Then rose the spirit of the awful lyre-
The sightless Bard of an immortal song-
Sweet-voiced and deep historian of far times-
Prophet of glories to a rising world,

He came the god-like HOMER! in the power
Of lofty inspiration and awoke

The Epic strings with such a wondrous tone,
That, like the Music of the Spheres, flows on
As lasting as the motion of the world!

And he was Scio's child, in that far time
When mighty nations slumbered in the gloom
Of the mind's chaos and the forest's shades,
As if the living fire of soul was not !

Fair Scto, thou hast fall'n !-Unfriended now
Of Freedom's children in the lands of light,
Who learned of thee, and of thy kindred Isles,
To burst the bonds of Ignorance, and chase
Its ghastly terrors from the soaring mind.

Barbarian hands have smote thee.-In the hour
Of peace* their rushing wrath swept o'er the land,
Wing'd like the simoom, suddenly for death;
Steeping grey hairs in blood-giving the limbs
Of youth to torture-and the beauteous forms
Of Grecian maidens to the spoiler's grasp.
This England saw, and felt not!-Christian land!
She saw the Cross dishonour'd, and the fires
Of Christian temples quench'd in Christian blood;
And yet she felt not! or her only thought

Was how to crush, by secret, cruel arts,

The spirit calling-for revenge-on Greece!

[* These lines were written on the perusal of a letter from a younger brother, Mr. George Taylor, then at Malta, on board H. M. S. Cambrian, of which he was an officer. The letter is dated Sept. 3, 1822. After adverting to a former visit to Scio, he contrasts its Eden-like appearance and happy state at that period, with the desolation and scenes of horror it presented There had been a massacre by the Turks of 60,000 Greeks-men, women, and children-many of whose bodies he saw strewn upon the earth, and floating around the island.-ED.]

now.

Oh! England, Queen of Ocean-once belov'd
By all who worshipp'd Freedom-once believ'd
By all who sighed to serve her; thou hast lost
What kingdoms can't repay thee-gen'rous Fame!
Thy virtue has departed-thy proud deeds
Are withered in the taint of selfish hopes,

And martyrs to that cause, which once was thine,
Die, breathing curses on thy broken faith ;-
For thou hast leagu'd with barb'rous foes of mind,
And Monarchs jealous of the manly soul,

To blast the fairest lands of all the earth
With the dark curse of ignorance and chains!

Oh! England, Queen of Ocean, conquest-crown'd!
Remember Babylon with all her pride-

Her merchant-princes, and her purple state

Remember Babylon! where Mammon rul'd,

And his rich shrines flash'd boundless splendour round-
Where, sullenly, the desert-bird reigns now!

French Theatres.-Oct. 3, 1834.

THE specimen which a morning Paper has published of the most popular of the dramatic exhibitions of the Parisian stage at the present day, affords melancholy and disgusting evidence of the low state of moral taste and religious feeling in the capital of a nation which pretends to be the most polished in the world.

That the mercenary speculators, whose only object, like that of other showmen, is to make money by any dramatic trash that may hit the public taste, should make the stage the vehicle of the blasphemous ribaldry of which the piece called the Wandering Jew consists, does not surprise us; but we confess, badly as we thought of the people of Paris in point of religion and morals, we were not prepared to find such a licentious and revolting travestie of the mysteries of revealed religion received with general and enthusiastic applause by the inhabitants of a city, which, though it proclaimed death an eternal sleep

upwards of forty years ago, and, with frantic orgies, worshipped the goddess of Reason, personated by a reeling cyprian, yet had since passed through the fire of heavy judgments, and affected to repent of the outrageous impiety of that revolutionary guilt and madness. So it is, however; and the same Paris that then tore down the temples of religion, massacred its Ministers, and "deposed" the Majesty of the MOST HIGH, now encourages with its plaudits and its purse the most profane and scurrillous scenic blasphemies that ever a dramatic pander to public depravity dared to shower upon the mysteries of man's redemption.

From the possibility of enjoying such disgusting and indecent trash the smallest portion of intellectual taste, leaving religious feeling out of the question, ought to have saved any audience more advanced in civilization than the Hottentots or Kamschatkadales. When we see these things, we rejoice that there are still some Anti-Gallican prejudices in this country, to prevent that assimilation which some of our "philosophers" desire, but which would be the ruin of the taste-the morals, and the pure religious sentiment of this country. It is true there are some English parents who send their children to be educated in France. If those children should learn to become scoffers at religion, and to think it proof of a witty genius and a liberal intellect to make the most sublime truths the subject of obscene jests and audacious merriment, they ought not to be surprised. Why should they expect clear and wholesome waters from fountains overflowing with impurity!

In this country an attempt made by a French manager some time ago to represent some of the mysteries of the Old Testament, in an Oratorio, upon the stage, without any endeavour to make the representation piquante by ribaldry and licentious allusions, was very properly discouraged, and we hope will be more signally repressed if ever attempted to be repeated-for sacred things should not be dragged upon the stage, where the more sublime the subject, the more ridiculous must be its representation. The young mind cannot profit by having the awful events and truths of Holy Writ associated with the familiar and debasing recollections of the theatre.

It has been observed, that in a popish country it is less dangerous to assail religion itself than to attack the priests. This is so in France; else why does the Government allow the blasphemous exhibition, where a libel on the Archbishop of PARIS, or a Minister of State, would be punished with the utmost severity of the law? A word breathed against the Majesty of Louis PHILIP Would be the subject of a State prosecution, but the Majesty of heaven may be ridiculed and blasphemed on the stage with impunity! What matchless wit! What polished taste!

Fraudulent Uses of the French Telegraph.-Oct. 11, 1834.

THE use to which the French telegraph has been so often applied since the accession of the Duke of ORLEANS to the throne, makes it deserving of the character branded for ever by the satirical genius of POPE upon London's column, which, as he has it,

"Like a tall bully lifts its head and lies."

It is true the Corporation have, since the days of the poet, absurdly chiselled out the inscription which made the satire intelligible-an inscription that nobody believed, but which was an historical record of the monstrous mania that prevailed at the time when the column was erected. No chisel, however, can efface from the public remembrance the lying accounts which the French telegraph, worked by the virtuous Government of the Barricades, has, during some years past, published to the world. To convert a mechanical contrivance for facilitating the communication of news into the machinery of gross falsehood operating upon the public funds, is worthy the whole wretched and demoralising system of Government, supported by doctrinaire and juste milieu Statesmen, than whom a race of politicians of baser ambition and more ignoble vices never disgraced the intellectual character and lowered the moral tone of a great nation.

Well may the Constitutionnel exclaim, in reference to what took place on the Bourse with regard to the GUEBHARD loan,

"It is high time to put a stop to those odious gambling transactions, which endanger the property of the public, and contaminate the honour of the Ministry by which France is governed." But these gambling transactions have been going on so long that we fear the habit has become inveterate, and that a burst of indignation from the Journals every now and then, and the despairing outcry of the persons robbed, will not put an end to it without some decided vindication of public justice by the impeachment of the guilty parties. With such a servile Chamber of Deputies as France in its still unreformed condition has, such a demonstration of virtue by the representatives of the people (called so in courtesy) is not to be expected. The thing must go on, then, until the vices of the Government, by arousing the spirit of the nation, produce their own corrective.

At the time when the death of FERDINAND was announced by telegraph, while he was yet alive, and certain operations took place in Spanish Stock, it was stated in the Paris Papers that the King of the FRENCH had the telegraph in his own hands, or under his own immediate direction. Since then how many falsehoods have been telegraphed respecting the affairs of Spain and the Carlist insurrrection. * *

*

It is not long since similarly dishonest and gambling operations in the Spanish Funds grounded upon false representations from Spain of the intentions of the Spanish Government, were fatally signalized by the utter ruin of numbers of families and by the suicide of many persons, and the insanity of others.

Statistics of Capital Punishment in Belgium.-Feb. 10, 1835.

It was stated in our Paper the other day, that in the Sitting of the 3rd instant, in the Belgian Chamber, M. DE BROUCKERE brought forward a proposition for the abolition of capital punishments—the same that he presented in 1832, and in which he did not persevere because the sentences of death were always commuted by the KING to imprisonment for life.