meets and combats an Emir, on the banks of the Dead Sea, and afterwards sups with him beside a fountain; and, in the end, one of these is discovered to be the heir to the throne of Scotland, and the other the Sultan Saladin. Sir Kenneth, after an interview with a crazy hermit in a cave, finds his way, among the rocks of Judea, into a chapel, where Edith Plantagenet, niece to the King of England, whom he has loved at humble distance, passes by him, and drops two rosebuds at his feet. Saladin, disguised as a physician, enters the camp of the Crusaders, and cures Richard of England, who lay sick, and works other wonders. The Scottish Prince, disguised as a poor Knight, is sentenced to die for leaving his post, on a hoax of the Queen, and chooses to be executed rather than break a vow by disclosing his rank; but he is saved by the entreaties of Saladin, disguised as a physician, and returned by him blacked all over as a dumb negro, in which disguise he saves the King's life, and obtains his own pardon. Among all these Asiatic wonders, there are many striking pictures which sort ill with them. Most of the scenes in which Richard is introduced, are finely executed, and one or two are extremely vivid. On the whole, much greater power is displayed than in "The Betrothed;" but the general effect is unpleasing. An Arabian tale is, no doubt, a good thing, and a true Scotch novel is still better; but the elements of the two cannot well be harmoniously blended.

But it is not fair to dwell on errors which are easily pointed out, and pass over the excellencies of this tale in a sentence. Let our readers then, if perchance they have not skimmed the novel, take the beginning of a scene in which the Queen of Richard sues for the Scotchman's life.

"The monarch was lying on his couch, and at some distance, as awaiting his farther commands, stood a man whose profession it was not difficult to conjecture. He was clothed in a jerkin of red cloth, which reached scantly below the shoulders, leaving the arms bare from about halfway above the elbow, and, as an upper garment, he wore, when about as at present to betake himself to his dreadful office, a coat or tabard without sleeves, something like that of a herald, made of dressed bull's hide, and stained in the front with many a broad spot and speckle of dull crimson. The jerkin, and the tabard over it, reached the knee, and the nether stocks, or covering of the legs, were of the same leather which composed the tabard. A cap of rough shag served to hide the upper part of a visage, which, like that of a screech-owl, seemed desirous to conceal itself from light-the lower part of the face being obscured by a huge red beard, mingling with shaggy hair of the same colour. What features were seen were stern and misanthropical. The man's figure was short, strongly made, with a neck like a bull, very broad shoulders, arms of a great and disproportioned length, a huge square trunk, and thick bandy legs. This truculent official leant ou a sword, the blade of which was nearly four feet and a half in length, while the handle of twenty inches, surrounded by a ring of lead plummets to counterpoise the weigh of such a blade, rose considerably above the man's head, as he rested his arm upon its hilt, waiting for King Richard's farther directions.

"On the sudden entrance of the ladies, Richard, who was then lying on his couch, with his face towards the entrance, and resting on his elbow as he spoke to his griesly attendant, flung himself hastily, as if displeased and surprised, to the other side, turning his back to the Queen and the females of her train, and drawing around him the covering of his couch, which, by his own choice, or more probably the flattering selection of his chamberlains, consisted of two large lions' skins, dressed in Venice with such abmirable skill that they seemed softer than the hide of the deer.

"Berengaria, such as we have described her, knew well-what woman knows not?-her own road to victory. After a hurried glance of undisguised and unaffected terror at the ghastly companion of her husband's secret counsels, she rushedat once to the side of Richard's couch, dropped on her knees, flung her mantle from her shoulders, showing, as they hung down at their full length, her beautiful golden tresses, and while her countenance seemed like a sun bursting through a cloud, yet bearing on its pallid front traces that its splendours have been obscured, she seized upon the right hand of the King, which, as he assumed his wonted posture, had been employed in dragging the covering of his couch, and gradually pulling it to her with a force which was resisted, though but faintly, she possessed herself of that arm, the prop of Christendom, and the dread of Heathenesse, and imprisoning its strength in both her little fairy hands, she bent upon it her brow, and united to it her lips.

"What needs this, Berengaria ?' said Richard, his head still averted but his hand remaining under her control.

"Send away that man-his looks kill me,' muttered Berengaria.

"Begone, sirrah,' said Richard, still without looking round-What wait'st thou for? art thou fit to look on these ladies?'

"Your Highness's pleasure touching the head,' said the man.

"Out with thee, dog!' answered Richard-a Christian burial !'

The man disappeared, after casting a look upon the beautiful Queen, in her deranged dress and natural loveliness, with a smile of admiration more hideous in its expression, than even his usual scowl of cynical hatred against humanity.

"And now, foolish wench, what wishest thou?' said Richard, turning slowly and half reluctantly round to his royal suppliant.

"But it was not in nature for any one, far less an admirer of beauty like Richard, to whom it stood only in the second rank to glory, to look without emotion on the countenance and the tremor of a creature so beautiful as Berengaria, or to feel, without sympathy, that her lips, her brow, were on his hand, and that it was wetted by her tears. By degrees, he turned on her his manly countenance, with the softest expression of which his large full blue eye, which so often gleamed with insufferable light, was capable. Caressing her fair head, and mingling his large fingers in her beautiful and dishevelled locks, he raised and tenderly kissed the cherub countenance which seemed desirous to hide itself in his hand. The robust form, the broad, noble brow, and majestic looks, the naked arm and shoulder, the lions' skins among which he lay, and the fair fragile feminine creature that kneeled by his side, might have served for a model of Hercules reconciling himself, after a quarrel, to his wife Dejanira.

666 And, once more, what seeks the lady of my heart in her knight's pavilion, at this early and unwonted hour?"

"Pardon, my most gracious liege, pardon,' said the Queen, whose fears began again to unfit her for the duty of intercessor.

"Pardon! for what?' said the King.

"First, for entering your royal presence too boldly and unadvisedlyShe stopped.

"Thou too boldly!-the sun might as well ask pardon, because his rays entered the windows of some wretch's dungeon. But I was busied with work unfit for thee to witness, my gentle one, and I was unwilling, besides, that thou should'st risk thy precious health where sickness was so lately rife.'

"But thou art now well,' said the Queen, still delaying the communication which she feared to make.

"Well enough to break a lance on the bold crest of that champion, who shall refuse to acknowledge thee the fairest in Christendom.'

"Thou wilt not then refuse me one boon-only one-only a poor life?' "Ha!-proceed,' said King Richard, bending his brows.

"This unhappy Scottish knight-' said the Queen.

"Speak not of him, madam,' said Richard, sternly; he dies-his doom is fixed.'

The dialogue which follows, is not equal to the picture; and this superiority of picturesque over characteristic skill is felt throughou the volumes. Our author must regain his highest mood, if he is in earnest in the proposal, put forth in a very idle Introduction, of his intention to write the life of Napoleon.

TO THE FURZE BUSH.

LET Burns and old Chaucer unite
The praise of the Daisy to sing,-
Let Wordsworth of Celandine write,
And crown her the Queen of the Spring;
The Hyacinth's classical fame

Let Milton embalm in his verse;

Be mine the glad task to proclaim
The charms of untrumpeted Furze !

Of all other bloom when bereft,
And Sol wears his wintery screen,
Thy sunshining blossoms are left
To light up the common and green.
O why should they envy the peer

His perfume of spices and myrrhs,
When the poorest their senses may cheer
With incense diffused from the Furze?

It is bristled with thorns, I confess ;
But so is the much-flatter'd Rose :
Is the Sweetbriar lauded the less

Because amid prickles it grows?
'Twere to cut off an epigram's point,
Or disfurnish a knight of his spurs,
If we foolishly wish'd to disjoint

Its arms from the lance-bearing Furze.

Ye dabblers in mines, who would clutch
The wealth which their bowels enfold,
See Nature, with Midas-like touch,

Here turns a whole common to gold.
No niggard is she to the poor,

But distributes whatever is herз,
And the wayfaring beggar is sure

Of a tribute of gold from the Furze

Ye worldlings! learn hence to divide

Your wealth with the children of want,
Nor scorn, in your fortune and pride,

To be taught by the commonest plant.
For if wisdom the wisest may draw
From things humble, as reason avers;
We too may receive Heaven's law,

And beneficence learn from the Furze!

LETTERS FROM ROME.-NO. III.

It is peculiarly fortunate for the Romans that their city still continues to attract foreigners; for, were it not for them, the working classes would never see a crown, nor the higher ranks acquire a new idea. Whence comes it, then, that the English, who form the immense majority of the foreigners who visit the "eternal city," are, with a few honourable exceptions, the objects of profound hatred to the people, and of ridicule to the good company of Rome? The two following anecdotes which came under my own observation, may serve to explain the sources and motives of this disposition of the inhabitants of Rome towards the English, who enrich them. There is in a small chapel in the town-house of Velletri a celebrated picture, which I went to see. At the gate I met four English travellers, one of whom, the son of a rich London merchant, spoke Italian fluently. We entered together, and were conducted by the porter through the apartments, and into the little chapel where the picture was to be seen. On quitting the place, the young Englishman, who spoke Italian, gave to the porter, for his companions and himself, a mezzo paolo, about five French sous. The porter fired with indignation, overwhelmed the whole party with a torrent of imprecations; for in this country such have been the effects of three centuries of despotism, that the people have lost all respect for intermediate rank—-they see only the Pope and his power. The Roman people respect a man only according to what he spends or gives. This is their general feeling, with the exception of the respect which they pay to the families of the Borghese, Ghigi, Gabrielli, Falconieri, and one or two others, whose palaces, filled with the wonders of ancient and modern art, are open to the public admiration.-The second anecdote I have to mention took place in the Piazza d'Espagna. An Englishman sent a fowling-piece to a gunsmith in the Piazza d'Espagna to be repaired. On its being sent back to him, the messenger demanded two crowns for the repairs; the Englishman found the sum exorbitant, got into a passion and refused to pay: the messenger gave him the fowlingpiece but retained the ramrod saying, with that perfect sang-froid remarkable in the Romans, and which lasts until they explode into the most violent anger, "that as his master had told him to receive two crowns, he should take back the ramrod, and that the Signore Inglése might call at his master's shop and bargain with him." The Englishman accordingly went, accompanied by one of his countrymen, to the gunsmith's; a discussion took place, in the course of which the Englishman called the Roman a cheat; the gunsmith retorted by another insulting expression, when the other Englishman struck him with his whip. A young lad of sixteen, employed in the shop, on seeing his father thus maltreated, snatched up a cutlass and stabbed the Englishman in the thigh, who fell bathed in his blood. The young assassin fled. After the death of the Euglishman, his countrymen in Rome, who visited at the Duke Torlonia's and a few other houses, gave free course to the most injurious reflections on the Roman character, and this while speaking to Romans in their own houses. Now would an Englishman have permitted himself to act towards an English gunsmith, as this ill-fated traveller did towards the armourer of the Piazza d'Espagna? Would an Englishman suffer foreigners at his table to de

claim in the strongest and most offensive terms against the character of the British nation? Would an Englishman offer a mezzo paolo, or two-pence halfpenny, to the guide who should shew him through Hampton Court? It may be objected to what I have stated, that amongst the immense crowds of English who inundate Italy, there must be some not belonging to the better classes of society. But in the instances above-mentioned this was not the case: both the individual who gave two-pence halfpenny to the porter at Velletri, and those who went to the gunsmith's shop, were wealthy and undoubtedly belonging to the class of gentlemen. The real cause of such conduct is this: Englishmen, for what reason I know not, seem to think that they may act on the Continent, and particularly in Italy, in a manner that they dare not do in London. If you strike one of the lower classes in Florence, he will humble himself the more before you; for Florence, since the time of Cosmo II. has been a thoroughly aristocratic country. If you strike a Frenchman belonging to the working class, should he happen to have served in the army, he will propose a duel to you; as was the case some years ago with the driver of a cabriolet, who, on being struck by a Russian officer, very coolly took the cross of the legion of honour from his pocket, fixed it to his button-hole, and then returned the blow. A meeting with pistols was the consequence, and chance was, at least in this instance, on the side of justice; the insolent aggressor fell. With this single exception you may strike a French workman with impunity. But such is not the case with the Roman; and it is for this trait in their character that I esteem that people. The abominable despotism which has weighed upon them since the fifteenth century (see the Memoirs of Benvenuto Cellini) has left them but one virtue— energy. This virtue often assumes the semblance of crime, as in the case of the murderer at the gunsmith's in the Piazza d'Espagna. But let any man with a heart ask himself, if, in the total absence of law, when a Roman of the lower classes knows, by daily experience, that it is absolutely useless for him to seek reparation for personal violence exercised towards him by one of the upper classes-let a man ask himself, I repeat, whether he would have wished to have seen the young lad in the gunsmith's shop remain unmoved, while he saw his father maltreated? The vituperation heaped upon the Roman character by the English at Rome, at the time of this murder, redoubled the hatred already felt towards them, and checked the efforts making by many philanthropic Romans to lessen this sentiment. I was present at a discussion on this subject, which took place at the bedside of the learned Chevalier Tambroni, the husband of Canova's mistress. There was a temporary cause that added to the hatred excited by the insolence of the English. Shortly after the election of Pope Leo XII. Cardinal Gonsalvi had retired from the public affairs, and had been replaced by Cardinal della Somiglia, an old man of eighty years of age, then an ultra in politics and religion, though a libertine in his youth. Gonsalvi, as is well known, favoured the English in the most extraordinary manner, and even went so far, to the great scandal of Cardinal Pacca and the ultra party, to tolerate in Rome the service of the Protestant church. But with the nomination of Somiglia the scene altogether changed, and the English were no longer the favoured of the minister. Now nothing appears more outragious to a Roman, nor puts him in a greater