Unnerved to hurt or help, his alter'd state
Awakes our pity. 'Twere unkind to hate.

Thus may some chief, by bribes and promise gain'd,
Desert the friends whose power he once sustain'd,
Whose warlike stores with arms his wisdom fill'd,
Whose bold example taught those arms to wield;-
He gains the traitor's meed,-dissembled praise,—
While the curl'd lip the deep contempt betrays;
From his own stores a thousand spears are found,
Which goad his venal heart with ceaseless wound.

When paltry bridge racks his brain of lead,
Looks wondrous wise, and shakes his ponderous head,
Both sides disdain his twaddling speech to note,
And scorn alike the blockhead-and his vote.
Thus may the meaner of the mitred crowd,
Proclaim their folly or their guilt aloud;
The, or, more ignoble still,

Thes and —s, give what vote they will.
No shout from foes their worthless change attends,
No soft regret invades deserted friends,

One truth restrains the joy, the grief controls,-
They sold their honour, and would sell their souls.
Yet vain such bargain; it is seen too well,
Such recreant drones have scarce a soul to sell.

But high alike in talents and in place,

If learned shews a Janus face,

One, fair with smiles, and one with frowning black,-
And then by faint resistance courts attack,

Such dubious conduct fails his name to save-
By some a Traitor deem'd,-by all a Slave.
Has deep research no better aim than this?
Oh blest are we,-for Ignorance is bliss.
Can learning's toils no worthier pow'r bestow,
Than after arguing Aye, to answer, No?
Does Grecian lore no higher object seek,
Than thus to teach us, what's a Rat in Greek?

O that a wish that evening could revoke

And leave that shame unknown, that speech unspoke;
When fear and duty weigh'd the opposing scale,
And conscience trembled 'twixt his God and Baal,
Till soothing both, a middle path he trod,
And gave his knee to Baal,-his tongue to God!

In good old times, when England's Church uprear'd
Her matron form, to England's heart endear'd;
When sober priests were at her altars found
In action honest, and in doctrine sound,
Whose blameless lives in one calm current ran
Of love to God, and charity to man,-
While yet the Bible was the preacher's guide,
And Faith and Works walk'd humbly side by side,
Her chasten'd worship, simple yet severe,
Awed while it sooth'd, and mingled love with fear
No frantic crew ran slavering through the land,
Denouncing wrath with sacrilegious hand;
No self-dubb'd saints God's mercy dared to
No tracts, the spawn of ignorance and prid
No deep damnation lurk'd in simple mi
To no "red sins" the modest dance ga
No darken'd creed deceived the unle
No blinded leaders led astray the bl

Truth, undefiled, stretch'd forth the blest control,
And Hope and Gladness cheer'd the poor man's soul.

unco good"

How changed that joyous scene! The "
Preach to be wonder'd at, not understood.
On points of faith with wondrous depth they dwell,
Of which to doubt awakes the fires of hell,-
Which to believe eternal safety brings,

And rapes, thefts, robberies are trivial things;
Faith-faith alone-will bear them to the skies!
And Zeal increases while Religion dies.

Is no way left to bring those days again,
Ere heaven's pure light was hid by impious men;
When each was pleas'd, without the zealot's aid,
To pray devoutly, as his fathers pray'd-
To worship God, and love his neighbour too,
And as he would be done by, that to do-
To think no ill-no untried paths to try;
But humbly trusting in his God-to die?

Some still remain our Church's best defence,
Blest with that truest wisdom, Common Sense;
Howley, in virtue firm, in worth approv'd-
For sinless life admired-for meekness lov'd;-
And learned Burgess, whose just, honest mind,
True to his God-to erring man is kind.

These are our hopes. To them and Lords like them
We look, the current of our woes to stem-

To cleanse the Church, and raise her once again
A guide to heaven, and not a curse to men―
To plant Religion in her courts once more,
And bid men's hearts not question, but adore,

Then Peace shall cheer the souls which Cant beguil'd-
God's word no more be twisted and defil'd-

Apostate Prelates be with scorn displaced,

Nor rule the Church their truckling tongues disgraced; Dismitred knaves to build a barn shall club,

To enring with living gold Fingers, now beneath the mould, (Woe is me!) grown icy cold.

One dear hand hath smooth'd them too,
Since they lost the sunny hue,

Since their bright abundance fell
Under the destroying spell.

One dear hand! the tenderest
Ever nurse-child rock'd to rest,
Ever wiped away its tears.
Even those of later years
From a cheek untimely hollow,
Bitter drops that still may follow,
Where's the hand will wipe away?
Her's I kiss'd-(Ah! dismal day,)
Pale as on the shroud it lay.
Then, methought, youth's latest gleam
Departed from me like a dream-
Still, though lost their sunny tone,
Glossy brown these tresses shone,
Here and there, in wave and ring
Golden threads still glittering;
And (from band and bodkin free)
Still they flow'd luxuriantly.

Careful days, and wakeful nights,
Early trench'd on young delights.
Then of ills, an endless train,
Wasting languor, wearying pain,
Fev'rish thought that racks the brain,
Crowding all on summer's prime,
Made me old before my time.

So a dull, unlovely hue
O'er the sunny tresses grew,
Thinn'd their rich abundance too,
Not a thread of golden light,
In the sunshine glancing bright.

Now again, a shining streak
'Gins the dusky cloud to break ;-
Here and there a glittering thread
Lights the ringlets, dark and dead,-
Glittering light!-but pale and cold-
Glittering thread!—but not of gold.

Silent warning! silvery streak!
Not unheeded dost thou speak.
Not with feelings light and vain—
Not with fond regretful pain,
Look I on the token sent

To announce the day far spent ;-
Dark and troubled hath it been-
Sore misused! and yet between
Gracious gleams of peace and grace
Shining from a better place.

Brighten-brighten, blessed light!
Fast approach the shades of night,-
When they quite enclose me round,
May my lamp be burning found!

C.

THE FATE OF THE CALIPH MOTASSER.

ALL travellers in the Ottoman do- in the verandah. I looked on for some minions, and other eastern countries, time merely as a spectator, for my describe a race of story-tellers who ignorance of the language prevented go about the coffee-houses, and tell me from understanding him. The tales containing perhaps as much appearance of the grave and portly truth, and more entertainment, than old Turks who were smoking and the newspapers of Christendom. listening to the recital, had something Their narratives, like those of the in it singularly simple and primitive Arabian Nights, are chiefly distin--sometimes the dawn of a smile, or guished for fertility of invention, and curious flights of fancy, and every new recital is expected to contain something different from the preceding.

These tales do not inculcate any moral, with particular emphasis, the sole object of the author is to interest and amuse; and, if one may judge by the effect on the auditors, it is fully attained. The relation is given with the easy simplicity of conversation, and the language is curiously flexible, sometimes flowing with colloquial familiarity, at others swelling into dignity, and in all cases accommodating itself to the various incidents of the story, with a felicity not excelled in the literature of Europe. Except in the tales of Zadig and Vathek, they have never been imitated with success; even in the former an allegory is too obvious; it diminishes the Arabian characteristics of that beautiful extravagance.

One day, when in the town of Scio, I happened to pass a coffee-room where a story-teller was exercising his vocation for the amusement of a number of Turks, who were smoking

rather the aurora borealis of mirth, brightened the solemnity of their countenances-at others they rolled their white eyes with marvelling sagacity-anon they seemed moved with sadness, and looked as innocently pitiful as chubby children over a dead robin redbreast.

I desired my dragoman to pay attention to the story, that he might tell me to what it related. He was, however, as little of a historian as if he had been a secretary of state, and furnished as imperfect a treatise on what he had heard as any précis of a diplomatician. But he remembered some of the incidents and descriptions; the latter sufficiently adorned with opal and precious stones, and the former not less magical, though tinted here and there with a touch of nature at once true and pathetic.

The subject of the tale was either that of the Persian parricide Chosroes, or the still more striking fate of the Caliph Motasser. The following is an attempt to arrange into some sort of consistency the matter repeated to me, applying it to Motasser. The tale told was known among the auditors under the name of

ASTROLAB, OR THE SOOTHSAYER OF BAGDAD.

ONE evening, while Astrolab the Chaldean was sitting on the flat roof of his observatory in Bagdad, watching an occultation of Aldiboran with the moon, Gules his servant obtruded herself before him, and said that an old woman with a beautiful young maiden was eagerly desirous to speak with him. At that moment Astrolab was studiously engaged in examining the immersion of the star, but, on hearing this, he started up and ordered them to be instantly admitted

into his study below, and to tell them that as soon as the phenomenon was over he would be with them.

Gules retired, and the astrologer, without resuming his contemplation of the figure, as it appeared on the plate of quicksilver in which it was mirrored, walked hastily about, agitated with emotions greatly at variance with the solemn and contem plative mood from which the message had roused him. After remaining some time thus disturbed, he at last