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Whom man's destroying foot, if there it strays,
Slays as he feasts, and buries while it slays.

"Are they not dust, the cases there?

The shelves, and all the volumed pile they bear?

There I may read, in many a page,

That

man, in

every

clime and age,

Has rack'd his heart and brain :

That here and there a luckier wight was seen, Seldom or never to be seen again.

Skull of the nameless dead, why grinn'st thou, say? Except to tell me that the brain within

Was mad, like mine, for what it fail'd to win, Truths never-dawning, still-expected day. Ye, too, have mocked me, instruments of art, Pulleys and rules, and wheels of toothed brass : At learning's door ye play the porter's part, But would not lift the latch to let me pass. For Nature yields not to corporeal force, Nor suffers man by aid like yours to find What she refuses to the powers of mind, And deep reflection's flow, and study's tranquil course I have no portion in thee, useless heap Of lumber, aiding once my father's toil: Parchments and rolls continue still your sleep, Grimed by yon cresset's ever-fuming oil. Better to waste the substance of my Than thus encircled by it to expire. All we possess, and use not on the road, Adds to the burden we must bear, Enjoyment alleviates our share,

sire,

And, by consuming, lightens still the load."

"He then intends to poison himself, and is arrested, in the act of setting the cup to his lips, by the sound of the church-bells and the Easter Hymn. The

sentiments which this incident recalls are tenderly expressed, but not in that impassioned and pathetic strain which the occasion might have been expected to inspire."

FAUST.

"Why seek ye here, ye tones of Heaven,
A thing like me, of mortal leaven?

On softer hearts your soothing influence try;
I hear your tidings, would that I believed!

I could be happy, though deceived.

I dare not lift my thoughts towards the spheres,
From whence that heavenly sound salutes my ears;
And yet that anthem's long-remember'd strain
Revives the scenes of sinless youth again,

When, on the stillness of the sabbath-day,
Heaven in that peal seem'd pouring from above,
And I look'd upward for its kiss of love,

While saints might wish with joy like mine to pray.
An undefined inspiration

Impell'd me from the haunts of man;

I form'd myself a new creation,

While tears of Christian fervour ran. This very song proclaim'd to childhood's ear The solemn tide for joys for ever past, And memory, waking while the song I hear, Arrests my strides, and checks me at the last. Sound on, blest strain, your task almost is done ; Tears force their way, and earth regains her son.”

"A very silly namby-pamby scene succeeds between worthy artizans and others of their class,going, as the Cockneys call it, a holiday-making. Faust and Wagner, and then an old peasant, are introduced. The dialogue between them hath oc

casional touches of poetry and of natural feeling, but still it is not of a very high order. The description of the season is not better than the spring has been described a thousand times; but the kindly gratitude of the peasant, for the assistance which Faust and his father had given to the people by their skill during a pestilence, is pleasing and natural; and there is prodigious effect in Faust's account of the result of his father's alchemy. I suspect Lord Francis did not clearly understand the passage in the original; for he has so translated it as to make it almost seem as if Faust and his father exasperated the plague by their medicines,-whereas Faust is alluding to the deleterious effects of the gold which his father had alchemically made."

FAUST.

"A little onward-far as yonder stone-
I have a reason good to rest me there;
For often there I sat, and mused alone,

And mortified myself with fast and prayer.
There, firm in faith, I oft have striven,

With tears, and sighs, and prayers as vague,
To calm the wrath of angry Heaven,

And stay the ravage of the plague.
That voice of praise to me is scorn,
Too just, too bitter to be borne.
Hear how the father and the son
Deserve the gratitude they won.
That father was a dark adept,
Who nature's mystic ring o'erleapt,
And made her secret works his care,
With arts his own, but not unfair.
With some, like him initiate,
He sat before his furnace grate,

And, after many a crabb'd receipt,
He wielded there the powers of heat,
Made opposites together run,

And mingled contraries in one.

There was a lion red, a friar bold,

Who married lilies in their bath of gold,

With fire then vex'd them from one bridal bed

Into another, thus he made them wed.

Upon her throne of glass was seen,
Of varied hues, the youthful queen.
This was the scene from whence our skill
Display'd so far its power to kill;

Our mixtures did their work more sure
Than all the plagues we came to cure.
Myself have given the poison draught,
And seen them perish as they quaff'd,
And live to hear their kindred shed
Their blessings on the murderer's head.

"An account of the feeling of his insatiable curiosity, which soon follows, is full of beautiful and lofty poetry. It is one of the gems of the boo'."

FAUST.

"Happy in error's sea who finds the land,

Or o'er delusion's waves his limbs can buoy ;
We use the arts we cannot understand-

And what we know, we know not to employ.
But let us not, in fancy's moody play,
The moment's present raptures waste away.
See how, from tufted trees, in evening's glow,
Ere daylight sets, the cottage casements glow
It sinks, the sun has lived another day,

And yields to death but to recruit his fires;
Alas! no wing may bear me on my way,
To track the monarch, as his orb retires,

I watch'd him, as he sought the west;

Beneath his feet creation slept,

Each summit blood-red bright, each vale at rest, The waveless streams like golden serpents crept. In vain yon mountain's arrowy pinnacle

To the mind's flight opposed its precipice.

Ocean himself retired, his billows fell,

And for my path disclosed his huge abyss.
The vision ceased, the sun's glad reign was o'er,
Yet the wish died not with returning night.
Darkness behind me, and the day before,

On rush'd my soul to drink the eternal light. Seas roll'd beneath, and skies above me rose. Blest dream! It vanish'd in its loveliest prime. Alas! no mortal wings may succour those

Which lift the mind upon its flight sublime. Yet nourish'd in the bosom's core

The impulse dwells which bids us onward press. When the lark mounts till it can mount no more, To wake its thrilling song of happiness, Whe' o'er the pines the eagle soaring A poising wing appears to rest, When marshy wastes and seas exploring, The crane speeds to his native nest.

WAGNER.

"I have had fancies, but for such as these They never troubled me, as I remember; I soon have gazed my fill at fields and trees,

Envying no bird his wings, or any member. A different joy the learned finds at home, From page to page, from book to book to roam. Life from such task runs warm through every limb, And winter's blasts are gales of spring to him. And when some parchment is unroll'd by you, Heaven, like the prophet's scroll, seems open'd too.

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