people! of the night. Before morning had dawned, | roads that were to bind India and enslave its Azráel Pandé rose and took leave of his host and his nephew, conjuring them to be faithful, and went to take his place in the northern train, on one of the iron chain "O Mother! wait, wait but a little," he murmured, stretching forth his hands towards Calcutta, "and thou shalt have the blood!" THOMAS CAULFIELD IRWIN. LUCY'S ATTIRE. (FROM VERSICLES.") When the Summer's sultry noon Flecks her chamber with its rays, [Thomas Caulfield Irwin was born on May | colour, a chaste and pure style, and a mastery 4, 1823, at Warrenpoint, county Down. His of measure characterize all that he has written. father, Thomas Irwin, was a physician; his Some of his prose reminds one of De Quincey mother the daughter of Mr. Caulfield Cooke, in its picturesqueness and stately diction.] a barrister, whose brother, the Rev. William Cooke, was, it may be mentioned, attached to St. Peter's Church, Dublin, at the same time as the Rev. Charles Maturin, the celebrated author of Bertram. Mr. Irwin was educated by private tutors, and acquired a thorough acquaintance with classics and several continental languages. He entered upon a literary career at an early age. By 1853 he was already so favourably known that he was employed by Mr. (now Sir) Charles Gavan Duffy to supply poetical contributions and literary essays to his journal. In 1854 he began to contribute to the Dublin University Magazine, and he continued to write frequently in that periodical until a recent period. Four collections of his poems have been published, Versicles (1856); Poems (1866); Irish Historical and Legendary Poems (1868); and Songs and Romances (1878). In the latter year there also appeared a selection of his prose writings under the title Summer and Winter Stories. These volumes, however, represent but a small portion of what Mr. Irwin has written: 130 Tales, of various length, and essays on a vast number of subjects, have proceeded from his pen. He is the author of a romance of antique life, From Cæsar to Christ, in which there is a striking representation of Roman and British civilization in the reign of Nero. Many of the scenes are finely described, and some of the situations are very strong and exciting. He is also the author of a poetic drama, Ortus and Ermia, a versified translation of Catullus, and translations besides from several classical and continental poets. The verses of Mr. Irwin are fully deserving of the warm appreciation with which they have been received. He has true poetic inspiration. Picturesqueness and rich Warmly waning through the haze, Mix with the twilight ouphs, and feast Scarcely breaks the clasp of night, Soft and warm in winter's spite; As pink sheaths of the perfumed bean. But when norland tempests stir, Blowing o'er the frosted lands, She must wear, without demur, Cosy refuges of fur For sweetest neck, and cold white hands; Shall deem her soft salute a treat: Shall her heart make merry din; Toward the costly decked bazaar; Or, by evening forest brown Wanders with her favourite star. Such shall seem her outward dress; As the mystic seasons roll Seasoned with them; while no less Shall their image tinge her soul, Chaste as chill December; bright As starry July's summer night; Pure as April's gelid buds, Rich as August's fruited woods; Blending in its many moods, Nature's warmth with Heaven's light. HYMN TO EURYDICE. (FROM "ORPHEUS.") Oh! love in life, oh! Paradise surrounded By weary distances of desert space, At length I breathe amid thy bounteous regions, There is love that broods like sunset o'er the ocean, and hue; There is passion, proud, and conquerless, and ear nest As the lightning-globe that cleaves the deeps of blue; But oh! there is a worship of pure Beauty To whose altar turns the spirit's tranced sight, Like a star which splendours through some magic casement, Misted round with urns of frankincense at night. Oft at dawn her voice awakes my dreaming fancy, Like the sweet wind whispering in the rose's ear; And her presence to my soul in trance of twilight, Where the first star lights the even, hovers near; Like some purple sunset shadow in a valley, Girt with summer woods, by waters as they flow, Glassing old heroic ruins on their stillness, Hamlet homes, and distant summits spired in snow. Oh could sweet fancy realize its visions, In some golden land of noon beyond the mountains, In some ancient isle of sweet perfection, where 'Mid twilight temples, highest-thoughted music Filled with spirit round the fragrance of the air. Where the goldened lark would set our hearts to music, As in jubilant communion with the sun, We'd pace the airy mountains o'er the ocean, 'Til the nightingale in woodland dusk begun : Where joyously in heaven's light our spirits Would broaden with the glory of the hours; And close beneath transparent dark in slumber, Life's odours masked in crimson folded flowers. Spirit of the half-closed eyes, Pacing to a drowsy tune, Come to me ere midnight wanes, Come with all thy dreamy trains, Scattering o'er me poppy rains; Dropping me 'mid weary sighs, Deep into a feathered swoon. Leave thy odorous bed an hourLeave thy ebon-curtained bowerLeave thy cavern to the moon. Lowly burns the whitened hearth, Slowly turns the quiet earth. Now the woods and skies are dumb, In the dizzy midnight hum, Come to me, sweet phantom, come. Hidden in the folded gray Of thy garment, bear the urn In sense-life lags the sunny sultaned East, As from a sun-born, light-diffusing soul, SUMMER WANDERINGS. (FROM "SONGS AND ROMANCES.") Lo! down the smoothes of water now The sleeky ripple gurgles slow The veined water-lights waver and gleam In dappling patches over their backs; In lisping plashes into the stream. Around the stalk of the hollyhock, And vicious, intermittent hum; SONNET. In my soul's temple, sacredly enshrined The passing hours, synthetic search may find; To guard; or, seek them through the terrorless When the earth melts beneath the touch of death. RICHARD FRANCIS BURTON. [Captain Burton has written some thirty | lar proof of his knowledge of eastern ways volumes in description of his various wander- and of his bold and enterprising spirit. He ings throughout the globe. Other travellers went to Mecca and Medina in the disguise have become better known, and been more of a pilgrim, and so was able to see sacred highly rewarded; but there can be no doubt spots which had never before been beheld by that the man who has never attained higher the eye of the infidel. It is from his interestrank than a captaincy, or a more splendid ing work describing this expedition that our office than a consulship, has more greatly quotation is taken. He subsequently went dared, and won more knowledge, than any on two exploring expeditions to Central Africa, explorer of his time. his companion in both cases being the lamented Captain Speke. He had been employed by the government during the Crimean war on military service; in 1861 he was appointed to a consulship at Fernando Po, and he occupied his time in exploring the interior of Africa, paying a visit, among other persons, to the redoubtable and sanguinary King of Dahomey. He has held office in succession at São Paulo (Brazil), Damascus, and Trieste; and in each place he has found time to devote Richard Francis Burton was born in Tuam, county Galway, in 1821, and is the son of Colonel Joseph Netterville Burton. In 1842 he entered the Indian army, and continued in that service till 1861. He applied himself early to the study of eastern languages and customs; and having persisted in this labour of love during his entire life, he is now master of twenty-nine languages, European and Oriental. His first expedition was a singu himself to his favourite occupation of surveying many men and various cities. He has been through North and South America, knows Syria and Iceland; has lived in almost every part of India; and in recent years has made several visits to the famous land of Midian. In the lengthy list of Captain Burton's books we may notice: Narrative of Mission to Dahomey (1864); Vikram and the Vampire, or Tales of Hindu Devilry (1869); Two Trips to Gorilla Land (1875); Ultima Thule, or a Summer in Iceland (1875); The Gold Mines of Midian and the Ruined Midianite Cities (1878). He is a good narrator of his adventures, and has many wondrous tales to tell. His style is not very polished, but it is usually graphic, and shows keen and humourous observation. Its chief fault is, perhaps, that Captain Burton, out of the fulness of his knowledge, enters too much into detail.] FEMALE INFLUENCE AND POETRY AMONG THE ARABS. There are two things which tend to soften the ferocity of Bedouin life. These are, in the first place, intercourse with citizens, who frequently visit and intrust their children to the people of the Black tents; and, secondly, the social position of the women. The author of certain "Lectures on Poetry, addressed to Working Men," asserts that Passion became Love under the influence of Christianity, and that the idea of a virgin mother spread over the sex a sanctity unknown to the poetry or the philosophy of Greece and Rome. Passing over the objections of deified Eros and Immortal Psyche and of the virgin mother,-symbol of moral purity,-being common to all old and material | faiths, I believe that all the noble tribes of savages display the principle. Thus we might expect to find, wherever the fancy, the imagination, and the ideality are strong, some traces of a sentiment innate in the human organization. It exists, says Mr. Catlin, amongst the North American Indians, and even the Gallas and the Somal of Africa are not wholly destitute of it. But when the barbarian becomes a semi-barbarian, as are the most polished Orientals, or as were the classical authors of Greece and Rome, then women fall from their proper place in society, become mere articles of luxury, and sink into the lowest moral condition. In the next state, "civiliza tion," they rise again to be "highly accomplished," and not a little frivolous. Were it not evident that the spiritualising of sexuality by imagination is universal among the highest orders of mankind, I should attribute the origin of love to the influence of the Arabs' poetry and chivalry upon European ideas rather than to mediæval Christianity. In pastoral life, tribes often meet for a time, live together whilst pasturage lasts, and then separate perhaps for a generation. Under such circumstances youths, who hold with the Italian that "Perduto e tutto il tempo Che in amor non si spende," will lose heart to maidens, whom possibly, by the laws of the clan, they may not marry, and the light o' love will fly her home. The fugitives must brave every danger, for revenge, at all times the Bedouin's idol, now becomes the lode-star of his existence. But the Arab lover will dare all consequences. "Men have died and the worms have eaten them, but not for love," may be true in the West; it is false in the East. This is attested in every tale where love, and not ambition, is the groundwork of the narrative. And nothing can be more tender, more pathetic than the use made of these separations and the long absences by the old Arab poets. Whoever peruses the "Suspended Poem" of Lebid will find thoughts at once so plaintive and so noble, that even Dr. Carlyle's learned verse cannot wholly deface their charm. The author returns from afar. He looks upon the traces of hearth and home still furrowing the desert ground. In bitterness of spirit he checks himself from calling aloud upon his lovers and his friends. He melts at the remembrance of their departure, and long indulges in the absorbing theme. Then he strengthens himself by the thought of Nawara's inconstancy, how she left him and never thought of him again. He impatiently dwells upon the charms of the places which detain her, advocates flight from the changing lover and the false friend, and, in the exultation with which he feels his swift dromedary start under him upon her rapid course, he seems to find some consolation for woman's perfidy and forgetfulness. Yet he cannot abandon Nawara's name or memory. Again he dwells with yearning upon scenes of past felicity, and he boasts of his prowess,-a fresh reproach to her, of his gentle birth, and of his hospitality. He ends with an encomium upon his clan, to which he attributes, as a |