-

undeceived. Yet there had been no deceit - no faithlessness no falsehood. Ignorant of themselves their present condition -and their future lot, had Edward and Lucy been in the joy of their mutual affection. He had first come to see the impossibility of their ever being more to one another than they had already been- and now Lucy saw the same truth with the same sad conviction." Vain creature that I was, and void of all understanding, ever to dream for a single time in my sleep that Edward Ellis was all his life long to love Lucy Forester! And yet often too often have I dreamt it, and lo! he has passed away from Holylee -from Bracken-Braes-from the Linn and the Ivy-tree like a cloud- and I shall never see his bonny face again till my dying day!" But as her tears flowed, her thoughts grew less and less bitter. She now began to recal all the delightful traits of his character, and to her unselfish nature that meditation brought an alleviation of grief. How courteous had he ever been in the cottage! How tenderly polite to her mother, how more than respectful to her father, how pleasant to aunt Isobel! But all at once she tore herself away from the trysting-place, and said within her heart that she would never more venture to revisit it - for all its beauty, all its blessedness was gone, just as the indescribable brightness of some too heavenly dream, that is felt at the time to be but a dream, and long long after, when it returns in indistinct remembrance on the soul, sheds something of its yet unextinguished light over the dim, and clouded, and imperfect happiness of this waking world!

-

Lucy looked at Bracken-Braes- but Edward Ellis's father might still be sitting there and she dared not-could not again meet his face even in the gloaming. So she sat down among the broom, and did not go home till the Plane-tree was standing quite visible in the moonlight.'

We feel that these unconnected scenes can give the reader no idea of the nature of the story: but they may enable him to judge of the richness and beauty of the style in which it is written. At the same time, our own impression is, that the style is too ornate and poetical for the nature of the subject; and that the simplicity of the incidents demanded something of a congenial simplicity of expression. The book, however, on the whole, is one which will please generally; and though not indicating, in our opinion, a very fertile invention, or extended range of talent, it is calculated to make its way quietly to our sympathies; and perhaps, to continue a favorite when works that seem, at first sight, of deeper and more stirring interest have been forgotten.

MONTHLY

MONTHLY CATALOGUE,

Art. 13.

POETRY and the DRAMA.

Sonnets and other Poems. By D. L. Richardson. Post 8vo. pp. 151. London. Underwoods. 1825.

The sonnets and miscellaneous poetry contained in this little volume are the effusions of a tender heart and a cultured intellect. They breathe strains, we venture to say, of unaffected sorrow, composed under some bitter domestic privation; and may at once be pronounced "flowing numbers" from "a bleeding heart." *

We think the sonnets the best pieces in the collection. The first (written in India) entitled Night and Morning, is exquisitely beautiful but jackall should have been spelt conformably to the Indian pronunciation shákál.

The moon was darkly shrouded, -- chilling rain
Fell on the grove with melancholy sound,

The jackall's piercing cry, the voice profound
Of Ganga's rolling wave, and shrieks of pain,
Came on the midnight blast! Hill, vale, and plain
Were in impenetrable gloom o'ercast;

Save when the fitful meteor glimmer'd past,
Or the blue lightning mocked the drear domain !
Lo! what a glorious change! The rising sun
Sheds his reviving beams! The fragrant bower,
Ringing with morning hymns, the stately tower,
The Shepherd's quiet home, alike have won

His smile of light and joy. Fair nature's dower

Of beauty is restored, and pleasure's reign begun!'

The sensibilities of that reader are little to be envied, who can peruse the third sonnet without a lively sympathy with this tender

mourner.

Lady! If from my young but clouded brow,

Joy's radiant beam depart so fitfully,

If the mild lustre of thy sweet blue eye

Cheer not the mourner's gloom, Oh! do not Thou,

Like the gay throng, disdain a Child of Woe,

Or deem his bosom cold! Should the low sigh
Bring to the voice of bliss unmeet reply, -
Oh! bear with one whose darken'd path below

*"Grief unaffected suits but ill with art,
Or flowing numbers with a bleeding heart."
TICKELL'S Elegy on Addison.

The

The tempest-fiend hath crossed! The blast of doom
Scatters the ripening bud, the full-blown flower,
Of hope and joy, nor leaves one living bloom,
Save love's wild evergreen, that dares its power,
And clings to this lone heart, young pleasure's tomb,
Like the fond ivy on the ruined tower!'

The following elegant stanzas are also written with great taste and feeling :

Oh! sweet departed saint!

If aught of earth could reach thine ear,

Love's fevered sigh, and sorrow's ceaseless plaint,
Might wake an angel's tear!

Not that my wretched heart

Would stain thee now with kindred woe,

Or bid thy spirit's holier dreams impart
A less etherial glow!

• But, oh! the thought of pain,

That we on earth shall meet no more,

Hath wrung a broken heart, whose griefs disdain
All that would peace restore!

• Oh! desolate and cold!

Hope's lingering beam is quenched at last,
The trusting mind futurity controlled

Now dwells but on the past!

O'er this deserted scene,

Where'er my wandering eye may turn,

Rise long-remembered spots, where thou hast been,
But never shalt return!

. The fragrant noon-tide grove,

And the moon-light hallowed bowers,

The sweet haunts of ecstacy and love

But breathe of happier hours!

I seek thine early tomb

With sad and unavailing tears,

While echo wakes, amid the cheerless gloom,

The voice of other years!'

Art. 14. Poems and Poetical Translations, by Samuel Gower London. 8vo. pp. 46. 2s. 6d. Simkin. 1824.

This is one of the numerous tribe of poets, who browze downward on the slopes of Parnassus. His fasciculus, however, is put forth in an unadorned shape: and many of the pieces contained in it are far from being destitute of merit. Among these we cannot certainly comprehend such mawkish and unmeaning things as the following.

• Sketch of a Passage in "the Miller and his Men."
• Count Friburg return'd on one stormy night

To his native land from the wars,

And in the wild forest was fain to alight
Through the darkening of the stars :
H

REV. MAY, 1825.

< For

For the Sun it had set a long time before,
And the Moon asleep was rock'd :

By the tempest beneath it, that swung like a door
On which the thunderbolts knock'd:

And the Stars were all in their chambers seal'd,
Except a very few;

And dark grew the whole of the heavenly field,
Which before was so light and blue;

And the rain and the sleet began to beat

And patter on the walls,

And flashes of pallid lightning to fleet
Through the forests leafy halls;

And a light as of hell seem'd at moments to glare
Through the sulphury crevices

Of the sheet of pitch that curtain'd the air,

And mantled its distress.'

It is hardly to be imagined that the stuff we have just copied, proceeded from the author of the Sonnet to Night.

Leaning on Darkness, Night, with noiseless foot,
Glides onward, like a Vampyre from his tomb,
Through the damp cloisters of the East; her plume
The raven-winged Clouds; her rustling suit
Of dewy drapery, the Winds that hoot

And flap all black'ning round the formless gloom
Of her approach; while, quickening in her womb,
Lurk Treason's and Adult'ry's guilty fruit;-
Ev'n yon blue Argus, with his thousand eyes-
Yon huge unslumb'ring creature of the gods,
Yon Sky, upon his
watch-tow'r nods

weary

Starless and blind to his neglected prize :

Like Beauty ravish'd in a sepulchre,

While shrieks the chilly world a prey to Lucifer.'

The address of Napoleon to the young king of Rome, we conceive to have been intended as a satire upon some vicious poetaster of the age; but the author having given no key to his meaning we lose the pleasure of joining in the laugh.

HISTORY.

Art. 15. The History of Huntingdon,' from the earliest to the present time; with an Appendix, containing the Charter of Charles I. under which the Borough is now governed. Crown 8vo. 6s. 6d. Sherwood and Co. 1824.

Many of our books are "ridiculously magnificent," as a French writer expresses it. The present volume is humble in this respect, but it is executed with propriety and research, and deserves to be reprinted in a more handsome form, with engravings of the principal edifices described. The author's name

is to us unknown, but he has given a History of Huntingdon at once compendious and full, which comprises all that is desirable to be recorded of a town, for the use of the inhabitant or the stranger. The eminent persons connected with the place by birth or residence, by pecuniary or literary benefits, by local or national conspicuity, are severally commemorated with proportionate justice; and the entire work needs not shun comparison with the many similar guide-books which our provincial towns have produced. They are a useful class of writings; for they tend to produce an affection for a person's native place a sort of civic patriotism, disposed to exert itself for the improvement and embellishment of the site of our earliest home "Spartam nactus

es, hanc exorno."

In a preface subscribed with the initials R. C. the author records his obligations to the corporation of Huntingdon for a liberal access to their archives; whence it appears that representatives were returned for the town so early as the year 1295. An introduction follows, which gives a general history of the country: it was colonized by the Iceni, and the author relies on Camden, who tried to turn every ancient English name of either people or district into Welsh, for deriving this appellation from Y-cini foremost: but, as the Welsh tribes never dwelt east of the Peak, and as the oriental coast of England was peopled by Goths, he should have sought in the Saxon language for the derivation of Iceni, which probably comes from Eiche, oak-tree, and signifies hearts of oak. În like manner Durolipons (p. 60.) is not to be metamorphosed into Durosipons, and then translated with Camden, Ousebridge, but may rather seem an awkward attempt of the Romans to imitate the Saxon appellation of The Earl's bridge.

The history is divided into seven chapters, of which the first treats on the situation, extent, and population of the town, and the agriculture of its neighbourhood. On the authority of Bede and William of Malmsbury, the writer hazards the following improbable assertion.

'About a thousand years ago, the country now denominated the Fens, was one of the most delightful spots in the whole kingdom; it was not only richly cultivated, and produced all the necessaries of life, but grapes also, that afforded excellent wine. The writers of that age are copious in the description of its verdure and fertility; its rich pastures covered with flowers and herbage; its beautiful shades, and wholesome air. But the sea, breaking in upon the land, overwhelmed the whole country, took possession of the soil, and totally destroyed one of the most fertile vallies in the world. Its air, from being dry and healthful, from that time became unwholesome, and clogged with vapours; and the small part of the country that, by being higher than the rest, escaped the deluge, was soon rendered uninhabitable, from its noxious vapours. Thus this country continued under water for some centuries; till at last the sea, by the same caprice which had prompted its invasions, began to abandon the earth in like manner.. It has continued for some ages to relinquish its former conquests;