been suffered toenlighten. Whether the ginal seat.of religion, Palestine, sball present Russian war be the commence be made the throne of a dominion sument of that great revolution, by which preme and holy, are truths written the chains of Greece and Asia Minor with a fulness and splendour which are to be broken, must be beyond all force conviction, and at once sustain but conjecture. Yet that those chains us in the solemn labours of bringing sball finally be dissolved, that Maho our fellow-creatures to the knowledge metanism shall be extinguished, that of God; and cheer us with the certhe chosen land of the early church, tainty of a consummation illustrious Ionia, shall be free, and that the ori- beyond the thought of man.

MARTIN'S FALL OF NINEVEH.

This fine picture, which has occue probably reckoning from the origin of pied the artist at intervals for some the empire, or 520 from the perfect years, has excited great and merited building of the city. The outline of admiration. It is on a large scale, its fall is this: The Assyrian mom perhaps thrice the size of his Belshaze narchs had gradually degenerated from zar, and exhibits an extraordinary the rude virtues and barbarian valour union of diligent labour, with original of the founders of the dynasty. Sara and vivid fancy. Lord Byron's tra- danapalus exceeded them all'in effegedy has brought Sardanapalus into minate luxury ; shut himself up from favour, and the traditional voluptuary the people, and was known only by has been transformed into the hero. his excesses. An insult to Arbaces,

Yet this denial of the verdict of hise the general of the Median auxiliaries, tory is too adventurous to be safe. excited him to vengeance; he leagued We have noright, atour remote period, with Belesis, a Babylonian priest, inand in the absence of all proof, to terpreter of the stars, and general, a doubt the universal opinion of anti- combination of character formidable quity, formed as it was upon a better in any period of antiquity. The basis knowledge of the facts that Medes and Persians, Babylonians and have reached us, and upon a know. Arabs, rose in arms. Three desperate ledge of facts which have either alto battles were fought, in which the congether passed away, or have left us spirators were repulsed. But the arbut their shadows. Thus, attempts rival of the Bactrian army turned the have been hazarded to shew that Nero scale ; and Sardanapalus, after having was not a monster, or that Heliogaba- fought with a spirit worthy of the lus was not a miserable slave of appe- last descendant of Semiramis, was tite and vice. But in a year or two driven within the walls of his colossal after the triumph of the sophist, his city. He sustained a two years'siege, triumph is forgotten. Opinion rights which there was no Eastern Homer to itself, the subtlety of the argument is make immortal. The oracle declared extinguished by truth, and we revert that the city would never be taken to the early character established by until the river became its enemy. In time; and Sardanapalus is a slave of the third year, the Tigris suddenly intemperance, Nero a monster of cruel. swelled, and twenty furlongs of the ty, and Richard a hunchback, a usur- great rampartwere thrown down. The per, and a murderer of children, note fate of the captives was proverbially terwithstanding all the Walpoles, past, rible; and Sardanapalus resolved to present, and to come.

perish in his own way. The incomThe painter has chosen his subject plete narrative of his death has some from the darkness of history. Of features of the magnificence, eccenNineveh, the great city of the first tricity, and solemn sensualism, that empire, we know little more than that mark the Oriental character to this it existed, was denounced by succese day. “He built,” says Ctesias, sive prophets for its blood-thirstiness, pyramid of all precious furniture; love of plunder, drunkenness, and and within it a chamber a hundred oppression ; and that it was destroyed feet long. He filled it with beds for by an insurrection of the subject king, himself and his multitude of wives; doms, after a duration of 1400 years, and, in the midst of feasting and ina

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dulgence, in the sound of music, and at the foot of which rises the funeral in the sight of an immense treasure pile, a vaststructure of golden couches, of gold and silver talents, of gems and tables, images, embroidered apparel, kingly ornaments, he set the chamber and everything at once costly and comin Hames. His empire perished with bustible. In the midst of the pile is him.”

the entrance to the chamber of death, The moment of the picture is the overhung with huge festoons of firemarch of Sardanapalus to the pile. coloured silk, a mighty veil to fall The wrath of Heaven is combining and shut the revellers from the world. with the fury of the inundation, and The groups on the terrace are singuthe assault of the enemy. Lightning larly animated, various, and splendid. is darting on the lofty towers, and Martin's former pictures were careplaces of idol worship in the extreme less of the human figure. But he has distance. In front of these, circling now felt its value; and making allowthe wall, and forcing their way through ance for the size and crisis, the one the breaches, are the Median and Ba- of which renders some confusion albylonish troops routing the Assyrians. most inevitable, and the other at least Chariots and cavalry, elephants and prohibits no violence of attitude, the myriads of spearmen, are rolled upon figures are singularly adapted to the each other. In the centre of the scene scene. Jewels, superb robes, and mysrises the gigantic wall, a hundred feet tic emblems, are flung round the high, and on which threechariots could groups, with the habitual lavishness run abreast. It is seen broken down by of a painter whose hand the river, which spreads through the - Showers on his kings barbaric pearl and picture, covered with war galleys. gold.” Beneath the eye, in the centre of the

The picture has faults of colour, and foreground, is the grand group, of perhaps of conception ; but the whole Sardanapalus, with his women and effect is powerful and brilliant in a slaves. They are standing on a ter- degree unrivalled, and capable of berace which overlooks the battle, and ing rivalled by Martin alone. heads a long descent of marble steps,

EVENING.

AN ODE.

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HARI! 'Tis the pig, that, for her supper squeaking,
Bids a shrill farewell to departing light-
Hark! 'tis the babe, with infant treble shrieking,
And angry nurse, with emulous clamour speaking,
Through crooning pipe, alternate love and spite;
“ Hushabie, baby, thy cradle is green,'

(Singing.)
Sure such a peevish brat was never seen.
“ Ride a cock-hoss-ride a cock-hoss,"
For shaine of your dirty self to be so cross !
“ There came a little pedlar and his name was Stout,”—
Be quiet, or I'll shake your plague of a life out.
Now, my little honey, worth a mint of money-

Johnny Bo-peep has lost his sheep,”
Be good this instant, go to sleep. (1)

Oh, Inspiration, tell me, why

Does piggy squeak and baby cry,
In the cradle, in the sty-

Gentle Muses, tell me why?
Is't that the pig, with pensive eye, surveys

Yon star reflected in the new-fallen dew,
And sighs to think how honour, pleasure, praise,

Are, like that image, glittering and untrue?

Ah, no-the watery star she cannot view,

In noisome sty condemn'd to pass her days,
And groaning gruffly grunt, and grunting grufily groan,
Like“ purple tyrants,” in that hymn of Gray's,

“ Unpitied and alone.”
Happy, happy, happy swine,
That underneath the greenwood tree
Freely breakfast, fully dine,

With acorns blest, and liberty !
So men subsisted in the olden time,

Ere wandering Ceres taught the use of ploughs ; (2)
What Nature gave, they took, unstain'd with crime,

Nor slaughter'd pigs, nor broke the hearts of sows-
To roast young pigs--a dish I can't abide (3)
Oh most unnatural infanticide!

When the wind is roaring loud,
Tossing the knotty limbs of ancient oaks,
When folded flocks together crowd,
And merrily the storm-bird croaks,
Then beside each mossy trunk,
Numerous as Pharoah's frogs,
Hungry as a fasting monk,
Throng the congregating hogs.
Thick and fast down rains the mast,
And Freedom crowns the rich repast.

No need, I ween, of Kitchiner or Ude,
To cater for the swinish multitude !
But thou, poor Grumphy, ne'er through glimmering glade
Shalt wander far away to meet thy love,
Nor see thy piggies sport in vernal grove,
Nor munch fresh acorns in brown Autumn's shade.
Nor Paine, nor Cartwright, ever penn'd a line
To vindicate the natural rights of swine ;
Yet when did man endure such wrongs as thine ?

In vain thou deplorest,

All vainly thou squeakest,
For not in the forest

The babes that thou seekest.
Thou didst love them with ardour,

And overlay some of them.
Are they gone to the larder?

Or what is become of them ?

Round and round, in magic dance,
Still they go, and ne'er advance,
They are slain, like Philistians

Who perish'd for boasting,
And like primitive Christians,

Behold, they are roasting !
The clock has struck seven,

They are done to a turning,
The moon is in Heaven,

And the crackling is burning.

Madam Cook, Madam Cook, mind the critical minute, For quickly 'tis flown, and there's much to do in it;

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The crisis so nice is, and past in a trice is.-
Rat-tat-tat, tis' the orthodox Doctor from Isis.
To tithe pig, when roasted,

He still has a keen eye,
And oft has he boasted,

“ In tempore veni.”
In the drawing-room-look-

All the company muster,
Which puts Mrs Cook

In a terrible fluster ;
She clangs and she bangs, and she batters and clatters,
What a whetting of knives, what a ringing of platters !

To and fro-above-below
Up and down, the footmen go.
While the simmer of stews,
And the roaring of flues,
The frying-pan hissing,
The gridiron whizzing,
The skip-kennels quizzing,
Something still missing,
The housekeeper fretting,
The maid still forgetting,
'Mid toiling, turmoiling,
'Mid roasting and boiling,
And frying and broiling ;
The butter-boat oiling,
The curry's a-spoiling ;
While, in anger despotic,
Red, rampant, and restless,
And scarcely distrest less
Than a murderer's ghost,
'Mid the
The Cook is rules the roast."

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uproar chaotic,

66

Ah, tell me, Muse, do clocks, suns, moons, deceive,
Is this the pensive hour of pious eve
When holy vespers lull the listening wind-
When ancient wisdom supp'd, and have I not yet dined?
“ Patience, thou young and rose-lipr'd cherubim,"
Art thou not sick of writing for thy meals ?
Grows not thy sweet complexion somewhat grim,
At the sad aching void thy stomach feels,
In that dull wilderness of barren time,
'Twixt the last quarter's note of preparation,
And the glad chorus of the pealiug chime,
The DINNER BELL, the long-wish'd consummation ?

Slow as the squire's old coach in Clag-clay Lane,
Slow as the “ march of mind” in tawny Spain
As Innovation in the House of Peers,
As Retribution, or Platonic years,
So lingering long each hungry minute passes
As if its wings were clogg'd with thick molasses-
While conversation, hardly kept alive,
Nor yet humanely suffer'd quite to die,
But loads the car it fain would aid to drive,
And shews how heavily the moments fly.
Martyr of knowledge ! thus a wretched frog,
Compell’d to leap and twitch by shock galvanic,
Pants and distends its paunch so aldermanic

Heaving vain sighs for its dear native bog
To demonstration proving the alliance
Betwixt humanity and modern science.
There's many a sound that poets have call’d sweet,
As falling winds, and pebble-chafing seas;
The sighs of lovers when they part or meet
The voice of praise, the hum of vernal beer, 1
Fanning the morning air with restless wing,
(I wish the pretty creatures would not stings)
No sound is sweeter to a guilty Felon,
Than an acquittal from good Justice Park;
Sweet to the mice, would be a warning bell on
Grimalkin's neck-to tinkle in the dark
But sweeter far, to gastronomes, is a bell
That loudly sings, " The Dinner's upon table.”
With swanlike movements, elegantly tardy,

Towards the banquet swims her graceful Grace ; Let no untitled lady be so hardy

As to usurp, or not to know, her place. In long array, Earls, Viscounts, Barons, Squires, Find the just station that their rank requires. Lo! last of all, the Parson's wife and I Take lowest place with all humility. Imagination, haste away with me, For vainly thou the nomenclature connest, Of kickshaws rare, quas versu dicere non est,” Nor sing of calipash, or calipee, Or terms too hard for any tongue that's honest; For wherefore should we tarry here, Where gilt-daub'd lacqueys serve us with a sneer, And if we call for wine, will bring small beer? Farewell, the realms of privileged gentility, Where bashful twilight yields to tapers' glow, The learned lady's volubility, And the coy maid, whose speech, reserved and slow, Like silent senators'-is“ aye,” and “no;" Like the small-footed citizens of Pekin, In monosyllables for ever speaking. Farewell, Sauterne and Hermitage, The “ thin potations” of a sober age ; So-da, and Seltzer's effervescent lymph, With all your hissing impotence of rage, Farewell—the streamlet, where the mountain nymph Delights to dabble, shall my thirst assuage. Imagination, haste, away with me, And

dinnerless-console thyself with tea. But where shall we the brisk decoction find, Or where remark the small upcurling steam, Or the white clouds of lazy-mantling cream, That round the cup their flaky progress wind? In brightest porcelain, trick'd with gorgeous hue, Or Stafford ware of simple white and blue? In the lone cottage of the aged woman, On the bleak skirt of some wide, windy common, Who spins and shivers in her thread-bare cloak, Save when, at morn and eve, the scanty smoke Breaks through the fissures of the mouldering straw That tells a tale of many a winter's flaw?