And lightly passing, tier on tier, along The gradual pinions, vanish'd like a smile! "Knew ye this beggar?" "Knew! a wretch, who died Then did I muse:-Such are men's judgments;-blind Now, in this beautiful poem the author certainly rises into a higher and a sublimer atmosphere than the region of fancy; but, before he has been there long, we find it is not his proper element; and the strange and poor conclusion of this passage, shows us that he cannot sustain a lengthened flight. The middle air is his real home. We would not say to him, stay there, and be satisfied: we believe him capable-indeed he shows himself capable, of soaring higher. God forbid that the wings of genius should be clipped; let it mount, like the eagle, towards the sun; but its early flights must be brief, lest it droop, and fall, and die. Let it first gather strength in its native air-let it fly where it cannot fall, and then, when it mounts into a higher and purer atmosphere, its pinions will be strong, and its course will be glorious. Some of Bulwer's Fancies are exceedingly beautiful; the following particularly so: "It were a sight to lift the soul of Genius from the Hour, To see the life of Genius smile upon the death of Power!" "He saw the long procession sweep of those sublimer things Which Youth had hoped that Time should raise from Song's enchanted strings." "Oh! how prays Despair, When nought is left for Hope?" "Perchance, the haunted Past along, "The lore that Hellas taught to Rome, The wealth that Wisdom works from Time." Here is a longer and a truly "elegant" extract: THE BEAUTIFUL DESCENDS NOT. IN Cyprus, looking on the lovely sky, Lone by the marge of music-haunted streams, A rushing Presence rapt him as he pray'd. The midnight heard him sighing to the shade,— Who wooes the gods above to earth below; And not the Beautiful debased to thee!" We think that the finest thing in the book is the last, "The Desire of Fame;" we print it entire : THE DESIRE OF FAME. I DO confess that I have wish'd to give Do I lament that I have seen the bays Denied my own, not worthier brows above? Do I lament that roseate youth has flown In the hard labour grudged its niggard meed, No!-for whoever, with an earnest soul, Better than Fame is still the wish for Fame, He who desires the conquest over Time I thank thee, Hope, if vain, all blessed still, And what is Fame but Faith in holy things To gladden earth with beauty, or men's lives And is not this a Sister-Hope with thee, Does not God's smile light Heaven, on earth to see No!-I lament not-though these leaves may fall If vain for others—not in vain for me!— Who builds an altar let him worship there! Enough if, haply, in the after-days, When by the altar sleeps the funeral stone- When Calumny its prey can wound no more, Or, if yon children, whose young sounds of glee Of not all-perished song; Taking some spark to glad the hearth, or light The student-lamp from now-neglected fires ;— What-I forgive the Sires! The calmness of this passage is very fine, it is the calmness of power, and speaks of hidden might as unmistakeably as a quiet sea. It comes from the author's heart, too; and we value it more than anything else in the book, because it shows us that Bulwer is, in his soul, a great and good poet, and a man of fine and noble sympathies. We have but little more to say. As to the larger poems, "Eva," and "The Ill-omened Marriage," to which, it may be thought, we should have devoted ourselves more particularly, we shall pass them by, not only because we feel that we have already said enough, but chiefly because we think them the worst things in the book. No doubt there is power in the first, and poetry in the last; but the subjects are ill-chosen, and the passion is weak. "The Ill-omened Marriage" indeed, becomes absolutely tedious and uninteresting before the reader is halfway through it; and to us it seems-it may be only fancy, it may be lack of perception, but still to us it seems-that the versification of this poem is exceedingly careless and uneven. However the book is a treasure as times go; and in parting from it, we heartily thank its gifted author for the pleasure he has afforded us, and we hope soon again to see him in the character of a poet. Critica Novazealandica Futura. A notable and right-marvellous edition of the Melodrame of Old Mother Hubbard, foreseen in the Vista of Futurity by the Telescopic art of that most erudite Doctor ALFRAGANUS TRISMEGISTUS. To be published in the country of New-Zealand, A. D. 3211, and now pre brought forth for the edification of the English reader. The British anteprint, Second Edition. Grant, Cambridge; and Chapman and Hall, London. No one probably has ever succeeded in travelling through his academical course without bitterly regretting that the most clear and exquisite writers have been so belaboured by criticisms, so overwhelmed by learned dulness, so darkened by explanations, as to render it a matter of more difficulty to discover the author's meaning after reading the annotations than before. Many have been perfectly disheartened under the task, and have thrown up in disgust the study of the classic authors, lest they should becloud their mental vision, or stupify their understandings, by the dust which these critics have managed to raise up about them. Others, like the author of this little work, have turned from their studies with a determination of taking revenge upon their tormentors, by caricaturing in strains of lively banter those muddy-headed Doctissimi who bring their taper lights "the beauteous arch of Heaven to garnish;" while the smoke and stench which they emit, serve only to deter us from beholding its loveliness. We might instance Brunk, the heavy German, or Barnes, "the learned Theban," as he was called, or Bentley, so felicitously christened by Pope "the slashing Bentley" and we think that the edge of the satire might be applied with equal force upon such piddling commentators as Stevens and Malone, those simplifiers of Shakspere, "gilders of refined gold," and "painters of the lily." Nor must we omit the erudite Porson, who with knowledge vast and critical acumen almost unparalleled, devotes his powers, not to make clear and comprehensible his authors, not to display the force and elegance of the language of the Greek, but to invent rules which be asserts the Dramatists always did observe, and then collecting all the instances in which they did not observe them, he coolly corrects them. "O! thou Goth! thou tailor! who darest, with the shears of thine impertinence, thus to mutilate and disfigure, those whom thou shouldest reverence and adore." We receive this learned edition of the adventures of the far-famed Matron with open arms, and rejoice in it as in the appearance of an old and jovial friend. The author in writing thus proleptically, would teach the race of Commentators how absurd their discussions and opinions must appear, if submitted to those whose manners and language they undertake to explain. It is dedicated by the Commentator, who lives, or rather will live in the year A. D. 3211, to the Professor of English at the University of Kilcockotroni, and indicates the possession of a most profound knowledge of the state of England in the dark and barbarous ages in which this Melodrame appears, or rather will appear, to have been written. His accomplished mind has penetrated the mist of antiquity, and has peopled with "familiar faces" an age hitherto enveloped in obscurity; the past and the present are alike open to his all-powerful gaze. He has rescued from forgetfulness the fame of men, who flourished in that period when the occupier of the woolsack wrote Penny Magazines, when the fatal errors of the Protestant Faith gave way to an enlightened antiorderly-revolutionary-act-as-you-please-no-government equality principle. As a specimen of neat burlesque upon the fulsome compliments which annotators are so fond of paying to their favourites, we extract the following laudation which the astute New-Zealander bestows upon the learned critic, Bilitinka, to whom the "opuscule" is dedicated. "He possesseth every qualification which could be needed in such an undertaking to ensure his success; erudition, sagacity, a justness of discernment, a contempt for others, and admiration for himself, an outrageous and passionate love for his author, and a vehement thirst to be beneficial to mankind. His Commentary is crowded with every species of elegance and learning; his Preface is as brisk as soda water, and his very Index is as entertaining as an Eastern tale,' or even one of the Oxford Tracts. But I will not trust myself to speak of his merits, lest I should appear to have an eye to the rich Fellowship which is in his gift; yet I cannot forbear to mention by what innumerable ties of friendship I am bound to him. As children we were carried about in the same arms; and the diminutive wheels of our infantile go-carts learned to revolve in gentle unison side by side. We played together as boys; and the tops and marbles of Bilitinka and Fuzwiska were always a common stock. We read together as youths, and our very apartments at Kilcockotroni were as undivided as our hearts;-for of a truth, being somewhat needy, we did agree one of us to sleep under the bed of the other, seeing that the area of our couch was not extensive enough for two;- and not only were we linked together closely by the bond of friendship and poverty, but also agitated by the mutual incitements of the most honourable emulation. He then, to whose intimacy I have been indebted for so much of the little pleasure with which the hard and studious life of a scholar is relieved-he whose singular fidelity and most rare integrity have been so well known, and so often proved by others as well as by myself (for, verily, in the case of his cribbing another man's gown, it was not until his own was too tattered to wear, as was fully proved at the trial); he, I say, will, I feel certain, rejoice when he learneth that his ancient chum hath gleaned a few ears from the plenteous harvest which his edition doth afford." This passage is, as nearly as we can recollect, an exact parody of Doering's Preface to his first edition of Horace; and perhaps the character of Bilitinka is intended as a caricature of Professor Porson, whom it hits off admirably. Our author opens his commentary by thus waggishly ridiculing the dogmatism of critics: "l. 1.-Old Mother Hubbard.] It hath oftimes been a harassment and discomfort unto us that we have not discovered whether Old Mother Hubbard was, or was not, a dog. It is argued on the one hand, that the whole context doth indisputably prove that she was verily a dog. For say they, of what else could she be the mother, if not of the doggie? What else beneath the sun are we justified in presuming she was the mother of? Now if she be the mother of a doggie, ergo, she herself must be a dog, for as Horace saith, no generant aquila columbas, i. e. Eagles don't beget doves.' Others on the contrary say, that the doggie himself was a human being. This is absurd. For, if a doggie be a doggie, then will he be the son of a dog, and therefore himself a canine. Now, the personage here alluded to is continually described as being a doggie; therefore according to the above logical deduction, he must be of truth and necessity an uncontrovertible canine." The author does not, of course, omit to lash philologists for their forced and extravagant derivations, as in the following annotations : "1. 46.—Cat.] This tribe of natural existencies was denominated the feline race; not from the Latin word felis, a cat, as some absurdly dream; but from felix, happy, because they were a source of great unhappiness to their prey: just as Bishop Butler telleth us that like-LIE (for this I believe to be the true spelling, and not likely), meaneth like-TRUTH, (see the introduction to his Analogy of Religion). In the same manner, also, as watermen were so called, because they did never drink water. K'ONGO." "Ibid: Cat.] So called from Cat-ching mice. K'Ongo, however, supposeth it to be derived from Catapult, as ram is derived from ramrod; but I think he erreth." "1. 28-Tripe.] Derived from the Latin tripes, because it was often served upon tables having three legs." The neatness with which he hits off the digression-loving propensities of the scholastic race, is exquisitely amusing. "L. 19-She went to the Barber's.] The province of barbers was not only to rescind the superfluous luxuriancy of the chin, but likewise to provide false hair, wherewith to cover the denuded pericranium.-SNOOKIMONKI." "After having given this quotation from Snookimonki, which defined the profession and occupation of this extinct portion of the human race, we will add a few facts |