y streams.

Suddenly on the ocean's chilly

The planet orb of fire, whereon he rode
Each day from east to west the heavens through,
Spun round in sable curtaining of clouds;
Not therefore veiled quite, blindfold, and hid,
But ever and anon the glancing spheres,
Circles, and arcs, and broad-belting colure,
Glow'd through, and wrought upon the muffling dark
Sweet-shaped lightnings from the nadir deep
Up to the zenith,-hieroglyphics old,
Which sages and keen-eyed astrologers

Then living on the earth, with labouring thought
Won from the gaze of many centuries:

Now lost, save what we find on remnants huge
Of stone, or marble swart; their import gone,

Their wisdom long since fled.-Two wings this orb
Possess'd for glory, two fair argent wings,

Ever exalted at the God's approach:

bu A

And now, from forth the gloom their plumes immense
Rose, one by one, till all outspreaded were;
While still the dazzling globe maintain'd eclipse,
Awaiting for Hyperion's command.

Fain would he have commanded, fain took throne
And bid the day begin, if but for change.
He might not:-No, though a primeval God:
The sacred seasons might not be disturb'd.
Therefore the operations of the dawn
Stay'd in their birth, even as here 'tis told.
Those silver wings expanded sisterly,
Eager to sail their orb; the porches wide
Open'd upon the dusk demesnes of night;
And the bright Titan, phrenzied with new woes,
Unus'd to bend, by hard compulsion bent
His spirit to the sorrow of the time;
And all along a dismal rack of clouds,

Upon the boundaries of day and night,

He stretch'd himself in grief and radiance faint.

The other Titans, lying half lifeless in their valley of despair, are happily compared to

A dismal cirque

Of Druid stones, upon a forlorn moor,
When the chill rain begins at shut of eve,
In dull November, and their chancel vault,

The Heaven itself, is blinded throughout night.

The fragment ends with the deification of Apollo. It strikes us that there is something too effeminate and human in the way in which Apollo receives the exaltation which his wisdom is giving him. He weeps and wonders somewhat too fondly; but his powers gather nobly on him as he proceeds. He exclaims to Mnemosyne, the Goddess of Memory,

Knowledge enormous makes a God of me, ons reim A
Names, deeds, gray legends, dire events, rebellions,
Majesties, sovran voices, agopies,
Creations and destroyings, all at once
Pour into the wide hollows of my brain,
And deify me, as if some blithe wine
Or bright elixir peerless I had drunk,
And so become immortal.

After this speech, he is seized with a glow of aspiration, and an intensity of pain, proportioned to the causes that are changing him; Mnemosyne upholds her arms, as one who prophesied; and

Here the poem ceases, to the great impatience of the poetical reader. If any living poet could finish this fragment, we believe it is the author himself. But perhaps he feels that he ought not. A story which involves passion, almost of necessity involves speech; and though we may well enough describe beings greater than ourselves by comparison, unfortunately we cannot make them speak by comparison. Mr. Keats, when he first introduces Thea consoling Saturn, says that she spoke

Some mourning words, which in our feeble tongue
Would come in these like accents; O how frail
To that large utterance of the early Gods!

This grand confession of want of grandeur is all that he could do for them. Milton could do no more. Nay, he did less, when according to Pope he made

God the father turn a school divine.

The moment the Gods speak, we forget that they did not speak like ourselves. The fact is, they feel like ourselves; and the poet would have to make them feel otherwise, even if he could make them speak otherwise, which he cannot, unless he venture upon an obscurity which would destroy our sympathy: and what is sympathy with a God, but turning him into a man? We allow, that superiority and inferiority are, after all, human terms, and imply something not so truly fine and noble as the levelling of a great sympathy and love; but poems of the present nature, like Paradise Lost, assume a different principle; and fortunately perhaps, it is one which it is impossible to reconcile with the other. alla

We have now to conclude the surprise of the reader, who has seen what solid stuff these poems are made of, with informing him of what the book has not mentioned,-that they were almost all written four years ago, when the author was but twenty. Ay, indeed! cries a critic, rubbing his hands delighted (if indeed even criticism can do so, any longer); "then that accounts for the lines you speak of, written in the taste of Marino."-It does so; but, sage Sir, after settling the merits of those one or two lines you speak of, what accounts, pray, for a small matter which you leave unnoticed, namely, all the rest?The truth is, we rather mention this circumstance as a matter of ordinary curiosity, than any thing else; for great faculties have great privileges, and leap over time as well as other obstacles. Time itself, and its continents, are things yet to be discovered. There is no knowing even how much duration one man may crowd into a few years, while others drag out their slender lines. There are circular roads full of hurry and scenery, and straight roads full of listlessness and barrenness; and travellers may arrive by both, at the same hour. The

Miltons, who begin intellectually old, and still intellectual, end physi cally old, are indeed Methusalems; and may such be our author, their son.

Mr. Keats's versification sometimes reminds us of Milton in his blank verse, and sometimes of Chapman both in his blank verse and rhyme; but his faculties, essentially speaking, though partaking of the unearthly aspirations and abstract yearnings of both these poets, are altogether his own. They are ambitious, but less directly so, They are more social, and in the finer sense of the word, sensual, than either. They are more coloured by the modern philosophy of sympathy and natural justice. Endymion, with all its extraordinary powers, partook of the faults of youth, though the best ones; but the reader of Hyperion and these other stories would never guess that they were written at twenty. The author's versification is now perfected, the exuberances of his imagination restrained, and a calm power, the surest and loftiest of all power, takes place of the impatient workings of the younger god within him. The character of his genius is that of energy and voluptuousness, each able at will to take leave of the other, and possessing, in their union, a high feeling of humanity not common to the best authors who can less combine them. Mr. Keats undoubtedly takes his seat with the oldest and best of our living poets.

We have carried our criticism to much greater length than we intended; but in truth, whatever the critics might think, it is a refreshment to us to get upon other people's thoughts, even though the rogues be our contemporaries. Oh! how little do those minds get out of themselves, and what fertile and heaven-breathing prospects do they lose, who think that a man must be confined to the mill-path of his own homestead, merely that he may avoid seeing the abundance of his neighbours ! Above all, how little do they know of us eternal, weekly, and semi-weekly writers! We do not mean to say that it is not very pleasant to run upon a smooth road, seeing what we like, and talking what we like; but we do say, that it is pleasanter than all, when we are tired, to hear what we like, and to be lulled with congenial thoughts and higher music, till we are fresh to start again upon our journey. What we would not give to have a better Examiner and a better Indicator than our own twice every week, uttering our own thoughts in a finer mauner, and altering the world faster and better than we can alter it! How we should like to read our present number, five times bettered; and to have nothing to do, for years and years, but to pace the green lanes, forget the tax-gatherer, and vent ourselves now and then in a verse.

Printed and published by Joseph Appleyard, No. 19, Catherine-street, Strand. Price 2d. And sold also by A. GLIDDON, Importer of Snuffs, No. 31, Tavistock. street, Covent-garden. Orders received at the above places, and by all Booksellers and Newsmen.

THE INDICATOR.

There he arriving round about doth flie,
And takes survey with busie curious eye:
Now this, now that, he tasteth tenderly.

SPENSER.

No. XLV.-WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 16th, 1820.

FARINETTA AND FARINONNA;

OR

HOW TO MAKE FIVE PLEASURES OF ONE, AND BE IN FIVE PLACES AT ONCE.

A FAIRY TALE.

THERE were once two sisters, who lived near a forest haunted by Fairies. They were both young, handsome, and lively; only it was said that Farinetta was the more liked the more you knew her, while Farinonna seemed to get tired of one friend after another like a toy. If you went to see them, Farinetta would keep the same face towards you all day, and try all she could to make you happy. Farinonna would do as much for a time, and be exceedingly pleasant; but if any thing crossed or tired her, she would exclaim, with a half pettish look, "Well, I've had quite enough of this, haven't you?" It was a look as much as to say, "If you haven't, you're a great fool; and whether you have or not, I shall do something else." Every one accordingly had their Buts for Farinonna. They would say, "Farinonna is a handsome girl, but--Yes, Farinonna is a very handsome girl, but"People had also their Buts for Farinetta; but then it was only such people as had too many Buts of their own.

This difference in the tempers of the two girls was mainly attributed to Farinetta's acquaintance with the inhabitants of the forest. She was the more thoughtful of the two; and this led her to make herself mistress of the Fairy language, which was the only passport necessary to a complete intimacy with the speakers. Farinonna, who had walked in the forest, yet never seen any Fairies, did not believe in them; and she used to laugh at her sister for thinking that the language taught her to see more in what she read and observed, than herself. Do you think," said she," that such fine writers as Homer, and Tasso, and Shakspeare, want any other key to their language than their own? Do I not know a sword when I see

it, or a horse, or a man, or a dance? Is it necessary for me, when a gentleman is introduced to my acquaintance, to keep saying out loud the meaning of the word gentleman in Fairian,-gentleman, gentleman, gentleman, like a great gawky school-girl at her lesson,-in order to have a proper sense of what he is? Or is it requisite that I".

(6 No, sister," said Farinetta laughing; "the power to translate a word into Fairian only gives you a very vivid sense indeed of the beauties of the original."

use.

"Oh-my compliments pray to the vivid sense, very which appears to me,-begging your pardon, sister, very like mighty fine nonsense. So instead of saying gentleman out loud to the gentleman, I am to keep saying to my very vivid sense Generomildeasibol-What is the horrid long word?-Generomildeasiboldunsel-Oh-its no I can't see, for my part, why it is not quite as good to say Gentleman at once, and not plague one's head about the matter. Every one knows a gentleman at sight, without any of your vivid senses. Do you think I want any language but my mother's to tell me the meaning of the words' As I'm a gentleman;' or to help me to a passage in Shakspeare or Milton ?"

"Why now, sister," said Farinetta, "there was a passage the other day which was quoted from Hesiod, and which you said was unintelligible."

I'm sure

"Well, I know," replied the other; "it is unintelligible; and would remain so were it translated into all the languages in Europe." No," ," said Farinetta; "if you could speak Fairian, you would see it has a meaning, and one of the finest in the world." "Now there, sister," returned Farinonna colouring, "you really make me angry. It doesn't follow that because a man's name is Hesiod, he could not say a silly thing. Wise men say silly things sometimes, and so might he, for all he was a beardy old Greek. he did a foolish thing, when he let his brother cheat him of half his estate; and I cannot see that he proved his wits a bit better, by adding that he was contented, because forsooth the half was greater than the whole.' The half greater than the whole! Is half this fan greater than the whole? Or half this peach? Or half the lawn there? half a dinner, my dear; which will be up in a quarter of an hour, and I'm prodigiously hungry.

Or

"Yes," said Farinetta, laughing as good-naturedly as before, "half a dinner is greater than the whole, on many occasions. I tell you what now" (for she saw her sister getting more impatient):" you know the flowers which the Fairy gave me."

"Yes, I do. Chuck half of them away, and see whether the rest will be doubled."

"No, sister, that is not the way of doubling in Fairy-land. But since you admired them so yesterday, I intended one half for you, and there they are in the window."

"Well that's a good, kind, generous sister as ever lived; but hey! presto! why don't the others double."

"They do," said Farinetta. "I feel a double perfume from them: