lay claim to its superficial warmth. Still, he is a fluent versifier, has a pleasant manner, and cherishes proper feelings. His ideas are natural although not vigorous; his fancy is ready, although not inspiring; so that he conveys in an agreeable and very readable way, a good idea of the Indian life of an officer in the Company's army. The form and the style of the piece are Byronic, but without the darkness of spirit of the noble bard. We think that the lieutenant may take courage and "conclude the subject." A few stanzas may be acceptable. The first sample is from the beginning of the poem, giving the very starting of the cadet.

"There is an isle by Nature blest,
There is an isle by Nature deemed
As she is fertile to be free;

Washed by the dark Atlantic wave—
Alike that wave she shares not rest,
But seems the same eternally;
On her all glorious has beamed
Enough of talent the worlds to save,
Yet she is still in misery.

"Such is the land from whence my lone one sprung,
For he was born there, and he owned her sire,
From childhood had he with deep rapture hung
Upon the thrilling numbers of her lyre;
And if at times the wild notes he had strung
Swept o'er the hills, or wandered by the shore
That he did love in solitude to track,
Deem not in fancied frensy he did soar,
To wish for other days, recall past ages back.

"But are all Britons dreamers in this land,
As he who wandereth would seem to be?
No!-but a chivalrous and stirring band,
Full of wild venture, and of energy.

*

Their home, yon tents beneath that mangoe tree,——
There view them dauntless, careless, and elate,
Free in each action, in expression free,
As if existence were a lengthened fête

And they had but to wish, enjoyment to create.

"This is their holiday, their day of sport;
They meet, the tenants of the wild to slay,
Beneath the frown of yon majestic fort
Their fellows stormed upon some former day;
Each gallant Arab's sympathetic neigh,

Chimes with the ardour that enlivens all,
On to the jungle side, there roams the prey,
That soon a victim to their spears should fall-
Its well-won spoils soon grace their forest festival.

"All mounted, haste along the covert side,

The willing Indians raise tumultuous cries,
Beat the loud tom-tom, range the thicket wide,
And scour the cane-field where the monster lies,-
Half daunted, yet unwillingly he flies,
Then turns, as if the covert to regain :

Foiled by the crowd who view the destined prize,
That wonted shelter is besought in vain,

And as a last resource he bursts upon the plain.

"It is a scene of ecstacy, that burst

A scene of rapture-a soul-stirring sight!
On rush the hunters, emulous which first
May check the current of his headlong flight.
Bold are their wishes as their spears are bright,
And swift their progress as their souls are true ;-
Nought save the chase their rapture to excite,
None save themselves their venturous deeds to view,
No gaping crowd to mark what they may dare to do.

"Swift close the horsemen with a fearful speed;
Their lances glitter in the morning sun:
Ah! vain his strength, his vigour vain indeed,
Unless that yonder range of hills be won:
There in security the chase may run,
For horses cannot follow, but more near

The fate approaches that he may not shun ;-
Already pushed, behold the threatening spear,
His life's best blood to drink-to close his stern career.

"Onward they bound, as if devoid of care,

(He wins the prize by whom first blood is shed ;)
Where is the leap they would not gladly dare?
O'er the cracked earth, across the torrent's bed,
Stretched is each form, strained forward every head;
And well-plied spurs enforce the rider's will.
One lucky thrust-the monster's course is sped,
His last wild charge is turned with practised skill,-
That blood-shot eye is closed, that grisly form is still."

ART. XVII.-The Omnipotence and Wisdom of Jehovah; two Orations. By J. W. LESTER.

WE should have liked fewer and better ordered words,-less of boisterous rhetoric on this august and stupendous subject, than swell out these Orations.

ART. XVIII.—Leaves from Eusebius. By the Rev. H. STREET, M.A. THESE "Leaves" are from Eusebius's great work, "The Evangelical Preparation." In the early struggles of the church against paganism and the infidelity of the philosophers, the Bishop of Cæsarea was the boldest and best equipped champion of his time. He was more than a match even for Porphyry; laying bare the sophist's untenable principles, detecting his skilful arts, and exhibiting the absurdity and essential hideousness of that cosmogony and polytheism which had been reared on Phoenician and Egyptian foundations. The bishop demonstrated how superior was the system of the Hebrews to that of the most accomplished sages of refined Greece; and all this with an elegance of style, as well as a force of argument, which the mere English or modern reader will not expect. It is therefore with pleasure that every lover of the truth and admirer of scholarship should welcome these "Leaves," which appear to be extremely well selected, and which are certainly translated in a happy manner. Nor will the metrical version of the oracles, those curious relics, disappoint the poetic any more than the scholarly taste. These "Leaves" are published very opportunely, considering some of the questions which at present agitate the Church; for they lend an insight into its condition and doctrines at an early period of its history and trials.

ART. XIX.-The Sporting Almanac and Oracle of Rural Life. 1843. THIS Sporting Almanac is now five years old, and is as spirited and refreshing as ever. To sportsmen, the information given in it is not more practical in its nature than pleasant in its form; everything of the kind being made applicable to the months as they pass. Even to persons who are not skilled in country sports, and have but few opportunities of enjoying rural life, such an oracle will be consulted with a profitable relish. Besides, it presents all the more ordinary and generally useful features of the Almanack race.' The illustrations are excellent; they would grace and enhance the value of a book of much higher pictorial pretension, as might be expected when it is known that the plates have been well engraved after sketches of E. Landseer, Cooper, Davis, &c. The Sporting Almanack for 1843 is really a very beautiful, sensible, and desirable little book. There are in every part and province of it unmistakable proofs of right judgment, ample knowledge, and healthy taste.

ART. XX.-Genoveva; a Poem. By RICHARD CH. FRENCH.

THE story of Genoveva has been often told: that of a lady falsely accused of infidelity and condemned to die by her lord. The ministers of his jealousy, however, penetrated with pity, allow her with her child to escape a houseless wanderer, and to have no protector but God. A white doe suckles her babe, the mother living upon roots, till her innocence made manifest, she is by the remorseful husband eagerly taken home; but to die of the terrible

wrongs which had been heaped upon her, and the dire hardships she had suffered.

The story, of course, belongs to, or is cast in, a remote age, and will be variously told, according as the romancer or the poet who adopts it as his theme, may find suited to his genius. In the hands of Mr. French it has much touching elegance of sentiment and neat sweetness of versification,— frequently swelling into pathos, and reaching the chords of nature with an easy power. The passage which we cite is a good specimen, having for its immediate subject in the tradition the husband's dreary remorse :—

"But the Count, whom prosperous hours

Back to his ancestral towers

Bring, and to his widowed bowers,
How shall he, this lone man bear
The approach and entrance there?
Lonely man! though at his side
Troops of friends and vassals ride;
Lonely man! though at his gate
Him ten thousand welcomes wait;
Heart unwelcomed home, although
Thousand voices skyward go;
Thousand voices fill the air,
But the one is lacking there.
How shall he endure to pace
Those long echoing halls, and trace
Each remembered happy place,
Haunted each with its own ghost
Of some ancient splendour lost,
Each with its own vision bright
Of some forfeited delight
Rising clear upon his sight?
How beside a cold hearth stand,
Quenched by his own reckless hand?
He has borne it, man forlorn!

Borne-while all things may be borne ;
And he lives, nor freedom asks,

From life's ordinary tasks.

Him though oft the crowded hall

And the thronging festival

With that dreariest sense oppress
Of a peopled wilderness;
Though the crowds, that to and fro
On their busy errands go,

Oft times seem with all their tasks
But so many gibbering masks;
Though he oft must contemplate
The strange mockeries of fate,
Which with hand profuse had shed
Gifts so many on his head,

VOL. I. (1843) No. I.

M

Which had lent him splendour, fame,
And a glory round his name,
Honour, due to him whose hand
Helped to save his native land
Yet withdrew the single thing
Which to all a worth would bring.
And the years give no relief
Mellowing an austerer grief:
But a melancholy dim,

Darker and darker fell on him.

Round him, when his state they knew,
Friends and faithful kinsmen drew,
With consoling words and speech,

Which his heart's wound cannot reach.

ART. XXI.-The Works of Robert Burns, with Notes and Illustrations. Parts I to III.

AFTER all that has been done by publishers, biographers, critics, and artists, -by admirers of every sort, for Burns, there yet, it appears, is to be a testimony borne to his genius surpassing these former efforts and results,—a more adequate monument to his fame than any that has hitherto been reared. The announced publication, three parts of which have reached us, promises to confer honour not only upon Messrs. Blackie and Son, but to be worthy of Scotland, whether taken as a seat for publishing enterprise or for the appreciation of the bard by the nation.

This edition will undoubtedly have special claims on the attention and patronage of the public, on every one who speaks or studies the language and dialects of Great Britain. The suggestion of Mr. Lockhart, in his memoir of the poet, has been adopted and pursued by the projectors and proprietors of the work, where he says that "to accumulate all that has been said of Burns, even by men like himself of the first order, would fill a volume—and a noble volume that monument would be-the noblest, except what he has left in his own immortal verses, which, were some dross removed, and the rest arranged in chronological order, would, I believe, form to the intelligent a more perfect and vivid history of his life than will ever be composed out of all the materials in the world beside."

The features of this edition are to be the following:-A chronological arrangement of the poems, as far as possible, with annotations from all the best commentators; and, in addition, a great variety of Original Notes appended, together with the whole of Mr. Robert Chambers's biographical and topographical details of the persons and places connected with the pieces ;— the Poet's Life by Dr. Currie, with such additions and lights as have occurred since that memoir was written, and in the same affectionate spirit ;-Professor Wilson's eloquent "Essay on the Genius and Character of Burns;”—and pictorial illustrations, comprising all the landscapes and portraits that embellished the work entitled, "The Land of Burns." The landscapes embrace all the localities identified with the history and works of the poet, from the