near Dijon, the unfortunate sovereign of Lorraine, released from his captivity by the generous interposition of Mellidor, we are suddenly surprised by a scene of distress for which we are not altogether prepared; and which we must condemn as in opposition to the faith of history. On the death of this hapless Prince, which is represented as occurring at this precise juncture, his creditors arrest the corpse, and refuse it for inhumation, till their demands shall be fully satisfied. Without the means of discharging so large a mass of debt, and shocked by the withholding of her father's body from the rites of sepulture, the Princess brings the cause, to be pleaded by herself, before the Parliament of Dijon, and finally offers to submit to the loss of her own liberty to redeem the venerated remains. The scene is highly coloured, and is deeply impressive: but we must censure it for violating history, and for being also, of some offence against that probability which constitutes the truth of fiction.

When Mellidor returns from the death-bed of his father, to which he had been summoned from the altar, where he was united to the daughter of St. Amand, he is assassinated in his father-in-law's garden by the concealed lover of his guilty bride. The wound which the bridegroom receives on this occasion, is not mortal; and in the skirmish which ensues, he lays the assassin apparently dead at his feet. The death of an adulterous ruffian, under such circumstances of the most obvious self-defence, could not, as we should imagine, inflict pain on the most sensitive conscience; but on the mind of Mellidor it acts with the most acute power, and is productive of agonies which could not well have been more intense if the compelled deed of blood had been actually the deed of deliberate murder. This we feel to be out of nature, and we are assured that the effect is drawn much out of proportion to the cause. Though we might, perhaps, observe on some minor errors in our author's conduct of his narrative, we shall now have done with censure; and shall proceed to the more agreeable part of our design, that of entertaining our readers with extracts from the pages with which we have ourselves been amused.

The first passage which we shall select from the variety that distracts us, is the interview between Lemira and Melanie, the faithless wife of Mellidor, when the injured husband is on his trial for an imputed murder, and when his life and his honour might be saved by the confession of the conscious bride:

Lemira was still in Melanie's apartment, exerting all the fortitude of her great mind to control its anxious perturbation, when a servant entered and

presented her with a sealed letter, on which Melanie's eyes were instantly and intently fixed. The momentary suspension of Lemira's bleeding throbbing heart gave her a sensation of faintness that rendered her for a few minutes incapable of breaking the seal: but this suspense was too replete with distressing images not to be quickly terminated by a rapid perusal of this short but important note, the contents of which diffused over the face of the lovely orphan the cold pale hue of agony; while the varying crimson on Melanie's cheek, and the fitful flushing of her eye, evinced her anxiety to be informed of the cause of the Princess's emotion.

"The trial is finished at length," she said.

"And what has been the result of the Vicomte's testimony?" inquired Melanie, and then added with excessive agitation, "what new circumstance has he betrayed, and whom has he accused ?”

Lemira regarded her for a few minutes with fixed and surprised attention, and then replied, Nothing that can conduce to the exculpation of the unhappy Valmire; nothing that can prevent the stigma of guilt from attaching to his reputation; nothing, I fear, that can preserve a life so valuable to his friends, his sister, and his country."

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She now again raised her eyes to Melanie's face, and was astonished to perceive that her countenance had resumed its placid expression, and that no traces remained of its late violent emotion. Horror-struck at this apparent insensibility to the fate of a being whom she had so deeply injured, and urged by her own indignant feelings, Lemira exclaimed, Is it possible, Melanie! that you can behold with indifference the fatal destiny of a man, who has been united to you at the altar by the strictest ties of love and duty; and who has been reduced to his present fearful situation by your gross violation of these sacred vows ?"

The deep crimson of passion reanimated Melanie's burning cheek: her eyes shone with 'unnatural brightness, while she exclaimed, "Valmire was never the husband of my love or my choice, but was forced on my acceptance by my father; and a vain ceremony gave him my hand, while my heart he has widowed, and laid low in Villeron's grave! his arm has robbed me of the charm which made life desirable: let his haughty head, therefore, be humbled in the dust, and let my adored Henri be avenged."

The princess now blushed: she blushed, that woman's pride should be so abased; that woman's tenderness should be so perverted; that woman's virtue should be so degraded.

Believing that Melanie's repentance had been as sincere as its expression was violent, Lemira had sought to impart peace to the wounded mind of the mourner, and had attended her, if not with all the officiousness of love, with the judicious and enlightened piety of a Christian: but this high-souled girl had yet to learn that no excellent or disinterested feeling could long retain possession of Melanie's breast, from whence it was soon to be banished by the indulgence of ill-regulated and violent passions.

Lemira's figure seemed to expand with the emotions of offended virtue, and her countenance assumed that peculiar expression of severity and loftiness which Melanie could never behold unbashed.

"I have been greatly deceived in you, Melanie! fearfully deceived; and now find, that, when I supposed your misfortunes had corrected your heart, my judgment greatly erred: when I thought you capable of a disinterested and noble sacrifice to save the life of a fellow creature, I estimated your character far, very far above its value; and when I imagined that your soul would be distracted with remorse at the spectacle of the misery that you have caused, I attributed a feeling to your mind to which it is a stranger. persist in your unnatural revenge! Proceed with your work of cruelty! too soon will your vengeance be satisfied: too soon will the stroke descend, which,

But

by depriving Mellidor of life, will also deprive you of the power of atonement; and when you behold the bleeding corse of him whom you have murdered, then, perhaps, your too tardy repentance will be felt only to render the remaining years of your existence more deeply overshadowed with misery."

She now moved to depart; when Melanie, starting from the couch, threw herself at the feet of the princess, and catching hold of her robe, exclaimed, "Oh, leave me not thus with that look of scorn and resentment! Oh, thou Being, superior to the frailty which has destroyed me! pity my weakness, pity my distress, and forgive the wretched creature who supplicates for mercy!"

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Say then, is it in your power to save the life of the Vicomte de Val

mire?"

"It is."

"Then why do you hesitate to perform an act of justice and of mercy? an act which would diffuse round your heart the sunshine of happiness, and restore to your conscience the soft balm of peace."

"No!" answered Melanie, after a moment's pause, "on these terms I cannot regain your esteem; for never will I reveal those circumstances which can alone exculpate Valmire from guilt."

With a look of horror Lemira now gently, but firmly, withdrew her robe from Melanie's grasp, and instantly quitted the room.—Vol. ii. p. 27—34.

Having thus introduced our readers to the personal acquaintance, as it were, of these two finely drawn and strongly contrasted female characters, we shall make their last meeting the subject of our concluding extracts. On her divorce from Mellidor, in consequence of her detected criminality with Villeron, Melanie unites herself to her lover; and, with the wealth which she possesses, they live together for some years in a state of guilty felicity. Villeron, however, is eventually proved to be a thorough villain; and on his being claimed by a former wife, whom he had deserted, the distress of Melanie is so frantic as to impel her to plunge a poniard into her side. In this wretched situation she is accidentally discovered by Lemira; and even in this extremity, the victim of guilt and of suffering, she is not forsaken by the sympathy and the good offices of that admirable woman, who had once

been her friend.

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As Lemira, with indescribable feelings of agony, approached the sufferer, she feebly opened her eyes. O heaven! she lives!" exclaimed the princess, "why is not a surgeon sent for ?"

"No, no! a priest: there is no hope of preserving my life," murmured Melanie: but Lemira, without attending to these gloomy forebodings, instantly despatched a servant in quest of a spiritual guide to administer the sacrament, and to receive the confessions of the penitent, while she did not neglect to employ every human means to prolong the existence of the wretched woman. Before the arrival of either the surgeon or the priest, Lemira, kneeling by the couch, endeavoured to staunch the effusion of blood. While she was thus engaged, the surgeon arrived; who, having probed the wound, declared it was mortal; ; but that Melanie might linger for several hours. She then earnestly desired to be left alone with the friar, who had just arrived from a neighbouring convent, and who thus addressed her :

Daughter! if thou hast any undivulged crimes pressing on thy mind, hasten to be reconciled to thy Maker by instant confession."

"Crimes!" exclaimed she, with sudden and terrible emotion, "Are they not already published to the world? Is not my country vocal with my guilt? Is not every babe taught to hold up its finger, and point with scorn to Melanie, the adulteress, the parricide, the self-destroyer? Father! can crimes like these be forgiven? Is there mercy in heaven for such a sinner as I? But hear me, holy father! hear the tale of my guilty and uncontrolled passions, and publish the history to be a warning to the weak and disobedient."

She then, with several pauses occasioned by her waning life, detailed all those particulars of her connexion with Villeron, which have been before narrated, and added, "One night, that which succeeded the day when the Vicomte signified to me through the Abbé de Fleurville his having obtained a divorce, as I was sitting alone in my room, I observed the figure of a man passing by the casement. In a few moments the door communicating with the garden was unfastened, and Villeron stood before me. Terror pre

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on

vented me from shrieking or moving, for I entertained no doubt that it was the spirit of my murdered Henri come to visit me from the grave. His warm caresses awoke me from my stupefaction, and recalled me to a state of unutterable bliss ; for he then entreated me to fly with him and become his wife! I will not dwell," added Melanie, while a faint colour tinted her cheek, the happiness which I then experienced, but will only say, that the prospect of a life spent with the man whom I still adored, and a feeling of false honour, which induced me to think that marriage would wash away the stains of previous guilt, made me close my eyes to the cruelty of a deception which rendered the life of Valmire miserable. Overpowering, then, was the blow which convinced me that the object of my fondest affection, the man for whom I had sacrificed innocence, duty, and integrity, had deceived me ; that his first vows were pledged to another; that he was a villain, and that I was his guilty paramour.”

Her voice gradually rose as she pronounced these words; and, as she uttered the last it was elevated to a shriek; while her eyes rolled wildly, and assumed that unnatural brightness which Lemira had so often viewed with alarm, lest the vivid flashes should be succeeded by frenzy. "Is there mercy in heaven for crimes like these, father? But, if I am condemned to eternal misery, how much greater will be the agonizing torments of my seducer! Oh!" she cried with a frenzied laugh, "while riding uneasily on the clouds, while driven through the dark abyss, the sport of every wind that blows, while my shivering form is pierced through and through by the icy breath of divine wrath, how will my spirit exult to see the cause of all my misery torn to pieces by contending furies, shivered to atoms by the scathing lightning, and only reunited again to render his punishment eternal.”

Exhausted by these dreadful ravings, she fell back on the pillow, and the stupified and terrified friar stood like a pillar of marble by the bed, unable to impart consolation to the dying maniac. Lemira, attracted by Melanie's shrieks, now entered the room, and found her restored to comparative calmness, and the priest seizing the opportunity to give her absolution and extreme unction: but not long did this state of tranquillity endure. Placing her hand on her side, and pausing between every word, she said, "Death, death is here! I feel his cold and iron grasp seize on my heart! all that I now wish is to see Valmire, but he too is dead; he was given up by my cruelty to a life of remorse and a death of bitterness; and now he is come to upbraid me. Yes! I see him now covered with wounds, and from their gaping mouths are emitted flames of fire. My father too, my murdered bloodless father, points to Valmire and himself! Now, now the flames approach!" She shrieked in the voice of agony, starting up with a violence that burst the bandages, and

caused again the blood to flow. "Now they seize on my body! Help, eh help me to extinguish this dreadful fire! Now it consumes my heart! Mercy! O mercy!"

She sunk back on the bed; and Lemira perceived that her spirit had passed away with her last words.

Overcome by horror at this dreadful termination of a being whom she had so long known, Lemira lost for awhile in unconsciousness the painful sense of misery.

Before the body was removed Lemira unclosed her eyes, which rested with shuddering horror on the cold, inanimate form of Melanie: but, recovering the fortitude of her great mind, she bathed the wound, removed the bloodstained garments, arranged the beautiful hair, and laid the unfortunate suicide ready for her last home. Denied interment in sacred ground, Lemira chose a mound, covered with violets, for the tomb of the unfortunate selfdestroyer; and staying to see the lovely corse deposited in its lowly grave, she returned oppressed with horror to Paris.-Vol. iii. p. 226-233.

S. G. Inner Temple.

ON EASTERN AND CLASSICAL POETRY,

MORE PARTICULARLY ON THE LIFE OF FERDAUSI.

Ut pictura Poësis.

HOR.

WE may imagine, without liability to the charge of unsound criticism, that the art of Poetry, as well as many of the Sciences, may be retraced to an Eastern origin. To mark out its progression, changes, and improvements, or even to attempt the detection of every parallel which exists, or of the ideas which Western poets have thence appropriated to themselves, would contain more of speculation than of genuine truth. Yet, notwithstanding this chasm in the history of the art, many interesting points of similarity are still within the compass of our observation. We cannot read Homer, Pindar, or Hesiod, nor peruse the sublime flights of Eschylus, without recalling to our minds, in the train of thought and metaphor which they present, various corresponding passages in Asiatic poets, which either manifest an identity of expression, or elucidate the general custom to which each writer referred. Nor can we remark the character of improvisatore, which has been attributed to Homer, without recollecting the ancient practice of poetical competition at the Arabian Ocad'h, and other meetings, as well as the pastoral contentions in Virgil and Theocritus. The dramatic representations of men, things, and fables, which were in vogue in the East from the most