ני you. Since it was written, Fanny said I, JOHN DE COVERLEY. The following letter from Fanny to her brother was written only the day after the last I sent you, but as it contained the promised sketch of Miss Melmoth's life, I have preserved a copy till my usual time of addressing Letter from Miss De Coverley to her MY DEAR BROTHER, I resume that where grief is deeply seated, it Anna and Lucy were twin sisters, and they shared all the resemblance to each other, and all the fond attachment which is said to be inseparable from that very intimate tie. I was two or three years older than they, and can well remember the equal beauty of the little cherub sisters, who could only be distinguished from each other by the bracelet on the tiny arm of Anna. As they advanced from childhood to youth, the resemblance of their features became less remarkable. Some shades of difference might also be discovered in their dispositious; Anna was more frequently gay, Lucy more constantly cheerful; but few could determine which they admired and loved the most. In youth as in childhood their affection for cach other was fond and devoted, and they never were separated either in their studies or amusements. In their walks they were arm in arm, in the dance they were side by side. They were ever the united harbingers of gaiety and smiles in the drawingrooms of the rich, and in the cottages of the poor they were the never-failing dispensers of comfort and consolation. Eighteen years of uninterrupted happiness thus flew over their heads. Their father had died when they were too young to feel his loss, and in Mrs Melmoth they had a judicious and indulgent mother. It would have been strange if Love had not soon joined in the train of prosperity like theirs; he was, as might be expected, early in attendance, and a bout the same time the hands and heart of both were engaged to men really deserving of them; and so did fortune still smile on their equal lot, that they had not even now to fear a separation, Lucy's future abode being in the same village with her mother, and Anna's scarcely more than a mile distant. Their nineteenth birthday was fixed for the marriage of both, and on the morning when I last bid them adieu, we had lingered on the bridge you have just been admiring, had parted and returned many times to talk over with all the gaiety of youthful hope, the bridal dresses and arrangements, and the future prospects of uninterrupted felicity, which can be seen in their brightest colours by the young and happy only. It was on Monday that I parted with them, the following Thursday we were to meet again in our bridal paraphernalia. Thursday came-but, gracious heaven, how changed its destination! It found the fair, the young, and joyous Anna clad in her grave clothes, and her no less young, and fair, and joyous sister apparently hastening to the same awful close of all her earthly prospects. Anna was seized, on the very day I parted from her so gay and blooming, with an illness of so violent and fatal a nature, that when I was summoned to her bedside on Wednesday evening, all hope was at an end. I cannot attempt to describe to you the havock a few hours had made in her appearance; and, indeed," continued she, bursting into tears, "I almost repent having begun the story." "Do not finish it, I beseech you," said I; but, after a short pause, she went on Mrs Melmoth had been taken from the room before my arrival, and the unfortunate young man, whose brightest hopes were thus blast ed, though he still remained, was, I hope and believe, nearly unconscious of the scene around him. The almost inaudible voice and the trembling hand of the clergyman who had been summoned to this chamber of death, proved his deep interest in its sorrows: he was the intended husband of Lucy; and the most distracting anxiety for her was added to the grief of losing one whom he had long loved as a sister. And oh! Miss De Coverley, the scene was in itself one that must have melted the sternest heart, for the poor dying girl shrunk terrified from the awful change before her, and they who, like myself, had seen her so full of health, and joy, and confidence, might easily pardon the weakness of human nature, which clung to a life as yet unclouded by sorrow, and turned affrighted from the horrors of a grave so suddenly presented to her view. Both sisters had been carefully instructed in their religious duties, and the faith and hope of a Christian were familiar to their hearts; but they were young Christians, and this was their very first trial. Anna sunk under it, for she had, in the confidence of youth, relied too much on her own powers. Lucy rose above it, for she had not depended on herself alone ;she had had an idea, however faint, that the brightness of their days might, in the course of events, be overclouded; and the support she had implored was granted at her utmost need. Never shall I forget her, as, with one hand supporting her dying sister, the other raised to Heaven, she whispered those consolations which religion alone can give-bade her not fear for herself, not think of her. I shall not be alone, dear Anna; in thought we shall still be united; we shall both be thinking of and praising one Great Being-I, indeed, on earth, you in Heaven; but you will be with Him. He will ever, rest assured, be near to me; and how does that idea re-unite us! Dearest Anna, in spirit we cannot be separated!" So did she continue mixing with the pleadings of affection all the highest and most consoling truths of religion, till, by de grees, the countenance of Anna became more composed, and was, at length, illumined by the serenity of patience and pious hope. Even in the distress of such a scene, it was impossible not to remark the extraordinary resemblance between them, now that the thoughts of both had soared to the same Divine object, and that their countenances, almost equally pale and haggard, might have made it difficult to determine which was the dying sister. But it was not long before Death claimed his own, and, faintly whispering, Dear Lucy, I am happy!' the spirit of Anna was called to its celestial home. For some time we believed,^ ^I might say hoped, that the sisters were not divided, even in death. The energy of Lucy ceased with the life of Anna, and she sunk senseless by her side. But she is preserved, as if to show with how much patience and submission afflictions like hers may be borne. To bring her mind to its present state of cheerful resignation has been, however, the work of time: nearly three years, as I told you, are passed since this sad event, and she cannot yet refrain from melancholy retrospection. The suddenness of the stroke, and her extreme exertions to conceal her own agony, and support her sister, occasioned a long and severe illness, since which she has not recovered the use of her limbs; and, though she is certainly something better than a few months ago, I must confess I have scarcely a hope of her leaving that sofa, except for her grave."-" Alas! poor Miss Melmoth!" exclaimed I, as soon as I had sufficiently recovered from my emotion to speak, I know not whether to pity or admire her more."-" The death of her dearlyloved sister, and the loss of health, are not her only trials," resumed Miss Wilmot ; "she has the additional distress of causing the unhappiness of the man she loves. Mr Gordon submits to the decrees of Providence like a good Christian, as he is, and endeavours, by attending to the cares of his parishioners, to forget his own; but he does not succeed so well as Lucy; and, indeed, I believe it is easier to submit patiently ourselves to sufferings, than to be resigned when we see them inflicted on those we love. My poor cousin, Charles Wilmot, who was to have been the husband of Anna, is on the Continent, and, as he writes in improved spirits, I trust there may be comparative happiness at least in store for him. He has not, like Mr Gordon, the tortures of suspense to prevent his wound from healing.". Here Miss Wilmot ended her sad story, and here, my dear brother, shall end my long letter, which will not, I trust, fail, in some degree, to interest you, and could not, if you had seen and admired, as I have done, its heroine. Believe me your affectionate FANNY DE COVERLEY. We are glad to see that the literature of Italy is daily coming into greater favour amongst us, and are really inclined to hope that it may in a short time have a considerable influence in weaning us from that rage for violent excitement and exaggerated emotion,-for portentous horrors and maddening visions, which, unless it is speedily checked, may come in the end to deprive us of all relish for those healthier beauties, and gentler and more delicate feelings, which it should be the great object of literature to nourish and strengthen. We are the more inclined to expect this good effect from the study of Italian literature, as it is much more nearly allied than any other to all the better parts of our own. It is as different from the frigid elegancies and pompous inanity of the French, as we trust our own still is from the paradoxical moodiness and misty metaphysics of the German school. There is a clearness and refinement of perception in the Italian poets, accompanied with a graceful and fascinating tenderness of thought and expression, which, by a number of successive touches, takes full possession of the heart. They excel all other writers in sifting and bringing to light the more secret springs of thought, and the more delicate and evanescent shades of emotion which escape the eye of less discriminating observers; Amyntas, a Tale of the Woods; from the Italian of Torquato Tasso. By Leigh Hunt. London, 1820. 12mo. and with all this, the air of graceful gaiety and naiveté which spreads itself over all they say, and the delight which they themselves seem to take in what they are about, make us enter into their feelings, and go along with them in all their ramblings, with a joyousness and a fulness of sympathy which no other writers have ever been able to inspire. They never seek, under the pretence of probing into the inner spirit, and searching into the depths of the soul, to startle us with monstrous creations which have no existence, except in their own bewildered fancies; but, on the contrary, almost all the best of their writings are replete with human affection, and gentle and genuine feeling. Their favourite characters are not hideous compounds of incompatible qualities, but they are human beings, whose most sinful deeds Are but the overbeatings of the heart, They seldom attempt, indeed, to lead us into the busy scenes of life, and depict to us in all their force and reality the daring strife of ambition, and the awful conflicts of passion; but all this is to be found elsewhere; and we are in a great measure compensated for the want of it, by the delightful colours in which they paint that calm and blissful solitude, "where," as Dryden finely says in one of his plays, The peaceful power that governs love re where, far from noise, pairs To feast upon soft vows and silent prayers. In order to be convinced of the good effects which may be expected to our own literature from the study of the Italian writers, we need only refer our readers to the finer parts of the works of Barry Cornwall, which are perfectly Italian in their spirit and conception, and a great many of the beauties of which are confessedly borrowed from the Italian poets; though appropriated and adorned by the glow of original genius which has been thrown around them. We are happy to observe, that the success of Mr Cornwall has induced other writers to recur to the same source from which so much may yet be drawn. Mr Keats has been versifying Italian tales; and we have now to make some remarks on a trans lation of Tasso's Aminta by Mr Leigh Hunt, who has already made an admirable use of his knowledge of Italian literature in his story of Rimini. We are of opinion, then, that the present volume is a valuable addition to our scanty stock of Italian translation, and though we ourselves are too partial to the original to be very much delighted with any translation, yet we think that Mr Hunt has done nearly all that could be done for this drama in English. The Aminta is one of the most beautiful pastorals that has ever been written in any language. It is true that Tasso has not attempted to win upon our hearts by the direct and homely simplicity which distinguishes the pastoral poet of Greece, and of which we ourselves have so admirable a specimen in the Gentle Shepherd of Allan Ramsay; but, at the same time, the style of the Aminta, though more refined and elevated than that of Theocritus, is still for the most part perfectly natural and unaffected; and all the thoughts and images rise so naturally out of the scenes in which the characters move, that we altogether forget the improbability of their coming from the mouths of shepherds and shepherdesses. Besides, we are quite prepared to expect a higher tone of sentiment and feeling, and a more elevated and refined language, in these children of nature, from the prologue of this drama, in which Tasso has very happily introduced the God of Love disguised in a shepherd's habit, who playfully tells us that he is to mix with the other inhabitants of the woods, and that, After new fashion shall these woods to-day Hear love discoursed; and it shall well be seen That my divinity is present here Whether with rustic or heroic men," To make the rural pipe as eloquent Mr Hunt has well remarked, that, with the exception of the Gentle Shepherd, there is no other pastoral writ Nor has Mr Hunt been very successful in overcoming this difficulty. Compare the following verses, for instance, which are, on the whole, a favourable specimen of Mr Hunt's short verse, with the rich melody of the Italian. Daphne is endeavouring to convince the hard-hearted and haughty Sylvia of the pleasures inspired by love. Sylvia has said, "What thou callest lover I call enemy," whereupon Daphne replies, And callest thou sweet spring-time How toying with his dulcet murmuring He kisses his companion. Hear that nightingale, Who goes from bough to bough, Her poison, and goes eagerly to her love; The lion's great heart loves; and thou alone, Wilder than all the wild, |