bian poetry, and rather copious extracts from Antar. Our author seems at one time to intimate that he is the first person who has attempted to introduce this singular poem to the notice of European readers, just at the close, however, of his observations, he declares his knowledge of the existence of Mr. Hamilton's translation. We should have thought that, in the present general cultivation of the English language on the Continent, a work could scarcely be considered unknown in Europe, of which an able and spirited version is to be found in our language. But we must prepare to close these delightful volumes. We have, we presume, afforded our readers sufficient specimens of the style of description which forms their principal charm and interest. From the pages devoted to Constantinople, the Bosphorus, the palace and villa life of the Turkish grandees, and the amiable and enlightened Frank society of Pera, we should have quoted largely, had we been dealing with a book less certain of popularity. M. de Lamartine's European reputation will be infinitely heightened by this publication: but this is not all-he will, we may safely predict, be found to have advanced the general estimation of the scope and tendency of the intellect and sentiment now predominating in the upper literature of France.

The Political Reflections' with which the book closes relate chiefly to the policy of Europe with regard to those splendid provinces which still nominally constitute the empire of the Turks. They are strongly coloured by the imaginative cast of his mind, but they are those of a man of thought and observation, of liberal and of peaceful sentiment. To one important point alone we shall direct our readers' attention, in which our author concurs with the general statements of most intelligent travellers, but concerning which he enters into more details than any that we have elsewhere met with. Statistics in the East can only, it is clear, be obtained on vague and conjectural evidence. But if our traveller's views approximate to the truth, the present proportion of the Turkish population to the Asiatic territory nominally under their sway is the most remarkable instance of the rapid decrease of one particular race over a large surface of the earth, and of the inert power exercised by the religious supremacy with which the sultan is invested, which maintains him in acknowledged dominion over such vast regions, crowded with an infinitely more numerous population, almost all of hostile faith, few, excepting some Turcoman tribes, of a kindred race. It is, he says, a very small armed, or rather once-armed aristocracy, an aristocracy resting on the pride and power of conquests some centuries past, which holds in subjugation what once were all the flourishing empires of the world. M. de Lamartine believes, and gives his reasons for believing, from the relative proportions of the population in the cities and pro

vinces of the Ottoman empire, that on sixty thousand square leagues the actual Ottoman population cannot be estimated at more than two or three millions of souls! This calculation, we must confess, goes below what we can for a moment believe to be the truth*. M. de Lamartine adds:

;

It would be hardihood or madness to say to Europe-Efface from the map an existing empire, full of life-lift an immense weight from the ill-adjusted equilibrium of the body politic; the world will not perceive the change. But the Ottoman empire no longer exists except in name; its life is extinct-its weight no longer sways the balance it is nothing but a vast void, which your anti-human policy wishes to leave vacant, instead of filling it with a healthy and living population, which nature has already planted there, and which you might replenish and propagate yourselves. Do not precipitate the fall of the Ottoman empire-do not usurp the office of fate-do not assume the responsibility of Providence; but do not sustain by an illusory and culpable policy that phantom to which you can at best give only an appearance and attitude of life,-for it is dead. Do not become the allies of barbarism and Islamism, against the more advanced stages of civilization, reason, and religion, which they oppress; nor the accomplices of the slavery and depopulation of the finest parts of the world. Let destiny accomplish its purposes-observe, wait, and be ready.

'When at length the empire shall sink of itself, and, undermined by Ibrahim, or some other pasha, shall be dismembered alike in its northern and southern provinces, you will have a very simple question to decide, Will you make war upon Russia, to prevent her inheriting Constantinople and the coasts of the Black Sea? Will you make war upon Austria, to prevent her inheriting one-half of Turkey in Europe? Will you make war upon England, to prevent her inheriting Egypt and the route to India by the Red Sea?-upon France, to prevent her colonizing Syria and the Island of Cyprus ?-upon Greece, to prevent her completing her territories by the addition of the coasts of the Mediterranean, and the beautiful isles which bear her name, and are inhabited by her own people?-on all the world, in short, lest any one should profit by these magnificent ruins? Or must we come to a mutual understanding, and divide them amongst the human race, under the patronage of Europe, that the human race may multiply and flourish. in this beautiful climate, and that civilization may resume its station there? These are the two questions which a congress of the powers of Europe will have to decide. Truly, the answer is not doubtful.

If you resolve on war, you will have war, with all the evils-all the ruin that attend it: you will injure Europe, Asia, and yourselves; and the war having ended from utter weariness, nothing which you intended to prevent will be prevented. The force of circumstancesthe irresistible march of events-the influence of national sympathies and religion-the power of territorial positions, will have their inevi

*As we have not taken any extracts from M. de Lamartine's chapters on his residence in European Turkey, we may probably make his third volume the subject of a separate article in a future number of this Journal-and then examine in detail some of the startling statements now quoted from his concluding essay. N 2

table

table effect: Russia will occupy the coasts of the Black Sea and Constantinople-the Black Sea is a Russian lake, of which Constantinople is the key; Austria will spread herself over Servia, Bulgaria, and Macedonia, to keep pace with Russia; France, England, and Greece, after disputing the road for some time, will respectively take possession of Egypt, Syria, Cyprus, and the Islands. The effect will be the same; but, meanwhile, torrents of blood will have flowed by sea and land; the chances of battle will have substituted forced and arbitrary, for natural and rational division of territory; years of useful colonization will have been lost; and during these perhaps lengthened years, Turkey in Europe and Asia will have been the prey of anarchy and incalculable calamities.'-p. 372-374.

M. de Lamartine appears to us to be rather innocently in the dark as to the past and present policy of Russia-into that wide subject, however, we shall not now enter. But he has no political or religious hostility to the Turks themselves :-he does ample justice to their nobler qualities:

As a race of men, they are still, in my estimation, the first and most worthy amongst the numerous races that people their vast empire; their character is the noblest and most dignified, their courage is unimpeachable, and their virtues, religious, civil, and domestic, are calculated to inspire every martial mind with esteem and admiration. Magnanimity is inscribed on their foreheads, and displayed in their actions if they had better laws and a more enlightened government, they would be one of the greatest peoples the world has seen. their instincts are generous. They are a people of patriarchs, of contemplatists, of adorers, of philosophers,-and when their cause is that of religion, they are a people of heroes and martyrs. God forbid that I should instigate the extermination of such a race, whom I believe to confer honour on humanity! But as a nation they are, or soon will be, no more.'-vol. iii. pp. 380, 381.

With the destiny of nations, as with that of individuals—
Prudens futuri temporis exitum
Caliginosâ nocte premit Deus.

All

But certainly, whether by colonization from the west, which our author seems to think might disburthen its redundant population on these once fertile regious-(he even suggests a plan of settling a colony of French agriculturists on the rich plains of Zebulon)-or by the development of the native races, under the protection of some one, or of a congress of the European powers, as proposed by our poetic statesman-or by the action of some purely native influence as yet undeveloped-it is impossible to doubt but that many years will hardly pass without some remarkable changes being wrought in these countries, which have long slumbered in peaceful, but not we conceive happy ignorance of political vicissitude; which have known no other alteration than the rule of a more or less tyrannical Pasha, the more lax or severer exaction of the taxes levied by a distant and haughty government.

ART.

ART. VIII-Yarrow Revisited, and other Poems. By William Wordsworth. 12mo. pp. 349. London. 1835.

WE

to us.

E so recently called the attention of our readers to what appear to us to be the characteristic features of Mr. Wordsworth's poetry, that our present notice is of course strictly confined to the contents of the beautiful volume before us. Nor, circumstanced as we are, can we enter into the merits even of this single volume with the particularity which would be so delightful The truth is, that a publication like this is almost without the reach of periodical criticism; it wants nothing from us in the way of advertisement: every mature lover of poetry already possesses it as a matter of course; and when we simply say, that in our judgment it worthily supports an established fame, we say what may be acceptable to those younger persons who do us the honour to look for our opinion, but which to the poet himself can only be, as it is designed to be, a tribute of our unfeigned admiration and respect.

We said that this volume supported the author's fame; in point of fact, we think it will add to it. There is, as it seems to us, a spirit of elegance in these poems, more prominently and uniformly prevailing, than in any equal portion of Mr. Wordsworth's former works. We mean an elegance, such as Quinctilian ascribes to several of the Greek and Roman writers-'a nobleness of thought and feeling made vocal in perfectly pure and appropriate language.' It struck us at first as being an odd remark of Coleridge's, that Goethe and Wordsworth were something alike: the point of resemblance mentioned by him is beside our present purpose; but we have been exceedingly impressed with what that obiter dictum led us to notice--the similarity of some of the smaller pieces of these great poets in an almost sculptural precision of outline-a completeness and totality of impression rarely to be found elsewhere in the modern literature of Europe. Take as an instance this little poem :

'A JEWISH FAMILY.

(In a small valley opposite St. Goar, upon the Rhine.)

'Genius of Raphael! if thy wings

Might bear thee to this glen,
With faithful memory left of things
To pencil dear and pen,

Thou wouldst forego the neighbouring
And all his majesty,

A studious forehead to incline

O'er this poor family.

[Rhine,

'The Mother-her thou must have seen,

In spirit, ere she came

To dwell these rifted rocks between,
Or found on earth a name ;

An image, too, of that sweet Boy,

Thy inspirations give:

Of playfulness, and love, and joy,
Predestined here to live.

'Downcast, or shooting glances far,
How beautiful his eyes,

That blend the nature of the star
With that of summer skies!
I speak as if of sense beguiled;
Uncounted months are gone,
Yet am I with the Jewish Child,
That exquisite Saint John.

We have marked in italics a quatrain which will fix itself for ever in every memory; nor need less be predicted of the three that we subjoin from "The Russian Fugitive'-perhaps the most elegant narrative poem that ever came from the pen of this poet

-pp. 133, 134. We venture to say that our ballad-stanza-that stanza for which in skilful hands nothing is too lofty-was never made the vehicle of more exquisite poetry than in the lines entitled

INCIDENT AT BRUGES.