begins his career as a waterman, and we may fancy him a tight youth in all the charms of white ribbed stockings, brown jacket, yellow Handkerchief, and hat of long rough nap and ribbon band, his name being either Joe, Tom, or Ben. He captivates a long shote lass, either Bet, Nancy, or the daughter of a washerwoman or humble ålehouse landlady. While the current of their lives seems to be as smooth and as gay as the Thames on the day of a rowing-match, hẻ gets pressed, a misfortune which causes more of sorrow than surprise. They lament, Kiss, vow, exchange presents (he giving a thimble or Housewife, and she a broach or tobacco-box), and part. She turns her love to account in increasing her industry at home, and he his in raise ing his courage in danger. She thinks on him as she darns stockings or washes trowsers, and he on her as he loads his gun or goes aloft iír a gale. The catastrophe varies. Sometimes it is the hero's death in battle or by shipwreck, and his truelove's of course on the arrival of the news: sometimes his return and getting pressed again before he had even set his foot on shore, and the breaking of her heart with grief at the disappointment: sometimes the inconstancy of the fair, and the lover's going to sea again in despair, getting into the hottest of the fight, and dying with the name of his cruel Poll on his lips. Yet is there to me in all these an expressible charm. Some of the songs aré purely narrative, and in these the precision is a striking feature. Some begin with the exact date of the action or circumstance which constitutes the subject, as Rame toolais de "In seventeen hundred and ninety-nine, On the twenty-fourth of June," &c.lv nem edt la tome with many repetitions of "Said the captain, said he," and " Then said our bold captain." But the main beauty of these songs is the novelty and force of the images and figures. In a battle song which I once heard, the horror of the scene was conveyed in this expressive line "But “And the scuppers were streaming with gore." Another describing a ship sailing out of port with fair wind, begins with "When our anchors were weighed to the bows." I do not intend to recommend those spurious sea songs in which, while there aré a few sea terms introduced, the images are not exclusively nautical, but genuine sea songs, unsophisticated effusions of a sailor's heart, who knows little or nothing beyond his rudder and compas and is, in the words of the fine old song, "All as one as a piece of his ship." Such songs, for example, as "My name it is Tom Tough," "Will Watch," "Tom Bowling," and "Wapping old stairs." In all which they describe. I feel, an intense interest. I cannot tell, either by my own feelings or by reasoning on the facts, why the scenes of pastoral and agricultural life should be dwelt on with more pleasure than is felt in reading of ports, tiers of ships, trim cutters ably manned, fishing-nets, check shirts lying along the clean shingles, white sails, and streaming pendants. A fine tree is certainly a fine sight, but not a finer one than a ship in f sail. The unloading of a fine well-stored vessel, and the carrying of her cargo into the warehouses, may well bear comparison with the getting in of a harvest. A neat green and white skiff, deep but thinly made, and dancing lightly at its moorings on a green sen within a large harbour, is a sight to which I can compare no rural object with which I am acquainted, unless it be a fine clean ox feeding in a rich meadow. And what can equal the pleasure of being the first to walk over a fine sandy bay just after the tide has left it? How in» vitingly level! How provocatire of verse! A fine lawn cannot equal it unless the lawn be covered with young children at play, or a dozen of merry couples dancing. But I must not run on to too great a length. Why hope then that, from what I have said, you will take these sub. jects into your consideration, and invite some of the modern poets to make trial of a coasting voyage, and a short residence at a small soa. port town, where they make anchors and ropes, and build small vessels. You may assure them from me, who have tried it often, that it will fill their minds with as fine food as any that can be got from an inland residence, be the country as fine as it may. And there is one modern poet in particular, to whom you may say that an old friend begs him to do this in remembrance of him," and in preference to carrying the Muses into such vile places as Fives Court, the Castle, and the Hole-in-the-Wall.vol Only think of the Muses at the Hole-in-theWall!-I am, Sir, your obedient servant and constant reader, J. C. H. P.S. A few words, when time serves, on the subject of Wateringplaces, would be very acceptable to some of your readers. They are places which lie under base imputations, the effect of a vulgar prejudice. we ELIA VERSUS INDICATOR. The ingenious author (we hate resentment) of the articles with the signature of Elia, in the London Magazine, complains of us for saying that he was 66 a Mr. Ib." This is an evasion but too characteristic, Understand, of the clever but mendacious writer. Call himself what may, we deny that we called him L-b. The name we mentioned was one of four plain-spoken honest syllables, belonging to a respectable friend of ours, whose pardon we must beg for confounding him with this his too fortunate mimic. He that says, 66 a writer whose real name, it seems, is Boldero," (it is with great scorn that we acknowledge we cannot help laughing at this and some other passages of his tirade) that a writer whose real name, it seems, is Boldero, but who amuses the town under the signature of (mentioning a signature which never appears in these papers) charges him, Elia, with not writing the articles under that name, &c.: and in another part of his petulant imitation of our friend's style, (written doubtless after he had lost to some occasional player at whist) he accuses us of being assassins of his very essence, fellows who not only forbid him to be any longer, but to have been at all:" and therefore he cries out upon our ancestors to look to it." As if a man of the name of Elia could have had any ancestors! To attribute the labours of us two-penny authors to a person even of the same name as that of an eminent banking family, savours of too sorry a spirit of jesting; but what will the reader say, when he hears, that Elia, with all bis personalities upon other people, and the indifferent knavery of his it seems, is neither more nor less than this very Mr. Eb, for whom he pretends we took him? And yet he has not an opinion of himself sufficiently handsome to acknowledge even that! If indeed, it be not rather that he has too good a one, and is far gone in the vanity of modesty. At any rate, see the jealousy of some people. This Mr. L-b is so impatient of having his soul or better half of him looked at, that as rabbits will fall upon their young if you stare at them, he flies upon himself for very anger, and tears out his inward man. Ile will have none of his own body. With one stroke of his pen he exenterates himself,-L—b. He is Pætus and Arria in one, and will die rather than be lorded over with love. Like the Spartan boy, who stole the fox, he will have his bowels torn out, sooner than acknowledge himself for the rogue he is. He is a true thief and modest withal, nobody, only a head and a heel. His jealousy knows no medium. He abolishes all his intermediate faculties, as an Egyptian lets nothing be seen about his wife but her eyes and feet. It really disturbs the natural current of our tropical blood to see these capricious-climated, peevish-veined English (Genoese forsooth) insisting upon being at once loved and not loved, laudable and not praised, personal yet anonymous. There was, by the bye, a family of the name of Elia who came from Italy,—Jews; which may account for this boast about Genoa. See also in his last article in the London Magazine some remarkable fancies of conscience in reference to the Papal religion. They further corroborate what we have heard; viz. that the family were obliged to fly from Genoa for saying that the Pope was the author of Rabelais; and that Elia is not an anagram, as some have thought it, but the Judaico-Christian name of the writer before us, whose surname, we find, is not Lamb, but Lomb Elia Lomb! What a name! He told a friend of ours sp in company, and would have palmed himself upon him for a Scotchman, but that his countenance betrayed him. We regret that such a person should have had us at a disadvantage; and shall take care in future how we panegyrise our betters in such a way, as to render them liable to be confounded with their inferiors slogenialy book to sewe TO CORRESPONDENTS. NITH Our Correspondents, D. T., W. H. C., H., and J. N., will accept our thanks We have not forgotten the promise alluded to by the first. An answer to the Letter on French Literature as early as possible. Two passages in the Letter from a Distinguished Personage, which appeared in our last number but one, were wrongly printed, and ought to have stood thus: 66 Of both sexes the majority may, however, declare with truth, that the frours they spend in my service are the most innocent, and frequently the most happy. In scenes of intemperance my influence is frequently stronger than that of Teason: I often stop their career, and by degrees restore them to their senses."900 For the sun blushes at them from heaven," read also," the sun blushes at them from his highest throne in heaven.” Printed and published by JOSEPH APPLEVARD, No. 19, Catherine-street, Strand. Price 2d.—And sold also by A. GLIDDON, Importer of Snuffs, No. 31, Tavistockstreet, Covent-garden. Orders received at the above places, and by all Book sellers and Newsmen. THE INDICATOR. There he arriving round about doth flie, SPENSER. No. LXXV.-WEDNESDAY, MARCH 14th, 1821. PULCI. WE present our readers with a prose abridgment of the beginning of the Morgante Maggiore of Luigi Pulci, the father of Italian romance. We would rather have given it them in verse; but it would have taken more time and attention than we can just now afford. Besides, a prose specimen of this author is a less unjust one, than it would be of any of his successors; because though a real poet, he is not so eminent as a versifier, and deals less in poetical abstractions. He has less of the oracular or voiceful part of his art, conversing almost exclusively with the social feelings in their most familiar language. Luigi Pulci, the younger of three literary brothers, was born the 15th of December (3d, O.S.), 1431. His family was noble, and probably gave their name to the district of Monte Pulciano, famous for the supereminence of its wine. It was a fit soil for him to grow in. He had an enviable lot, with nothing to interrupt his vivacity; passing his life in the shades of ease and retirement, and "warbling his native wood-notes wild" without fear of hawks from above or lurking reptiles from below. Among his principal friends were Politian, Lorenzo de Medici, and the latter's mother Lucrezia Tornabuona. He speaks very affectionately of her memory at the close of his work. At Lo renzo's table he was a constant guest; and at this table, where it is possible that the future Pope, Leo the Tenth, was present as a little boy, he is said to have read, as he produced it, that remarkable poem, which the old Italian critics were not agreed whether to think pious or profane.* The reader, at this time of day, will be inclined to think it the latter; nor will the reputation of Pope Leo himself, who is said to have made use of the word Fable on a very remarkable occasion, be against their verdict. Undoubtedly there was much scepticism in those days, as there always must be where there is great vivacity of mind, with a great demand upon its credulity. But we must take care how we pronounce *Leo was born in 1475, forty-four years after the birth of Pulci; so that supposing the latter to have arrived at any thing like length of days, he may have had the young Father of the Faithful for an auditor. VOL. II. 1 upon the real spirit of manners unlike our own, when we consider the The specimen now laid before the reader is perhaps as good a one, for prose, as could have been selected. The characteristics of our poet are wildness of fancy, pithiness of humour, sprightliness of transition, and tenderness of heart. All these, if the reader has any congeniality of spirit, he may find successively in the outset about the giants, the complaint made of them by the Abbot, the incipient adventures of Morgante in his new character, and the farewell, and family recognition, of the Abbot and Orlando. The passages about the falling of manna, and the eternal punishment of those who are dear to us, furnish the earliest instance of that penetration into absurdity, and the unconscious matter-of-course air of speaking of it, which constitute the humourous part of the style of Voltaire. The character of Margutte, who makes his appearance in Canto 18, and carries this style to its height, is no less remarkable as an anticipation of the most impudent portraits of professed worldliness, and seems to warrant the suspicions entertained respecting the grosser sceptics of that age, while it shews the light in which they were regarded by the more refined. In Margutte's panegyrics upon what he liked, appear to be the seeds of Berni und his followers. One of the best things to be said of the serious characters of Pulci, and where he has the advantage of Ariosto himself, is that you know them with more distinctness, and become more |