born of the superstition that was destroying him, was hate,-Numerian laboured for the happiness of others-Ulpius for himself alone. And never were benevolence and selfishness-goodwill to men and a dire hatred of men, better displayed than in the two remarkably contrasted characters of the diligent, faithful preacher of the Gospel, and the proud, disappointed High Priest of Serapis. It was probably the writer's express intention, by bringing so few characters prominently forward in the story, to make those few the veritable types of the classes they represent, and we do not hesitate to say that if such was the intention, it is fully and ably carried out. Alaric and Honorius are historical characters, and nothing is here said of them but what is strictly and historically true-they did and said what they are here made to do and say, and the true facts of history are not in the least perverted or disguised by what is here attributed to them or surmised of them. This of itself alone is, in an historical romance, a great and a positive merit. But of the other personages that chiefly figure in the work, they may be said severally to represent a class that then lived; and they certainly do forcibly represent to us in their widely different characteristics, specimens of all the peculiar classes of society in that age. Hermanric, the Gothic chief, personifies what thousands upon thousands of the Gothic tribes were,-while the base, cruel, sensual, blood-thirsty Huns are well described in Hermanric's two treacherous and loathsome followers. The character, however, that more than all others displays the author's talent and observation and knowledge of the times to the greatest advantage is that of the Roman patrician Vetranio. Those only who have read Ammianus Marcellinus will understand how very ably Mr. Collins has entered into the thoughts and feelings, the frivolous and sensual pursuits, the every-day life of a wealthy and luxurious Roman senator at the beginning of the fifth century; and how just was that retribution that exacted at the hands of Alaric the riches that were collected from all parts of the world, and employed in Rome to every imaginable description of sinful indulgence. For six hundred years Rome had not seen an enemy before her gates, and during those years she had become the acknowledged mistress of the world; all nations became her tributaries-the wealth of the richest empires were poured into her coffers-provinces became the property land inheritance of her senators, and the chief of these derived, and transmitted to their descendants through successive generations, a clear yearly income from the spoils of 200,000. Two millions with us would not go so far as that sum then, and therefore the resources of the chief patrician families were almost unbounded for every possible imagination of luxury and ostentation. Too enfeebled by idleness and sensual indulgence to think much for themselves, they encouraged and supported a very numerous tribe of needy and unprincipled adventurers, called Parasites, whose chief business it was to find out new pleasures-new objects of luxury—new sources of enjoyment-new means of ostentation. A specimen or two of these are given in this book; and there is a scene which very correctly describes the sort of life they led in the halls of their patron. And what halls those were-how abounding in objects of art-in gildings and decorations-in profusion of the richest and rarest marbles, that will even now produce, whenever found, a guinea a square inch. But, in truth, there was nothing that the provinces of the Roman empire could produce of rare and beautiful and costly, that a Roman senator would deny himself the possession of; their palaces, therefore, were adorned in a manner that no palaces of the kings of this earth have ever been since, and to the interior of one of these, and to the possessor of one of these, these volumes introduce us. We have every reason to believe that Vetranio is a very fair representative of the Patrician class at Rome during the latter years of the empire, and that there were scores of senators neither better nor worse, and no otherwise than himself. They rode about in chariots of silver, accompanied by crowds of mounted dependents, with gorgeous trappings and numerous slaves bearing gilded umbrellas; their pomp in travel, in dress, and equipage was extreme; their luxuries at the table, and their style of living generally, was the prodigality of extravagance; and their ostentation was ever urging them to multiply busts and statues of themselves, till their likenesses in bronze or marble, covered with plates of gold, filled all the apartments of the palace. A great part of the space enclosed within the walls of Rome was occupied by the 1780 palaces and gardens of the patricians, while the 46,602 plebeian houses were crowded together, and run up in consequence to a height that very frequently caused their downfall. Seven stories was a common elevation, and these were so densely crowded as to produce on an average a rental of from 300l. to 400l.; and in these 48,382 houses were enclosed a population of 1,200,000 when Alaric's army was encamped around the city. As Rome contained no granaries, and Alaric stopped all supplies, famine soon stalked through the palaces of the patricians equally as through the streets of the plebeians, and we expect that the scenes depicted by Mr. Collins of the despair and recklessness produced by the raging and maddening want, and especially of the banquet of famine scene in the palace of Vetranio, will be dramatised. A more striking picture was never perhaps presented to our imagination, and what we therein see is not only credible but probable. It was only carrying out the Epicurean philosophy, which was the only philosophy or religion thought of or cared for by multitudes in Rome. Of the lovely Antonina, the heroine of the tale, we can only say that she is the personification of female loveliness and innocence, a creature to be admired and loved by all who read of her, a being in whose sufferings and dangers we cannot but feel the deepest interest, and in whose fate we almost hold our breath till we are assured of her escape from all her enemies. But the work is not more remarkable for its admirable delineation of the characters it brings out, than for the learning and perfect acquaintance of the habits and feelings of the times it alludes to; everything is truthful about it; it represents Rome as it was, and the Romans as they were, with all their insolence and recklessness, their idleness and improvidence. What we know through their poets and historians of the manners and daily life of the inhabitants of imperial Rome, even so, in every tittle, do we find our knowledge confirmed by these volumes, and, therefore, as an historical work, we can very highly recommend it. Its fiction even is founded upon truth, and perhaps no historical romance was ever published that is so entirely free from misrepresentation of facts, or that so entirely agreed with the assertions of history. The author, in his first work, has stepped into the first rank of romance writers. WOMEN IN THE EAST. BY AN ORIENTAL TRAVELLER. Within the gay kiosk reclined, Above the scent of lemon groves, In sisterhood of fruits and flowers, That wears the palpitating hours. The Hareem. R. M. MILNES. THERE is a gentle, calm repose breathing through the whole of this poem, which comes soothingly to the imagination wearied with the strife and hollowness of modern civilization. Woman in it is the inferior being; but it is the inferiority of the beautiful flower, or of the fairy birds of gorgeous plumage, who wing their flight amid the gardens and bubbling streams of the Eastern palace. Life is represented for the Eastern woman as a long dream of affection; the only emotions she is to know are those of ardent love and tender maternity. She is not represented as the companion to man in his life-battle, as the sharer of his triumph and his defeats: the storms of life are hushed at the entrance of the hareem; there the lord and master deposits the frown of unlimited power, or the cringing reverence of the slave, and appears as the watchful guardian of the loved one's happiness. Such a picture is poetical, and would lead one to say, alas for human progress, if the Eastern female slave is thus on earth to pass one long golden summer-her heart only tied by those feelings which keep it young-while her Christian sister has these emotions but as sun-gleams to lighten and make dark by contrast, the frequent gloom of her winter life. But although the conception is poetical, to one who has lived many years in the East, it appears a conception, not a description of the real hareem life, even among the noble and wealthy of those lands. The following anecdote may be given as the other side of the picture. The writer was a witness of the scene, and he offers it as a consolation to those of his fair sisters, who, in the midst of the troubles of common-place life, might be disposed to compare their lot with that of the inmate of the mysterious and happy home drawn by the poet. It was in a large and fruitful district of the South of India that I passed a few years of my life. In this district lived immured in his fort, one of the native rajahs, who, with questionable justice, have gradually been shorn of their regal state and authority, to become pensioners of the East India Company. The inevitable consequence of such an existence, the forced life of inactivity with the traditions of the bold exploits of his royal ancestors, brilliant Mahratta chieftains, may be imagined. The rajah sunk into a state of slothful dissipation, varied by the occasional intemperate exercise of the power left him within the limits of the fortress, his residence. This fort is not the place which the word would suggest to the reader, but was rather a small native town surrounded by fortifications. This town was peopled by the descendants of the Mahrattas, and by the artisans and dependents of the rajah and his court. Twice a year the English resident and his assistants were accustomed to pay visits of ceremony to the rajah, and had to encounter the fatiguing sights of dancing-girls, beast-fights, and music, if the extraordinary assemblage of sounds, which in the East assume the place of harmony, can be so called. We had just returned from one of these visits, and were grumbling over our headaches, the dust, and the heat, when to our surprise the rajah's vabul, or confidential representative, was announced. As it was nine o'clock in the evening this somewhat surprised us. He was, however, admitted, and after a short, hurried obeisance, he announced "that he must die! that there had been a sudden revolt of the hareem, and that when the rajah knew it, he would listen to no explanations, but be sure to imprison and ruin all round him; and that foremost in the general destruction would be himself. Veneat-Rao, who had always been the child of the English Sahibs, who were his fathers,-that they were wise above all natives, and that he had come to them for help!" All this was pronounced with indescribable volubility, and the appearance of the speaker announced the most abject fear. He was a little wizened Brahmin, with the thin blue lines of his caste carefully painted on his wrinkled forehead. His dark black eyes gleamed with suppressed impotent rage, and in his agitation he had lost all that staid, placid decorum which we had been accustomed to observe in him when transacting business. When urged to explain the domestic disaster which had befallen his master, he exclaimed with ludicrous pathos, "By Rama! women are devils; by them all misfortunes come upon men! But, sahibs, hasten with me; they have broken through the guard kept on the hareem door by two old sentries; they ran through the fort and besieged my house; they are now there, and refuse to go back to the hareem. The rajah returns to-morrow from his huntingwhat can I say? I must die! my children, who will care for them? what crime did my father commit that I should thus be disgraced?" Yielding to these entreaties, and amused at the prospect of a novel scene, we mounted our horses and cantered to the fort. The lights were burning brightly in the bazaars as we rode through them, and, except a few groups gathered to discuss the price of rice and the want of rain, we perceived no agitation till we reached the Vakeel's house. Arrived here we dismounted, and on entering the square court-yard a scene of indescribable confusion presented itself. The first impression it produced on me was that of entering a large aviary in which the birds, stricken with terror, fly madly to and fro against the bars. Such was the first effect of our entrance. Women and girls of all ages, grouped about the court, in most picturesque attitudes, started up and fled to its extreme end; only a few of the more matronly ladies stood their ground, and with terribly screeching voices, declaimed against some one or something, but for a long time we could in this Babel of female tongues distinguish nothing. At last we managed to distinguish the Rajah's name, coupled with epithets most disrespectful to royalty. This, and that they, the women, begged instantly to be put to death, was all that the clamour would permit us to understand. We looked appealingly at Veneat Rao, who stood by wringing his hands. However, he made a vigorous effort, and raising his shrill voice, told them that the sahibs had come purposely to listen to, and redress, their grievances, and that they would hold durbar (audience) then and there. This announcement produced a lull, and enabled us to look round us at the strange scene. Scattered in various parts of the court were these poor prisoners, who now for the first time for many years tasted liberty. Scattered about were some hideous old women, partly guardians of the younger, partly remains, we were told, of the Rajah's father's seraglio. Young children moved among them looking very much frightened. But the group which attracted our attention and admiration consisted of about twenty really beautiful girls, from fourteen to eighteen years of age, of every country and caste, in the various costume and ornament of their races; these were clustering round a fair and very graceful Mahratta girl, whose tall figure was seen to great advantage in the blaze of torchlight. Her muslin veil had half fallen from her face, allowing us to see her large, soft, dark eyes, from which the tears were fast falling, as in a low voice she addressed her fellow-sufferers. There was on her face a peculiar expression of patient endurance of ill, inexpressively touching. This is not an unfrequent character in the beauty of Asiatic women; the natural result of habits of fear, and the entire submission to the will of others. Her features were classically regular, with the short rounded chin, the long graceful neck, and that easy port of head, so seldom seen except in the women of the East. Her arms were covered with rich bracelets, and were of the most perfect form; her hands long and tapering, the palms and nails dyed with the "henna." No barbarously-civilized restraint rendered her waist a contradiction of natural beauty; a small, dark satin bodice, richly embroidered, covered a bosom which had hardly attained womanly perfection; a zone of gold held together the full muslin folds of the lower portion of her dress, below which the white satin trousers reached, without concealing a faultless ankle and foot, uncovered, except by the heavy anklet and rings which tinkled at every step she took. After the disturbance that our entrance had caused, had in a measure subsided, the children, who were richly dressed and loaded with every kind of fantastic ornament, came sidling timidly round us, peering curiously with their large black eyes, at the unusual sight of white men. Considerably embarrassed at the very new arbitration which we were about to undertake, B. and I consulted for a little while, after which, gravely taking our seats, and Veneat Rao having begged them to listen with respectful attention, I, at B.'s desire, proceeded to address them, telling them,— "That we supposed some grave cause must have arisen for them to desert the palace of the Rajah, their protector, during his absence, and by violently overpowering the guard, incur his serious anger (here my eye caught a sight of the said guard, consisting of two blear-eyed, shrivelled old men, and I nearly lost all solemnity of demeanour) that if they complained of injustice, we supposed that it must have been committed without his highness' knowledge, but that if they would quietly return to the hareem we |