He on whose tomb these eyes were wont to dwell,
With inward yearnings which I may not tell;
“ He whose green bays shall bloom for ever young,

And whose dear name whenever I repeat,
Reverence and love are trembling on niy tongue ;

Sweet Spenser,—sweetest Bard; yet not more sweet
Than pure was he, and not more pure than wise,
High Priest of all the Muses' mysteries.”

If this be a genuine and not, in some degree at least, a factitious admiration (which we can hardly suppose with a man of Mr. Southey's taste), it is singular that he should so late have postponed his imitations-for such we apprehend it is his intention that they should be esteemed-especially when he informs us, that even in his childhood on Spencer's song " his spirit fed, attracted to its kind.” For our own part, excepting that they make pretensions to an allegori. cal form, we should scarcely have known that any resemblance was intended. Properly speaking, we doubt if this Carmen Nuptiale be an allegory, for though characters of the kind are introduced, it does not at all satisfy the definition of Plutarch, “ where one thing is related and another understood,” or the other distinctions pointed out by Hughes in his clever Essay on poetry of that species. It is not however very important to settle this point, and we will proceed to give some specimens of the body of this production. While musing upon his “ master dear,” the poet supposes himself to fall asleep, and he immediately begins to dream that he is in the street amidst the bustle attendant upon the royal marriage: he obtains entrance, it does not exactly appear how, into the Hall of Victory of Carlton House; what he there saw he thus describes :

“ Amid that Hall of Victory side by side,

Conspicuous o'er the splendid company,
There sate a royal Bridegroom and his Bride;

In her fair cheek, and in her bright blue eye,
Her flaxen locks and her benignant mien,
The marks of Brunswick’s Royal Line were seen.
" Of princely lineage and of princely heart,

The Bridegroom seem'd,-a man approved in fight,
Who in the great deliverance bore his part,

And had pursued the recreant Tyrant's flight
When driven from injured Germany he fled,
Bearing the curse of God and man upon his head.

“Guerdant before his feet a Lion lay,

The Saxon Lion, terrible of yore,
Who in his withered limbs and lean decay,

The marks of long and cruel bondage bore,
But broken now beside him lay the chain,
Which galled and fretted late his neck and mane.
“ A Lion too was couched before the Bride;

That noble beast had never felt the chain;
Strong were his sinewy limbs and smooth bis hide,

And o'er his shoulders broad the affluent mane
Dishevelled hung ; beneath his feet were laid
Torn flags of France whereon his bed he made.
“ Full different were those Lions twain in plight,

Yet were they of one brood; and side by side
Of old, the Gallic Tyger in his might

They many a time had met, and quelled his pride,
And made the treacherous spoiler from their ire

Cowering and crippled to his den retire.” Their throne represented as supported by Honour and Faith; and while the poet is employed in gazing at the wond'rous sight, suddenly the air " is filled with solemn music breathing round," and Britannia (whose attributes are minutely described with little variation from the representation of her upon the reverse of a halfpenny) enters and addresses the royal bride as follows:

“ Daughter of Brunswick's fated line, she said,

While joyful realms their gratulations pay,
And ask for blessings on thy bridal bed,

We too descend upon this happy day,
Receive with willing ear what we impart,
And treasure up our counsels in thy heart !
“ Long may it be ere thou art called to bear

The weight of empire in a day of woe!
Be it thy favoured lot meantime to share

The joys which from domestic virtue flow,
And may the lessons which are now imprest
In years of leisure, sink into thy breast.
“ Look to thy sire, and in his steady way,

As in his father's he, learn thou to tread;
That thus, when comes the inevitable day,

No other change be felt than of the head
Which wears the crown; thy name will then be blest
Like theirs, when thuu too shalt be called to rest.

“Love peace and cherish peace; but use it so

That war may find thee ready at all hours;
And ever when thou strikest, let the blow

Be swift and sure: then put forth all the powers
Which God hath given thee to rediess thy wrong,
And, powerful as thou art, the strife will not be long,
“ Let not the sacred Trident from thy hand

Depart, nor lay the falchion from thy side!
Queen of the Seas, and mighty on the land,

Thy power shall then be dreaded far and wide:
And, trusting still in God and in the Right,

Thou mayest again defy the world's collected might.” She moves off majestically, and is followed by Experience, who presents

“ — a goodly volume, which he laid

Between that princely couple on the throne.” And next to bim approaches “ the Angel of the English Church,” accompanied by “ Edward the spotless Tudor," Cranmer, Latimer, and a crowd of “ partakers in beatitude” and martyrdom, among whom why Ridley, the firm unshaken Ridley, is not distinguished we know not, unless Mr. southey's laureate loyalty was shocked by the sermon of that bishop against Queen Mary, and in favour of Lady Jane Grey. "The Angel makes rather a long speech against Popery, “that Harlot old,” whose seductions and machinations Mr. Southey at the present moment seems rather unreasonably to dread, and thus winds up the oration, speaking of the established church :

“ Built on a rock, the fabric may repel

Their utmost rage, if all within be sound:
But if wilbin the gates Indifference dwell,

Woe to her then there needs no outward wound !
Through her whole frame benumbed, a lethal sleep,
Like the cold poison of the asp will creep.
“ In thee, as in a cresset set on high,

The light of piety should shine far seen,
A guiding beacou fixed for every eye:

Thus from the influence of an honoured Queen,
As from its spring, should public good proceed,
The peace of Heaven will be thy proper meed.
“So should return that happy state of yore

When piety and joy went hand in hand;
The love which to bis flock the shepherd bore,

The old observances which cheered the land,

The household prayers which, honouring God's high name,

Kept the lamp trimmed and fed the sacred flame.” The Angel of the Church and the saintly train vanish, and their place is occupied by “ another minister of bliss,” one of that angelic company

“Who, guardians of the rising human race,

Alway in Heaven behold the Father's face.” The object of this mission is to exhort the Princess to use her influence in promoting the great object of the education of the lower classes. Although none but common-place topics are introduced into this harangue, yet the purpose is good, and the language by no means infelicitous. Mr. Southey has always been very laudably zealous in his exertions on this subject, and our readers will recollect, that in his “ Pilgrimage to Waterloo,” he travelled no little distance out of his course for the sake of introducing it. The eight subsequent stanzas are spoken by the Angel to the Princess Charlotte :

“I plead for babes and sucklings, he began,

Those who are now, and who are yet to be:
I plead for all the surest hopes of man,

"The vital welfare of humanity:
Oh! let not bestial ignorance maintain
Longer within the land her brutalizing reign.
“ O Lady! if some new-born babe should bless,

In answer to a nation's prayers, thy love,
When thou, beholding it in tenderness,

The deepest, holiest joy of earth shalt prove,
In that the likeness of all infants see,
And call to mind that hour what now thou hearest from me.
" Then seeing infant man, that Lord of Earth,

Most weak and helpless of all breathing things,
Remember that as Nature makes at birth

No different law for Peasants or for Kings,
And at the end no difference may befall,
The short parenthesis of life’ is all.
“ But in that space, how wide may be their doom

Of honour or dishonour, good or ill!
From Nature's hand like plastic clay they come,

To take from circumstance their woe or weal;
And as the form and pressure may be given,
They wither upon earth, or ripen there for Heaven.

“ Is it then fitting that one soul should pine

For lack of culture in this favoured land ?
That spirits of capacity divine

Perish, like seeds upon the desert sand?--
That needful knowledge in this age of light
Should not by birth be every Briton's right?
“ Little can private zeal effect alone;

The State must this state-malady redress!
For as of all the ways of life, but one-

The path of duty, leads to happiness,
So in their duty States must find at length
Their welfare, and their safety, and their strength,
“ This the first duty, carefully to train

The children in the way that they should go.
Then of the family of guilt and pain

How large a part were banished from below?
How should the people love with surest cause
Their country, and revere her venerable laws!
“ Is there, alas ! within the human soul

An inbred taint disposing it for ill?
More need that early culture should controul

And discipline by love the pliant will !
The heart of man is rich in all good seeds;
Neglected, it is choaked with tares and noxious weeds.”

Two female personages called Speranza and Charissa (Hope and Charity we suppose), next pass in the procession, and pausing before the throne, unfold “ earth's melancholy map," to shew how great a space is yet covered with the darkness of ignorance and idolatry. Speranza represents the duty of this country to diffuse 6 the sacred word of Heaven,” calls upon the Redeemer to speed the work, and concludes by invoking a blessing on “ this happy island.”

“ A strain of heavenly harmony ensued,

Such as but once to mortal ears was known,
The voice of that Angelic Multitude

Who in their orders stand around the Throne :
PEACE UPON EARTH, GOOD WILL TO MEN! they sung,
And Heaven and Earth with that prophetic anthem rung.
“ In boly fear I fell upon the ground,

And hid my face, unable to endure
The glory, or sustain the piercing sound:

In fear and yet in trembling joy, for sure