Others, that some original shape, or form

Shaped by decay perchance, hath given the power
(Though less than that of Memnon's statue, warm
In Egypt's rays, to harp at a fix'd hour)
To this gray ruin, with a voice to charm

Sad, but serene, it sweeps o'er tree or tower;
The cause I know not, nor can solve: but such
The fact:-I've heard it,-once perhaps too much.
Amidst the court a Gothic fountain play'd,
Symmetrical, but deck'd with carvings quaint-
Strange faces, like to men in masquerade,

And here perhaps a monster, there a saint:
The spring gush'd through grim mouths of granite made,
And sparkled into basins, where it spent

Its little torrent in a thousand bubbles,
Like man's vain glory, and his vainer troubles.

The mansion's self was vast and venerable,
With more of the monastic than has been
Elsewhere preserved: the cloisters still were stable,
The cells, too, and refectory, I ween:
An exquisite small chapel had been able,
Still unimpair'd, to decorate the scene;

The rest had been reformed, replaced, or sunk,
And spoke more of the baron than the monk.

Huge halls, long galleries, spacious chambers, joined
By no quite lawful marriage of the arts,
Might shock a connoisseur; but, when combined,
Form'd a whole which, irregular in parts,

Yet left a grand impression on the mind,

At least of those whose eyes are in their hearts:
We gaze upon a giant for his stature,
Nor judge at first if all be true to nature.

Steel barons, molten the next generation

To silken rows of gay and garter'd earls, Glanced from the walls in goodly preservation: And Lady Marys blooming into girls,

With fair long locks, had also kept their station:
And countesses mature in robes and pearls:
Also some beauties of Sir Peter Lely,
Whose drapery hints we may admire them freely.
Judges in very formidable ermine

Were there, with brows that did not much invite
The accused to think their lordships would determine
His cause by leaning much from might to right:
Bishops, who had not left a single sermon :
Attorneys-General, awful to the sight,

As hinting more (unless our judgments warp us)
Of the "Star Chamber" than of "Habeas Corpus."
Generals, some all in armour, of the old

And iron time, ere lead had ta'en the lead:
Others in wigs of Marlborough's martial fold,
Huger than twelve of our degenerate breed:
Lordlings with staves of white or keys of gold:

Nimrods, whose canvas scarce contain'd the steed; And here and there some stern high patriot stood, Who could not get the place for which he sued.

But ever and anon, to soothe your vision,
Fatigued with these hereditary glories,
There rose a Carlo Dolce, or a Titian,

Or wilder group of savage Salvatore's:

Here danced Albano's boys, and here the sea shone
In Vernet's ocean lights; and there the stories

Of martyrs axed, as Spagnoletto tainted
His brush with all the blood of all the sainted.

Here sweetly spread a landscape of Lorraine;
There Rembrandt made his darkness equal light,
Or gloomy Caravaggio's gloomier stain

Bronzed o'er some lean and Stoic anchorite :— But, lo! a Teniers woos, and not in vain,

Your eyes to revel in a livelier sight:

His bell-mouth'd goblet makes me feel quite Danish Or Dutch with thirst-What, ho! a flask of Rhenish.

348. OF THE PUBLIC GOOD.

A. SIDNEY.

[WE give an extract from the celebrated Discourses concerning Government,' by Algernon Sidney. His inflexible republican opinions brought him to the block, at the same time with his friend William Lord Russell. His trial and execution, in 1684, was an outrage upon public feeling at the time. There is little doubt, however, that Sidney really contemplated a Revolution, and the establishment of a Republic. It was fortunate that more moderate opinions finally prevailed; and that, after a century of struggle, we have obtained all the advantages of representative government without the evils of unmixed democracy. But there can be no doubt that the bold opinions of such as Algernon Sidney relieved us from the tyranny of the Stuarts. Happily we live in times when there are few opinions in Sidney's 'Discourses' which an Englishman would shrink from upholding; and the day has long passed when any one would attempt to impugn the honesty and truth of sentiments such as those which we now subjoin.]

Men are valiant and industrious when they fight for themselves and their country; they prove excellent in all the arts of war and peace, when they are bred up in virtuous exercises, and taught by their fathers and masters to rejoice in the honours gained by them: they love their country when the good of every particular man is comprehended in the public prosperity, and the success of their achievements is improved to the general advantage: they undertake hazards and labour for the government, when it is justly administered; when innocence is safe, and virtue honoured; when no man is distinguished from the vulgar, but such as have distinguished themselves by the bravery of their actions; when no honour is thought too great for those who do it eminently, unless it be such as cannot be communicated to others of equal merit; they do not spare their persons, purses, or friends, when the public powers are employed for the public benefit, and imprint the like affections in their children from their infancy. The discipline of obedience, in which the Romans were bred, taught them to command: and few were admitted to the magistracies of inferior rank, till they had given such proof of their virtue as might deserve the supreme. Cincinnatus, Camillus, Papirius, Fabius Maximus, were not made dictators that they might learn the duties

of the office, but because they were judged to be of such wisdom, valour, integrity, and experience, that they might be safely trusted with the highest powers; and, whilst the law reigned, not one was advanced to that honour who did not fully answer what was expected from him. By this means the city was so replenished with men fit for the greatest employments, that even in its infancy, when three hundred and six of the Fabii were killed in one day, the city did lament the loss, but was not so weakened to give any advantage to their enemies: and when every one of those who had been eminent before the second Punic war, Fabius Maximus only excepted, had perished in it, others arose in their places, who surpassed them in number, and were equal to them in virtue. The city was a perpetual spring of such men, as long as liberty lasted; but that was no sooner overthrown, than virtue was torn up by the roots: the people became base and sordid; the small remains of the nobility slothful and effeminate; and, their Italian associates becoming like to them, the empire, whilst it stood, was only sustained by the strength of foreigners.

The Grecian virtue had the same fate, and expired with liberty: instead of such soldiers as in their time had no equals, and such ge nerals of armies and fleets, legislators and governors, as all succeeding ages have justly admired, they sent out swarms of fiddlers, jesters, chariot-drivers, players, bawds, flatterers, ministers, of the most impure lusts; or idle, babbling, hypocritical philosophers, not much better than they. The emperors' courts were always crowded with this vermin; and, notwithstanding the pretended necessity that princes must needs understand matters of government better than magistrates annually chosen, they did for the most part prove so brutish as to give themselves and the world to be governed by such as these, and that without any great prejudice, since none could be found more ignorant, lewd, and base, than themselves.

It is absurd to impute this to the change of times; for time changes nothing; and nothing was changed in those times, but the government, and that changed all things. This is not accidental, but according to the rules given to nature by God, imposing upon all things a necessity of perpetually following their causes. Fruits are always of the same nature with the seeds and roots from which they come, and trees are known by the fruits they bear: as a man begets a man, and a beast a beast, that society of men which constitutes a government upon the

foundation of justice, virtue, and the common good, will always have men to promote those ends; and that which intends the advancement of one man's desires and vanity will abound in those that will foment them. All men follow that which seems advantageous to themselves. Such as are bred under a good discipline, and see that all benefits, procured to their country by virtuous actions, redound to the honour and advantage of themselves, their children, friends, and relations, contract, from their infancy, a love to the public, and look upon the common concernments as their own. When they have learnt to be virtuous, and see that virtue is in esteem, they seek no other preferments than such as may be obtained that way; and no country ever wanted great numbers of excellent men, where this method was esta blished. On the other side, when it is evident that the best are despised, hated, or marked out for destruction; all things calculated to the honour or advantage of one man, who is often the worst, or governed by the worst; honours, riches, commands and dignities disposed by his will, and his favour gained only by a most obsequious respect, or a pretended affection to his person, together with a servile obedience to his commands all application to virtuous actions will cease; and, no man caring to render himself or his children worthy of great employments, such as desire to have them will, by little intrigues, corruption, scurrility, and flattery, endeavour to make way to them; by which means true merit in a short time comes to be abolished, as fell out in Rome as soon as the Cæsars began to reign.

349. THE MODERN DRAMATIC POETS.

PART III.

THE HUNCHBACK.

SHERIDAN KNOWLES.

[MR. KNOWLES is the most prolific dramatic poet of our day; and, with reference to stage success, the most popular. It is not that he possesses higher poetical capacity-nicer discrimination of character— a deeper insight into human nature-than his contemporaries'; but that his Plays will act, and that he constructed them to be acted. Mr. Knowles was an accomplished actor himself, and he thoroughly under