many struggles to attempt forcing their way in, to the no slight inconvenience of the legitimate pew-holders.

We got in just as the preacher rose to read out the first psalm. The reading was excessively awkward, his voice wretched, and his pronunciation so disfigured by national accent as to be sometimes unintelligible. Still there was a vein of deep and earnest emotion pervading the whole exercise, which made it, to say the least, impressive. His opening prayer I shall remember whilst I live. It was begun in the low husky utterance, which he has entailed on himself by that excessive exertion of the voice which is inseparable from the vehemence of his emotions, and the climax fashion of his interminable sentences. At first he was barely audible; but he seemed to gather strength as he proceeded. There was still, however, a kind of hesitancy in his manner: he seemed to labour with gigantic conceptions, for which even his own lofty expressions were utterly insufficient. His countenance bespoke a solemnized fervency of feeling, such as I had never before seen on human features. The vehemence of his manner startled me at first; but I soon lost sight of this, and of his accent, and of all that was disagreeably peculiar in his manner. A more sublime address to the throne of eternal majesty I have never heard from the lips of man. The force of the preacher's mind seemed to burst through the veil that hides the spiritual world from ordinary minds, and to be holding intercourse with living and present realities. Every thing that he wished you to perceive, became as it were palpable to the very sense. In the conceptions of his grand, but somewhat rude mind, the grotesque I found often mingled with the sublime. What do you think, for instance, of the following idea in a prayer? Alluding to the commercial distress then prevailing, and interceding for the victims of a glutted market, his expressions were, "And now that the surfeited and overlain world is rolling back on the heads of its children, the fruits of their frantic speculations," &c.

But it was in the sermon that the preacher seemed to make his deepest impression. He began in the same manner as in the psalm and the prayer, and went through the introduction in a sort of conversational undertone which almost bordered on the ludicrous. As his ideas expanded, and his feelings began to play, he became more and more animated in his delivery, from animation he rose to vehemence, and from vehemence I had almost said to phrenzy; he literally screamed till his voice broke. and only gesture was repeated with fiercer and yet fiercer energy till he seemed about to fling himself from the pulpit. Then his corporeal powers would fail; he would make a long pause, and wipe off the copious perspiration which actually gushed from his head and face. Here a roar of coughing &c. &c. from all parts

His one

of the church, reminded you of the breathless stillness, which had hitherto reigned over the audience. Silence once more resumed its sway, and the preacher began again in his low broken utterance. Again he rose, and again he sunk under fatigue; till at last, he was fairly compelled to take refuge in the expedient of breaking off and giving out a psalm to be sung, whilst he was recovering his jaded energies.

The succession of effort and respite in the speaker, drew away my attention, sometimes even from the magnificent succession of images which the eloquence of the composition raised before me; and more than once, I could not help thinking of an account of an English boxing-match, which I had read in an old newspaper; the pugilists had so many rounds of athletic effort and so many minutes respite, in succession, till the struggle was closed. However, to speak the sober truth, there is a moral sublimity in the spectacle of a man sacrificing his health and his life to a sacred enthusiasm ; and this must be the sum total of the eloquence of Dr Chalmers' delivery; for in every other point of view it has no power whatever.

In force and sublimity of thought, Dr Chalmers has surpassed the whole generation of preachers among whom he lives. For my own part, I never had so many new and stupendous thoughts brought before me in one hour, as in the discourse I heard that morning. They say that people of every, and of no character, crowd to hear this preacher. I do not wonder at the fact. Mental excitement is, more or less, the happiness of all men; and certainly it can nowhere bo had to a higher pitch, than in a sermon of Dr Chalmers.

[To be continued.]

ITALIAN LYRICAL POETRY.

DE ROSSI.

Giovanni Gherardo de Rossi, a gentleman of Rome, was distinguished, among the Italian poets of the last century, as the author of comedies and of small poems. To the former are assigned a very high rank by Sismondi, and they are praised for their vigorous and exact painting of manners, their elegance of language, their liveliness, wit, and ingenuity; although, in consequence of the bitterness of their satire and their too vivid representation of low and vicious characters, they have enjoyed little popular success. My present business is with his poems only, which consist of epigrams, fables, short amatory pieces, and all the varieties of light, fugitive poems. They are lively, animated, and pretty, but of a

very slight texture, and destitute of all genuine sentiment; being, in short, good examples of the cheap, easy, extemporaneous verses, with which the modern Italian Parnassus abounds. As illustrating national taste, therefore, and as specimens of a popular poet, rather than for any uncommon merit of the original pieces themselves, I proceed to my translations from this author, in which I scarcely attempt to imitate their versification with much care.

THE WOLF AND THE SHEPHERD.

A wolf, who, grown infirm and old,

Could rob and rend the flock no more,
Kneeled to the shepherd of the fold
For pardon, and devoutly swore
His hand from rapine to withhold,
If he might share the food in store : -
You should have come, our shepherd said,
To beg before your teeth decayed.

LOVE'S ANTECHAMBER. A solemn audience Love proclaims And gives Caprice the usher's rod, Who, deaf to merit's idle claims,

Admits his minions to the god.

Frolic and Laughter first appeared,

Yet neither made a long delay;

IL LUPO E IL PASTORE.

Un Lupo che già vecchio non potea
Sul gregge esercitar lo strazio usato,
Fe' sapere al pastor ch' egli volea
Far penitenza d' ogni suo peccato,
Dalle stragi cessar, da ogni opra rea,
Purchè parco alimento gli sia dato:
Disse il Pastor: si umani sentimenti
Dovea spiegarmi quando aveva i denti.

But Youth was much caressed and cheered,
And Grace and Beauty urged to stay.

With Folly, Love held large discourse,
Nor gave less time to Jealousy,
Since wont to both to have recourse
For many a potent remedy.

And Treachery came with troubled eye,
Yet seemed, when passing out, to smile;

Then Scorn addressed the Deity,

Who, though they'd lived averse awhile, Yet sent his guest well pleased away;

Fidelity and Innocence,
Who came their best respect to pay,
Slighted, in anger hurried thence.

And now had Love, in guise polite,
Received and welcomed all the rout,
Save Reason, whom Caprice in spite
Had left to stay uncalled without.
At last Caprice, who joyed to view
His ancient foe thus stand apart,

L'ANTICAMERA D'AMORE.
Udienza solenne

Amore un giorno tenne;
Il regolar l'ingresso
Fu al Capriccio commesso,
Che senza aver rispetti
A chi più merto avea
Gli amici prediletti
Al Nume introducea.
Entraro il Riso e il Gioco,
Ma si trattener poco.
Con Amore assai più
Parlò la Gioventù.
Fu la bellezza udita,

Ma colle Grazie unita.
Dopo la Gelosia

Ascoltò la Follia,
E momenti non brevi
Ad ambedue concesse,
Perchè affari non lievi

Suole affidare ad esse.
Torbido in viso e tetro

Passò poi il Tradimento;
Ma nel tornare indietro
Parve lieto e contento.
Entrò lo Sdegno ancora

A favellar col Nume;
E benchè ad esso ognora
Avverso di costume,
Pur gli si lesse in volto
Che avealo bene accolto.
Fu ammessa la Costanza
Coll' Innocenza a lato;
Ma usciron dalla stanza
In aspetto turbato.
Avea già udito Amore
Tutto l'accorso stuolo,
E la Ragione solo
Aspettava al di fuore;
Che a lei per odio antico
Il Capriccio nemico

1825.]

Where lives the Soul of

song

?

Dwells it amid the city's festive halls?

Where crowd the eager throng,

Or where the wanderer's silent footstep falls?
Loves it the gay saloon,

Where wine and dances steal away the night,

And bright as summer noon

Burns round the pictured walls a blaze of light?

Seeks it the public square,

When victory hails the people's chosen son,

And loud applauses there

From lip to lip in emulous greetings run?

Dwells it amid the host,

Who bear their crimson banners waving high;

Whose first and only boast

Draws tears of anguish from the patriot's eye?

Follows it on the path,

Where the proud conqueror marches to his home,

And wearied of his wrath

Smiles as he steps beneath the imperial dome?

No-not in festive halls,

In crowded marts, nor in the gay saloon;
Not in the forum falls,

Nor on the conquering host, the gracious boon:

But where blue mountains rise

Silent and calm amid the upper air,

And pure and cloudless skies

Bend o'er a world, that lies below as fair;

But where uncultured plains

Spread far and wide their beds of grass and flowers,

And heaven's bright pencil stains

Clear gems that roll away in silent showers;

But in the depth of woods,

Where the slant sunbeam gilds the hoary trees,
And the soft voice of floods

Glides on the pinions of the evening breeze;

But in the broken dell,

Where the cripsed ivy curls its tangled vines,

And the wild blossom's bell

Drops with the dew, that in its hollow shines;

But in the gulfy cave,

Where pours the cascade from the glacier's height,

And all its waters wave,

Like rainbows, in their luxury of light;

There dwells the Soul of song,

It flies not to the city's festive halls

But loves to steal along,

Where the lone wanderer's silent footstep falls.

THE PROCLAMATION OF SALADINE.

Fui et nihil amplius.

The wars of Saladine are ended;
Half Asia's sons in bondage sleep;
And few are left that e'er offended,
And fewer still that do not weep.
No foe is left his sword to try on;
O'er the wide East he reigns alone,
For Guy is dead, and Cœur de Lion
Re-occupies his British throne.

P.