France, and crippling a country which she had left too strong, and which would soon have outstripped her in prosperity. I found it im. possible to dispossess even men of sound judgement and great ability of this belief, preposterous as it is; and when they read the account of the luxuries which have been sent to St. Helena for his accommodation, they will consider it as the fullest proof of their opinion.'

Part the second, is entitled the Vision. The Author supposes himself introduced by a grave and venerable personage to the top of a tower "whose frail foundations upon sand

were

placed," from which he may look down on the wanderings of the erring crowd below. With this sage, who proves to be a personification of the worldly wisdom of the sceptical philosophy, he enters into a conference, which is sustained with considerable spirit through the first two sections. The Poet does full justice to the sentiments of The Evil Prophet,' by giving them the utmost plausibility and force of expression; and our readers will instantly perceive from the following stanzas, that they are not the phantom opinions of an allegorical personage merely which he is combating. The old man, with hard eye 'unabashed and look serene,' replies to the poet's passionate objections to his lessons, by pointing to the field of slaughter beneath them, and proceeds:

This but a page of the great book of war,-
A drop amid the sea of human woes!-
Thou canst remember when the Morning Star
Of Freedom on rejoicing France arose,
Over her vine-clad hills and regions gay,
Fair even as Phosphor who foreruns the day.
Such and so beautiful that Star's uprise;
But soon the glorious dawn was overcast:
A baleful track it held across the skies,

Till now thro' all its fatal changes past,
Its course fulfilled, its aspects understood,
On Waterloo it hath gone down in blood.

Where now the hopes with which thine ardent youth
Rejoicingly to run its race began ?

Where now the reign of Liberty and Truth,
The Rights Omnipotent of Equal Man,

The principles should make all discord cease,

And bid poor human kind repose at length in peace?

Behold the Bourbon to that throne by force
Restored, from whence by fury he was cast:
Thus to the point where it began its course,
The melancholy cycle comes at last;
And what are all the intermediate years?
What, but a bootless waste of blood and tears!

The peace which thus at Waterloo ye won,
Shall it endure with this exasperate foe?
In gratitude for all that ye have done,

Will France her ancient enmity forego?
Her wounded spirit, her envenomed will
Ye know, and ample means are left her still.
What tho' the tresses of her strength be shorn,

The roots remain untouched; and as of old
The bondsman Samson felt his power return
To his knit sinews, so shall ye behold
France, like a giant fresh from sleep, arise
And rush upon her slumbering enemies.
If we look farther, what shall we behold

But every where the swelling seeds of ill,
Half-smothered fires,, and causes manifold

Of strife to come; the powerful watching still
For fresh occasion to enlarge his power,
The weak and injured waiting for their hour!
Will the rude Cossack with his spoils bear back
The love of peace and humanizing art?
Think ye the mighty Moscovite shall lack:

Some specious business for the ambitious heart;
Or the black Eagle, when she moults her plume,
The form and temper of the Dove assume?
From the old Germanic chaos hath there risen
A happier order of established things?..
And is the Italian Mind from papal prison
Set free to soar upon its native wings?
Or look to Spain, and let her Despot tell
If there thy high-raised hopes are answered well!
At that appeal my spirit breathed a groan,
But he triumphantly pursued his speech:
O Child of Earth, he cried with loftier tone,
The present and the past one lesson teach!
Look where thou wilt, the history of man
Is but a thorny maze, without a plan !'

pp. 125–132.

A

The third section is entitled The Sacred Mountain.' heavenly voice summons the poet, whom the old man's parting words had filled with consternation and doubt, to a green and sunny summit,

• So fair

As well with long lost Eden might compare.'

The Author has employed all his exquisite powers of descrip tion upon the scenery of this celestial mountain: a heavenly virtue is in its atmosphere, to heal, and calm, and purify the 'breast.' He follows the Divine Monitress, till at length they

• Came upon an inner glade,

The holiest place that human eyes might see;
For all that vale was like a temple made

By Nature's hand, and this the sanctuary;
Where in its bed of living rock, the Rood
Of man's redemption, firmly-planted stood,
And at its foot the never-failing Well

Of Life profusely flowed that all might drink.
Most blessed water! Neither tongue can tell
The blessedness thereof, nor heart can think,
Save only those to whom it hath been given
To taste of that divinest gift of Heaven.
There grew a goodly Tree this Well beside,-
Behold a branch from Eden planted here,
Plucked from the Tree of Knowledge, said my guide.
O Child of Adam, put away thy fear,-
In thy first father's grave it hath its root;
Taste thou the bitter, but the wholesome fruit.
In awe I heard, and trembled, and obeyed:
The bitterness was even as of death;

I felt a cold and piercing thrill pervade

My loosened limbs, and losing sight and breath,
To earth I should have fallen in my despair,

Had I not clasped the Cross, and been supported there.
My heart, I thought, was bursting with the force
Of that most fatal fruit; soul-sick I felt,
And tears ran down in such continuous course,
As if the very eyes themselves should melt.
But then I heard my heavenly teacher say,
Drink, and this mortal stound will pass away.
I stoopt and drank of that divinest Well,
Fresh from the Rock of Ages where it ran.
It had a heavenly quality to quell

My pain-I rose a renovated man,

And would not now when that relief was known
For worlds the needful suffering have foregone.

Even as the Eagle (ancient storyers say)

When faint with years she feels her flagging wing, Soars up toward the mid sun's piercing ray, Then filled with fire into some living spring Plunges, and casting there her aged plumes, The vigorous strength of primal youth resumes: Such change in me that blessed Water wrought; The bitterness which from its fatal root, The tree derived with painful healing fraught, Passed clean away; and in its place the fruit Produced by virtue of that wondrous wave, The savour which in Paradise it gave,

Now, said the heavenly Muse, thou mayst advance,
Fitly prepared toward the mountain's height.
O Child of Man, this necessary trance

Hath purified from flaw thy mortal sight,
That with scope unconfined of vision free,
Thou the beginning and the end mayst see.
She took me by the hand and on we went;
Hope urged me forward and my soul was strong.
With winged speed we scaled the steep ascent,
Nor seemed the labour difficult or long,
Ere on the summit of the sacred hill
Upraised I stood, where I might gaze my fill.
Below me lay, unfolded like a scroll,

The boundless region where I wandered late,
Where I might see realms spread and oceans roll,
And mountains from their cloud-surmounting state
Dwarfed like a map beneath the excursive sight,
So ample was the range from that commanding height,
Eastward with dark ness round on every side,
An eye of light was in the farthest sky.
Lo, the beginning!-said my heavenly Guide:
The steady ray which there thou canst descry,
Comes from lost Eden, from the primal land
Of man "waved over by the fiery brand."
Look now toward the end! no mists obscure,

Nor clouds will there impede the strengthened sight:
Unblenched thine eye the vision may endure.
I looked, surrounded with effulgent light

More glorious than all glorious hues of even,

The Angel Death stood there in the open Gate of Heaven.' pp. 156-162.

The last section is entitled-The Hopes of Man. In this, Mr. S., with all the eloquence of a poet and all the warmth of a patriot, dwells on the high prerogatives, the distinguished privileges, the duties, and the brightening prospects of Britain. We should have been disposed to think the picture too highly coloured, and the confidence expressed too insecurely founded, had the political circumstances of the country been the theme. Mr. Southey views the contest in which we were engaged against the tyrant of Europe, as a struggle between good and evil principles. He considers the victory of Waterloo as supremely important to the best interests of human nature; as leaving England in security and peace.

In no age and in no country has man ever existed under circumstances so favourable to the full development of his moral and intellectual faculties, as in England at this time. The peace which she has won by the battle of Waterloo, leaves her at leisure to pursue the