Roman festivals, such as the Ludi Megalenses, &c. During these eight days, twelve young girls were conducted in procession through the city. They were selected in the following manner: The respective inhabitants of the six divisions of Venice met in each of the six principal parishes, and chose, by vote, the two young women of their division, most distinguished for their modesty and beauty. The choice was to be sanctioned by the Doge, and the parishes were to furnish all the ornaments necessary for the dress of the Marias. The nation paid the sums appropriate to the expence of the fetes, and each day presented a new spectacle. On the first, the Marias, in their gala robes, and accompanied by a numerous suite, were conducted in open and richly decorated barges to the Doge, who received them in state conformable to his high dignity. They then all went to the patriarchal church, to return thanks to the Most High, for the victory gained over the pirates, and the recovery of the brides. The Marias followed in the splendid train of the Prince, and returned with him to St Mark's, when he graciously took leave of them, and then turning towards the multitude, gave them his benediction, which was received by the Venetians, not as timid subjects, but as children, brothers, and friends.

*

*

The Marias then re-embarked, and traversed the grand canal. Wherever they passed, the richest tapestries were hung out, and the air resounded with the concerts of musicians assembled to welcome them. They and their suite were received into the houses of some of the most wealthy and illustrious families, and this reception was attended with so much magnificence, and such a profusion of costly presents, that the expence was sometimes productive of serious embarrassment to their hosts. In consequence of this, it became necessary to establish laws for the regula. tion of these expences, and for the same reason, the number of the Marias was reduced, by a decree of government in the year 1272, to four, and afterwards to three only. During the other seven days, all was mirth and triumph; banquets, public dances, masquerades, plays, regattas, succeeded each other without an hour's intermission. The women took this opportunity of indemnifying themselves for the restraint generally imposed upon them by the austere manners of the times. Even the Marias themselves could not dissemble their pride and delight, when they had succeeded in drawing to themselves the attention of men from the holy relics, which were carried in procession on the last day of the festival to St Maria Formosa. At last, the original intention of the fete hav. ing been perverted, and the beautiful sim

plicity of former times corrupted, the go vernment thought it advisable to substitute wooden effigies, representing the brides, for the young women who accompanied the procession. So extraordinary a change naturally displeased the multitude, who gave themselves up to every kind of excess, to testify their contempt for these automatons. They followed them, hissing, and hooting, with loud cries, which interrupted the ceremony, and they ended by throwing showers of turnips at them, in consequence of which, a decree of the grand council, which gives us a very distinct idea of the character and manners of the times, was issued in 1344, in favour of the unfortu nate puppets. This decree forbids the people to throw turnips, radishes, or any thing of the kind, during the fete of the Marias, on pain of being find a hundred pence, which was then a very large sum. This law put an end to similar outrages, but could not do away the contempt of the people for these effigies, and they revenged themselves for the restraint imposed upon them, by substituting for the turnips a proverb, which is still in existence, and which gives the name of Maria di legno, a wooden Maria, to every pale, meagre, and insipid woman. The disastrous events of the war of Chioggia, in 1379, suspended the Ludi Mariani, and they never revived again, either because the immense sums they cost were required by the State for more important purposes, or because the corruption of the national manners continued to increase. Of all the ceremonies instituted for the solemnization of this festival, none were retained in the decline of the republic, except the Doge's annual visit to St Maria Formosa."

REMARKS ON KEATS'S POEMS.

MR KEATS is a poet of high and undoubted powers. He has evident peculiarities, which some of the London critics, who are averse to his style, have seized upon and produced as fair specimens of his writings; and this has operated, of course, to his disadvantage with the public, who have scarcely had an opportunity of judging what his powers really are. his friends, indeed, have put in a word or two of praise, but it has been nearly unqualified; and this, when viewed at the same time with the cri

*

Some of

"Endymion, a Poetic Romance." By John Keats. 8vo. pp. 207. "Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St Agnes, and other Poems," foolscap 8vo. pp. 199. Taylor and Hessey.

ticism produced in an opposite spirit, has tended very much to confirm the objections made to his poetry..

Mr Keats has produced three volumes

The first book opens with a procession in honour of Pan, in which the Latmian Prince Endymion appears. Fart of this, and the hymn subsequent

power to the two others, but containing very delightful passages, and some sonnets of great beauty. The second volume consists of the old mythological story of Endymion, and over which is scattered a multitude of thoughts and images, conceived and produced in the highest spirit of poe try. Perhaps the " Endymion," though it contains more positive faults than the last book, ("Lamia,") is more completely in Mr Keats's own style; and we think that it contains, at least, as many beauties. It is more careless, perhaps, but there is a greater freshness about it than about the last book, which (in " Hyperion" at least) reminds us occasionally of other writers, but which we must not be understood to speak of otherwise than in terms of the sincerest admiration.

The poem of Endymion contains about 4000 lines, and the story of the hero is not, perhaps, very interesting in itself; indeed, it is scarcely possible to endure, with a lively interest, a tale so slight and shadowy as that of the Loves of Diana and the Shepherd

of

Latmos. While this is stated, however, great praise must be ceded to the author, who, by force of poetry alone, can claim and compel the attention of the reader, for any length of time, to so bare (although graceful) a subject.

Mr. Keats commences his poem with an evident delight. Shapes and stories of beauty, he tells us, are joys for ever. They

Haunt us till they become a cheering light

Unto our souls.

shed lustre upon any age of poetry. After damsels, who carry baskets of April flowers, come on

A crowd of shepherds, with as sunburnt

looks

As may be read of in Arcadian books,
Such as sate listening round Apollo's pipe,
When the great deity, for earth too ripe,
Let his divinity, o'erflowing, die
In music thro' the vales of Thessaly.

p. 10.

Of Endymion it is said,— A smile was on his countenance; he seemed, To common lookers on, like one who dreamed Of idleness, in groves Elysian; p. 11. and yet he had a "lurking trouble" in his nether lip, which, to a keener observer, would have betrayed his incipient passion. The procession stops at last, and ranges itself in a circle, in the midst of which venerable priest rises, and invites the "Men of Latmos" to address their vows to the great god Pan. They obey; and the following hymn is sung. It is worthy of any of the gods.

breeds

The pipy hemlock to strange overgrowth; Bethinking thee, how melancholy loth Thou wast to lose fair Syrinx-do thou

now,

By thy love's milky brow!

By all the trembling mazes that she ran, Hear us, great Pan!

*

Thou to whom every fawn and satyr flies The squatted hare while in half sleeping For willing service; whether to surprise

fit;

Or upward rugged precipices flit,
To save poor lambkins from the eagle's

maw;

Or by mysterious enticement draw

And gather up all fancifullest shells

For thee to tumble into Naiad's cells,

We hope that our readers begin to feel that there are some (not ordinary) beauties in the volumes of Mr Keats. He is, perhaps, the poet, above others, that we should refer to,

ing;

Or to delight thee with fantastic leaping, The while they pelt each other on the

harms :

Strange ministrant of undescribed sounds,
That come a swooning over hollow grounds,
And wither drearily on barren moors:
Dread opener of the mysterious doors
Leading to universal knowledge-see
Great son of Dryope,

The many that are come to pay their vows
With leaves about their brows!
Be still the unimaginable lodge
For solitary thinkings; such as dodge
Conception to the very bourne of heaven,
Then leave the naked train: be still the
leaven

That spreading in this dull and clodded earth,

Gives it a touch ethereal-a new birth:
Be still a symbol of immensity;
A firmament reflected in a sea;
An element filling the space between ;
An unknown but no more: we humbly

screen

With uplift hands our foreheads, lowly bending,

And giving out a shout most heaven rending,

Conjure thee to receive our humble Pæan Upon thy Mount Lycean!

Even while they brought the burden to a close,

A shout from the whole multitude arose,
That lingered in the air like dying rolls
Of abrupt thunder, when Ionian shoals
Of dolphins bob their noses thro' the brine.
Meantime, on shady levels, mossy fine,
Young companies nimbly began dancing
To the swift treble pipe and humming
string.

Aye those fair living forms swam heavenly
To tunes forgotten-out of memory:
Fair creatures! whose young children's
children bred
Thermopyla its heroes-not yet dead,
But in old marbles ever beautiful

single lines of extraordinary merit. He is very unequal in his earlier volumes certainly, (and what poet is not?) but there are beauties which might redeem ten times the amount of any defects that they may contain.

Speaking of Zephyr, before sunrise, he says, he

Fondles the flower amid the sobbing rain. This seems to us very charming, and it is quite in the spirit of that mythology which has invested the west wind and the flowers with such delicate personifications. Again, speaking of Peona, the sister of Endymion, who sits by him while he sleeps, he says,

—-— as a willow keeps 4: Of A patient watch over the stream that creeps Windingly by it, so the quiet maid Held her in peace: so that a whispering blade

Of grass, p. 24,

or any other trivial thing, might be heard.

We have given the title of Mr Keats's second volume of poetry, and it was our intention to notice it, but this we find we must defer doing at present, and we have only space enough to give a few more single lines, or ideas from Endymion, but these our readers will, we doubt not, appreciate. Its is sufficient to say, that the flowers which we select are by no means rare. Look at the effect of a single word,

strokes

Of the lone wood-cutter. p. 55.

1

ACCOUNT

OF THE DISCOVERY OF NEW SOUTH SHETLAND; WITH OBSERVATIONS ON ITS IMPORTANCE.

We have often of late regretted that we live in an age when no expected discoveries of strange lands can stir up enterprise, and reward our eternal desire for something new. When our minds have not been filled with the terror of revolutions, the dread of subjugation,- -or the joy of victory, (which have pretty well occupied us these last thirty years,) we have longed for the return of those days of ignorance, every one of which brought to the ravished ears of our ancestors some golden tale of new worlds, more sweet than all the fables of the east. As we surveyed our Atlas, however, we were quite in despair, and concluded, that, except the interior of Africa, no part of the world, capable of bearing the foot of the wanderer or the keel of a ship, was so unexplored, that we could ever hope to hear of any new continents, or any more varieties of the human race. To our surprise reports have recently been circulated, that a Terra Australasia has actually been seen by a British merchant ship. At first we treated this as an Irish or American report, both of which are generally famous for not being true; but our credulity has been conquered by the kindness of a friend, and the certainty of the discovery put beyond question. We hasten to lay before our readers an extract from the information which he has transmitted from Valparaiso. The whole, accompanied by a chart and

Mr William Smith, master of the brig Williams of Blythe, in a voyage from Buenos Ayres to Valparaiso, fanthered better by preserving a more cying that Cape Horn might be weathan usual southerly course, being on the 19th of February 1819 in lat. 62° 40' south, and long. 62° W. imagined he saw land, amidst fields of floating ice, at the distance of two leagues. At this time, encountering hard gales of wind, accompa nied by flying showers of snow, he thought it prudent to haul off to the northward during the night. Next day, (February 20,) he again stood in for his supposed land. At noon his la titude by observation was 62° 17′ S., long. 60° 12′ W. by an excellent chronometer. The weather was moderate, and the atmosphere clear, when he again made the land. He was deterred from approaching nearer, by fearing blowing weather. He observed, however, to the westward more land, which he approached to the distance of ten miles. Both appeared to be islands, and bare, barren, and rocky. Feeling himself in a responsible situation with regard to his ship and cargo, he contented himself with this distant survey, and on his arrival at Valparaiso, related to the English there every thing he had seen, who all ridiculed him for his credulity. He was not, however, to be thus easily laughed out of his own observation; and, on his return to the River Plate in June following, was determined, if possible, to verify what he had seen. He steered in the latitude of 62° 12' S., but when he reached the longitude of 67° W. he became so beset with loose pack ice, that he was alarmed for the safety of his ship and cargo, and obliged to give up the attempt.

On his arrival at Monte Video, he was again ridiculed for his credulity, and almost led to renounce his former conclusions. His account reached the ears of some American merchants, who endeavoured to obtain from him the true situation of the land, and offered to charter his ship on a voyage of discovery. He, however, to his credit, refused to disclose the longitude and latitude to any but a British-born