The mistress of his strain

Doth answer with her song, "I love again."
The kine that folded in their pastures low
Responsive ardors woo.

The lion roars in the wood
With bellowings not of ire;

Thus then does love inspire,

In fine, each living thing,

Save, Silvio, thee.

In heaven, and earth,

Shall Silvio be alone,
and sea,

A soul that feels not love?

Ah! then, forsake the woods,

Fond boy, forsake the chase, and learn to love.

CHORUS IN ACT IV.

CANZONE.

BLEST golden age, when men

From milk their nurture drew;

In the young world, in woodland cradle reared;

The tender offspring then

Of the herd around them grew,

Nor sword nor mortal venom then was feared.

Nor cloudy thoughts and bleared

Veiled then the eternal light,

The sun of nature pure;

Now reason, 'mid obscure

Dim mists of sense, doth hide the heavens with night.

And hence the wandering tree

Seeks stranger lands and ploughs the troubled sea.

That pompous sound and vain,

That idle theme for all,

Blazoned by flattery, titles, empty show

Which the multitude insane

And ignorant, honor call,

Then was not tyrant of the mind below.

But pain to undergo,

For that enjoyment true

And homefelt bliss, that sprung

Their groves and herds among,

And faith to sacred laws was all they knew
By honor's name; well taught

Their lawful joys to prize, by honest thought.

'Mid meads and runnels clear,

Sly Sport and frolic Jest

In the path of honest love their torches lit;
And nymphs and swains sincere

In speech their hearts exprest;

And bonds of joy and rapture Hymen knit,
As stronger as more sweet.
For one alone, unveiled,
Love's cherished roses blew,

Close hid from furtive view

Of passion unavowed, whose inquest failed

By cavern, mere, and grove;

And it was one sole name, marriage, and love.

O guilty age! which hides

With pleasures gross and base

The soul's true beauty; and for vice secure

A formal cloak provides

Of the dissembled face;

While uncontrolled rove secret thoughts impure!

Like that extended lure,

'Mid flowers and leaves which lies,

Thou low desires dost screen

With holy, modest mien;

Virtue, thou deemest show, and life, disguise:

Nay, most thyself dost laud

For love betrayed, if secret be the fraud.

But thou inform our souls

With longings high and fair,

True honor, dowery of the noble mind!

And thou! whose power controls

Kings, to this nook repair,

Since without thee, no bliss attends mankind.

"Tis thy quick promptings bind

The tangled threads of fate;

The grovelling wish that tires,
Following thy guiding fires,

Forsakes all ancestry revered as great.

Yet, sometimes, truce from ill,

Let us expect, if hope be with us still.

Let us hope. The sun that sets is born anew,
And heaven's most sombre hue

Serene, unclouded glory oft breaks through.

THE WIDOW.

S.

"But now will canker sorrow eat my bud,

And chase the native beauty from his cheek,
And he will look as hollow as a ghost;

As dim and meagre as an ague's fit;

And so he 'll die."

SHE said she was alone within the world :

How could she but be sad!

She whispered something of a lad,

With eyes of blue and light hair sweetly curled

But the grave had the child!

And yet his voice she heard,

When at the lattice, calm and mild,

The mother in the twilight saw the vine-leaves stirred.

66 Mother,"
"it seemed to say,

"I love thee;

When thou dost by the side of thy lone pillow pray,

My spirit writes the words above thee ;

Mother, I watch o'er thee-I love thee."

Where was the husband of that widowed thing;
That seraph's earthly sire?

A soldier dares a soldier's fire;

The murderous ball brought death upon

Beneath a foreign sky.

He fell in sunny Spain;

The wife, in silence, saw him die,

its wing,

But the blue eyes of the fond boy gave drops like rain. "Mother," the poor lad cried,

"He's dying!

We are close by thee, father-at thy bleeding side-
Dost thou not hear thy Arthur crying ?—
Mother, his lids are closed-he 's dying!"

It was a stormy time when the man fell;
And the youth shrunk and pined;

Consumption's worm his pulse entwined

66

Prepare his shroud," rung out the convent bell.
Yet, through his pain he smiled,

To sooth a parent's grief:

Sad soul! she could not be beguiled:

She saw the bud must quit its guardian leaf!

"Mother," he faintly said,

"Come near me

Kiss me and let me in my father's grave be laid-
I've prayed for thee, and God will hear me-
Mother, I'll come again and cheer thee!"

VOL. II.

59

C. E. E.

CRITICAL NOTICES.

A Practical System of Rhetoric; or the Principles and Rules of Style, inferred from Examples of Writing. By SAMUEL P. NEWMAN, Professor of Rhetoric in Bowdoin College. Portland. Wm. Hyde. 1827.

MILTON, in his plan of a "complete and generous education," assigns a place to rhetoric; but it is one of the last studies to which he wishes the attention should be directed. After the pupils are initiated in the sciences, law, politics, and theology, now lastly," says he, "it will be time to read with them those organic arts which enable men to discourse and write perspicuously, elegantly, and according to the fitted style of lofty, mean, or lowly. Logic, therefore, is to be referred to this due place, with all her well couched heads and topics, until it is time to open her contracted palm into a graceful and ornate rhetoric." For ourselves, we would add, that the study of grammar should be deferred till the same time, and referred to the same due place. The book of Professor Newman, however, is evidently intended for an earlier age, and those who wish to introduce their pupils to this study at the usual period, will find it more useful and intelligible than the one in common use.

The "Lectures" of Blair, "designed to initiate youth into the study of belles lettres and of composition," occupy an immense field of metaphysical and historical criticism. They are, indeed, full of valuable critical remarks and literary information; but they are, in our opinion, much better suited for one who has finished the course of elementary education, than for one yet in the gristle of literary youth. The " Abridgment" extends over the whole ground of the original; the omissions being principally in the amplifications and developement (if we may use an unauthorized intruder into modern English) of the principles, or in the examples which serve to prove and illustrate those principles; and we have no hesitation in saying, that it is far beyond the capacity of those by whom it is commonly studied.

The plan of Professor Newman is more limited. It is to establish and explain the principles of style; to point out the true means of writing well, and of judging correctly of the merit of literary productions. In pursuing this plan, the author is led to examine the standard of literary taste, its nature and objects; to explain what are called the figures of rhetoric; to show the