a long solitary day, either in minutely examining its beauties within, or viewing it from without, while seated under a shady tree near one of the garden-fountains. At every visit I felt more strongly, that to describe the Taaje, at once so chaste and so splendid as it is, would be a task, either for pen or pencil, impossible. But after all, how poor, how mean are the associations connected with it! It is a monument of the boundless exactions of a beauty's vanity; of the yielding folly of a proud voluptuous slave-governed sensualist; for such was Shah Jehan, - a prince who made his way to the throne of the Moguls by the murder of a brother and four nephews; and who shed the blood of one-half of his subjects, to secure the trembling obedience of the other. The close of a debauched life he passed as the degraded captive of his hypocritical son, Aurungzebe. Here, under these beautiful sarcophagi, in this noble mausoleum, lie Shah Jehan and his favourite Begum, side by side.'

Agra, Delhi, Nurabad, Gualior, Narwha, Dungree, the river Sind, Siparry, Kalarrus, the province of Malwah, Nya Serai, Seronge, Bhilsah, Bahsein, Husseinabad, and Tikaree, are noticed in passing; and the author returns through Ellichpoor to the Nerbuddah, visits Hingolee, Mongrole, Bassim, Kair, where he passes the Godavery, takes the route of Beeder, visits the mausoleum of Ameer Bereed, and terminates his circuit at Hyderabad.

Few works of travels are better adapted than this for British popularity; even the prejudices which it betrays being exactly in unison with the lately fashionable evangelical piety.

ART. VII. The Wierd Wanderer of Jutland. A Tragedy. Julia Montalban. A Tale. By the Honorable and Reverend William Herbert. 8vo. 8s. 6d. Boards. Murray. 1822.

ΑΝ

NY person, who has lately witnessed the representation of "the Pirate" on a country-stage, and has heard the following sentence frequently repeated, "She's an awsome woman, that Norna of the Fitfu' Head !" cannot, we think, have a very strong relish just at present for Wierd Wanderers of Jutland,' or any similar personages. As we labor under this disadvantage, we are not perhaps properly qualified, at this moment, to appreciate the popular taste of our countrymen. Truly our contemporaries would seem to demand the introduction of some extravagant and erring spirit" into every work of literary fiction. A good-for-nothing man, or an outof-the-way woman, seems to be indispensable to dramatic, epic, or narrative, reputation; and, without such characters, the writer has no chance of gratifying the reader. Hence the almost infinite series of dark-eyed, white-foreheaded, flowing

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haired,

more

haired, mysterious villains; issuing first, in all their gigantic want of principle, from the brains of our poetic Jupiters, and descending on us subsequently in whole hosts of dwarf ragamuffins, through the mimic channels of the prolific press. Hence also the hideous family of wierd women;' hideous than their dams. Too often, however, have we reasoned on this subject, too often ridiculed this strange propensity, to hope in these latter days for any influence on the practice, or the perusal, of author or reader; and therefore, swimming downwards with the current, deeper and deeper sinking in the muddy stream of our literature, we can only occasionally prove our personality, and independence, by a kick, a splash, and a struggle, on the way!

We shall enter in medias res without farther preface; and in the Song of Agnes,' the daughter of Sweno, we open the story of the Wierd Wanderer' to our readers:

With a turf at her feet,
In her winding-sheet,

Shall Elfrid lie where the wild winds howl;
But the deathless shame

Of her lost, lost, fame,

Shall weigh like a stone on the fair one's soul.

2.

There's a curse above
Upon faithless love,

Can turn the morning's ray to dead midnight;
There's a secret voice,

When false lords rejoice,

Can change to dark anguish their soul's delight.

His bride is gay,

And his children play,

While Elfrid lies where the wild winds roar;

The fiend has set his mark

On their heads dark, dark,

And the spirit of vengeance is near his door.

M 3

While

(While she is singing, Sweno appears strangely agitated, and interrupts her when she has just uttered the word vengeance.) • Sweno. 'Tis a fiend's song. Where gat you that foul strain, Crossing our mirth with such portentous sounds,

As if the deep could send the unshrouded dead

To scare us from our joys?

Agnes.

Father, it bodes not

Evil to us; a wild lay, long since learnt

From a wierd woman that craved alms: the notes
So sweetly rung in mine attentive ear,

Time has not robb'd me of their melody.

(Thunder and lightning, which had begun faintly while she was singing, becomes loud and bright, with noise of violent rain. The agitation of Sweno increases.)'

From this German stage-direction, and from the foregoing song, (which is as much superior to the "Eleleu loro" of Scott, as it is beneath the Shakspearian imitations of Chatterton,) we may easily conjecture the main incident of the drama: but we shall not assist curiosity any farther;-conceiving it to be quite unfair to a tragedy not intended (we conclude) for representation, to destroy its chief attraction in the closet.

The combined charms of Meg Merrilies, and her Brummagem copy, (as Mr. Maturin's awsome woman" has been happily called,) together with the late edition of a supposed witch in "Norna of the Fitfu' Head," must surely have satisfied many of our soberer and more reflective friends. For their sakes, therefore, we shall omit the high and moody ravings of this other Elspeth; the wild and wandering flashes of this forty-second Madge Wildfire. We shall, however, give a speech or two of Sweno, and Bertha his wife, to exhibit another specimen of the modern-antique style of dramatic dialogue; which, as well as the introduction of witches and wizards above mentioned, seems essential to the poetry of the nineteenth century.

Enter from the Castle, Sweno, Bertha.

Sweno. The bolts have spent their fire; yon lurid cloud Still, and disburthen'd of its teeming wrath,

Hangs like a misty shroud on the horizon.

The air is calm; Bertha, I breathe more freely.

Bertha. Nay, good my lord, I needs must hold it strange

E'en to the natural temper of your soul,

That you, so far removed from taint of fear,

Instant in danger, firm in resolution,

Should start, thus from yourself estranged and wild,

At these rude flaws of nature, making

Unkind divorce between your alter'd thoughts.

And that sweet peace they owe you.

'Sweno.

'Sweno.

O loved Bertha,

There be some thoughts too deep for time to medicine,
Which on the seemliest and freshest cheek

Would stamp dread's livery, though the heart were steel.

Bertha. What thoughts? strange roamings of the troubled fancy,

Air-blown imagination's empty bubble!

For shame, my lord; this is the bodiless spectre

Of that poor maniac, whose ill-omen'd vision
Comes, like the shadow of a passing cloud,

O'er the bright mirror of your better judgment.
Fie on't, a dream.'

The pretty Agnes, too, is of course doomed to speak in the same quaint and established manner.

Agnes.

My honor'd sire,

This is the very breathing hour of bliss;

The storm is roll'd away, and merry birds

Do trick their plumes, and sing their cheerful welcome
To the mild beam of evening.'

And merry birds

Do trick their plumes!'

Oh dear! Oh dear!

Again, in her conversation with her lover Ubald, the young lady observes,

Thou art a saucy knave to say me thus !"

We do earnestly exhort the Honorable and Reverend William Herbert, who is evidently a man of talent, and manifests through the veil of this old-play affectation the fruits of a classical education, with the spirit of a manly taste, to cast away the echo of the Elizabethan drama, as well as the "Hammer of Thor," and all the discordant sounds which it so naturally produces; and to adhere to that nervous, elegant, and simple style, of which he has shewn himself so distinguished a master in the second poetical effort in this volume, the Tale of Julia Montalban. The well-known and beautiful novel of Julia de Roubigné has furnished the materials of the story but it is illustrated and worked up most pleasingly by the present author. We shall not detain those of our readers, who yet preserve their fondness for our classical English poetry, from the gratification which we are sure they will derive by the perusal of a few extracts from this tale.

The death-bed of Julia's mother is the scene with which we begin:

'Wintry and bleak was the Sierra's brow,
And thy black ridge, Cordova, capp'd with snow.

M 4

Deep

Deep sigh'd the gale; thro' swift-borne clouds, serene
The moonlight stream'd upon that lonely scene,
Silvering the glens beneath; while far and wide
Night's shadows flitted o'er the mountain's side.
Full on a cheerless chamber fell its ray,
Where, pale and almost spent, a matron lay.
Mournful her look; upon her bosom prest

Both hands were clasp'd; the breath scarce heaved her breast.
Fixt upon one, who neither moved nor spoke,

Her eyes seem'd heaven's last blessing to invoke.
One painful thought alone appear'd to stay
The parting soul, and crave some brief delay;
While he, her partner in each earthly care,
Sat chain'd to grief, and conquer'd by despair.
Behind stood one, whose mien some pity wore,
And, though unblest his office, still forbore;
By his sad prisoner, waiting for the close
Of life's last scene in that abode of woes.
E'en the hard hand of justice dared not strive
To break that tie which nature soon must rive.
Nor long the pause; her glass was nearly run,
Her limbs unnerved, her strength almost foredone.
'Tis said, strong wishes can in death's despight
Arrest the spirit and deny his right;

But soon the spell must pass; without a groan
Her weak pulse ceased; that last desire was gone.
Then rose the shriek of one to whom the view
Of death and the heart's agony were new,
Her own sweet Julia; she, who o'er her bed
Had watch'd desponding, and now saw her dead.
Each moment had foretold it: but that grief,
So sure and present, now was past belief.
Say ye, who early o'er a mother's grave
Have seen the plumed pomp of burial wave,
How oft your fancy unconstrain'd by wo
Has seem'd to hear her cherish'd accents flow!
View'd her loved couch, void room, or wonted chair,
And almost thought to see her image there!
Perchance that incredulity of grief

To desolation brings some faint relief,

Deludes the pang, and soothes the youthful heart
With that fond hope from which it will not part.

Sweet childhood, in the lap of kindness rear'd,

How are thy careless sports by love endear'd!
Thine is the love, that knows no timid blush,
The heedless brow, which changeful pleasures flush;
The gentle confidence, that fears no harm;
The breast, which gaily throbs without alarm!
O that thus manhood could securely sail

On the smooth tide adown life's pleasant vale!

O that