dulgence, in the sound of music, and in the sight of an immense treasure of gold and silver talents, of gems and kingly ornaments, he set the chamber in flames. His empire perished with him." The moment of the picture is the march of Sardanapalus to the pile. The wrath of Heaven is combining with the fury of the inundation, and the assault of the enemy. Lightning is darting on the lofty towers, and places of idol worship in the extreme distance. In front of these, circling the wall, and forcing their way through the breaches, are the Median and Babylonish troops routing the Assyrians. Chariots and cavalry, elephants and myriads of spearmen, are rolled upon each other. In the centre of the scene rises the gigantic wall, a hundred feet high, and on which three chariots could run abreast. It is seen broken down by the river, which spreads through the picture, covered with war galleys. Beneath the eye, in the centre of the foreground, is the grand group, of Sardanapalus, with his women and slaves. They are standing on a terrace which overlooks the battle, and heads a long descent of marble steps, at the foot of which rises the funeral pile, a vast structure of golden couches, tables, images, embroidered apparel, and everything at once costly and combustible. In the midst of the pile is the entrance to the chamber of death, overhung with huge festoons of firecoloured silk, a mighty veil to fall and shut the revellers from the world. The groups on the terrace are singu larly animated, various, and splendid. Martin's former pictures were careless of the human figure. But he has now felt its value; and making allowance for the size and crisis, the one of which renders some confusion almost inevitable, and the other at least prohibits no violence of attitude, the figures are singularly adapted to the scene. Jewels, superb robes, and mystic emblems, are flung round the groups, with the habitual lavishness of a painter whose hand "Showers on his kings barbaric pearl and gold." The picture has faults of colour, and perhaps of conception; but the whole effect is powerful and brilliant in a degree unrivalled, and capable of being rivalled by Martin alone. EVENING. AN ODE. HARK! 'Tis the pig, that, for her supper squeaking, Bids a shrill farewell to departing lightHark! 'tis the babe, with infant treble shrieking, And angry nurse, with emulous clamour speaking, Through crooning pipe, alternate love and spite; "Hushabie, baby, thy cradle is green,” Sure such a peevish brat was never seen. "Ride a cock-hoss-ride a cock-hoss," For shaine of your dirty self to be so cross! (Singing.) "There came a little pedlar and his name was Stout,”— Be quiet, or I'll shake your plague of a life out. Now, my little honey, worth a mint of money Johnny Bo-peep has lost his sheep,” Be good this instant, go to sleep. (1) Oh, Inspiration, tell me, why Is't that the pig, with pensive eye, surveys Ah, no-the watery star she cannot view, In noisome sty condemn'd to pass her days, And groaning gruffly grunt, and grunting gruffly groan, Like "purple tyrants," in that hymn of Gray's, "Unpitied and alone." Happy, happy, happy swine, That underneath the greenwood tree Freely breakfast, fully dine, With acorns blest, and liberty! So men subsisted in the olden time, Fre wandering Ceres taught the use of ploughs; (2) What Nature gave, they took, unstain'd with crime, Nor slaughter'd pigs, nor broke the hearts of sowsTo roast young pigs-a dish I can't abide― (3) Oh most unnatural infanticide! When the wind is roaring loud, And merrily the storm-bird croaks, Then beside each mossy trunk, Thick and fast down rains the mast, No need, I ween, of Kitchiner or Ude, But thou, poor Grumphy, ne'er through glimmering glade Nor see thy piggies sport in vernal grove, Nor munch fresh acorns in brown Autumn's shade. Nor Paine, nor Cartwright, ever penn'd a line To vindicate the natural rights of swine; Yet when did man endure such wrongs as thine? In vain thou deplorest, All vainly thou squeakest, For not in the forest The babes that thou seekest. Thou didst love them with ardour, And overlay some of them. Are they gone to the larder? Round and round, in magic dance, And the crackling is burning. Madam Cook, Madam Cook, mind the critical minute, For quickly 'tis flown, and there's much to do in it; The crisis so nice is, and past in a trice is.- He still has a keen eye, In the drawing-room-look All the company muster, In a terrible fluster; She clangs and she bangs, and she batters and clatters, To and fro-above-below- The Cook" rules the roast." Ah, tell me, Muse, do clocks, suns, moons, deceive, When holy vespers lull the listening wind When ancient wisdom supp'd, and have I not yet dined? "Patience, thou young and rose-lipp'd cherubim," Art thou not sick of writing for thy meals? Grows not thy sweet complexion somewhat grim, In that dull wilderness of barren time, 'Twixt the last quarter's note of preparation, And the glad chorus of the pealing chime, The DINNER BELL, the long-wish'd consummation ? Slow as the squire's old coach in Clag-clay Lane, As Retribution, or Platonic years, So lingering long each hungry minute passes Nor yet humanely suffer'd quite to die, Martyr of knowledge! thus a wretched frog, Heaving vain sighs for its dear native bog- There's many a sound that poets have call'd sweet, With swanlike movements, elegantly tardy, As to usurp, or not to know, her place. In long array, Earls, Viscounts, Barons, Squires, Imagination, haste away with me, For vainly thou the nomenclature connest, quas versu dicere non est," Nor sing of calipash, or calipee, Or terms too hard for any tongue that's honest; Where gilt-daub'd lacqueys serve us with a sneer, And the coy maid, whose speech, reserved and slow, Like the small-footed citizens of Pekin, In monosyllables for ever speaking. Farewell, Sauterne and Hermitage, The "thin potations" of a sober age; So-da, and Seltzer's effervescent lymph, With all your hissing impotence of rage, Farewell-the streamlet, where the mountain nymph Delights to dabble, shall my thirst assuage. Imagination, haste, away with me, And dinnerless-console thyself with tea. But where shall we the brisk decoction find, Yet e'en to her one genial drop is given, Which takes the Tea-tree for the Tree of Knowledge? With ragged pamphlets, and worm-eaten plays, In solitary state, my cup of delf Its own, and my unmated lot betrays? Nay, cheerful herb, I will not seek for thee, With age, and penury, and poetry. Since the fine Hyson, and the dark Boheas, Like wisdom, dwell with children at their knees, (4) NOTES. Q. (1.) Hushabie, &c. These "snatches of old song," after descending by oral tradition from generation to generation, like the common law, the poems of Ossian, and the mysteries of the Druids, have, in these printing times, been collected and published by the indefatigable industry of the London booksellers. We certainly cannot think them improved by the types; but they are at least harmless, which is more than can be said of all our juvenile literature. The old nursery carol-Ride a cock-horse to Banbury Cross, has been rendered into Greek by a distinguished scholar, now a mitred pillar of Protestantism, who has, by a laudable pun, converted "Cock-horse” into ïnaλexтpúшv, a compound worthy of Aristophanes. (2.) Wandering Ceres-See Claudian de Rap. Proser. B. 3. (3.) Roast Pig. I am aware that this antipathy of my palate will appear like gastronomic heresy to the incomparable Elia. (4.) "Wisdom doth live with children round her knees." WORDSWORTH. VOL. XXIV. F |