,
Bishops and deacons, and the entire army
Of those fat martyrs to the persecution
Of stifling turtle-soup, and brandy-devils,
Offer their secret vows! Thou plenteous Ceres
Of their Eleusis, hail!

What! ye who grub With filthy snouts my red potatoes up In Allan's rushy bog? Who eat the oats Up, from my cavalry in the Hebrides? Who swill the hog-wash soup my cooks digest From bones, and rags, and scraps of shoe-leather, Which should be given to cleaner Pigs than you?

*See Universal History for an account of the number of people who died, and the immense consumption of garlic by the wretched Egyptians, who made a sepulchre for the name as well as the bodies of their tyrants.

THE SWINE.

SEMICHORUS I.

The same, alas ! the same; Though only now the name Of pig remains to me.

SEMICHORUS II.

If 'twere your kingly will
Us wretched swine to kill,

What should we yield to thee?

SWELLFOOT.

Why skin and bones, and some few hairs for mortar.

CHORUS OF SWINE.

I have heard your Laureate sing,

That pity was a royal thing;

Under your mighty ancestors, we pigs

Were bless'd as nightingales on myrtle sprigs,

Or grasshoppers that live on noon-day dew,

And sung, old annals tell, as sweetly too:
But now our sties are fallen in, we catch
The murrain and the mange, the scab and itch;
Sometimes your royal dogs tear down our thatch,
And then we seek the shelter of a ditch;
Hog-wash or grains, or ruta-baga, none
Has yet been ours since your reign begun.

FIRST SOW.

My pigs, 'tis in vain to tug!

SECOND SOW.

I could almost eat my litter!

FIRST PIG.

I suck, but no milk will come from the dug.

SECOND PIG.

Our skin and our bones would be bitter.

THE BOARS.

We fight for this rag of greasy rug, Though a trough of wash would be fitter.

SEMICHORUS.

Happier swine were they than we,
Drowned in the Gadarean sea-

I wish that pity would drive out the devils
Which in your royal bosom hold their revels,
And sink us in the waves of your compassion!
Alas! the Pigs are an unhappy nation!
Now if your Majesty would have our bristles

To bind your mortar with, or fill our colons
With rich blood, or make brawn out of our gristles,
In policy-ask else your royal Solons-
You ought to give us hog-wash and clean straw,
And sties well thatched; besides, it is the law!

SWELLFOOT.

This is sedition, and rank blasphemy! Ho! there, my guards!

Enter a GUARD.

GUARD.

Your sacred Majesty ?

SWELLFOOT.

Call in the Jews, Solomon the court porkman, Moses the sow-gelder, and Zephaniah the hog

butcher.

GUARD.

They are in waiting, sire.

Enter SOLOMON, MOSES, and ZEPHANIAH.

SWELLFOOT.

Out with your knife, old Moses, and spay those sows,

[The Pigs run about in consternation.

PURGANAX.

Oh, would that this were all! The oracle!

MAMMON.

Why it was I who spoke that oracle,
And whether I was dead drunk or inspired,
I cannot well remember; nor, in truth,
The oracle itself!

PURGANAX.

The words went thus :-"Boeotia, choose reform or civil war !

Nor prostitution, nor our own example,
Starvation, typhus-fever, war, nor prison-

This was the art which the arch-priest of Famine
Hinted at in his charge to the Theban clergy-
Cut close and deep, good Moses.

MOSES.

Keep the boars quiet, else—

SWELLFOOT.

dogs,

A Consort Queen shall hunt a King with hogs, Riding on the Ionian Minotaur."

MAMMON.

Kill them out of the way, That shall be price enough, and let me hear Their everlasting grunts and whines no more! [Exeunt, driving in the Swine.

Enter MAMMON, the Arch Priest; and PURGANAX, Chief of
the Council of Wizards.
PURGANAX.

The future looks as black as death, a cloud,
Dark as the frown of Hell, hangs over it—
The troops grow mutinous-the revenue fails-
There's something rotten in us--for the level
Of the State slopes, its very bases topple ;
The boldest turn their backs upon themselves!

MAMMON.

Why what's the matter, my dear fellow, now?
Do the troops mutiny decimate some regiments;
Does money fail?-come to my mint-coin paper,
Till gold be at a discount, and, ashamed
To show his bilious face, go purge himself,
In emulation of her vestal whiteness.

Yet our tickets Are seldom blanks. But what steps have you taken? For prophecies, when once they get abroad, Like liars who tell the truth to serve their ends, Or hypocrites, who, from assuming virtue, Do the same actions that the virtuous do, Contrive their own fulfilment. This IonaWell-you know what the chaste Pasiphae did, Wife to that most religious King of Crete, And still how popular the tale is here ;

And these dull swine of Thebes boast their descent
From the free Minotaur. You know they still
Call themselves bulls, though thus degenerate;
And everything relating to a bull

Is popular and respectable in Thebes :
Their arms are seven bulls in a field gules.
They think their strength consists in eating beef,-
Now there were danger in the precedent
If Queen Iona-

PURGANAX,

I have taken good care
That shall not be. I struck the crust o' the earth
With this enchanted rod, and Hell lay bare!
And from a cavern full of ugly shapes,

I chose a LEECH, a GADFLY, and a RAT.
The gadfly was the same which Juno sent
To agitate Io,* and which Ezechielt mentions
That the Lord whistled for out of the mountains
Of utmost Ethiopia, to torment
Mesopotamian Babylon. The beast

*The Prometheus Bound of Eschylus.

And the Lord whistled for the gadfly out of Ethiopia, and for the bee out of Egypt, &c.-EZECHIEL.

Has a loud trumpet like the Scarabee;
His crooked tail is barbed with many stings,
Each able to make a thousand wounds, and each
Immedicable; from his convex eyes

He sees fair things in many hideous shapes,
And trumpets all his falsehood to the world.
Like other beetles he is fed on dung-
He has eleven feet with which he crawls,
Trailing a blistering slime; and this foul beast
Has tracked Iona from the Theban limits,
From isle to isle, from city unto city,
Urging her flight from the far Chersonese
To fabulous Solyma, and the Etnean Isle,
Ortygia, Melite, and Calypso's Rock,
And the swart tribes of Garamant and Fez,
Æolia and Elysium, and thy shores,
Parthenope, which now, alas! are free!
And through the fortunate Saturnian land,
Into the darkness of the West.

A high connexion, Purganax. The bridegroom
Is of a very ancient family

Of Hounslow Heath, Tyburn, and the New Drop,
And has great influence in both Houses ;-Oh!
He makes the fondest husband; nay too fond :-
New-married people should not kiss in public;—
But the poor souls love one another so!
And then my little grandchildren, the Gibbets,
Promising children as you ever saw,—
The young playing at hanging, the elder learning
How to hold radicals. They are well taught too,
For every Gibbet says its catechism,
And reads a select chapter in the Bible
Before it goes to play.

[A most tremendous humming is heard.

PURGANAX.

Ha! what do I hear?

Enter GADFly.

ΜΑΜΜΟΝ.

Your Gadfly, as it seems, is tired of gadding.

GADFLY.

Hum! hum! hum!

From the lakes of the Alps, and the cold grey scalps
Of the mountains, I come!
Hum! hum! hum!

From Morocco and Fez, and the high palaces
Of golden Byzantium;

From the temples divine of old Palestine,
From Athens and Rome,

With a ha! and a hum!

I come! I come!

All inn-doors and windows
Were open to me !

I saw all that sin does,

Which lamps hardly see

That burn in the night by the curtained bed,—

The impudent lamps! for they blushed not red. Dinging and singing,

From slumber I rung her,

Loud as the clank of an ironmonger!

Hum! hum! hum!

Far, far, far,

With the trump of my lips, and the sting at my hips,

I drove her-afar!

Far, far, far,

From city to city, abandoned of pity,

A ship without needle or star;—

Homeless she past, like a cloud on the blast,
Seeking peace, finding war ;-
She is here in her car,
From afar, and afar ;—
Hum! hum!

I have stung her and wrung her!
The venom is working ;—

And if you had hung her

With canting and quirking,

She could not be deader than she will be soon;

I have driven her close to you, under the moon. Night and day, hum! hum! ha!

I have hummed her and drummed her

From place to place, till at last I have dumbed her. Hum! hum! hum!