Sprang up, and call'd to horse, while tumult wild
Broke up the marr'd and frighted ceremony.'

pp. 86-88. The Queen is arrested as false, and conducted to the Tower. Before she enters the gates she takes a last glance at the free world in these pretty and picturesque lines:

Oh! Sir, pause

:-

One last long look, to satiate all my senses.
Oh! thou blue cloudless canopy, just tinged
With the faint amber of the setting sun,
Where one by one steal forth the modest stars
To diadem the sky: thou noble river,
Whose quiet ebb, not like my fortune, sinks
With gentle downfall, and around the keels
Of those thy myriad barks mak'st passing music:
Oh! thou great silent city, with thy spires
And palaces, where I was once the greatest,
The happiest I, whose presence made a tumult
In all your wondering streets and jocund marts:
But most of all, thou cool and twilight air,
That art a rapture to the breath! The slave,
The beggar, the most base down-trodden outcast,
The plague-struck livid wretch, there's none so vile,
So abject, in your streets, that swarm with life
They may inhale the liquid joy Heaven breathes
They may behold the rosy evening sky.
They may go rest their free limbs where they will :
But I - but I, to whom this summer world
Was all bright sunshine; I, whose time was noted
But by succession of delights
Oh! Kingston,
Thou dost remember, thou wert then Lieutenant,
'Tis now how many years? - my memory wanders
Since I set forth from yon dark low-brow'd porch,
A bride — a monarch's bride — King Henry's bride!
Oh! the glad pomp, that burn'd upon the waters
Oh! the rich streams of music, that kept time
With oars as musical - the people's shouts,
That call'd Heaven's blessings on my head, in sounds
That might have drown'd the thunders
Of blessing now, and not a voice would say it.'

-

I've more need

pp. 106, 107.

Anne is tried before the council, is speedily condemned, and, to her infinite grief, her condemnation involves the lives of Norreys and her other gentlemen. They die protesting her innocence and their own. Mark Smeaton, awakened at last from his dream of saving her, dies on the scaffold, exclaiming against himself and his deception. The Queen, after listening to the bell which tolled for their successive deaths, is brought out, makes a speech from the scaffold, nearly copied from the history, and dies in forgiveness and resignation.

On the whole, this poem will add nothing to Mr. Milman's deserved reputation. It exhibits the same forcible and classic language

which first gave promise of his career; but it wants the vividness of conception and truth of character, without which poetry, and, above all, dramatic poetry, must see its laurels wither leaf by leaf. The character of the Jesuit, Angelo, is, as we have remarked, an extravaganza, an intolerable exaggeration. The possession of the loftiest feelings with the commission of the most fiendish treacheries is not in nature. No madness of enthusiasm can degrade and infuriate the moral sense to this pitch. The other characters are generally feeble and incomplete. Of Henry we have but a few sonorous lines. Of Gardiner's character we have but a sketch, and that sketch bearing no similitude to the bold minded, intelligent, and haughty original. The treachery practised by Mark Smeaton extinguishes all the interest with which the author had evidently intended to grace and bring out his character. Anne Boleyn is the most finished picture of the piece, and exhibits some touches of nature and delicacy: but even she declaims at an oppressive length; and the poetry of her speeches too frequently sinks under the ponderousness of her grief.

In our selections we have uniformly chosen the most striking passages; and the reader will see with pleasure like our own that Mr. Milman has not yet lost his early and picturesque powers.

ART. VII. Travels in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Hanover, Germany, Netherlands, &c. By William Rae Wilson, Esq. F. S. A. Author of Travels in Egypt and the Holy Land. 8vo. pp. 659. 17. 1s. London. Longman and Co. 1826.

NORWAY and Sweden have more attractions for a traveller fond of diversified and picturesque scenery than is generally imagined. Mountain, wood, and water conspire to form, in many parts of these countries, prospects that are not often to be met with elsewhere; and the roads in general, at least those which are most frequented, are usually kept in excellent order. It adds not a little to the pleasures of a journey through those united kingdoms, that the traveller has no bandits to fear, as in Italy, Portugal, and Spain. The peasantry are industrious, hospitable, and remarkably civil and attentive to strangers. The expenses of travelling are trifling in comparison to what they are in any part of the south of Europe; and, what is of equal consequence, a tourist, if he observe the regulations of the post, may proceed with as much expedition as he pleases, without being exposed to any disappointments as to horses, or to imposition of any description. The inns, indeed, are not of the highest character for cleanliness and comfort; a defect which, together with the absence of those attractions that arise from collections of numerous and distinguished works of art, and of populous and well-built towns, may, in a great measure, account for the neglect with which our emigrant classes have hitherto treated the regions of the north.

In short, that quarter is not fashionable, and we fear that it never will be so, notwithstanding Mr. Rae Wilson's strenuous exertions in setting off all its favourable peculiarities to the best advantage. When Englishmen leave their own firesides, few of them are disinterested enough as to every thing that touches the sense of personal enjoyment, not to seek a climate that is purer and more genial than their own. The lands of the vine have also in them a neverfailing resource for those whose love of fine scenery is easily satiated. Besides, the "lions" of Christiana and Stockholm are few, and not very remarkable: those of the latter might easily be dispatched in a morning or two; and as to Christiana, if there were any thing to be seen in it, what would an Englishman do in a city where, from the wretched state of the streets, he would, in all probability, break a leg, or at least sprain an ankle, in his first ramble after curiosities? The real and only charms which the traveller has to expect in Norway, or its sister-realm, consist of a succession of some of the most varied and beautiful scenes in the world, which nature has spread with a lavish hand over the interior of the country. To him who is accustomed to commune with that unseen but ever-active Power, who marks with attention the effect of her combinations, who delights in

"The warbling woodland, the resounding shore,

The pomp of groves, and garniture of fields,"

to him will such a country afford many objects of interest, fruitful, in after-life, of the most agreeable recollections. The broken down spendthrift, the woman of fashion, the greater part of that vicious and extravagant tribe, who saunter for years amid the enervating gardens of the south, chiefly for the purpose of indulging in a course of licentiousness that would not be tolerated at home, would perish of ennui in two days at Frederickshall or Ulnsweter.

Either of these places, however, but particularly the former, seems to exhibit points of landscape-beauty such as never yet have entered into the compositions of the most fanciful artist. We agree with Mr. Wilson in thinking that several of the scenes which he has attempted to describe richly deserve to be transferred to the canvass, and offer to young artists some of the finest imaginable objects for study. They must, indeed, explore those scenes with their own eyes in order to comprehend their character, for our author seldom succeeds in effecting an intelligible sketch of them for his readers. He has little of the poet in his composition; and though he professes to feel a strong susceptibility for the charms of nature, yet he is more apt to moralise upon them than to reduce them to a picture. In this respect, there is a great monotony throughout his work. A fine mountain, or an extensive lake, presents itself to his notice; but instead of inviting us to admire its grandeur or its loveliness, by an engaging description of its details, he launches out into a discourse upon the moral government of the universe.

This propensity to dissertation upon common-place topics is the pervading vice of his volume. The mere circumstance of his setting out on his journey gives rise to nearly three pages of reflections, much in the style of the "Meditations among the Tombs." When he touches on the subject of education, there may be some excuse for his habit of amplification; but, assuredly, his experience in literature ought at this time to have taught him that "the attribute of mercy" has been long since worn threadbare by every schoolboy who has been compelled to write an exercise; and that the glories of "the moon," the "queen of light," and "the starry vault," have been utterly exhausted both in poetry and prose. Yet Mr. Wilson renews them in both. Not content with giving us his own elaborate remarks in his loose and wandering phraseology, he intersperses almost every one of his pages with two or three illustrations in verse, without any remarkable effort of discrimination as to

the source from which he takes them. He cannot trust himself to the perils of the deep without being reminded of the old air so popular in Britain:

"Ye gentlemen of England, who live at home at ease,

How little do you think of the dangers of the seas.'

That very rare and unknown poem, Thomson's Seasons, furnishes him with innumerable quotations, which he thrusts in often without the least reference to the subject of which he is treating. In one of the towns through which he passed (Carlstadt), he observed that the houses were very low, a circumstance which reminds him of the following lines in Shakspeare:

"That is the way to make the city flat,

To bring the roof to the foundation,
To bury all!!"

We cannot, at this moment, refer to the writer to whom the author is indebted for the following lines; but, to make the passage perfect, we must give the sentence which precedes as well as that which succeeds it. 'We observed a peasant tending a flock of goats, who was playing on the lure, as it is named, or trumpet, with true simplicity.

"Is there a heart that music cannot melt?

Alas! how is that rugged heart forlorn !”

This serves as a call to the cattle, particularly in forests.' This! Does he mean "the rugged heart forlorn?" Such is the construction, though he probably alluded to the sound of the trumpet. Again, our traveller seeing two bears cross his path is reminded of these noble lines :

"With visages formidably grim,

And rugged as Saracens,

Or Turks of Mahomet's own kin."

Who the immortal author of these verses may have been, we are left to conjecture. But Mr. Wilson, who travelled in Egypt and Palestine, might have known that the Turks and Saracens, whatever their faults may be, are among the finest specimens of the human creation; at least there is a very considerable difference between them and the rude tenants of the forest, which the author assures us were frightened away by the rattling of his carriage.'

If a gentleman who finds himself in an incurable disposition for making a book, be also inclined to decorate his pages with passages borrowed from other writers, he should at least repair his own want of originality by the superior beauty and force of his quotations. Mr. Wilson, on the contrary, seems to give his preference to passages which have no intrinsic merit to recommend them, and have as little as possible to do with the subject which he imagines they illustrate.

We have already spoken of his propensity to dissertation; perhaps we should have used a graver term, for he seems to be well versed in the sacred writings, and to think that he cannot use them too abundantly in this narrative of his travels. We yield to no man in reverence for the Scriptures; but we hold that nothing can be more inconsistent with that reverence, or more disgusting to every person of good taste, than the frequent repetition of passages from those inspired works on every trifling occasion that arises in the common course of worldly affairs. The affectation of superior sanctity is one of the most prevailing and plausible vices of our day, and is generally found linked with bigotry in religion. Mr. Wilson's sanctity may be, as we doubt not it is, perfectly sincere; but it certainly should have taught him to follow the course of virtue with less ostentation, and to allow to others some portion of that liberty of conscience which he arrogates to himself. In his opinion every religion is wrong which differs from his own, and every man is blinded by superstition who does not worship at the same altar with himself! When shall we see our literature purified from this base alloy of intolerance?

The faults which we have specified, and others which remain to be noticed, considerably diminish the estimate which we might. otherwise have been inclined to form of these Travels;' but, at the same time, we must not refuse Mr. Wilson the praise that is due to him for making us better acquainted than we had been before with a very interesting country. He has also collected together, with great diligence, many facts relating to the agriculture, the economy, and the present state of the governments of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, which are not without value. Like an experienced traveller, he omits no opportunity of affording his advice to those who may follow him in the same route, cautioning them of the privations which they will have to endure, and the evils against which they should in time provide. He writes with great minuteness, detailing every thing, his journey to Harwich, his voyage across the