least celestial of the company begins his tale; or rather to use the poet's own words: Sighing, as through the shadowy Past Like a tomb-searcher, Memory ran, Lifting each shroud that Time had cast O'er buried hopes, he thus began:-The angel relates that, ""Twas in a land, that far away into the golden orient lies"-he saw one of earth's fairest womankind, "shrined in a brook." It awed him to see her, moving "in light of her own making," as well it should:-But she was equally astonished at seeing him. The tremble of my wings all o'er (For through each plume I felt the thrill) Startled her, as she reach'd the shore Of that small lake-her mirror still- With face upturn'd-so still remain'd! The angel states that he put his head under his wing, to hide his burning glances;-and that when he would peep again, the maid was gone! He soon found he could not live without her-and, therefore, he was ever at her side. At length he opened to her his love:-She was struck down with sorrow, that her unearthly companion should be so earthly in his desires-and this leads to a very laboured comparison: That though but frail and human, she Should, like the half-bird of the sea, Try with her wing sublimer air, While I, a creature born up there, Should meet her, in my fall from light, From heaven and peace, and turn her flight Downward again, with me to drink Of the salt tide of sin, and sink! After this unfortunate discovery, the angel was on the point of flying, as his time was out; but he could not leave her. A feast" was on that day;" and the angel takes too much wine. This is the unvarnished truth of the passage; but the reader shall -see the varnished passage itself. Then, too, that juice of earth the bane Whose drops, like those of rainbows, smile Upon the mists that circle man, Bright'ning not only earth, the while, But grasping heaven, too, in their span !Then first the fatal wine-cup rain'd Its dews of darkness through my lips, Casting whate'er of light remain'd To my lost soul into eclipse, And filling it with such wild dreams, Such fantasies and wrong desires, As, in the absence of heaven's beams, Haunt us for ever-like wild-fires That walk this earth, when day retires. In this state he seeks his lady in the accustomed bower, and finds her star-gazing. The beauty of the scene awes him for a while-but his passion and the wine predominate, and he exclaims, the angel exclaimsOh, but to see that head recline A minute on this trembling arm, Of lips that are too fond to fear me: He protests that, on a refusal, he will utter the spell that will plume the wing for heaven. The maid is frightened-but she begs eagerly to hear the spell. And upon the angel uttering it, she echoes herself out of his arms to heaven. The angel watches her ascent, and endea vours to follow-but he has lost the power of flying, and has become no better than one of the fallen. And, as he assures his companions, from that time (to copy his own words)— I forgot my home, my birth, Profaned my spirit, sunk my brow, And revell'd in gross joys of earth Till I became what I am now! The story of the second spirit is longer, but no better. It opens with an account of the formation of woman in Paradise, and the call of the angels to behold her. The spirit immediately experiences the endless thirst of knowledge, and gives a very deavours to allay it. rhodomontade description of his en Oh what a vision were the stars, When first I saw them burn on high, Of light, for gods to journey by ! Of misery had I shunn'd below, Nor, proud and restless, burn'd to know What soul within their radiance dwelt, It was in dreams that first I stole With gentle mastery o'er her mind- When Reason's beam, half hid behind One night-'twas in a holy spot, Brightly pervading all the place- When God and man both claim'd her Every warm thought, that ever dwelt, Too pure to fall, too gross to rise, Was breath'd from her, I heard her say :The angel gives us reason to believe that the woman is a fallen angel also. At her intreaty, he opens to her all that is strange in Earth or Heaven. She grows rich in mysterious knowledge. At length, on one evening,-a fine evening, with about six and twenty lines of sunset, the spirit says, that the woman playfully laid her hand upon his head, related a dream, and begged to see him in all his glory. The angel, conceiving no danger, expands his wings, folds her to his breast, and literally burns her down! The following is the sacred poetry of the angel's description. Great God! how could thy vengeance light How could the hand, that gave such charms, So bitterly on one so bright? Blast them again, in love's own arms? Scarce had I touch'd her shrinking frame, When oh most horrible!-I felt That every spark of that pure flamePure, while among the stars I dwelt Was now by my transgression turn'd Burn'd all it touch'd, as fast as eye gross, earthly fire, which burn'd, Into Till there oh God, I still ask why Black'ning within my arms to ashes! The woman, however, before she dies of this rapid consumption, kisses him, and leaves a mark on the spirit's forehead, like that said to have burned on the brow of the wandering Jew. He and the two other angels kneel down and breathe Inwardly the voiceless prayer, The third story is a happy one,at least happy in its incidents. It is, however, miserably feeble and confused in its execution. We have neither room nor inclination to go through it:-we just learn that an angel is married, and "lives very happy ever after." Our readers, we should suppose, have by this time had quite enough of the Loves of the Angels. The chief materials, out of which the descriptions and the sublimities are wrought, are, stars and wings! Stars twinkle in every page nearly;and for the perfumery, trembling, flapping and folding of wings, let the reader turn to page 7, or 11, or 15, or 22, or 61, or 77, or almost any inter mediate page. At page 31, there is And when he smiled,-if o'er his face This likening of a thing, that most likely never existed, to something that no one can comprehend,-is whimsical enough. We met with a simile lately of the same kind in Mr. Beddoes's Brides' Tragedy: Like flowers' voices,--if they could but speak. We had set down several passages for selection, as specimens of Mr. Moore's peculiar style of expression, when he wishes to be thought most earnest and intense. But three will serve as well as a hundred for our readers. The first angel in a rhapsody of passion exclaims, as a windup of feeling, Throughout creation I but knew Two separate worlds-the one, that small The dull wide waste, where she was not. Again the same passionate gram- No matter where my wanderings were, This is Shenstone's "Heu quanto Angel the second says- Some?-Some what? These are not passages laboriously culled; we could, if we had room, fill several columns with such stuff,but really, we must take to other subjects. The poem is, in truth, not only badly conceived, but wretchedly written. And we are quite sure that if poor Lord Thurlow's muse had penned anything half so gross and dull, Mr. Moore would have hung her up in the Edinburgh Review, as a warning to all poetical murderers. THE MISCELLANY. We shall not trouble our readers with a regular introduction to our third number of the Miscellany. We have brought it into life, nursed it for a couple of months, and henceforward it must shift for itself, without any paternal preface. We are not unfeeling-we are not monsters-but we know when to wean our children, as well as when to humour them, Our Miscellany opens this month with a sonnet from a correspondent, (we thank him for it,) which is fit to shine through any Miscellany in the world. How gentle and soothing it is! How did the writer arrive at it?We suppose that "Silence was took ere she was ware." SONNET.-SILENCE. There is a silence where hath been no sound, Tom Hood Which hath been mute, and still must sleep profound; Of antique palaces, where Man hath been, T. MRS. SIDDONS'S' ABRIDGEMENT OF PARADISE LOST. Ir much repenteth us that we ever opened this book, for it painfully proves that Mrs. Siddons can do little things. As an actress she towered in our recollections far above her sex, and seemed to be rather some inspired Goddess of Tragedy, than a mere woman subject to the failings of her kind. Her name ever recalled to mind her magic powers, and you thought rather of Lady Macbeth, than of any one breathing the same air with you. This precious book once opened,-down goes her grandeur,-her awful image-like a Broken statue! The title page has, indeed, the wondrous name," Mrs. Siddons," but that name is preceded by the title of the book, and what a title!" The Story of our First Parents selected from Milton's Paradise Lost; for the Use of Young Per sons!" "Is it come to this? Has Mrs. Siddons come to this? Could Mrs. Siddons take poor Milton, and thus "first cut the head off, and then hack the limbs?" Could she thus snip up the sublime and beautiful into what Dr. Kitchener would call "thin slices?" Could she really condescend to become an authoress on the strength of an eighteen-penny copy of Paradise Lost, and a pair of scissors? Is Lady Macbeth sunk into the telling of stories about our first parents? Alas! Is Mrs. Siddons, in short, destined to be only "for the use of Young Persons ?" It is clear that there is something great in the name of Siddons, or Mr. Murray would not suffer his own to follow it on the title page, or to be connected with so miserable a selection as the present. But if anything were wanting, besides "the abstract," to tarnish the brightness of such a name, the Preface would amply complete the ruin. The Preface is truly written in a very feeble and maudlin style, and in the course of about a dozen sentences, it contrives to utter two or three foolish opinions, and two or three erring ones. It is, however, extre nely short, and as it is perhaps the only production this lady's pen will ever commit to the press, we shall insert it entire. The reader will make what he can of it. The following Abridgement of the Paradise Lost was made several years ago for the purpose of being read to my children. A taste for the sublime and beautiful is an approach to virtue; and I was naturally desirous that their minds should be inspired with an early admiration of Milton. The perfection of his immortal Poem is seldom appreciated by the young; and its perusal is, perhaps, very generally regarded been attributed by Dr. Johnson to the want rather as a duty than a pleasure. This has of human interest. In those passages, therefore, which I selected for our evening readings, my purpose was to obviate this objection, by bringing before my family, in uninterrupted connection, those parts which relate to the fate of our first parents; and by omitting every thing, however exquisite in its kind, which did not immediately bear upon their affecting and important story. Such was the origin of the Without wearying the present volume. young attention of my auditors, it was calculated to afford occupation and amusement for four evenings. Some friends lately suggested to me, that the Abstract, which had been found interesting and instructive to my own children, might not be wholly unprofitable to those of others; and, in that hope, I have been persuaded to the present publication. SARAH SIDDons. Sarah Siddons! Who is Sarah Siddons? Mercy on us, is this the Christian addition to the grand name of Siddons! With such a plain everyday name, we only wonder how she ever awed the town to weep at her. Isabella we could have borne. Constance, Katharine, Volumnia, would have been endurable. Belvidera we could have worshipped. Indeed we should have guessed her to be one of these:-but hard Sarah breaks our very hearts,-and, do what we will, we cannot get rid of the unchristian Christian cognomen; which, indeed, defaces the statue of Tragedy, so long raised in our minds. We grieve at it, as we should at reading, "Buy Warren's Blacking on the walls of the Parthenon. The friends who caused this book to be printed have much to answer for. "Oh for a good sound sleep, and so forget it!" The Story of our First Parents, selected from Milton's Paradise Lost: for the Use of Young Persons. By Mrs. Siddons. London, Murray, 1822. THOUGHTS ON SCULPTURE. 'There is something sublime in the pale repose of fine sculpture: cofour is as noise and motion.-Harlequin is motley and active-but a statue is a thing only of light and shade; and stillness and silence are its proper attributes, and the first inspiration of its presence. On entering the repository of the Elgin Marbles, the voice is instantly subdued to a whisper, and the foot is restrained in its tread; there is no occasion for the written request of the students to preserve silence-it will keep itself, the best peace-officer of the place. We seem to be, not among imitations, but petrifactions of life, and feel as if noise, or mirth, or ungentle motion, were an insult to their constrained quietness. The most impassioned, the most ruffled, are as mute as Niobe when she turned to stone: even that snorting horse, wild and fiery as he may once have been, distends only a breathless nostril to the air, and is fixed for ever. If he move not now, he will never move more, so much he has the look of fierce intent. Theseus sits too, as if he would never rise again; but in him you might fancy it merely the fault of his wills. This repose seems the proper mood of a statue. It should be pale in act, as pale in substance---either above or beneath all violence---too rock-like to be rudely acted on, or too delicate and aerial, too sylph-like for touch--too pure even (as it seems) to be stained by the light. I remember a female figure of this nature, which might have been a personification of Silence,--a marble metaphor of Peace. Alone, and still, and hushed, it stood in the dark of a long passage, like an embodied twilight,---not dead, but with such a breathless life as we conceive in a solemn midnight apparition ;---passionless, yet not incapa ble of passion, as if only there was no cause mighty enough in this world to disturb her divine rest. There she stood, with her blank eyes,* gazing no one knew whither---not asleep,---but as in one of those dreams which make up the life of gods, blissful, serene, and eternal--herself almost a dream, she seemed so pale, and shadowy, and unreal--as unreal as if only framed out of moonlight, or (what is quite possible) only the fanciful creation of my own theory. T. These blank eyes (wherein there is no indication of the pupil) are the true eyes in sculpture. They seem to hold no communion with your own, but to gaze, not on points, but on all space, like the eyes of gods, or of prophets looking into the future. ORIGINAL LETTER OF GENERAL WASHINGTON. The following is an authentic letter from Gen. Washington, to Doctor Cochran, Director-General of the American military hospitals during the revolutionary war. It is a playful and humorous invitation to dinner, and is curious enough, when we consider it as coming from the emancipator of a hemisphere. It cer tainly shows that the writer did not justly merit the reproach which has been sometimes cast on him of his possessing a cold and unsocial temper. West Point, August 16, 1779. Dear Doctor,-I have asked Mrs. Cochran and Mrs. Livingston to dine with me to-morrow; but ought I not to apprise them of their fare? As I hate deception even where imagination is concerned, I will. It is needless to premise that my table is large enough to hold the ladies of this they had ocular proof yesterday. To say how it is usually covered is rather more essential, and this shall be the purport of my letter. Since my arrival at this happy spot, we have had an ham, sometimes a shoulder of bacon to grace the head of the table-a piece of roast beef adorns the foot, and a small dish of greens or beans (almost imperceptible) decorates the centre. When the cook has a mind to cut a figure (and this, I presume, he will attempt to do to-morrow), we have two beef steak pies or dishes of crabs in addition, one on each side of the centre dish, dividing the space, and reducing the distance between dish and dish to about six feet, which, without them, would be nearly twelve apart Of late, he has |