have a shuttle or free passage in the middle of the stream, to be opened once a-day all the year, and to continue open while the rivers are in defence: let summary modes for punishing offenders be substituted for the circuitous, intricate, and expensive means, which are now resorted to for enforcing the laws, and which, by deterring prosecutors, have given impunity to offenders. When these or similar measures are taken, and the conservators are enabled to discharge their duty efficiently, we shall have salmon speedily as plentiful as ever it was; till then, we may in vain expect the evil to

cease.

The author of the work before us is a practical and experienced man, well acquainted with his subject, and zealous in the public cause; and to those who read for information, and value a book more for what it contains than for the manner in which it is communicated, we can recommend a perusal of the work itself, which will amply repay their trouble.

The Night before the Bridal, a Spanish Tale. Sappho, a Dramatic Sketch, and other Poems. By Catharine Grace Garnett.-8vo. pp. 220. London, Longman and Co. 1824. THESE are sad days, said we, for the supremacy of man, with a sigh that anticipated departing greatness; and we looked up, as if mechanically, at the female department of our library: for we have felt seriously on the alarming spirit of rivalry displayed in this the latter day, by the weaker, and heretofore considered, less intellectual sex. We gazed mournfully at the shelves groaning with the weight of female wisdom, and gave back a long look of regret into the (for us) happy past, when silence, like chastity, was held one of the fairest gifts of woman. But, alas! that age has long gone by; and, since those silly fellows-the poets have taken it into their ridiculous fancies to praise their silver-toned voices, taciturnity, has become a crime; and the gift of tongues has almost driven out connubial felicity. But some of the luckless fraternity having ventured to bind themselves to those voices for life, have at last discovered the mistake; and have been fain to counteract their former erroneous similes, by introducing other less delicate figures. Hence the clacking of mills, bell-clappers, with various comparisons of an equally dissonant and incessant nature.

But of this we would not have complained: had we lost our

lead in the tea-table talk, or the polished conversazione only, we had been mute as lambs; but to take up the pen to dare to perpetuate their Nay, even this we could have forgiven, perhaps admired them, had they but sung

Of fairy elves, cool grots, and lover's dreams;

v

Flowers, smiles, and tears, and such like lady-themes: but to run a-tilt with us at tragedy, and hope to see with us through the unseeable maze of metaphysics; to fix the light lustrous eye and bend the arched brow of beauty to the abstracted mysteries of science; or vex the sweet features, that should ever remain placid as the waters of the inland lake, with the storms of political and religious controversy,-out upon them! they are a foul blot upon their sex's softness.

We can, indeed, make some allowance for an occasional Dacier or Bawdich, by imputing to the tutelage of learned husbands those abilities, which would otherwise put us jeopardy, even of our own opinions. But-here some one enquired if we had read the "Troubadour?" We are admirers of L. E. L. and the question restored us instantly to our usual good humor: and we promised ourselves, for her sweet sake, to lay aside all unmanly fears of female writers and female reviewers, and boldly stand forward in behalf of their equality in the "republic of letters," to the perfect formation of which their easy and feminine grace is as needful as the bolder flight and sterner majesty of lofty man.

But favor must for once give place to priority of purpose: and Miss Laudon will. pardon us for neglecting her for a while, to introduce to our readers a not unworthy sister of the art, to which she promises to become so bright an ornament. The authoress to whom we allude, is Miss C. G. Garnett; (-may she one day shine a diamond in the path she has chosen!) and the title of the volume with which he has presented us is, "The Night before the Bridal." Now, albeit we are bachelors, yet we love to hear of bridal-nights; they call to mind our youthful days, when, blighted as we now are, we were in love. They come upon our ear like the sound of the merry pipe and beating dance, to him that hath wandered solitary and far over the trackless desert or unfrequented

moor.

But, the Night before the Bridal! what could this mean? We recollected the "Bandit's Bride," "the Spectre Bride," and the "Bride of Abydos," and a spell was upon us. Our hearts fainted within us, and we felt half inclined to shrink from our task;-in fact, we felt ourselves fully justified in drawing upon Bacchus to assist us in our pressing emergency. We accordingly fortified our spirits against blight and mil

2.

..1

dew, recommended ourselves to our mistresses, and fearlessly entered upon our duty.

It was, in sooth, a tale of sorrow, pathetically told; but as we have too much respect for our readers to entertain them by halves, and too much kindness for the fair author, (only known to us through her work,) to mutilate her poem, by attempting to review it; we intend to give an outline of the tale, illustrated by as many extracts as our limited space will admit.

"The Night before the Bridal," though not written exactly in the stanza we should have wished, and though occasionally sinning by adopting that prosaic, halting measure, which, notwithstanding the high authority of its master, we so much contemn,-is, upon the whole, a poem very much to our taste, and does great credit to the talents and sentiments of its author; to whom, we hope, the success it deserves, will be an excitement to future honors. The chief fault, we apprehend, will be discovered in the extreme haste with which it appears to have been written. We are hurried from incident to incident, with a rapidity that deprives the writer of an opportunity to display those delicate sentiment which we are convinced she possesses, but which she seems so studiously to avoid indulging us with; as if she were perpetually on her guard lest she should tire the ear of her reader, or lose herself by picking up the flowers in her path. We could have wished for a few more specimens of that delicate sensibility to the beauties of nature, which we can only owe to a female pen, and of which we shall give an example from her own Preface, addressed to a Friend.

"My casement opes upon the moon-lit deep,

Now while I write; and all the scene is still,
Save some faint sounds that o'er the waters sweet,-
The breathing of a flute, or bugle shrill;
Which, as the landward breeze the ripples sweep,
Steal from the sheltering cave of yonder hill:
Then all is hush'd, and but the ebbing tide
Murmurs its sweet adieus on either side..

Around my portal waves a grove of balni,

Myrtle and spray-white jasmine, on whose stem
The chequer'd moon-light falls in circles calm:
The dew within each leaf, an impearl'd gem,

Lies shrined in living emerald-oue tall palm

Tow'rs o'er my woodbine wreaths, as shielding them,

In jealous fondness, from the amorous sigh

Of the young wanton zephyrs wandering by."

The scene of the poem opens in Seville and its neighbourhood; to which, with the exception of a battle hastily told, fought on Italia's shores, it is wholly confined.

On the banks of the Guadaloupe, rich in groves," stands a magnificent old mansion, a remnant of Moresco architecture, to whose solitudes, tired of every scene of life, save the camp, has retired Don Miguel, an old Spanish noble, with his beautiful and innocent Helena; whom, in the superstitious barbarism of the time, he has consecrated to God from her birth, as a pure offering,

"expiatory

Of sins and filial duties violate-which he
Did in his youth-time perpetrate."

En passant, this is a specimen of the versification, we have anathematized above. He had married

"one of a tainted line,

Whose paquim brows had bow'd at Mecca's shrine."

At times, however, paternal fondness will rise above the pride of the Hidalgo; and sorrow for his devoted child, usurp the place of penitency in his breast: but soon proud thoughts of spiritual pageantry, and the pharisaical complacency of giving a boon to Heaven, overcame the feelings of his better nature, and he looks upon her as a palm branch held betwixt him and the offended skies. The soul of the young saint herself seems absorbed in holy thoughts and high imaginings; no memory of former joys weans her spirit from solitude and God. For the past she has no regrets, and, for the future, her hopes are in high Heaven.

"She felt she was a pure thing set apart,

For holy purpose, and like morning dew
Devotion fill'd the chalice of her heart."

Alas! as yet that heart had been untried: and little dreamt she, there was a devotion could call a softness to those Arab eyes, Religion ne'er had wakened. Leontio came!-and passions hot and wild, lit their unhallowed fires upon the blameless altar of her soul.

Leontio's history is but vaguely told; but we gather, that he owes his life to Don Miguel's valour, and is staying the recovery of his wounds. He does not long remain cold to the charms of the young devoted maid, in whose artless eyes he soon discovers that his love is pleasing: but the blood of Spain flows pure and unpolluted in his veins-he cannot wed her ambition and his future hopes forbid it. Still he must love; and love, though a child in stature, is a god in strength; and honor in one bosom, and devotion in the other, are all too weak to combat its single arm: and Helena's bosom becomes the seat of conflict and of passion. Many a pang does her defalcation from holiness wring from her gentle bosom,

where sweet sighs and holy prayers are strangely mingled; and oft when her spirit turns heavenward, and she thinks thinks she has broken the earthly tie that binds her to the world, the voice of Leontio, singing in lofty strains the high deeds of chivalry and the joys of gay romaunt, calls her back from her celestial aspirations:

"Sweet chords of harps, o'ertuned by some bold hand, Au
To tones of fullest compass, wild and high,

While swelling into cadence proudly grand
Perish in their excess of melody;

*

Thus the heart's fond devotion turns to sin,

E'en while its source is springing pure within."

In the midst of their dreamy illusions of happiness, war once more blows its angry blast to call the sire and lover to the field. And must he go? fear left her heart unguarded and she fell!

"Oh! who shall fix the delicate lines that keep

The bounds 'twixt love and passion's vortex deep?
Woman, 'tis not for thee,-devoted thing!
When very virtues are thy ruining.

Thy heart, when launched a venture on the wave,
Soon founders on the smooth and treacherous coast;
The sage ones scoff-no hand is stretched to save,
The fragile, fair, ill-fated bark is lost,

Man by the wreck is gainer-thou the cost,

He gains thee by expressions-falseness all,

Once let him feel his power, and thou must fall!"

The second canto opens with a description of festivities at Seville, on returning peace, and of the grief of Helena at the death of her father, mournfully alleviated by the humiliating knowledge of the shame his death has spared him. But, for the silence of Leontio she has no healing balm. He, in the mean time, returning home, after carrying off the prize at a bull-fight in disguised armour, is represented as staying, as it were, without a motive, round those graves, once so pleasant to him; but being met and rallied by his comrades, his pride awakens, and we find him in the gorgeous halls of the princely Velasco, where his birth and bearing win him the heart of the fair Inez, of whom he has become enamoured. His fickle heart, that before adored the majestic beauties of the daughter of Don Miguel, now bends in love's soft worship to the childlike simplicity of the young daughter of Velasco; and his former passion floats from his memory, like a half-forgotten dream.