And floods of fire, which from the crater poured,
A glare surpassing day awhile restored.
Again earth shook; again the fearful sound
Of earth's convulsions mortal wailings drown'd.
Low huts and palaces, where once the great
Had striven the wealth of Rome to emulate,
In equal ruin lay, and fortune gave

To their inhabitants an equal grave.

When that dread stroke had passed, the plaints of man In mournful echoes through the city ran,

And crowds o'erwhelm'd with more than mortal dread,
With aimless speed in wild confusion fled

Whither they knew not-but though dark the way,
And dangers thronged the path, 'twas death to stay.
Then came the time of horror-all the air
Was burthen'd with the wailings of despair;
The hearts of men beat wildly, and the dead

Were deem'd more blest than those who living fled.
Some silent stood, like statues of distress,
Alone in the chang'd world—and motionless
From an excess of sorrow :-others, wild
At loss of all who life's dark hours beguiled,
Knelt down and struggl'd with a maniac's force,
To rake the ashes from the buried corse.
Yet some there were, who even wept to fly
The home where they had dwelt from infancy;
Who grieved in danger, even thus, to part
From all the mute companions of the heart;
And madly lingered in the fatal scene,

Which once the home of one beloved had been.
Wilder and fiercer on the midnight blast,

Dense showers of stones the roaring mountain cast,
And floods of lava in o'erwhelming tide,
Roll'd like an ocean down its trembling side.
The flying crowds the coming torrent hear,
As to the shore they rush on wings of fear,
All save a few lost creatures, who betray'd
By some vain hope their safety still delay'd:
But who can speak their feelings, or the pain
Which shot like poison'd arrows through their brain!
What mortal tongue these victims' phrenzy tell,
When showers of stones like hissing demons fell,
Through the illumined ether—as it came
In one vast ocean of destroying fame,

And gathering round them its impervious cloud,
Wrapp'd them to death within a fiery shroud?

'Twas transient agony-the torrent ran

With fierce destruction 'midst the haunts of man;
One shriek, one shudder, as its bright wave pass'd,
That shriek, that shudder, was the suff'rer's last;
Silence ensued, the stifling gloom pass'd o'er,
Pompeii and its towers were seen no more;
Man and his works from thence had pass'd away,
And in one field of desolation lay —

Now palaces are ruins, and where rose
The arch of triumph, lo! the rank weed grows;
Their broken statues, wrought by God-like hands,
Worshipp'd no more, are borne to other lands.
Yet strangers gazing through the mists of time,
Long caught a vision of their haunts sublime,
Some story of a hero, or a sage,

The fearful scourge, or father of his age,
Men whose vast spirits for their faults atone,
And make the hist'ry of their land their own.
But not a tale was left us, not a trace
Of those who held on earth a humble place,
The countless thousands who are born and die,
In the blest shadow of obscurity,

Our common equals—who, of tranquil mind,
Sought not the means to subjugate mankind;
The power to slay—that certain hire of fame,
Or won by crime a worse than worthless name.
Such were forgotten! till like one o'er whom
The loathsome shadows of an early tomb,
Had closed before the soul had passed away,
Or left for heaven its tenement of clay-
A thing still beautiful, though death and life
Seem'd in its form to hold a fearful strife,
Pompeii burst the shroud which long had bound
Its fetter'd limbs beneath volcanic ground;
And in its halls, as in a sacred page,
Disclosed the secrets of a distant age.

Beautiful city! record of a time
Where art and nature were alike sublime,
Whilst still beneath the same unclouded skies
I see thee stand, the ghost of centuries.
Shades of the past throng round me, and display
The forms of those long mould'ring to decay;
The graves give up their dead, unto the skies
The fumes of incense from thine altars rise;
The Roman banners are again unfurled,

Her sons once more the masters of the world;
I hear around the voices of the brave,

Speak in their deathless language from the grave;
The hum of men is murm'ring in thy streets,
Sweet music echoes from thy green retreats,
And mortal passions, to my sight again
Enact their tragedy of varied pain.

But soon the vision passes, and the scene
Seems but the skeleton of what hath been;
A spot by nature's strife in ruin cast,
And long by time forgotten as the past;

Till sculptured tombs, of those beneath proclaim
Nought to mankind but some forgotten name,
And crumbling with the palace side by side,
Proclaim the vanity of human pride.

SCARCITY OF BOOKS IN THE MIDDLE AGES.

In estimating the literary spirit of these ages, we are apt to overlook the exceeding paucity of books. Men could not then, as now, resort to the well-furnished shelves; they had not abstracts, or condensations of works, prepared for them by professional reviewers. Their study was one of toil; books were beyond the reach of all but the rich, or of religious communities; and they were often so few in number, that we may wonder, and justly wonder, how, with so few auxiliaries, writers could so fluently quote, not only the models of antiquity, but the best productions of the middle ages. If transcription could easily be procured, parchments could not. We smile at perceiving a few volumes dignified with the pompous name of library. That of John de Pontissara, Bishop of Winchester, in the thirteenth century, consisted of seventeen only. But then he borrowed from the communities. Thus, from the monastery of St. Swithin, he borrowed "Biblia bene Glossata," in two folio volumes; and the value set upon it appears from a bond which he was compelled to give for its safe return. That very Bible had been bequeathed to the community by his predecessor; and it, with the accompanying bequest of 100 marks, was thought valuable enough to found a chantry for the repose of his soul. Fearful were the curses-and ecclesiastics have always been hearty cursers -passed on all who should presume to alienate a book from any monastic library. Every year, the prior and convent of Rochester pronounced excommunication against any one who,

during the following year, should conceal or injure the Physics of Aristotle. A book was often bequeathed with this condition, that the receiver pray for the soul of the donor; and that, on the death of the former, it should either revert to the family of the original owner, or pass to some other person. It was often entailed with as much solemnity as the most valuable estate. Thus, at the commencement of a breviary of the Bible, there is a memorial by the donor:-"I, Philip, late Bishop of Lincoln, give this book, called Petrus de Aureolis, to the new library about to be built in the church of Lincoln; reserving the use and possession of the said book to Richard Fryerby, clerk, canon, and prebendary of Milton, to hold in fee, for the term of his natural life: and afterwards to revert to the said library, or its keepers for the time being, faithfully and without delay." The purchase of a book was often a matter of so much importance, that persons of consideration were assembled as witnesses on the occasion. Thus, an archdeacon of Leicester has written in Peter the Lombard's Liber Sententiarum,-" This Book of Sentences belongs to M. Rogers, Archdeacon of Lincoln, who bought it from Geoffrey, the chaplin, brother of Henry, Vicar of Northalkington, in presence of Master John de Lee, of Master John de Liring, of Richard of Luda, clerk, of Richard the Almoner, of the said Vicar Henry and his clerk, and many others. And the said archdeacon gave this book to God and St. Oswald, to the prior and convent of Barden." Books were of so much value that they were often pledged to learned bodies; and when they were lent a deposit was left on them. Thus, Oxford had a chest for books thus pledged, which, if not redeemed by a given day, became the property of the university. After the invention of paper, indeed, they were muliplied in greater numbers; but still they remained beyond the means of ordinary individuals. The price was often enormous. facts, it may be said, imply a very low state of literature, yet such an inference would be at variance with truth. They prove, indeed, that laymen, unless very wealthy, must pass their lives without much intellectual relaxation; and we accordingly find very few lay names in our literary history; but the libraries of religious communities afforded a sufficient source for learning. A multitude of books is not favourable to either imagination or close thinking, perhaps not even to erudition. Where they are few, they are not only carefully read, but pondered; not only swallowed, but digested. A thing is generally valued in proportion to its rarity and it is possible that a multiplicity of volumes may, instead of exciting ardour, produce satiety. What, however, was deficient in one

:

These

library, might be supplied from the abundance of another. Nothing was so common as the loan of a book, except a journey-often a distant journey-to consult or transcribe one. Let the scarcity, however, have been what it may, one thing is undoubted,—that many of the monastic fraternity could boast of an erudition which would do honour to the present age. Often have we found, in the space of two or three pages, fifty or sixty different authorities cited. Thus, Roger Bacon, in one page, refers to Aristotle, Cicero, Seneca, St. Cyprian, St. Augustin, St. Isidore, St. Jerome, and others; in another, to Averroes, Avicenes, St. Thomas Aquinas, and other commentators on or expounders of the great Stagyrite.

D. LANDON.

THE WATER LILY.

(From Scenes and Hymns of Life, by MRS. HEMANS.

OH! beautiful thou art,

Thou sculpture-like and stately river queen!
Crowning the depths, as with the light serene
Of a pure heart.

Bright lily of the wave!

Rising in fearless grace with every swell,
Thou seem'st as if a spirit meekly brave
Dwelt in thy cell.

Lifting alike thy head

Of placid beauty, feminine, yet free,
Whether with foam or pictured azure spread
The waters be.

What is like thee, fair flower,

The gentle and the firm thus bearing up
To the blue sky that alabaster cup,
As to the shower?

Oh! Love is most like thee,

The love of woman; quivering to the blast
Through every nerve, yet rooted deep and fast,
Midst Life's dark sea.

And Faith-O, is not Faith
Like thee too, lily, springing into light,
Still buoyantly, above the billow's might,
Through the storm's breath?

Yes, link'd with such high thought,
Flower, like thine image in my bosom lie,
Till something there of its own purity
And peace be wrought.

Something yet more divine

Than the clear, pearly, virgin lustre shed
Forth from thy breast upon the river's bed,
As from a shrine.