Upon the threshold, then, of this mighty temple, whose walls have the burnish of genius upon them, and whose shrine has been erected by all the great and good men whom England has gloried in possessing, we, too, venture to lay the tribute of our veneration: not, indeed, without trembling lest our presumption should be punished, but not without hope, that in our lesser world we may produce the same good effect, which has been already produced in a great degree on the public tastethat of exciting a wish to abandon the school of vitiated taste, whether it be displayed in the wire-drawing of Pope, which spoiled the genius of Darwin, or in the overacted Shakspearianism, which makes the Lakists a laughing-stock and a bye-word: but to return, on the other hand, to the fountain-head of all that is really excellent in our literature, and once more to drink from "the well of English undefiled," the Elizabethan poetry.

E. L.

DISCOVERY OF MADEIRA.

The account of the discovery of Madeira is romantic. A young man of the name of Machim, fell in love with an English lady, by name Anna de of great beauty, and in birth and fortune superior to himself; his passion was returned, but the parents of the lady were averse to the match, and in order to put it out of her power to dispose of herself, married her to an old baron, who had a castle on the sea-coast.

As may be expected, the lovers ran away, intending to

fly to France, but the wind took them out of their course, and after ten days of storms, accompanied by all the extremities of want, and the constantly harassing expectation of death, the horrors of their situation being, no doubt, heightened by the recollection of their fault, landed them in that most lovely bay, which to this hour retains the name of its discoverer.

Imagine yourself on a precipitous mountain of rock, down which there is a winding path, now lost, now appearing, and which, if pursued, would lead to the beautiful and extensive valley which spreads in sunny richness below; opposite to you are lofty rocks overhanging the ocean; on the left, distant mountains rising in one wooded amphitheatre, from which descends a stream that glides through the middle of the vale, and meets the sea. Its waves are calm, and hardly ripple on the beach, "While towards the east, Lorenço's rocky chain,

Spreads the far point, and stretches to the main.”

The houses which are scattered near the shore are of the ancient Portuguese construction; the want of glass being compensated for by wooden pannels, which must be opened to admit the light.

There is a church said to be built on the spot, beneath which the lovers were buried, and a rude cross cut from the very cedar which was growing above their grave.

A FRAGMENT.

XXI.

The waves are silent in Machico's bay,
And bright the sun, and cloudless is the day,
As on that morn when, spent and tempest-tost,
Machim first landed on th' untrodden coast,

And blest the shore that, when e'en hope was past,
Bade him awake to life and love, at last.
Alas! how blind is man to change and fate,
What pains unseen upon his pleasures wait,
That can Hope's visionary joys believe,
And most rejoices, when he most should grieve.
Thus gladden'd he to view the lovely strand,
The woods, the hills, and unexpected land;
Then from the bark his beauteous Anna bore,
Sav'd from the sea, to perish on the shore.
Oh! false deliverance! too late to save!
That only snatch'd her from a darker grave :
Here o'er her tomb one cypress wreath he wove,
The last sad tribute of ill-fated love;

Then wild with grief, and frantic with despair, Press'd the fresh turf, and droop'd and perish'd there. Oh! hapless pair!-yet just this awful close

To lawless love, and violated vows :

Yet blame not these, but rather blame the pride
That made the daughter an unwilling bride;
That tore the tender bonds of love apart,

That gave the hand, but could not give the heart.
Then blame not, ye who pass their bridal bed,
But drop a tear of sorrow for the dead ;

Let pity most by man to man be given,
Vengeance belongs-and mercy too- to Heaven.

XXII.

They laid him in his lowly grave
Beside the form he lov'd the best,

No more to hear the billows rave,

At length together, and at rest.
No storied urn, no pillar rose

To tell their names, their loves, their woes;
But the dark mantling moss

Spread o'er their tomb its sad array;
And 'neath the cedar where they lay

Was plac'd a rustic cross,

To tell to all, who wander'd near,
That Christian man was buried there.

XXIII.

And they have left that lonely isle,
And they are on the stormy deep;
All is as hush'd and still awhile,

As those two lovers where they sleep
All unregarded, silent, lone,

With none to mark, and none to moan,
Their inauspicious love;

Murmur the billows to the shore,

The wild flowers blossom as before,
Bright is the sun above :

Oh! Nature mourns not man's decay;
He but returns to native clay;

Nor when a monarch dies,

Does one bright flower that decks the glade,

One leaf decay, one blossom fade,

Save those that on his bier are laid,

Or grace his obsequies.

XXIV.

While prouder monuments arrest the eye,

We view, admire, and praise, and pass them by ;
Nor longer dwell intent upon the spot,
Seen for a moment, and as soon forgot:
But this, their simple tale, will aye impart
A spell that twines around the gazer's heart;
Their memory mingles with the scene around,
Lives in the air, and sighs in every sound;
And, as we tread above their ashes, moves
A silent sorrow for their hapless loves.

ON FALSE FRIENDSHIP.

From the innumerable complaints of the faithlessness of man, which fill the writings of those whom a bad temper or bilious constitution may have rendered misan

thropical, we might almost conclude, that friendship is like the philosopher's stone, something merely ideal, utterly unattainable by our degenerate race. Notwithstanding this, we give the name of "friend" to every one who, during our acquaintance, may either. have benefitted us, or received a favour at our hands. The man is as much a friend who lends us a horse for a day, as he who supplies us with a thousand pounds in our utmost distress. He who, by attending us as second to the field, has assisted in endangering our life, claims this hacknied title in common with the man who, at the risk of his own safety, has delivered us from destruction. I should wish, therefore, disowning any idea of treating of that perfect friendship, concerning which so many poets have raved, and philosophers dogmatized, to consider the nature of that common every-day intimacy which the world calls friendship.

We have long been taught that female friendship consists in filling foolscap sheets with-far be it from me to say what. Of this kind of friendship I shall say no more, not being qualified from experience, to expatiate on such a subject; and those of my readers for whom it has any interest, I shall beg leave to refer to the "Sorrows of Adeline Schwartzenberg," or any equally sentimental novel of the day. The ne plus ultra, it is said, of some old ladies' friendship is in tea-drinking and scandal, in abusing their absent friends, for the entertainment of their friends who are present. Perhaps these worthy personages may think with Falstaff, that in dispraising any one before the wicked, they act the part of a careful friend. Whether such be a sufficient apology for scan