VARIETY.

Sir Walter Scott.-A subscription has been opened at Glasgow for the erection of a monument to the memory of Sir Walter Scott in that city. Above a thousand pounds was immediately put down.

Cape de Verd Islands.-Among the uncommon phenomena of nature which have been observed during the few last years, we have to mention the almost utter failure of vegetation this season in the Cape de Verd Islands; alas, how ill applied a name! There has been no rain, and the drought has dried up every thing of the earth's produce, from the lowly blade of grass to the leaf of the lofty tree. It is four years since the rains were copious enough; and the aggravated evil is now witnessed in the animals perishing, and the natives (in number from 60,000 to 70,000) in a state of famine.

Literature in Germany.-The last number of the general catalogue of books, published every six months at Leipsic, contains 2,322 new publications; and as the foregoing rumber of the catalogue has but 320 works fewer, the sum of the books published last year in Germany amounts to 4004! which number surpasses that of the yearly publications of England and France taken collectively.

Synopsis of Stenography.-Stenography, if we may judge from the frequent receipt of productions in that way, must be very sedulously cultivated by a number of professors. The present performance is on the face of a large sheet, by Mr. Sigston, of Leeds, has a portrait of the king, to whom it is dedicated, and contains an alphabet, rules, specimens of writing, &c. &c. The plan seems to be simple and useful.

The United Kingdom.-Among the efforts to attract popularity, to which, amid the rival contentions of periodical journals, the emulous often resort, by giving portraits, political tables, prints, extra sheets, &c. &c. to their readers, we have been struck with an ingenious device adopted by The United Kingdom newspaper, namely the presentation, to every subscriber of three months' standing, of a capital map of London, worth, we should think, more than the amount of their subscription. It is extremely well executed on a scale of above 34 inches by 20; and bordered with engravings of 33 of the principal buildings of the metropolis.

just reached us with three title-page, all of a row; We daresay it is a nice oracle before we commit

The Lady's Penny Gazette.-No. 1. has ladies, a cap, and a bonnet, at the top of the and music and finery besides in other pages. lady's bargain, but must consult some female ourselves.

Captain Skinner, who was lately drowned off Holyhead, served in the navy with great distinction, and having lost an arm and an eye in the service, he was appointed to a packet, and resided at Holyhead, where his hospitality unbounded charity, and kindness of heart, won hin the affection of all who came within his circle. Captain Skinner

was always chosen to convey the Viceroys to and from Ireland, and had the honor of rendering the same duty to the late King, who expressed himself highly pleased with his urbanity and attention. Captain Skinner was brother to Lady Nugent, wife of General Sir George Nugent, who with a numerous circle of relations and friends, deplore his death.

Countess of Jersey.-The sentiments of Lord Byron relative to the personal attractions of the Countess of Jersey (as expressed in his Condolatory Address to her Ladyship, on the Prince Regent's returning her picture to Mrs. Mee') corresponds perfectly with that of the Emperor Alexander of Russia, who declared that the Countess of Jersey was the only lady he had seen, in his triumphal march, who came up to his preconceived ideal of beauty. It is no mean praise to have won the meed of loveliness from the greatest Poet and the greatest Sovereign of her day. We may add, that the purity of her life is more universally acknowledged than that of her charms; as on the latter, the diversity of tastes night give rise to different notions, but, on the former, there can be but one opinion.

The Jews. It is stated in the Anglo-Germanic Advertiser (but we know not if on sufficient authority, or merely a rumor picked up from an eastern attendant at Leipsic fair), that the descendants of the lost ten tribes of Israel are to be found in Li Bucharia. They are said to amount to ten millions, to speak the language of Thibet, to observe the rite of circumcision, to keep the kipour, and to have readers and elders like the original Jewish people.

Phenomenon. On Monday week, in the afternoon, two or three waterspouts were visible at the same time off the North Foreland. One was funnel-shape, and estimated to be nearly 800 feet high. The wind was blowing fresh from the north, and the atmosphere surcharged with dark rain-clouds. Heavy thunder and lightning accompanied this extraordinary appearance, and the sea was affected for more than a mile.

M. Cuvier. The French nation is doing for Cuvier what the British people are doing for Sir Walter Scott, raising a subscription to perpetuate his memory by a visible and lasting monument. The managing committee have invited the authors of works on natural history, and other scientific writers of celebrity, to contribute copies of their works in aid of the fund; and they make an earnest appeal to all who feel the immense void created in the literary world by the loss of their great contemporary.

Inverkeithing. In the battle of Inverkeithing, between the royalists and Oliver Cromwell's troops, a foster-father and seven brothers are known to have thus sacrificed themselves for Sir Hector Maclean of Duart the old man, whenever one of his boys fell, thrusting forward another to fill his place at the right hand of the beloved chief, with the very words adopted in the novel, Another for Hector!'

THE ATHENEUM.

MARCH, 1833.

LYRICAL POETRY, BY PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

THE CLOUD.

I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers,
From the seas and from the streams;

I bear light shade for the leaves when laid
In their noonday dreams.

From my wings are shaken the dews that waken
The sweet birds every one,

When rocked to rest on their mother's breast,
As she dances about the sun.

I wield the flail of the lashing hail,

And whiten the green plains under,
And then again I dissolve it in rain,
And laugh as I pass in thunder.
I sift the snow on the mountains below,
And their great pines groan aghast;
And all the night 'tis my pillow white,

While I sleep in the arms of the blast.

Sublime on the towers of my skiey bowers,
Lightning my pilot sits

In a cavern under is fettered the thunder,
It struggles and howls at fits;

Over earth and ocean, with gentle motion,
This pilot is guiding me,

Lured by the love of the genii that move

In the depths of the purple sea;

Over the rills, and the crags, and the hills,
Over the lakes and the plains,

Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream,
The Spirit he loves remains;

And I all the while bask in heaven's blue smile,
Whilst he is dissolving in rains.

The sanguine sunrise, with his meteor eyes,
And his burning plumes outspread,

Leaps on the back of my sailing rack,

When the morning star shines dead;

As on the jag of a mountain crag,

Which an earthquake rocks and swings,

An eagle alit one moment may sit

In the light of its golden wings.

And when sunset may breathe, from the lit sea beneath
Its ardors of rest and of love,

And the crimson pall of eve may fall

From the depth of heaven above,

With wings folded I rest on mine airy nest,
As still as a brooding dove.

That orbed maiden with white fire laden,
Whom mortals call the moon,

Glides glimmering o'er my fleece-like floor,
By the midnight breezes strewn;
And wherever the beat of her unseen feet,
Which only the angels hear,

May have broken the woof of my tent's thin roof,
The stars peep behind her and peer;

And I laugh to see them whirl and flee,
Like a swarm of golden bees,

When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent,
Till the calm rivers, lakes, and seas,

Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high,
Are each paved with the moon and these.

I bind the sun's throne with a burning zone,
And the moon's with a girdle of pearl;
The volcanoes are dim, and the stars reel and swim,
When the whirlwinds my banner unfurl.
From cape to cape, with a bridge-like shape,
Over a torrent sea,

Sunbeam-proof, I hang like a roof,

The mountains its columns be.

The triumphal arch through .hich I march
With hurricane, fire, and snow,

When the powers of the air are chained to my chair,
Is the million-colored bow;

The sphere-fire above its soft colors wove,

While the moist earth was laughing below.

I am the daughter of earth and water,
And the nursling of the sky;

I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores;
I change, but I cannot die.

For after the rain when, with never a stain,

The pavilion of heaven is bare,

And the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleams,

Build up the blue dome of air,

I silently laugh at my own cenotaph,

And out of the caverns of rain,

Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb,

I arise and unbuild it again.

The following exquisite lines will be acknowledged by all to belong to the class under which we have ranked them. But let the song speak for itself.

Mixed with hail, specked their path To his voice the mad weather,

Beauty comes most fitly after terror, like sunshine after storm.