In uncommunicating misery

Silent they stood. At length Lobaba cried,
"Son we must slay the camel, or we die
For lack of water! thy young hand is firm,
Draw forth the knife and pierce him!"

"Wretch accurst,

Who that beheld thy venerable face,
Thy features fixed with suffering, the dry lips,
The feverish eyes, could deem that all within
Was magic ease, and fearlessness secure,
And wiles of hellish import? the young man
Paused with reluctant pity: but he saw
His comrade's red and painful countenance,
And his own burning breath came short and quick,
And at his feet the gasping beast

Lies, over-worn with want.

Then from his girdle Thalaba took the knife
With stern compassion, and from side to side
Across the camel's throat,

Drew deep the crooked blade.

Servant of man, that merciful deed
For ever ends thy suffering. But what doom
Waits thy deliverer! "little will thy death
"Avail us!" thought the youth,

As in the water-skin he poured
The camel's hoarded draught:
It gave a scant supply,

The poor allowance of one prudent day.

Son of Hodeirah, tho' thy steady soul
Despaired not, firm in faith,
Yet not the less did suffering nature feel
Her pangs and trials. Long their craving thirst
Struggled with fear, by fear itself inflamed;
But drop by drop, that poor,

That last supply is drained!

Still the same burning sun! no cloud in heaven!
The hot air quivers, and the sultry mist
Floats o'er the desert, with a show
Of distant waters, mocking their distress!
The youth's parched lips were black,
His tongue was dry and rough,
His eye-balls red with heat.

His comrade gazed on him with looks
That seemed to speak of pity, and he said
"Let me behold thy ring,

It may have virtue that can save us yet!"
With that he took his hand

And viewed the writing close,
Then cried with sudden joy

"It is a stone that whoso bears

The genii must obey!

Now raise thy voice, my son.

And bid them in his name that here is written
Preserve us in our need."

"Nay!" answered Thalaba,
"Shall I distrust the providence of God?

Is it not He must save?" Vol. i. p. 228.

Book V.-This book is much in the spirit of oriental fiction : the story of Zohak is a translation from the first book of Firdosi's Shah-nameh.

The second volume of Thalaba commences with the sixth book, which contains several driftless adventures that have neither pretext nor object. The paradise of Aloaddin is not delineated with a pencil so voluptuous as Acrasia's bower of bliss; but its severer chaster luxury is still beautiful. The presence. of Oneiza is insufficiently explained.

The seventh book would be very interesting, if a certain suspense overhung the prepared nuptials of Thalaba and Oneiza. The unexpected catastrophe lessens the pathos of the chilling words

Who comes from the bridal chamber?
It is Azrael, the angel of death.'

In the eighth book the visit of Thalaba to the witches, who spin a bond about his hands, is well narrated; but it is more in the spirit of Gothic than of Arabian fiction: there is another snow-scene in the eleventh book, which would adorn a Kamtshatkan tale. The apology made in the concluding note, for the inexplicable enthronement of Mohareb, is insufficient: it would have been easy to have made Mohareb the sultan of the seventh book, and to have ennobled him into a worthy antago nist: there is always a loss of interest, as well as of concatenation, in dropping old personages, and introducing new ones: we had already, in Aswad, a spare sultan.

Book IX.-The charm, which opens this book, is wondrously well painted: it is more than painted; it is created! it breathes! it lives!-We must transcribe.

Her face is serious, her unwilling lips

66

Slow to the tale of ill.

"What hast thou read? what hast thou read?" Quoth Khawla in alarm.

'Danger.. death.. judgement!" Maimuna replied.

"Is that the language of the lights of heaven?"
Exclaimed the sterner witch,

"Creatures of Allah, they perform his will.
And with their lying menaces would daunt
Our credulous folly... Maimuna,
I never liked this uncongenial lore!
Better befits to make the sacrifice
Of divination; so shall I
Be mine own oracle,

Command the victims thou, O king!
Male and female they must be,

Thou knowest the needful rites.

Meanwhile I purify the place."

The sultan went; the sorceress rose,
And north and south and east and west
She faced the points of heaven,

And ever where she turned

She laid her hand upon the wall,

And

up she looked and smote the air,
And down she stooped and smote the floor,
"To Eblis and his servants

I consecrate the place,
Let none intrude but they!
Whatever hath the breath of life,
Whatever hath the sap of life,

Let it be blasted and die!"

Now all is prepared ;
Mohareb returns,
The circle is drawn,
The victims have bled,
The youth and the maid.
She in the circle holds in either hand
Clenched by the hair, a head,
The heads of the youth and the maid.

"Go out ye lights!" quoth Khawla,

And in darkness began the spell.

With spreading arms she whirls around
Rapidly, rapidly

Ever around and around;

And loudly she calls the while
"Eblis! Eblis!"

Loudly, incessantly,

Still she calls "Eblis! Eblis!"

Giddily, giddily, still she whirls,

Loudly, incessantly, still she calls,

CAIT. REV. Vol. 39. December, 1803.

2 D

The motion is ever the same,
Ever around and around;
The calling is still the same

Still it is "Eblis! Eblis!"
And her voice is a shapeless yell,
And dizzily rolls her brain,
And now she is full of the fiend.
She stops, she rocks, she reels!
Look! look! she appears in the darkness!
Her flamy hairs curl up

All living, like the meteor's locks of light!
Her eyes are like the sickly moon!

It is her lips that move,

Her tongue that shapes the sound,
But whose is the voice that proceeds?
"Ye may hope and ye may fear,
The danger of his stars is near,
Sultan! if he perish, woe!
Fate has written one death-blow
For Mohareb and the foe?

Triumph! triumph! only she

That knit his bonds can set him free."

"She spake the oracle,

And senselessly she fell." Vol. ii. P. 139.

Greeks! Latins! come with your Pythonesses! Where is there a description like this? Edinburgh reviewers, tamers of genius, come and vaunt couplets and habitual metres, and show us an effect like this! Ghost of Boileau, scowl! we will enjoy.

The tenth book contains the adventure, or love may we call it, of Lailah and Thalaba: it is thus, by immingling human affections and feelings, that tales of enchantment may most securely be rendered interesting. The poet seems himself aware of his error, by the exclamation (x. 224)

Everywhere magic! the Arabian's heart
Yearned after human intercourse.'

The eleventh book is less distinguished for dramatic than descriptive merit.

The twelfth contains the catastrophe: it has grandeur, sublimity, terror; but, like the last book of the Æneid, it appears to want the matrimonial festivities to render the solution triumphant yet it would not have been wise to record them. The event is accomplished too much by faith, too little by courage; it is the catastrophe of a martyrdom.

The notes are worthy of the commentator of Vathek: it would be well, in a future edition, to arrange them at the end of the several books. Some are superfluous: an injudicious

one is that concerning old Poulter's mare, which tends to render ridiculous a most beautiful passage of the text. We wish that arguments were prefixed to the several books, and that some suppressions were made of feeble passages and almost identical scenery: perhaps the amount of two books could be withdrawn, with advantage to the remainder.

ART. III-A System of theoretical and practical Chemistry. With Plates. By Frederick Accum, Teacher of practical Chemistry, Pharmacy, and Mineralogy, &c. &c. 2 Vols. 8vo. 18s. Boards. Kearsley. 1803.

WE had lately occasion to consider the comparative advantages of the different plans which authors have adopted in their elementary chemical works, and expressed our disapprobation of the late refinements in this respect, which, though justified as purely-and rigorously synthetical, yet have stepped too far beyond the common sensible objects to become interesting or intelligible to the learner. It has indeed been difficult to define chemistry, to fix its limits between an art merely operative, and a science distinct from natural philosophy. Were it once defined, a plan might more readily be discovered; as Dr. Black, by limiting it to the doctrines of heat and mixture, formed thence the two great divisions of his Lectures. The object of chemistry, according to our author, is 'to investigate and account for the changes produced in all bodies in nature by the mutual action of their parts on each other, by means of which their physical properties are altered, and their individuality destroyed.' We think this definition simple, comprehensive, and discriminative. It perhaps does not exclude Galvanic operations; nor are these yet so well understood, as to enable any author to include them in or reject them from a given branch of science. Should the objection be well founded, it will prove only what we have often had occasion to remark, that the infinite variety of nature sets system at defiance. Perhaps chemistry might properly be defined, the mutual actions of the smaller particles of matter, either in decomposing natural bodies, or producing new compounds. Whichever may be adopted, the object of the science is natural bodies, which admit of changes either by further resolution, or by union. In either case it will be indifferent, according to any logical rule, whether they are considered as masses to be resolved, or as simple bodies to be compounded; and, as the former convey more clear ideas, are better known, and already familiar by daily use, we think that they should be first considered.

Mr. Accum, in his division of the objects of chemistry, comes very near this view. The first division contains simple sub