ten by himself without affixing his name to it. (This, by the way, is very unfashionable.) The poem is assuredly very much in Southey's manner; but it was difficult to conceive that he would lay himself so open to his enemy as to perpetrate an anonymous publication in the very teeth of a gratuitous avowal of his disdain of such concealment. It has since been reported that the poem was written by Mr. Rogers, who is said to have acknowledged it. The story of the two Foscari, which forms one of its episodes, is much more affecting than Lord Byron's tragedy on the same subject.

The specimens of the American poets, which have been announced, will be selected by Mr, Roscoe, son of the Biographer of the Medici family. It will be a curious thing to receive samples of foreign poetry, in the language in which they were originally written, and that language our own mother tongue. Little is known here of American poetry, except the epic of Mr. Jo

el Barlow, which was pretty bad.-Should the book contain any thing in verse as interesting by virtue of its na tionality, (for, perhaps, after all, this is the chief source of whatever is valuable and lasting in literature), as the novels of Charles Brockden Brown, it will be a capital introduction to our knowledge of the genius of the United States. Washington Irving has grafted himself (style, feelings, allusions, every thing) on our literature, properly so called, and has become merely one of a crowd of good English writers. Brown, it must be admitted, followed the manner of Godwin a little too slavishly, but in all else he is purely American; and this it is which makes him stand out with so bold and single a prominence. It is to be hoped that Mr. Roscoe will give us, among the rest, a specimen or two of the more recent poetry of Mr. Alston, the painter, for surely his muse cannot have been idle since his return to America. His sonnet on Rembrandt was first-rate.

THERE is in fact nothing very philosophical in the supposed notions of animals in a state of nature being ever deteriorated by that same climate in which, and for which they were produced. The various climates of the earth, and the various tribes of animals which live under their influence, are reciprocally fitted for each other; and it is only by confusedly combining the qualities of an animal formed for one country, with those of another formed for a totally different one, that the idea of deterioration can arise in the mind. The same observation may be equally applied to the numerous varieties or races of each kind.

The Laplander is not a deteriorated Asiatic of the Mongolian or Caucasian line, any more than the Georgian or Circassian is a highly refined Laplander; neither is the Shetland pony a deteriorated Arabian courser, any more than the steed of Araby is a thoroughbred Shelty. From whatever country

or parent stock all, or any of these animals, human or brute, may have oirgiinally sprung, each has long since been enabled, by a wise provision of nature, to assimilate its attributes to the qualities of the climate, in which it was destined to live, move, and have its being. Had it been incompetent to effect or undergo such assimilation, it would then indeed have deteriorated; that is to say, it would have died. But creatures of all kinds, whether irrational or intellectual, prefer the other alternative, notwithstanding its being attended with some occasional inconveniences. we admire the slim smooth elegance of the Italian greyhound, and regard the rough shaggy coat of the dog of Nova Zembla, as a deterioration, let us remember that that which is the delight of the one, would be the death of the other; and what would then become of that forlorn agriculturist, whose business it is to drill the ice, and to furrow the snow? The small stature and peculiar

If

the curry-comb-despising hide and short limbs of the afore-mentioned Shelty, would have been as little fitted to sustain the fiery breath or shifting sands of an eastern desert, as an inhabitant of Arabia, with his more stately steed, the cold and cloudy clime, and the rugged and precipitous mountains of Lapland and Thule. Therefore, each exists in the best and most improved state, according to the nature of its particular calling, and is not deteriorated.

A similar observation is also applicable to many of the tastes and propensities of the human mind and body, which are too often regarded by us as the results of grossness or refinement, in proportion as they remove from or approach towards that ideal standard of perfection, which sometimes natural, but more frequently artificial circumhave erected as our criterion of judgment. Your Esquimaux, when he swallows a bit of polar bear's fat dipt in whale oil, is as much a man of taste

taper-limbed Frenchman or Italian when he titivates a stewed ortolan, reposing in the purer juice of the olive. Nor is it a whit more rational for the one to abhor what he regards as the foul feeding of the other, than it would be for that other to despise the overrefinement of his more luxurious fellowcreature. The olive and the ortolan neither flourish nor flit among the snows of Greenland, nor does the polar bear ramble among the cypress groves, or the northern whale flounder along the balmy shores of the " Saturnia Tellus." But where to find that happiest spot below, Who can direct, when all pretend to know? The shuddering tenant of the frigid zone Boldly proclaims that happiest spot his own; Extols the treasures of his stormy seas, The naked negro, panting at the line, And his long night of revelry and ease. Boasts of his golden sands, and palmy wine, Basks in the glare, or stems the tepid wave, And thanks his gods for all the good they gave.*

*Goldsmith's Traveller.

IT is a remarkable fact, that the two most important changes in the history of the country have been partly accomplished by OLD BALLADS. At the battle of Hastings, the Normans commenced the onset, singing the song of Roland, a famous peer of Charlemagne; and the great revolution of 1688 was partly effected by the wellknown song of Lillibulero, made on the appointment of Talbot to the lieutenancy of Ireland. The song of Roland is lost,but we still have Lillibulero. -This miserable doggrel, we are told, had a more powerful effect than either the orations of Cicero or Demosthenes: the impression it made, according to Burnet, can only be imagined by those who saw it; the whole army, and at last, the people, both in city and country, were singing it perpetually.'

"What mighty conquests rise from trivial things," is proverbial, but the power and fascination of the old metrical romance, ap

pears, at first view, inexplicable. “I never heard," says Sir Philip Sydney, "the old song of Percie and Douglas, that I found not my heart moved more than with a trumpet ;" and Ben Jonson used to say he had rather have been the author of that fine old ballad than all his works. Addison, who had seen only a later version of Chevy Chase of the time of Elizabeth, has compared the fine passages with the best parts of Virgil; and it must be allowed, if poetical excellence consists in the power to yield pleasure to the greatest number of individuals, that the Chevy Chase of the English bard is superior to the Enied of the Roman poet.

If, in fact, we examine the materiel of the ancient ballads, we shall cease to wonder at the admiration they have excited. They contain the soul of true poetry. There is in them all that can move the heart, delight the imagination, or chain the attention. Scenes of love and tenderness-the adventures of chì

valry-the frolics of kings and tinkers -of robbers, gypsies, and friars, form their subjects; and these narrated in a style of unaffected simplicity, and with a vigour and sincerity of feeling, that give the impress of reality to the creatures of the imagination. That such themes, so treated, should interest, is far from wonderful. The sources on which they draw for admiration are universal, and will find a mirror in every bosom: they appeal to nature-to our passions-our love-hatred and curiosity-and that any numerous class should be insensible to such appeals, would be more surprising than that their dominion is universal. Add to this, the old ballad derives some advantage even from rudeness and antiquity; the novelty of an obsolete language, and the glimpse of ancient manners, conducing in part to their general attractions. Besides, they rarely contain any wire-drawn poem, or complicated plot: the old songs, it is true, are of the nature of epics, with a beginning, a middle, and an end; but the plot generally turns on a simple incident, comprised in a few stanzas, apparently struck out at a heat, and starting with a vigour and impetuosity that inclines the reader to sing them after the minstrel fashion, rather than recite them like ordinary verse. Their grossieretés are the fault of all early writing, and as long as the staple commodity is good to demur on account of indelicacies of language, would be like shunning a person, otherwise unexceptionable, on account of his clothes. No doubt, any modern imitation of these defects would be disgusting enough, inasmuch as we should not expect from an educated person the behaviour of a clown; but in the old bards, their freedom and simplicity augment their value, by cloathing them with the venerable hoar of antiquity, which, like the crust on good old port, attests their age and genuineness.

We will now give a few specimens of the Old English Ballads; they are a fruitful mine, from which later poets have drawn the rude materials of their finest poetry, and polished it into gems of the purest ray. Even the Great Dramatist has been largely indebted to the old bards;-the plot of the "Mer

chant of Venice" is evidently taken from the ancient ballad, entitled "A new Song, shewing the crueltie of Gernutus, a Jewe, who lending to a merchant one hundred crownes, would have a pound of his fleshe, because he could not pay him at the time appointed. To the tune of Black and Yellow.''

The sequel of Gernutus's story corresponds exactly with the remorseless Shylock.

The bloudie Jew now ready is

With whetted blade in hand,
To spoyle the bloud of innocent,
By forfeit of his bond.

And as he was about to strike

In him the deadly blow:
Stay, quoth the judge, thy crueltie ;
I charge thee so to do;

Sith needs thou wilt thy forfeit have,
Which is of flesh a pound :

See that thou shed no drop of bloud,

Nor yet the man confound.
For if thou doe like murderer,

Thou here shalt hanged be:
Likewise of flesh see that thou cut
No more than longes to thee.
For if thou take either more or lesse,
To the value of a mite,
Thou shalt be hanged presently,

As is both law and right.

The rest is well known.

"The Passionate Shepherd to his Love" is a beautiful old sonnet quoted in the Merry Wives of Windsor, and erroneously ascribed to Shakspeare. The real author was Christopher Marlow, a dramatic writer of some repute, who lost his life by a stab received in a brothel, before the year 1593. Walter Raleigh wrote the Nymph's Reply to the Passionate Shepherd," but we can only insert a part of the latter, which has been frequently imitated:

Sir

Live with me, and be my love,
And we wil all the pleasures prove
That hils and valies, dale and field,
And all the craggy mountains yield.
There will we sit upon the rocks,
And see the shepherds feed their flocks,
By shallow rivers, to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.
Then will I make thee beds of roses
With a thousand fragrant posies,
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle,
Imbrodered all with leaves of mirtle.
A belt of straw, and ivie buds,
With coral clasps and amber studs ;
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Then live with me, and be my love.

The sweet little sonnet which follows has also been ascribed to Shakspeare with as little authority; the first stanza is found in " Measure for Measure," and both are preserved in Beaumont and Fletcher's Bloody Brother."

Take, oh take those lips away,

That so sweetlye were forsworne,
And those eyes, the breake of day,
Lightes that do misleade the morn:
But my kisses bringe againe,
Seales of love, but seal'd in vaine.

Hide, oh hide those hils of snowe,

Which thy frozen bosom beares,
On whose tops the pinkes that growe,
Are of those that April wears :
But first set my poor heart free,
Bound in these icy chaines by thee.

What follows is of a different character, and was intended by the poet laureate of the day to celebrate the glories of Agincourt. The homeliness of this laureate effusion would incline one to think that something has appended to this office at all times, to depress the holders below their cotemporaries in every thing except maudlin piety and courtly adulation. We give the first stanza of this carmen triumphale as a curiosity :

Our kynge went forth to Normandy,
With grace and myzt of chivalry;
The God for him wrouzt marvelously,
Wherefore Englande may calle and cry,
Deo gratias, &c.

The humorous and lively description of the "Dragon of Wantley," a rapacious overgrown attorney, shows the vigorous strokes with which the balladmakers struck out their characters:

This Dragon had two furious wings,

Each one upon each shoulder; With a sting in his tayl as long as a flayl,

Which made him bolder and bolder.

He had long claws, and in his jaws
Four and forty teeth of iron;
With a hide as tough as any buff,
Which did him round environ.

But it is in scenes of tenderness the beauties of the Ballad shine most bewitchingly. The "Childe (a name formerly given to knights) of Elle," is particularly admired for its affecting simplicity. We can conceive nothing more touching and dignified than the following:

The Baron he stroakt his dark-brown cheek,
To whipe away the starting teare
And turnde his head asyde

He proudly strove to hide.

In deepe revolving thought he stood
And musde a little space;

Then raisde faire Emmeline from the ground,

With many fond embrace.

"The Nut-Browne Mayd," forms the ground-work of Prior's "Henry and Emma," and though thickly covered with the rust of antiquity--being at least three hundred years old-is justly admired for sentimental beauties. We give the introductory stanza:

Be it ryght, or wrong, these men among,
On women do complayne,

A Hyrmyge this, how that it is
A labour spent in vayne,
To love them well; for never a dele
They love a mon agayne:
For late a man do what he can,
Yet yf a newe do them pursue,
Theyr favour to attayne,

Theyr fyrst true lover then
Laboureth for nought; for from her thought
He is a banyshed man.

The elegant little sonnet of "Cupid and Campaspe," though not so old as the last is a real bijou. It is found in the third act of an old play, entitled "Alexander and Campaspe," written by John Lilye, a celebrated writer of that prolific age of true poetry, the Elizabethan :

Cupid and my Campaspe playd
At cards for kisses; Cupid payd :
He stakes his quiver, bow and arrows,
His mother's doves, and teame of sparrows,
Loses them too; then down he throws
The coral of his lippe, the rose,
Growing on's cheek (but none knows how)
With these the crystal of his browe,
And then the dimple of his chinne;
All these did my Campaspe winne.
At last he set her both his eyes,
She won, and Cupid blind did rise.
O Love! has she done this to thee?
What shall, alas! become of me!

The next, with which we shall conclude our selections, though too deeply tinged with affectation and refinement to be ranked among bardic beauties has too much merit to be omitted:

TO LUCASTA ON GOING TO THE WAR.
Tell me not, sweet, I am unkinde,
That from the nunnerie
Of thy chaste breast, and quiet minde
To warre and armes I flic.