this marble; I perish by the excess of life which this figure wants. Alas! I expect no prodigy; already one exists, and ought to cease; order is disturbed, nature is outraged; restore to her laws their empire, re-establish her beneficent course, and equally shed thy divine influence. Yes, two beings are left out of the plenitude of things. Divide between them that devouring ardour which consumes the one without animating the other. It is thou who hast formed by my hand these charms, and these features, which want but life and feeling. Give to her the half of mine. Give all, if it be necessary. It shall suffice me to live in her. Oh thou! who deignest to smile upon the homage of mortals, this being who feels nothing, honours thee not. Extend thy glory with thy works. Goddess of beauty, spare this affront to nature, that a form so perfect should be an image of which there is no living model!

(He gradually re-approaches the statue with an air of confidence and joy.)

I resume my senses. What an unexpected calm! What unhoped courage re-animates me! A mortal fever burned my blood, a balm of confidence and hope flows in my veins, and I feel a new life. Thus the sense of our dependence sometimes becomes our consolation. However unhappy mortals may be, when they have invoked the Gods, they are more tranquil- And yet this unjust confidence deceives those who form senseless wishes.-Alas! in the condition I am in, we call upon every one, and no one hears us; the hope which deceives is more senseless than the desire.

Ashamed of so many follies, I dare no more to contemplate the cause of them. When I wish to raise my eyes towards this fatal object, I feel a new trouble, a sudden palpitation takes my breath, a secret tremor stops me→→→→

(With bitter irony.)

Oh, look, poor soul! summon courage enough to dare behold a statue.

(He sees it become animated, and turns away with alarm; his heart oppressed with grief.)

What have I seen? Gods! what have I imagined that I saw ? A colour on the flesh, a fire in the eyes, even movement- -It was not enough to hope for a miracle; to complete my misery, at last I have

seen

(With expressive melancholy.)

Unhappy creature, all is over with theethy delirium is at it's height-thy reason as well as thy genius abandons thee. Regret it not, Pygmalion, for the loss will conceal thy shame.

(With indignation.)

The lover of a stone is too happy in becoming a visionary.

(He turns again, and sees the statue move and descend the steps in front of the pedestal. He falls on his knees, and raises his hands and eyes towards heaven.)

Immortal Gods! Venus, Galatea! Oh, illusion of a furious love! (Galatea touches herself, and says)—Me!

(Pygmalion transported)-Me!

(Galatea touching herself again)-It is myself.

(Pygmalion)-Ravishing illusion, which even reaches my ears! Oh, never, never abandon me.

(Galatea moves towards another figure and touches it)-Not myself. (Pygmalion in an agitation, in transports which he can with difficulty restrain, follows all her movements, listens to her, observes her with a covetous attention, which scarely allows him to breathe. Galaten advances and looks at him; he rises hastily, extends his arms, and looks at her with delight. She lays her hand on his arm n; he trembles, takes the hand, presses it to his heart, and covers it with ardent kisses.) (Galatea, with a sigh)-Ah! it is I again. pictiom lo (Pygmalion)-Yes, dear and charming object-thou worthy masterpiece of my hands, of my heart, and of the Gods! It is thou, it is thou alone-I have given thee all my being-henceforth I will live but for thee. along all)

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCY. Las pengh

1

into

Among the pieces printed at the end of Chaucer's works, and attri buted to him, is a translation, under this title, of a poem of the celebrated Alain Chartier, Secretary to Charles the Sixth and Seventh. It was the title which suggested to a friend the verses at the end of our present number. We wish Alain could have ve seen th them. Ile would have found a Troubadour air for them, and sung them to La Belle Dame Agnes Sorel, who was however not Sans Mercy. The union of the imaginative and the real is very striking throughout, particularly in the dream. The wild gentleness of the rest of the thoughts and of the music are alike old; and they are also alike young; for love and imagination are always young, let them bring with them what times and accompaniments they may. If we take real flesh and blood with us, we may throw ourselves, on the facile wings of our sympathy, what age we please. It is only by trying to feel, as well as to fancy, through the medium of a costume, that writers become mere fleshless masks and cloaks,-things like the trophies of the ancients, when they hung up th the empty armour of or an enemy. A hopeless lover would still feel these verses, in spite of the introduction of something unearthly. Indeed any lover, truly touched, or any body capable of being so, will fe feel them; because love itself resembles a visitation ; and the kindest looks, which bring with them an inevitable portion of happiness because they seem happy themselves, haunt us with a spell-like power, which makes us shudder to guess at the sufferings of those who can be fascinated by unkind ones. People however need not ot be much a much alarmed at the thought of such sufferings now-a-days; not at least in some countries. Since the time when ladies, and cavaliers, and poets, and the lovers of nature, felt at humanity was a high and not a mean thing, love in general has become either a grossness or a formality. The modern systems of morals would ostensibly divide women into two classes, those who have no charity, and those who have no restraint; while men,

that

poorly conversant with the latter, and rendered indifferent to the former, acquire bad ideas of both. Instead of the worship of Love, we have the worship of Mammon; and all the difference we can see between the sufferings attending on either is, that the sufferings from the worship of Love exalt and humanize us, and those from the worship of Mammon debase and brutalize. Between the delights there is no comparison. Still our uneasiness keeps our knowledge going on. A word or two more of Alain Chartier's poem. M. Aleyn," saith the argument, "secretary to the king of France, framed this dialogue between a gentleman and a gentlewoman, who finding no mercy at her hand, dieth for sorrow." We know not in what year Chartier was born; but he must have lived to a good age, and written this poem in his youth, if Chaucer translated it; for he died in 1449, and Chaucer, an old man, in 1400. The beginning however, as well as the goodness of the version, looks as if our countryman had done it; for he speaks of the translation's having been enjoined him by way of penance; and the Legend of Good Women was the result of a smilar injunction, in consequence of his having written some stories not so much to the credit of the sex! He, who as he represents, had written infinite things in their praise! But the Court-ladies, it seems, did not relish the story of Troilus and Cressida. The exordium, which the translator has added, is quite in our poet's manner. He says, that he rose one day, not well awaked; and thinking how he should best enter upon his task, he took one of his morning walks,

Till I came to a lusty green valley

Full of flowers, to see a great pleasaunce;
And so, boldly, (with their benign sufferance
Which read this book, touching this mattère)
Thus I began, if it please you to hear.

Master Aleyn's dialogue, which is very long, will not have much interest except for those who are in the situation of his lover and belle Dame; but his introduction of it, his account of his riding abroad, thinking of his lost mistress,-his hearing music in a garden, and being pressed by some friends who saw him to come in,-is all extremely lively and natural. At his entrance, the ladies, " every one by one," bade him welcome "a great deal more than he was worthy." They are waited upon, at their repast, not by "deadly servants," but by gentlemen and lovers; of one of whom he proceeds to give a capital picture.

Emong all other, one I gan espy, and

Which in great thought ful often came and went,
As one that had been ravished utterly:

In his language not greatly dilligent,

His countenance he kept with great turment,
But his desire farre passed his reason,
For ever his eye went after his entent,
Full

Imany a time, when it was no season.
To
To make chere, sore himselfe he pained,
And outwardly he fained great gladnesse;
To sing also, by force he was constrained,.
For no pleasaunce, but very shamefastnesse;
For the complaint of his most heavinesse
Came to his voice.

But to return to our other Belle Dame.

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCY.

Ah, what can ail thee, wretched wight,
Alone and palely loitering;

The sedge is wither'd from the lake,
Aud no birds sing.

Ab, what can ail thee, wretched wight,
So haggard and so woe-begone?

The squirrel's granary is full,

And the harvest's done.

I see a lily on thy brow,

With anguish moist and fever dew;
And on thy cheek a fading rose
Fast withereth too.

I met a Lady in the meads

Full beautiful, a fairy's child;
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
And her eyes were wild.

I set her on my pacing steed,

And nothing else saw all day long;
For sideways would she lean, and sing
A fairy's song.

I made a garland for her head,

And bracelets too, and fragrant zone:
She look'd at me as she did love,
And made sweet moan.

She found me roots of relish sweet,
And honey wild, and manna dew;
And sure in language strange she said,
I love thee true.

She took me to her elfin grot,

And there she gaz'd and sighed deep,
And there I shut her wild sad eyes—
So kiss'd to sleep.

And there we slumber'd on the moss,
And there I dream'd, ah woe betide,
The latest dream I ever dream'd

On the cold hill side.

I saw pale kings, and princes too,

Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
Who cried, "La belle Dame sans mercy
Hath thee in thrall!"

I saw their starv'd lips in the gloom
With horrid warning gaped wide,
And I awoke, and found me here
On the cold hill side.

And this is why I sojourn here
Alone and palely loitering,

Though the sedge is wither'd from the lake,

And no birds sing.

CAVIARE.

Orders received by the Newsmen, by the Booksellers, and by the Publisher, Joseph Appleyard,
Printed by Joseph Appleyard, No. 19, Catherine-street, Strand.-Price 24.

4

No. XXXII.-WEDNESDAY, MAY 17th, 1820.

RETROSPECTIVE REVIEW-MEN WEDDED TO BOOKS—THE CONTEST BETWEEN THE NIGHTINGALE AND MUSICIAN.

We have often had occasion to think of the exclamation of that ingenious saint, who upon reading a fine author, cried out "Pereant male qui ante nos nostra dixerunt!". "Deuce take those who have said our good things before us!"-Now, without mentioning the extendibility (we are writing in high spirits, early on a fine morning, and cannot stop to find a better word)-without mentioning the extendibility of this judicious imprecation to deeds, as, "Deuce take those who have anticipated our exploits ;" or to possessions, "Confound those fellows that ride in our coaches and eat our asparagus ;we cannot help thinking the phrase particularly applicable to those who have read our authors-" Plague take those who anticipate our articles, wh -who quote our highly-interesting passages out of old books."

as

Here is a Retrospective Review set up, which with an alarming precision of prepositions undertakes to make "Criticisms upon, Analyses of, and Extracts from, curious, useful, and valuable Books in all Languages, that have been published from the Revival of Literature to the Commencement of the Present Century:"-And what is very inconsiderate, it performs all this, and more. It's criticisms are of a very uncritical kind; deep and well-tempered. It can afford to let other people have their merits. Proud of the literature of past ages, it is nevertheless not at all contemptuous of the present; and even in reading a lecture to modern critics, as it does admirably in it's Second Number in an article on the once formidable John Dennis, it expostulates in so genial and informing a spirit, that he must be a very fargone critical old woman indeed, who does not feel inclined to leave off the brandy-drinking of abuse,—the pin-sticking of grudging absurdity. It is extremely pleasant to see it travelling in this way over so ́ wide a range of literature, warming as well as penetrating as it goes, with a sunny eye,-now fetching out the remotest fields, and anon driving the shadows before it and falling in kindly lustre upon ourselves. The highest compliment that we can pay it, or indeed any other work, is to say, that the enthusiasm is young, and the knowledge old; a rare, a wise, and a delightful combination.

It is lucky for us that we happened to speak of this work in another publication, the very day before the appearance of the second number; for the latter contained a very kind mention of the little work now