ing out any unjustly neglected poem, jumps with the original intention of this Series; and I may truly say with old Izaac Walton, that these smooth verses please me better than many of the strong lines now in fashion. This little Erotic romance is so short that, if the eyes were not dazzled by thick-bubbling tears, the whole might be perused in ten minutes; however the reader needs not be alarmed, for my intention is only by glimpses of its beauties to provoke him to the purchase of the book *.-Hunt with his

"Hero and Leander, and Bacchus and Ariadne," two original poems, by Leigh Hunt, 12mo. 1819. The lay of the Panther, at the end, (taken from Philostratus's Life of Apollonius of Tyana) is worth the total cost. The essence of youth flames and dances in its elastic lines. The old legend of Ariadne, too, is very originally embodied,-the opening is "wet with roarie may-dews," it is drowned in the cool gray air of dawn.

"The moist and quiet morn was scarcely breaking,
When Ariadne in her bower was waking;

Her eyelids still were closing, and she heard
But indistinctly yet a little bird,

That in the leaves o'erhead, waiting the sun,

Seemed answering another distant one.

с

characteristic love of "leafy luxuries," has insisted rather on the heart-gladdening site of "Venus' Church" than on its architectural decorations-his description is summery, yet "mild as the mist of the hill in the day of the sun."

"The hour of worship's over; and the flute And choral voices of the girls are mute ;

*

All, all is still about the odorous grove
That wraps the temple of the Queen of Love,
All but the sparrows twittering from the eaves,
And inward voice of doves among the leaves,
And the cool, hiding noise of brooks in bowers,
And bees, that dart in bosoms of the flowers;
And now and then, a breath-increasing breeze
That comes amid a world of tumbling trees,
And makes them pant and shift against the light
About the marble roof, solid and sunny bright.-
Only some stragglers loiter round the place
To catch a glimpse of Hero's heavenly face,—

(Note continued.)

She waked, but stirred not, only just to please
Her pillow-nestling cheek; while the full seas,
The birds, the leaves, the lulling love o'ernight,
The happy thought of the returning light,

conspired to keep

Her senses lingering in the feel of sleep."

Bringing a golden torch;-and so with pace
A little slackened, and still rosier face,
Passes their looks; and turning by a bower,
Hastens to hide her in her lonely tower.

The tower o'erlooks the sea; and there she sits
Grave with glad thoughts, and watching it by fits;
For o'er that sea, and by that torch's light,
Her love Leander is to come at night,-

So she sat fix'd, thinking, and thinking on,

And wish'd, and yet did not, the time were gone;-
And started then, and blushed, and then was fain
To try some work, and then sat down again;
And lost to the green trees with their sweet singers,
Tapp'd on the casement's ledge with idle fingers."

The ensuing evening piece seems written in

the glowing "South Countrie," "the land of

the beautiful blossoms :"-The last two lines remind one of Chaucer

"Hesper meanwhile, the star with amorous eye
Shot his fine sparkle from the deep blue sky.
A depth of night succeeded, dark but clear,
Such as presents the hollow starry sphere,
Like a high gulf to Heaven: and all above
Seems waking to a fervid fire of love.

A nightingale in transport, seem'd to fling
His warble out, and then sit listening:

And ever and anon, amid the flush

Of the thick leaves, there ran a breezy gush;
And then, from dewy myrtles lately bloomed,
An odour small, in at the window, fumed."

The passing of the waters is more picturesquely touched than any thing of the kind I ever met with-" It is of the water, watery."-The Abydanian's voyages were prosperous during the summer season, when

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The night was almost clear as day, Wanting no torch; and then with easy play He dipp'd along beneath the silver moon, Placidly hearkening to the water's tune."

But the pleasant days of autumn now were over,

Began to clang against the coming rain,

And peevish winds ran cutting o'er the sea,
Which at its best look'd dark and slatily.—

But still he came, and still she bless'd his sight;
And so, from day to day, he came and went,
Till time had almost made her confident.

One evening, as she sat, twining sweet bay
And myrtle garlands for a holiday,—

She thought with such a full and quiet sweetness
Of all Leander's love,

All that he was, and said, and look'd, and dared,
His form, his step, his noble head full-haired,

That the sharp pleasure mov'd her like a grief,
And tears came dropping with their meek relief.-
Meanwhile the sun had sunk; the hilly mark
Across the straits mix'd with the mightier dark,
And night came on. All noises by degrees
Were hush'd, the fisher's call, the birds, the trees,
All-but the washing of the eternal seas.
Hero look'd out, and trembling augured ill,
The darkness held its breath so very still.
But yet she hop'd he might arrive before
The storm began, or not be far from shore;

And mounted to the tower, and shook the torch's flare. But he, Leander, almost half across,

Threw his blithe locks behind him with a toss,

And hail'd the light victoriously, secure

Of clasping his kind love,

When suddenly, a blast, as if in wrath,

Sheer from the hills, came headlong on his path."

The story now necessarily follows Musæus,