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What secret charms their soft delusion spread,
And bring my cherished Ulric from the dead?
What may these heroes mean, this regal band,
That crowd my tent, and duly marshalled stand?
Say, does the grave these too for me restore?
Touched by their sight, thy words affect me more.
What interests hold these monarchs in my fate.
Why stand they here, arrayed in sceptred state?
XXXVII.

"Son," the heavenly visitant replies,

Full thirty Christian monarchs meet thine eyes.
Bourbons, Capets, whom future

years

shall see

Successive kings of France, and sprung from thee.
Thy tavoured lot through unborn trace,

And read the distant glories of thy race." Vol. II. P. 92.

The French monarchs now pass in review before his eyes. The horrors of the Revolution are shortly touched upon, or rather obscurely intimated. Our readers in this vision will trace an imitation of the prophecy of Anchises to his son in the shades below; nor is Dr. Butler's version unworthy of the Vir gilian origin of the scene.

Witikind in the morning dispatches a message to seek haptism and peace at the hand of Charles. Rodmir, Armelia, and the chief of the Druids rise in conspiracy against the monarch; finding however that but few are added to their conspiracy, they join Theudon the king of the Huns, and agree to advance towards Rome. The victory of Charles over these next succeeds, and with the surprise and plunder of the camp occupies the chief part of the seventeenth Canto.

The eighteenth commences with the complaint of the Poet, which is expressed in a very artless and affecting strain.

I.

"What storm has swept the lyre since late I sung,
Its notes disordered, and its chords unstrung?
No more, alas, my generous ardour glows!
Midst Tusculum's loved hills, and soft repose;
There, as I strayed, the classic scene around
Breathed inspiration from its hallowed ground.
There, seen at distance from the verdant head,
Rome's mighty walls in wide expanse were spread;
There, as the dawn first streaked the redd'ning skies,
I loved to muse, and watch the day-star rise:
Then on the sacred dome of Christ would

gaze,

When first it glittered in the orient rays." Vol. II. P. 241:

Dr.

Dr Butler has done justice to the expression of pathos in the following stanza,

IV.

"Here sad captivity's dull weight I find;

Nought pleases here, nought soothes my listless mind;
Nought here can bid my sickening heart rejoice,
Speak to my soul, or animate my voice.

Run to my knees, my children, cherished wife,
Come, softest charm and solace of my life:
One look from thee shall all my peace restore;
Where beams thy smile the desert is no more.
Hence restless memory, hence repinings vain-

On Afric's rock I seize my lyre again." Vol. II. P. 143.

The sorrows and repentance of Laurentia for her acceptance of the crown of Austrasia for her children are now recorded. As she bends before the altar in deep penitence, the Virgin appears before her, and conducts her to the mount of Purgatory, where, among other spirits, who are now undergoing the discipline necessary to prepare them for eternal bliss, she recognizes the soul of her husband Carloman. To the introduction of purgatory we have already stated our objections, and although in point of justice they still remain in full force, yet we must confess that we should have been sorry to have lost the beautiful strain of poetry which appears in the version of Dr. Butler. The reader, though he may condemn the machinery of the Poem, will still reserve a point in favour of the exquisite versification, and will be tempted to think Si non errasset, fecerat ille minus, as far at least as the English translation is concerned.

XLIV.

"Child of Martel," her virgin guide replies;
'No common scene of wonders strike thine eyes;
Thou see'st the secrets of that mount unknown,
Whose purging fires for human guilt atone,
Its base beneath the abyss of chaos tends,

To heaven's own walls its towering height ascends:
Flames fierce, yet transient, issue from the base,
That light which charms thee from the holy place;
These rays of hope and blessedness impart
Some gleams of comfort to the exile's heart,
Lighten his sorrows, and console his fears,
Midst his sad passage through this mount of tears.

XLV.

"Canst thou yon shades upon the heights descry,
That drink the beam divine with raptured eye?
No pains devour, no flames torment them now,
Save that their breasts with heavenly transports glow.

These

These in the fiery gulf have purged the stains,
Have passed the midway rock where darkness reigns
Gained, step by step, these lucid heights, and wait
Their prompt admission at the heavenly gate;
There shall the raptured host their Lord adore,

And feel no suffering care or sorrow more." Vol. II. P. 164.

The picture of a father, who views in this wretched state the miseries of his children, whose vices are leading them also onward to a state of torment, is drawn in a simple and affecting style.

XLVIII.

"Too well foresees he the consuming pains
Which heavenly justice for his sons ordains.
As on the fatal brink his offspring stands,
Vainly the father bends his powerless hands,
From his dark prison-house to earth outspread;
Vainly he sighs, with fond paternal dread:
Ne'er shall those sighs arrest his children's ear,
And wake their heart to penitence sincere ;
The unfathomed void of trackless space receives
The fruitless sighs the suffering mourner heaves."

Vol. II. P. 165.

The whole of this Canto is well worthy of the attention of the reader. Laurentia awakened from her dream, flies, attended by her children, through the Landes. There is much genuine pathos in many parts of this description. Feverish and fatigued, they reach a hermitage, in ruins and desolation by the hands of the Moors; she their finds rest and refreshment: she pursues her journey, and is cheered by a vision from Heaven; who directs her to the walls of Sere, about nine miles from the present scite of Bourdeaux, where she finds concealment and protection from the veteran Melaric.

We now return to Mr. Hodgson, who from the beginning of the twentieth Canto, conducts us to the close of our journey. Rodmir and Armelia are advanced to the very walls of Rome. United with Didier they are possessed of the tomb of the emperor Adrian. The interior of the temple is carried by the allied force. The apostrophe to the ruins of Tusculum, for five years the residence of Lucien, has the greatest of all beauties, the feeling of the heart. The events now begin to thicken. Charlemagne appears on the banks of the Tiber. A furious combat ensues, in which the hero of the poem like Achilles of old, bears the whole brunt of the war. The Lombards are driven to the tower of Belisarius their last strong hold.

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XL:

"Each hero's armour is distained with gore;
Wildly they rage, and round the stony floor,
Salernum's guards on every side are slain...
Their hopeless chief, with wound that bursts again,
Leans o'er the battlements, and goaded there
By Guilt's Archangel, plunges into air,

And seeks the bosom of the flood below..
Dashed on the jutting bridge with dreadful blow,
Falls the foul corse... while Charles, in happy hour,
Rears the triumphant Cross above the tower.

Vol. II. P. 269.

In the twenty-second Canto ensue the single combats of the Paladins. Soon after these, Charles is wounded by the spear of Ormez, but the blow is followed, with no danger to his life. Ormez during the night complains of his ill fortune to his deity. The following magnificent stanzes are worthy of Mr. Hodgson.

XL.

"Thus his foul god in execrable prayer

The Druid calls, and shakes the shuddering air
To scourge his crimes, the Eternal hand has given
Free passage to the enemy of heaven....
Uprose the homicide Colossus, bright

In brazen mail, and horrible to sight,
As the blood-idol in his Saxon wood!

Before his trembling priest confess'd he stood....
'That hand indeed has spared no blood for me....
Ormez, I hear..behold thy Deity!

XLI.

My breath inspired thee, when at Rodmir's side
To yonder shrine thy fury was the guide;

I stalked before thee through the dying band,
And the first torch..I gave it to thy hand!
Keep'st thou my laws?.. within the blazing fane,
Bay, didst thou lead thy sanguinary train,
And raze that altar of the God I hate?
This is my will.. on this depends thy fate..
Still, still, it stands! forgetful here alone
Thou fail'st, or conquest had been all thine own.

XLII.

"Sunk into shade, the giant form is gone..
With beating heart, and eye still gazing on,
A threatening shout the Druid pours aloud!
Through all the midnight camp the startled crowd
Believe they hear the signal for the fight..
With many a lifted axe, and torch's light,

Irmensul's

Irmensul's soldiers arm their daring hands..
Rodmir around him holds his guardian bands;
The rest with impious clamour rend the skies,
And follow Ormez where his fury flies."

Vol. II. P. 293.

The Pagan army reach the church of St. Peter, part of which is laid desolate; the conflagration becomes general, and now Ormez in the heat of sacrilegious fury approaches the shrine of St. Peter. If the Oeds and unxavns could be delivered from the objections which we have already stated to attend its introduction, it would be in the following most animated and awful description.

"A golden glory with portentous ray

Shot o'er the dome a brilliant stream of day;
Untouched, triumphant, in the central shrine
Glowed the pure altar with the light divine!
There hallowed Sion's far-famed columns grace
With radiant shaft the venerable place;
Up the dread roof their marble windings grow,
And shade the precious crucifix below;
So stands revealed the blest apostle's tomb,
To Hell, and Ormez, clothed in all their gloom.
LII.

"Irmensul's soldiers feel their courage die....
They dare not touch the ark of the Most High.
Slaves,' said the priest, what dread is this ye feel
Chilling your rage, extinguishing your zeal?
Fear ye this bronze inanimate? this ring
Of fire?...a vain and visionary thing!
Behold the shrine of Christ! by whom undone,
Falls the lost power of Saxon and of Hun:
Race of the North, avenge your injured land,
Follow my guidance, strike with willing hand!

LIII.

"He speaks....leaps down, and maddening, rushes on,
Where radiant round the golden glory shone.

Full on the shrine he hurls his flaming brand,

And strikes the Saint of Saints with impious hand?

The brazen axe re-echoes as it falls..

Rolling at once around the shadowy walls,

Aerial thunders burst in vollies dread,

Launched o'er this new Abiron's guilty head.

Firm stands the shrine.. the raging whirlwind grows.
The living God is there..and strikes his foes!

LIV.

"With long reverberating crash below,

Through the deep vaults the peals tremendous go:

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