'Margarita.

Callias.

Or one by harsh and jarring fingers touch'd,
For that which all around distill'd a calm'
More sweet than slumber. Unfamiliar hands
Must strew his pillow, and his weary eyes
By unfamiliar hands be closed at length
For their long sleep.

Alas! alas! my father,
Why do they rend me from thee, for what crime?
I am a Christian: will a Christian's hands
With tardier zeal perform a daughter's duty?
A Christian's heart with colder fondness tend
An aged father? What forbids me still

To lead thy feeble steps, where the warm sun
Quickens thy chill and languid blood; or where
Some shadow soothes the noontide's burning heat;
To watch thy wants, to steal about thy chamber
With foot so light, as to invite the sleep
To shed its balm upon thy lids? Dear sir,
Our faith commands us even to love our foes-
Can it forbid to love a father?

'Prove it,

And for thy father's love forswear this faith.

But die and leave me.

Or dissemble; any thing

• Margarita.

'Who disown their Lord

Callias.

On earth, will he disown in heaven.

Hard heart!

Credulous of all but thy fond father's sorrows,
Thou wilt believe each wild and monstrous tale
Of this fond faith.

'I dare not disbelieve
What the dark grave hath cast the buried forth
To utter to whose visible form on earth
After the cross, expiring men have written
Their witness in their blood.

• Whence learnt thou this?

Tell me, my child; for sorrow's weariness
Is now so heavy on me, I can listen,

Nor rave. Come, sit we down on this coarse straw,

Thy only couch-thine, that wert wont to lie

On the soft plumage of the swan, that shamed not
Thy spotless limbs-Come.

'Dost thou not remember
When Decius was the Emperor, how he came
To Antioch, and when holy Babylas

Withstood his entrance to the Christian church,
Frantic with wrath, he bade them drag him forth

Callias.

Callias.

To cruel death. Serene the old man walk'd
The crowded streets; at every pause the yell
Of the mad people made, his voice was heard
Blessing God's bounty, or imploring pardon
Upon the barbarous hosts that smote him on.
Then didst thou hold me up, a laughing child,
To gaze on that sad spectacle. He pass'd,
And look'd on me with such a gentle sorrow;
The pallid patience of his brow toward me
Seem'd softening to a smile of deepest love.
When all around me mock'd, and howl'd, and laugh'd,
God gave me grace to weep. In aftertime
That face would on my noontide dreams return;
And in the silence of the night I heard

The murmur of that voice remote, and touch'd
To an aërial sweetness, like soft music
Over a tract of waters. My young soul

Lay wrapt in wonder, how that meek old man
Could suffer with such unrepining calmness,
Till late I learnt the faith for which he suffer'd,
And wonder'd then no more. Thou'rt weeping too.
Oh, Jesus, hast thou moved his heart?

Insatiate of thy father's misery,

'Away!

Wouldst have the torturers wring the few chill drops
Of blood that linger in these wither'd veins?

Margarita. I'd have thee with me in the changeless heavens,
Where we should part no more; reclined together
Far from the violence of this wretched world;
Emparadised in bliss, to which the Elysium
Dreamed by fond poets were a barren waste.
'Would we were there, or any where but here,
Where the cold damps are oozing from the walls,
And the thick darkness presses like a weight
Upon the eyelids. Daughter, when thou served'st
Thy fathers' gods, thou wert not thus: the sun
Was brightest where thou wert; beneath thy feet
Flowers grew. Thou sat'st like some unclouded star
Inspher'd in thine own light and joy, and mad'st
The world around thee beauteous; now, cold earth
Must be thy couch to-night, tomorrow morn—

• Margarita.

Callias.

What means that music? Oh, I used to love
Those evening harpings once, my child!

'I hear

The maids; beneath the twilight they are thronging
To Daphne, and they carol as they pass.

'Thou canst not go.

Margarita.

Callias.

• Thou must breathe here the damp and stifling air.
Nay, listen not. "

They call us hence.-Ah me,
My gentle child, in vain wouldst thou distract
My rapt attention from each well known note,
Once hallowed to mine ear by thine own voice,
Which erst made Antioch vacant, drawing after thee
The thronging youth, which cluster'd all around thee
Like bees around their queen, the happiest they
That were the nearest. Oh, my child! my child!
Thou canst not yet be blotted from their memory.
And I'll go forth, and kneel at every foot,
To the stern Prefect shew my hoary hair,"
And sue for mercy on myself, not thee.

Cling not round me thus.
There, there, even there repose upon the straw.
Nay, let me go, or I'll- but I've no power,
Thou heed'st not now my anger or my love.
So, so farewell, then, and our gods or thine,
Or all that have the power to bless, be with thee!'

We have not room to give the Evening Song of the Maidens,' which is one of the most elegant and pleasing pieces in the volume. The worst thing in it is, the funeral anthem,' or rather ballad, beginning,

Brother thou art gone before us, and thy saintly soul is flown.' This poem confirms us in the suspicion that Mr. Milman's ear is defective: the rhythm is execrable, and there is nothing to atone for it. The other lyrical pieces are of unequal merit, but not one of them will bear comparison with the hymn of Miriam in the Fall of Jerusalem. We shall, in justice to Mr. Milman, however, insert the following hymn, which possesses considerable beauty.

For thou didst die for me, oh Son of God!
By thee the throbbing flesh of man was worn;
Thy naked feet the thorns of sorrow trod,
And tempests beat thy houseless head forlorn.
Thou, that wert wont to stand

Alone, on God's right hand,

Before the ages were, the Eternal, eldest born.
Thy birthright in the world was pain and grief,
Thy love's return ingratitude and hate;
The limbs thou healedst brought thee no relief,
The eyes thou openedst calmly view'd thy fate:

* Vide Eclectic Review, N. S. Vol. XIV. p. 91.

Thou, that wert wont to dwell

In peace, tongue cannot tell,

Nor heart conceive the bliss of thy celestial state.

They dragg'd thee to the Roman's solemn hall,
Where the proud Judge in purple splendour sate;
Thou stood'st a meek and patient criminal,

Thy doom of death from human lips to wait; -
Whose throne shall be the world

In final ruin hurled,

With all mankind to hear their everlasting fate.

Thou wert alone in that fierce multitude,
When "Crucify him!" yell'd the general shout;
No hand to guard thee mid those insults rude,
Nor lip to bless in all that frantic rout;
Whose lightest whisper'd word

The Seraphim had heard,

And adamantine arms from all the heavens broke out.

They bound thy temples with the twisted thorn,
Thy bruised feet went languid on with pain;
The blood, from all thy flesh with scourges torn,
Deepen'd thy robe of mockery's crimson grain ;
Whose native vesture bright

Was the unapproached light,

The sandal of whose foot the rapid hurricane.

They smote thy cheek with many a ruthless palm,
With the cold spear thy shuddering side they pierc'd;

The draught of bitterest gall was all the balm.

They gave, t'enhance thy unslaked, burning thirst:
Thou, at whose words of peace

Did pain and anguish cease,

And the long buried dead their bonds of slumber burst.

**Low bowed thy head convulsed, and, droop'd in death, : 1
Thy voice sent forth a sad and wailing cry;

Slow struggled from thy breast the parting breath,
And every limb was wrung with agony.

That head whose veil-less blaze

Fill'd angels with amaze

When at that voice sprang forth the rolling suns on high.

• And thou wert laid within the narrow tonib,

Thy clay-cold limbs with shrouding grave-clothes bound,

The sealed stone confirm'd thy mortal doom;

Lone watchmen walk'd thy desert burial ground,
Whom heaven could not contain,

Nor th immeasureable plain le
Of vast Infinity inclose or circle round.

VOL. XVII. N. S. !

T

'For us, for us thou didst endure the pain,

And thy meek spirit bow'd itself to shame,
To wash our souls from sin's infecting stain,
T'avert the Father's wrathful vengeance-flame:
Thon, that could'st nothing win

By saving worlds from sin,

Nor aught of glory add to thy all-glorious name."

Art. IV. An Appeal to the Public in Defence of the Spitalfields Act : with Remarks on the Causes which have led to the Miseries and moral Deterioration of the Poor. By William Hale. Svo, pp. 46.

London. 1822.

THERE is something very captivating in those general pro

positions which seem to offer, in familiar language, a rule for deciding at once upon intricate questions. That things will find their level, that demand and supply will regulate each other, that production and exchange will, if left to themselves, fall into the most profitable channels, short, pithy axioms like these gain an easy assent even from many individuals who but imperfectly understand their bearings. And when persons think they have made good thus far their progress in the most bothering of all sciences, and that they stand upon undisputed ground, if you venture to disturb their general reasonings by considerations in the humble form of exceptions to a rule, or qualifying positions drawn from existing circumstances, you are in some danger of being set down as a mere man of detail, unacquainted with abstract principles, or a dull reasoner.

The pamphlet which has occasioned this prompt and most efficient reply, is built on one of these specious half-truths; for general truths, which, in order to be universally valid, require to be qualified by other general truths, are of this description. Labour,' says the Writer alluded to, like every other marketable commodity, will find its value.' This is either a truism, or it is an error. If by value is meant market price, then, that Labour will, if left to itself, find its market price, may intend two distinct positions: either that wages in the same branch of production, have a tendency to find their level, that is, to become equalized, or, that Labour will find its fair market price, by the mere operation of competition. The first of these positions is true; the second, as we shall shew, is not true. For, if by value be meant that which must ultimately regulate price-the intrinsic value or cost, Labour does not admit of being compared in this respect to any other marketable commodity.

Wages, or the price of Labour, must be admitted to depend on the proportion between population and employment. In this