"It is like a woman's No," added Glaucus; "it cools but to inflame the more." which the room derives its name. This beautiful apart-his pleasures sufficiently to give them a double zest,” ment opened upon the fragrant garden. Round the exclaimed Sallust. table of citrean* wood, highly polished and delicately wrought with silver arabesques, were placed the three couches, which were yet more common at Pompeii than the semi-circular seat that had grown lately into fashion at Rome; and on these couches of bronze, studded with richer metals, were laid thick quiltings covered with elaborate broidery, and yielding luxuriously to the pressure. "When is our next wild-beast fight?" said Clodius to Pansa. "It stands fixed for the ninth ide of August," answered Pansa, "on the day after the Vulcanalia; we have a most lovely young lion for the occasion." "Whom shall we get for him to eat?" asked Clodius. "Well, I must own," said the edile Pansa, "that"Alas! there is a great scarcity of criminals. You your house, though scarcely larger than a case for one's must positively find some innocent or other to condemn fibulæ, is a gem of its kind. How beautifully painted to the lion, Pansa!" is that parting of Achilles and Briseis!-what a style! -what heads!-what a-hem!" "Praise from Pansa is indeed valuable on such subjects," said Clodius, gravely. "Why, the paintings on his walls-ah! there is, indeed, the hand of a Zeuxis!" "You flatter me, my Clodius; indeed you do," quoth the ædile, who was celebrated through Pompeii for having the worst paintings in the world; for he was patriotic, and patronised none but Pompeians,—“you flatter me: but there is something pretty-depol, yes--in the colors, to say nothing of the design;-and then for the kitchen, my friends--ah! that was all my fancy." "What is the design?" said Glaucus. "I have not yet seen your kitchen, though I have often witnessed the excellence of its cheer." "A cook, my Athenian--a cook sacrificing the trophies of his skill on the altar of Vesta, with a beautiful murena (taken from the life) on a spit at a distance: there is some invention there!" At that instant the slaves appeared, bearing a tray covered with the first preparative initia of the feast. Amid delicious figs, fresh herbs strewed with snow, anchovies, and eggs, were ranged small cups of diluted wine sparingly mixed with honey. As these were placed on the table, young slaves bore round to each of the five guests (for there were no more) the silver basin of perfumed water and napkins edged with a purple fringe. But the ædile ostentatiously drew forth his own napkin, which was not, indeed, of so fine a linen, but in which the fringe was twice as broad, and wiped his hands with the parade of a man who felt he was calling for admiration. "A splendid mappa that of yours," said Clodius; "why, the fringe is as broad as a girdle." A trifle, my Clodius, a trifle! They tell me this stripe is the latest fashion at Rome; but Glaucus attends to these things more than I." "Be propitious, O Bacchus !" said Glaucus, inclining reverentially to a beautiful image of the god placed in the centre of the table, at the corners of which stood the Lares and the saltholders. The guests followed the prayer, and then, sprinkling the wine on the table, they performed the wonted libation. This over, the convivalists reclined themselves on the couches, and the business of the hour commenced. "May this cup be my last!" said the young Sallust, as the table, cleared of its first stimulants, was now loaded with the substantial part of the entertainment, and the ministering slave poured forth to him a brimming cyathus-"May this cup be my last, but it is the best wine I have drunk at Pompeii!" "Bring hither the amphora," said Glaucus; "and read its date and its character." The slave hastened to inform the party that the scroll fastened to the cork betokened its birth from Chios, and its age a ripe fifty years. "How deliciously the snow has cooled it!" said Pansa; "it is just enough." "It is like the experience of a man who has cooled "Indeed I have thought very seriously about it of late," replied the edile, gravely. "It was a most infamous law that which forbade us to send our own slaves to the wild beasts. Not to let us do what we like with our own, that's what I call an infringement on property itself." "Not so in the good old days of the republic," sighed Sallust. "And then this pretended mercy to the slaves is such a disappointment to the poor people. How they do love to see a good tough battle between a man and a lion! and all this innocent pleasure they may lose (if the gods don't send us a good criminal soon) from this cursed law." "What can be worse policy," said Clodius, sententiously, "than to interfere with the manly amusements of the people?" 'Well, thank Jupiter and the Fates! we have no Nero at present," said Sallust. "He was, indeed, a tyrant; he shut up our amphitheatre for ten years." "I wonder it did not create a rebellion," said Sallust. "It very nearly did," returned Pansa, with his mouth full of wild boar. Here the conversation was interrupted for a moment by a flourish of flutes, and two slaves entered with a single dish. "Ah! what delicacy hast thou in store for us now, my Glaucus ?" cried the young Sallust, with sparkling eyes. Sallust was only twenty-four, but he had no pleasure in life like eating-perhaps he had exhausted all the others; yet had he some talent, and an excellent heartas far as it went. "I know its face, by Pollux!" cried Pansa; "it is an Ambracian kid. Ho!" snapping his fingers, a usual signál to the slaves, "we must prepare a new libation in honor to the new-comer." "I had hoped," said Glaucus, in a melancholy tone, but "to have procured you some oysters from Britain; the winds that were so cruel to Cæsar have forbid us the oysters." "Are they in truth so delicious?" asked Lepidus, loosening to a yet more luxurious ease his ungirdled tunic. "Why, in truth, I suspect it is the distance that gives the flavor; they want the richness of the Brundusium oyster. But at Rome no supper is complete without them." "The poor Britons! There is some good in them after all," said Sallust; "they produce an oyster!" "I wish they would produce us a gladiator," said the edile, whose provident mind was still musing over the wants of the amphitheatre. "By Pallas!" cried Glaucus, as his favorite slave crowned his steaming locks with a new chaplet, "I love these wild spectacles well enough when beast fights beast; but when a man, one with bones and blood like ours, is coldly put on the arena, and torn limb from limb, the interest is too horrid: I sicken-I gasp for breath-I long to rush and defend him. The yells of the populace seem to me more dire than the voices of the Furies chasing Orestes. I rejoice that there is so little chance of that bloody exhibition for our next show!" The edile shrugged his shoulders; the young Sallust, who was thought the best natured man in Pompeii, stared in surprise. The graceful Lepidus, who rarely spoke for fear of disturbing his features, cried, "Per Hercle!" The Parasite Clodius muttered, " Ædepol;" and the sixth banqueter, who was the umbra of Clodius, and whose duty it was to echo his richer friend when he could not praise him-the parasite of a parasite,-muttered also, "depol." "Well, you Italians are used to these spectacles; we Greeks are more merciful. Ah, shade of Pindar!-the rapture of a true Grecian game-the emulation of man against man-the generous strife-the half-mournful triumph-so proud to contend with a noble foe, so sad to see him overcome! But ye understand me not." "The kid is excellent," said Sallust. The slave whose duty it was to carve, and who valued himself on his science, had just performed that of fice on the kid to the sound of music, his knife keeping time, beginning with a low tenor, and accomplishing the arduous feat amid a magnificent diapason. "Your cook is of course from Sicily?" said Pansa. "Yes, of Syracuse." "I will play you for him," said Clodius; "we will have a game between the courses." "Better that sort of game, certainly, than a beastfight; but I cannot stake my Sicilian-you have nothing so precious to stake me in return." "My Phillida-my beautiful dancing girl!" "I never buy women," said the Greek, carelessly rearranging his chaplet. The musicians, who were stationed in the portico without, had commenced their office with the kid; they now directed the melody into a more soft, a more gay, yet it may be a more intellectual, strain; and they chanted that song of Horace beginning "Persicos odi," &c. so impossible to translate, and which they imagined applicable to a feast that, effeminate as it seems to us, was simple enough for the gorgeous revelry of the time. We are witnessing the domestic and not the princely feast-the entertainment of a gentleman, not of an emperor or a senator. 66 Ah, good old Horace," said Sallust, compassionately; "he sang well of feasts and girls, but not like our modern poets." said Clodius; "if I ever come upon that Medusa front without the previous charm, I am sure to lose a favorite horse, or throw the canes nine times running." "The last would be indeed a miracle!" said Sallus gravely. "How mean you, Sallust?" returned the gamester, with a flushed brow. "I mean what you would leave me if I played often with you; and that is nothing." Clodius answered only by a smile of disdain. "If Arbaces were not so rich," said Pansa, with a stately air, "I should stretch my authority a little, and inquire into the truth of the report which calls him an astrologer and a sorcerer. Agrippa, when edile of Rome, banished all such terrible citizens. But a rich man-it is the duty of an edile to protect the rich!” "What think you of this new sect, which I am told has even a few proselytes in Pompeii, these followers of the Hebrew God-Christus?" “Oh, mere speculative visionaries," said Clodius; "they have not a single gentleman among them; their proselytes are poor, insignificant, ignorant people!" "Who ought, however, to be crucified for their blasphemy," said Pansa, with vehemence; "they deny Venus and Jove! Nazarene is but another name for atheist. Let me catch them, that's all!" The second course was gone-the feasters fell back on their couches-there was a pause while they listened to the soft voices of the South, and the music of the Arcadian reed. Glaucus was the most rapt and the least inclined to break the silence, but Clodius began already to think that they wasted time. "Bene vobis (your health,) my Glaucus," said he, quaffing a cup to each letter of the Greek's name, with the ease of the practised drinker. "Will you not be avenged on your ill-fortune of yesterday? See, the dice court us.' "As you will!" said Glaucus. "The dice in August, and I an edile," said Pansa, magisterially; "it is against all law.” "Not in your presence, grave Pansa," returned Clodius, rattling the dice in a long box; "your presence restrains all license; it is not the thing, but the excess of the thing, that hurts," "What wisdom!" murmured the umbra. "Well, I will look another way," said the edile. "Not yet, good Pansa; let us wait till we have supped," said Glaucus. Clodius reluctantly yielded, concealing his vexation with a yawn. "The immortal Fulvius, for instance," said Clodius. "Ah, Fulvius the immortal!" said the umbra. "And Spuræna, and Caius Mutius, who wrote three epics in a year-could Horace do that, or Virgil either?" said Lepidus. "Those old poets all fell into the mistake of copying sculpture instead of painting. Simplicity and repose-that was their notion: but we mo-to derns have fire, and passions, and energy-we never sleep, we imitate the colors of painting, its life and its action. Immortal Fulvius!" "By-the-way," said Sallust, "have you seen the new ode by Spurana, in honor of our Egyptian Isis?it is magnificent-the true religious fervor." "Isis seems a favorite divinity at Pompeii," said Glaucus. "Yes!" said Pansa, "she is exceedingly in repute just at this moment; her statue has been uttering | the most remarkable oracles. I am not superstitious, | but I must confess that she has more than once assisted me materially in my magistracy with her advice. Her priests are so pious too! none of your gay, none of your proud ministers of Jupiter and Fortune; they walk barefoot, eat no meat, and pass the greater part of the night in solitary devotion!" "An example to our other priesthoods, indeed!— Jupiter's temple wants reforming sadly," said Lepidus, who was a great reformer for all but himself. "They say that Arbaces the Egyptian has imparted some most solemn mysteries to the priests of Isis," observed Sallust; "he boasts his descent from the race of Ramases, and declares that in his family the secrets of remotest antiquity are treasured." "He certainly possesses the gift of the evil eye," "He gapes to devour the gold," whispered Lepidus Sallust, in a quotation from the Aulularia of Plautus. "Ah! how well I know these polypi, who hold all they touch," answered Sallust, in the same tone, and out of the same play. The second course, consisting of a variety of fruits, pistachio nuts, sweetmeats, tarts, and confectionary tortured into a thousand fantastic and airy shapes, was now placed upon the table, and the ministri, or attendants, also set there the wine (which had hitherto been handed round to the guests) in large jugs of glass, each bearing upon it the schedule of its age and quality. "Taste this Lesbian, my Pansa,” said Sallust; “it is excellent." "It is not very old," said Glaucus, "but it has been made precocious, like ourselves, by being put to the fire; the wine to the flames of Vulcan, we to those of his wife, to whose honor I pour this cup." "It is delicate," said Pansa, "but there is perhaps the least particle too much of rosin in its flavor.” "What a beautiful cup!" cried Clodius, taking up one of transparent crystal, the handles of which were wrought with gems, and twisted in the shape of serpents, the favorite fashion at Pompeii. "This ring," said Glaucus, taking a costly jewel from the first joint of his finger and hanging it on the * Canes, or canicula, the lowest throw at dice. handle, "gives it a richer show, and renders it less unworthy of thy acceptance, my Clodius, whom may the gods give health and fortune long and oft to crown it to the brim!" "You are too generous, Glaucus," said the gamester, handing the cup to his slave, "but your love gives it a double value." "This cup to the Graces!" said Pansa, and he thrice emptied his calix. The guests followed his example. "We have appointed no director to the feast," cried Sallust. "Let us throw for him, then," said Clodius, rattling the dice-box. "Nay," cried Glaucus; no cold and trite director for us; no dictator of the banquet; no rex convivii. Have not the Romans sworn never to obey a king? shall we be less free than your ancestors? Ho! musicians, let us have the song I composed the other night; it has a verse on this subject, 'The Bacchic Hymn of the Hours."" The musicians struck their instruments to a wild Ionic air, while the youngest voices in the band chanted forth in Greek words, as numbers, the following strain: THE EVENING HYMN OF THE HOURS. Flagging and faint are we With our ceaseless flight, Bathe us, Ŏ bathe our weary wings, To your cups from the fount of light-- The grape is the well of that summer sun, A cup to Jove, and a cup to Love, And a cup to the son of Maia, And honor with three, the band zone-free, But since every bud in the wreath of pleasure No stinted cups, in a formal measure, He honors us most who gives us most, And boasts with a Bacchanal's honest boast Fastly we fleet, then seize our wings, We'll scatter the spray round the garland's bloom. We glow-we glow. Behold, as the girls of the Eastern wave Bore once with a shout to their crystal cave Even so-even so, We have caught the young god in our warm embrace, We hurry him on in our laughing race; We hurry him on, with a whoop and song, The cloudy rivers of Night along Ho, ho!-we have caught thee, Psilas! *Narcissus. The guests applauded loudly: when the poet is your host, his verses are sure to charm. "Thoroughly Greek," said Lepidus: "the wildness, force, and energy of that tongue it is impossible to imitate in the Roman poetry.” "It is indeed a great contrast," said Clodius, ironically at heart, though not in appearance, “to the oldfashioned and tame simplicity of that ode of Horace which we heard before. The air is beautifully Ionic: the word puts me in mind of a toast-Companions, I give you the beautiful Ione." "Ione-the name is Greek," said Glaucus, in a soft voice, "I drink the health with delight. But who is Ione?" "Ah! you have but just come to Pompeii, or you would deserve ostracism for your ignorance," said Lepidus, conceitedly; "not to know lone is not to know the chief charm of our city." "She is of most rare beauty," said Pansa; "and what a voice!" "She can feed only on nightingales' tongues," said Clodius. "Nightingales' tongues!—beautiful thought,” sighed the umbra. "Enlighten me, I beseech you," said Glaucus. "Let me speak," cried Clodius; you drawl out your words as if you spoke tortoises.” "And you speak stones," muttered the coxcomb to himself, as he fell back disdainfully on his couch. "Know then, my Glaucus," said Clodius, that Ione is a stranger, who has but lately come to Pompeii. She sings like Sappho, and her songs are her own composing; and as for the tibia, and the cithara, and the lyre, I know not in which she most outdoes the Muses. Her beauty is most dazzling. Her house is perfect; | such taste-such gems-such bronzes ! She is rich, and generous as she is rich." "Her lovers, of course," said Glaucus, "take care that she does not starve; and money lightly won is always lavishly spent." "Her lovers-ah, there is the enigma! Ione has but one vice-she is chaste. She has all Pompeii at her | feet, and she has no lovers: she will not even marry." "No lovers!" echoed Glaucus. "No; she has the soul of Vesta, with the girdle of Venus." "What refined expressions!" said the umbra. "A miracle!" cried Glacus. "Can we not see her?" "I will take you there this evening," said Clodius; "meanwhile," added he, once more rattling the dice"I am yours!" said the complaisant Glaucus. "Pansa turn your face!" Lepidus and Sallust played at odd and even, and the umbra looked on, while Glaucus and Clodius became gradually absorbed in the chances of the dice. "Per Jove!" cried Glaucus, "this is the second time I have thrown the canicula" (the lowest throw.) "Now Venus befriend me!" said Clodius, rattling the box for several moments, "O Alma Venus-it is Venus herself!" as he threw the highest cast named from that goddess,--whom he who wins money indeed usually propitiates! "Venus is ungrateful to me," said Glaucus, gayly; "I have always sacrificed on her altar." "He who plays with Clodius," whispered Lepidus, "will soon, like Plautus's Curculio, put his pallium for the stakes." "Poor Glaucus--he is as blind as Fortune herself," replied Sallust, in the same tone. "I will play no more," said Glaucus. "I have lost thirty sestertia." "I am sorry," began Clodius. "Amiable man!" groaned the umbra. "Not at all!" exclaimed Glaucus; "the pleasure of your gain compensates the pain of my loss." The conversation now became general and animated; the wine circulated more freely; and Ione once more became the subject of eulogy to the guests of Glau- | and principles, in his work. Olynthus is a fine speci cus. "Instead of outwatching the star, let us visit one at whose beauty the stars grow pale," said Lepidus. men of that heroic courage which, especially in the early ages of the church, was content with ignominy, chains and poverty in this life, and courted even martyrdom itself, in the bright anticipation of eternal bliss. Having thus candidly stated our impressions of Mr. Bulwer's work, justice requires that we should spread before our readers the well sustained vindication of one of our own countrymen, who complains that his literary rights have been grossly violated by this eminent transatlantic author. Mr. Fairfield, the editor of the North American Magazine, a man of unquestionable genius, and a poet of no ordinary strength, has fear Clodius, who saw no chance of renewing the dice, seconded the proposal; and Glaucus, though he civilly pressed his guests to continue the banquet, could not but let them see that his curiosity had been excited by the praises of Ione; they therefore resolved to adjourn (all at least but Pansa and the umbra) to the house of the fair Greek. They drank, therefore, to the health of Glaucus and of Titus--they performed their last libation--they resumed their slippers-they descended the stairs--passed the illumined atrium--and walking unbitten over the fierce dog painted on the threshold, found themselves beneath the light of the moon just risen, in the lively and still crowded streets of Pompeii.lessly thrown the gauntlet, and charged the proud They passed the jewellers' quarter, sparkling with Briton to his teeth with literary piracy; an offence lights, caught and reflected by the gems displayed in the in the republic of letters, which ought at least to be shops, and arrived at last at the door of Ione. The ves-rebuked by stern denunciation, as no corporal or pecutibule blazed with rows of lamps; curtains of embroi- niary punishment can be inflicted. This piracy it dered purple hung on either aperture of the tablinum, whose walls and mosaic pavement glowed with the richest colors of the artist; and under the portico which surrounded the odorous viridarium they found Ione already surrounded by adoring and applauding guests. "Did you say she was Athenian?" whispered Glaucus, ere he passed into the peristyle. seems, has been committed by Mr. Bulwer upon the lawful goods and chattels, the genuine offspring of Mr. Fairfield's own intellectual labors. We confess that we are struck with the plausible and curious coincidence, to speak technically, between Mr. Fairfield's allegata and his undeniable probata. If the English novelist has Neapolis!" echoed Glaucus; and at that moment, decked himself in borrowed plumage, he ought to be the group dividing on either side of lone gave to his forthwith stripped of it, and the stolen feather should view that bright, that nymph-like beauty which for adorn the brow of its real owner. The sin of plagiar months had shone down upon the waters of his memory.ism however, though never so distinctly proved, ought "No, she is from Neapolis." not in strictness to detract from the genuine and ac- OF POMPEIL WHILE We have never failed to acknowledge and applaud the brilliant imagination and the eloquent and Glaucus is a noble character throughout; educated of course a heathen, but endowed with some of those higher faculties of reason, which enabled him in the end to surrender the charms of a poetic mythology for a purer and brighter faith. Ione, "the beautiful lone," is an almost perfect model of Grecian loveliness and accomplishment; and her brother Apæcides, furnishes an affecting illustration of great powers and virtues rendered prostrate by an overwrought sensibility and THE LAST NIGHT OF POMPEII;* versus THE LAST DAYS enthusiastic temperament. Arbaces, the dark, wily, revengeful Egyptian, is the demon of the tale. In profound earthly wisdom and diabolical depravity, "none but himself can be his parallel." The "Asiatic Jour-fascinating style of Mr. E. L. Bulwer, we have never nal," whose editors or reviewers we take to be much wiser than we are, asserts that the character of Nydia is not an original creation of Mr. Bulwer's; but that the dwarf Mignon in the Wilhelm Meister of Goethe, is the exact prototype not only of the blind flower girl, but of the fantastical Fenella in Scott's Peverill of the Peak. The "Journal" also maintains that the witch of Vesuvius, is of the true Meg Merrillie's family. In re-phere of impurity which infects the very hearts of his gard to the first supposed resemblances,-never having seen Goethe's work, we profess our entire incompetency to judge; but we do most fervently protest against any comparison between our old favorite Meg and that most execrable hag whom Bulwer has placed in the caverns of Vesuvius,--the perusal of whose accursed incantations deprived us of several hours of our accustomed and needful rest. feared to assert that he was a sophist in ethics and a libertine in love, and that effect was apparently the only law which influenced his mind or guided his pen. Better disguised, but not less pernicious in principle and evil in action than the Tom Jones and Count Fathom and Zeluco of Fielding, Smollett and Moore, his characters not only exist in, but actually create an atmos admirers. He invests the seducer with irresistible attractions, and paints the highwayman and the murderer as examples for imitation. But even in the execution of his execrable purposes, he is not original either in his plots or his sentiments. The old Portuguese Jew Spinoza and his disciples Hobbes, Toland, Shaftesbury and Bolingbroke have abundantly supplied him with infidel arguments; and the profligate courtiers of Charles the Second have contributed their licentious stratagems and impure dialogues to augment the claims and heighten the charms of his coxcombs, libertines and menslay Whilst Mr. Bulwer has rendered to the Egyptian and a few others the just reward of their transgressions, we think that poor Nydia has been hardly dealt by. What a fine opportunity it was to illustrate the power of christian faith in soothing even the sorrows of unrequited love. We do not say this reproachfully how-gends. By Sumner Lincoln Fairfield. New York: 1832. ever, because we think that Mr. Bulwer has endeavored at least, to do justice to the christian character *The Last Night of Pompeii: A Poem, and Lays and Le The Last Days of Pompeii: By the Author of Pelham, Engene Aram, England, and the English, &c. 2 vols. 12mo. New York: 1834. Harper and Brothers. ers. Mr. Bulwer has read much and skillfully appro- | from our thoughts. Many examples in literary history priated, without acknowledgment, all that has suited might be presented to prove that men may think and his designs. He has artfully clothed the lofty thoughts describe alike without plagiarism, but, when the inciof others in his own brilliant garb, and enjoyed the re-dents and descriptions are as nearly identical as prose nown of a powerful writer and profound thinker, when and poetry can well be, we cannot deduce the charitahe was little more than an adroit and maneuvering pla-ble conclusion that the very strong likeness is accidentgiary. This we long since perceived, and therefore de-al. Our readers shall judge whether, in this case, it is so. nied his claims to a high order of genius, though we rea- The characters in the poem are few-in the novel dily accorded to him the possession of much curious many-but, in both, the whole interest depends on the knowledge and a felicitous use of language. We never adventures of two lovers. In the poem these lovers are imagined that the labors of an unrewarded and little | Pansa and Mariamne, a Roman decurion and a captive regarded American could be deemed by the proud, soi-Jewish maiden, both Christians; in the novel they are disant highborn, and affluent Mr. Bulwer as worthy of Glaucus and Ione, Greeks and pagans. With us, Diohis unquestioning appropriation. We fancied that so mede was the prætor and Pansa the victim; with Buldeep a scholar would continue to dig for treasures in wer, the former is a rich merchant, and the latter, ædile ancient and recondite literature, and pass triumphantly of Pompeii. Here, then, there is no similarity, nor is over the obscure productions of a poor cisatlantic. But there but one deserving a remark, until Arbaces-an we erred. As a member of the British Parliament, Mr. Eugene Aram antiquated—one of Bulwer's learned, Bulwer is accustomed to the creation of laws; and he wise and soliloquizing villains-seduces Ione to his seems to have made one expressly for his own profit mansion of iniquity. The first coincidence, to which and pleasure—namely, the law of literary lawlessness. we refer, is the scene of the sacrifice, and the oracular We knew that he was well content to demand high response. The description in the novel reads thus: prices for his immoral novels from his American publishers; but, until this time, we were not aware that he considered any thing but gold worth receiving or plun-cincture round the middle, rushed forward, and dancing with dering from Yankeeland. With his usual tact, he has managed to secure, in no slight degree, from our labors, that which those labors failed utterly to receive from our unlettered countrymen; and it is our present purpose to demand back our own thoughts, which are our property and the heritage of our children. It is now three years since 'The Last Night of Pompeii' was written and published; and, among other English men of letters, a copy of that poem with a letter, which was never answered, was sent to Mr. Bulwer, who was, at that time, the editor of the London New Monthly Magazine. Affliction fell heavily on our heart during the spring of 1832, and, becoming indifferent to poetic fame and every thing not involved in our bereavement, we bestowed no thought upon the poem or its reception. Time has passed on; we have been intensely occupied with other concerns, and have not been anxious about it since. The apathy, if not contempt, with which American poets have ever been treated, has driven Percival into solitude, Bryant and Prentice into politics, Whittier into abolition schemes, Pierpoint into phrenological experiments, and all others far away from the barren realm of Parnassus. But lo! the poem, which was printed by hard won subscription and left unwelcomed but by a few cheerful voices, when transmuted into a novel by Bulwer, becomes a brilliant gem, and illumines the patriotic hearts and clear understandings of the whole Western World! Who is a Yankee poet that he should be honoured? but to whom is the English Bulwer unknown? We live, however-thanks be to Providence! to claim our own and expose all smug. glers, though the redrover Saxon seems to think that the Atlantic is a very broad ocean, and that the democrats of the West are very little capable of appreciating any compositions but his own. Had Mr. Bulwer confined himself to the almost literal adoption of our title, or had certain passages in his novel betrayed even great resemblances to others in our poem, we should have said that the coincidences were somewhat remarkable, and then dismissed the matter "The aruspices inspected the entrails."-"It was then that a dead silence fell over the whispering crowd, and the priests gathering around the cella, another priest, naked save by a wild gestures, implored an answer from the goddess."-"A low murmuring noise was heard within the body of the statue; thrice the head moved, and the lips parted, and then a hollow voice uttered these mystic words; "There are waves like chargers that meet and glow, There are graves ready wrought in the rocks below, On the brow of the Future the dangers lower, But blessed are your barks in the fearful hour." That in the poem is as follows-the oracle preceding the description of its effect upon the superstitious multitude. Both "The aruspices proclaimed the prodigies. The temple, whirled upon the wind that waves' " etc. The Oracle. "Ye shall pass o'er the Tyrrhene sea in ships And waved; and then the deep voice of the priest *Vol. i. p. 42. |