Mr. Milman of insensibility to the beauties of his fancied exterior*-but his heroine in the "Martyr of Antioch" has torn the garland of the god from her brow, and trampled it, soiled and withered, in the dust. Not only has he not sent Mercury with any dispatch, or made Minerva plenipotentiary in his wars, but he has not even called the Destinies to share in the deaths of the thousands slain in them, or assigned the Fates to cut the thread of any man's life.

His poetry is the very reverse of that against which our allusions have been pointed: it delineates many of the peculiarities of the Christian faith, and never offends us by that display of licentious and bacchanalian joy by which too many have attempted to interest the sensibilities of their readers. At the same time it is our duty to add that there are one or two occasions in which the characters are sustained too freely, and the reader is made to tremble on the very verge of immodesty. Some allusions also are pressed beyond the necessary limits; and in particular instances, whole scenes allude to peculiar subjects, which ought not to be mentioned unnecessarily among Christians. We purposely refrain from specifying particular passages. A considerable part of the poem of Belshazzar, turns upon the dissolute practices of the high priest of Bel, and needs expurgation. It is however only justice to Mr. Milman to add, that the exceptionable passages are introduced merely for the purpose of contrast, and of exciting an abhorrence of vice: but even abhorrence is dearly purchased at the price of familiarity. We reverence the purity of a Benina or a Pamela; but we see no direct benefit, and much evil, likely to accrue from exposing to public gaze the arts and blandishments by which they were assailed.

Of Mr. Milman's style our limits

See Milman's Apollo Belvidere.

do not allow us to say much. We cannot enter into a detailed criticism; and must therefore content ourselves with observing, that it is a modification of the ancient Greek drama, chiefly following the example which has been already attempted by Milton, in his Comus. It is quite clear that Mr. Milman never intended his dramas for the stage: indeed, he has so stated in one of his prefaces. This will account for the departure which is frequently observable from the rules of the regular Greek drama, with regard to the introduction and the appearance of the personages, and the parts sustained by the several choruses of virgins. In the Fall of Jerusalem there is a very evident violation of the rules of the Epopeia. By those rules our sympathies ought ever to be excited for the suffering, for the oppressed, and not the oppressors; whereas the characters of the besieged inhabitants of the devoted city, particularly of their bigoted, infuriate, and profligate leaders, are depicted in such repulsive colours, that it is impossible to find the heart otherwise than steeled against emotions of pity. Their savage hatred, their brutal sensuality, their cruelty, and their infatuated prejudice, particularly when opposed to the valour and clemency of the Romans, and their leader Titus, compel the leaning of our sympathies to the side of the latter. This is unpoetical: but there are two reasons for it, the truth of history, and the predictions of the Prophets. Both these would otherwise have been violated. It was an extraordinary case, taken quite out of the operation of customary rules: and so it happened, that while that devoted people were suffering the vengeance of the Almighty, and enduring the self-imprecated punishment of their national guilt in the murder of his Son, the justice of their merited doom and the equity of the Divine administration were to shine so conspicuously, that they were to be

"hated of men" as well as rejected by God: and one part of their fearful destiny was to be, that in the midst of their heavy affliction and woes, "no one should

accumulated regard, neither should any man pity them*." How far such a subject was fitted, at the expense of a sacrifice of all our sympathies for the sufferers, for the sacred drama, we shall not attempt to decide, except by remarking, that if its suitableness be estimated by the depth of interest taken in it by the reader, our conclusion will not be against the Fall of Jerusalem.

To give an outline, or narrate the plot, of the several poems before us is incompatible with our limits; and indeed it is the less necessary because a sufficient acquaintance with them is doubtless acquired already by many of our readers. But we cannot withhold some extracts. We begin with the Fall of Jerusalem.

The following are the reflections of Titus at the sight of the beautiful but guilty city.

3 C

Jerusalem, Jerusalem! how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, but ye would not !"

Mr. Milman has allowed elegant scope to his imagination in the following description of Miriam's way to meet Javan, by Siloe's fount: but we cannot avoid the remark, that the lengthened dialogues and elaborately polished sentiments of many

of the characters in the drama are

somewhat unnatural and improbable: they are elegantly descriptive; but they are more the language of of the poet himself, than of many his unpoetic groups.

"Oh God! thou surely dost approve mine

To light me back upon my intricate way. Even o'er each shadowy thing at which I trembled

She pour'd a sober beauty, and my terror Was mingled with a sense of calm delight. How changed that way! When yet a laughing child,

It was my sport to thread that broken stair

That from our house leads down into the vale

Veil the dark path which leads to Siloe's fountain ?"

But we know the poet, like the painter, has the licence to dispose the clouds at pleasure; and besides, the moon herself has changes: still we should not have objected to a consistency in the narrative.

priest to stay the contending jeaThe interposition of the high lousies of John and Simon, those "sworded delegates" whose "bitterness and wrath" were equalled only by their "clamor and evil speaking," is finely described; and so are also the two bold but expressive images by which he shews them the evils of their intestine broils,

wasting

In civil strife the blood that might preserve" them.

"The torrent, that in one broad channel rolling

Bears down the labour'd obstacles of man, The o'erstriding bridge, the fix'd and ponderous dam,

Being sever'd, in its lazy separate course

stole

And so ye fall, because ye do disdain
To stand together-like the pines of
Lebanon,

That when in one vast wood they crown the hill,

From their proud heads shake off the uninjuring tempest;

But when their single trunks stand bare and naked

Before the rushing whirlwind, one by one It hurls the uprooted trunks into the vale." -Ibid. p. 42.

We have remarked, that Mr. Milman seems to have had in view, in the arrangement of his poems, that modification of the Greek drama adopted by Milton in his Comus ; but we imagine that he has marked the peculiarities of our great poet in other respects also. We allude particularly to his introduction of strange and uncommon terms, "charier of my tenderness," &c. &c., and also to the multiplication of learned

and pp. 128 and 133 of the Martyr of Antioch.

We must pass over the spirited delineation of the creed of the infidel, from the lips of John the Tyrant, in p.78, and also the detail of those portentous prodigies which accompanied the fall of the wretched city; the angry signs in the heavens, "the fiery tressed star," the victim casting its young in the temple, the gates of its sanctuary bursting open with uncontrollable violence and refusing again

"To close their stubborn and rebellious leaves."

All these sad and monstrous, but well-attested phenomena, are detailed both with the accuracy of the historian, and with the vivid energy of the poet. The Jews who communicate the reports of these fearful signs succeed one another with the same distressing rapidity that the servants of Job are related to have done, each bringing a tale more terrific than the last. The high priest himself is one of the alarmed reporters, and imparts that awful signal which is noticed by Josephus and also by Tacitus, and which sealed the "Ichabod" of the devoted city.

Upon a sudden The pavement seem'd to swell beneath my feet,

And the veil shiver'd, and the pillars rock'd.

And there, within the very holy of holies, There, from behind the winged cherubim, Where the ark stood, noise, hurried and tumultuous,

Was heard, as when a king with all his host

Doth quit his palace. And anon, a voice, Or voices, half in grief, half anger, yet Nor human grief, nor anger, even it seem'd As though the hoarse and rolling thunder spake

With the articulate voice of man, it said, 'LET US DEPART!'"-Fall, pp. 115, 116.

That other awful climax of misery and famine which the Prophet foretold as the perfection of distress,

We particularly recommend

our

too consummate to be overlooked, and therefore introduced in his description of the siege of Paris, (see the Henriade)-we mean the mother devouring her own child; this also Mr. Milman has admirably painted, and has availed himself of a feature in the prediction which, Voltaire having neglected, renders our author's description greatly superior to that of the French poet. It is the character and rank in life of the female whose deed of desperation is the subject of remark.

"Yes, we know her, The tender and the delicate of women, That would not set her foot upon the ground

For delicacy and very tenderness.”
Ibid. p. 118.

We wish we had room for the effect of that judicious incident, the conversation of Miriam with the old man who had been an eye witness of the crucifixion; but we can only refer to it. There is, however, one feature of that awful and calamitous period so striking, and so powerfully pourtrayed, that we must give it entire to our readers. It appears to us among the most impressive parts of the poem; and the contrast afforded by it to the bridal song of Salone heightens in this particular, although in other parts it interferes with, the general effect: "VOICE WITHIN. Woe! woe! woe!

The son of Hananiah! is't not he?
THIRD JEW. Whom said'st?
SECOND JEW. Art thou a stranger in Je-
rusalem,

That thou rememberest not that fearful man?

youthful readers to compare the account given by Josephus in his "Wars of the Jews," book vi. chap. 5., with the remarkable confirmation in Tacitus, Annal. xv. 47. Hist. 1. v. 13. The last passage is very striking, "Audita, major humaná, vor, excedere Deos." Surely "their house was left unto them desolate." They may also profitably refer to Eusebius' History, 1. xi. c. 8; Plin. Nat. Hist. ii. 84; Sen. Quæst. vi.; and Tacit. Annal. ii.

and xvi. 13.

A rude and homely dresser of the vine, He had come up to the Feast of Tabernacles,

When suddenly a spirit fell upon him, Evil or good we know not. Ever since, (And now seven years are past since it befell,

Our city then being prosperous and at peace),

He hath gone wandering through the darkling streets

At midnight under the cold quiet stars; He hath gone wandering through the crowded market

At noonday under the bright blazing sun, With that one ominous cry of Woe, woe, woe!'

Some scoff'd and mock'd him, some would

give him food;

He neither curs'd the one, nor thank'd the other.

The Sanhedrim bade scourge him, and myself

Beheld him lash'd, till the bare bones

stood out

Through the maim'd flesh; still, still he

only cried,

Woe to the city, till his patience wearied The angry persecutors. When they freed him,

'Twas still the same, the incessant Woe,

woe, woe.

But when our siege began, awhile he ceased,

As though his prophecy were fulfill'd: till

now

We had not heard his dire and boding voice. WITHIN. Woe! woe! woe!

JOSHUA, the son of Hananiah. Woe! woe! A voice from the East! a voice from the West!

From the four winds a voice against
Jerusalem!

A voice against the Temple of the Lord!
A voice against the bridegrooms and
the brides!

A voice against all people of the land! Woe! woe! woe!

SECOND JEW. They are the very words, the very voice

Which we have heard so long. And yet,

methinks,

There is a mournful triumph in the tone Ne'er heard before. His eyes, that were

of old

Fix'd on the earth, now wander all abroad, As though the tardy consummation Afflicted him with wonder-Hark! again..

CHORUS OF MAIDENS.

Now the jocund song is thine, Bride of David's kingly line! How thy dove-like bosom trembleth, And thy shrouded eye resembleth Violets, when the dews of eve A moist and tremulous glitter leave On the bashful sealed lid! Close within the bride-veil hid, Motionless thou sit'st and mute; Save that at the soft salute Of each entering maiden friend Thou dost rise and softly bend. Hark! a brisker, merrier glee! The door unfolds,-'tis he, 'tis he. Thus we lift our lamps to meet him, Thus we touch our lutes to greet him. Thou shalt give a fonder meeting, Thou shalt give a tenderer greeting. JOSHUA. Woe! woe!

A voice from the East! a voice from the West!

From the four winds a voice against Jerusalem!

A voice against the Temple of the Lord! A voice against the bridegrooms and the brides!

A voice against all people of the land! Woe! woe -[Bursts away, followed by Second Jew.

FIRST JEW. Didst speak?

THIRD JEW.
FOURTH JEW.

spake?

No.

Look'd he on us as he

FIRST JEW (to the Second returning.) Thou follow'dst him! what now!

SECOND JEW. 'Twas a true prophet! THE JEWS. Wherefore? Where went he? SECOND JEW. To the outer wall; And there he suddenly cried out and sternly,

'A voice against the son of Hananiah! Woe, woe!' and at the instant, whether struck

By a chance stone from the enemy's engines, down

He sank and died!"-Fall, pp. 109-114.

We must here close our citations from the "Fall of Jerusalem." It was the first of the three poems, and we incline to think not the least worthy of the pen of the writer. Perhaps the others have, in a small degree, suffered from the circumstance of a considerable similarity being observable in them to the first. The style, the plan, the incident, the characters, bear a strong resemblance; and if the poet's name had not been affixed to the