throws

Her sackcloth from her, and sits up elate, Triumphant, glorified, the spouse of Christ, Born in the manger but to mount the throne. None but the fool and the ungodly doubt These saving truths.

Cenci.-None but the fool, most surely; About the ungodly you know more than I, Who never have held converse with the knaves;

For, to my mind, they must be fools as well." Confessor. They dare not meet confession face to face,

As honester and braver sinners do,
Like you, my lord, who ask before you take,
Ready to pay the penalty of guilt,
And weighing both in steady even scales.
Your lordship has paid dearly for some
sins!

Cenci.-Churchmen may get them cheaper;
they can whirl

The incense round, and sweeten one another.
Confessor.-Count! we are friends; but
this sounds rather free.
Cenci.-My speech is free, and free too
is my hand.

Three paoli is the price of masses now
To the poor man; the citizens pay five;
The noble seven, but often bargaining
For thirteen to the dozen; I meanwhile
Reckon but twelve, and pay my crown apiece,
Ay, for a thousand, father, for a thousand-
If this won't save me, what the devil can ?
Confessor.-Do not be angry; let us hope
it will.

Three hundred thousand crowns have overlaid

Some gross enormities: stifled they lie,

No whisper over them: the Pope's right hand Hath wiped the record from the Book of Life.

Cenci.-Are you quite sure? Confessor.-Infallibility Declares it.

Cenci.-Bless infallibility!

--

Confessor. Sin not, my son! but, sinning, straight confess, And stand absolved. Cenci.-Plague me no more. I have Confest. The wish-again I swearodious.

- is

Confessor.-The very thought confounds and petrifies me.

(After a pause) If you will have the peachwhy, have the peach;

But pay for it: 'tis better to abstain.

(Confessor goes out-the Count remains. Cenci (alone).-There must be (since all fear it) pains below.

But how another's back can pass for mine,
By holy water, puzzles me.
Or how the scourge be softened into down

Now, can these fellows in their hearts believe
What they would teach us? Yes; they must.
Methinks

I have some courage: I dare many things, Most things; yet were I certain I should fall Into a lion's jaws at close of day

If I went on, I should be loth to go.
They toss my sins on shoulder readily;
Theirs is the look-out.
Are they quite sure they can as readily
Shuffle them off again? They catch our
pouch.

The price, the stipulated price, I pay;
Will the receiver be as prompt to them?
May not he question them? Well! there are

gone

Three hundred thousand crowns, and more

must go;

I shall cry quits-but what will their cry be? When time is over, none can ask for time; Payment must come-and these must pay, not I.

"Three hundred thousand crowns' runs my receipt,

Holiness and Infallibility

At bottom. I am safe: the firm is good.
If the wax burn their fingers, let them blow
And cool it: there it sticks: my part is done."

We quote these passages chiefly for the power they display. We do not suppose that many men have reasoned in the distinct definite manner of Count Cenci. There is generally a certain salutary vagueness as to what an indulgence or a mass can do for them in this life or the next.

To return to the prose. Here is an account of a miracle or of a modus may be so to our readers. operandi, which was new to us, and

"The bodies of St Simon and St Jude are deposited in the Church of St Peter's at Rome: the same bodies are likewise

deposited in the church of St John's at Verona. Heretics may hereupon be captions and incredulous; true believers can entertain no doubt. Fra Filippo Ferraris tells us expressly that these same bodies may exist contemporaneously in separate places, and Cardinal Valerio explains most satisfactorily how it may be so it is by a pia estensione.”

We are delighted with this pia estensione - it will help us through a host of difficulties. If two and two make five, it will be but a pia estensione.

Mr Landor has been censured, in olden times, for not having given the due meed of praise to his distinguished contemporaries. In this volume he appears to have travelled to the opposite extreme, and to shower down his eulogiums with a too indiscriminate liberality. This amiable failing, if such it be, we feel no disposition to quarrel with. At all times towards the great dead he has felt and expressed an enthusiastic and noble admiration. A reverence for the highest genius in philosophy, in eloquence, in art, in poetry, is amongst the most estimable characteristics of this author. One is sometimes tempted to say, not that he estimates the man of thoughts too highly, but that the man of action, the great minister, and the great captain, is not sufficiently appreciated. But as the world at large are quite ready enough to applaud those who possess power or who win victories, this partiality to the intellectually great can produce no mischief. On the contrary, an excessive admiration for warlike heroes-for those who have been more celebrated for the talent and bravery by which they won power, than for the beneficence with which they have used it can only be counteracted by bringing prominently forward the peaceful heroes of art and meditation, the Newtons, the Shakespeares, the Miltons of the world.

Of Milton, viewed as well in his prose and his poetry, we have here some eloquent eulogiums :

"He indulges in no vagaries to captivate the vulgar mind; he leads by the light of his countenance, never stooping to grasp a coarse hand to obtain its suffrages. In his language he neither has nor ever can have an imitator. Such an

attempt would display at once the boldest presumption and the weakest affectation. His gravity is unsuitable to the age we live in. The cedars and palms of his paradise have disappeared: we see the earth before us in an altered form: we see dense and dwarf plants upon it everywhere; we see it scratched by a succession of squatters, who rear a thin crop and leave the place dry and barren. Constancy and perseverance are amongst Milton's characteristics, with contempt of everything mean and sordid. . . . Milton stood conspicuous over the mines of fuel he accumulated for that vast lighthouse, founded on a solitary rock, which threw forth its radiance to Europe from

amid the darkness and storminess of the

British sea."

We have not vexed our readers with any discussions upon the political opinions of Mr Landor. It is hardly necessary to say that they are very much opposed to those which have been uniformly advocated in this Magazine. But there is one passage-or rather two passages which may be read in connection-on which a word of comment can scarcely be avoided. We think the error contained in them is mischievous, in an ethical as well as political point of view. At p. 353 we read the following on the subject of capital punishment :

"I deprecate the punishment of death for every crime, excepting one; namely, the crime of a prince who wages war against his people. And this also is to be deprecated; for it must be, in most cases, inflicted without mature deliberation, and extra-judicially. It is, however, a case of necessity, and ought never to be remitted."

Now, a prince can hardly wage war against his own subjects without having a large portion of those subjects on his own side in the contest. Some cases may have occurred in history where the prince or tyrant had in his favour only the army-which he used as the instrument of his own personal ambition-and in these cases he may be justly burdened with the sole responsibility of the war. But our author is now laying down a law or rule for our present European governments, and of these it may be safely said, that no sovereign could use or maintain an army, if he had not a large party in the nation at large in favour of his pretensions. To decide, there

fore, that the conquered prince should be brought to death for waging war against his people, is merely to sanction and perpetuate that revenge which the victors in a civil contest are apt enough to feel.

In connection with the above passage read the following, which occurs just two pages before:

"The Americans have declared their sentiments freely, loudly, widely, consistently, against the violence and perfidy of Russia and Austria. They must do greatly more they must offer an asylum to whoever, rising up against oppression and indignity, shall, in the absence of law and equity, hare slain those who caused it. For it is impossible that such iniquities as certain men in high places have perpetrated should be unavenged. Conspiracies will never more exist: two persons (but preferably one) will undertake the glorious task, which not only antiquity applauded, but which has been applauded year after year, generation after generation, century after century, in the seclusion of colleges, and raised the first tumult in the boyish heart."

We ask any temperate man, of any shade of politics, whether a more dangerous doctrine could be taught than this, which would allow the solitary fanatic to be himself judge and executioner to determine who had caused the evils under which his country was suffering, to sentence and to slay. Strange! The prince at the head of his army is concluded at once to be the enemy of his country-the brooding assassin is the undoubted patriot. In spite of what has stirred our boyish hearts in Greek or Roman annals, is there one case where the circumstance can be thoroughly investigated, in which a people has really benefited by an act of assassination? The in

stances are numerous enough where assassination has added to the anarchy or despotism by which a country has been afflicted. Where force must be repelled by force-where there is no other help-where free speech and free communication of thought, by means of the press, are absolutely interdicted-why, as a fatal necessity, we must have the conspiracy and the insurrection. But there is no conceivable case in European politics, where the assassination of a king or a minister can produce any other than the most lamentable results. Mr Lan

dor's political ethics will not here bear examination-must be most decidedly denounced. Their whole tendency is to perpetuate the bitterness of political strife. If the conquered prince is to be brought to the scaffold, what chance can there be for the conquered rebel? And what sort of men would you have for patriots, or for ministers, in a country where assassinations were frequent?

We turn from this dark and turbid subject (to which, however, we felt ourselves compelled to allude), to a far more agreeable portion of the volume before us: we shall take our leave with a few quotations from the poetical fragments that are clustered together at the close of it. Many of these we certainly cannot commend ; but there is that intermixture of the very good amongst them, which will reward a patient scrutiny. We can only select two or three of the more excellent. Few verses have been given to the unhappy Sappho more beautiful than these:

SAPPHO'S EXPOSTULATION. "Forget thee? When? Thou biddest me? dost thou

Bid me, what men alone can, break my vow?
O, my too well beloved! is there aught
I ever have forgot which thou hast taught?
And shall the lesson first by thee imprest
Since love's last flickering flame from thine
Drop, chapter after chapter, from my breast?

is gone,

Leave me, Ó leave me still, at least my own. Let it burn on, if only to consume,

And light me though it light me to the tomb.

False are our dreams, or there are fields

below

Mind how at every touch, at every tone,
A spark of life hath glisten'd and hath gone."
Here is a fragment full of painting
as of poetry :-

JEALOUSY ACKNOWLEDGED.

"Too happy poet! true it is, indeed,
That I am jealous of thee. Bright blue eyes
(Half eye, half heaven) look up into thy face,
From Tuscan bonnet of such sunny straw,
In wonderment. Glorious is poetry,
But give me pretty girls, give youth, give joy;
If not my youth, another's; not my joy,
Then another's."

We will not carry our quotation any further. The rest does not correspond with this happy commencement. The lines, To a Lady Archer, end prettily. It will be easily perceived what young god is speaking, and to what goddess:

"Mother! we may as well be gone ;
No shaft of mine can strike
That figure there, so like thy own-
That heart there, so unlike."

We could select many other fragments distinguishable for their elegance or their power, but the reader would probably prefer to make the search for himself. We will transcribe one more which has pleased us :

TO AN INNOCENT GIRL.

"Maid! who canst hardly yet believe

The Tempter could have tempted Eve,

Apropos of the present volume, we have expressed in general terms the sort of estimation we have formed of Mr Landor's writings, but to go fully into their merits, and what they have of demerits, was not our intention; it would be a labour of considerable time, and would require that we should have "ample space and verge enough." The critic who should undertake this task must approach it with severe examination into the nature of the dialogue and the fictitious epistles, and note the peculiar use

which our author has made of these forms of composition; for his imaginary conversations are often as peculiar as works of art as they are rich in individual passages of eloquence. The future literary historian of our age will devote a chapter apart, and not the least interesting one, to the works of Walter Savage Landor.

THE love of warm drinks is not less universal than the desire for narcotic indulgences. In frozen Labrador and snowy Russia the climate might account for this predilection, but the craving is deeper seated. In tropical as well as in Arctic regions the practice equally prevails. In Central America the Indian of native blood and the Creole of mixed European race equally affect their ancient chocolate. In Southern America the tea of Paraguay is an almost universal beverage. The native North American tribes have their Apallachian tea, their Oswego tea, their Labrador tea, and a host of others. The imported races sip their coffee from Florida to Georgia and round by the West Indian Islands, while over the Northern States and the British Provinces they indulge in the more favourite tea of China.

All Europe, too, has chosen its prevailing beverage. Spain and Italy delight in chocolate; France and Germany, and Sweden and Turkey, in coffee; Russia, Holland, and England in tea,-while poor Ireland makes its warm drink of the husks of the cocoa, the refuse of the chocolate mills of Italy and Spain.

All Asia feels the same want, and in different ways has long gratified it. Coffee, indigenous in Arabia or the adjoining countries, has followed the banner of the Prophet, wherever in Asia or Africa his false faith has triumphed. Tea, a native of China, has spread spontaneously over the hill country of the Himalayas, the tablelands of Tartary and Thibet, and the plains of Siberia, has climbed the Altais, overspread all Russia, and is equally despotic in Moscow as in St Petersburg. In Sumatra, the coffee leaf yields the favourite tea of the dark-skinned population, while Central Africa boasts of the Abyssinian chaat as the indigenous warm drink of its Ethiopian peoples. Every where unintoxicating and non-narcotic beverages are in general use,among tribes of every colour, beneath

every sun, and in every condition of life. The custom, therefore, must meet some universal want of our poor human nature.

It may appear to some that there is a fashion in the use of these things, and no doubt fashion has much influence in first introducing articles of food or drink to general notice; but fashion is only a fleeting superficial thing, and rarely leaves a fixed impression on the dress, manners, or modes of living of a whole people. The thing introduced must be found by experience to be better in form or kind than that in ancient use, before fashion can hope permanently to establish it. It was not fashion which led the Spaniards to adopt as a national beverage the chocolate of conquered Mexico, or Linnæus to name it the "food of the gods." Fashion has not prevented the wide use of the maté in South America; it does not now determine the choice between tea, coffee, and chocolate among the Continental nations, nor does it influence the consumption of the cocoa husk in Ireland.

But the history of infused beverages, while it shows how commerce spreads better things and better practices among the nations of the earth-interfusing all economical experience into a common stock from which each can take at will-proves also that the practice we now speak of really has its origin in a want natural to, and more or less felt by us all. Who has not seen in his youthful days-when business or pleasure happened in the early morning to bring him to the old London bridges, while the smoky mist still dimmed the lamps on the river, and no rising streak yet showed itself in the East-who has not seen the simmering kettle already steaming, and the hot saloop swallowed greedily by hurried boatmen, or hungry street-walkers, or shivering sweepboys waiting for sleepy maids, to admit them to their early labour, or, mayhap, by some ill-clad female whom the long night has chilled, and the cold