that hers was magia alba, an innocent art, which by no means hurt her interest with the most fastidious saint in Paradise. Appearances, indeed, were against her; and we cannot much blame the Countess of Blois for setting up a flesh and blood rival in the person of her niece. This young lady, however, had a spice of the magician about her also; and trusted not only to her beauty, but to a certain enchanted brewing, which had a surprizing effect upon Partenopex. His faithful fay was forgotten. Indeed his cousin came off indifferently with her stratagem; for, though Mr Rose glosses it over, he had certainly carried his infidelity au comble, when she unluckily mentioned, in contempt, the name of Melior. At once the charm was broken: he burst from her arms, and never slackened his speed, till, on the banks of the Loire, he found his fairy sloop, which darted with him back to the invisible queen.

He re

She, who had certainly no right to play the prude, easily forgave his infidelity; and another period of love and hunting ensues, till he once more longs to visit his mother. This absence ends worse than the first. With the help of a bishop, the dowager persuades him that he cannot, in justice to his soul, live any longer with a female whose face he has not seen. turns to Melior; and, the very first night, raises the lamp to behold her countenance. It was a masterpiece of beauty: but he, alas! had little leisure to gaze upon it; for her bosom was sud denly heaved with convulsions, and in a moment, she seemed to lye dead before his eyes. Her awakening from this trance brought him no comfort;-she bitterly reproached his perfidy, and explained secrets which were as yet unknown. Melior was the empress of Constantinople, early schooled by her father in the arts of magic. But, so imperfect is la féerie, that though she could build a castle, and direct a magic ship, she could not prevent, after this unseasonable discovery of her person, the entrance of knights and damsels innumerable, who would view a stranger in her pseudo-virgin bed. Sore sobb'd the boy;' but the day came on, and, as the fay prophesied, ip came the whole bevy of Constantinopolitan courtiers! They turn their eyes with scorn on Partenopex, who is expelled disdainfully from the palace; and, like a dismissed lacquey, finds his old hunting clothes ready for. him, instead of the gorgeous raiment in which Melior had bedizened his person. The women, however, all look on him with pity, and half envy their frail sovereign; but Uraque alone, the empress's sister, leads him through a malignant crowd to the ship, which, as before, is in its duty, and lands him safely in his native country.

It was a melancholy life that poor Partenopex led in this exile from

from all that he loved. His mother, we may be sure, met with no good words from him; and indeed he had no resource left but dying. But le moyen d'y parvenir! Bullets there yet were none; hanging was an ignominious, and drowning an obscure death. He bethought himself, accordingly, of repairing to the forest of Ardennes, which in those times was remarkably full of lions and tigers. In the middle of this woody solitude, one of the latter breed appeared. Nothing could be more opportune: but, as the fairies would have it,

The sullen beast, with half averted eye,

Glar'd fiercely on the child, and pass'd him by. An idea now struck Partenopex, that his horse had terrified the monster, and prevented the desirable consummation of his personal deglutition. He dismounts, and sits down in expectation of the tiger but, surprizing to say, it leaps instantly upon the horse, which darts away, having thrown off its load, into the forest. It chanced, that a lady travelling that way, saw this horse without a rider, and was induced by humanity to seek for, and succour Partenopex. Who was that courteous fair one?-who, but the faithful Uraque, who, half for her sister, and half for herself, nursed the penitent lover to his recovery of health, though not of happiness.

Melior was still inexorable, spite of all Uraque's endeavours to palliate the crime of Partenopex; when her barons, impatient of a female reign, resolve that she shall wed, perforce, the conqueror in a grand tournament. Partenopex, we may guess, found his way thither; and, concealed in his armour, received from Melior's hand the accolade of chivalry. The preparations for this tournay are described in spirited language by Mr Rose.

The sun had clombe the sky, and drunk the dew,
When merrily to field the bugles blew ;

And trooping fast from camp or castle round,
(So swarm the mustering gnats with drowsy sound),
Rode paladins and dukes of princely mien,
And kings, whose tissued housings fir'd the green;
With bucklers wrought about with bone of Ind,
And banderols that rattled in the wind.

• What knights of worship came were long to tell,
Grecian or Gaul, baptiz'd or infidel.

Yet may I briefly touch their steeds of price,
And banners gay with many a rich device;

How some the mace, and some the faulchion whirl,
Their reins encrusted o'er with shell and pearl;
How music, various as the weeds they wore,
Blew, loud and long, the jolly troops before;
How strove the trumpet with the clarion's song,

Sackbut

Sackbut with fife, the cymbal with the gong ;-
Earth shook, and roll'd the rattling sounds along.

‹ When, on a sudden, ceas'd the din of war,
And breath'd a softer symphony from far.
Wide flew the castle gates, and pour'd amain
Gay palfrey'd dames and damsels o'er the plain:
In sendal was the shining band array'd,
And at their head the merry minstrels play'd.
Foremost their empress rode, upon a steed
Of Araby, bedeck'd with gorgeous weed.
He, pacing in his pride, so lightly trod,
His nimble hoofs did scantly print the sod.
Held by a jesse of silk and silver twist,
A tarcelin sate perk'd upon her fist.
Or were it skill, or rather careless hap,
Upon her head she wore nor hood nor cap,
To shrowd her crisped locks; but only round
Her brows, a golden coronet was bound;

So that, all unconfin'd, her yellow hair

Stream'd with the wind, and wanton'd here and there." Partenopex was among the first in the lists, yet not quite the first; for, after some had waved their claim, there still remained a certain Soldan, of stout limbs, and terrible in the way of fighting. Magic set aside, one cannot help thinking he would have had some chance in fair combat against the young Count of Blois: but a knight, named Sir Coursol, suggested, with much gallantry, that, as a lady was in the case, it would be fair to give beauty, as well as prowess, some share in the success; and proposed a stripping-match between the two worthies. All assented to this most reasonable scheme; and each, laying aside his arms, presents himself en deshabille to the empress's inspection. Independently of prejudice, she would naturally prefer Partenopex to a grim Saracen and the poem concludes with their legal union.

There is a good deal of interest in this poem, so far as it arises from frequent change of situation; but not much of that which depends upon character. We think it executed with great taste and spirit, as the extracts which we have given will exemplify. Others might be found, at least equally good; but we have no room for their insertion. The leading blemish of this poem, is an ill judged affectation of old language. Some mixture of obsolete words is sanctioned by Aristotle and Cicero; and, to come more home, gives a poetical cast to the language of Dryden, in his Fables; and to that of some later writers. Its effect, however, has chiefly depended upon their rare introduction, and upon their expressiveness in sound or sense. But Mr Rose's diction has no merit of this kind; his words are neither peculiarly appropriate, nor dignified;

they

they are simply old; priscis memorata Catonibus atque Cethegis. Indeed they have no appearance of having suggested themselves naturally to the author's mind; they want that primary excellence of forcible expression, the intimate union of thought and language, which can never exist, where a man translates his first words into a foreign dialect. It is very possible to think in Latin, or any other tongue which the writer knows thoroughly; but we can hardly conceive that a motley dialect of Chaucer, Spenser, and other old ballads, grafted on a modern versification, could be familiar to any one's understanding. In a man of Mr Rose's taste and genius, this perverse deviation is quite unaccountable: he loses a great deal in the popularity of his poem, and can gain nothing but that which is poor praise, the credit of knowing a few terms out of a glossary. Every page would furnish proofs of this charge. The term child, which is continually applied to Partenopex, must deceive most readers. Child, is certainly used in some ballads as an appellation of dignity; but it never occurs in Chaucer; and rarely, not more than about four times, in Spenser. There is no beauty in the term which justifies its constant recurrence: from the age of Partenopex, many would think it was meant in its obvious sense. Valet, p. 6. is exceptionable on the same account.-Certes, I cast not here to tell, p. 16.-Wise of rede and stiff in stower, p. 18.Grace his speech with goodliest garniture, p. 19. This is strange language, surely; and what shall we say of the following couplet?

A parlous wit she had, and could of lore, And eke of ancient tales, a countless store. Parlous is not English of any age; it is a corruption of perilous; or, as we should say in a more modern vulgarism, terrible. Could will perplex ninety-nine readers out of a hundred: the last will guess that it is the Anglo-Saxon word for knew. It should, however, have been spelt, coud; for, though it would be gross pedantry to spell the common auxiliary verb in that way, yet, if we are to take the old sense, we should have the old orthography likewise. Sightless crew, does not mean invisible, as the author wishes it to do, but blind. In p. 73. Horizon is turned into a dactyl. Of this verbal uncouthness, occasioned by an excessive use of obsolete language, there is a vast deal throughout the poem; and perhaps there is here and there some want of facility, and some flatness of diction, independent of that cause. But it is a work of great elegance; and, at least, equal to the Fabliaux translated by the late Mr Way; which indeed are liable to the same objection which we have made to Mr Rose's diction. No objection can, however, be made, and much praise must be given to the Notes upon this poem; they are lively without pert

ness,

ness, and show a very judicious use of extensive knowledge in the history and customs, as well as romantic works, of the middle ages. We would especially recommend that, in which he compares the leading circumstance of his story, the separation of the lovers in consequence of Partenopex's disobedience, with several tales of romance, tracing it to Apuleius, and, finally, to a much more antient and venerable source. Those who have read the beautiful fable of Cupid and Psyche in the author last named, will already, perhaps, have recognized its resemblance to this French story; a resemblance much too close to be accidental; and which proves that Apuleius, either directly or indirectly, furnished materials for these fictions. As the oriental tales, such as that of the three Calendars, have only a general similarity, while the very circumstances in that of Cupid and Psyche are copied, we make no question that the Latin was the immediate source of our story. After a minute collation of these, Mr Rose proceeds.

The allegory veiled in the Latin fable, which seems, however, to be of oriental extraction, may afford a key to the various stories which I have in this place assembled. I shall, therefore, first give the observations of Bryant on this subject, and afterwards venture some suggestions which have sprung from a consideration of the tale in Apuleius, as well as a collation of the other stories to which it seems to have any striking degree of affinity. The most pleasing emblem among the Egyptians, was exhibited under the character of Psuche,

n. This was, originally, no other than the Aurelia or Butterfly; but, in after times, was represented as a lovely female child, with the beautiful wings of that insect. The Aurelia, after its first stage as an eruca, or worm, lies, for a season, in a manner dead, and is enclosed in a sort of coffin. In this state of darkness it remains all the winter; but at the return of spring, it bursts its bonds, and comes out with new life, and in the most beautiful attire. The Egyptians, thought this a very proper picture of the soul of man, and of the immortality to which it aspired. But they made it more particularly an emblem of Osiris, who, having been confined in an ark or coffin, and in a state of death, at last quitted his prison, and enjoyed a renewal of life. This circumstance of the second birth is continually described under the character of Psuche; and, as the whole was owing to divine love, of which Eros was an emblem, we find this person often introduced as a concomitant of Psuche. They are generally described as accidentally meeting and enjoying a pleasing interview, which is attended with embraces and salutes, and every mark of reconciliation and favour.' (Analysis of Ancient Mythology, vol. II. p. 388.)

Such are the observations of a writer, to whom few will deny the praise of learning and ingenuity, set off by the graces of a style at once simple and elegant. But it does not seem to require much learning, or great ingenuity, to develop more of secret meaning in

the