was unjust. Tristram undertakes to defend the freedom of Cornwall; he answers Moraunt, the embassador, in person, and they decide it by single combat. Tristram is wounded in the thigh, but he cleaves the head of his enemy; his sword breaks, and a piece of the blade remains in the skull. He is appointed heir to his uncle for this victory; but the weapon wherewith he had been wounded was poisoned. The wound becomes daily worse and worse; till at length the tench is so intolerable, that none except is faithful servant, Gouvernayl, will me near him. He goes on board ship, with only this follower and his harp, and bandons himself to fortune. The vessel is driven to Dublin: to the oats that come off he says, that he has cen wounded by pirates, and that his ame is Tramtris; for the slain Moraunt as brother to the queen of Ireland. he queen, hearing that a wounded man ad arrived, and of his skill in minstrelsy, sits him. He astonishes every body playing so well upon the harp, and his proficiency at chess and tables; d the queen is so pleased, that she unertakes, and succeeds in his cure. He comes, meantime, the instructor of the acess Ysonde. Being recovered, he urns to Caerleoun, and his description Y'sonde's beauty induces Mark to wish obtain her to wife. The envious bas persuade him to send Tristram er to ask her in marriage, hoping that would prove the means of his destruc1. The knight points out the folly of enterprize; but adds, that he will He sails to Dublin; and, without ouncing his errand, sends presents to king, queen, and princess. The sengers return with tidings, that a e dragon is desolating the country; that the princess has been offered as eward to him who should slay the ster. How this dragon ventured to ear, or could exist upon St. Patrick's nd, is not explained. Tristram ats him, kills him, and cuts out his que; he then loses his senses, having 1 poisoned by the monster's breath. king's steward comes by, cuts off dragon's head, claims the victory princess. Ysonde and her mother elieving that he could have atchievis feat, go to the place of battle, And Tristram. They restore him senses; he asserts his right to the ry; produces the dragon's tongue, NN. REV. VOL.III. and offers to make good his claim upon the person of the steward, who wisely gives up the matter. They conduct him to a bath; Ysonde suspects that he is her former preceptor Tramtris, though he calls himself a merchant. In searching for something to confirm the suspicion, she finds his broken sword; immediately she compares it with the piece which had been taken out of Moraunt's skull, and thereby discovers that this stranger is the Tristram who slew her uncle. She attempts to kill him in the bath; her mother assists her, but the king comes opportunely in to save him; his excuse is admitted, that he had slain his antagonist in fair battle, and his embassy is heard and assented to. He pledges himself that king Mark shall marry Ysonde, and she is given in charge to him to escort her to Cornwall. The queen gives to Brengwain, her daughter's favourite attendant, a powerful philtre, that Mark and his bride may partake of it on their marriage evening; it would then make them love each other so truly, that no disagreement between them could ever arise. Unwittingly, and unhappily, Tristram and Ysonde taste of the fatal cup upon their voyage, and the criminal intimacy which ensues, must be attributed to them, not as a sin, but as the inevitable effect of this irremediable spell. They arrive safely in Cornwall; the lady is married to the king, and substitutes Brengwain in her place on the wedding night. Fear makes Ysonde guilty; she feels that the dangerous secret has put her in Breng. wain's power, and therefore commissions two ruffians to kill her; they spare her; the queen relents; her attendant forgives the intended murder, and they are perfectly reconciled. Great part of the poem is now filled with the intrigues of Tristram and the queen, which are often detected and exposed by their enemies, the easy and uxorious king fully confiding in them the while, and admitting every excuse. At length, after a new detection, they are banished; they retire to a forest, and then, in a cavern which the giants had made in old times, pass twelve months, with no other company than their two hounds. We quote the description of their life here, and of their discovery by king Mark, as a specimen of the manner of the poem. "In winter it was hate, In somer it was cold; Thai hadden a dern gat, That thai no man told; No hadde thai no wines wat, No ale that was old, No no gode mete thai at, Thai hadden al that thai wold, With wille; For love ich other bihalt, Her non might of other fille. "Tristram on an hille stode, Ac he biforn hadde mett, He fonde a mele ful gode, Al white it was the grete; Ther to Tristrem gode, And hende Ysonde the swete, That was al her fode, And wild flesche thai ate, And gras; Swiche joie hadde thai never gete, Tvelmoneth thre woukes las. "Tristrem on a day, Tok Hodain wel erly; A best he tok to pray, He dight it withouten nay, Tristrem hem laid hir bi, The quen; "An hert Mark at ran, And Ysonde, sothe to say; And teld Mark bidene; Both Mark hath sene; The sonne to were oway; Thai no hede nought of swiche play, The knightes seyden ay, Once more reconciled to the king, they again betray his confidence, and are a gain surprised. Ysonde easily recovers her credulous husband's favour; but Tristram, meantime, goes into foreign lands. He comes to the court of Britanny; and, singing a lay there upon the beauty of the queen of Cornwall, the princess of Britanny, whose name happens to be Ysonde with the white hand, conceives that it had been made in her praise, and tells her father, who offers her in marriage to the knight. He, re flecting on his dangerous, as well as guilty passion for his uncle's wife, and partly also for her name's sake, accepts her; they are married, but, in the bridal chamber, he drops the ring which his own Ysonde had given him; the remembrance of his first love prevails, and the bride remains a virgin. This secret is discovered by her brother Ganhardin; but Tristram wins his friendship by a faithful recital of the whole sad history, and he becomes enamoured of Brengwain; they set out together for Cornwall, meet the ladies in a forest, and Ganhardin and Brengwain are betrothed to each other. Canados, king Mark's constable, who himself loved the queen, surprises them, and they are compelled by the number of their assailants to fly. Cana dos boasts at court that Tristram fled from him; a tournament is appointed, in which sir Tristram slays him, and takes ample vengeance upon his ene mies. He goes back to Britanny, where he receives an arrow in his old wound; here the MS. concludes, the remainder hav. ing been torn out. Mr. Scott has sup plied the conclusion in the same very difficult style and stanza with extraor dinary success, following the incidents in the French metrical romance, so that the story is as authentic as what precedes it. His wound becomes daily worse, and none but queen Ysonde can cure it. He sends Ganhardin to implore her help, bidding him on his return hoist a white sail or a black one, according as he has succeeded. His wife Ysonde overhears the conversation; and thus, having dis covered her husband's infidelity, resolves to be revenged. She watches for the ship's return, and, seeing the white sal, falsely tells her husband that it is black; he believes that Ysonde had forsalea him; his weak body cannot bear the shock, and he falls back and dies. The true Yonde airives, and meets an oli tan, from whom she learns the death of er lover; she rushes to the castle where e is laid in state, throws herself beside he body, and expires for grief. The incidents comprised in this poem rm but a small part of the French Sir Tristram, one of the most beautiful, as ell as of the oldest prose romances. It very much to be wished that we had full and faithful abridgment of this ork, indeed that the whole series of roances should be rendered into English, Amadis of Gaul has been. A trans lation of the Bibliotheque des Romans would not answer the proposed end; not only the style, but the morals of the original, bad as those morals are, are vitiated by the French modernizers. We have rarely or never seen a work so completely and admirably edited as the present. Mr. Ellis has given a very interesting abstract of the French fragments; and the notes, which are numerous, are such as the reader would expect from the well known taste and learning of the editor. RT. II. Lyric Poems. By JAMES MERCER, Esq. Second Edition; with some additional Poems. 12mo. pp. 114. IT is with great pleasure that we an- Its relish grown callous, almost to dis ease, o pepper'd the highest was surest to please," I that the simple repast of reason and ure, however sweet and wholesome, ild now have attracted few partakers. re is an author, however, who, with. either novel or obsolete expressions, pound words, inverted constructions, ag flights, or bold transitions, the es of genius, and the refuge of dull, at once delights and instructs, enins the imagination, and touches the t, by means of pure native English, native feeling, genuine taste, and y fancy. "The author of these n," says lord Glenbervie, who edits olume," is a gentleman who passed erly part of his life in the army, and since lived chiefly in retirement." information was scarcely necessary. poems almost all refer to the life of #riter, and describe the motley train assions, sentiments, and opinions, successively take the lead in the ress from ardent youth, through acmanhood, to serene old age. The ant spirit of a gallant soldier, accus to oppose and surmount the tide verse fortune, is every where conas; and it is impossible not to love admire the generous and sprightly , who, after finishing his career ourable activity, rests (not sinks) arms of equally honourable lei. where, strenuously driving from 21 his heart the churlish winter of age, he strings again his lyre under the shade of his laurels, and sings the pleasures of youth and the comforts of declining life, neither chiding nor regretting the former, but grateful and satisfied with the latter. Long may this brave officer and amiable poet live to delight and adorn society, and may his life and his lines equally engage the imitation of posterity. Accept a taste, reader, to whet thy appetite for the feast. "The Saunterer. "Full of the dream of keen delight, In youth a thousand toils we prove, And seek, thro' midnight gloom, the bow'r But with the ensuing morn The fev'rish thirst remains, If "Then happier far, in life's decay, Where quiet loves to dwell, "Assembled round the social hearth, And wing; What time by music led, meet the balmy breath of renovating "But not to formal walks confin'd, I mount yon shelving hill, "There, as on rapture's dazzled eye, The wonders of creation throng, I quit the lofty seat, And hide me from the sun's meridian glare, Beside the pebbly brook, "Let sullen fools for ever hide At ev'n I gain the peopled road; Or, led by friendship, turn aside, To greet my neighbour in his thatch'd abode, With him I pace the fields, Learn what his harvest yields, And see his children pass in playful drove ; On me by name they call, "To Folly, "Hail! goddess of the vacant eye! I saw thee shake, in sportive mood, I look'd around, with simple stare, And found thee in broad features there, "There saw thee, high in regal seat, Thy crowded clam'rous orgies hold; Proud that thy motley liv'ries shone Now grasp'd at glory's quiv'ring ray, And flatter wrinkled age with many a mark And what avails it to rehearse of love. Thy triumphs on the youthful stage? Where Wisdom, if she claims a place, ART. III. Poems, by CHARLES A. ELTON. 12mo. "WHEN midst the throng I muse in soli- Omy remember'd home! thy scenes arise, And world secluded vale! I seem to press swell Of waters echoing on thy rocky shores male worthiness, till sick at heart what like envy with repining hue nd my features; now before high eav'n, Tul I bend with praisegiving and joy: ho' awhile debarr'd the full delight e's communion pure, yet warm in hope ul anticipates the promis'd hour not distant, when in freedom's vale ove sequester'd cot shall sacred rise ependence: where by distance lull'd rge melodious beats, that never wafts ive greatness to our quiet cell: ades, where turtles blend their mur. ur'd loves, the low roof of blest equality! on departing sun!-thy ling'ring orb et declin'd with such reluctant speed! orth, thou bashful harbinger of joy! of love! pure emblem of the maid! eness of beauty glimm'ring bright Forth the crimson chambers of the If these poems be the production of a young man, they promise much: he is in the right way. Mr.. Elton mistakes the character of the sonnet, or he would not split it into stanzas. It is not necessary to follow the stiff Italian model; but unity and continuity should be preserved. The first quatrain of the following is awk wardly expressed; but the sonnet is striking and original. "While on thy snowy breast dissolv'd Play In pleasure's languid trance, a sudden wound Transfix'd me; that with horror-struck dismay The pleasing lethargies of love unbound. "Then saw I where remorse beside me crept With'ring the flow'ry bed with pois nous breath; And starting forth, some bitter tears I wept, Then smil'd-as rescued from the swoon of death! "The vows that late ensnar'd my soul are vain, And vain the graces of thy vernal youth: Led by repentance meek to virtue's fane,. On her chaste altars, melting yet with ruth, I sacrifice thy sad forsaken heart, Tho' mine, bear witness God! hath bled to part!" The love of literature has reached our army, and we sincerely rejoice at so aus. picious a change. It may seem para. doxical to affirm, that a military life is favourable to literary pursuits; yet so it will be found for all that do not require the use of extensive libraries. Neither lawyer, nor physician, nor divine, in this age of farming, has so much leisure as the army-officer, when in England or in Broad, he may either, like major Doyle garrison. And, if on active service a◄ and captain Percival, describe the coun tries which he has visited; or, like sir Robert Wilson, become the historian of the war in which he has borne his part |