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It warmed the heart of one abhorred : Nay, start not-no-nor bend thy knee, Nor midst my sins such act record,'

'I lov'd her-love will find its way

p. 51.

Through paths where wolves would fear to prey,
And if it dares enough, 'twere hard

If passion met not some reward-
No matter how or where-or why,
I did not vainly seek-nor sigh:
• Yet sometimes with remorse in vain
• I wish she had not lov'd again.

She died-I dare not tell thee how,
• But look-'tis written on my brow!
• There read of Cain the curse and crime,
• In characters unworn by time :

Still, ere thou dost condemn me-
-pause-
Not mine the act, though I the cause;
Yet did he but what I had done

• Had she been false to more than one;
Faithless to him-he gave the blow,
But true to me-I laid him low;
• Howe'er deserv'd her doom might be,
• Her treachery was truth to me;
To me she gave her heart, that all
Which tyranny can ne'er enthrall;
And I, alas! too late to save,
Yet all I then could give-I gave-
'Twas some relief-our foe a grave.
His death sits lightly; but her fate

Has made me-what thou well may'st hate.' pp. 52, 53.

'He died too in the battle broil

'A time that heeds nor pain nor toil

• One cry to Mahomet for aid,

'One prayer to Alla-all he made:

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The late repentance of that hour,

• When Penitence hath lost her power To tear one terror from the grave

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And will not soothe, and can not save!' pp. 54-56.

I die-but first I have possest,

And come what may, I have been blest;
Shall I the doom I sought upbraid?
No-reft of all-yet undismay'd
But for the thought of Leila slain,
Give me the pleasure with the pain,
So would I live and love again.

I grieve, but not, my holy guide!
For him who dies, but her who died;
She sleeps beneath the wandering wave,
Ah! had she but an earthly grave,

This breaking heart and throbbing head

• Should seek and share her narrow bed.' pp. 56, 57. 'Tell me no more of fancy's gleam,

No, father, no, 'twas not a dream ; Alas! the dreamer first must sleep, • I only watch'd, and wish'd to weep; But could not, for my burning brow • Throbb'd to the very brain as now. • I wish'd but for a single tear,

As something welcome, new, and dear; I wish'd it then-I wish it still, Despair is stronger than my will. • Waste not thine orison-despair Is mightier than thy pious prayer; I would not, if I might, be blest, 'I want no paradise-but rest. ''Twas then, I tell thee, father! then I saw her-yes-she liv'd again : And shining in her white symar,

As through yon pale grey cloud→ the star • Which now I gaze on, as on her

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Who look'd and looks far lovelier;

Dimly I view its trembling spark.
To-morrow's night shall be more dark—

And I before its rays appear,

That lifeless thing the living fear.' pp. 62, 63.
Yet still-'tis there-in silence stands,
And beckons with beseeching hands!
With braided hair, and bright-black eye-
I know 'twas false-she could not die!
But he is dead-within the dell

I saw him buried where he fell:
He comes not-for he cannot break
From earth-why then art thou awake?
< They told me, wild waves roll❜d above
The face I view, the form I love;

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They told me- -'twas a hideous tale!
'I'd tell it—but my tongue would fail—
"If true-and from thine ocean-cave
• Thou com'st to claim a calmer grave;
Oh! pass thy dewy fingers o'er

This brow that then will burn no more;
Or place them on my hopeless heart-

But, shape or shade!-whateʼer thou art,

In mercy, ne'er again depart

Or farther with thee bear my soul,

Than winds can waft - or waters roll! pp. 63, 64.

He pass'd-nor of his name and race

Hath left a token or a trace,

Save what the father must not say

Who shrived him on his dying day;

This broken tale was all we knew

Of her he lov'd, or him he slew.' p. 65.

We feel assured that we are doing better in giving our readers these quotations, than in searching out for subjects of criticism. We have endeavoured to lay before them the character of the Giaour entire, and, in so doing, have left ourselves but little room for the softer parts of the poem. Softer parts, however, it has, and those of exquisite beauty. It opens with a description of Greece, some parts of which are most elegant and touching.

And many a summer flower is there,

And many a shade that love might share,
And many a grotto, meant for rest,
That holds the pirate for its guest;
Whose bark in sheltering cove below
Lurks for the passing peaceful prow,
Till the gay mariner's guitar

Is heard, and seen the evening star ▷
Then stealing with the muffled oar,
Far shaded by the rocky shore,
Rush the night-prowlers on the prey,
And turn to groans his roundelay. p. 3.
Tt

Vo X.

He who hath bent him o'er the dead,
Ere the first day of death is fled;
The first dark day of nothingness,
The last of danger and distress;
(Before Decay's effacing fingers
Have swept the lines where beauty lingers,)
And mark'd the mild angelic air—
The rapture of repose that's there-
The fixed yet tender traits that streak
The languor of the placid cheek,
And-but for that sad shrouded eye,

That fires not-wins not-weeps not-now-
And but for that chill changeless brow,

Where cold Obstruction's apathy
Appals the gazing mourner's heart,
As if to him it could impart

The doom he dreads, yet dwells upon-
Yes-but for these and these alone,

Some moments-aye-one treacherous hour,
He still might doubt the tyrant's power,

So fair-so calm-so softly seal'd

The first-last look-by death reveal'd!

Such is the aspect of this shore

'Tis Greece-but living Greece no more!

So coldly sweet, so deadly fair,

We start-for soul is wanting there.

Hers is the loveliness in death,

That parts not quite with parting breath.' pp. 4-6.

The plunging of Leila's body in the waves must not be omitted.

Thou speakest sooth, thy skiff unmoor,

And waft us from the silent shore;
Nay, leave the sail still furl'd, and ply
The nearest oar that's scatter'd by,
And midway to those rocks where sleep
'The channel'd waters dark and deep.-
Rest from your task-so-bravely done,
Our course has been right swiftly run,
Yet 'tis the longest voyage, I trow,
That one of

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Sullen it plunged, and slowly sank,
The calm wave rippled to the bank;
I watch'd it as it sank, methought
Some motion from the current caught
Bestirr'd it more-'twas but the beam
That checquer'd o'er the living stream-
I gaz'd, till vanishing from view,
Like lessening pebble it withdrew;

Still less and less, a speck of white

That gemm'd the tide, then mock'd the sight;
And all its hidden secrets sleep,

Known but to the Genii of the deep,

Which, trembling in their coral caves,

They dare not whisper to the waves.' pp. 19, 20.

We add one image, which, however, is certainly not to be ranked among the softer parts of the poem.

It is as if the dead could feel
The icy worm around them steal,
And shudder, as the reptiles creep
To revel o'er their rotting sleep
Without the power to scare away

The cold consumers of their clay!' p. 47. Undoubtedly there are faults in the poem. The character of the Giaour, in particular, we think is made up of qualities which, in real life, never were nor will be united; and the moral tendency of this fragment (as well as of the unfinished poem of Childe Harold) we are convinced, is exceedingly pernicuous. They both inculcate the dangerous error that vice does not degrade the mind. How would Shakespeare have tarnished the lustre of his name, had he been the dupe of a similar delusion-and instead of redeeming his villains from contempt, by courage and intellect, attempted to recommend them to our sympathy, by grafting upon them virtues foreign to their nature? Among the minor blemishes we may notice, the length to which some of the descriptions run out,-as that of the note, (p. 2,) of Hassan's deserted palace, (p. 15 and seq.) of the river rolling into ocean,' (34,) and of Leila's beauty, (25 and seq.) The similes also are too minutely and too artificially traced, as that of a beauty and a butterfly, of a conscience-stricken aind and a scorpion girt by fire,' and, above all, that of a heart in love and metal 'in the furnace. That the style, too, is not always in the best taste our readers must have already seen. There are a great many of those glittering expressions, vague and undefined, that are too common in the poetry of Scott; those splashes of diction, those wild and whirling words' that have no propriety and convey no meaning, which sometimes make a rhyme, and sometimes satisfy the inattentive reader with the semblance of worth.' We shall not be at the pains of pointing them out; among so many beauties we must compromise for a few faults; and it is in vain to expect in the same poem the sublimity of the great style, and the minute elegance of the little.

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We do not think it necessary to apologize for having been somewhat backward in our notice of this poem, because some of the finest passages are to be found only in the last editions.

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