THE KING OF ARRAGON'S LAMENT FOR HIS BROTHER.* BY MRS. HEMANS. "If I could see him, it were well with me !"-Coleridge's Wallenstein. THERE were lights and sounds of revelling in the vanquished city's halls, And the conquerors filled the wine-cup high, after years of bright blood shed: He looked down from the fortress won, on the tents and towers below, And he cried," Thou art mine, fair city! thou city of the sea! -I am lonely 'midst thy palaces, while the glad waves past them roll, "My brother! oh! my brother! thou art gone, the true and brave, There are many round my throne to stand, and to march where I lead on; "In the desert, in the battle, in the ocean-tempest's wrath, We stood together, side by side; one hope was ours-one path: Thou hast wrapt me in thy soldier's cloak, thou hast fenced me with thy breast; "I see the festive lights around-o'er a dull sad world they shine; "I have hosts, and gallant fleets, to spread my glory and my sway, "I have made thy blood, thy faithful blood, the offering for a crown; "I am lonely-I am lonely! this rest is ev'n as death! Let me hear again the ringing spears, and the battle-trumpet's breath; And louder swelled the songs of joy through that victorious night, But low and deep, amidst the mirth, was heard the conqueror's moan- 66 The grief of Ferdinand, king of Arragon, for the loss of his brother, Don Pedro, who was killed during the siege of Naples, is affectingly described by the historian Mariana. It is also the subject of one of the old Spanish ballads, in Lockhart's beautiful collection. NOTIONS OF THE AMERICANS.* WE have read these volumes with publication as a compliment, and as much satisfaction, and earnestly recommend them to all who have been gathering their "Notions of the Americans," without opportunities of correcting them by more competent authorities, from the tours and travels that have for the last ten or dozen years been floating in our literary atmosphere. Generally, the authors of these publications have themselves been uneducated and unlicked persons, and mixing, as they must have done, with men of their own class and habits-their introduction could of course be to no others and filled with strange fancies of American equality, they have given of the Americans an impression of pervading, and intolerable and irreclaimable coarseness and vul. garity. The distinctions of political and social relations were beyond their detection. The same political rights seem to them to establish the same social intercourse, as if in such a combination of circumstances, the educated and uneducated, the refined and unrefined, the rich and the poor, must, necessarily, mingle pell-mell in blissful confusion. The very able and effective volumes before us will leave a far different impression upon the reader, accompanied by a conviction of the writer's superior information, and superior title to confidence, and confirmed, too, in the long run, by the eternal principles of human feelings, and human motives. a sure sign that he has effected his purpose. But we acknowledge that, in many respects, he lies open to attack. His very title is objectionable, as containing a slang term, which (in the sense in which he uses it) good taste has long ago banished both from polished composition and discourse. With a want of sound discretion, which was little to be expected from him-though done, no doubt, to obviate a natural prejudice he assumes the character of an European; but he is himself American, and no other indeed than Cooper, the well known national novelist of America, a man, whose reputation, in his particular department, is, or ought to be, second only to Sir Walter Scott's,-able to see, combine, and describe. To make the matter worse, he has had the misfortune to imagine himself capable of humor, and thus, without the least particle of the reality, persists in tormenting us with a perpetual display of false humor, that is really painful to behold. To complete the catalogue of his imperfections, his style is coarse, affected, and obscure; and his remarks frequently exhibit considerable conceit and arrogance. In spite of all this, Mr. Cooper's book is the best book that has yet been written on America. We ourselves profess liberal principles, and have, consequently, a leaning towards all liberal writers; but we trust we have never shown ourselves blind to their defects, or been disposed to exaggerate their merits; our readers will, therefore, credit us, when we assert that, in spite of the abuse of the Literary Gazette, and of all the blemishes enumerated above, the work now before us is, as we have said, the most valuable of all the works hitherto written on the country to which it relates. It cer * Notions of the Americans: picked up by a Travelling Bachelor. 2 vols. London, 1828. tainly is not in itself a perfect picture of American character, society, manners or scenery; but it furnishes the reader with materials which will enable him to come to a tolerably correct conclusion upon each of those subjects, and in the meanwhile will amuse him exceedingly. he 66 SCRAPS AND SKETCHES.* HERE is a fund of wit and mer- ner, there is a lady, who is unable to in Cruikshank that pass through Gate an ac may draw upon as lavishly as he pleases without any fear of exhaust ion. This is one of the best of his numerous publications. The first two pages consist of graphic illustrations of the occasional advantages of wooden legs over those of mere flesh and blood. They are rough sketches, but distinguished by great freedom and spirit, and that air of genuine humour which he generally exhibits. The first sketch is of a poacher, whose wooden leg is caught in a steel-trap. The title of it is, "The Advantage of a wooden leg at a Pinch." Then we have a group of dancing girls on stilts, that is to say, Living on Wooden Legs." We have next a glimpse at a man, who is rushing into a house to avoid a mad dog, but he has his "Best leg foremost," and the animal seizes hold of the wooden one. In another corner of the page is a man who has fallen on the road side. A cart-wheel has passed right over his leg, and crushed it to atoms, but it is a "Trifling Accident," for the leg was wooden, and could easily be replaced by another every whit as good; and a drunk en and roaring negro, impatient "to hab tea," thrusts his ligneous supporter into the fire, to make "the kettle bile." On the succeeding page we have some jokes against the ladies' bonnets, which have become, from their prodigious size, an abominable nuisance in all theatres and public exhibitions, where they exclude us from every thing worthy to be seen, not excepting their own delightful faces. In the sketch on the left cor count of her huge bonnet, and some The next at the bar" are most whimsically illustrated, from the crow-bar in burglary to the bar at the Old Bailey; including the head of "a gentleman * Scraps and Sketches. Designed, etched, and published, by George Cruikshank, to be continued occasionally. intended for the bar ;"-a face and admiration. “You see, gran'ma," expression never to be forgotton. There are some capital things in illustration of the“ March of Intellect." "The Pursuit of Letters" is perhaps one of the cleverest. Children with heads prematurely large are running in go-carts after the letters A, B, C, which are ludicrously sketched with legs. On the first go-cart is the label of "Reading made easy." In the distance, we observe two figures on horseback, with a pack of openmouthed dogs in full chase of a file of the following letters, which have legs like "The Living Skeleton's," LITERATURE. "The Grand March of Intellect," with the soldiers wearing spectacles, and inkstands with quills in them, for their regimental caps, is also very humorous. The cant and mystifying phraseology of science, which are now heard at every corner of the street from the mouths of children, are illustrated by a little girl on a stool with an egg in her hand. She is standing before her old grandmama, who is gaping with says the little child, "before you VARIETIES. DISEASE OF SILK WORMS, AND ITS CURE. be I devouring the leaves with an eager. „ness which they did not usually show; not one of the hurdles upon which he raised his worms appeared infected with the jaundice. It was at first supposed that the coccoons of silk were injured by this process; this however is not the case, and his me thod of practice is now adopted generally in the department of Vaucluse. INDIAN TELEGRAPHS. The system of telegraphs has arrived at such perfection in the presi dency of Bombay, that a communi cation may be made through a line of 500 miles in eight minutes. NEW APPLICATION OF STEAM. A grocer at Sheffield has a steamengine, of half-horse power, for the purpose of roasting and grinding coffee. of their professional occupation that I have selected the last assizes of Clonmel as the subject of this article; in narrating the events which attend the trial of his assassins, I propose to myself the useful end of fixing the general attention upon a state of things, which ought to lead all wise and good men to the consideration of the only effectual means by which the evils which result from the moral condition of Ireland may be remedied. THE THE mind of any man who habitually attends the assizes of Clonmel carries deep, and not perhaps the most useful, impressions away from it. How often have I re-ed the murder of Daniel Mara, and proached myself with having joined in the boisterous merriment which either the jests of counsel, or the droll perjuries of the witnesses, have produced during the trial of a capital offence! How often have I seen the bench, the jury, the bar, and the galleries of an Irish court of justice, in a roar of tumultuous laughter, while I beheld in the dock the wild and haggard face of a wretch who, placed on the verge of eternity, seemed to be surveying the gulf on the brink of which he stood, and presented, in his ghastly aspect and motionless demeanour, a reproof of the spirit of hilarity with which he was to be sent before his God! It is not that there is any kind of cruelty intermixed with this tendency to mirth; but that the perpetual recurrence of incidents of the most awful character divests them of the power of producing effect, and that they "Whose fall of hair Would at a dismal treatise rouse and stir acquire such a familiarity with dire- It is not merely because the Bar itself is under the operation of the incidents which furnish the materials 56 ATHENEUM, VOL. 9, 2d series. In the month of April, 1827, a gentleman of the name of Chadwick was murdered in the open day, at a place called Rath Cannon, in the immediate vicinity of the old Abbey of Holycross. Mr. Chadwick was the member of an influential family, and was employed as land agent in collecting their rents. The person who fills this office in England is called "a steward;" but in Ireland it is designated by the more honourable name of a land agency. The discharge of the duties of this situation must be always more or less obnoxiou 3. In times of public distress, the landlord, who is himself urged by his own creditors, urges his agent on, and the latter inflicts upon the tenants the necessities of his employer. I have heard that Mr. Chadwick was not peculiarly rigorous in the exaction of rent, but he was singularly injudicious in his demeanour towards the lower orders. He believed that they detested him; and possessing personal courage, bade them defiance. He |