For not a fish abides there. The slim deer
Snorts as he ruffles with his shorten'd breath
The brook, and panting flies the unholy place,
And the white heifer lows and passes on;
The foaming hound laps not, and winter birds
Go higher up the stream. And yet I love
To loiter there: and when the rising moon
Flames down the avenue of pines, and looks
Red and dilated thro' the evening mists,
And chequered as the heavy branches sway
To and fro' with the wind, I stay to listen,
And fancy to myself that a sad voice,

Praying, comes moaning thro' the leaves, as 'twere
pp. 102, 103.

For some misdeed.

We may select the following, too, from a little fragment call

ed • Portraits.?

Behind her followed an Athenian dame,

(The pale and elegant Aspasia)

Like some fair marble carved by Phidias' hand,
And meant to imitate the nymph or muse.

Then came a dark-brow'd spirit, on whose head
Laurel and withering roses loosely hung;

She held a harp, amongst whose chords her hand
Wandered for music-and it came: She sang
A song despairing, and the whispering winds
Seem'd envious of her melody, and streamed
Amidst the wires to rival her, in vain.

Short was the strain, but sweet: Methought it spoke
Of broken hearts, and still and moonlight seas,
Of love, and loneliness, and fancy gone,

And hopes decay'd for ever: and my ear

Caught well remember'd names, 'Leucadia's rock'
At times, and faithless Phaon:' Then the form
Pass'd not, but seem'd to melt in air away:

This was the Lesbian Sappho.

At last, came one whom none could e'er mistake
Amidst a million: Egypt's dark-ey'd Queen :
The love, the spell, the bane of Antony.
O, Cleopatra! who shall speak of thee?
Gaily, but like the Empress of a land

She mov'd, and light as a wood nymph in her prime,
And crown'd with costly gems, whose single price
Might buy a kingdom, yet how dim they shone
Beneath the magic of her eye, whose beam

Flash'd love and languishment: Of varying humours
She seem'd, yet subtle in her wildest mood,
As guile were to her passions ministrant.

At last she sank as dead. A noxious worm

Fed on those blue and wandering veins that lac 'd
Her rising bosom: aye, did sleep upon

The pillow of Antony, and left behind,

In dark requital for its banquet-death. pp. 105-107. The last poem, called Diego de Montilla,' is, like Gyges, an imitation of Don Juan-and is liable to the same remarks. It is the longest piece, we think, in the collection-extending to some eighty or ninety stanzas;-and though it makes no great figure in the way of sarcasm, or lofty and energetic sentiment, it comes nearer perhaps than its immediate prototype to the weaker and more innocent pleasantry of the Italian ottava rime -and may fairly match with either as to the better qualities of elegance, delicacy, and tenderness. There is, as usual, not much of a story. Don Diego falls in love with a scornful lady -and pines on her rejection of him; on which her younger sister falls secretly in love with him-and when he sets out on his travels to forget his passion, droops and fades in his absence, and at last dies of a soft and melancholy decline. Diego returns to mourn over her: and, touched to the heart by her pure and devoted love, sequesters himself in his paternal castleand lives a few calm and pensive years in retirement, when he dies before middle age, for the sake of his faithful victim. There is no profligacy and no horror in all this-no mockery of virtue and honour-and no strong mixtures of buffoonery and grandeur. Most certainly there is not any thing like the powerused or misused-that we have felt in other poems in the same measure; but there is nevertheless a great deal of beauty, and a great deal of poetry and pathos. We pass over the lighter parts, and come to the gentle decay of Aurora.

Oft would she sit and look upon the sky,

When rich clouds in the golden sun-set lay
Basking, and loved to hear the soft winds sigh
That come like music at the close of day
Trembling amongst the orange blooms, and die
As 'twere from very sweetness.
She was gay,
Meekly and calmly gay, and then her gaze
Was brighter than belongs to dying days.
And on her young thin cheek a vivid flush,

A clear transparent colour sate awhile :
'Twas like, a bard would say, the morning's blush,
And 'round her mouth there played a gentle smile,
Which tho' at first it might your terrors hush,

It could not, tho' it strove, at last beguile;
And her hand shook, and then 'rose the blue vein
Branching about in all its windings plain.

The girl was dying. Youth and beauty-all
Men love or women boast of was decaying,
And one by one life's finest powers did fall

Before the touch of death, who seem'd delaying,
As tho' he'd not the heart at once to call

The maiden to his home. At last, arraying
Himself in softest guise, he came : she sigh'd

And, smiling as tho' her lover whisper'd, died.' pp. 166, 167. Diego comes just after her death.

His

'He saw her where she lay in silent state,

Cold and as white as marble: and her eye,
Whereon such bright and beaming beauty sate,
Was after the fashion of mortality,

Closed up for ever; ev'n the smiles which late

None could withstand, were gone; and there did lie
(For he had drawn aside the shrouding veil,)

By her a helpless hand, waxen and pale.' pp. 168.
agony
is at first overpowering: But

At last, a gentle melancholy grew,

And touch'd, like sorrow at its second stage,
His eye with languor, and contriv'd to strew
His hair with silver ere his middle age.
Some years he liv'd: he liv'd in solitude,
And scarcely quitted his ancestral home,
Tho' many a friend and many a lady woo'd
Of birth and beauty.

He

grew familiar with the bird; the brute
Knew well its benefactor, and he'd feed
And make acquaintance with the fishes mute,
And, like the Thracian Shepherd as we read,
Drew, with the music of his stringed lute,
Behind him winged things, and many a tread
And tramp of animal: and in his hall
He was a Lord indeed, belov'd by all.

In a high solitary turret where

None were admitted would he muse, when first
The young day broke, perhaps because he there
Had in his early infancy been nurs'd,

Or that he felt more pure the morning air,
Or lov'd to see the great Apollo burst
From out his cloudy bondage, and the night
Hurry away before the conquering light.
But oftener to a gentle lake that lay
Cradled within a forest's bosom, he

Would, shunning kind reproaches, steal away,
And, when the inland breeze was fresh and free,

There would he loiter all the livelong day,
Tossing upon the waters listlessly.
The swallow dash'd beside him, and the deer
Drank by his boat and eyed him without fear.
It was a soothing place: the summer hours
Pass'd there in quiet beauty, and at night
The moon ran searching thro' the woodbine bowers,
And shook o'er all the leaves her kisses bright,
O'er lemon blossoms and faint myrtle flowers,

And there the west wind often took his flight
When heaven's clear eye was closing, while above
Pale Hesper 'rose, the evening light of love.
He comes more lovely than the Hours: his look
Sheds calm refreshing light, and eyes that burn
With glancing at the sun's so radiant book,
Unto his softer page with pleasure turn:
'Tis like the murmur of some shaded brook,

Or the soft welling of a Naiad's urn,

After the sounding of the vast sea-waves.' pp. 170–174. We have quoted more of this than we intended, and must now turn us to our sterner work again. We hope, however, that this is not to be our last meeting with Mr Cornwall. We are glad to see a new edition of his Dramatic Scenes advertised. We ought to have noticed that pleasing little volume before→ and should have made a few extracts from it here, if we had not mislaid our copy.-As it is, we can safely recommend it to all who are pleased with what has now been extracted.

ART. IX. 1. Remarks on the Report of the Select Committee of the House of Commons on the Poor-Laws. By J. H. MOGGRIDGE, Esq. Bristol, 1818.

2. Observations on the Circumstances which Influence the Condition of the Labouring Classes of Society. By John Barton, Esq. London, 1817.

3. Observations on the Rise and Fall of the Manufacturing System of Great Britain, &c. London, 1819.

THE industry of a great commercial country, is always lia

ble to temporary embarrassments, from changes in the ordinary channels of trade, and from the varying demand for the products of its manufactures.-But we believe that Great Britain, since the return of peace, affords the only instance of a regorgement being simultaneously felt in every employment in which capital had been invested. The universality of the pre

peace.

sent distress forms its distinguishing and characteristic feature. Were it less general, it might be supposed to be in no inconsiderable degree owing to the derangement occasioned by the transition from a state of war to a state of In that case, however, as soon as tranquillity had been restored, an extraordinary stimulus would have been given to those employments which had been unnaturally depressed during the war. The diminished demand for one sort of labour, would have been compensated by the increased demand for another; and, when time had been given for the new investment of the capital thrown out of employment by the cessation of hostilities, every thing would have been adjusted as before. But, after a lapse of five or six years, it cannot truly be affirmed, that any considerable improvement has taken place in any branch of industry. At this moment they are all nearly as much depressed as ever. Pauperism, instead of being diminished, is rapidly increasing: Nor, without some very decided change in our domestic policy, is there the least reason to expect any material improvement in the condition of the great body of the people.

It would, however, be a very great mistake to suppose, that. the extraordinary extension of pauperism, and the privations now so generally complained of, have only been rendered manifest since the peace. That event, by depriving us of the monopoly of the commerce of the world, no doubt contributed to lessen the demand for various sorts of British produce, and consequently to aggravate the distresses of the manufacturers. But, whatever may have been the effects of the renewed competition of foreign countries, it cannot be considered either as the primary or main cause of the difficulties in which we are involved. Long previous to the termination of the late contest, an extraordinary increase had taken place in the amount of the sums levied on account of the poor; and the rise in the price of almost every species of commodities, had not been accompanied by a corresponding rise of wages.

The first estimate, which can be depended on, of the sums expended on the poor of England, was framed so late as 1776; but several well-informed cotemporary authors state, that, at the commencement of the last century, the rates were supposed to amount to about a million. In 1776, it was ascertained, from the returns made under the act of that year, that the whole sum raised by assessment, and expended on the poor, amounted to 1,720,3167.: And, from similar returns, it was ascertained, that the average expenditure, on account of the poor, for 1783, 1784, and 1785, being the years immediately subsequent to the American war, amounted to 2,167,7487. It is to