ving exhausted their stock of provisions, and failed to meet with any vessel, or reach an inhabited island. Manks, the master of the sloop, now proposed to take them on board his vessel, and carry them into port; and they all consented to accompany him, except Captain Burder and his mate, both of whom probably suspected that Mr Monti intended giving information against them. But seeing no other means of leaving the island, they at length accepted Manks's offer, and we all embarked on board the sloop about noon, and shortly set sail.

We arrived safely at Nassau, New

Providence, in a few days. Captain Burder and his mate were immediately apprehended on our evidence, and committed for trial. However, they both managed to escape from prison, and, having stolen a boat, put to sea; and it was supposed either reached the coast of Cuba, or were picked up by some Spanish pirate, as no one saw or heard anything of them while we remained upon the island. All cause of detention being thus removed, Mr and Mrs Monti and I embarked for St Thomas, our place of destination, and reached it after a most agreeable and prosperous voyage.

THE poem opens with the descent of the Destroying Angel. He declares his mission against Babylon; and takes his station on the wreck of that tower which the guilty forefathers of the devoted city had built in their attempt to scale the heavens. As he unfolds his wings to embrace and encompass his prey, for a moment they eclipse and darken the rising sun.

It is the day of the feast of Bel. The priests appear assembled before the Temple.

"KALASSAN-THE PRIESTS. First Priest. Didst thou behold it? Second Priest. What!

First Priest. 'Tis gone, 'tis pastAnd yet but now 'twas there, a cloudy

darkness,

That, swallowing up the rays of the orient Sun,

Cast back a terrible night o'er all the City. Third Priest. Who stands aghast at this triumphant hour?

I tell thee that our Dreamers have be

holden

Majestic visions. The besieging Mede Was cast, with all his chariots, steeds, and men,

Into Euphrates' bosom.

Kalassan. Do ye marvel

But now that it was dark? yon orient Sun, The Lord of Light, withdrew his dawning beams,

Till he could see the glory of the world, Belshazzar, in his gilded galley riding Across Euphrates."

The pomp of supplication is now advancing on the Euphrates; and the brazen gates of the Temple along the

river side are thrown wide to receive the King, and his train, and his sumptuous oblation. An alternate hymn is chaunted by the Seventy Priests of the Temple, and by the suppliants in answer, the first celebrating the triumphs of Chaldea's king, the others of her God.

Kalassan, the high-priest, desires to know the object of Belshazzar's visit to the Temple on their day of high solemnity, intimating that whatever he may demand of their God, with these splendid offerings, is not likely to be refused him. The King's supplication has reference to the war, with which the Persians, and their subject walls. But what it is precisely that and confederate nations, beleaguer his he desires of the God, whether interposition or simply information, he hardly seems himself, we think, distinctly to know. He professes to have an inquiry to make; but, when propounded, it appears to be more in the nature of a reproach, than of a useful interrogation. These are his words.

"Belshazzar. Declare ye to our Gods, Thus saith Belshazzar: Wherefore am I call'd

The King of Babylon, the scepter'd heir
Of Nabonassar's sway, if still my sight
Must be infested by rebellious arms,
That hem my city round; and frantic cries
Of onset, and the braying din of battle
Disturb mysweet and wontedfestal songs ?"

The Queen-mother, Nitocris, supplies the response of the Gods, in a proud and taunting answer, upbraiding

Rev. H. H. Milman, Professor of Poetry

him for deserting the warlike functions of his regal place; though, either from her apprehending indistinctly what he had meant to ask, or from some infelicity of construction in her own answer, it would rather seem as if he had desired to know when he should reign? Some conversation ensues, in which the King, who, as it may be supposed, is not a person to take being told the truth, very tenderly, nevertheless, to the surprise of the court, bears his mother's bitter remonstrance with magnanimous and filial patience. He is even moved to conceive and declare an intention of withering the host of the besiegers by the terror of his appearance, for which purpose he will mount his car of battle, and ride along the walls. The queen is rather startled with the limit of his military purposes, but consoles herself with believing that the sight of the enemy will inflame his kingly heart to some more energetic and useful hostility, in which trust she denounces their destruction, while Kalassan, on his part, declares the probable favour of the Gods, whom they are about to propitiate that day with their richest rites, and by devoting a virgin-that one,

"Whom to our wandering search he first presents,"

to the nuptials of the guardian deity of Babylon.

If the Gods are to hold festival tonight, the King informs them that his own palace shall not be without answerable rejoicing. As he speaks, his eye falls on the sacred vessels of the Hebrews, and inquiring and understanding what they are, he commands them to be carried to the palace to minister in the imperial banquet. Though consecrated to Bel, Kalassan allows that they will be honoured by such a profanation; and orders are given to execute the King's command. The slaves, who are girding themselves to bear them, are struck to the earth, and the ground rocks, with other omens; Belshazzar remaining undaunted in the general dismay, and undisturbed from his purpose. One chorus then pours forth a chaunt to the Euphrates, bidding him smooth his waves for the path of Belshazzar's galley, and another to the sun, invoking him to pause in mid-heaven, and shower down his fullest splen

dours on the lofty nuptial-couch of Bel, that he may be willing to descend in his glory. And the first scene closes.

In the Quarter of the Jewish slaves, next appear Imlah, his wife Naomi, and their daughter Benina. The near coming on of the destruction of their oppresssors, and of their own deliverance, begins to be understood. Imlah has been speaking of it, which leads the young maiden to dwell with much tenderness and beauty, and not without happy allusion, on the beloved land, of which the hope now dawns upon their exile.

"Benina. Father! dear Father! said'st

thou that our feet

Shall tread the glittering paths of Sion's hill;

And that our lips shall breathe the fragrant airs

That blow from dewy Hermon, and the fount

Of Siloe flow in liquid music by us?"

Imlah asks her, what she, a daughter of captivity, can know of the city where their fathers had dwelt, ere they had yet provoked their God to forsake them.

"Benina. My father!

Have I not seen my mother and thyself Sit by the river side, and dwell for ever On Salem's glories, and the Temple's pride,

Till tears have choked your sad though pleasant speech?

In the deep midnight, when our lords are sleeping,

I've seen the Brethren, from the willows take Their wind-caressedharps,theirhalf-breath'd

sounds

ly, girt with sack-cloth, his cheek sunk with fasting, and ashes on his head. But he hath cast from him the attire of woe, and called for wine. And now he walks with stately gait through the city, his looks charged with a mournful scorn, passing on amid palaces and gardens, as though he trod on the ruins of an already desolate city, gazing at times on the clouds, as if he were considering the viewless forms of the destroyers; and it is even said, that at the dead of the night he bath poured forth, in his prophetic fury, the burden of Babylon.-They turn to speak of their own coming happiness, and of the bridal of Benina, which shall not be "With song suppress'd, and dim half-curtain'd lamp," as the nuptials of the captives had been in the land of sorrow and fear. Her lover, Adonijah, enters. He describes, with youthful pride, the fierce magnificence of the Persian host, which he has been beholding from the battlements. Imlah plights their hands for nuptials to be solemnized in their own recovered country, and sings a hymn of triumph and joy.

The scene changes to the walls of Babylon.

"BELSHAZZAR in his Chariot, NITO

To rear a meet abode. Oh, Babylon ! Thou hast him now, for whom through ages rose

Thy sky-exalted towers-for whom yon palace

Rear'd its bright domes, and groves of golden spires;

In whom, secure of immortality Thou stand'st, and consecrate from time and ruin,

Because thou hast been the dwelling of Belshazzar!"

The army of the Persians is seen below. The effect on the King's mind is not what Nitocris had hoped for. Belshazzar is moved only with scorn of the undistinguished Cyrus riding but as the captain of his host. But Nitocris is struck with what she observes, and describes with spirit the kingliness of military command in the young conqueror.

"Nitocris. Look down! look down! where, proud of his light conquest, The Persian rides-it is the youthful Cy

The chief of the eunuchs, Sabaris, opposes to her arguments and an eloquence more suited to the imperial ears, and maintains, much to his lord's satisfaction, an original difference in the allotments of sovereigns, some of whom are born to painful and toilsome, and some, the elected favourites of heaven, to untroubled and luxurious empire. The King entering warmly into the distinction, undertakes in the festival of that evening, which shall spread out within his courts an army of revellers, wide and numerous as that encamped on the sultry sands below, to compel Nitocris herself to acknowledge that the height of earthly glory is to be found embosomed in gorgeous and blissful power on the throne of Belshazzar.

At this moment Benina appears, imploring succour. She, as was to be apprehended, is the virgin who has first encountered the roving search of the priests, and is become the destined bride of the God. She flies shrieking, the priests encircling and singing around her. The King, to the supplication made to him to protect her, answers of course, declining to interfere in the claims of the Deity-Nitocris is equally unmoved. Benina restrains the passion of Adonijah, who, by exclamations of rage and defiance, is about to expose himself to fruitless danger. She then falls into either a swoon or a trance, from which she rises up in majestic fearlessness, having, as should seem, in her momen

tary suspension of sense, had communion with the prophet Daniel, and being lifted in the power of faith above all apprehension to herself. Belshazzar passes on, and she remains to utter a prophetic denunciation of the fall of the city, and its everlasting desolation-the priests offering not to put violence or constraint upon the bride of their divinity. She takes leave of her lover and her father, requiring of them their prayers.

These, taking their way back to the home that is now become childless, re-appear as they have reached it. The mother coming out to them, learns her loss. Her grief, vehement and uncontrollable, breaks out into impatient and daring expostulations, which the others attempt to subdue by the harp, and by the holy song.

The scene that follows is not without an effect of an original and singular kind, the author availing himself of that peculiarity in the design of his drama, that it is not to be represented. It is a progressive, or moving scene. Benina and her attendant priests appear at the gate of the Temple, whence she is led up from hall to hall of the high-piled edifice, in one-continued movement, may we call it, of the poem, the chorus of priests accompanying and describing her ascent by their successive songs. There is enough of imperial and of mystic grandeur in the appropriation of the seven successive halls of the Temple. The first is that of the Chaldean kings, the dead and the living, whose statues are ranged around the golden image of Nabonassar, which is here supposed to be his own. The next is the chamber of tribute, the treasury of Assyria heaped with the wealth of a world; then the captive kings, in sculpture, though not in person; then the captive gods. They next reach the place of the dreamers, lying in their visioned sleep, from which they awake to salute the spouse of Bel as she passes. In the sixth chamber the astrologers are watching. The seventh is the solitude of the high priest, Kalassan. High above all is the couch strewed on the open summit, beneath the sun and the glowing stars, for the accustomed repose of the descending tutelary power. The songs of the priests, the description of the successive halls, interrupted by the observations of scorn or sorrow provoked from Benina, give a suf

ficiently poetical and solemn effect to this peculiar scene; till the priests stop in awe, and the maiden mounts alone to the summit, unknowing, in the light of her innocence, what is meant by her mysterious and holy dedication. During their long and slow ascent, the daylight has decayed; and she now looks down on the mighty city, from that vast and diminishing height, shewing dimly in the starlight, "Like some wide plain, with rich pavilions set,

Mid the dark umbrage of a summer bower."

She looks for the lonely light of their small solitary cabin on the Euphrates' side, speaks with tenderness, but it may be thought too great composure, of her love; and is conscious of a growing calmness of spirit in her extraordinary situation, when the hurried step of Kalassan breaks the stillness, and invades the peace of her thoughts. A short impetuous dialogue serves to leave her no longer uncertain of the impious and hateful meaning of her destination; and he leaves her. Still she is not appalled; a courage of faith, which, if it be possible, as perhaps it is, must at least, one would think, be won from some struggles with hideous fear. At once the imperial City is lighted up to her eyes with the preparations of festivity.

"But lo! what blaze of light beneath me spreads

O'er the wide city! Like yon galaxy Above mine head, each long and spacious street

Becomes a line of silver light, the trees
In all their silent avenues break out
In flowers of fire. But chief around the
Palace

Whitens the glowing splendour; every

court

That lay in misty dimness indistinct,
Is traced by pillars and high architraves
Of crystal lamps that tremble in the wind:
Each portal arch gleams like an earthly
rainbow,

And o'er the front spreads one entablature
Of living gems of every hue, so bright
That the pale Moon, in virgin modesty,
Retreating from the dazzling and the tu-
mult,

Afar upon the distant plain reposes

Her unambitious beams, or on the bosom Of the blue river, ere it reach the walls." After a few words of pity for the human beings, the faint sound of whose revelry reaches her, and of whose destruction dark bodings press upon her,

she lays herself down to rest; and the festal night is ushered in by a descriptive

CHORUS OF BABYLONIANS BEFORE
THE PALACE.

Awake! awake! put on thy garb of pride,
Array thee like a sumptuous royal bride,
O festal Babylon !

Is by the side of many azure waters!
Lady, whose ivory throne
In floating dance, like birds upon the wing,
Send tinkling forth thy silver-sandal'd
daughters;

Send in the solemn march,
Beneath each portal arch,
Thy rich-robed lords to crowd the banquet
of their King.

They come! they come from both the illumined shores;

Down each long street the festive tumult pours;

Along the waters dark

Like stars along the midnight welkin Shoots many a gleaming bark, flashing,

And galleys, with their masts enwreath'd with light,

From their quick oars the kindling waters dashing;

In one long moving line

Along the bridge they shine, And with their glad disturbance wake the peaceful night.

Hang forth, hang forth, in all your avenues, The arching lamps of more than rainbow hues,

Oh! gardens of delight!
With the cool airs of night
Are lightly waved your silver-foliage trees,
The deep-embower'd yet glowing blaze
prolong

Height above height the lofty terraces;
Seeing this new day-break,
The nestling birds awake,
The nightingale hath hush'd her sweet un-
timely song.

Lift up, lift up your golden-valved doors, Spread to the glittering dance your marble floors,

Palace! whose spacious halls, Are hung with purple like the morning And far-receding walls, skies;

And all the living luxuries of sound Pour from the long out-stretching galleries;

Down every colonnade

The sumptuous board is laid, With golden cups and lamps and bossy chargers crown'd.

They haste, they haste! the high-crown'd

Rulers stand,

Each with a sceptre in his kingly hand;
The bearded Elders sage,
Though pale with thought and age: