He then proceeds to the Egyptian Gallery, and successively notices the mummies-the bust of Memnon-the scarabentthe statue of Isis-the head of Orus-and the sarcophagus. These he relieves and illustrates with associations, drawn from the history of ancient Egypt, which contribute to the poetry of the Canto, and suggest reflexions which we should call good, but for their identity. The monotony of grief seems to have seized his muse, and to have indeed caused "his thoughts to wind themselves into a melancholy strain."

"Of mirth there could be none, for Egypt teems
Alone with death and darkness, and displays
The world's vain glory; and to us it seems
No weakness though we now should seek to raise
Our souls on high, where Hope's sweet eye surveys
Realms of pure loveliness and spotless bliss."

The history of Moses and the destruction of Pharoah, forms one of the associations by which his theme is illustrated. We quote it as a specimen of the author's dramatic style:

LVIII.

"Nile was not young three thousand years ago,
When, in a rushy ark, a new-born child

Slept by his side, unconscious of the woe

Felt by its race, to slavery exil'd—

When to his stream, where grew the weed-grass wild,
Pharoah's dark daughter with her damsels came,

And saw the waken'd babe, which on her smil'd,

As if the royal virgin's love to claim

That first bright step which led to Israel's peerless fame!

LIX.

A shepherd in the Midian wilderness,

His father's flock the future prophet fed;

Thence was he summon'd forth by God to bless
His people, when from Pharaoh's hand they fled
Thus David in a shepherd's tent was bred,

Ere he was call'd to conquer Israel's foes:

And thus the Lord of life, for us that bled,

In humble sphere prepared to bear our woes,

And, from a borrow'd tomb, to God's right hand arose :

LX.

And Moses, laden with the weight of years, Upon Mount Nebo took at length his stand; And, as the setting sun illumes two spheres, His beaming eyes beheld the promised land, VOL. III. PART I.

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And that wild waste where Israel's numerous band,
Ready for march, near Jordan's borders lay:
There his great soul received her last command,
And, in full glory, bore from earth away,

Calm as the evening light at close of summer day.

LXI.

Silent and soft, as from some moon-watch'd fountain,
In the still skies, descends the sphere-born dew,
The prophet's soul left Nebo's lofty mountain,
And to the regions of the blessed flew !

Not peaceful thus do all men bid adieu

To time's fair scenes, those types of thinks unknown :
And Egypt, whose remains we now review,

Once heard, appall'd, an army's dying groan,

When in the sanguine sca her hosts were overthrown.

LXII.

Hark! hark! I hear the bellowing roar,
As of two dreadful seas in full tide meeting,
Their billows bearing down the rocky shore,
Wave upon wave in wild commotion beating:
And there are thousand tongues for help entreating;
And cries of battle-steeds in tumult dying;
And shouts which struggling warriors are repeating,
Not vanquish'd by their foes, nor from them flying,

Yet grappling hard with death, and in strong torture crying.

LXIII.

The clash of swords is heard, drawn out in vain,
And sheath'd in billows by their own blood dyed;
War-chariots sinking in the watery plain,

With glittering helms and armour are descried!
Swords, spears, and shields, toss'd on the foaming tide,
And ensigns floating on the boiling surge,

Aid not the men that Israel's God defied!

Thrice from the wild abyss their brows emerge,

And then the mingling waves ring on their funeral dirge."

In the first stanza, there is a variation from the Scriptural account, which is not for the better:- "And when she had opened it, she saw the child; and behold the babe wept, and she had compassion on him, and said, "This is one of the Hebrew's children.' This weeping of the babe, Moses, has always struck us as one of the most delicate touches of pathos; but the rhime induced the author to write "smiled," and he dilates the

idea into a conceit,--a succedaneum for compassion, which was the natural effect of the infant's situation and condition. We have only room for the following stanzas :—

LXXXI.

"Mark this black figure seated on the ground,
An ear of corn within her stony hand!
She was a goddess, worshipp'd and renown'd,
In some great temple of that mighty land,
Whose pyramids like giant genii stand,
Reigning o'er ruins spread out far and wide
Along a weary wilderness of sand—

Half to the grave, and half to earth allied;
Picture of mortal life, emblem of human pride!

LXXXII.

The hermit of the desert, ev'n old Nile,
Sire of an hundred streams that travel slow
Through the dominions of the crocodile,
And fill the alligators' baths-that flow

In regions where the noon-born winds that blow,
Are wing'd with fiery death-'tis Isis' tears,

Who for Osiris' sake is fill'd with woe,

Which have o'erflow'd Nile's uru these thousand years;
And in her father's halls, her statue still appears!

LXXXIII.

Daughter of Time! Idol of many names !
Cybele, Ceres, Venus! Thy renown,

The light touch of a minstrel's harp-string claims;
For when the world retires from Night's dark frown,
Then do thy smiles fall sweet as dew-light down,
And thou art call'd Diana! Then thy brow
Is circled with a planetary crown,

And to thy charms the young bard lisps his vow,
As one unto thy shade pays orisons e'en now!

LXXXIV.

And he doth muse upon the mystery,
Which overhangs thine undiscover'd tale :
'I am all that hath been, or yet shall be,
And never mortal hath uplift my veil.'

Such, were thine altars Egypt's sons still hail,
Is the dark sentence on their fronts engraved;
And there doth Turkish tyranny regale
On souls of men, by alien power enslaved,

"

Still as the world grows old, becoming more depraved

LXXXV.

Thou wert the Ceres of that desert clime,
Where thy stern statues may be now adored,
By the weak offspring of thy parent, Time,
Dwelling in shadow, by the world deplored,
Though once above surrounding realins they soared,
Sublime in darkness, and in gloom still great:
Now fallen, never more to be restored

To the dread grandeur of their former state,
Which like a tomb outstands the memory of its date."

The Magistrate! or Sessions and Police Review, critical, humorous, and instructive.-8vo. No. 1. May 1.-No. II. June 1, 1825.

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THIS is a monthly publication which commenced in May last. From the two numbers which are now before the public, we conceive ourselves fully warranted in expressing our opinion, that the work strictly answers to its title, and is consequently both agreeable and useful. The object of it appears to be, to disseminate abroad a knowledge of those legal subjects, the investigation of which belongs peculiarly to the Magistrate;" and at the same time to give such a degree of publicity to the proceedings of the gentlemen who fill that office, as may tend to prevent the improper exercise of the extraordinary authority with which they have from time to time been invested by the legislature. This is designed to be done in such a manner as to amuse, while it informs, and to convey a very useful portion of legal instruction, without that dryness which pervades law-books in general, but which the conductors of this work consider not to be unavoidable.

When it is recollected how extensive and multifarious the powers and duties of magistrates are, and that to them belongs the determination of an infinite variety of matters, from the most trifling to the most important, obvious indeed must be the utility of a publication, which makes society acquainted with their own rights and liabilities, as well as with the authority of the persons to whom the investigation of them is entrusted; and that utility will certainly not be diminished by clothing the work in the alluring garb of pleasantry. But the

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promises and professions of the editors it may be better to quote from their own "Introductory Preface," from which we extract the following account of their intended labours:

"We are perfectly aware, that, if folks chose to read them, there are books out of number, where they might find all the law, and indeed much more than we profess to teach them; but, if the magistrates themselves, who are to carry the laws into execution, will not take the trouble to peruse them; if the individuals most interested will not be at the pains to study even those that affect themselves, and regulate the occupations in which they are engaged, what hope can we have that any edition of them, that we could contrive, would find readers? The truth is, that Dean Swift's etymological pun upon the word Heraldry is literally and strictly applicable to the study of the law - Here-alldry. Lectures on astronomy have been rendered amusing;-there is mirth now-a-days in medical publications. Sterne devised the means of divesting theology of a portion of its gravity, and by the style of his sermons made even divinity diverting. Law, law alone, remains surrounded and immersed in an appalling and almost unapproachable dryness; and, unless we can divest it of some portion of this said dryness, by moistening with a little mirth all this sage gravity, we know we shall instruct nobody; for nobody will have the resolution to venture beyond our title-page.

Law, however, in the way we mean to treat of it, will not, we engage, be found quite so grave and serious an affair as the lawyers would fain have us believe it to be. There is much absurdity to laugh at even in the law itself, especially in the statute law, and still more in the modes in which some justices of the peace interpret it, and carry it into execution. We have witnessed some decisions most irresistibly laughable, and with all this, we intend, while we inform, to divert our readers.

"We purpose, then, to give in every monthly number an essay or lecture, in an easy familiar style, free from all professional subtilties and technicalities, upon some legal subject, important for the public in general to be acquainted with, or which it is incumbent upon every person, mixing at all in the general business of society, to know; and, when it is recollected what an indefinite variety of trades, occupations, employments, circumstances, and situations, the magistrate regulates or takes cognizance of, it may easily be conceived that we shall seldom want matter for useful and instructive observation. We had prepared an essay of this description, which we intended as a sample, upon the laws relative to the carriage and porterage of goods, illustrated with several cases of complaints under the Porterage Act, that have occurred at the police offices; the decisions of the magistrates upon which, we consider to be great curiosities in their way, and well calculated to make our readers stare, if not laugh outright: but for all this they must wait until next month, the length of this introductory preface, or prefatory introduction, (the great importance of which all must acknowledge.) preventing our giving it for the present; and in the interim they must be content to form their conjectures, as to our abilities, literary and