bles and furniture. In vain did Anselmo entreat him to desist, till the superincumbent mass, undermined by his exertions, began to shake, and falling down with a hideous crash and hurl, almost suffocated him with dust; but he had given liberty to the Count, and springing forward on obtaining the first glimpse of his person, drew him out into the air. "A glance of mutual recognition took place instantly between them; the convict appeared triumphant, but the Count seemed abashed and terrified; the people ascribed the exultation of Don Birbone to his success, and the pale and abject looks of the nobleman to the dreadful imprisonment from which he had been released. "In the course of a few minutes, however, the Count recovered his wonted selfpossession, and assuming the habitual dignity of his deportment, cordially recommended Don Birbone to the care of Father Anselmo, assuring him, at the same time, that he might freely claim to participate in his fortune. The crowd who heard this, and for whom it was intended, applauded the just generosity of Corneli; but the audacious felon smiled at the expression, and gave the Count a look so significant, that he was a second time abashed, and subdued to the most abject timidity. "The Friar, who had not attended to what passed, informed Corneli that the house of his friend the Baron Alcamo had withstood the shock of the earthquake, advising him to retire there for the night; the Count, without speaking, moved to go away, and the convict indicated by his manner an intention to accompany him, but the former, in evident alarm, abruptly requested him to remain with the Friar, till he could make some arrangement for suitably rewarding his services. Don Birbone paused for a moment and placed his finger on his lip, as if reflecting on what he ought to do, and Corneli hesitated awaiting his decision. The convict looked at him askance, and observing his uncertainty, bowed, apparently with much humility, and thanking him for his goodness in setting so high a value on his service, respectfully wished him good night. "The Count bowed in return and walked away in silence, with despondency so visibly depicted in his countenance, that the crowd were touched with a sentiment of awe for which none of them could account. "When he reached the residence of the Baron, he found the old gentleman and his nephew in a pertinacious conversation respecting Don Birbone, and which they scarcely suspended to give him welcome, or to congratulate him on his deliverance. "The Baron was decidedly of opinion that the convict was an unfortunate man of rank, whom the malice of fortune, or the treachery of friends, had driven into some rash act of criminal indiscretion; and Francisco was no less persuaded, that he was only one of those adventurers of low origin, who are led by peculiar endowments of mind and person, to acquire tastes and habits above their condition, and seduced into a life of expedients, sink step by step into a course of crimes. Such men,' said Francisco, even in the greatest depravity, retain a keen sense of remorse, but the strength of their passions, and the flexibility which habits of deceit and artifice give to their principles, render them infinitely more dangerous to society than delinquents of less qualified wickedness.' "It was at this point of their argument, that the Count entered. Francisco was much struck with his wan and troubled countenance, and eyed him inquisitively, but said nothing. The Baron, after hastily inquiring how he had escaped from the fall of his house, without waiting for a reply, told him with much self-satisfaction, that he had procured the emancipation of several of the convicts, and described Don Birbone with enthusiasm. "Francisco, during the time that his uncle was speaking, kept his eye steadily fixed on the Count, and when he had finished, said, I think, my lord, that you have known this Don Birbone?' A gleam of alarm wavered over the visage of Corneli, but in a moment he was again master of himself, and answered negligently, “ I dare say it is the same person to whom I am indebted for my deliverance from the ruins." " At Messina, Castagnello meets again with Lord and Lady Wildwaste, and is obliged to surrender to the true Corneli his fortune. In the meantime, Corneli, having conceived a violent Baron Alcamo, is enraged at the vigipassion for Adelina, the daughter of lance of her brother Francisco, who sees into his evil designs; and, therefore, Corneli resolves to remove him from his way by assassination. The following is the account of his attempt to do so: "The reflections with which Corneli was engaged instinctively led him to the gate of Baron Alcamo's residence, where he found a number of poor persons assembled in the expectation of receiving that dispensation of alms, which is commonly made by the Sicilians, at the funerals of their friends. He inquired among the crowd as to the cause of their assemblage, and was informed that there was to be a burial that night of some one of the family, who had been killed in the Earthquake, and whose body had, about an hour before, been carried home to them in a litter. "While he was thus speaking with the crowd, the servants came out with the customary gift of money, and the mendicants left him to obtain their respective shares. In the pressure of a multitude, in the silence of a funeral performed in the darkness of the night, his guilty imagination saw a chance of perpetrating his bloody purpose, with a better prospect of escaping, than he might easily again possess: for it is customary in Sicily to send the body privately to the church nearest to the cemetry where it is to be laid, and for those friends to assemble there, who intend to assist in the last offices; on which occasions the concourse of persons is often very considerable. It was the funeral of his own wife that was to be performed. As she had died a nun, the Baron her brother was not prepared for this ceremony, but the body was sent to him from the hospital, and he had no choice. Preparations were therefore made as quickly as possible for the interment the same evening, many imperious and awful considerations, arising from her wounds, rendering the utmost expedition requisite. "Francisco happened to be absent when the body arrived, and had strayed, as he ever afterwards considered it, by an unconscious providential impulse, to the very place where the grave was dug. The funeral was delayed a short time in expectation of his return, but the persons who had charge of the interment became impatient; for the number of the dead in the city, waiting burial, was so great that they could afford to lose no time, so that the family were induced to consent to allow the funeral to proceed without Francisco. "When the servants had distributed the alms, the bier with the dead was brought out, and carried towards the church. Presently after the Baron's carriage came also from the portal, and Corneli saw that it contained four persons, the Baron, his lady, Adelina, and a young man, who held a handkerchief to his face, and whom he naturally supposed to be Francisco, but it was his own son. "Having learnt where the interment was to take place, Corneli, with eager but perturbed steps, ran to the Marina, and hired a boat, which he assisted himself to row towards the church. He promised the boatman a liberal reward if he arrived before the funeral, after which he was to convey him as rapidly as he could to the Calabrian shore. No explanation was given of this urgency, nor did the boatman think it extraordinary, but plied his oars to the best of his ability. It was this boat which disturbed the reverie of Francisco, and it was the convict-Count that he had seen land from her, and whom he followed into the cloister. "In the obscurity of the cloister he lost Corneli and paused. The sight of the ready grave made his blood curddle with a vague superstitious horror, and he looked at the sexton-monk, the heap of earth, the glimmering lantern, and the mouldering bones as an ominous spectacle, which strangely concerned himself. In this moment the bier with the body arrived at the gate, and before it was brought into the cloister, the Baron's carriage drove up, and the party alighted. Francisco immediately recognized his friends, but he was so struck by the remarkable coincidence of their ap pearance, and his own gloomy anticipations, that he was rivetted to the spot, as by the influence of a spell. Before the church door was opened, round which the monks who were to assist in the funeral service were assembling, he discovered the mysterious stranger from the boat stepping softly along towards the mourners, with a knife which faintly glimmered in his hand. "Before Francisco had power for utterance, the deed was done; the atrocious Corneli had consummated his crimes by the assassination of his son, who fell prostrate over the corpse of his mother. "Francisco saw the act, and in the same instant grasped the murderer by the wrist, as he still held the bloody weapon. A shriek of horror from Adelina brought all the attendants of the monastery with their lamps from the church into the cloister and Corneli looking round, exclaimed, on discovering that it was Francisco who held his arm What have I done?' "Francisco dropped his hold, and with an accent of supernatural solemnity, said— "He is your own son-that is his mother's body.' "Corneli glared rather than looked upon him, and, with a howl of indescribable horror, darted out of the cloister, and leaping into the boat, was in an instant conveyed beyond the reach of immediate pursuit. "It would be a vain attempt to describe the whirlwind of the murderer's mind. He breathed gaspingly; he tugged one minute fiercely at the oar, the next he started up, and looked to see if he was pursued. The boatman whom he had hired, and who had no conception of what had taken place, plied his task in silence. "When they had rowed into the mid channel, between Scylla and Charybdis, the fearful glances of the assassin discovered a boat with a hidden light on board coming swiftly with muffled oars towards them. He stopped and would have addressed the boatman, but his throat and tongue were parched with terror, and he could not articulate. I am lost, lost, for ever,' were the first words that he was able to utter, and he looked upwards. The heavens were gloriously illuminated, but it seemed to him as if the innumerable stars were only so many eyes of light that vigilantly watched him. In the same moment a splendid meteor fell from the skies, and was lost in the dark abysses of the air. The boatman shouted with admiration at its beautiful course, but Corneli sighed, and felt that he was himself fallen for ever." Corneli is afterwards apprehended, condemned, and executed. In the meantime, Castagnello, being received into the family of his brother, does all in his power to amend his conduct, and retrieve his character. But, unfortunately, a friend of Lord Wildwaste's takes it into his head to suspect him of improper feelings towards Lady Wild waste, and hints his suspicions to Lord Wildwaste, who begins to doubt Castagnello, but not his lady. One day, however, Lady Wildwaste, having spoken to Castagnello in a friendly manner, to cheer up his mind with regard to his future prospects in life, the unfortunate man kneels gratefully, and kisses her hand. At this moment, Wildwaste and his friend enter the room, and, the worst construction being put upon Castagnello's behaviour, he is banished from his brother's house. The truth is afterwards found out; but Castagnello, after having in despair attempted to commit suicide, from which he is prevented, retires and dies in a convent, It will easily be perceived that this novel is too much filled with horrors and crimes; the extracts, however, are sufficient to shew that some parts of it are ably written. In the beginning of the tale there is an injudicious attempt to invest the character of Corneli with some of that mysterious gloom and energy of wickedness which is frequently represented in Lord Byron's writings. This kind of stage effect was not very sublime, even when new, and has now entirely lost its powers of delusion. In the poem of Lara, for instance, this gloom and mystery of external ap. pearances was carried to the utmost, and was seen there approaching to the verge of an idle and ignoble species of poetical quackery, unfit to give permanent satisfaction to the mind. The intellect, viewing such characters as the Corsair externally, can find no sublimity in their passions or crimes. But a poetical sympathy, with such vehe ment movements of pride and passion, produces a sort of extension of internal existence, which may be communicated to the most vulgar and ignorant minds; for these are always eager to sympathise with ranting force, and a vehement spirit of action, or with fond attachment and hatred; which are things that extend the natural passions of the multitude into a kind of poetry, but which do not make their minds encounter unwelcome light, by being lifted into the feeling of fixed and unchangeable relations. The first step beyond those passions, which have their limits within the nature of the individual, is when tragic pathos depends upon the sentiment of abstract justice. In that case, the mind is awakened to a feeling of fixed relations, existing independently of itself and of its temporary movements. And a single step beyond the feeling of submission to the feeling of justice carries the mind into the love of abstract beauty. In some of Lord Byron's more recent productions, his Lordship has renounced the fierce bravadoing tone with which he first fired ardent souls, and, in Don Juan, he evidently inclines more towards sarcasm, reflection and tears. The passions cannot, with truth, be represented as grand in their uninterrupted sweep, but only as pathetic, in their broken force, or in regretful tenderness and remorse. In Anastasius, this is done with great power. The story of Euphrosine conveys a feeling of pity and remorse, which goes through the mind's innermost core, and is the most perfect pathos of unavailing "desiderium" and natural affection. TRANSLATIONS FROM THE LESS FAMILIAR LATIN CLASSICS. No. IV. Silius Italicus. DEAR SIR, TO CHRISTOPHER NORTH, ESQ. THE Occasion of the following episode may be very shortly explained. It is the poetical account of the celebrated serpent which impeded the march of the army of Regulus. Serranus, the son of Regulus, is supposed, by the poet, to have taken shelter, after the rout of Lake Thrasimene, in the cottage of a veteran who had served under his father; and, by him, the story is related to the son of his old general. The defect of the "Punica" of Silius Italicus, or rather of its claim to the technical denomination of an epic poem, is in its plan. There is no unity of interest, unless we conceive it to arise from the opposition of the Republic of Carthage to the Romans being continued throughout the poem. It is, in fact, a chronicle versified-and beautifully versified; and is valuable as a document of historical reference, as well as a source of poetical recreation. The action is carried through seventeen books, and the glories of Scipio succeed to those of Hannibal. Paulus Emilius is killed at Cannæ, in the tenth book, and Scipio triumphs in the seventeenth-the statue of the conquered Hannibal forming part of the procession. "Sed non ulla magis mentes oculosque tenebat, SILIUS ITALICUS. I am, &c. &c. T. D. Book VI. Where Bragada's slow river scarce contains With downward windings struggling deep, to shun Here, horror to relate! a monster fell, Born in the spite of Earth, was found to dwell; His slender limbs are crush'd.-The venomous breath Thoughtless of such a danger, we explore- Vast as those Titan giants erst who strove, VOL. VIII. 3 M 460-62 Translations from the less familiar Latin Classics. No. IV. The ringed monster rous'd him from his lair, There the spear'd horsemen march-the bowmen here— And turrets, wheel'd t' approach a hostile wall- Hard hoofs, and ceaseless shoutings shake the ground, And, at full length, and with the lightnings' glide, Then wheel the horses round, the shouts decline- Above the tottering standards-crossing spears- Our leader foams, and cries, "What, will ye fly [Jan. |