is probable the persons represented really were, together with the greatest degree of popular effect to be produced by such a developement. I send you a translation of the Italian manuscript, on which my play is founded; the chief circumstance of which I have touched very delicately; for my principal doubt as to whether it would succeed, as an acting play, hangs entirely on the question as to whether any such a thing as incest in this shape, however treated, would be admitted on the stage. I think, however, it will form no objection, considering first, that the facts are matter of history, and secondly, the peculiar delicacy with which I have treated it."

There is more of this letter; but so much serves our purpose. The play having been sent to Mr. Harris, that gentleman pronounced the subject to be so objectionable, that he could not even submit the part to Miss O'Neil for perusal, but expressed his desire that the author would write a tragedy on some other subject which he would gladly accept. Now, that the play has been some time before the public, and is thoroughly understood, there is no reason why we should not witness Mr. Macready in the Count Cenci.

Another tragedy claims attention, "The Piromedes,”* the work of a polished and well-stored mind. It has no claims on the stage, but is designed as a dignified poem for the closet. Its style may be conjectured from the opening speech.

Piromis. "Yon star, the oldest prophet of the dawn,
Fulfils its task and quits a gloomy world:

Deep strikes the chill into the dusky morn,

As now she draws her twilight mantle round,

And hails yon streaks of feeble light which burst
The eastern sky and scatter roseate tints
Along the tract of day. And indistinct
This crowded pile of dome and column frowns,
As if lugubrious night still clung around
Enamoured of the grandeur. Dreadful fane,
Which hides so vast a portion of the heaven
Encentering grace in the surrounding æther:
And thou unsleeping Isis, still within,
Fixed in eternal presence, how my years
'Neath ye have glided into latest age!
Though it be pride in me to haunt thy shrine,
O grant this intellect may not decay;

O grant my prayer that I may breathe my last
Within thy sanctuary!"

The feeling of the piece throughout is sacerdotal; which portrays the decline and fall of the Egyptian priesthood. Thus Isis is in the first act implored in a fine chorus:

"Preserve the orders as of old,

The sacred priest, the warrior bold;
The sage who scans his mystic rolls;
The pilot who the bark controls;
Artificers of varied toil,

And herdsmen, dwellers on the soil."

• London: Saunders and Otley, Conduit-street, 1839.

The action of the drama partly consists of the trial of Horos, a sage, for heresy. The following is part of his defence

“ O thou proud priest, think of thy father-land,

Is it not lost? To think that it should be

In such an age as that which boasts thy name!
Thou who wast delegated from above

With ample power to stamp the nation's brow
With thy mind's aristocracy! Instead,
In barter for thy vile idolatry,

O, lucre-hearted serpent! wouldst thou strip

The poor man of his earnings! Through thy deeds

Is Egypt, from whose giant sons have sprung

The nations, in her moral growth cut off;

Her course of human ancestry is run;

The fountains of her unpolluted blood

Must be absorbed in the o'erwhelming flood
Tossed from barbaric shores."

At length foreign aggression puts an end at once to internal dissension and the hierarchical power, the empire being subdued beneath the sway of Cambyses king of the Persians. The populace also rebel against the priesthood, whereupon Piromis exclaims

"Do I hear?

The congregated passion, like a sea
By nature left to its unguided course
Is turbulent; the quantity of man
Against the god-like quality engaged.
The crude humanity, whence nature shapes
The rarer masterpiece, rebellious moves

Against the work which heaven was pleased to form

Of the brute number of the monstrous host,

O, if my time of reckoning be nigh,

May my long life from them be separate
For ever; may two kingdoms us divide.

To dwell with them for ever, dreadful scene,

Would brutalize this immortality.

Cambyses. Strange man! thy portion was to succour them. Piromis. Thou earth-born! look upon this haughty brow! I was not made for menial office,

Nor, tho' besought by hopeless misery,

To pander to the wants of the most low."

And, at last, while uttering his lofty gratitude to the Eternal, for the gift of superior reason, by which he was distinguished from the herd, "he falls destroyed beneath a column's weight." The writers of the Tracts for the Times might learn a lesson from this tragedy.

From the dramatic, we pass on to poetry in its narrative and lyric forms :

"Ignatia, and other Poems, by Mary Anne Browne, author of Mont Blanc; Ada, &c. &c.-London: Hamilton, Adams, & Co., Paternoster Row." The leading poem of this volume is beautiful, elegant, and pathetic. It is a tale of love, of marriage, of maternity, and desertion. Leodine is such a ballad as could only have been composed by a person of exquisite taste and talent. The tale of Helen Grey might have been

written by Wordsworth. The Husband's Story, also, is touching and delicate. The lyric pieces are correct and spirited; particularly the verses entitled The Border Land, and The Song of Dreams.

The transition is easy from productions like these, to the following: "Poetic Culture, an Appeal to those interested in Human Destiny. By J. Westland Marston, author of Poetry as an Universal Nature;" and "Self-Culture; an Address, introductory to the Franklin Lectures, delivered at Boston, September, 1838. By William E. Channing."Both these little works may be said to be on the saine subject; for the poetic is, in virtue of its egotism, self-culture. Our readers are acquainted with the notions of the first-named author, who esteems the poetic spîrit as a kind of divine Logos, universally partaken by the human being. According to him, Deity abides in all men; Deity is the life-foundation whereon the edifice of humanity is erected. By its revolution, genius is revealed in the soul, intellect is empowered to understand aright external nature, and purity manifested in the physical frame. "Genius," he exclaims, "is the voice of love, and God is love! intellect is the ray of light, and God is the ineffable sun whence it proceeds; purity is the crystal stream from the one unpolluted source-God is that source." "The one," he adds, "reveals himself in varied forms." He does not say that the same man will be at once the poet in literature, sculpture, painting, music, or any other shape, in which life loves to develope itself. But that, if an individual be once subjected to the action of superior power, through him must the divine inhabitant of necessity manifest himself in some lovely and accordant expression. Dr. Channing's address, in fact, takes up the subject on the same ground. "First," says he, "self-culture is moral-next, it is religious-thirdly, it is intellectual-fourthly, it is social—and, fifthly, it is practical." Channing all along proceeds on the principle, that a man has within, capacities of growth which deserve, and will reward, intense, unrelaxing toil. "I do not," he asserts, "look on a human being as a machine, made to be kept in action by a foreign force, to accomplish an unvarying succession of motions, to do a fixed amount of work, and then to fall to pieces at death; but as a being of free spiritual powers; and I place little value on any culture, but that which aims to bring out these, and to give them perpetual impulse and expansion. I am aware that this view is far from being universal. The common notion has been, that the mass of the people need no other culture than is necessary to fit them for their various trades; and though this error is passing away, it is far from being exploded. But the ground of a man's culture lies in his nature, not in his calling. His powers are to be unfolded on account of their inherent dignity, not their outward direction. He is to be educated, because he is a man, not because he is to make shoes, nails, or pins. A trade is plainly not the great end of his being, for his mind cannot be shut up in it; his force of thought cannot be exhausted on it. He has faculties to which it gives no action, and deep wants it cannot answer. Poems, and systems of theology and philosophy, which have made some noise in the world, have been wrought at the work-bench, and amidst the din of the field. How often, when the arms are mechanically plying a trade, does the mind, lost in reverie, or day-dreams, escape to the ends

of the earth! How often does the pious heart of woman mingle the greatest of all thoughts, that of God, with household drudgery! Undoubtedly a man is to perfect himself in his trade, for by it, he is to earn his bread, and to serve the community. But bread or subsistence is not the highest good; for if it were, his lot would be harder than that of the inferior animals, for whom Nature spreads a table and weaves a wardrobe, without a care of their own. Nor was he made chiefly to minister to the wants of the community. A rational moral being cannot, without infinite wrong, be converted into a mere instrument of others' gratification. He is necessarily an end, not a means. A mind, in which are sown the seeds of wisdom, disinterestedness, firmness of purpose, and piety, is worth more than all the outward material interests of a world. It exists for itself, for its own perfection, and must not be enslaved to its own or others' animal wants. You tell me, that a liberal culture is needed for men who are to fill high stations, but not for such as are doomed to vulgar labour. I answer, that Man is a greater name than President or King. Truth and goodness are equally precious, in whatever sphere they are found. Besides, men of all conditions, sustain, equally, the relations which give birth to the highest virtues, and demand the highest powers. The labourer is not a mere labourer: He has close, tender, and responsible connexions with God and his fellow-creatures: he is a son, father, friend, and christian. He belongs to a home, a church, a race. And is such a man to be cultivated only for a trade? Was he not sent into the world for a great work? To educate a child perfectly, requires profounder thought, greater wisdom than to govern a state; and for this plain reason, that the interests and wants of the latter are more superficial, coarser, and more obvious than the spiritual capacities, the growth of thought and feeling, and the subtile laws of the mind, which must all be studied and comprehended, before the work of education can be thoroughly performed; and yet, to all conditions, this greatest work on earth is equally committed by God. What plainer proof do we need that a higher culture than has yet been dreamed of, is needed by our whole race?"

On the all important subject of Education also, we find the following excellent pamphlet, "A Letter to George Birkbeck, Esq. M.D. President of the Mechanics Institution, &c. &c. on the Arts forming a basis of our National Education, and a means of employment to our increasing population, by Robert T. Stothard, F.S.A. elect. H. D. S.A." In going through these different works, we cannot but be sensible of exercising a sort of Protean character. Nay, are we not Proteus' self? Verily, an editor in his library, is, in the various changes to which his mind is brought, a demon or a god. But though we may libel ourselves, we have no right to libel Proteus. No! no! old horn-winder, thou art no demon, but a veritable god! God? True, those who have not comprehended the divine significance of thy name, have associated it with tergiversation, apostasy, and infidelity:-yet will it be recognised in its original and legitimate meaning, as indicative of the permanent ONE who represents himself in aspects multiform.

Within the deep bosom of the stately forest are soft cradles con

structed by the ornithological artificers. In each cradle are couched the rainbow dotted eggs. The sun shines not many days ere the vernal nativity is celebrated in the woods, and thousand musicians are added to the concert,-say, if you will to the orchestra of nature. There art thou Proteus,-spirit-metamorphoser! Who remembers not the careless lither lad, who with laughing eyes, was wont daily to emerge from the hut in the valley, and watch with joyous stealthiness by the clear trout-stream? Who remembers not his rod of willow, secured by a stone, uncouth, yet faithful? Canst thou not now see him in his rent pinafore, and his unfronted,-we will call it, his peakless cap? Yes! unto us all is his wraith or image visible. But he is dissolved; or rather, expanded into the ruddy coloured rustic, who pauseth nightly in his homeward path, to talk with no matter, his conversation profiteth him more than our loving readers. But why hath the boy thus spectrally evaporated, and whence cometh the man? Ask of Proteus !

Hush! let your step be noiseless, and your voice the echo of a whisper, and we will shew you a sight, sad, solemn, yet withal beautiful! Feel you not supernatural as you gaze on the massive curtains screening the still room from the cold gaze of night? Could you not fancy that a voice, grave but harmonious, spoke from the richly chased lamp on the table? Let us join the band which bend over the dying girl! Their looks-how anxious,-yet how sublimated in their anxiety! Eternity dwells in the grief-gaze we give to the departing Just. Saw you ever a countenance more exquisite in its pallid yet celestial expression? Fair creature! she is an incarnate appeal to the unearthly in man. She is a volume en-written by the Father of Spirits. Nay, she was so. She is a Spirit. Who wrought the change thrice hallowed? He to whom Mythology has ascribed the name Proteus, -who is life himself,-who calls death his ministrant !

Chide us not then, reader, for carrying out in our converse with thee, the Protean character.

By no finite bound, be it ever so orthodox or precedent-sanctioned, will we limit the flight of our soul:-we travel from Rome to America in an infinitesimal of time. The arrow that outspeeds the eagles is symbolic, nay, rather, suggestive of the wind-yoked chariot, wherein we circuit the universe.

Poet are we (being permitted to interpret as of old the word), maker or inventor. Take not then, in every case, our language au pied de la lettre. True, mentally, space is too narrow for us, and therefrom do we at times escape into the void of-what? Into the void of sensuous images and physical apparitions. The land of ideas, the country of

realities.

Thereto can we daily ascend; and chiefly. O! dear room! whereof the oaken panels are in many places concealed by the morrocco laden shelves,-chiefly from thy sanctuary, take we our mystic journeyings, sometimes beginning at night-fall and ending not until the time for matin mass. Well knoweth this, Jenny Browne, for our outward life, jealous carer, and kind, though wearisome.

In our oaken room are we now sitting. Brightly blazeth our fire. Disinclined are we at this moment to hold commune with a sombre