objectionable in all these respects, than any of its predecessors, excepting the first part of "Bladoc,"-Madoc in Wales ;where, if we are not greatly mistaken, both the poet and his readers are more happy, and more at home together, than in all their other travels beside through real or imaginary worlds. Other requisites being equal, that poetry will assuredly be the most highly and permanently pleasing, which is the most easily understood; in which the whole meaning of the sentiments, the whole beauty of the language, the whole force of the allusions, in a word, the whole impression is made at first, at once, and for ever, on the reader's mind. This is not the case with any one of Mr. Southey's Epics. They are always accompanied by a long train of notes; and the worst evil attending them is, that they are really useful! It is hard enough to have to pay for half a volume of irrelevant, worthless notes, but it is much harder— a much greater discount from the value of the text, when the notes are worth the money, and constitute so essential a part of the book, that without them the poem would be a parable of paradoxes, obscure in itself, and rendered incomprehensible by its illustrations-the imagery and allusions-which ought to be its glory. Many parts of Thalaba" and "Kehama" especially, without the notes, would be as insolvable as the Sphinx's riddle. These are relative defects in the subjects, which no art or power of the poet can supply, because the real defect is neither in the Author, nor in the work, but in the mind of the readers, who want the information previously necessary to understand and enjoy what is submitted to them. That information comes too late in the notes, after the first feeling is gone by, for then it can do little more than render a puzzling passage intelligible,-seldom impressive. Our Author is undoubtedly aware of all these disadvantages; and he encounters them at his peril, with a gallantry more to be admired, than recommended to imitation.

Mr. Southey's talents have been so long known, and so repeatedly canvassed, that we do not think it necessary to enter into any inquiry concerning their peculiar qualiti s, the purposes for which they are most happily adapted, nor their relative excellence when contrasted with those of is distinguished contemporaries. Nor will we, for our limits forbid it, attempt to compare Mr. Southey with himself; to try whether the splendid promise of his youth, in "Joan of Arc," has been progressively fulfilled in his subsequent performances. His name will unquestionably go down to posterity with the most illustrious of the present age, and, probably, with the most illustrious of past ages, for we would fain hope, that the poem. by which he will be for ever known,' is not yet written, perhaps not yet meditated by him. Ifit be such a one as we have imagined, it must be either a national one, or one in which the whole race of man

shall be equally and everlastingly interested. That he shall have the happiness to fix on a subject of the latter description, is more than we dare anticipate; but by choosing one of the former stamp, he may still rise far above his present rank among poets, for we are perfectly convinced, that whatever labour, or learning, or genius, he may lavish on strange or foreign themes, unless he select one that comes home to the bosoms of his countrymen, and expend on it his whole collected wealth of thought, splendour of imagination, and power of pathos, he will never maintain his station, either at home or abroad, with Homer, Virgil, Tasso, and Milton. British History presents a hero and a scene we shall not name them,-unequalled, for the purposes of verse, in the annals of man. This theme has been the hope of many a youthful bard, and the despair of many an older one. Like the Enchanted Forest' in the "Jerusalem "Delivered," hitherto all who have presumed to approach it, have been frightened away, or beaten back; and it is still reserved for some Rinaldo of song, perhaps now wasting his strength in outlandish adventures, to pierce its recesses, enfranchise its spirits, and rest under its laurels.

On closing the volume before us, we were struck with the idea-How differently should we have felt in reading this 'Magic 'Poem,' if the story had been British! how would every native character have been endeared, every act of heroism exalted, every patriotic sentiment consecrated, in our esteem, by that circumstance! The day is past, when "Roderick, the last of the "Goths," would have been hailed throughout this island, with kindred enthusiasm, for the sake of the country which gave him birth, and in which a spirit of courage to fight, and of fortitude to bear equal to any thing here exhibited, has been realized in our own age; but for what-let the dungeons of the Inquisition tell us! The mind of a Briton revolts, with feelings of shame, indignation, and pity, unutterably mingled, at the recollection of the proudest battle-fields of his own countrymen in that land, whose very name was wont to make his cheek flush more warmly, and his pulse beat more quickly, but which now sends the blood cold to the heart, and forces a sigh from the bosom on which the burthen of Spain lies heavy and deadening as an incubus. This poem, therefore, must rest solely on its own merits, and it needs no adventitious recommendation to place it high among the works, that reflect peculiar lustre on the present era of English poetry. Without pretending further to forebode its fate, we shall briefly characterize it as the most regular, impassioned, and easily intelligible, of all the Author's performances in this strain.

The main events of the fable may be sketched in a few sentences. Mr. Walter Scott's "Vision of Don Roderick," has

made the name and infamy of the hero, familiar to our countrymen. In the eighth century, the Moors were invited into Spain by Count Julian, a powerful courtier, in revenge for the violation of his daughter Florinda, by the king, Roderick. In the battle of Xeres, the invaders were completely triumphant, and Roderick having disappeared, leaving his armour and horse on the field, it was generally believed, that he was drowned in attempting to cross the river. Mr. Southey grounds the story of his poem on another tradition; that the king, in the disguise of a peasant, escaped; and with a monk, named Romano, fled to a lonely promontory in Portugal, where they dwelt together a year. At the end of that time the monk died, and Roderick, who, in adversity, had become a penitent and a convert, finding solitude and inaction, with his feelings and remembrances, insupportable, returned into Spain; where, in the garb and character of a monk, following the course of providential circumstances, he assisted Pelayo, the next heir to his throne, in establishing an independent sovereignty amid the mountains of Asturias. At the battle of Covadonga, where the Moors were overthrown with an extent of ruin which they could never repair in that part of the Peninsula, Roderick, after performing miracles of valour, is at length recognised by Pelayo and his old servants; but impatiently returning to the conflict, be carries terror and death wherever he moves, avenging his own and his country's wrongs, on the Moors, and the renegadoes that assisted them. At the conclusion he disappears as unaccountably as he had done at the battle of Xeres, leaving his horse and his armour on the field as before.

It was a perilous undertaking of Mr. Southey, to unsettle the prejudices so long and so inveterately held against Roderick's character, and to transform him from a remorseless tyrant and a shameless ravisher, into a magnanimous patriot and a self-denying saint; nor was it less bold, after his condemnation had been recently renewed, and his death irrevocably sealed by a brother bard, to revive and lead him out again into the field, not to recover his lost crown for himself, but to bestow it upon another. We think that in both attempts our Author has suc ceeded. By the artful development of Roderick's former history, always in connexion with the progress of his subsequent penitence, and disinterested exertions for the deliverance of his country, we are gradually reconciled to all his conduct, except the outrage done to Florinda; and even that the poet attempts to mitigate almost into a venial offence,-the sin of a mad moment, followed by instantaneous and unceasing compunction. After he has softened our hearts to pity in favour of the contrite sinuer, he finds it easy to melt then to love, and exalt them to admiration of the saint and the hero. Roderick's character rises

at every step, and grows more and more amiable, and interesting, and g oriou, to the end, wien he vanishes, like a being from the invisible world who has been pern itted or while to walk the earth, mysteriousty disguised, on a con mission of wrath to triumphant tyrants, and of mercy to a perishing people.

Roderick's achievements in the first batle, wherein he was supposed to have fallen, his flight, remorse, despair, and penitential sorrow, are thus strikingly described in the first section.

!

Bravely in that eight-days fight

The King had striven,for victory first, while hope
Remain'd, then desperately in search of death.
The arrows past him by to right and left,

The spear-point pierced him not, the scymitar
Glanced from his helmet. Is the shield of Heaven,
Wretch that I am, extended over me?

Cried Roderick; and he dropt Orelio's reins,
And threw his hands aloft in frantic prayer,-
Death is the only mercy that I crave,

Death soon and short, death and forgetfulness!
Aloud he cried; but in his inmost heart

There answered him a secret voice, that spake
Of righteousness and judgement after death,
And God's redeeming love, which fain would save
The guilty soul alive. 'Twas agony,

And yet 'twas hope; a momentary light,

That flash'd through utter darkness on the Cross
To point salvation, then left all within

Dark as before. Fear, never felt till then,
Sudden and irresistible as stroke

Of lightning, smote him. From his horse he dropt,
Whether with human impulse, or by Heaven
Struck down, he knew not; loosen'd from his wrist
The sword-chain, and let fall the sword, whose hilt
Clung to his palm a moment ere it fell,

Glued there with Moorish gore His royal robe,
His horned helmet and enamell'd mail,
He cast aside, and taking from the dead

A peasant's garment, in those weeds involved,
Stole, like a thief in darkness, from the field.

Evening closed round to favour him. All night
He fled, the sound of battle in his ear
Ringing, and sights of death before his eyes,
With dreams more horrible of eager tends
That seem'd to hover round, and gulphs of fire
Opening beneath his feet. At times the groan
Of some poor tugitive, who, bearing with him
His mortal hurt, had fallen beside the way,
Rous'd him from these dread visions, and he call'd

In answering groans on his Redeemer's name,
That word the only prayer that past his lips
Or rose within his heart. Then would he see
The Cross whereon a bleeding Saviour hung,
Who.call'd on him to come and cleanse his soul
In those all-healing streams, which from his wounds,
As from perpetual springs, for ever flowed.
No hart e'er panted for the water-brooks

As Roderick thirsted there to drink and live:
But Hell was interposed; and worse than Hell,
Yea to his eyes more dreadful than the fiends
Who flock'd like hungry ravens round his head,-
Florinda stood between, and warn'd him off
With her abhorrent hands,-that agony

Still in her face, which, when the deed was done,
Inflicted on her ravisher the curse

That it invok'd from Heaven.-Oh what a night

Of waking horrors.'-pp. 4-7.

On the eighth day of his flight he reaches a deserted monastery, where oue monk only, is waiting for release from the bondage of life by the sword of the enemy. At evening he was come to the gate to catch the earliest sight of the Moor, for it seemed long to tarry for his crown.'

Before the Cross

Roderick had thrown himself: his body raised,
Half kneeling, half at length he lay; his arms
Embraced its foot, and from his lifted face
Tears streaming down bedew'd the senseless stone.
He had not wept till now, and at the gush
Of these first tears it seem'd as if his heart,
From a long winter's icy thrall let loose,
Had open'd to the genial influences
Of Heaven. In attitude, but not in act
Of prayer he lay; an agony of tears

Was all his soul could offer. When the Monk
Behold him suffering thus, he raised him up,
And took him by the arm, and led him in;
And there before the altar, in the name
Of Him whose bleeding image there was hung,
Spake comfort, and adjured him in that name
There to lay down the burthen of his sins.
Lo! said Romano, I am waiting here
The coming of the Moors, that from their hands
My spirit may receive the purple robe

Of martyrdom, and rise to claim its crown.
That God who willeth not the sinner's death

Hath led thee hither. Threescore years and five,
Even from the hour when I, a five-years child,
Enter'd the schools, have 1 continued here