go to them and hear their voice, but cannot | miliar to me. see them."-SALE. I have somewhere seen this story in a better form, as that the woman was only a woman,' and demanded as the price of her acquiescence to be taught the cabalistical name of God, on pronouncing which she ascended into heaven. An Arab, whom I saw approaching at a distance, upon a camel, appeared to move through the air, with the gigantic bulk of a tower; although he was travelling along the sand like ourselves. Several travellers mention this error of vision, which is owing to a peculiar refraction produced in these torrid climates, by va The concluding part of the story is a noble pours differing greatly in their nature from ground-work. Jewish Ideas of Messiah. "E por que tendo o Messias ja vindo, segundo esta opiniaō ha mais de 1632 annos, ainda em tantos annos nenhum Judeo vio a o seu Messias : dizem huns que anda desconhecido perigrinando pelolmundo. Outros que esta as portas de Roma na companhia de muytos pobres pedindo esmola. Outros, que esta escondido nos montes Caspios, & com tal cautela, que se algum Judeo o quizer ir la buscar, o rio Sabatino lho impede, por que chegando algum Judeo as suas margens, converte as suas aguas em pedras, lancando hum tal chuveyro de pedradas sobre os pobres Judeos, que ou haō de ficar alli mortos; ou se haō de retirar deixando a o seu Messias la dentro no seu encanto. Outros considerando que os montes Caspios estao muyto pertos, & esta fabula do rio Sabbatino se convencia de ridicula, appelaram para o Paraiso, dizendo que la esta o Messias entretido na companhia de Moyses & Elias, para que quando for tempo, Deos o mande libertar a os Judeos."-Sermam do Auto da Fe, 1705. Pelo, Arcebisp. de Cranganor, Arabian Scenery. "I Now, for the first time, observed an appearance with which I was singularly struck, but which became afterwards fa Southey adopted this form in Thalaba. "At the length A woman came before them; beautiful those which fill the air in temperate regions."-NIEBuhr. The translator remarks 66 we have all observed how greatly objects are magnified when seen through mist." "WE passed two of those vallies so common in Arabia which when heavy rains fall, are filled with water, and are then called wadi, or rivers, although perfectly dry at other times of the year."-—Ibid. "THE only vegetables by which the sandy and barren country is enlivened are a few date trees. Houses scattered among groves of date trees, and inhabited only in the season when the dates are gathered. "We came to a large village called El Mahad, standing in a beautiful valley which receives the waters that fall from Mount Kema. In the rainy season these waters form a river, which spreads into several branches, and fertilizes the adjacent lands, like the Nile. "The coffee trees were all in flower at Bulgosa, and exhaled an exquisitely agreeable perfume. "We observed a running stream; its channel is very broad, but as no rain had for a long time fallen, the stream covered the breadth of twenty or twenty-four feet. In this place it runs with a considerable current, but in Tamama it spreads into a shallow lake, and is lost among the sands. We now drew nearer to the river, of which a branch was dry, and having its channel filled with reeds growing to the height of twenty feet, served as a line of road, which was a Zohara was, as yonder evening star."-iv. 9. greeably shaded by the reeds."—Ibid. J. W. W. "Huм ribeiro, que com suas correntes e claras agoas fazia os coraçoes alegres a quem os assi nā tinha."-PALMEIRIM. "HUMA dona, que em sua presença representava ser pessoa de merecimento, tendo tal aparencia e autoridade que obrigava todo homem a tratala com mais acatamento do que suas obras mereciam."—Ibid. "HER speech, like lovers watch'd, was kind and low."-Gondibert. "FAMINE, plague, and time Are enemies enough to human life, None need o'ercharge death's quiver with a crime." "WHO on their urged patience can prevail, "THE wanton lover in a curious strain Can praise his fairest fair, And with quaint metaphors her curled hair Curle o'er again. "LORD hear my heart, Which hath been broken now so long, That every part Hath got a tongue." "WILT thou defer To succour me Thy pile of dust, wherein each crumb Says 'come.'" Ibid. Quaintologia! "WHOSE musk-cat verse Whose expectation is provok'd with fear ?" Voids nought but flowers."-CLEVEland. that they were prisoners. He had three wounds, the one on the head, the other in the thigh, and the third in the fundament. The Bourguignons would not believe that he was slain, but that he was fled into Germanie, and that he had vowed to do seven years penance. There were some among the Bourguignons which sold jewels, horses, and other things to be paid when he should return; and at Burchselles, in the diocesse❘ of Spierre, in Germany, a poore man begging, they thought him to be the Duke, who did penance: every man desired to see him, and he received good alms."-GRIMESTONE'S History of the Netherlands. This was the Duke defeated at Murat.1 Welsh Churchyards. The heapy church-yards, where should The relics of the dead. What mouldering bones unhous'd above the soil! The sire dislodged by burial of his son! The child by her that bare it! rudely thrown To light of day.— Within thy region, Cambria! never shock'd Beholds the visitant of churchyard scenes Sights so inhuman. There green turf and flowers Cover the once and ever-loved remains Of kindred and of friends, flowers, weekly shed, And watered with soft tears. No lengthened time Effaces their remembrance from the mind, No season from the spirit-soothing rite The tender mourner ever can restrain." BOOKER'S Malvern. "In a civilized country one would naturally suppose that a decent attention were paid to the places where are deposited the remains of departed friends; but through See infrà, p. 109.-J. W. W. out England in general, how shamefully is this pious and affectionate duty neglected! Our cemeteries, notwithstanding the awful purposes to which they are consecrated, are in almost every parish, either common thorough-fares, or constantly frequented by boys, where they pursue their different sports unmolested. In Wales these things are not suffered: such practices would justly be deemed a profanation. The graves in the church-yards there are neatly covered with turf, and in many places planted with evergreens. Every week some relative or friend visits the spot where sleep the objects of regard, to see that it has sustained no injury, and to scatter over it such flowers as may happen to be in bloom. The author and two other gentlemen, in a tour through Wales, had the satisfaction to witness this spirit-soothing ceremony: a decent-looking female was seen to perform it with every sign of tenderness and sensibility." The Passing Bell. BOOKER. for "THE passing bell was anciently rung two purposes; one, to bespeak the prayers of all good Christians for a soul just departing; the other, to drive away the evil spirits who stood at the bed's foot and about the house, ready to seize their prey, or at least to molest and terrify the soul in its passage: but by the ringing of that bell (for Durandus informs us, evil spirits are much afraid of bells) they were kept aloof; and the soul, like a hunted hare, gained the start, or had what is by sportsmen called law. Hence, perhaps, exclusive of the additional labour, was occasioned the high price demanded for tolling the greatest bell of the church; for that being louder, the evil spirits must go farther off to be clear of its sound."-Encyclopædia. Reservoir of Mareb. "THE Sabeans had a reservoir or bason for water which was anciently famous and which I often heard talked of in Arabia; but nobody could give me an exact description of it, except one man of rank, who had been born at Mareb, and had always lived there. He told me, that the famous reservoir, called by the Arabs Sitte Mareb, was a narrow valley between two ranges of hills, and a day's journey in length. Six or seven small rivers meet in that valley, holding their course S. and S. W. and advancing from the territories of the Imam. Some of these rivers contain fishes, and their waters flow through the whole year; others are dry, except in the rainy season. The two ranges of hills which confine this valley, approach so near to each other upon the eastern end, that the intermediate space may be crossed in five or six minutes. To confine the waters in the rainy season, the entrance into the valley was here shut up by a high and thick wall; and at outlets, through which the water thus collected might be conveyed in the season of drought to water the neighbouring fields, three large flood-gates were formed in the wall, one above another. The wall was fifty feet high, and built of large hewn stones. Its ruins are still to be seen. But the waters, which it formerly used to confine, are now lost among the sands, after running only a short way. Thus was there nothing incredibly wonderful in the true account of the Sabean reservoir. Similar, although much smaller reservoirs, are formed at the roots of the mountains in many places through Yemen. Near Constantinople is a vale, the entrance into which is likewise shut up by a wall to confine the water, which is conveyed thence in aqueducts into the capital of the Ottoman empire. "The tradition that the city of Mareb was destroyed by a deluge, occasioned by the sudden bursting of the wall, has entirely the air of a popular fable. It seems more probable that the wall, being neglected, fell gradually into disrepair when the kingdom of the Sabeans declined. But the ruin of the wall proved fatal to the city in a difThe neighbouring fields, when ferent way. no longer watered from the reservoir, became waste and barren, and the city was thus left without means of subsistence. "Mareb was known to the ancients as the capital of the Sabeans by the name of Mariaba. In its neighbourhood are some ruins, which are pretended to be the remains of the palace of Queen Balkis.”NIEBUHR. Devotement of the Arabs. "THE Arabs have a singular way of displaying their courage in engagements, not unlike the devotement to the infernal gods among the ancients. A soldier willing to signalize his attachment to his master, binds up his leg to his thigh, and continues to fire away upon the enemy, till either they be routed, or he himself be slain upon the field of battle. I could take this only for a fable when it was first told me, but I was afterwards convinced of its truth, by a late instance in the case of a Schiech of Haschid-u Bekil, in the Imam's service, who devoted himself in this manner in a battle against his own countrymen. Six slaves charged muskets for him, which he continued to fire upon the enemy, till, being at last deserted by the Imam's troops, and even by his own servants, he was cut in pieces." -Ibid. Sketches of Nature. "WHY should the winter always be presented to our view, like chilling old age, muffled up in fur skin ?”—Stranger. Motto to December. THE moon bright ere the daylight is gone. The flaky clouds are dark, yet they appear not heavier. They look like the patches of vegetation on the sea sand. The martins.-Their tails are forked; they flutter at their nests before they enter, showing their white bodies, and often rise up and hover there, then dart away on arrowy wing. Their notes are even musical sometimes. At evening, when looking from the window, the murmuring of their young is pleasant-a placid sound, according with the quietness of all around. July 20. Over the western hill it is like a sea of glory, the mist that terminates it graduates into clouds of illuminated darkness, the sun shines full forth. A moun tainous ridge of cloud spreads southwards, their summits whitened. July 22. I see the distant hills through the rainbow; and now it falls upon Pill' and its white church. The green predominates, and then the faint reddishness. It travels with the clouds. I first saw it tinging Walton Castle, and it has now passed completely over Pill. the sun A line of dark cloud, a blue gray, sinks behind it, the streaks above glowing, their remoter sides a brownish red. July 23, nine o'clock. I never saw an evening sky more beautiful. It rains. The clouds are of the darkest gray; but through one long opening the sky appears of the clearest light, a yellow whiteness. July 30. The with-weed, or white convolvulus, is now in blossom. Pestilent as it is in gardens, I cannot but like it, it so clothes the bush on which it seizes, and its white bell flower is so graceful. I see fern growing amid the moss and ivy of an old wall. Greenness of the young ivy. A fine red dwarf hollihock is now in blossom by the ruined cottage in the glen below K. Weston hill. A beautiful relic of cultivation among nettles and weeds. The roots of the elms at Stapleton are prodigiously fine. They run into each other, and emboss the ground like some cathedral roof. Their long flutings near the ground look like the clusters of a Gothic column. Night. The light-leaved poplars now dark as a cypress grove. It has been a wet day: the clouds still hang heavy, though whitely shining in parts. The distant hill is a mass of dark blue. 1 The names here shew us where Southey was at this time residing. Pill is a chapelry in the parish of Easton in Gordano, and Union of Bedminster, six miles from Bristol.-J. W.W. 42." I shake the lash over my camel and she quickens her pace, while the sultry vapour rolls in waves over the burning cliffs." 64. "I see no difference between the tomb of the anxious miser gasping over his hoard, and the tomb of the libertine lost in the maze of voluptuousness. You behold the sepulchres of them both raised in two heaps of earth, on which are elevated two broad piles of solid marble, among the tombs closely connected." 101. "The muscles of our chargers quake as soon as they mingle in battle." thou canst have no idea; and he, to whom 103. "Time will produce events of which thou gavest no commission, will bring thee unexpected news."2-MOALLAKAT, Poem of Zohair. THE canal around the tent mentioned. P. 41. "He made a fierce attack, nor feared the number of tents, where Death, the mother of vultures, had fixed her mansion." 59. "Experience has taught me the events of this day and yesterday; but as to the events of to-morrow, I confess my blindness."-Ibid. Poem of Lebeid. P. 11. "IN the plains which now are naked a populous tribe once dwelt; but they decamped at early dawn, and nothing of 2 This is the motto to the third book of Thalaba.-J. W. W. |