place. He is almost equally pleasing in his gayer, and in his more exalted moods. His mirth is without malice or indecency, and his seriousness without gloom. In his lyrical pieces, if we seek in vain for the variety and music of Dryden, the tender and moral sublime of Gray, or the enthusiasm of Collins, yet we recognize an attention ever awake to the appearances of nature, and a mind stored with the images of classical and Gothic antiquity. Though his diction is rugged, it is like the cup in Pindar, which Telamon stretches out to Alcides, χρυσῷ πεφρικυίαν, rough with gold, and embost with curious imagery. A lover of the ancients would, perhaps, be offended, if the birthday ode, beginning Within what fountain's craggy cell were compared, as to its subject, with that of the Theban bard, on the illness of Hiero, which opens with a wish that Chiron were yet living, in order that the poet might consult him on the case of the Syracusan monarch; and in its form, with that in which he asks of his native city, in whom of all her heroes she most delighted. Among the odes, some of which might more properly be termed idylliums, The Hamlet is of uncommon beauty; the landscape is truly English, and has the truth and tenderness of Gainsborough's pencil. Those To a Friend on his leaving a Village in Hampshire, and the First of April, are entitled to similar praise. The Crusade, The Grave of King Arthur, and most of the odes composed In the Ode written at Vale Royal for the court, are in a higher strain. Abbey is a striking image, borrowed from some lent verses, written by Archbishop Markham, and printed in the second volume of that collection. High o'er the trackless heath, at midnight seen, No more the windows ranged in long array (Where the tall shaft and fretted arch be tween Thick ivy twines) the taper'd rites betray. Prodidit arcanas arcta fenestra faces. His sonnets have been highly and deservedly commended by no less competent a judge than Mr. Coleridge. They are alone sufficient to prove (if any proof were wanting) that this form of composition is not unsuited to our language. One of our longest, as it is one of our most beautiful poems, the Faerie Queene, is written in a stanza which demands the continual recurrence of an equal number of rhymes; and the chief objection to our adopting the sonnet is the paucity of our rhymes. The Lines to Sir Joshua Reynolds are marked by the happy turn of the compliment, and by the strength and harmony of the versification, at least as far as the formal couplet measure will admit of those qualities. They need not fear a comparison with the verses addressed by Dryden to Kneller, or by Pope to Jervas. His Latin compositions are nearly as excellent as his English. The few hendecasyllables he has left, have more of the vigour of Catullus than excels him in delicacy. The Mons those by Flaminio; but Flaminio Catharinæ contains nearly the same images as Gray's Ode on a Prospect of Eton College. In the word "cedrinæ," which occurs in the verses on Trinity College Chapel, he has, we believe, erroneously made the penultimate long. Dr. Mant has observed another mistake in his use of the in the lines translated from Akenside. word "Tempe” as a feminine noun, When in his sports with his brother's scholars at Winchester he made would have:-one such would have their exercises for them, he used to ask the boy how many faults he been sufficient for a lad near the head of the school. His style in prose, though marked by a character of magnificence, is at times stiff and encumbered. He is too fond of alliteration in prose as well as in verse; and the cadence of his sentences is too evidently laboured. ZARIADRES AND ODATIS. A GRECIAN STORY. HYSTASPES and Zariadres, were so remarkably distinguished from other men, by their loveliness of form and features, as to make it be believed that they were the offspring of Venus and Adonis. It was for this reason, that they were, by common agreement, elevated to the royal power; and thus became a living proof of the assertion, that "if part of the human race were to be arrayed in that splendour of beauty, which beams from the statues of the gods, universal consent would acknowledge the rest of mankind naturally formed to be their slaves."* Hystaspes was lord over Media, and a wide space of country extending beneath it. To the lot of Zariadres, whose appearance indicated him to be the younger of the two, (and it is with him only we are now concerned) fell all that tract, which reaches from the gates of the Caspian as far as the river Tanäis. The monarch whose dominions neighbour ed his on the other side of that stream, and who was called Omartes, had received from the gods an only daughter, to whom her parents gave the name of Odatis. If she had not been the heiress to a diadem, it is probable that the Marathians (so were the subjects of her father called) would spontaneously have raised her to the throne, for she was, beyond any competition, the fairest amongst the daughters of the east. It is recorded in the annals of these nations, that one night, the shape of Zariadres appeared before her in a dream; and that, with that heightened feeling, of which the soul is most capable when it least uses the organs of the body, she conceived a more passionate affection for the prince than his real presence, lovely as it was, could have inspired. At the same instant, as if by a divine sympathy, Zariadres beheld, and was no less deeply enamoured of Odatis. Whether it were from having seen her pic ture, or from the agreement of the vision with the reports that had reached him of her beauty, or else by a special communication made to him by one of his supposed parents (for Adonis, his father, though apparently killed by the boar, was only slum bering, and being gifted with immortality, might be supposed capable of influencing the spirits of those whom he loved); yet, so it was, that he well knew whom he had seen in his sleep. Accordingly, the sun was scarcely risen, before he had dispatched faithful messengers to bear his pledge to the daughter of Omartes, and to ask her in marriage of her father. The king, however, who had no male offspring, was bent on uniting her to some one of the noblest among his own people, and therefore did not hesitate to send back a refusal to the offer of Zariadres. Nay, so confirmed was he in this resolution, by his apprehensions lest the proposal of that prince should be more strongly urged, that he hastened to take the necessary measure for carrying his purpose into execution. A festival was forthwith proclaimed, and the mightiest men of his kingdom were invited to attend it. When the guests were assembled, and the cheer was now beginning to run high, the king, who was seated in state at the head of the board, called his daughter to him; and holding to her a golden phial, in the hearing of all, spake to her in these words: Daughter Odatis, we are now making thy marriage feast: look round on all, who are here present, and whosoever shall find most grace in thine eyes, take this cup, and having filled it with wine, present it to him; and the same shall henceforth be my son-inlaw, and the sharer of my kingdom."+ The princess heard her father's command with a heavy heart; for she neither dared to disobey nor remonstrate. Her cheek turned pale, as * See Aristotle's Politics, translated by Gillies, b. 1. c. 5. + This appears to have been a usual method of betrothing a daughter in marriage. Casaubon, in a note on this passage, observes that Pindar alludes to it at the beginning of his Seventh Olympic. she took from him the outstretched preparing; and divining the cause cup into her loth and trembling of it, he had escaped the notice of hands; and ill-concealing her tears, his army, which lay encamped on she turned away, as if to fill it from a the shores of the Tanäis. Clothflaggon that was standing near on ing himself in the garb of a Scythian, the sideboard. But before she could he had taken with him a single chaperform that office, her eyes wander- rioteer, and thus, without slacking ed vacantly over the hall, and rested speed day or night, he reached the more on the columns that extended palace of Marathia; and he was now themselves down either side of it, standing at the side of Odatis. She than on the warriors who sat between perceived who it was; and nothing them; every one anxiously watching doubting, with a glad heart, handed on whom her choice would fall, yet him the phial; and he, snatching none bold enough to trust that it her away to his chariot, fled with her would light upon himself. Odatis to his own land: nor was there any was scarcely able longer to support interruption offered to their course; her anguish, and, in the indistinctness for her maidens and her servants of remoter objects, sought to escape knew of the dream, and of the emfrom a sense of the painful reality be- bassage, and believed that it was Zafore her, when, suddenly, there appear- riadres who was come; and when ed pressing forward, betwixt two of she was called for by her father, they the most distant pillars, a head, that resolutely denied having any knowreminded her of the figure in her ledge of her flight. dream. She thought it the mockery of fancy, and was ready to dismiss the illusion as sent only the more to embitter her despair. Again she turned, and busied herself among the cups; and at length, with faststreaming tears, had begun slowly to mingle the phial, when a voice, that sounded not strange to her ear, addressed her: " Odatis, I am hereI, thy Zariadres." It was, indeed, Zariadres. Tidings had been brought to him of the great banquet that was Let none pronounce the love of Zariadres and Odatis to be a fable; for Chares, the Mitylenæan, in the tenth book of whose history it was recorded, adds, that it is commonly remembered by the people of the east, and represented by paintings, not only in their temples and palaces, but even in private dwellings; and that, in memory of the princess, the great men are accustomed to give their daughters the name of Odatis. SONNET. TO A TWIN-SISTER WHO DIED IN INFANCY. BESSY!-I call thee by that earthly name Which but a little while belong'd to thee ;- Where life's bud opens in eternity. A brother's bosom yearns thy bliss to prove, And sighs o'er wishes that were not to be. Strange with the world as thou, thy mother's love,— JOHN CLARE. TRADITIONAL LITERATURE. No. VIII. THE GHOST WITH THE GOLDEN CASKET. Is my soul tamed On the Scottish side of the sea of Solway, you may see from Allanbay and Skinverness the beautiful old castle of Caerlaverock, standing on a small woody promontory, bounded by the river Nith on one side, by the deep sea on another, by the almost impassable morass of Solway on a third; while far beyond, you observe the three spires of Dumfries, and the high green hills of Dalswinton and Keir. It was formerly the residence of the almost princely names of Douglas, Seaton, Kirkpatrick, and Maxwell: it is now the dwelling-place of the hawk and the owl; its courts are a lair for cattle, and its walls afford a midnight shelter to the passing smuggler; or, like those of the city doomed in Scripture, are places for the fishermen to dry their nets. Between this fine old ruin and the banks of the Nith, at the foot of a grove of pines, and within a stonecast of tide-mark, the remains of a rude cottage are yet visible to the curious eye-the bramble and the wild-plum have in vain tried to triumph over the huge, gray, granite blocks which composed the foundations of its walls. The vestiges of a small garden may still be traced, more particularly in summer, when roses and lilies, and other relics of its former beauty begin to open their bloom, clinging amid the neglect and desolation of the place, with something like human affection to the soil. This rustic ruin presents no attractions to the eye of the profound antiquary, compared to those of its more stately companion, Caerlaverock Castle; but with this rude cottage and its garden, tradition connects a tale so wild, and so moving, as to elevate it, in the contemplation of the peasantry, above all the Old Play. princely feasts and feudal atrocities of its neighbour. I It is now some fifty years since I visited the parish of Caerlaverock; but the memory of its people, its scenery, and the story of the Ghost with the Golden Casket, are as fresh with me as matters of yesterday. I had walked out to the river-bank one sweet afternoon of July, when the fishermen were hastening to dip their nets in the coming tide, and the broad waters of the Solway sea were swelling and leaping against bank and cliff, as far as the eye could reach. It was studded over with boats, and its more unfrequented bays were white with waterfowl. sat down on a small grassy mound between the cottage ruins and the old garden plat, and gazed, with all the hitherto untasted pleasure of a stranger, on the beautiful scene before me. On the right, and beyond the river, the mouldering relics of the ancient religion of Scotland ascended, in unassimilating beauty, above the humble kirk of New-Abbey and its squalid village; farther to the south rose the white sharp cliffs of Barnhourie,-while on the left stood the ancient keeps of Cumlongan, and Torthorald, and the Castle of Caerlaverock. Over the whole looked the stately green mountain of Criffel, confronting its more stately, but less beautiful neighbour, Skiddaw; while between them flowed the deep, wide, sea of Solway, hemmed with cliff, and castle, and town. As I sat looking on the increasing multitude of waters, and watching the success of the fishermen, I became aware of the approach of an old man, leading, as one will conduct a dog in a string, a fine young milch cow, in a halter of twisted hair, which passing through the ends of two pieces of flat wood, fitted to the animal's a broad bonnet, from beneath the cheek-bones, pressed her nose, and circumference of which straggled a gave her great pain whenever she few thin locks, as white as driven became disobedient. The cow seem- snow, shining like amber, and softer ed willing to enjoy the luxury of a than the finest flax,-while his legs browze on the rich pasture which were warmly cased in blue-ribbed surrounded the little ruined cottage; boot-hose. Having laid his charge but in this humble wish she was to the grass, he looked leisurely anot to be indulged, for the aged round him, and espying me-a owner, coiling up the tether, and stranger, and dressed above the manseizing her closely by the head, con- ner of the peasantry, he acknowducted her past the tempting her- ledged my presence by touching his bage, towards a small and close-cropt bonnet; and, as if willing to comhillock, a good stone-cast distant. In municate something of importance, this piece of self-denial the animal he stuck the tether stake in the seemed reluctant to sympathize-she ground, and came to the old garden snuffed the fresh green pasture, and fence. Wishing to know the peaplunged, and startled, and nearly sant's reasons for avoiding the ruins, broke away. What the old man's I thus addressed him:-"This is a strength seemed nearly unequal to, pretty spot, my aged friend, and the was accomplished by speech: herbage looks so fresh and abun"Bonnie lady, bonnie lady," said dant, that I would advise thee to he, in a soothing tone, "it canna bring thy charge hither; and while be, it mauna be-hinnie! hinnie! she continued to browze, I would what would become of my three gladly listen to the history of thy bonnie grand-bairns, made fatherless white locks, for they seem to have and mitherless by that false flood been bleached in many tempests." afore us, if they supped milk, and "Aye, aye," said the peasant, shaking tasted butter, that came from the his white head with a grave smile, greensward of this doomed and un66 they have braved sundry tempests blessed spot?" The animal appeared between sixteen and sixty; but to comprehend something in her own touching this pasture, sir, I know way from the speech of her owner: she nobody who would like their cows abated her resistance; and indulg- to crop it-the aged cattle shun the ing only in a passing glance at the place the bushes bloom, but bear rich deep herbage, passed on to her no fruit-the birds never build in destined pasture. I had often heard the branches- the children never of the singular superstitions of the come near to play-and the aged Scottish peasantry, and that every never chuse it for a resting-place; hillock had its song, every hill its but pointing it out, as they pass, to ballad, and every valley its tale. I the young, tell them the story of its followed with my eye the old man desolation. Sae ye see, sir, having and his cow; he went but a little nae good will to such a spot of way, till, seating himself on the earth myself, I like little to see a ground, retaining still the tether in stranger sitting in such an unblessed his hand, he said, "Now, bonnie place; and I would as good as adlady, feast thy fill on this good green- vise ye to come owre with me to the sward-it is halesome and holy, com- cowslip knoll- there are reasons pared to the sward at the doomed mony that an honest man should cottage of auld Gibbie Gyrape- nae sit there." I arose at once, and leave that to smugglers' nags: Willie seating myself beside the peasant on o'Brandy burn and Roaring Jock the cowslip knoll, desired to know o'Kempstane will ca' the haunted something of the history of the spot ha' a hained bit-they are godless from which he had just warned me. fearnoughts." I looked at the person The Caledonian looked on me with of the peasant: he was a stout hale an air of embarrassment:-" I am old man, with a weather-beaten face, just thinking," said he, "that as ye furrowed something by time, and, are an Englishman, I should nae acperhaps, by sorrow. Though sum- quaint ye with such a story. Ye'll mer was at its warmest, he wore a make it, I'm doubting, a matter of broad chequered mantle, fastened at reproach and vaunt, when ye gae the bosom with a skewer of steel, hame, how Willie Borlan o' Caerla |