In the first moments of the patient's perfect recovery, he is informed by the old man, that during the years of his illness the cause of liberty had been slowly gaining ground in the "Golden city"—that he himself would fain assist in the Revolution which had now actually commenced there, but that he felt himself too old and too subdued in his spirit and language to be an effectual leader,"While Laon's name to the tumultuous throng

Were like the star whose beams the waves compel,

And tempests; and his soul-subduing tongue Were as a lance to quell the mailed crest of wrong."

Laon accepts with eagerness the proposal of the old man, and they depart in their bark for the Revolutionized city. On their arrival they find the work already apparently well-nigh complet

ed. An immense multitude of the people of men weary of political, and women sick of domestic slavery are assembled in the fields without the walls. Laon and his friend walk into the encampment, and are received as friends. The host already acknowledge a leader and a presiding spirit in the person of a female, whom they reverence under the name of LAONE. Laon and this heroine are attracted to each other by some unknown sympathy; the tones of her voice stir up all the depths of his spirit; but her countenance is veiled, and scarcely dares he wish to have the covering removed. The palace of the tyrant Othman, is, mean time, surrounded by the multitude; and Laon entering it, finds him sitting alone in his hall, deserted by all but one little child, whose affection had been won to him by previous commendations and caresses. Nothing can be more touching than the picture of this innocent. Thus speaks Laon:

She fled to him, and wildly clasped his feet When human steps were heard he moved nor spoke,

Nor changed his hue, nor raised his looks to

frown

With hue like that when some great painter dips

His pencil in the gloom of earthquake and eclipse.

She stood beside him like a rainbow braided Within some storm, when scarce its shadows vast

From the blue paths of the swift sun have faded;

A sweet and solemn smile, like Cythna's, cast One moment's light, which made my heart beat fast,

O'er that child's parted lips-a gleam of bliss,
A shade of vanished days as the tears past
Which wrapt, even as with a father's kiss
I pressed those softest eyes in trembling ten-

derness.

The monarch is quietly removed from his palace, none following him but this child; and on this consummation of their triumph, the multitude join in holding a high festival, of which Laone is the priestess. Laon sits near her in her pyramid; but he is withheld, by a strange impulse, from speaking to her, and he retires to pass the night in repose at a distance from where she sleeps.

At break of day, Laon is awakened by sounds of tumults; the multitude, lately so firm and collected, are seen flying in every direction; and he learns that the cause of their disarray is the arrival of a foreign army, sent by some of his brother princes to the relief of Othman. Laon, and a few of the more heroic spirits, withdraw to the side of a hill, where, ill-armed and outnumbered, they are slaughtered till the evening by their enemies. The carnage, and the confidence of the sufferers, are painted with a power and energy altogether admirable; but we have room to quote only the deliverance of Laon.

Of those brave bands I soon survived alone-and now I lay Vanquished and faint, the grasp of bloody

hands

On which, like to an Angel, robed in white,
Sate one waving a sword;-the hosts recede
And fly, as thro' their ranks with awful might,
Sweeps in the shadow of eve that Phantom
swift and bright;

And its path made a solitude. I rose
And marked its coming: it relaxed its course
As it approached me, and the wind that flows
Thro' night, bore accents to mine ear whose
force

Might create smiles in death-the Tartar horse

Paused, and I saw the shape its might which swayed,

And heard her musical pants, like the sweet

source

Of waters in the desart, as she said,

"Mount with me Laon, now"I rapidly obeyed.

Then: "Away! away!" she cried, and stretched her sword

As 'twere a scourge over the courser's head, And lightly shook the reins :-We spake no word

But like the vapour of the tempest fled
Over the plain; her dark hair was dispread
Like the pine's locks upon the lingering blast;
Over mine eyes its shadowy strings it spread
Fitfully, and the hills and streams fled fast,
As o'er their glimmering forms the steed's

broad shadow past.

And his hoofs ground the rocks to fire and dust, His strong sides made the torrents rise in spray, And turbulence, as of a whirlwind's gust, Surrounded us ;-and still away! away!

They take up their abode in a lonely ruin, and many hours are wasted in the transports of a recognition-which, even in such circumstances, to them is joyful.

The night grew damp and dim, and thro' a

rent

Of the ruin where we sate, from the morass, A wandering Meteor by some wild wind sent, Hung high in the green dome, to which it lent A faint and pallid lustre; while the song Ofblasts, in which its blue hair quivering bent, Strewed strangest sounds the moving leaves among;

A wondrous light, the sound as of a spirit's tongue.

The Meteor shewed the leaves on which we sate,

And Cythna's glowing arms, and the thick ties Of her soft hair, which bent with gathered weight

My neck near hers, her dark and deepening

Within her frame, mingle with mine, and fall

Around my heart like fire; and over all
A mist was spread, the sickness of a deep
And speechless swoon of joy, as might befall
Two disunited spirits when they leap
In union from this earth's obscure and fad-
ing sleep.

Was it one moment that confounded thus
All thought, all sense, all feeling, into one
Unutterable power, which shielded us
Even from our own cold looks, when we had
gone

Into a wide and wild oblivion

Of tumult and of tenderness? or now
Had ages, such as make the moon and sun,
The seasons, and mankind their changes
Left fear and time unfelt by us alone below?
know,

I know not. What are kisses whose fire clasps

The failing heart in languishment, or limb Twined within limb? or the quick dying gasps

Of the life meeting, when the faint eyes swim Thro' tears of a wide mist boundless and dim, In one caress? What is the strong centroul Which leads the heart that dizzy steep to climb,

Where far over the world those vapours roll, Which blend two restless frames in one reposing soul?

They remain for some time in this retreat, communicating to each other the long histories of their suffering.— Cythna, according to her own wild tale, being carried away from Laon at the moment when he slew three of the slaves that surrounded her, had been conveyed to the tyrant's palace, and had suffered all the insults, and almost all the injuries to which its inmates were exposed. Her high spirit had, however, offended at last her oppressor, and she was sent to a Submarine cavern, near the Symplegades, to which strange dungeon she was borne through the waves by a slave, "made dumb by poison,"

A Diver lean and strong, of Oman's coral

Here she was supplied with a daily pittance of food by an eagle, trained to hover over the only crevice through which the air had access to the captive. She sank into a melancholy phrenzy, and was aroused to consciousness by strange feelings which taught her to expect that she was about to be a mo ther. It is so, and for a while all the sorrows of her prison are soothed by the caresses of her child; but the child disappears suddenly, and the bewildered mother half suspects that its existence has been but a dream of her madness. At last an earthquake changes the position of the cavern, and Cythna

is released by some passing mariners, who convey her to the city of Othman, and are prepared by her discourses during the voyage to take a part in the insurrection, which Cythna arrives in time to lead. But to come to the main story-it is the custom of Laon to ride forth every night on the Tartar horse to procure food for Cythna. By this means their retreat is at last discovered, Laon is seized, led before the tyrant, and sentenced to be burned alive before his eyes, on the very scene of his treason. The guards, the priests, and the slaves, are gathered around the throne of Othman.

A Shape of light is sitting by his side,
A child most beautiful. I' the midst appears
Laon,-exempt alone from mortal hopes and
fears.

His head and feet are bare, his hands are bound

Behind with heavy chains, yet none do wreak Their scoffs on him, though myriads throng

around;

And calm, and like the morn about to break, Smile on mankind-his heart seems reconciled

To all things and itself, like a reposing child.
Tumult was in the soul of all beside,
Ill joy, or doubt, or fear; but those who saw
Their tranquil victim pass, felt wonder glide
Into their brain, and became calm with awe.-
See, the slow pageant near the pile doth draw.
A thousand torches in the spacious square,
Borne by the ready slaves of ruthless law,
Await the signal round; the morning fair
Is changed to a dim night by that unnatural
glare.

And see! beneath a sun-bright canopy,
Upon a platform level with the pile,
The anxious Tyrant sit, enthroned on high,
Girt by the chieftains of the host; all smile
In expectation, but one child: the while
I, Laon, led by mutes, ascend my bier

Of fire, and look around; each distant isle
Is dark in the bright dawn; towers far and

near,

Pierce like reposing flames the tremulous atmosphere.

There was such silence through the host, as when

An earthquake trampling on some populous town,

Has crushed ten thousand with one tread, and men

Expect the second; all were mute but one, That fairest child, who, bold with love, alone Stood up before the King, without avail, Pleading for Laon's life her stifled groan Was heard-she trembled like one aspin pale Among the gloomy pines of a Norwegian vale.

Bursts on that awful silence; far away Millions, with hearts that beat both loud. and fast,

Watch for the springing flame expectant and aghast.

They fly-the torches fall-a cry of fear Has startled the triumphant !—they recede! For ere the cannon's roar has died, they hear The tramp of hoofs like earthquake, and a steed

Dark and gigantic, with the tempest's speed, Bursts through their ranks: a woman sits thereon,

Fairer it seems than aught that earth can breed,

Calm, radiant, like the phantom of the dawn, A spirit from the caves of day-light wandering gone.

This is Cythna come to partake the fate of her lord.

The warm tears burst in spite of faith and fear, From many a tremulous eye, but like soft dews

Which feed spring's earliest buds, hung gathered there,

Frozen by doubt,-alas, they could not chuse, But weep; for when her faint limbs did refuse

To

climb the pyre, upon the mutes she

smiled;

And with her eloquent gestures, and the hues Of her quick lips, even as a weary child Wins sleep from some fond nurse with its caresses mild,

She won them, tho' unvilling, her to bind Near me, among the snakes. When these had fled,

Onesoft reproach that was most thrilling kind, She smil'd on me, and nothing then we said, But each upon the other's countenance fed Looks of insatiate love; the mighty veil Which doth divide the living and the dead Was almost rent, the world grew dim and pale,

All light in Heaven or Earth beside our love did fail.

Yet,-yet-one brief relapse, like the last beam

Of dying flames, the stainless air around Hung silent and serene-a blood-red gleam Burst upwards, hurling fiercely from the ground

The globed smoke,-I heard the mighty sound

Of its uprise, like a tempestuous ocean; And, thro' its chasms I saw, as in a swound, The tyrant's child fall without life or motion, Before his throne, subdued by some unseen

emotion.

And is this death? the pyre has disappeared, The Pestilence, the Tyrant, and the throng; The flames grow silent-slowly there is heard The music of a breath-suspending song, Which, like the kiss of love when life is young,

Steeps the faint eyes in darkness sweet and deep;

With ever changing notes it floats along, Till on my passive soul there seemed to creep A melody, like waves on wrinkled sands that leap.

The warm touch of a soft and tremulous hand Wakened me then; lo, Cythna sate reclined Beside me, on the waved and golden sand Of a clear pool, upon a bank o'ertwined With strange and star-bright flowers, which to the wind

Breathed divine odour; high above, was spread

The emerald heaven of trees of unknown kind,

Whose moonlike blooms and bright fruit

overhead

Than happy love, a wild and glad surprise, Glanced as she spake; "Aye, this is Paradise

And not a dream, and we are all united! Lo, that is mine own child, who in the guise

Of madness came, like day to one benighted In lonesome woods: my heart is now to well requited!

We forbear from making any comments on this strange narrative; because we could not do so without entering upon other points which we have already professed our intention of waving for the present. It will easily be seen, indeed, that neither the main interest nor the main merit of the poet at all consists in the conception of his plot or in the arrangement of his incidents. His praise is, in our judgment, that of having poured over his narrative a very rare strength and abundance of poetic imagery and feeling-of having steeped every word in Revolt of Islam contains no detached the essence of his inspiration. The passages at all comparable with some which our readers recollect in the works of the great poets our contemporaries; but neither does it contain any such intermixture of prosaic materials as disfigure even the greatest of them. Mr Shelly has displayed his possession of a mind intensely poetical, and of an exuberance of poetic language, perpetually strong and perpetually varied. In spite, moreover, of a certain perverwhich, unless he gets rid of it, will sion in all his modes of thinking, ever prevent him from being acceptable to any considerable or respectable body of readers, he has displayed many glimpses of right understanding and generous feeling, which must save him from the unmingled condemnaHis destiny is entirely in his own tion even of the most rigorous judges. hands; if he acts wisely, it cannot fail to be a glorious one; if he continues to pervert his talents, by making them the instruments of a base sophistry, their splendour will only contribute to render his disgrace the more conspicuous. Mr Shelly, whatever his errors may have been, is a scholar, a gentleman, and a poet; and he must therefore despise from his soul the only eulogies to which he has hitherto been accustomed-paragraphs from the Examiner, and sonnets from Johnny

Keats. He has it in his power to select better companions; and if he does so, he may very securely promise himself abundance of better praise.

Edinburgh College Museum.-The internal arrangements of this museum are rapidly advancing, and promise, when completed, to rival in beauty and classic taste the most admired works of this description in Europe. We hear that the splendid galleries of the great rooms are to be appropriated for the reception of a magnificent collection of foreign birds, at present in the possession of an eminent naturalist in Paris, and which the Principal and Professors intend purchasing.

Colonel Imrie lately presented to the museum of the university of this city his collection of Grecian minerals, an example which we trusted would be followed by all who feel an interest in the national museum now forming in this metropolis. Since that time many donations have been received, and we have now the satisfaction of announcing, that Colonel Imrie has presented to the university the whole of his valuable collection of Greenland minerals. This patriotic conduct, which is deserving of the highest praise, eminently distinguishes Colonel Imrie amongst the promoters of natural science in this country.

Natural History Society of Glasgow. We are happy to learn that a Natural History Society has just been established in Glasgow. The zeal and intelligence of its members, and the ample funds they already possess, promise the most valuable results for this country in particular, and natural history in general.

Substitute for Limestone in the Art of Printing from Stone. We are informed that in France, a mixture of plaister-ofParis and alum, allowed to harden in a smooth metallic mould, is found to answer fully as well as limestone in stone-engraving. A German in London has just published a series of well-executed views in Italy from

stone.

Black Lead Mines.-The famous black lead mine in Cumberland, which has for so many years supplied the market with the best and most esteemed varieties of grapaite, is understood at present to be so very unproductive that the public look with anxiety for supplies from other quarters. In this island, the black lead or graphite of Ayrshire has been long known, but the mine has never been fully worked. The black lead of Glen Strath Farrard, mentioned in a former number of this magazine, has but lately excited the attention of the public. We expect that the present state of the market will have the effect of inducing the proprietors of our Scottish black lead mines to open them up in a manner so as to supply the present de

mands of the market.

Volcanic Mountains of Cantal.—We understand that all the volcanic districts in the south-west of France have been lately examined by a pupil of Professor Jameson's. The results he has obtained are highly interesting, and go to support both the volVOL. IV.

canic and neptunian views of the formation of these districts. The details of this interesting investigation w ill, it is reported, appear in the first number of the Edinburgh Journal of Science.

Letters have been received from M. Belzoni, dated Thebes, November 14, that completely remove the apprehensions which obtained respecting his death.

THE COD-BANK OF SHETLAND.

Discovery. This bank was, we believe, first fished upon by the vessels of Mr Ross of Weesdale, in Shetland, in the autumn of 1816.

Situation and Extent.-The bank commences about twelve to twenty miles north by west from Papa Westray, one of the Orkney Islands. It is prolonged to the westward of the coast of the Shetland Islands, and has been entered upon to the north, by steering west-north-west, as well as north by west, from the island of Foula. But its terminations has not been reached, and it is imagined to extend much farther north. The colour of the fish is described to be similar to what has been observed in the cod caught off the coast of the Faro Islands, thus appearing to identify this much more northerly bank with that of Shetland. The fish is said to be gray backed, spotted with black, and tinged with a ring of a colour from brown to gray. The length that has been already traced of the bank is about 140 miles.

Breadth. The breadth of the bank is from 18 to 25 miles.

Depth.-Is from 28 to 47 fathoms. Productiveness.-Thirteen vessels employed in this fishery are computed to have made this year about £3000. These vessels do not exceed 35 tons, and on account of the bounty, are not less than six tons. They carry from six to eight hands. The vessels this year on the bank are said to have fished about 12 tons of fish, in the dried state, on an average. Some vessels procured from 18 to 19 tons each. The abundance of the fish is so great, that one vessel in a tide or day caught 1200 fish.

The Shetland Islands, in this fishery, will possess an advantage over their Örkney neighbours, from the superiority of their drying beaches. These being composed of rounded pebbles, ejected by the sea, are more or less abundant, or are better in quality, according to the nature of the rocks of which each of the groups of islands is composed, This superiority of beach is of such consequence to the drying of the fish, as to give the ling and cod of Shetland a decided advantage in the market over every other like article of fish to which it ed. The greatest inconvenience is felt from the want of bait, which being obtained from the bays of Shetland, prove a great loss of time to the fishers, who are often obliged 3 Q

oppos