express my equal admiration of, and my deep veneration for the Poet himself. I would have all the works of his vast genius to have their due proportion of praise assigned to them. Nor can they fail to have this justice done to them, if they be examined by competent minds, and relatively and properly understood. One should not be extolled at the expense of another. It adds not to the beauty and excellence of the one admired. These are the arts of inferior merit. No one of Milton's works detracts from another: (I speak of his poetical works; though, as touching his mighty genius and amplitude of mind, the remark may be extended to his eloquent prose works, with the principles of many of which I cannot concur). If they do set off each other, it is not by the contrast of light and shade, where

"Each gives each a double charm,

Like pearls upon the Ethiop's arm."

But it is by kindred merit, like a consetellation of brilliant stars, which, though they be of different magnitude, shine all with the same celestial light and glory, and have each their allotted path in the same etherial heaven.

This illustration is strikingly applicable to the poems before us. Not only bath the self-same fire touched the lips of the Poet from the same hallowed altar of inspiration; but the one poem is incomplete without the other. If it be asked why Paradise Lost, which is composed of action, should be better executed, which it confessedly is, than Paradise Regained, which is contemplative?—it will be best answered by another question; why is the Old Testament more sublime than the New? No one, I think, will deny that the poetry of the Hebrew Scriptures is incomparably more splendid, the imagery more grand, and the language more striking to the imagination, than perhaps any portion of the New Testament, and certainly than the New Testament as a whole, We may perhaps except the Apocalypse of St. John, and a few magnificent passages of St. Paul, The Apocalypse is the consummation of the whole Scheme of Christianity: and being of the nature of prophecy, it partakes of the same character, and is for the same reason sublime, as the prophetic poetry of the Hebrew Scriptures. The essence of these noble Hebrew Odes con

stitutes the very elements of sublime poetry, action and mystery. In these are all things

"That fancy can beget on youthful thoughts

"When the fresh blood grows lively"

It is observed by Mr. Wordsworth, in the treatise already cited and referred to, that "the great storehouses of authentic and meditative imagination, of poetical as contradistinguished from human and dramatic, are the prophetic and lyrical poets of the Holy Scriptures, and the works of Milton"

The light of truth, amid the dubious twilight of mystery which enwraps the Hebrew prophecies as with a shadowy cloud, is incessantly at work, and acts upon the imagination, like the stars twinkling in the remote and inaccessible distances of the heavens at night. The brightness, which was hidden in the prophecies beneath the veil of mystery and obscurity, was but imperfectly discovered; as the moon dimly seen through her half transparent veil of silvery clouds. All this at once captivates the soul. It awes the imagination, like the silent preparations for a battle, It elevates the doubtful and undecided faculties of the mind into a sublime apprehension, Whereas the calm and serene air of the New Testament, which unfolds the Scheme of Revelation like the plot of some high story, and chases away the clouds of doubt, and sets the truth in her native and naked simplicity before the minds's exe, leaves nothing for the imagination to speculate on, and nothing to engage the passions of apprehension and fear. It is as a golden pedestal, upon which is erected the fair form of Truth, that she may be visible to the naked eye in the clear light of the sun. There is a silent sublimity in this portion of the Sacred Volume, an assurance of faith and hope, "a sober certainty of waking bliss," which demands an unimpassioned and a well-prepared soul to contemplate.

B.

English Anthology.

THE following pieces are specimens of different kinds of compositions of the Troubadours, and, fother writers in verse, in the ancient Provençal dialect. These Poems, and fragments of poems, embrace every species of composition, except the epic and dramatic; namely, the lyric, pathetic, didactic, ecclesiastic, and humourous. They were extracted from an elaborate work of the Count de Villeneuve, for many years Prefêt of Marseilles, on the Bouches du Rhône. They are translated as literally as the form of verse will permit.]

Ye gods, as merciful as just, you see
Her heart than marble more inflexible;
To shun her rigour vain is my endeavour;
Make, I implore, to ease my misery,
Her heart as honey soft, that I may tell

That she to me is sweet as she is beauteous ever."

B.

V.

Farewell to thee dearest! when far o'er the Ocean,
I shall dream of the land of the fearless and free,
With a fulness of heart and a flood of emotion
That is worthy alone of old England and thee.

Farewell! when the billows around me are swelling,
And the die of my fate and and my fortune is cast,
My thoughts will recur and my fancy be dwelling
On the moments of pleasure and happiness past.

Though I fly to a land where all nature is teeming
With visions of beauty and scenes of delight;
Where the sun on his own vivid region is gleaming;
Where the skies are more clear and the stars are more bright

Yet I leave thee, fair being, I leave thee in sadness,
For though far o'er the face of the Earth I may roam,
Still I dream of the days of youth's innocent gladness,
And the hopes of my boyhood lie buried at Home.

Farewell! when the waters around me are heaving
And I gaze on the distant and lessening shore,
How vain will the sigh be for those I am leaving,
And the land that perchance I may visit no more.

X.

VI.

We rise up in the morn replete with joy,
Taking no thought of wisdom, but of life
And evanescent things: we make a feast―
Prepare rich flasks of wine-invite our friends
To feast and revel at the set of sun.

But ere the shadow of that sun has made
It's way half round the dial-ere the wine
Has cool'd within the goblets--ere the flowers
Twined into festive garlands o'er the walls,
Have 'gun to fade and wither,-ere the guests
Have reached the banquet-hall, Death enters in
And lays the host and all his pride in dust.

ED. C. M.

HISTORY OF THE QUEEN ALLIYARASANY.

(Re-published from the Colombo Journal of March 23, 1833, with additions.) BY SIMON CASIE CHITTY, Esq.

According to traditions in circulation among the natives, Alliyarasany, of as she was otherwise called Sittrankadei, reigned over the north west coast of Ceylon. I am not aware, that there has ever appeared any regular history of her reign, but having gleaned the following particulars from a Tamil drama entitled "Alliyarasany Nataka" (which though enveloped in fable yet serves as a clue to future research) I offer them in the hope, that they may not prove uninteresting.

Alliyarasany derived her name from a flower, which the Tamils call Alli (1) as it is fabled that she was born of it (2); it is said that a certain king of the Pandiya dynasty (3), who governed Kanni (4), having failed in obtain ing an issue to succeed to the throne of his ancestors, retired to a forest and there performed a long, and austere tapàsya (or penance) in honor of Siva (5). One day Siva and his consort Parvati (6), in rambling over the earth, chanced to pass the spot where king Pandiyan was thus engaged. Parvati enquired of Siva who he was, and what he desired, to which Siva replied, that he was a king and desired offspring, but that none were allotted him. At this, Parvati was much grieved, and observed that having performed so severe à tapasya, it would almost amouut to an injustice to refuse his request; upon which (to satisfy Parvati) Siva took the sweat o his brow, and snapping it from his finger, it fell on an Alli flower, and immediately a girl of the most exquisite beauty sprung from it. Siva then took her in his arms, named her Alliyarasany, after the flower, and gave her to the king, bidding him at the same time adopt her as his own daughter. The king delighted with the gift (as well as to the city, and gave her over to his wife. When she had attained the age of maturity, he placed her apart from him, in a magnificent palace, where she was numerously attended.

the charms of the girl) took her

King Pandiyan was tributary to another king named Alagaputra (7), who governed the country Kurkhi (8), and having failed to remit the tribute money for three years, this king sent massengers to obtain it:-as soon as they had arrived at the court of Pandiyan, and made known the object of their mission, he gave them the arrears of the tribute money, and bade them return; on their way, however, they passed the palace of Alliyarasang, who over-hearing them praise their own king, at the expense of her father, summoned them into her presence, and having taken from them the tribute money, caused their heads to be shaven, and then dismissed them (9),

M