Being fully of opinion that the most efficacious mode of preserving ship-timber from decay is by immersing it for a time in a saturated solution of marine salt;-the next question is, how is this to be effected? and what are the expenses attending it? We know of no better mode, than that of building a number of vats in the different yards, to contain the several pieces of timber of the same description. When timber is, therefore, received at the navy yards, it should immediately be selected out as it may be wanted for line of battle ships, or those of inferior grade; and should then be hewn and worked to answer the situation it is intended to occupy in the ship: after which it should be carefully placed in the vats, appropriated to specific pieces, and completely immersed in a saturated solution of marine salt. In yards where the ordinary ebbing and flowing of the tide is eight feet or more, there is no difliculty in so arranging these vats, by gates and sluices, as to admit water and draw it off at pleasure; but at the ports southward of NewYork, it may be necessary to effect one of these operations by pumps. The timber being hewn and dressed, nothing more will be requisite, when wanted for use, than to raise it to its place in the vessel. It can readily be imagined how rapidly a vessel may be framed, when the timber is thus prepared. When the vessel is framed and planked, the interstices between the timbers should also be filled in with salt, so that the timbers may be constantly imbibing it. The manual labour, required in this process, cannot be more than what is required to stow away the timber under sheds; and very little more, if a good system be pursued, than putting up the frame, as recommended by the Commissioners.

We have neither time nor opportunity to enter into a minute calculation of the expenses required for this mode of managing timber; but we feel confident that the construction of vats to contain the materials for a ship of war, cannot be of equal expense to that which is necessary to place the frame under cover the additional expense, if any, will then consist in the salt necessary to saturate those materials-the amount of which, when the duties are deducted, must be so inconsiderable as to have no material influence upon the question.

In enumerating the various advantages attendant upon the plan suggested by the Commissioners, the report states, that

· It is the most economical as well as most effectual mode for the preservation of ship timber, that can in our opinion be devised. The covering or housing should be first made, and the ship should be built under this covering. A very great and decided advantage thence results, as respects workmanship, as well as materials. The artificers can always make a full day's work at any season, and can perform VOL. III.

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more work in the same time, than they can do when exposed to the weather.'

To the former part of this remark, our observations have particularly been applied; and it will be for experiment to prove, whether the plan we have suggested of salting the timber, to increase its durability, be not the most effectual method of preserving timber, or a preferable mode to that recommended by the Commissioners. We will remark, however, that if the requisitions of the law be such that vessels must be annually constructed, and if the circumstances of the country be such as not to require their immediate service, we doubt not of the propriety of covering or housing them while on the stocks-there to remain until wanted on their proper element. Notwithstanding this treatment, we think the timbers ought still to be salted. But what more can any nation require, than a quantity of suitable materials properly worked to their moulds and deposited at the different naval depots, there to remain seasoning, or improvingin point of durability and of course in value, against the time that their service shall be demanded; and with which vessels may be rapidly put in frame and prepared for sea.

The latter part of the remark just quoted, is not so clear-to wit: that the artificers can do more work. An experiment of building merchant vessels in a house was made, a number of years ago, by an enterprising ship carpenter of our city: Now if it had been found that labour was saved in this way, it is probable that others would have imitated the example, but no such thing has taken place; it yet remains a solitary instance, though built more than fifteen years ago. Indeed many intelligent shipwrights think that the reverse is the fact; contending that the open air is alone the place where work can be done to advantage-that the full light of the day is necessary to the workmen that those who work in houses cannot commence so early in the morning, nor continue so late in the afternoon-that, although in wet and rainy weather the men are not compelled to abandon their work, yet, in such cases, it is often times so dark within these houses, that the work is overlooked or slightedand that in wet weather their time is not lost, for there is always employment for the men to prepare the materials for their places. We think there is much force in these arguments, and are inclined to believe that the advantage of building under cover will not, to say the least, be so great as is anticipated in the report.

ART. VII.-Marino Faliero, Doge of Venice; a Tragedy, in five acts. By Lord BYRON.

2. The Prophecy of Dante; Poem. By Lord BYRON.

3. Letter to **** ******, on the Rev. W. L. Bowles' Strictures on the Life and Writings of Pope. By the Right Hon. Lord BYRON.

AFTER having been long announced and eagerly expected, the tragedy of Lord Byron has at length appeared. Rumours of two cantos of Don Juan, a poem on Parga, and an Italian tragedy, have been alternately spread; and have certainly succeeded in keeping the noble author and his intended work in the mind of the reading public.

: Marino Faliero, doge of Venice, an aged gentleman, was married to a youthful wife, whose fame was slandered by Michael Steno, a Patrician; the particulars of which we do not learn in the play, the doge having silenced his nephew, when he, like a straight forward person, was about to read it. The offender being sentenced by "the forty" to one month's arrest, the lenient penalty is considered by the doge an added insult; and while he is venting his anger in loud words, Israel Bertuccio, the patron of a galley, is announced, and after some hesitation admitted. The doge of Venice listens to the confession, or rather confidential communication of this traitor, as he acknowledges himself-promises to meet his accomplices, and when he does join them, pledges himself to aid in assassinating all the nobility (except himself,) and to destroy the government of which he is the chief. He does not, however, make this determination without much doubt, and more conversation; and even when he is resolved, his words savour so much of repentance that Bertuccio's mistrustfulness might be pardoned. But the doge proceeds to assure him, that in expressing these horrors, and repeating the many ties which bind him to his intended victims, he very naturally becomes more hardened in his resolution. As honest Bertuccio is satisfied with this logic, it would be unbecoming in us not to acquiesce. In the interval between his interview with the conspirator and the meeting of the band, the doge has a long and fatherly conversation with his wife, in which he civilly monopolizes the privilege of her sex, that of talking all the while. In this scene, the doge, with the forgetfulness of seventy, repeats to his consort many circumstances which she must have known before, but which, for the sake of the reader, (pit and boxes not being intended,) she kindly received as rare news, and dutifully listens to her husband's praises of his own magnanimity. Taking leave of the duchess, the doge proceeds to the church appointed by Bertuccio. Here, in the middle of

the night, he makes a long speech, and calls upon the spirits of his ancestors to appear as witnesses of his pure motives. His ancestors, however, do not obey the summons; and he is joined by Bertuccio, with whom he goes to meet the conspirators, who are not a little flurried by his appearance. Then enters Lord Lioni, just returned from a revel, who leans from the window, talks about the stars, and remarks that the moon-light sea is more silent than the noisy feast he has left; and at length prepares for sleep, when Bertram, one of the conspirators, and foster brother to Lioni, enters, and discovers all. In consequence of Bertram's treachery, the doge is interrupted in the midst of a long soliloquy, by an uncivil sort of a person, called Signor of the Night, (Qu. a watchman,) who arrests him for high treason. The signal for tolling St. Mark's bell is given too late, the conspirators are secured, and Faliero is condemned to die. His duchess is admitted to the presence of the Giunto, where she says much, but to no purpose; and after an hour's converse with her, the doge is lead to death, while his wife, of course, falls into a swoon. The doge dies, but as he dies he talks: though his guards assure him that nobody can hear him but the council of ten, he delivers a speech to time and eternity, of three pages in length, which he closes with the oft repeated direction of Sir Thomas More to his executioner, "Strike but once.'

The truth seems to be. that Lord Byron cannot write good tragedies there are, doubtless, some fine passages in Faliero, but it is not fine passages alone that make a good tragedy.

"'Tis not enough, when swarming faults are writ,

That here and there are scattered sparks of wit."

A regular plot, diversity of character, and skilful grouping, are required of a dramatic writer, even though he shelter himself under the plea that his play is not intended for representation; this plea, though backed by the Lord Chancellor's injunction, has not saved Faliero from the disgrace of a representation in England. We say disgrace, because, as the author must have foreseen, it did not succeed. Indeed, this tragedy does not awaken a single feeling in the breast of the reader, but regret that the author should have permitted its publication. Mr. Hazlitt, a gentleman who has given lectures at the Surrey Institution, and who occasionally contributes to the Edinburgh Review, has said that Moore should not have published Lalla Rookh-not even for three thousand pounds. Without pretending to measure fame by the calculations of the leger, we think that thrice that sum should have been refused for Marino Faliero. The plot has neither interest nor novelty-the characters are few, feeble, and artificial. The furious and wordy rage of an old man; the cold and common place character of his wife; the conspirators, like all the traitors who have plotted in tale

or tragedy; the younger Faliero, who, with his uncle, says more than he does; a dissipated patrician; the council of ten, with Benintende the chief: these furnish the characters. Nor is there any peculiar beauty in the style, or force in the sentiments, to compensate for the inanity of the dramatis personæ.

Some fine thoughts on Venice, which the author has expressed in felicitous rhyme, he has transferred into blank verse, and interpolated, at length, in this tragedy; and here they stand, inappropiate, with all their merit. The following passage is pleasing from its pensive tone, though it has scarce dignity enough for the doge of Venice. It reminds us of some fine lines by the same pen, which begin, "No more-no more— -Oh! never more my heart."

Doge. I will be what I should be, or be nothing;
But never more--oh! never. never more,
O'er the few days or hours which yet await
The blighted old age of Faliero, shall
Sweet quiet shed her sunset! Never more
Those summer shadows rising from the past
Of a not ill-spent nor inglorious life,

Mellowing the last hours as the night approaches,
Shall sooth me to my moment of long rest.
I had but little more to ask, or hope,

Save the regards due to the blood and sweat,
And the soul's labour through which I had toil'd
To make my country honour'd. As her servant-
Her servant, though her chief-I would have gone
Down to my fathers with a name serene

And pure as theirs; but this has been denied me-
Would I had died at Zara !'

This expression is also happy :

Joy's recollection is no longer joy,

While sorrow's memory is a sorrow still.'

We dislike that microscopic criticism which searches for minute errors, and magnifies slight blemishes; but a writer like Lord Byron should not shrink from such an examination; and it may not be amiss to select one page of his tragedy, and assume the labour which ought to have been the author's. We open at random. The doge is lulling his rage, by planning schemes of revenge; when Bertuccio is announced.

Doge. Sir, you may advance-what would you?
Israel Bertuccio. Redress.

Israel Bertuccio. Of God and of the Doge.

Doge. Alas! my friend, you seek it of the twain
Of least respect and interest in Venice.

You must address the council.