FURTHER OUTRAGE ON THE THE following letter from Mrs. Kingdon, wife of a Baptist Missionary, will be read with painful interest. The atrocious outrages which it details remind us of the worst scenes of the worst times. When the magistracy and most influential portion of one of our colonies sanction such enormities, it is surely time for the supreme government to interpose. MY DEAR FRIEND, then advised to make our escape-it was in vain to resist them much longer. We accordingly escaped in disguise to a negro hut. We had not long been there when we were told we were not safe; we, therefore, fled to another place for safety. By this time the magistrate arrived, but the civil power was of no use. They cursed the king, and said that they were fighting under America. During the attack the rebels sent for the cannon from the Court House, but the gates were too strong for them; it was to blow up the house, as many of the foes thought we were still there. A friend came to our place of refuge, and told us that some of the rebels thought we were in that direction. The magistrates thought they had prevailed on the mob to let the Messrs. Deleon pass with them, and that they could take them away; but they had not advanced more than four I hope you have received Mr. Kingdon's last steps each, taking hold of the magistrate's arm, letter, dated July 31, as that contained some par- when the Unionists fired upon them, and they and ticulars of our recent trials. He has written you the magistrate were obliged to escape for their a short letter, by this packet, but he had not time life. At this time Mr. K. and I were just leaving to give you any account of our present situation. our second hiding-place, when the shots came On the 8th instant a meeting of the Colonial flying in all directions. I now began to feel alChurch Union took place, at which it was pro- most exhausted with fatigue and fright; I scarcely posed by Mr. Whitelock, a magistrate, seconded knew where I stood. The drum was beating, the by a man named Vickers, that they should expel guns firing, the females screaming. In my fright all sectarians. One of them wished to prevent an I lost Mr. K., as I took a different path; I also attack on a person who refused to sign these reso- lost my shoes, and was obliged to pass through lutions, when some of them cried out, "Let him bush and water barefoot, as some of our poor alone, 'tis the Baptist parson we want, and have Baptist friends took me to a place of safety at him we will this day." Then Mr. Whitelock said, some distance. After the second firing they began The Custos has not only absented himself from to break down the house. They entered it, and the meeting, but kept back the papers received broke and destroyed all the furniture. The house from other branches of the Union." He, therefore, was too strong for them without axes, so they left proposed a resolution expressive of their contempt it till the next night. I cannot express, my dear of the Custos. After the meeting we heard that friend, the anguish of my mind for some hours. I the Unionists had gone to the barracks, and would thought in all probability my husband had been come in the evening to pull down the house in taken and murdered by his enemies. About two which we lodged, and drive us away. In conse- or three o'clock two females, my own servant and quence of the above resolution (corresponding another black woman, found me, and told me that with what has been adopted by other parishes), my dear Mr. K. was safe. They took me away, we assembled a few friends with the view of pre- and led me to a negro hut, when I was given to venting an attack being made on us, as we had the care of another negress, who conducted me to done before. Seeing a number of the Colonial Mr. Deleon's, sen. where we soon found ourselves Church Union men, with others, parading the streets in each other's society. Thankful, indeed, were during the evening, Mr. K. wrote to Dr. Distin, we to that gracious God who had so mercifully a magistrate, residing near the Bay, for him to delivered us so far from the hands of blood-thirsty come down to us, as a mob was collecting to do men. He was evidently with us in all our distress, us injury; he was at home, and might have come and strengthened and supported us during all the down in time (as the messenger returned before danger we were in. His countenance cheered us, the attack commenced), but he declined on account even in the darkest moment. He alone was all our of his wife's indisposition. The other magistrate, trust. I felt that I could die in the cause of my to whom application was made at the same time, Redeemer, but to see my husband put to an ignocame as soon as possible afterwards, though not minious death, in my presence, seemed insupporttill the affray had begun. During the evening able; and this was what I expected every moment. they passed and repassed several times; once I can now sing of mercy and goodness; they have they stopped near the house. Mr. Rickets, a surely followed me all the days of my life. We friend, attempted to pacify them, when they remained in a state of great anxiety lest we should stabbed at him without any provocation, for our be discovered. Mr. A. Deleon and his wife were friends were all on the premises belonging to the concealed with us. They threatened to pull down house. They commenced a furious attack on the all the houses in the Bay, in order to find Messrs. house where we lodged, occupied by Miss Mahone. Deleon and Mr. K. The Custos knew where they It belonged to Mr. A. Deleon, Jun.; they endea- were; and, knowing that their lives were in immivoured to break open the front door, and to break nent danger, sent for Mr. K. to the Court House; in the windows. On this attack being made, some he got the ringleader to pledge his word that the females, who were in our apartments, threw out mob should not hurt him. This Walter Young some boiling water upon the assailants, which not accompanied Mr. Williams, the Custos's brother, only happily extinguished an explosive rocket a magistrate, and took Mr. K. to the Court House. placed underneath the house to blow us up, but It was with the greatest difficulty they could keep also drove them back a moment. They then fired the mob from falling on him. The Custos seeing in at the windows. Mr. K. and I had just retired our danger, kindly offered Mr. K. protection in to the study, to commit ourselves into the hands his house, a distance of six miles from the Bay, of God, as our whole dependance was on him and that Mr. Eveling should fetch me in his gig, alone-we had no other refuge--we earnestly and take me after him. I had, indeed, taken my sought divine aid and support, and our prayers leave of my husband, thinking it almost impossible were graciously heard and answered. I think not he should escape with his life. In less than two less than ten or twelve shots were fired in at the hours, however, I found myself within the peacewindows. In my fright, I endeavoured to jumpful walls of Anglesea. Worn down with anxiety out of window; I was prevented by my servant, who took me by the waist and dragged me from the window. Almost at the same moment a shot came through the window, which would have struck my face had I remained a minute longer. Mr. K. stepped towards the table-I called to him to stoop; while he was stooping a shot passed over his head. Their determination was to murder Mr. K. and Messrs. Deleon. We were and fatigue, we retired early to rest-we had just The Custos himself was on the Bay, with other magistrates, and the mob was employed destroying the house of our friends. Mr. Grant kindly told Mr. K. to keep his clothes on. The watch was set, and when the alarm was given he was to escape. About two o'clock the alarm was given; a negro then took Mr. K. to a place of safety: I expected every moment they would come to the room to search. I was soon relieved, by finding it to be only the constable come to take my dear husband to prison: Whitelock, who issued the warrant against Mr. K., was, at this time, assisting the mob to pull down the houses. Mr. K. left me; I intended to follow him at day-break. They met Mr. W. Williams and Mr. Eveling, who brought Mr. K. back with them, and said that Mr. K. was in their custody first: by this time the Messrs. Deleon were lodged in prison by this same Whitelock. In the morning Mr. K. was taken to prison. I left half an hour after, and we have been here ever since. The first four or five nights we were every moment in danger of the rebels pulling down the prison, such was their thirst for blood: all they wanted was the life of the Messrs. Deleon, and Mr. K.—a plan was, I believe, laid for that purpose. There were no military here—I believe there were none nearer than fifty miles. They are now come, and our fears are greatly relieved. The prison has been full of poor Baptists, who were obliged to come for protection. The Messrs. Deleon are here. It is a most miserable place. We sleep sometimes twelve in one room. The gentlemen are obliged to do the best they can; there are twenty-four men with Mr. K. and the Messrs. Deleon of our party; three or four poor slaves are in irons. We have to keep four poor men that have no other resource. I cannot tell one half we have endured. Pray remember me very affectionately to all my dear friends at Camberwell. We need their prayers; this is indeed a great source of encouragement to us, to know that we are not forgotten by our friends at home. I trust the time will soon arrive, when the Gospel of Christ will be preached all over this benighted island. It is truly distressing to see thousands of poor slaves hungering and thirsting for the word of life. They are persecuted, and many imprisoned, only for the sake of their attachment to their Saviour. My heart aches, from morning till night, on account of their sufferings. This letter, my dear friend, is merely intended to give you an account of what has taken place, I am not able to say anything respecting my own state of mind; only I desire to bless God that he has brought me to this place, and given me to feel more and more my dependance upon him. May I never lose sight, for one moment, of his great and unmerited mercies to one so unworthy! May I live nearer to that God, who has so wonderfully delivered me from the lion's mouth! It is still my earnest desire to spend and be spent in his service, and to know nothing short of Christ, and him crucified. I remain, my dear friend, Yours very sincerely, M. A. KINGDON. P. S. The members of the Baptist churches are persecuted very much. I will give you one instance.-A good man, a leader, belonging to the Baptist church, on his return from a prayer-meeting, on the 2d of January last, was taken up and thrown into prison, where he has been ever since, solely on account of his religious principles. When he was taken up, it was said that he was suspected of being connected with the rebels, but that was only an excuse; he is a man remarkable for his piety though a slave. He has never been tried, nor any notice taken of him, only his owner, or the attorney of the estate he belongs to, who sent him to prison, says, that if he will abandon his religion, and deny being a Baptist, he shall come out, but if he will not, he shall be shipped off the island, that is, transported for life. But the poor soul says, that if they kill him, he will not deny his Saviour. 1 understand he is quite cheerful, though in irons. THE class of books to which the Landscape Annual belongs forms a most agreeable digression from the ordinary routine of literature; and in that class the Landscape Annual holds a most distinguished place. It is much too late, at the present time, to introduce this elegant publication to the notice of our readers. They have doubtless admired the former volumes of the series, and we need therefore only say that the present is no way inferior to any of its predecessors. The literary department is conducted in a style worthy of the name it bears; and the embellishments are so elaborately beautiful as to leave us no room to wish for any further improvement in that branch of the fine arts. BURKE'S ENCOMIUM UPON SHERIDAN. PUBLIC curiosity was scarcely ever so strongly interested as on the day when Mr. Sheridan was to speak on the Begum charge, on the impeachment of Mr. Hastings. The avenues leading to the hall were filled with persons of the first distinction, many of them peeresses in full dress, who waited in the open air for upwards of an when the crowd pressed so eagerly forward, that hour and a half before the gates were opened, many persons had nearly perished. No extract can do justice to this speech. LANERCOST PRIORY. THESE are the relics of a convent of Augustine monks in Cumberland, founded and endowed by Robert de Vallibus, Lord of Gilsland, in 1116. It is situated in a fertile vale, shut in on every side by lofty hills, some clothed with wood, and others divided into fine inclosures. The approach to it is under a venerable elliptic arch. Few relics of it, as a monastic edifice, are now visible, the conventual church having assumed the form and use of a common parish church, and the priory-house having been stripped of its romance to accommodate the family and descendants of Sir Thomas Dacre, to whom it was granted by Henry the Eighth at the time of its suppression. It abounds with interesting remains of antiquity, consisting of monuments and ancient inscriptions. Neither the beauty, however, of the one, nor the "He has this day," said Mr. Burke, curious character of the other, have prevailed against the influence of time and prised the thousands who hung with rapture on his accents, by such an array of talents, such an neglect, so that they now only afford exhibition of capacity, such a display of powers, matter for the speculations of the anti-as are unparalleled in the annals of oratory; a quary. It appears from the Lanercost display that reflects the highest honour upon himChronicle, deposited in the British Mu-self, lustre upon letters, renown upon parliament, seum, that Robert Bruce, the Scottish of every kind of eloquence that has been witnessed, glory upon the country. Of all species of rhetoric, King, was here with his army in 1311, or recorded, either in ancient or modern times; when he imprisoned some of the monks, whatever the acuteness of the bar, the dignity of but liberated them again before his de- the senate, the solidity of the judgment-seat, and the sacred morality of the pulpit have hitherto parture. This body sustained many in- furnished, nothing has surpassed, nothing has juries in the wars between England and equalled what we have this day heard in WestScotland; their convent was burnt down minster-hall. No holy seer of religion, no sage, during an incursion of the Scots in 1296, no statesman, no orator, no man of any literary and they were plundered of all their trea-instance, to the pure sentiments of morality-or, description whatever, has come up, in the one sure and jewels by a similar invasion in REMARKABLE INSTANCE OF THE POWER OF A SAILOR had given a Fuegian a tin pot full of coffee, which he drank, and was using all his art to steal the pot. The sailor, however, "sur in the other, to that variety of knowledge, force hence, there is not a species of composition of There are three sorts of government: monarchical, aristocratical, democratical; and they are apt to fall three several ways into ruin: the first, by tyranny; the second, by ambition; the last, by tumults. A commonwealth, grounded upon any one of these, is not of long continuance; but, wisely mingled, each guards the other, and makes that government exact.-QUARLES. Kings will be tyrants from policy, when subjects are rebels from principle.-BURKE Those whom we call the ancients, were in truth novices in all things, and properly constituted the infancy of mankind; and, as we have added to their knowledge the experience of succeeding ages, it is in our ourselves that we should recognize that antiquity which we revere in others.-PASCAL. Hypocrisy is the necessary burden of villany; affectation, part of the chosen trappings of folly the one completes a villain, the other only finishes a fop. Contempt is the proper punishment of affectation, and detestation the just consequence of hypocrisy.-Dr. JOHNSON. MUNGO PARK AND SLAVERY. D'ISRAELI'S Curiosities of Literature, treating of the mutilation and suppression of manuscripts, has the following passage, which will be read with interest by such as are interested for the abolition of slavery :— "Such, I have heard, was the case of Bryan Edwards, who composed the first accounts of Mungo Park. Bryan Edwards, whose personal interests were opposed to the abolishment of the slave-trade, would not suffer any passage to stand in which the African traveller had expressed his conviction of its inhumanity. Park, among confidential friends, frequently complained that his work not only did not contain his opinions, but was interpolated with many which he utterly disclaimed." EPITAPH ON A WELL-KNOWN POET To make a bard at least absurd, He took to praising George the Third: Dooms us poor whigs at once to slaughter, Poisoning us all with laurel-water. Put to his works a finis thus: Printed by J. HADDON and Co.; and Published by J. CRISP, at No. 27, Ivy Lane, Paternoster Row, where all Advertisements and Communications for the Editor are to be addressed. THE Kremlin is one of the divisions of the city of Moscow, which escaped the conflagration that in 1811 destroyed almost the whole of that city, and clouded the hopes and fortunes of Buonaparte. This escape is doubtless attributable to the fact of its having been built chiefly of stone, whereas the remainder of Moscow was principally composed of wooden houses. The Kremlin derives its name from the Russian word krem or krim, which signifies a fortress. It stood in the central and highest part of the city, is of a triangular form, and about two miles in circumference. It is surrounded by high walls of stone and brick, which were constructed by Peter Solarius, a Milanese, in the year 1491. It is not a little extraordinary that the Tzars should have employed foreign architects at so early a period of their history as that in which the Kremlin was built, and when they were but little known to the rest of Europe. Such, however, was the case; and the consequence is, that this curious place wears a most anomalous appearance amongst the surrounding specimens of Russian taste and skill, of which it commands an extensive view. It contains the ancient palace of the Tzars, the arsenal, and several convents and churches; together with other buildings, of various uses, and different degrees of magnificence. In the midst of the Kremlin is a deep pit, containing the great bell of Moscow, which is known to be the largest ever founded. The current account of its fall is fabulous: it lies in the same place in which it was cast, and never was, nor ever could have been, suspended. Its circumference is sixty-seven feet four inches, its height twenty-one feet four inches and a half, its thickness in the part where it would have received the blow of the hammer twenty-three inches, and its weight has been computed to be 443,772 lbs. ; which, if valued at three shillings a pound, amounts to £66,565 16s. The great gun is another of the wonders of this place; it is about eighteen feet and a half long, ten inches thick, and of sufficiently large calibre to allow of a man sitting upright within it. Such are some of the curiosities of the Kremlin. The description of the general appearance of it shall be given by the late Dr. Edward Daniel Clarke, one of the most indefatigable travellers, one of the most enthusiastic naturalists, and one of the most entertaining writers that our country can boast. "There was a plan to unite the whole Kremlin, having a circumference of two miles, into one magnificent palace. Its triangular form, and the number of churches it contained, offered some difficulties, but the model was rendered complete. Its fronts are ornamented with ranges of beautiful pillars, according to different orders of architecture. Every part of it was finished in the most beautiful manner, even to the fresco paintings on the ceilings of the rooms, and the colouring of the various marble columns intended to decorate the interior. It incloses a theatre and magnificent apartments. Had the work been completed, no edifice could ever have been compared with it. It would have surpassed the Temple of Solomon, the Propylæum of Amasis, the Villa of Adrian, or the Forum of Trajan. "The architecture exhibited in different parts of the Kremlin, in its palaces and churches, is like nothing seen in Europe. The architects were generally Italians; but the style is Tartarian, Indian, Chinese, and Gothic: here a pagoda-there an arcade! In some parts richness, and even elegance-in others barbarity and decay! Taken altogether, it is a jumble of magnificence and ruin. Old buildings repaired, and modern structures not completed; half-open vaults and mouldering walls, amidst white-washed brick buildings, and towers, and churches, with glittering, gilded or painted domes." VINDICATION OF COLONIAL SLAVERY. It is very common to hear the advocates of the abolition of slavery challenge their opponents to bring forward a single argument in favour of the abstract justice of that odious system. We have confidently joined in the challenge; and we will, therefore, be the first to make the amende honorable to the injured party, by extracting for their benefit, from Montesquieu's "Spirit of Laws," a hypothetical defence of slavery; just premising, that all who know any thing of this cele brated writer will be willing to believe that he was not likely, in this muster of argument, to omit any that bore upon the question. In the above-mentioned work, b. xv. ch. 5, we find the following passage, to which we beg the grave attention of our readers. "Were I to vindicate our right to make slaves of the negroes, these should be my argu ments. "The Europeans, having extirpated the Americans, were obliged to make slaves of the Africans for clearing such vast tracts of land. "Sugar would be too dear, if the plants which produce it were cultivated by any other than slaves. | case as they state it, would the European | But he has not dwarfed the contest of the an- him BRITISH POETS. SPENSER was steeped in romance. He was the prince of magicians, and held the keys All the which unlocked enchanted doors. fantastic illusions of the brain belonged to -the dreamer's secrets, the madman's visions, the poet's golden hopes. He threw a rainbow across the heaven of poetry, at a time when all seemed dark and unpromising. He was the very genius of personification: and yet his imagination was less exerted than his fancy. His spirit was idle, dreaming, and voluptuous. He seems as though he had slumbered through summer evenings in caves or forests, by Mulla's stream, or the murmuring ocean. Giants and dwarfs, fairies and knights, and queens, rose up at the waving of his charming rod." There was no meagreness in his fancy, no poverty in his details. His invention was without limit. He drew up shape after shape, scene after scene, castle and lake, woods and caverns, monstrous anomalies and beautiful impossibilities, from the unfathomable depths of his mind. There is a prodigality and a consciousness of wealth about his creations which reminds one of the dash and sweep of Rubens's pencil; but, in other respects, his genius differed materially from that of the celebrated Fleming. In colouring they are somewhat alike, and, in the "Masque of Cupid," some of the figures even claim an affinity to the artist's shapes. But, generally speaking, Spenser was more painter of flesh and blood. He belonged to earth, and should never have aspired to heaven. His men were, indeed, sometimes chivalrous and intellectual, (his beasts were grand and matchless!) but his women were essentially of clay, and of a very homely fashion. Spenser sketched with more precision, and infinitely more delicacy. He had not the flush and fever of colouring which lighted up the productions of the other; but his genius was loftier eminence, and loved to wander in rehis fancy traversed a more spiritualized ; moter haunts. The brain of the one was like an ocean, casting up, at a single effort, the most common and extraordinary shapes; while silent glades and haunted depths stole forth poet had a wilderness of fancy, from whose the airiest fictions of romance. The nymphs etherial and refined. Rubens was a decided the The Satan of Milton is the most magnificent creation in poetry. He is a personification of all that is gloomy or grand in nature, He has with more than the daring of man. the strength of a giant, the fashion of an angel—" unconquerable will, immortal hate” revenge that nothing can soothe, endurance which never shrinks, the intellect of heaven and the pride of earth, ambition immeasurably high, and a courage which quails not, even before God! Satan is essentially ideal. He is not like Macbeth or Lear, real in himself, literally true, and only lifted into poetry by circumstance: but he is altogether moulded in a dream of the imagination. Heaven, and earth, and hell, are explored for gifts to make him eminent and peerless. He is compounded of all; and at last stands up before us with the starry grandeur of darkness upon his forehead, but having the passions of clay within his heart, and his home and foundation in the depths below. It is this gleaning, as it were, from every element, and compounding them all in one grand design, which constitutes the poetry of the character. Perhaps Ariel and Caliban are as purely ideal as the hero of Milton, and approach as nearly to him as any other fiction that occurs to us; but the latter is incontestably a grander formation, and a mightier agent, and moves through the perplexities of his career with a power that defies competition. Milton's way is like the "terribil via" of Michael-Angelo, which no one, before or since, has been able to tread. Comparisons have been instituted between our great poet and Dante; there are certainly occasional resemblances in the speeches and similes; for instance Loud-crashing, terrible, a sound that made "These creatures are all over black, and of Spenser are decidedly different from those the treatment of his subject. We recollect the with such a flat nose, that they can scarcely be pitied. It is hardly to be believed that God, who is a wise being, should place a soul, especially a good soul, in such a black ugly body. "The colour of the skin may be determined by that of the hair; which, among the Egyptians, the best philosophers in the world, was of such importance, that they put to death all the red-haired men who fell into their hands. "The negroes prefer a glass necklace to that gold which polite nations so highly value: can there be a greater proof of their wanting com mon sense? the hideous look of Poussin's carnal satyrs, of the painter; and his Sylvans have neither nor that vinous spirit which flushes and gives life to the reeling Bacchanalians of Rubens. In regard to MILTON, we scarcely know whether to prefer his sublimity or beauty. His power over both was perfect. We prostrate ourselves before him, alternately in fear and love; while he lets loose the statures of hell upon us, or unbars the blazing doors of heaven, or carries us "winding through the marble air," past Libra and the Pole, or laps us in a dream of Paradise, and unfolds the florid richness of his Arcadian landscapes. Milton sonifications of Pleasure, of Ambition, and latter, particularly when we read Dante's perAvarice (in the first canto of the Inferno), and the punishment of Fucci for blasphemy (in the twenty-fifth canto), and other things similarly treated. Dante's genius seems to consist in a clear and striking detail of particulars, giving them the air of absolute fact. His strength hand, was massy and congregated. His oriwas made up of units. Milton's, on the other ginal idea (of Satan) goes sweeping along, and colouring the subject from beginning to end. Dante shifts from place to place, from person to person, subduing his genius to the literal "It is impossible for us to suppose these has told a story of burning ambition. He has truths of history, which Milton overruled and creatures to be men, because, allowing them to be men, a suspicion would follow, that we ourselves are not Christians. (!!) "Weak minds exaggerate too much the wrong done to the Africans. For, were the sung the pean of victory over the foes of heaven- that "horrid crew," who, banished from the sky, and hurled headlong down to hell, made subservient. However excellent the Florentine may be (and he is excellent), he had not the grasp nor the soaring power of the English poet. The images of Dante pass by like the phantasmas on a wall, clear, indeed, "Idlesse, in her dreaming mode." can possibly be more unlike each other. and picturesque ; but although true, in a great | battlements, and planted those "sleep-sooth- their only resemblance, for no two animals measure, to fact, they are wanting in reality. ing" groves under which lay They have complexion and shape, but not flesh or blood. Milton's earthly creatures have the flesh of living beauty upon them, and show the changes of human infirmity. They inhale the odours of the garden of Paradise, and wander at will over lawns and flowers; they listen to God; they talk to angels; they love, and are tempted, and fall. And with all this there is a living principle about them, and (although Milton's faculty was by no means generally dramatic) they are brought before the reader, and made-not the shadows of what once existed- but present probable truths. His fiercer creations possess the grandeur of dreams, but they have vitality within them also, and, in character and substance, are as solid as the rock. "And vacant shepherds piping in the dale"— the stockdove, and the nightingale, and the rest of that tuneful choir which lull our minds into forgetfulness, and sing to us on summer nights, in town and country equally well, until we forget the prose of human life in its romance, and bathe our fevered senses in the fresh flowers of poetry which Thomson has bequeathed to us. There is nothing in the history of verse, from the restoration of Charles the Second to the present time (not even in Collins, we think, and certainly not in Gray), which can compete with the first part of the "Castle of Indolence." His account of the land of "Drowsy Head," and The genius of Milton was as daring as it was great. He did not seek for a theme amidst ordinary passions, with which men must sympathize, or, in literal facts, which the many might comprehend. On the contrary, he plunged at once through the deep, and ventured to the gates of heaven for crea"Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye," tures wherewith to people his story. Even when he descended upon earth, it was not to of the disappearance of the sons of Indolence, with the exquisite simile with which it closes select from the common materials of huma--the huge covered tables, all odorous with nity: but he dropped at once upon Paradise, spice and wine the tapestried halls and their and awoke Adam from the dust, and painted Italian pictures the melancholy music-and, the primitive purity of woman, and the erect altogether, the golden magnificence and orienstature and yet unclouded aspect of man. Nothing can be more beautiful than his pic- the spirits who tal luxuries of the place, and the ministers of tures of our "first parents," breathing the fragrant airs of Eden, communing with superior natures, dreaming in the golden sun, feeding upon nectareous fruits, and lying imparadised" in one another's arms, on pillows of violet and asphodel! What can surpass the figure of Adam 66 "His fair large front, and eye sublime, declared Absolute rule," except it be that of Eve, who - as as a veil, down to the slender waist Her unadorned golden tresses wore," the meekest, the purest, the loveliest of her sex! Thus has Milton, without any of the ordinary aids, fashioned a poem, which, both for sublimity and beauty, is quite unparalleled in the history of fiction. Homer was more various, more dramatic, more uniformly active, more true to the literal fact, perhaps, than he, and Virgil more correct, while Spenser dwelt as completely upon poetic ground; but there is a grandeur of conception in Milton, a breadth of character, and a towering spirit, which stood over his subject and pervaded it from beginning to end, that we shall scarcely admit to exist in any other poet. He was, in our minds, the greatest epic poet in the world. At any rate, there is no one but Homer can stand in competition with him. Shakspeare alone excelled them both (query? Ed.); but he went beyond all men, and stands in the array of human intellect, like the sun in the system, single and unapproachable. THOMSON looked on nature with an observant but easy eye, and transcribed her varying wonders to man. His "Seasons" contain finer, or, at least, more popular things than any of his other poems (although he but too frequently amplifies a simple fact, till you scarcely know what he is about); but there is a much more equal power, and far more pure poetry in his delightful "Castle of Indolence." It was here that he built up those shadowy "Poured all the Arabian heaven upon our nights"— (an exquisite line)—may stand in comparison SEA ELEPHANT. JUNE 6th. This is now the middle of win- the beach, and, unless you disturb them, the It is a very curious phenomenon how they can possibly exist on shore; for, from the first of their landing, they never go out to sea, and they lie on a stormy beach for months together without tasting any food, except consuming their own fat, for they gradually waste away; and, as this fat or blubber is the great object of value for which they are attacked and slaughtered, the settlers contrive to commence operations against them upon their first arrival. I examined the contents of the stomach of one they had just killed, but could not make out the nature of what it contained; the matter was of a remarkably bright green colour. They have many enemies even in the water; one called the killer, a species of grampus, which makes terrible havoc amongst them, and will attack and take away the carcase of one from alongside a boat. But man is their greatest enemy, and causes the most destruction to their race; he pursues them to all quarters of the globe; and, being aware of their seasons for breeding (which is always done on shore), he is there ready with his weapons, and attacks them without mercy. Yet this offensive war is attended with considerable danger, not from the animals themselves, they being incapable of making much resistance, but the beaches they frequent are most fearful; boats and boats? crews are continually lost; but the value of the oil, when they are successful, is an inducement to man, and no dangers will deter him from pursuing the sea-elephant until the species is extinct.-Earle's New Zealand. ACCOMPLISHMENT. pare; Wherein every tint of the rainbow appears, There glows a bright pattern (a sprig or a spot), thumb. |