THE author had resolved to omit the following version of a well-known poem, in any collection which he might make of his poetical trifles But the publishers having pleaded for its admission, the author has consented, though not unaware of the disadvantage at which this youthful essay (for it was written in 1795) must appear with those which have been executed by much more able hands, in particular that of Mr Taylor of Norwich, and that of Mr Spencer.

The following translation was written long before the author saw any other, and originated in the following circumstances. A lady of high rank in the literary world read this romantic tale, as translated by Mr Taylor, in the house of the celebrated Professor Dugald Stewart of Edinburgh. The author was not present, nor indeed in Edinburgh at the time; but a gentleman, who had the pleasure of hearing the ballad, afterwards told him the story, and repeated the remarkable chorus

The furious barb snorts fire and foam,

And, with a fearful bound, Dissolves at once in empty air,

And leaves her on the ground.

Half seen by fits, by fits half heard,
Pale spectres fleet along,

Wheel round the maid in dismal dance,
And howl the funeral song:

«Even when the heart's with anguish cleft,
Revere the doom of Heaven.»
Her soul is from her body reft;
Her spirit be forgiven.

THE BATTLE OF SEMPACH.

THESE verses are a literal translation of an ancient Swiss ballad upon the battle of Sempach, fought 9th July, 1386, being the victory by which the Swiss cantons established their independence. The author is Albert Tehudi, denominated the Souter, from his profession of a shoemaker. He was a citizen of Lucerne, esteemed highly among his countrymen, both for his powers as a Meister-singer or minstrel, and his courage as a soldier; so that he might share the praise conferred by Collins on Eschylus, that

-Not alone he nursed the poet's flame,

But reach'd from Virtue's hand the patriot steel. The circumstance of their being written by a poet returning from the well-fought field he describes, and in which his country's fortune was secured, may confer on Tchudi's verses an interest which they are not entitled to claim from their poetical merit. But ballad poetry, the more literally it is translated, the more it loses its simplicity, without acquiring either grace or strength; and therefore some of the faults of the verses must be imputed to the translator's feeling it a duty to keep as closely as possible to his original. The various puns, rude attempts at pleasantry, and disproportioned episodes, must be set down to Tchudi's account, or to the taste of his age.

The military antiquary will derive some amusement from the minute particulars which the martial poet has recorded. The mode in which the Austrian men-atarms received the charge of the Swiss was by forming a phalanx, which they defended with their long lances. The gallant Winkelried, who sacrificed his own life by rushing among the spears, clasping in his arms as many as he could grasp, and thus opening a gap in these iron battalions, is celebrated in Swiss history. When fairly mingled together, the unwieldy length of their weapons, aud cumbrous weight of their defensive armour, rendered the Austrian men-at-arms a very unequal match for the light-armed mountaineers. The victories obtained by the Swiss over the German chivalry, hitherto deemed as formidable on foot as on horseback, led to important changes in the art of war. The poet describes the Austrian knights and squires as cutting the peaks from their boots ere they could act upon foot, in allusion to an inconvenient piece of foppery, often mentioned in the middle ages. Leopold III.