Oh! high in thought, magnificent in soul!
Born to inspire, enlighten, and control;
Cosmo, Lorenzo! view your reign once more,
The shrine where nations mingle to adore!
Again th' Enthusiast there, with ardent gaze,
Shall hail the mighty of departed days:
Those sovereign spirits, whose commanding mind
Seems in the marble's breathing mould enshrined;
Still, with ascendant power, the world to awe,
Still the deep homage of the heart to draw;
To breathe some spell of holiness around,
Bid all the scene be consecrated ground,
And from the stone, by Inspiration wrought,
Dart the pure lightnings of exalted thought.
There thou, fair offspring of immortal Mind!
Love's radiant Goddess, Idol of mankind!
Once the bright object of Devotion's vow,
Shalt claim from taste a kindred worship now.
Oh! who can tell what beams of heavenly light
Flashed o'er the sculptor's intellectual sight,
How many a glimpse, revealed to him alone,
Made brighter beings, nobler worlds his own;
Ere, like some vision sent the earth to bless,
Burst into life thy pomp of loveliness!

Proud Racers of the Sun! to fancy's thought,
Burning with spirit, from his essence caught,
No mortal birth ye seem-but formed to bear
Heaven's car of triumph through the realms of air;
To range uncurbed the pathless fields of space,
The winds your rivals in the glorious race;
Traverse empyreal spheres with buoyant feet,
Free as the zephyr, as the shot star fleet;
And waft through worlds unknown the vital ray,
The flame that wakes creations into day.
Creatures of fire and ether! winged with light,
To track the regions of the Infinite!
From purer elements whose life was drawn,
Sprung from the sunbeam, offspring of the dawn.
What years on years, in silence gliding by,
Have spared those forms of perfect symmetry!
Moulded by Art to dignify alone

Her own bright deity's resplendent throne,
Since first her skill their fiery grace bestowed,
Meet for such lofty fate, such high abode,
How many a race, whose tales of glory seem
An echo's voice-the music of a dream,
Whose records feebly from oblivion save
A few bright traces of the wise and brave;

Young Genius there, while dwells his kindling How many a state, whose pillared strength sub

eye

On forms, instinct with bright divinity,
While new-born powers, dilating in his heart,
Embrace the full magnificence of Art;
From scenes by Raphael's gifted hand arrayed,
From dreams of heaven, by Angelo portrayed;
From each fair work of Grecian skill sublime,
Sealed with perfection, 'sanctified by time;'
Shall catch a kindred glow, and proudly feel
His spirit burn with emulative zeal,
Buoyant with loftier hopes his soul shall rise,
Imbued at once with nobler energies;
O'er life's dim scenes on rapid pinion soar,
And worlds of visionary grace explore,
Till his bold hand give glory's day-dreams birth,
And with new wonders charm admiring earth.

Venice, exult! and o'er thy moonlight seas,
Swell with gay strains each Adriatic breeze!
What though long fled those years of martial fame,
That shed romantic lustre o'er thy name;
Though to the winds thy streamers idly play,
And the wild waves another Queen obey;
Though quenched the spirit of thine ancient race,
And power and freedom scarce have left a trace;
Yet still shall Art her splendours round thee cast,
And gild the wreck of years for ever past.
Again thy fanes may boast a Titian's dyes,
Whose clear, soft brilliance emulates thy skies,
And scenes that glow in coloring's richest bloom,
With life's warm flush Palladian halls illume.
From thy rich dome again th' unrivalled steed
Starts to existence, rushes into speed,
Still for Lysippus claims the wreath of fame,
Panting with ardor, vivified with flame.

lime,

Defied the storms of war, the waves of time,
Towering o'er earth majestic and alone,
Fortress of power-has flourished and is gone!
And they, from clime to clime by conquest borne,
Each fleeting triumph destined to adorn,
They, that of powers and kingdoms lost and won,
Have seen the noontide and the setting sun,
Consummate still in every grace remain,
As o'er their heads had ages rolled in vain!
Ages, victorious, in their ceaseless flight,
O'er countless monuments of earthly might!
While she, from fair Byzantium's lost domain,
Who bore those treasures to her ocean-reign,
'Midst the blue deep, who reared her island-
throne,

And called th' infinitude of waves her own;
Venice the proud, the Regent of the sea,
Welcomes in chains the trophies of the free!
And thou, whose Eagle's towering plume un-

furled,

Once cast its shadow o'er a vassal world,
Eternal city! round whose Curule throne
The lords of nations knelt in ages flown;
Thou, whose Augustan years have left to time
Immortal records of their glorious prime :
When deathless bards, thine olive-shades among,
Swelled the high raptures of heroic song;
Fair, fallen empress! raise thy languid head
From the cold altars of th' illustrious dead,
And once again, with fond delight, survey
The proud memorials of thy noblest day.

Lo! where thy sons, oh Rome! a godlike train,
In imaged majesty return again!

Bards, chieftains, monarchs, tower with mien au- | Each bold idea, borrowed from the sky,

Whate'er the soul could dream, the hand could Thy pangs, Laocoon, agonize the breast,

Though fixed on him, his children's suppliant eyes] Or evening suns illume, with purple smile,
Implore the aid avenging fate denies;

Though, with the giant-snake in fruitless strife,
Heaves every muscle with convulsive life,
And in each limb Existence writhes, enrolled
'Mid the dread circles of the venomed fold;
Yet the strong spirit lives-and not a cry
Shall own the might of Nature's agony!
That furrowed brow unconquered soul reveals,
That patient eye to angry Heaven appeals,
That struggling bosom concentrates its breath,
Nor yields one moan to torture or to death!(4)
Sublimest triumph of intrepid Art!

With speechless horror to congeal the heart,
To freeze each pulse, and dart through every vein
Cold thrills of fear, keen sympathies of pain;
Yet teach the spirit how its lofty power
May brave the pangs of fate's severest hour.

Turn from such conflicts, and enraptured gaze
On scenes where Painting all her skill displays:
Landscapes, by colouring drest in richer dyes,
More mellowed sunshine, more unclouded skies;
Or dreams of bliss, to dying Martyrs given,
Descending Seraphs robed in beams of heaven.

Oh! sovereign Masters of the Pencil's might,
Its depth of shadow, and its blaze of light,
Ye, whose bold thought, disdaining every bound,
Explored the worlds above, below, around,
Children of Italy! who stand alone,
And unapproached, 'midst regions all your own;
What scenes, what beings blest your favoured
sight,

Severely grand, unutterably bright!
Triumphant spirits! your exulting eye
Could meet the noontide of eternity,
And gaze untired, undaunted, uncontrolled
On all that Fancy trembles to behold.

Bright on your view such forms their splendour
shed,

As burst on Prophet-bards in ages fled:

The Parian altar, and the pillared aisle,
Then as the full, or softened radiance falls,
On Angel-groups that hover o'er the walls,
Well may those Temples, where your hand has
shed

Light o'er the tomb, existence round the dead,
Seem like some world, so perfect and so fair,
That nought of earth should find admittance there,
Some sphere, where Beings, to mankind unknown,
|Dwell in the brightness of their pomp, alone!

Hence, ye vain fictions, fancy's erring theme,
Gods of illusion! phantoms of a dream!
Frail, powerless idols of departed time,
Fables of song, delusive, though sublime!
To loftier tasks has Roman Art assigned
Her matchless pencil, and her mighty mind!
From brighter streams her vast ideas flowed,
With purer fire her ardent spirit glowed.
To her 't was given in fancy to explore
The land of miracles, the holiest shore;
That realm where first the light of life was sent,
The loved, the punished, of th' Omnipotent!
O'er Judah's hills her thoughts inspired would
stray,

Through Jordan's valleys trace their lonely way,
By Siloa's brook, or Almotana's(5) deep,
Chained in dead silence, and unbroken sleep;
Scenes whose cleft rocks, and blasted deserts, tell
Where passed th' Eternal, where his anger fell!
Where oft his voice the words of fate revealed,
Swelled in the whirlwind, in the thunder pealed,
Or heard by prophets in some palmy vale,
Breathed 'still small' whispers on the midnight
gale.

There dwelt her spirit-there her hand portrayed,
'Mid the lone wilderness or cedar-shade,
Ethereal forms, with awful missions fraught,
Or Patriarch-seers, absorbed in sacred thought,
Bards, in high converse with the world of rest,

Forms that to trace, no hand but yours might dare, Saints of the earth, and spirits of the blest.

Darkly sublime, or exquisitely fair,

These o'er the walls your magic skill arrayed,
Glow in rich sunshine, gleam through melting
shade,

Float in light grace, in awful greatness tower,
And breathe and move, the records of your power.
Inspired of Heaven! what heightened pomp ye cast,
O'er all the deathless trophies of the past!
Round many a marble fane and classic dome,
Asserting still the majesty of Rome;
Round many a work that bids the world believe
What Grecian Art could image and achieve;
Again, creative minds, your visions throw

Life's chastened warmth, and Beauty's mellowest
glow,

But chief to Him, the Conqueror of the grave,
Who lived to guide us, and who died to save;
Him, at whose glance the powers of evil fled,
And soul returned to animate the dead;
Whom the waves owned-and sunk beneath his
eye,

Awed by one accent of Divinity;

To Him she gave her meditative hours,
Hallowed her thoughts, and sanctified her powers.
O'er the bright scenes sublime repose she threw,
As all around the Godhead's presence knew,
And robed the Holy One's benignant mien
In beaming mercy, majesty serene.

Oh! mark, where Raphael's pure and perfect
line

And when the morn's bright beams and mantling Portrays that form ineffably divine !(6)

dyes

Pour the rich lustre of Ausonian skies,

Where with transcendant skill his hand has shed
Diffusive sunbeams round the Saviour's head;

Each heaven-illumined lineament imbued
With all the fulness of beatitude,

And traced the sainted group, whose mortal sight
Sinks overpowered by that excess of light!
Gaze on that scene, and own the might of Art,
By truth inspired to elevate the heart!
To bid the soul exultingly possess,

Of all her powers a heightened consciousness,
And strong in hope, anticipate the day,
The last of life, the first of freedom's ray;
To realize, in some unclouded sphere,
Those pictured glories feebly imaged here!
Dim, cold reflections from her native sky,
Faint effluence of "the Day-spring from on high!"

Note 3, page 106, col. 2.

"Le Torso d'Hercule paroît un des derniers ouvrages parfaits que l'art ait produit en Grèce, Grèce fut réduite en province Romaine, l'histoire avant la perte de sa liberté. Car après que la

ne fait mention d'aucun artiste célèbre de cette nation, jusqu'aux temps du Triumvirat Romain.” Winckelmann, ibid. tom. ii. p. 250.

Note 4, page 107, col. 1.

"It is not, in the same manner, in the agonized limbs, or in the convulsed muscles of the Laocoon, that the secret grace of its composition resides; it is in the majestic air of the head, which has not yielded to suffering, and in the deep serenity of the forehead, which seems to be still superior to all its afflictions, and significant of a mind that can not be subdued."-Allison's Essays, vol. ii. p. 400.

"Laocoon nous offre le spectacle de la nature humaine dans la plus grande douleur dont elle de rassembler contre elle toute la force de l'esprit. soit susceptible, sous l'image d'homme qui tâche Tandis que l'excès de la souffrance enfle les muscles, et tire violemment les nerfs, le courage se

également contrainte par le silence que la force de l'âme impose à la douleur qu'elle voudroit étouffer. *** Son air est plaintif, et non criard. * * * * Winckelmann, ibid. tom. ii. p. 214. Note 5, page 107, col. 2.

"Quoique cette statue d'Hercule ait été mal-montre sur le front gonflé : la poitrine s'éleve avec traitée et mutilée d'une manière étrange, se trou-peine par la nécessité de la respiration, qui est vant sans tête, sans bras, et sans jambes, elle est cependant encore un chef-d'œuvre aux yeux des connoisseurs; et ceux qui savent percer dans les mystères de l'art, se la représentent dans toute sa beauté. L'artiste, en voulant représenter Hercule, a formé un corps idéal au-dessus de la nature. *** Cet Hercule paroît donc ici tel qu'il dut être, lorsque, purifié par le feu des foiblesses de l'huma- the Dead Sea. nité, il obtint l'immortalité, et prit place auprès des dieux. Il est représenté sans aucun besoin de nourriture et de réparation de forces. Les veines y sont toutes invisibles."-Winckelmann, Histoire de l'Art chez les Anciens, tom. ii. p. 248.

Almotana.

The name given by the Arabs to

Note 6, page 107, col. 2.

The Transfiguration, thought to be so perfect a specimen of art, that, in honour of Raphael, it was carried before his body to the grave.

Tales and Historic Scenes.