short, however, until they became thoroughly amalgamated with the Saxons. Continuing, therefore, to be separated from the endless examples of Roman and Italian work, which were deluging France, Germany, and Italy, the English architects seem to have gone steadily on unwinding the clew, the first thread of which had been put into their hands by their Norman visitors. Thus it is we account for the comparative purity of the English Gothic, when viewed in juxtaposition with the Gothic of the Continent; and we hold, that the country which can boast of such an exquisite and pure example as York Minster, has a good claim to have its name prefixed to the style of which it possesses the masterpiece. If we were inclined to launch out into comparisons, or multiply lists, we could clearly prove to any one who had ever advanced beyond his architectural rudiments, that there does not exist, abroad, a single specimen which approaches in purity within a hundred miles of either York or Salisbury. The four styles, Norman, Early English, Decorated, and Perpendicular, in their pure, unmixed natures, are alone to be found in England-for Scotland, from its former close connexion with France, possesses few examples of much purity.

With regard to the merits of English Architecture, there can scarcely exist two opinions. Founded upon principles completely opposed to those of the Grecian system, it possesses peculiar beauties of its own, which render it scarce less enchanting; though it is probably matter of inexplicable enquiry, how the sensations produced by the solemn, silent grandeur of a Grecian temple, and a delightful example of English Cathedral magnificence, where ornament and line run riot in all the endless variety of beauty, should be so nearly the same. Did space

and time permit, we think we could clearly prove, that no style is better adapted than the English Gothic for sacred purposes, nor capable of being executed at so small a cost, to possess any thing like so marked a character.

ORIGINAL POETRY.

A LETTER TO MY COUSIN.

"And when they talk of him they shake their heads, And whisper one another in the ear." SHAKSPEARE.

You "have heard that I'm to be married," coz,

But I vow the report's not true;

I think I guess who told you, though,-
It was Miss Celestina Blue ;-

She picks up all the idle talk

That is floating about the town,

Then hurries home to her writing-desk,
And sets it gravely down.

I should like to know to whom, dear coz,
I would tie myself for life;

For it's one thing, I guess, to be in love,
And another to take a wife ;-

I have loved at least a thousand times,
And may love a thousand more;
But catch me stepping as bridegroom in-
To a travelling carriage and four.
When I take a summer excursion, coz,
I start with my dog and gun;
Or I ramble out with my fishing-rod
Where the silver rivers run;

But a wife would insist on a waiting-maid,
With a bandbox on every knee ;
And whenever we came to a country inn,
They would order nothing but tea.

And no doubt whenever she took the pouts,
She'd tell me to my face,
That she had another lover once,
Whom she'd wish were in my place;

And then she'd flirt with some grisly wretch
At least five cubits high ;-

Do you think I'll sell myself for this?-
By Jupiter! coz, not I!

Besides, I don't know a woman, coz,

That has lately smitten me much;
For where, since you chose to get married yourself,
Shall I find another such ?-

They joke me perhaps with Miss Jamieson,
But that's a prodigious mistake;

'Tis all I can do, when I meet with her,
To keep myself awake.

Or perhaps they have seen me walking about
With that brisk little girl Miss Jones;
But she is the last who could bring me, coz,
Down to my marrow bones;

I like very well Miss Cunningham,

And I own she's the queen of dancers; But all the world is aware that she

Is engaged to one of the Lancers.
I've been to the play with Miss Thomson thrice,
And that's a suspicious thing;

I've stood a whole night by the instrument,
To hear Miss Wilson sing;

I've gone to Craigmillar with Clara Grant,
To church with Matilda Donne ;
But trust me, coz, tho' I've gone this length,
I'm not yet too far gone.

As for Miss Macleod, she's in India now,
With all the other Macleods,
And no doubt got the liver complaint,
And bilious lovers in crowds;
And if people think that I care a fig

For Miss Celestina Blue,

They surely don't know that she wears a wig,
Tho' luckily, coz, I do.

So you see the reports are false, sweet coz ;
I'm a sturdy bachelor still;

And little stomach or wish have I

For a matrimonial pill;

Perhaps when your husband goes to heaven
In thirty years or so,

I may throw myself once more at your feet
With my crutch and my gouty toe.
But till then I shall never marry, coz,
For it is not my nature's law;

I'd as soon put my leg in a mantrap, coz,
Or my hand in a lobster's claw:
As for the sex, God bless them! coz,
They have always been kind to me;
But it's safer far to walk by the shore
Than to venture upon the sea.

H. G. B.

LITERARY CHIT-CHAT AND VARIETIES.

We understand that there is at press a volume by the late Rev. Archibald Gracie, containing specimens of the manner in which the services of the Presbyterian Church are conducted on sacerdotal and other solemn festivals, as well as on more ordinary occasions.

We understand that Mr George Buchanan has nearly completed, and will publish in a few days, his laborious work of Tables for converting the Weights and Measures hitherto in use in Scotland, into those of the Imperial Standard.

The 43d and 44th volumes of Constable's Miscellany are to contain Narratives of the most remarkable Conspiracies connected with European history, during the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries, by John Parker Lawson, M.A. author of the Life and Times of Archbishop Laud. We understand that the conspiracies of which Mr Lawson treats are-1. The assassination of James I. of Scotland in 14372. The death of James III. of Scotland in 1488 (comprehending a brief history of his reign)-3. The conspiracy of John Lewis Fiesco

LITERARY CRITICISM.

THE POET SHELLEY-HIS UNPUBLISHED WORK, "THE WANDERING JEW."

WE resume with much pleasure our analysis of this truly interesting poem.

Flash'd on my soul and shook my frame;
They scorch'd my breast as with a flame
Of unextinguishable fire;

An exquisitely torturing pain

Of frenzying anguish fired my brain."

In the pages which succeed this fine passage, Paulo goes on to describe at some length the misery he suffered, not only from the consciousness that he lay under the curse of the Almighty, but from the knowledge that it was impossible for him ever to find refuge from his sufferings in death. Years and generations pass away,—all around him changes,-new forms, and customs, and go

ly disseminated by its author:

"How can I paint that dreadful day,
That time of terror and dismay,
When, for our sins, a Saviour died,
And the meek Lamb was crucified!
'Twas on that day, as borne along
To slaughter by the insulting throng,
Infuriate for Deicide,

I mock'd our Saviour, and I cried,
'Go! go! Ah! I will go,' he said,
'Where scenes of endless bliss invite,
To the blest regions of the light;

I go but thou shalt here remain,
Nor see thy dying day

Till I return again.'

E'en now, by horror traced, I see
His perforated feet and hands;

The madden'd crowd around him stands,
Pierces his side the ruffian spear,
Big rolls the bitter anguish'd tear;
Hark that deep groan! He dies, he dies!
And breathes, in death's last agonies,
Forgiveness to his enemies!

Then was the noonday glory clouded,
The sun in pitchy darkness shrouded;

Then were strange forms through the darkness gleaming,

And the red orb of night on Jerusalem beaming,
Which faintly, with ensanguined light,

Dispersed the thickening shades of night;

Convulsed, all nature shook with fear,

As if the very end was near;

Earth to her centre trembled ;
Rent in twain was the temple's vail,
The graves gave up their dead;
Whilst ghosts and spirits, ghastly pale,
Glared hideous on the sight,
Seen through the dark and lurid air,
As fiends array'd in light,
Threw on the scene a frightful glare,
And, howling, shriek'd with hideous yell-
They shriek'd in joy, for a Saviour fell!
'Twas then I felt the Almighty's ire;

Then full on my remembrance came
Those words despised, alas! too late!

less. His excited feelings almost amount to madness, and induce him to seek for death in every hideous shape. There is a great deal of power in the passage which we subjoin:

"Rack'd by the tortures of the mind,

How have I long'd to plunge beneath
The mansions of repelling death!
And strove that resting place to find
Where earthly sorrows cease.

Oft, when the tempest-fiends engaged,
And the warring winds tumultuous raged,
Confounding skies with seas,

Then would I rush to the towering height

Of the gigantic Teneriffe,

Or some precipitous cliff,

All in the dead of the silent night.

"I have cast myself from the mountain's height, Above was day-below was night;

The substantial clouds that lower'd beneath
Bore my detested form;

They whirl'd it above the volcanic breath,
And the meteors of the storm;

The torrents of electric flame
Scorch'd to a cinder my fated frame.
Hark to the thunder's awful crash-

Hark to the midnight lightning's hiss!
At length was heard a sullen dash,
Which made the hollow rocks around
Rebellow to the awful sound;
The yawning ocean opening wide,
Received me in its vast abyss,
And whelm'd me in its foaming tide.
Though my astounded senses fled,
Yet did the spark of life remain ;
Then the wild surges of the main
Dash'd and left me on the rocky shore.
Oh! would that I had waked no more!
Vain wish! I lived again to feel
Torments more fierce than those of hell!
A tide of keener pain to roll,

And the bruises to enter my inmost soul.

"I cast myself in Etna's womb,

If haply I might meet my doom

In torrents of electric flame;
Thrice happy had I found a grave
'Mid fierce combustion's tumults dire,
'Mid oceans of volcanic fire,

Which whirl'd me in their sulphurous wave,
And scorch'd to a cinder my hated frame,
Parch'd up the blood within my veins,
And rack'd my breast with damning pains;

Then hurl'd me from the mountain's entrails dread.
With what unutterable woe

Even now I feel this bosom glow

I burn-I melt with fervent heat-
Again life's pulses wildly beat-

What endless throbbing pangs I live to feel!
The elements respect their Maker's seal,-
That seal deep printed on my fated head.

"Still like the scathed pine-tree's height,
Braving the tempests of the night

Have I 'scaped the bickering fire.

Like the scathed pine which a monument stands
Of faded grandeur, which the brands

Of the tempest-shaken air

Have riven on the desolate heath,
Yet it stands majestic even in death,
And rears its wild form there.
Thus have I 'scaped the ocean's roar,
The red-hot bolt from God's right hand,
The flaming midnight meteor brand,

And Etna's flames of bickering fire.
Thus am I doom'd by fate to stand,

A monument of the Eternal's ire;
Nor can this being pass away,
Till time shall be no more."

In a note, Shelley acknowledges that many of the ideas in the above passage were suggested to him by a German author, who has written upon the same subject. It will be recollected by the readers of "Queen Mab," that he has casually introduced Ahasuerus, or the Wandering Jew, in a very sublime manner, in that poem, and that he there also acknowledges his obligations to the same German author, and quotes a part of his work, different, however, from that to which he alludes in the volume before us.

Death being the predominant thought in the mind of Paulo, as well as his great aim and object, the following incident is finely introduced :

"Once a funeral met my aching sight,

It blasted my eyes at the dead of night,

When the sightless fiends of the tempests rave,

And hell-birds howl o'er the storm-blacken'd wave.
Nought was seen, save at fits, but the meteor's glare,
And the lightnings of God painting hell on the air;
Nought was heard save the thunder's wild voice in the sky,
And strange birds who, shrieking, fled dismally by.
'Twas then from my head my drench'd hair that I tore,
And bid my vain dagger's point drink my life's gore;
'Twas then I fell on the ensanguined earth,
And cursed the mother who gave me birth!
My madden'd brain could bear no more-
Hark! the chilling whirlwind's roar;

The spirits of the tombless dead

Flit around my fated head,-
Howl horror and destruction round,

As they quaff my blood that stains the ground,
And shriek amid their deadly stave,-

'Never shalt thou find the grave!

Ever shall thy fated soul

In life's protracted torments roll,

Till, in latest ruin hurl'd,

And fate's destruction, sinks the world!

Till the dead arise from the yawning ground, To meet their Maker's last decree,

Till angels of vengeance flit around,

And loud yelling demons seize on thee!'"

Finding that Heaven would not interfere to shorten his probation, and having made himself familiar with all the secret arts of necromancy, he resolves to call the powers of the lower world to his aid, and is more than once on the very point of selling his soul to purchase the happiness of death. Upon one occasion the Prince of Darkness appeared to him after the following man

ner:

"The winds had ceased-a thick dark smoke From beneath the pavement broke;

Around ambrosial perfumes breathe
A fragrance, grateful to the sense,
And bliss, past utterance, dispense.
The heavy mists, encircling, wreath,
Disperse, and gradually unfold

A youthful female form;-she rode
Upon a rosy-tinted cloud;

Bright stream'd her flowing locks of gold;
She shone with radiant lustre bright,

And blazed with strange and dazzling light;

A diamond coronet deck'd her brow,
Bloom'd on her cheek a vermeil glow;

The terrors of her fiery eye
Pour'd forth insufferable day,
And shed a wildly lurid ray.
A smile upon her features play'd,
But there, too, sate pourtray'd
The inventive malice of a soul
Where wild demoniac passions roll;
Despair and torment on her brow
Had mark'd a melancholy woe

In dark and deepen'd shade.
Under those hypocritic smiles,
Deceitful as the serpent's wiles,

Her hate and malice were conceal'd; Whilst on her guilt-confessing face, Conscience, the strongly printed trace

Of agony betray'd,

And all the fallen angel stood reveal'd.
She held a poniard in her hand,

The point was tinged by the lightning's brand;
In her left a scroll she bore,
Crimson'd deep with human gore;
And, as above my head she stood,
Bade me smear it with my blood.

She said, that then it was my doom
That every earthly pang should cease;
The evening of my mortal woe

Would close beneath the yawning tomb;
And, lull'd into the arms of death,

I should resign my labouring breath;
And in the sightless realms below
Enjoy an endless reign of peace.

She ceased-oh, God, I thank thy grace,
Which bade me spurn the deadly scroll;
Uncertain for a while I stood-
The dagger's point was in my blood.
Even now I bleed !-I bleed!
When suddenly what horrors flew,
Quick as the lightnings through my frame;
Flash'd on my mind the infernal deed,
The deed which would condemn my soul
To torments of eternal flame.

Drops colder than the cavern dew

Quick coursed each other down my face,

I labour'd for my breath;

At length I cried, Avaunt! thou fiend of Hell, Avaunt! thou minister of death!'

I cast the volume on the ground,

Loud shriek'd the fiend with piercing yell,
And more than mortal laughter peal'd around.
The scatter'd fragments of the storm
Floated along the Demon's form,
Dilating till it touch'd the sky;

The clouds that roll'd athwart his eye,

Reveal'd by its terrific ray,
Brilliant as the noontide day,

Gleam'd with a lurid fire;

Red lightnings darted around his head,
Thunders hoarse as the groans of the dead,
Pronounced their Maker's ire;

A whirlwind rush'd impetuous by,
Chaos of horror fill'd the sky;

I sunk convulsed with awe and dread.
When I waked the storm was fled,
But sounds unholy met my ear,

And fiends of hell were flitting near."

Having so far gained a victory over himself and his tempters, he contrived to drag on a wretched existence for sixteen hundred years, about the expiration of which period he had met with Rosa, and in her deep confiding affection found a temporary solace for his griefs. His narrative and the third canto conclude together.

The fourth canto opens in a strain of truly elevated morality and piety, which shows how much of good there must always have been at Shelley's heart:

It

"Ah! why does man, whom God has sent As the Creation's ornament,

Who stands amid his works confest

The first-the noblest-and the best ;
Whose vast-whose comprehensive eye,
Is bounded only by the sky,

O'erlook the charms which Nature yields,
The garniture of woods and fields,
The sun's all vivifying light,
The glory of the moon by night,
And to himself alone a foe,

Forget from whom these blessings flow?
And is there not in friendship's eye,
Beaming with tender sympathy,
An antidote to every woe,
And cannot woman's love bestow
An heav'nly paradise below?

Such joys as these to man are given,
And yet you dare to rail at Heaven,
Vainly oppose the Almighty Cause,
Transgress His universal laws,
Forfeit the pleasures that await
The virtuous in this mortal state,

Question the goodness of the Power on high,
In misery live, despairing die.
What then is man, how few his days,
And heighten'd by what transient rays,
Made up of plans of happiness,

Of visionary schemes of bliss,

The varying passions of his mind
Inconstant, varying as the wind,
Now hush'd to apathetic rest,

Now tempested with storms his breast,

Now with the fluctuating tide

Sunk low in meanness, swoln with pride,
Thoughtless, or overwhelm'd with care,
Hoping, or tortured by despair!"

It scarcely might be call'd a sound,

For stillness yet was there,

Save when the roar of the waters below

Was wafted by fits to the mountain's brow.
Here for a while Victorio stood
Suspended on the yawning flood,
And gazed upon the gulf beneath.
No apprehension paled his cheek,
No sighs from his torn bosom break,
No terror dimm'd his eye.
Welcome, thrice welcome, friendly death,'
In desperate harrowing tone he cried,
Receive me, ocean, to your breast,
Hush this ungovernable tide,

This troubled sea to rest.
Thus do I bury all my grief-
This plunge shall give my soul relief,
This plunge into eternity!'

I see him now about to spring
Into the watery grave:

Hark! the death angel flaps his wing
O'er the blacken'd wave.

Hark! the night-raven shrieks on high
To the breeze which passes on ;
Clouds o'ershade the moonlight sky-

The deadly work is almost done-
When a soft and silver sound,

Softer than the fairy song,

Which floats at midnight hour along
The daisy-spangled ground,

Was borne upon the wind's soft swell.
Victorio started-'twas the knell

Of some departed soul;

Now on the pinion of the blast,
Which o'er the craggy mountain past,
The lengthen'd murmurs roll-
Till lost in ether, dies away
The plaintive, melancholy lay.
'Tis said congenial sounds have power
To dissipate the mists that lower
Upon the wretch's brow-

To still the maddening passions' war-
To calm the mind's impetuous jar-
To turn the tide of woe.
Victorio shudder'd with affright,
Swam o'er his eyes thick mists of night;
Even now he was about to sink

Into the ocean's yawning womb,
But that the branches of an oak,
Which, riven by the lightning's stroke,
O'erhung the precipice's brink,

Preserved him from the billowy tomb; Quick throbb'd his pulse with feverish heat, He wildly started on his feet,

And rush'd from the mountain's height."

Thus diverted from his purpose, his passion for Rosa retains as fierce a hold of his bosom as ever. Before he reaches his own castle, the Witch of the Alps presents herself before him, and promises him the accomplishment of his desires provided he consents to surrender his soul Victorio agrees; and the Witch, having led him to her. to her cell, pronounces

"Some maddening rhyme that wakes the dead;"

"The precipice's battled height

Was dimly seen through the mists of night, As Victorio moved along.

At length he reach'd its summit dread,
The night-wind whistled round his head,
A wild funereal song.

A dying cadence swept around
Upon the waste of air,

a drug from the hand of a fiend, which he is ordered to mingle with Paulo's wine, whose death will be the certain consequence. The drug is infused, but the wine is drunk by Rosa instead of Paulo, who is thus lost to both her lovers. What becomes of Victorio we are not told; but the poem concludes with these lines. It is Paulo who is supposed to speak :