men.

Their Bank, their traffic; their Exchange, their bart'ring :
To see their antique hats with formal beak;
Their broad-sleeved mantles, and their unbrimm'd bonnets:
It doth one good to mark their uncouth jabb'ring;
Their gravity; their port; their sage advice
On public questions ; yea, it doth one good
To see their senate balloting on each thing ;
In every port their gondolas afloat;
Their dames; their masquing, and their lonely living.
But the best sight of all is to behold
When these old wittols go to wed the sea,

Whose spouses they are, and the Turk her leman.. The 151st sonnet, To Courtiers, knew the relish better than Navais another that is remarkable for its gero. mixture of sprightliness, drollery, Auræ quæ levibus percurritis aëra pennis, and caustic humour. England came Et strepitis blando per nemora alta sono ; in for a large portion of his gall. At Serta dat hæc vobis, vobis hæc rusticus f. 189, is a poem called Execration

Idmon sur l'Angleterre; but in his Regrets Spargit odorato plena canistra croco. (sonnet 162) it appears that he had Vos lenite æstum, et paleas sejungite inanes, been softened towards this country. Dum medio fruges ventilat ille die.

Of his Voeux Rustiques, imitated This has been made a sonnet of from the Latin of Navagero, the by Lodovico Paterno; and a fine one following is no unfavourable specie it is:

Aure, 0 Aure! che'l ciel nudo e sereno D'un Vanneur de blé aux vents.

Cingete con le piume innamorate,
A vous trouppe legere,

E fra le selve dolce mormorate,
Qui d'aile passagere

Spargendo i sonni alle fresch 'ombre in
Par le monde volez,
Et d'un sifflant murmure

Queste ghirlande, e questo vaso pieno
L'ombrageuse verdure

D'amomo e croco, e questi d'odorate Doucement esbranlez,

Viole ampi canestri a voi sacrate
J'offre ces violettes,

Vi sparge Icon, che'l mezzo di vien
Ces lis et ses fleurettes,
Et ces roses icy

Voi l'arsura temprate omai che l'onde
Ces vermeillettes roses,

E l'aria e i campi d'ogn' intorno accende
Tout freschement éclauses,

E mostra le sue forze ad ogni parte : Et ces oeillets aussi.

Ei mentre a ventilar le biade attende,
De vostre douce haleine

E rocamente al suon Eco risponde,
Evantez ceste pleine,

Scacciate voi le paglie a parte a parte.
Evantez ce sejour :

Componimenti Lirici scelti da
Cependant que j'ahanne

T.J. Mathias, T. iii. p. 249.
A mon blé, que je vanne
A la chaleur du jour. F. 444.

I wish I had something worthier

to be put by the side of these, than The original is in the taste of the the attempt which is here offered to Greek érzypaupara, of which no one

Ye airs ! sweet airs, that through the naked sky

Fan your aurelian wings in wanton play ;
Or shedding quiet slumber, as ye fly,

'Mid the dim forest murmuring urge your way ;
To you these garlands, and this basket high

Pild up with lily-bells and roses gay,
And fragrant violets of purplest dye,

Icon, all fainting in the noontide ray,
Scatters, a votive offering to your power :

And O! as ye receive the balmy spoil,

Temper the inclement beam ; and while his fail
He plies unceasing through the sultry hour,

Hoarse Echo answering ever to his toil,
Dispel the parted chaff with brisker gale.

seno:

meno.

my reader.

But to return to Bellay. His epi- In his hymn De la Surdité, a whima taphs on a little dog, on & cat, and on sical encomium on Deafness, adthe Abbé Bonnet, are exquisitely dressed to his friend Ronsard, there droll and fantastic.

is some very striking imagery.
Je te salue O saincte et alme surdité,
Qui pour trone et palais de ta grand' majesté
T'es cavé bien avant sous une roche dure,
Un antre tapissé de mousse et de verdure ;
Faisant d'un fort hallier son effroyable tour,
Où les cheutes du Nil tempestent à l'entour.
Là se voit le silence assis à la main dextre,
Le doigt dessus la levre, assise à la senestre
Est la melancolie au sourcil enfonsé :
L'estude tenant l'oeil sur le livre abbaissé
Se sied un peu plus bas, l'Ame imaginative,
Les yeux levez au ciel, se tient contemplative
Debout devant ta face; et là dedans le rond
D'un grand miroir d'acier te fait voir jusqu'au fond
Tout ce qui est au ciel, sur la terre, et sous l'onde,
Et ce qui est caché sous la terre profonde;
Le grave Jugement dort dessus ton giron,

Et les Discours ailez volent a l'environ. (F. 501.)
Hail to thee, Deafness, boon and holy power,
Thou that hast scoop'd thee out an ample bower
Within a hard rock where thy throne is seen,
Hung round with tapestry of mossy green.
The stony tower, embattled, guards thy state,
And Nile's steep falls are thundering at the gate.
'There Silence on thy right hand still doth sit,
His finger on his lips; and in a fit
Of tranced sorrow, Melancholy lost,
Upon thy left, like a for-pined ghost.
A little lower, Study bends his look
For ever glew'd upon his wide-spread book.
Before thee, rapt Imagination stands,
With brow to heaven uplifted, while her hands
Present to thee a mirror of broad steel,
That in its depth all wonders doth reveal,
Of sky and air, and earth, and the wide ocean;
All things that are, whether in rest or motion.
Grave Judgment on thy lap, in sleep profound

Is laid; and winged words flit hovering round. His advice to the young king, the monitor in the courtier.-Of the Francis the Second, on his accession poems which Spenser translated from to the crown, is remarkable for its Bellay, the following Sonnet is renfreedom. The poets of those times dered with a fidelity that has not seem to have kept firm hold on one in the least injured its spirit. I have of the most valuable privileges of selected it as the best of those which their profession, and not to have sunk he has taken.

Sur la croppe d'un mont je vis une fabrique

De cent brasses de haut: cent colonnes d'un rond,
Toutes de diamans ornoyent brave front,

Et la facon de l'æuvre estoit à la Dorique,
La muraille n'estoit de marbre ni de brique,

Mais d'un luisant cristal, qui du sommet au fond,
Elançoit mile rais de son ventre profond,

Sur cent degrez dorez du plus fin or d’Afrique.
D'or estoit le lambris, et le sommet encor

Reluisoit escaillé de grandes lames d'or:

Le pavé fut de jaspe, et d'esmauraude fine.
O vanité du monde ! un soudain tremblement

Faisant crouler du mont la plus basse racine,
Renverse ce beau lieu depuis le fondement.

(Edit. Rouen, 1597, fo. 391.).

a

On high hill's top I saw a stately frame,

An hundred cubits high by just assize,
With hundred pillars fronting fair the same,

All wrought with diamond, after Dorick wise ;
Nor brick nor marble was the wall to view,

But shining crystal, which from top to base
Out of her womb a thousand rayons threw,

One hundred steps of Afric gold's enchase :
Gold was the parget; and the ceiling bright

Did shine all scaly, with great plates of gold ;
The floor of jasp and emerald was dight.

0! world's vainness! whiles thus I did behold,
An earthquake shook the hill from lowest seat,
And overthrew this frame with ruine great.

(The Visions of Bellay, 2.) Joachim du Bellay, descended from with that country, and yet how much one of the noblest families in Anjou, he learned from it. Another of his was born at Liré, a village eight miles family, Eustache du Bellay, Bishop from Angers, in the year 1624. The of Paris, obtained for him in 1555, å facility and sweetness with which he canonry in his church. He was carwrote gained him the appellation of ried off at an early age by a fit of the French Ovid. He was highly apoplexy, in January, 1560; and esteemed by Margaret of Valois, was buried in the church of Notre Queen of Navarre, and by Henry the Dame. Second, who granted him a consider- Many epitaphs were made for him, able pension. He passed some years in which he was called Pater Elea in Italy, whither he went in the suite gantiarum ; Pater Omnium Leporum. of his kinsman, Cardinal du Bellay. He wrote Latin Poems that are not We have seen how ill he was pleased so much esteemed as his French.

THE GREEN-ROOM.

THE LETTERS OF EDWARD HERBERT,

No. III.

To Russell Powell, Esq. My dear Russell,-It was my in- the skiey influences" in its colourtention to have addressed this letter but setting this aside, she is naturally to your sister ; but as I am appre- a kind-hearted and pleasant girl. I hensive that the subject of it would called one morning at the house of prove but uninteresting to her, and my friends, and was announced to as I know your passion for theatrical Prudence only (her sister and her matters, I shall devote this sheet to aunt being busied elsewhere)-she you, and write to her anon upon was sitting in state, over a little pinksome topic more pleasant and suit- lined and cotton-furnished box, and able to female' curiosity. You will playing at needle and thread with a find that my letters contain a sort of bit of muslin scarcely large enough narrative, broken into chapters as to have made a tippet for a fly ;-a the post requires, so that I need not volume of Southey's Roderick was * be wasting my time upon repeated open on one side of her work-box. prefaces. Having introduced you to She received me with a little momy friends, the Mortons, I have only mentary disappointment, as though now to relate whatever occurs, that she had hoped for some one of a may prove entertaining. And so I wider fame ; but her natural kindness proceed.

triumphed over her artificial manner, The stocking of Prudence Morton and in three minutes she laid aside is, as I have hinted, subject “to all her parody on work, pushed the little thread-closet towards the middle of after tea. The hours passed cheerthe table, descended from her blue fully-we made up à table-but throne of state, and began to con- without Prudence and Tom, as usual. verse with me unaffectedly and a- The first was finishing the Bride of musingly, though still with some- Lammermuir, with as many tears in thing of her customary flightiness. her eyes as I had trumps in my She did not load the great guns of hand ; and Tom was plaiting a whipher visiting and company powers, thong, and whistling a Yorkshire and destroy me with her elegant ve- tune out of time, and with many hemence,—but chatted like a girl in dreary pauses between. The thong a parlour, with ease, playfulness, and was tied to the chair-rail, and he spirit, and was content to discourse worked away like a saddler,-prewithout aiming at effects. On my tending at the same time to read asking her whether she had seen Mr. Fearne on Contingent Remainders, Kean (with whom she was intimate, which lay open (at the index) in his as I have before hinted, and of whose lap. Mrs. Morton revoked in the fame she was extremely chary), she first deal, which made us all serious, turned her chair towards me, and until I trumped the best club, and by said, “ Seen him! Yes! the clever my bad play restored the cheerful. creature! He kindly called the other ness of the table. Tom promised at morning to ask how we were, and we the door, as he let me out, to be with had a delightful theatrical conver- me in the morning after breakfast; sation. Not that I dislike Macready for Prudence had told him what I -but I never saw any picture so ex- wished—but he begged me at the pressive as the fine countenance of same time to give up “ that union of Kean, when he is addressing you on the black handkerchief and buff dramatic subjects. Don't you think waistcoat,” which he protested was so? But oh! true-you never saw quite gothic. him in a room-you should go to the Tom was with me at the stirring of Green-Room with Tom, for he has the my second cup of cocoa, and burst entré at all the houses~I wonder into my room as though he “ would why they call it a Green-Room-for have told me half my Troy was Tom says it is not green.” This hint burnt.” I poured him out a cup of of the Green-Room was enough for my patent beverage, which he would me, and I picked it out of the tang- not taste, and pushed a chair toled threads of Prudence's discourse, wards him, which he as carelessly and made use of it. I found that kicked away. All breakfast-time he Tom, in the leisure of his industrious was fretting me, and strutting his idleness, passed many an hour at the hour, about my best Brussels cartheatres, and that his acquaintance pet, with his muddy buskin. Speeches with the performers secured him free from various plays were mouthed by ingress and egress at all seasonable him in a most tragic fury, and he times, as the leases specify, to and turned to me at the conclusion of from the theatrical “premises. I each separate passage, with a rem begged Prudence to arrange for my quest that I would tell him “ where accompanying Tom some morning or that was ;". I guessed awry, and so evening, which she cheerfully under- pestered him. He raved about as took to do. And, indeed, so earnest Octavian ; and I arose, intreating was she on this subject, that she pro- him to sit down; when he imme mised, if possible, to pack up her diately saddened into Jaffier, and brother, and send him to me at the threw himself on my Belvidera neck breakfast hour on the following morn- with all his weight. I had scarcely. ing: At this moment, Mrs. Morton set him upright, and relieved myself and Agnes came in from a walk, and from the oppressive pathos of this our conversation became general. I embrace, when he fenced at me with sat chatting upon pleasant little scan- his fingers, and put in some mortal dals, until within half an hour of din- thrusts about the region of my waistner; and then Mr. Morton, who had coat pocket. I half offended him by returned from the City, true as the expressing doubts of his grace at this dial, would have me stay the day, as amusement—when he doubled up his he had an inclination to try a rubber affronted fingers, started into another Vol. V.

T

a

attitude, and, with a quickness which Sackville-street; for there, as he aga
I could not counteract, snatched a sured me, was a portrait of old Few-
smart hit upon my chest bone, that terel worth looking at; and there, sure
staggered me up against my own enough, was an awkward sprawling
breakfast table, convulsed the whole animal, painted as formidably as war-
family of the tea-things, and made like man could desire. As we eager-
my milk-jug shed some natural tears. ly trod the pavement, Tom assuring
My awkwardness, and abrupt flight me that the rehearsal must have be-
from the visitation of his knuckles, gun some time back, I made in-
perfectly restored his good humour quiries of him as to his power, and
and his confidence--and he relapsed the propriety, of introducing me,
into a theatrical conversation. « I'll which he begged me to be perfectly
tell you what, Edward, you bury easy about, muttering something a-
yourself here in this gothic spot, bout settling any door-keeper. We
without having a notion of life-why were soon at the stage door of Co-
an Abbey statue has ten times the vent Garden theatre.
nous about him, not barring Sir The porter permitted him to pass ;
Cloudesley Shovel. If, instead of and as he had firm hold of my arm,
sitting here in your poor's box, (I hate I was suffered to pass also, though I
the Albany--it's so like a genteel own I looked upon myself as an ime
King's Bench !) with as little to do as pertinent intruder, and could have
a money-taker after a charity sermon, been pleased to escape from the
you were to doff that morning gown, suspicious gaze of passing actors,
and accompany me to a rehearsal of actresses, musicians, servants, and

-'s play; I would engage you the long living et cetera of a playwill say to me, Tom Morton, I thank house. One tall serious gentleman, you for breaking my monumental ex- in a well-shaped, but aged and napistence, and will hereafter follow less hat, and in a coat that had eviwherever you shall choose to lead. dently not been made without seams, Why you are like the man in the passed me with a proud tragedy step Arabian Nights, with a marble moi- and an inquiring stare, that made me ety.” And with this my young gen- quail within myself, and feel as if I tleman ran lightly through the figure was about to play Tom Thumb, to of a quadrille-dos-à-dos-ing it with his Lord Grizzle. Another, a young an arm chair, and concluding with a lady, gaily pelissed, nodded familiarly harlequin-roll of his head in its loose to Tom, and looked curiously at me, socket, and with a “Well, Edward, taking me, as I conceived, for some what

My dear fellow," unwarrantable personage that had no said I, “ if you will introduce me to business in that part of the house. the real interior of a London theatre, Some viewed me with wonder, others nothing will give me greater plea- with disregard, or so I read their sure, and I will be out of my shell in looks, as they passed to and fro on two seconds; you know that I am the stone staircase that led from anxious to see all the lions—and the entrance to the stage. But in surely one of them must be kept be- spite of my feelings, Tom dragged hind the scenes of a metropolitan me on to the boards, as they are theatre.” Tom, with no allowance termed, which I now trod for the for metaphor, only informed me that first time in my life, and not much Kean once kept one, but that it was to my satisfaction, as I determined since dead! I rang my bell; my table it. The first act of Tom's ascension was immediately cleared, and in a to this Covent Garden throne, was to few minutes I was fitted with bright confer with Mr.

one of the boots, like Dan in John Bull, to ac- great tragedians of that magnificent company my heedless guide on his theatre, and arrange for my seeing proposed walk. He dragged me into the house, as it is termed. This genPiccadilly, at as rapid a rate as tleman, in a true Coriolanus key, orthough we were going off by the dered forth one of the red coat men, as Bath mail, and heard the carts horn- he called them, and gave him direcing their way up to the White Horse tions to escort me on the view. We Cellar; but he did not so hastily accordingly began our voyage of dispass the print-shop at the corner of covery-the servant preceding us

say you?” “