THE ARAB'S HORSE.

[The subjoined sketch is founded on the well-known story of the poor Arab who had agreed to sell his mare to the agent of Louis XIV. Although he had brought her a long distance, he could not endure the pangs of parting with her, but refusing the proffered gold, vaulted on her back, and returned to his desert home with his old companion. ]

I bring thee here my desert steed,

Queen of her matchless race! The best that ever joyed to lead

The battle's fiery chase.

At first she spurned the desert sand
In high and proud disdain,
But soon she bowed to my command
And owned the practised rein.

It seems but yesterday

How youthful are my courser's charms! My wife beside the lonely well
Will make her bitter moan,
E'en when the bright red gold I tell,
If I come back alone.

Since first in all her wild alarms

I taught her to obey.

And well doth she repay my care
When chains and death are nigh;
The eagle through the trackless air
Moves not so fast as I.

Can gold perform my courser's task;
Replace the peerless gem?
My children for their friend will ask
How shall I answer them?

My Zúlima! and must thou feel
A Christian's strange caress?
Or suffer from his goring steel

When faint from weariness?

And canst thou far away from me
Thy food in comfort take?

I know thy heart will cheerless be,
But mine, alas! will break.

Our Arabs' tents adorn the plain--
A plain without a track-

Shall Kings control thy broidered rein--
Or wilt thou bear me back?

Back to our happy desert home-
Our fountain and our tree,
Again the fiery waste to roam,
Contented, poor, and free.

My Zúlima! she neighs assent!

She snuffs afar the breeze
That waves the canvass of our tent,
And sings among our trees.

And pleasant voices greet her ear
And pleasant visions shine
Before her eyes-you see, you hear-
Take back your gold!—she's mine.
F. A. D

The rough method of breaking colts, described in the text, is said to be invariably praetised by the Arabs.

AMERICA AND THE EARLY ENGLISH POETS.

The expeditions to America undertaken in the reign of Elizabeth, and in that of the first James, could not fail to awaken a more than usual interest in the public mind. This interest must have been proportionably increased, when the fact was known that several bands of their adventurous countrymen had obtained a footing in the new world; had formed compacts with the Indian, or driven him back to his native wilds; had established villages and towns, which soon assumed importance from the grant of corporate rights and charters, and other immunities. But then these facts were known to comparatively but few, and it was long before the intelligence found its way to the interior of the country. There were then no Magazines, no Reviews. and above all, no newspapers to circulate intelligence in a few hours from one end of the kingdom to another. Men were content with oral information, which, after it had survived, perhaps, the proverbial nine-days' interest, was suffered to pass into oblivion. As there was no medium for transmitting the information of the day, few, if any, thought of recording it, and hence the absence of any details relative to the social history, literature and biography of these times. What has been qualified as a want of curiosity in the worthy people of the golden days of the good Queen Bess, might, it appears to us, be more properly ascribed to the cause here assigned.

In the absence of other chroniclers, the poets have, from time immemorial, been looked up to as the transmitters, indirectly at least, of the traditionary lore of their age, of its more remarkable events, and of all that most deeply excited its attention and rivetted its interest. It is to these sources that we have looked for materials to throw some light upon the state of the public mind in England, in reference to the early settlement of America, and we are led to hope that enough has been discovered to furnish out an Article which will present a general transcript of the feelings of this interesting period. At all events, it has the merit of novelty.

The first settlement made by the English in America was in Virginia, about the year 1590. In 1592 appeared that great masterpiece of fancy and invention, the FAIRY QUEEN, which its author laid at the feet of his great patroness and friend, Queen Elizabeth. In the character of this extraordinary woman were blended contrasts the most singular-the frivolous and the cruel, the lofty and the mean, all that is humiliating in personal vanity with all

VOL. V. NO. XVII.-MAY, 1839. F. F

that is great and ennobling in public spirit. Among her number less foibles, the most remarkable was that of being known to her contemporaries, and to posterity, by the title of the VirginQueen." It was to flatter this weakness of his mistress, that Sir Walter Raleigh named the newly-discovered country VIRGINIA. Spenser's Dedication to her of the first edition of the Fairy Queen is too curious to be withheld from the reader, especially as, for reasons which now can be only conjectured, this dedication was altered in the subsequent edition. It runs as follows:

"TO THE MOST HIGH AND MIGHTY

ELIZABETH,

BY THE GRACE OF GOD, QUEEN OF ENGLAND,

FRANCE AND IRELAND,
And of Virginia,

HER MOST HUMBLE SERVANT,
EDMUND SPENSER,

DOTH IN ALL HUMILITY,

DEDICATE THESE HIS LABOURS,

To live with the eternity of her fame."

This may be thought to form a curious anticlimax, but surely not more remarkable than the present regal title-King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, and also of-Berwick upon Tweed.

In canto the tenth of the Fairy Queen, mention is thus made of America:

"Who, then, can thee, Mercilla, thoroughly praise,
That herein dost all earthly princes pass?
What heavenly muse shall thy great honor raise
Up to the skies, whence first deriv'd it was,
And now on earth itself enlarged has,

From th' utmost brink of the Americ shore

Unto the margent of the Moluccas?
Those nations far thy justice do adere,

But thine own people do thy mercy praise much more.”

We have here a just and well-turned compliment both to Elizabeth and to Spenser's friend, Sir Walter Raleigh, to whose kind offices the poet had, during the season of his distress, been deeply indebted.

1599. From Spenser we turn to another poet of the same period, whose name is not so familiar in the mouths of men as it deserves to be. Michael Drayton is a genius, if not of the loftiest, at least of the most pleasing order; there is scarcely any kind of composition, from the sonnet to the domestic epic, which he has not attempted, and with success. His "Polyolbion" stands an inde structible monument of his learning, taste and invention. His sonnets are some of the sweetest and most characteristic compositions of the Elizabethan era, and his "Muses' Elysium," or pastoral pieces, exhibits a play of fancy, and a command of language and

of rhythm, unsurpassed in our mother tongue. Joined to these. qualities is another, very rarely to be found in the poetry of this period we mean humor, a native vein of which runs through all his compositions. It even stole into his more serious pieces; for instance, in one of his elegies he has the following lines:

"A tender-hearted man, like me, may spend

Some pious drops for a deceased friend;

Some men, perhaps, their wives' late death may rue,
Or wives their husbands'-but the number 's few."

We are led to hope that some lover of the good old school of our poetry will revive a portion, at least, of the works of this delightful writer; we know not of any one of our elder poets over whose palingenesis we should more sincerely rejoice.

There are two of this writer's poems that have a reference to our country, and which we have selected for the present occasion. With respect to the subject of the second, we would state, for the information of those not acquainted with the fact, that Sandys completed his translation of Ovid in Virginia, whence he dates his dedication to Charles the First. In a second article, which we contemplate, on America and the early English prose-writers, we purpose to give this, with other curious articles.

"THE VIRGINIAN VOYAGE.
You brave heroic minds,

Worthy your country's name,
That honour still pursue;
While loitering hinds

Lurk here at home with shame-
Go, and subdue.

Britons, you stay too long;
Quickly abroad bestow you,
And with a merry gale
Swell your stretch'd sail,
With vows as strong

As the winds that blow you.

And cheerfully to see,
Success should still entice

To get the pearl and gold,
And ours to hold,

Virginia,

Earth's only paradise.

Where nature hath in store
Fowl, venison, and fish;
And the fruitfullest soil
Without your toil-
Three harvests more,

And greater than your wish.

Here the ambitious vine
Crowns with his purple mass
The cedar, reaching high
To kiss the sky;

With cypress, pine,

And useful sassafras.

When, as the luscious smell
Of that delicious land,
Above the sea that flows,
The clear wind throws,—
Your hearts shall swell,
Approaching the dear strand.

In turning of the shore,

Thanks to God first given,)
You, the happiest men,
Be frolic then;

Let cannons roar,

Affrighting the wide heaven.

And in these regions far,

Such heroes bring ye forth
As those from whom we came,
And plant our name

Under that star

Not known unto our north.

And there, as plenty grows
Of laurel every where,
Apollo's sacred tree,
Oh, may you see
A poet's brows

To crown, who may sing there.

Thy voyages attend,

Illustrious Hackluit,

Whose reading shall inflame
Men to seek fame,

And much commend

To after-times thy wit."

"EPISTLE TO MR. GEORGE SANDYS,

Treasurer for the English Colony in Virginia.

Friend, if you think my papers may supply
You with some strange omitted novelty,
Which others' letters yet have left untold,
You take me off before I can get hold
Of you at all; I put not thus to sea,
For two months' voyage to Virginia,