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Cannot thy tears and mine preserve her,
Florio ?

If we want brine, a thousand virgins shall
Weep every day upon her, and themselves,
In winter, leaning round upon her monument,
Being moist creatures, stiffen with the cold,
And freeze into so many white supporters.
But we lose time.-I charge thee, by thy love
To this pale relic, be instructed by me,
Not to thy danger; some revenge must be,
And I am lost already; if thou fall,
Who shall survive, to give us funeral?

[Exeunt. Lorenzo is now maddened at the failure of all his plots, and resolves at last to murder the Duke with his own hand. Afraid lest the youth and beauty of his benefactor might palsy his arm, he has for some time kept in his chamber a picture of his victim, that, looking on it with fell thoughts, he might harden his heart for the murder.

Here first the duke was painted to the life,
But with this pencil to the death: I love
My brain for the invention, and thus
Confirm'd, dare trust my resolution.
I did suspect his youth and beauty might
Win some compassion when I came to kill
him;

Or the remembrance that he is my kinsman, Might thrill my blood; or something in his title

Might give my hand repulse, and startle

nature :

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Witches can persecute the lives of whom They hate, when they torment their senseless figures,

And stick the waxen model full of pins.
Can any stroke of mine carry less spell
To wound his heart, sent with as great a
malice?

He smiles, he smiles upon me! I will dig
Thy wanton eyes out, and supply the dark
And hollow cells with two pitch-burning
tapers;

Then place thee porter in some charnel-house, To light the coffins in.

Florio, Sciarrha's brother, comes upon him in the fantastic horrors of his solitude, and tells him that Amidea is at last willing to receive the embraces of the Duke, and will come privately to his chamber.

The last scene opens with melancholy music, and discovers the body of Amidea laid out for interment. VOL. IV.

1 Gentlewoman. This is a sad employment. 2 Gent. The last we e'er shall do my lady. Florio, looking on the corpse, says, Let me look upon

My sister now; still she retains her beauty, Death has been kind to leave her all this sweetness.

Thus in a morning have I oft saluted
My sister in her chamber, sate upon
Her bed, and talk'd of many harmless pas-
sages:

But now 'tis night, and a long night with her,
I ne'er shall see these curtains drawn again,
Until we meet in heaven.-The duke already!

The Duke now enters the chamber

in all the impatience of passion.

Duke. All perfect; till this minute, I could never

Boast I was happy: all this world has not A blessing to exchange: this world! 'tis heaven;

And thus I take possession of my saint: [Goes up to the bed.

Asleep already? 'twere great pity to Disturb her dream, yet if her soul be not Tired with the body's weight, it must convey Into her slumbers I wait here, and thus Seal my devotion. [Kisses.]—What winter dwells

Upon this lip! 'twas no warm kiss; I'll try Again-[Kisses.]—the snow is not so cold; I have

Drunk ice, and feel a numbness spread

through [all]

My blood at once. Ha! let me examine A little better; Amidea! she is dead, she is dead!

What horror doth invade me ?—Help, Lo

renzo !

Murder! where is Lorenzo ?

wicked creature of his), and, amidst Lorenzo rushes in with Petruchio (a prayers for mercy, murders the Duke, who dies exclaiming,

I am coming, Amidea, I am coming.-
For thee, inhuman murderer, expect
My blood shall fly to heaven, and there in-
flam'd,

Hang a prodigious meteor all thy life,
And when by some as bloody hand as thine
Thy soul is ebbing forth, it shall descend
In flaming drops upon thee: oh, I faint!—
Thou flattering world farewell! let princes
gather

My dust into a glass, and learn to spend
Their hour of state, that's all they have;

for when

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He's dead; I'll trust him now, and his ghost too;

Fools start at shadows, I'm in love with night And her complexion.

Sciarrha and Florio now join Lorenzo, and he proposes that they shall give out that the Duke ravished and murdered Amidea, for which he was slain by her brother; and that then he and Sciarrha shall assume joint sway over Florence. Sciarrha for a while dallies with these ambitious projects, and then, laying aside his assumed acquiescence, dares the villain Lorenzo to single combat, as having been the cause of all his ruin. They fight and fall dead by mutual wounds.

We have few farther observations to make on this tragedy. Our readers will have seen, in the first place, from the extracts, that the language is singularly spirited, poetical, and also dramatic. The interest is well kept alive; for all the incidents follow each other, if not very naturally, at least with a wild tumult and precipitation which agitates us with frequent alteration of feeling. There is nothing dull, heavy, or lingering in the whole action. Neither are there any intricacies in the plot to disentangle, so that we are never called on for the exercise of ingenuity, instead of the indulgence of passion. These are great merits in an acting play; and indeed with them a play can, if well acted, scarcely fail of success.

But, besides these excellencies, we are inclined to think, that Lorenzo and Sciarrha are characters that would tell in representation. The intellectual energy of the former gives him something of dignity, and saves him, at all times, from utter degradation, Ambition carries with it nobility; and the baseness of the means employed to attain its object, is partially hidden by the strength of mind which invests them. Lorenzo is certainly, though not an interesting, almost a commanding traitor; and we feel ourselves in some measure under the mastery of that talent, which, though ultimately defeated, kept him so long on the very brink of success. It cannot be said that we have an interest in him; but we unquestionably desire to follow him in his career, if it be only to witness its anticipated termination. The cool, calculating, intrepid villany of the "Traitor," is finely contrasted with the fiery and im

petuous, but easily deceived and unsteady, Sciarrha,-a man of mixed vices and virtues, such as we find in nature, and drawn by the poet to the very life.

In Pisano and Cosmo we find little to interest, and, as we observed before, there is something rather fantastic and unnatural in their story; yet the mind not unwillingly turns to them as inferior instruments employed to hasten the catastrophe ; and some of the scenes in which they are engaged are full of beauty and tender

ness.

Of Oriana we see little,-but that little is sufficiently touching; and we feel enough of interest in her to make us pleased that, at the end of the dra◄ ma, she finds happiness with Cosmo.

Amidea takes a faster hold on our affections. The heroic and yet gentle spirit which she exhibits in her forlorn desertion, invests her with the highest dignity of her sex. There is a calm stateliness in her sorrow, and a strength of love in her virgin widowhood, that her lover's perfidy cannot impair. There are few things in dramatic poetry much more beautiful than the scene of her death; and though we know not how "the laying out," and the exhibition of the sheeted corpse, might affect spectators in a theatre, every reader in the closet must feel it chill his heart's blood, while, at the same time, there is a relief from painful sorrow in the exquisite beauty of the poetry. H. M.

VERSES,

ADDRESSED TO THE RIGHT HON. LADY ANNE SCOTT OF BUCCLEUCH.

[WE have as yet, by accidental circumstances, been prevented from laying before our readers any account of the Prose Tales In the

lately published by MR HOGG.
mean time, we have great pleasure in ex-
tracting the following very beautiful Poetical
Dedication to a Young Lady of the Noble
Family whose enlightened patronage has
been so liberally extended to the ETTRICK
SHEPHErd.]

To HER, whose bounty oft hath shed
Joy round the peasant's lowly bed,
When trouble press'd and friends were few,
And God and Angels only knew-
To HER, who loves the board to cheer,
And hearth of simple Cottager;
Who loves the tale of rural hind,
And wayward visions of his mind,

I dedicate, with high delight,
The themes of many a winter night.
What other name on Yarrow's vale
Can Shepherd choose to grace his tale?
There other living name is none
Heard with one feeling,-one alone.
Some heavenly charm must name endear
That all men love, and all revere !
Even the rude boy of rustic form,
And robes all fluttering to the storm,
Whose roguish lip and graceless eye
Inclines to mock the passer by,
Walks by the Maid with softer tread,
And lowly bends his burly head,
Following with eye of milder ray
The gentle form that glides away.
The little school-nymph, drawing near,
Says, with a sly and courteous leer,
As plain as eye and manner can,
"Thou lov'st me-bless thee, Lady Anne!"
Even babes catch the beloved theme,
And learn to lisp their Lady's name.

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The orphan's blessing rests on thee; Happy thou art, and long shalt be! "Tis not in sorrow, nor distress, Nor Fortune's power, to make thee less. The heart, unaltered in its mood, That joys alone in doing good, And follows in the heavenly road, And steps where once an Angel trode,The joys within such heart that burn, No loss can quench, nor time o'erturn! The stars may from their orbits bend, The mountains rock, the heavens rend,The sun's last ember cool and quiver, But these shall glow, and glow for ever! Then thou, who lov'st the shepherd's home, And cherishest his lowly dome, O list the mystic lore sublime, Of fairy tales of ancient time. I learned them in the lonely glen, The last abodes of living men; Where never stranger came our way By summer night, or winter day; Where neighbouring hind or cot was none, Our converse was with Heaven alone, With voices through the cloud that sung, And brooding storms that round us hung. O Lady, judge, if judge you may, How stern and ample was the sway Of themes like these, when darkness fell, And gray-haired sires the tales would tell! When doors were barr'd, and eldron dame Plied at her task beside the flame, That through the smoke and gloom alone On dim and umber'd faces shoneThe bleat of mountain goat on high, That from the cliff came quavering by; The echoing rock, the rushing flood, The cataract's swell, the moaning wood, That undefined and mingled humVoice of the desert, never dumb!All these have left within this heart A feeling tongue can ne'er impart ; A wilder'd and unearthly flame, A something that's without a name. And, Lady, thou wilt never deem Religious tale offensive theme;

Our creeds may differ in degree,
But small that difference sure can be!
As flowers which vary in their dyes,
We all shall bloom in Paradise.
As sire who loves his children well,
The loveliest face he cannot tell,-
So 'tis with us. We are the same,
One faith, one Father, and one aim.

And hadst thou lived where I was bred,
Amid the scenes where martyrs bled,
Their sufferings all to thee endear'd
By those most honour'd and revered;
And where the wild dark streamlet raves,
Hadst wept above their lonely graves,
Thou wouldst have felt, I know it true,
As I have done, and aye must do.
And for the same exalted cause,
For mankind's right, and nature's laws,
The cause of liberty divine,
Thy fathers bled as well as mine.

Then be it thine, O noble Maid,
On some still eve these tales to read;
And thou wilt read, I know full well,
For still thou lovest the haunted dell ;
To linger by the sainted spring,
And trace the ancient fairy ring
Where moonlight revels long were held
In many a lone sequester'd field,
By Yarrow dens and Ettrick shaw,
And the green mounds of Carterhaugh.

O for one kindred heart that thought
As minstrel must, and lady ought,
That loves like thee the whispering wood,
And range of mountain solitude!
Think how more wild the greenwood scene,
If times were still as they have been ;
If fairies, at the fall of even,

Down from the eye-brow of the heaven,
Or some aërial land afar,

Came on the beam of rising star;
Their lightsome gambols to renew,
From the green leaf to quaff the dew,
Or dance with such a graceful tread,
As scarce to bend the gowan's head!

Think if thou wert, some evening still,
Within thy wood of green Bowhill
Thy native wood !-the forest's pride!
Lover or sister by thy side;

In converse sweet the hour to improve
Of things below and things above,
Of an existence scarce begun,
And note the stars rise one by one.
Just then, the moon and daylight blending,
To see the fairy bands descending,
Wheeling and shivering as they came,
Like glimmering shreds of human frame;
Or sailing, 'mid the golden air,
In skiffs of yielding gossamer.

O, I would wander forth alone
Where human eye hath never shone,
Away o'er continents and isles
A thousand and a thousand miles,
For one such eve to sit with thee,
Their strains to hear and forms to see!
Absent the while all fears of harm,
Secure in Heaven's protecting arm;
To list the songs such beings sung,
And hear them speak in human tongue;

To see in beauty, perfect, pure,
Of human face the miniature,
And smile of being free from sin,
That had not death impress'd within.
Oh, can it ever be forgot

What Scotland had, and now has not!
Such scenes, dear Lady, now no more
Are given, or fitted as before,
To eye or ear of guilty dust;
But when it comes, as come it must,
The time when I, from earth set free,
Shall turn the spark I fain would be;
If there's a land, as grandsires tell,
Where Brownies, Elves, and Fairies dwell,
There my first visit shall be sped-
Journeyer of earth, go hide thy head!
Of all thy travelling splendour shorn,
Though in thy golden chariot borne !
Yon little cloud of many a hue
That wanders o'er the solar blue,
That curls, and rolls, and fleets away
Beyond the very springs of day,-
That do I challenge and engage
To be my travelling equipage,
Then onward, onward, far to steer,
The breeze of Heaven my charioteer ;
The soul's own energy my guide,
Eternal hope my all beside.

At such a shrine who would not bow!
Traveller of earth, where art thou now?

Then let me for these legends claim,
My young, my honour'd Lady's name ;
That honour is reward complete,
Yet I must crave, if not unmeet,
One little boon-delightful task
For maid to grant, or minstrel ask!

One day, thou may'st remember well,
For short the time since it befel,
When o'er thy forest-bowers of oak,
The eddying storm in darkness broke;
Loud sung the blast adown the dell,
And Yarrow lent her treble swell;
The mountain's form grew more sublime,
Wrapt in its wreaths of rolling rime;
And Newark Cairn, in hoary shroud,
Appear'd like giant o'er the cloud :
The eve fell dark, and grimly scowl'd,
Loud and more loud the tempest howl'd;
Without was turmoil, waste, and din,
The kelpie's cry was in the linn,
But all was love and peace within!
And aye, between, the melting strain
Pour'd from thy woodland harp amain,
Which, mixing with the storm around,
Gave a wild cadence to the sound.

That mingled scene, in every part,
Hath so impress'd thy shepherd's heart,
With glowing feelings, kindling bright
Some filial visions of delight,
That almost border upon pain,
And he would hear those strains again.
They brought delusions not to last,
Blending the future with the past;
Dreams of fair stems, in foliage new,
Of flowers that spring where others grew
Of beauty ne'er to be outdone,
And stars that rise when sets the sun;
The patriarchal days of yore,
The mountain music heard no more,

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Her radiant Lamb and her purpling Dove Have ta'en their food from the hand they love;

The low deep coo and the plaintive bleat
In the morning calm, how clear and sweet!
E'er the Sun has warmed the dawning hours,
She hath watered the glow of her garden
flowers,

And welcomed the hum of the earliest Bee
In the moist bloom working drousily;
Then up the flow of the rocky rill
She trips away to the pastoral Hill;
And, as she lifts her glistening eyes
In the joy of her heart to the dewy skies,
She feels that her sainted Parents bless
The life of their Orphan Shepherdess.
'Tis a lonely Glen! but the happy Child
Hath friends whom she meets in the morn
ing-wild-

-As on she trips, her native stream,
Like her hath awoke from a joyful dream,
And glides away by her twinkling feet,
With a face as bright and a voice as sweet.
In the osier bank the Ouzel sitting,
Hath heard her steps, and away is flitting
From stone to stone, as she glides along,
Then sinks in the stream with a broken song.
The Lapwing, fearless of his nest,
Stands looking round with his delicate crest,
Or a lonelike joy is in his cry,

As he wheels and darts and glances by.
Is the Heron asleep on the silvery sand
Of his little Lake? Lo! his wings expand
As a dreamy thought, and withouten dread,
Cloudlike he floats o'er the Maiden's head.
She looks to the birch-wood glade, and lo!
There is browzing there the mountain-roe,
Who lifts up her gentle eyes, nor moves
As on glides the form whom all nature loves.
Having spent in Heaven an hour of mirth,

The Lark drops down to the dewy earth,
And as silence smooths his yearning breast
In the gentle fold of his lowly nest,
The Linnet takes up the hymn, unseen
In the yellow broom or the bracken green.
And now, as the morning-hours are glowing,
From the hillside cots the cocks are crowing,
And the Shepherd's Dog is barking shrill
From the mist fast rising from the hill,
And the Shepherd's-self, with locks of gray,
Hath blessed the Maiden on her way;
And now she sees her own dear flock
On a verdant mound beneath the rock,
All close together in beauty and love,
Like the small fair clouds in heaven above,
And her innocent soul at the peaceful sight
Is swimming o'er with a still delight.

And how shall sweet Edith pass the day,
From her home and her sister so far away,
With none to whom she may speak the
while,

Or share the silence and the smile, When the stream of thought flows calm and deep,

And the face of Joy is like that of sleep?

Fear not the long, still Summer-day
On downy wings hath sailed away,
And is melting unawares in Even,
Like a pure cloud in the heart of Heaven,
Nor Weariness nor Woe hath paid
One visit to the happy Maid
Sitting in sunshine or in shade.
For many a wild Tale doth she know,
Framed in these valleys long ago
By pensive Shepherds, unto whom
The sweet breath of the heather-bloom
Brought inspiration, and the Sky
Folding the hill-tops silently,
And airs so spirit-like, and streams
Aye murmuring through a world of dreams.
A hundred plaintive tunes hath she-
A hundred chants of sober glee-
And she hath sung them o'er and o'er,-
As on some solitary shore,

'Tis said the Mermaid oft doth sing
Beneath some cliff's o'ershadowing,
While melteth o'er the waters clear
A song which there is none to hear!
Still at the close of each wild strain
Hath gentle Edith lived again,
O'er long-past hours-while smiles and sighs
Obeyed their own loved Melodies.
Now rose to sight the hawthorn-glade,
Where that old blind Musician played
So blithely to the dancing ring-
Or, in a fit of sorrowing,
Sung mournful Songs of other years
That filled his own dim eyes with tears.
And then the Sabbath seemed to rise
In stillness o'er the placid skies,
And from the small Kirk in the Dell
Came the clear chime of holy Bell,
Solemnly ceasing, when appeared
The grey-haired Man beloved and feared-
The Man of God-whose eyes were filled
With visions in the heavens beheld,
And rightfully inspired fear,
Whose yoke, like Love's, is light to bear.

-And thus sole-sitting on the Brae,
From human voices far away,
Even like the flowers round Edith's feet,
Shone forth her fancies wild or sweet;
Some in the shades of memory
Unfolding out reluctantly,

But breathing from that tender gloom
A faint-etherial-pure perfume;
Some burning in their full-blown pride,
And by the Sun's love beautified;
None wither'd-for the air is holy,
Of a pure spirit's melancholy;
And God's own gracious cye hath smiled
On the sorrows of this Orphan Child;
Therefore, her Parents' Grave appears
Green, calm, and sunbright thro' her tears,
Beneath the deep'ning hush of years.
An Image of young Edith's Life,
This one still day-no noise-no strife-
Alike calm-morning-noon-and even-
And Earth to her as pure as Heaven.
Now night comes wavering down the sky:
The clouds like ships at anchor lie,
All gathered in the glimmering air,
After their pleasant voyage: there
One solitary bark glides on

So slow, that its haven will ne'er be won.
But a wandering wind hath lent it motion,
And the last Sail hath passed o'er the heaven-
ly ocean.

Are these the Hills so steeped by day,
In a greenness that seemed to mock decay,
And that stole from the Sun so strong and

light,

That it well might dare th' eclipse of night?
Where is the sound that filled the air
Around-and above-and every where ?
Soft wild pipes hushed! and a world of
wings

All shut with their radiant shiverings!
The wild bees now are all at rest

In their earthen cell-or their mossy nest-
Save when some lated labourers come
From the far-off hills with a weary hum,
And drop down mid the flowers, till morn
Shall awaken to life each tiny horn.
Dew sprinkles sleep on every flower,
And each bending stalk has lost its power-
No toils have they, but in beauty blest,
They seem to partake in Nature's rest.
And a dream just moves it in faintest mirth.
Sleep calms the bosom of the Earth,
The slumber of the Hills and Sky
Hath hushed into a reverie
The soul of Edith-by degrees,
With half-closed eyes she nothing sees
But the glimmer of twilight stretched afar,
And one bright solitary star,

That comes like an angel with his beams,
To lead her on thro' the world of dreams.
She feels the soft grass beneath her head,
And the smell of flowers around her shed,
Breathing of Earth, as yet, she knows
Whence is the sound that past her flows,
(The flowery fount in its hillside cell-)
But a beauty there is which she cannot tell
To her soul that beholds it, spread all around;
And she feels a rapture, oh! more profound

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