After refreshing myself with some excellent ale, I recrossed the Thames to Hampton church-yard, which is finely situated on a rising bank of the river, and contains a most ancient Gothic church and a great number of marble monuments. It serves as a thorough-fare for those, who go to the church or the ferry. The church, like most others of its antiquity and architecture, stands in the midst of the church-yard or burying-ground, and is surrounded up to its very walls and doors by monuments great and small. The grave-yard appears cheerful instead of gloomy, being much frequented by the villagers, and intersected by well-worn footpaths, which cross it in every direction. It was at this time almost as much crowded by the living as the dead. A high wooden settee placed nearly in the centre of the church-yard, and looking across and up the Thames, afforded me a restingplace, while I was contemplating the multitude around and beneath me. From Hampton I proceeded along a beautiful road with a smooth, clear sidewalk to Hampton Court, where there is a fine old palace built by Cardinal Wolsey, and presented by him to Henry VIII. It is very extensive, a quadrangle having been added in the reign of William III. under the superintendence of Sir Christopher Wren. The interior is very royal and very interesting. The first room, or guard chamber, so called, contains arms for a thousand men, arranged with great taste and kept in the best order. The most remarkable among them were some Dutch bonnets of steel used in William's time, and some Dutch knives. After this, followed the presence-chambers, audience-chambers, drawing-rooms, bed-chambers, dinning-rooms, beauty-room, closets, &c. there being in general one of each for the king, and one for his queen. Many valuable paintings are distributed among them. A picture of Charles I. by Vandyck and the Cartoons of Raffaelle are the most celebrated. These represent, 1. The miraculous draft of fishes; 2. The charge to Peter; 3. Peter and John healing the lame at the gate of the temple; 4. Death of Ananias; 5. Elymas the sorcerer struck with blindness; 6. The sacrifice to Paul and Barnabas by the people of Lystra; 7. Paul preaching at Athens. The Gallery which contains these pictures is much frequented by artists for the purpose of studying and copying these celebrated models. Engravings of them are also offered for sale, with the condition of sending them to any part of the world. The wings of this palace are occupied by several noble ladies, who enjoy this privilege either by hereditary right or by the special favour of the king. Its situation on the north bank of the Thames, though not commanding, is extremely agreeable; and the pleasure gardens contain beautiful sculptures, and some natural objects of great curiosity and interest. Among these are "the maze," and "the vine," the most fruitful in Europe. It has in one season produced 2272 bunches, weighing eighteen hundred pounds. It was planted in 1769, and the trunk is about thirteen inches in circumference. ORIGINAL POETRY. THE DESOLATE CITY. I had a vision. A city lay before me, desolate, And yet not all decayed. A summer sun And the soft winds threw o'er it such a balm, In the light it lay Peacefully, as if all its thousands took Their afternoon's repose, and soon would wake A city of magnificent palaces, And churches, towering more like things of Heaven, The glorious fabrics, fancy builds in clouds, And shapes on loftiest mountains-bright their domes Many a statue, looking like the forms Of spirits hovering in mid air. Tall trees, And tottering columns-vaults, where never came Tinged with the blue of heaven, to the wide sea Bent round and blessed it. Life was teeming there Of rank luxuriance; flowers, and purpling vines With the glad cry of thousands. There were gardens And temples reared to woodland deities; And they were overcrowded with the excess The air itself seemed like the breath of Heaven Yet these walls Are desolate-not a trace of living man Is found amid these glorious works of man, The holiday of nature? Why not come To add to the sweet sounds of winds and waters- To the bright, listening flowers, and waters falling With clustering ivy, like a poet's brow— P. TO GENEVIEVE. I'll rob the hyacinth and rose, I'll search the cowslip's fragrant cell, And these shall breathe thy gentle name, Thy soul of Music broke the spell, Ah! long had beauty's eyes in vain Thus vainly did the stars at night O'er Memnon's lyre their watch prolong, D. TO THE ARNO. Bright stream! how calm upon thy waters rest And when the mountains catch, upon their heights, Of heaven twinkle in the sky; How sweet the cicăda's lone cry Mourns through thy woods in Autumn's mellow nights. How lovely are thy shores when on the air, And bright in heaven burns the evening star! Flow on, thou classic stream, thy verdant shore; Still will fond memory think of thee, And sigh to look upon thy stream once more! F. M. CRITICAL NOTICES. Rothelan; a Romance of the English Histories. By the author of "Annals of the Parish," Ringan Gilhaize," The Spaewife," &c. New-York. 1825. 2. vols. 12mo. THE author of this book is pretty well known to the reading community, by his works at least, if not by his name, and he has acquired a certain degree of currency among novel readers, which, when the number and merits of his competitors are considered, is indicative of some share of merit. One or two of his works have acquired a considerable popularity; others have been received with some cordiality for relations' sake, and a few have been barely tolerated. Rothelan, we apprehend, will come into the second class, possibly into the third, certainly not into the first. The story is not put together in a manner to command an interest; the characters, although in situations to demand sympathy, do not seem to have the faculty of exciting it; in short, a languid air prevails over the whole production, and although this is sometimes relieved by touches of vivacity and spirit, the impression left upon the whole is not very favourable. It is but justice to say, that its general merits are much obscured by a quantity of miserable trash, which the author introduces about the "book of beauty," as he is pleased to style it, recovered from the "gorgeous hermitage of Fonthill," a book which, as he says, is bound up with a back of opal, covers of lapis lazuli, invisible hinges of adamant, and nine clasps of gold representing the nine muses; with a deal more of such affected stuff. This occurring at the very outset of the work, and repeated in regular doses through the whole, has perhaps rendered us a little fastidious and captious, and less disposed to do justice to that which really deserves commendation. was very unwise in this writer to attempt a new history of the surrender of Calais, which he has succeeded in making so eminently dull and uninteresting, that one would hardly suppose it the same event, in the account of which we have been accustomed to be so much interested. It The most striking and efficient part of the work is that, which gives a description of the plague in London. We quote the account of the arrival of the ship in which it was imported. "She hath had a hard voyage,' rejoined Rothelan: look how dishevelled she is in the cordage. Some of her top-sails too hanging in rags; and I can see, as it were, strips of green moss down the seams of the others. They have surely been long unhanded.' "Adonijah continued looking towards the ship, and appeared thoughtful and touched with care, as he said "Her voyage hath been very long-all the way from the land of Egypt, but she was in Italy as she came, and her course hath been in the sunny days and with the gracious gales of the summer; yet is she like a thing of antiquity, for those signs of waste and decay are as if Oblivion were on board. They have not come of the winds nor of the waves.' "The crowd on the shores,' added the lady, grows silent as she passes.' "There are many persons abroad,' sail Rothclan. |