Now-oh! how short is life (yet, in our day Things like the sunbeams start from out the brain)

Man like a vapour shines-then sinks away;
Bright to the last, but brief-a thing of pain
And passion-slave of love, hate, pleasure,
gain-

Fashioned from all the elements, and frail
As each-all fire, clay, ether-like the main
Stormy, and fickle as the April gale-

He sins, prays, hates, forgives, then prays andsins again.

The wild-wood songs I send thee here,
Songs of that country ever dear,
Haply may wake one thought of me,
When far, far distant I shall be.

O never o'er Sicilian seas

Were wafted sweeter strains than these,
And never did Sicilian measure
Rouse such deep thrills of grief or pleasure.

These breathings' of the native mind,
Uncultured-strange-yet chaste-refin'd,
Speak to the soul with magic skill,
And bend the passions to their will.

But Irish hearts alone can tell
The thoughts that in the bosom swell,
Or gay, or sad,—yet ever dear,
As floats this music on the ear.

Touch but the chord-the present flies,
Visions of faded days arise,

Of days that can return no more,
Of hopes and fears for ever o'er.
When in our weary wanderings here
Remembrances like those appear,
As the soft sun thro' April showers
Gleam they upon life's shadowy hours.
Then take these Songs-in happier climes
They'll tell of half-forgotten times,
Pointing the eye of memory
To home-to early friends-and me.

TO EVENING.

ISABEL.

Dedicated, without permission, to M. W— B—.
When thy first dews, O Eve, are falling
From amber fleeces poised above,
Then, then lead on, my soul enthralling,
The day-dream of the Nymph I love.

Ah! let the vision, then beginning,
In rapture heighten uncontroll'd,
Till to thy cloud's soft amber lining
Succeeds the fringe of dewy gold.
And thence decaying, let it linger

'Till Night along the horizon runs, And with her magic mellowing finger Turns all thy dewy gold-to bronze.

M. F.

SONNET.

I seek the dark and lone retreat,
Unknown, untrod by human feet;
The dens by day, the woods by night,
And love those scenes which men affright.
When Spring appear'd in all her charms,
I felt the pow'r of Love's soft arms;
But with stern Winter's frown there came,
Not hope-despair; not love-disdain.
Since, then, all joys from me are fled,
The mansions of the silent dead
I'll seek there make my nightly moan,
To all, save night's dull bird, unknown;
For o'er this sad and stricken heart
Despair hath fixed her keer est dart.

SKETCHES OF SOCIETY.

THE TALE OF IVAN. (Translated from the Cornish.) The following translation of one of the 'Inabinogi,' or tales for the instruction of youth, is curious, as well from its being perhaps the only one of the kind existing in the Cornish language, as shewing how the ancients of times gone by conveyed monitory lessons to the young. [It is to be found in Llwyd's Archaeologia Britannica, with a Welsh translation annexed.]

1. There were formerly a man and woman living in the parish of Llanlavan, in the place which is called Ty-Hwrdh.

2. And (the) work became scarce-and therefore said the man to his wife, I will go and search for work, and you may live here.

3. He took fair leave, and travelled far towards the East; and at last he came to the house of a husbandman (Villanus) and asked there for work to perform.

shalt be welcome.

16. And they took the new road, and

Ivan kept the old.

17. And as they were going by the fields of the houses in the meadow, not having gone far from Ivan, robbers fell upon them:

18. And they began to cry out, and with the cry which the merchants made, Ivan also shouted Thieves! Thieves !

19. And at the shout which Ivan gave, the robbers left the merchants. And when they came to Market-Joy, there they inet again.

20. Oh, Ivan! said they, we are bound to thee,-had it not been for thee, we should have been lost men. Come with us, and thou shalt be welcome.

5. And when the end of the year came, his master shewed him the three pounds. Look, Ivan, said his master here are thy But if thou wilt give them me wages. again, I will teach thee a point of doctrine. 6. Give them to me, said Ivan. No, I will not, replied his master,-I will explain it to thee. Keep you them, said Ivan. Then said his master,-"Take care not to leave the old road, for the sake of a new road."

7. Then they agreed for another year for the same wages: and when the end of the year was come-(the same conversation takes place as in Nos. 5 and 6, till the master delivers his second aphorism, which is,)-"Take care not to lodge where a young woman is married to an old man."

9-10. (The same conversation, &c. takes place for the third year, and the

house.

22. The host replied they; what dost thou want with the host? here we have the If thou must hostess, and she is young. see the host, go to the kitchen, and thou him. shalt see

23. And when he came to the kitchen, he saw the host, and he was an old man, and weak, and turning the spit.

24. Oh! quoth Ivan, here 1 will not lodge,—but in the next house. Not yet, replied they; sup with us, and thou shalt be welcome.

25. Now, as to the woman of the house, she conspired with a certain monk in the town, to murder the old man in his bed that night, while the rest were asleep, and lay the murder on the merchants.

26. And while Ivan was in bed, there was a hole in the pine-end of the house, and he saw a light, and he rose out of his bed and listened, and heard the monk speaking; and the monk turned his back upon the hole-" Perhaps," said he, "there is

29. Then they were taken and carried to prison, and at last Ivan came to them.

30. Alas, alas! Ivan, said they, a hard fate attends us; our host was killed last night, and we shall be hanged for him.. 31. Aha! request the justices, said Ivan, to summon those who committed this heinous crime before them.

32. Who knows, replied they, who committed the crime? Who committed the crime! said Ivan. If I know not how to prove who commited the crime, I will suffer myself to be hanged in their stead.

33. Explanation replied they-(Nos. 33, 34, and 35,-Ivan repeats what he had seen, and produces the piece of the in evidence.)

gown

36. And with that the merchants had their liberty, and the woman and the monk were hanged.

37. Then they came together out of Market-Joy (Marchnad-Joy-Thursday market.) And they said, Come with us as far as Coed Carrn yr Wylfa (the Wood of the heap of stones of watching), in the parish of Burnian.

38. There two roads separated, and the merchants wished Ivan to go home with them; but that time he would not, but would go home to his wife.

39. Then when he had separated from the merchants, he foolishly spent his time to try his wife, whether she proved constant to him, whether she did or did not.

40. And when he came to the door, he heard some one else in the bed; he placed his hand on his dagger to slay them both; but he recollected that he ought to suffer

twice before he struck once.

41. And he came out again, and then he knocked. Who is there, in the name of God? said she.

42. I am here, replied Ivan. In the name of Mary, whom do I hear, said she; if you are Ivan come in.-Bring you also a light, said Ivan.Then she brought a light. 43. And when Ivan was come in, as I was adancing to the door, said he, I heard

some one else in the bed.

44. Oh! Ivan, replied she, when you determined to go away, I was three months gone with child; and now we have a beautiful infant in the bed,-gracious in the sight of God may he be!

45. Replied Ivan, I will tell thee,-my master and my mistress gave me a cake, and told me, when I and my wife should be most joyful together, that we should break the cake-and not sooner. And now we have cause to be joyful.

46. Then they broke the cake, and there were nine pounds in the cake; and the money they had, and the bread they eat; and there never was an idle word nor strife between them afterwards. And so it ends.-Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine.

BIOGRAPHY.

after he obtained a family stipendium, which enabled him to buy instruments; and in 1758, he received a proposal to make a journey to Arabia, at the expense and on the account of the Danish government.

It is well known that this expedition was suggested to Count Bernstorff, Minister to King Frederick the Fifth, by Professor Michaelis, whose only object in proposing it was to obtain explanations of several passages in the Bible, which could not be procured except upon the spot. Michaelis

(From the Journal des Savans of February.) This celebrated traveller did not seem destined by his birth to acquire the reputation which he has obtained. his country was obscure, and his family no less so. He was born in 1733, in a village of the Duchy of Lauenburg; his father was a farmer in good circumstances, but this rustic opulence was not sufficient to afford Niebuhr the advantages of a learned education. He had, besides, the misfortune to lose his parents when he was very young, and the portion of their property which fell to his share did not enrich him. His guardian did not think fit to let him continue his studies, which he had hardly began in a neighbouring town; and Niebuhr was condenmed for four years to the life of a mere peasant.

An event of little importance in itself often decides the vocation of men who are born with the happiest talents. Niebuhr was a new example of this. A lawsuit could not be determined without the operation of measuring some land, and as there was no land surveyor in the district, they were obliged to send to another place for one. This circumstance, says the biographer, piqued the patriotic self-love of my father: he resolved to learn geometry, in order to procure his country the science which it wanted, and himself a profession of which he stood in need.

Niebuhr was then twenty-one years of age, and could dispose of the small property which he had inherited; he resolved to employ the interest, and even to sacrifice a part of the capital, if necessary, to attain the end which he proposed.

Having taken a journey to no purpose to Bremen, he went to Hamburgh in 1755. He prepared himself, by studying the Latin language for eight months, under the direction of a divine of his own country, to attend the lectures in the Gymnasium or High School; and during the space of above a year, profited by the mathematical instructions of Professor Busch. But this initiatory course in the elements of the science, only strengthened his desire to penetrate into its inmost depths, and for this purpose he repaired to Göttingen in 1757.

His moderate fortune, however, but ill agreed with his desire to prolong the duration of his studies: the principal was ininfringed upon; and to preserve the remainder of it, he resolved to enter the corps of Hanoverian Engineers. Some time

travel. Happily, the minister extended this confined plan: he resolved that a Philologer, a Naturalist, and a Mathematician, should be added. It is to this judicious ar rangement that we owe all the fruits of the expedition. The philologer, Von Haven, the Maronites, and in the Vatican Library, even after passing two years at Rome with was unable to fulfil the mission which was confided to him: he died at Moka, four years before the end of the expedition. The naturalist recommended by Kostner, then director of the Royal Society of Sciences at Göttingen, was a very different person. M. Forskaal, a Swedish botanist, was, according to Niebuhr himself, the most learned man in the expedition-but he survived Von Haven only a few months. Doctor Cramer, who accompanied the mission as physician, was wholly inefficient, and died at Bombay and the draughtsman, Bauernfeind, having also died before him, during the passage from Moka to India, Niebuhr remained the only one of the learned caravan: he completed alone the enterprize which was confided to it, and brought back the results to his own country.

:

The principal features of the character of Niebuhr were an ardent zeal in the performance of his duties, and perfect disinterestedness: he would not accept the proposal to travel to Arabia, as mathematician, except on the condition of having 18 months time to prepare himself. He employed this interval in studying, under the celebrated Tobias Mayer, the method of observing the longitude by distances, a method at that time new, and of which Mayer's own tables

were the most solid foundation. The zeal of the member in teaching was as ardent as that of the disciple in learning; and, in the sequel, it was to the success of the observations of Niebuhr, that Mayer, or rather his widow, was indebted for the part, which was granted by the Board of Longitude at London, of the reward offered for the solution of that important problem. Niebuhr did not make so much progress in the Arabic language, which he endeavoured to acquire under Michaelis. He even gave up the study, disgusted by the slowness of his master, who never forgave him. M. Niebuhr (the son) does not spare the character or the reputation of this celebrated man; it is, however, but justice to observe with him, that Niebuhr, the father, had missed his first philological studies, and that nature had endowed him with a talent for observation and practice, rather than with a theoretical and speculative turn; he

learnt easily, by practice among the Arabs, a language which he had in vain endeavoured to acquire by the lessons of his professor.

At the period of the departure of the expedition, Niebuhr gave the most unequivocal proofs of the modesty and disinterestedness of which we have just spoken. All his travelling companions had the titles of doctor or professor: the latter was proposed to him; he declined it, saying, he should blush to bear it, unless he had gone to the utmost depth of the mathematics. He might have been appointed Captain of Engineers, but he thought the rank above his age, and would only have that of Lieutenant he limited his ambition to enjoying in peace after his travels the pension which was to be their reward.

veller knew nobody who had the ability and inclination to verify his results, in which he himself did not sufficiently confide. Unhappily, Father Hell, a jesuit, on his way to Norway, where he was to observe the transit of Venus, stopped at Copenhagen: he took Niebuhr with him; and convinced himself of our traveller's talent for observation: but he also convinced him of his own superiority in the science. Father Hell maintained, that the eclipses of Jupiter's satellites were the only satisfactory means of observing the longitude, and the too modest Niebuhr, influenced by his authority, gave up the idea of publishing his observations by the distances, till an astronomer should be found both able and willing to examine and to judge of them, which did not happen till several years after.

(To be concluded in our next.)

THE DRAMA.

The Danish government had already granted him one pension, for his preparatory studies, and by the aid of this, Niebuhr had been able to acquire the instruments necessary for his observations. When he arrived at Copenhagen he was greatly surprised, and thought himself very happy COVENT GARDEN.-The affair of Fualdes, that Count Bernstorff indemnified him for as the French papers, in their bienseance, this expense Count Bernstorff on his side call one of the most horrible murders in was no less surprised at such disinterested- the history of assassination, followed by ness. The consequence was, that Niebuhr one of the most disgusting mockeries in was appointed by him to be treasurer of the the history of justice, has found its way caravan. Our readers will judge how well upon our stage, as an afterpiece. The placed the confidence of the minister was, Custle of Paluzzi, or the Extorted Oath, when they are informed, that this expedition, is the title under which Madame Manson, which lasted six years, which comprehended and the Messieurs her confederates, figure Egypt and Arabia, and returned by land here; and we may give the author credit over Persia, Mesopotamia, Syria, Palestine, for having made that a subject of some inand Asia Minor, did not cost Denmark terest, which, to all our conjectures, offered more than 100,000 francs (a little more nothing but undissembled and refractory than 40007.) Though most of Niebuhr's atrocity. The plot is thrown into the discompanions died before the end of the third guise of an Italian story, and in this masyear, the moderate amount of these ex-querade Madame Manson is displayed as penses would be hardly credible, but for the known frugality of the traveller, and his adopting the mode of living of the oriental

nations.

Niebuhr left Copenhagen on the 7th of January 1761, and returned in November 1767. Count Bernstorff was still minister, and he was well received. It was agreed that he should publish the results of his travels at his own expense, and for his own profit; but the Danish government took upon itself to have the plates engraved, and made him a present of them. Our traveller's first idea was to publish separately his astronomical observations, and the answers to the questions which had been the occasion of the journey; which answers he would have taken as well from his own papers as from those of Forskaal. The questions proposed by Michaelis were distinguished from those sent from Paris by the Royal Academy of Inscriptions and Belles Lettres. The first, though they had been meditated and prepared during a great number of years, were not very important. The latter were of very different value: the answers to both would not fill a volume, and Niebuhr had determined, as we have seen, to complete it with the astronomical observations: but here he was the victim of his diffidence. Mayer was dead: our tra

the Countess Salviati, M. Jaussion is the Count; the more pameless culprits have their share, and some ingenious scenery, and a tolerable dance, make up the charm of the melo-drame of provençal murder. A few of the situations are striking Zerlina, (Miss Foote) attending on the Countess, is important to the future discovery of the crime; but as the oath of secresy is extorted in an apartment off the stage, she cannot be an eye-witness of its process, without more danger than was to be hazarded by a French waiting-maid. Fortunately there is a large mirror exactly opposite to the apartment; she draws up the curtain, and the detail becomes at once visible to the actress and the audience. Salviati, who is present at the trial, discovers himself by his tremors, seizes the dagger which brought conviction upon him, and dies by his own hand. Mrs. Faucit had nothing to do but rave, and this she did very well. Miss Foote was a very tripping femme de chambre, and Macready a vigorous villain. Terry's chief difficulty lay in the common-place which he was forced to talk, and his chief indulgence seemed to be in sparing it to the ears of his audience, by slurring it over as rapidly as possible. This work comes from the reputed pen of a son of the late manager |

of Drury-lane. We make no peculiar observations on the singularity of its fortune being tried not on the Drury-lane stage. But with all our willingness to encourage what we hope to think the promising talent of a respectable and unlucky man's son,

we may as well desire to see some more decided proof before we praise. The fact is, that Mr. Raymond has, in the present instance, the merit of a translator, and no more; the melo-drame in question is taken bodily, as we are informed, from the French, and though the government of Louis XVIII. have suppressed it, as, we presume, an unnecessary continuation of the stage play which it has so long sanctioned in real life, and a rather inconvenient remembrance to the Parisian mob, of the glorious times when they ate human hearts in the streets, and mingled blood with the sacramental cup in the churches, there is certainly no reason why we may not have the benefit of its truisms or its tragedy in England. We agree, however, with one of our contemporaries, that the piece falls lamentably short of the grim gaiety, and romantic bloodshed of the original. The author, to have done it with suitable adaptation, ought to have introduced the elderly dignitaries of the law courts, playing off the fine gentlemen, with the murderers and harlots of the melodrame. He had incomparable precedents; he might have shewn the hoary majesty of a chief justice, arranging a correspondence of pathetics with a woman who was at once a perjurer and an adulteress; an attorney-general, relaxing his nature in the luxuries of trictrac and tea-drinking with the harlot and her elevés; the nobility of the province, emulous for the honour of kissing the glove of one so distinguished for pensive abomination; the court of France, looking out with anxiety for daily bulletins of the pastimes of the brothel, the new colour of one murderer's cheeks, the increased longitude of another's mustachios, the bon mots of a third; and the whole population of France eager with delight in soliciting, and swallowing new incidents of the sentimental heroine of a gang that might make the stones of the earth cry out against the nation that could think of them but with horror. We have no desire to exult over France. But if we had, this, and the multitude of things like it, might supply us with fierce and lofty delight. We have already beaten her to the earth, and her name, as a military nation, is gone down to the common grave of the bloody and the proud. Are we now to be taught, that her heart is as degraded as her name? that as there was ruin for her in war, there is ruin for her in peace? that her moral spirit has totally lost the distinction between vice and virtue? that the atheist and assassin are to be her heroes, until they can again be her tyrants?-Are we to perceive, and painfully to perceive, for France is still peopled with human beings, that the revolution has been not simply the fever of a riotous and intoxicated spirit, but the chronic corruption of a frame, in