"Records of Woman," by Mrs. Hemans, is a volume of beautiful poetry, dedicated to Miss Joanna Baillie. The subject, style, and thoughts, are alike feminine, and devoted to the celebration of those virtues which in a particular manner adorn the female character. The tenderness and feeling of the fair authoress-those graces which are eminently conspicuous in her writings, and the moral sentiment which pervades them, constitute her the best living recorder of the virtues of her sex on the plan she has here laid down for that purpose. The "Records of Woman" embrace various striking instances of her virtues, her fidelity in love, her fortitude in suffering, her constancy in faith, and her triumph in death. The number of pieces which bear the title of "Records" is nineteen; and we venture to assert, that those who read them and are not impressed with their beauty and pathos, can have no true taste for the better order of poetry.

In the present day, when so many writers of verse are before the public, all aiming at one particular style, and at producing a startling momentary effect rather than enduring excellence, it is pleasant to find Mrs. Hemans pursue the true path to lasting celebrity. Her works do not stand still; they visibly improve. There are pieces in the present volume superior to any she has before written they thrill to the heart, and prove their claim to unqualified commendation by the best of all tests, the trial of their operation upon the better sympathies of our nature. Each narration, or tale, breathes purity and tenderness, displays the better passions and the nobler emotions of the soul, and is calculated to interest from its connexion with nature in all bosoms. We are aware how much of fashion and of cant there is even in matters of taste and criticism; and we do not therefore pin our faith upon the crude evanescent colourings of praise with which every-day accident may overlay the works of an ephemeral favourite. It is necessary to examine into their principles of durability-to try them by the example of those which have stood the ravages of time and the caprices of popularity, and to judge accordingly.

"Arabella Stuart" is the first poem in the present volume. This lady, it is well known, was the descendant of Henry VII. By an act of despotism common to the times, she was separated from her husband, and both were placed in confinement. Both contrived to effect their escape on board different ships; but, unfortunately, Arabella Stuart was retaken, and plunged into a cruel captivity, in which she died bereft of reason. This is a very delightful poem, worthy, every way, of its touching and mournful subject. "The Bride of the Greek Isle," the second poem, has adorned our pages. Properzia Rossi" is full of sweetness and beauty. "Gertrude Von der Wart," has been the theme of other poets besides Mrs. Hemans; and it is not to be wondered at, for a more touching subject than a wife watching the last agonies of a husband broken alive on the wheel, can scarcely be conceived, much less judged to have been actually true; but truth is often "stranger than fiction." The "Indian City” is known to the reader; but it will bear reiterated perusals by all who relish good poetry. But to enumerate each " Record," and extract from each what we conceive to be striking and beautiful, would far exceed our limits.

In "Arabella Stuart," the following strikes us as eminently beautiful. The captive amidst her captivity is lamenting her husband.

"Now never more, oh! never, in the worth
Of its pure cause, let sorrowing love on earth
Trust fondly-never more !-the hope is crush'd
That lit my life, the voice within me hush'd
That spoke sweet oracles; and I return

To lay my youth, as in a burial-urn,

Where sunshine may not find it. All is lost!

My friend, my friend! where art thou? Day by day,
Gliding, like some dark mournful stream away,

My silent youth flows from me. Spring, the while,
Comes and rains beauty on the kindling boughs
Round hall and hamlet; Summer, with her smile,

Fills the green forest :-young hearts breathe their vows;
Brothers long parted meet; fair children rise

Round the glad board; Hope laughs from loving eyes:
All this is in the world!-These joys lie sown,

The dew of every path-on one alone

Their freshness may not fall-the stricken deer,
Dying of thirst with all the waters near.

Ye are from dingle and fresh glade, ye flowers
By some kind hand to cheer my dungeon sent;
O'er you the oak shed down the summer showers,
And the lark's nest was where your bright cups bent,
Quivering to breeze and rain-drop, like the sheen
Of twilight stars. On you Heaven's eye hath been,
Through the leaves pouring its dark sultry blue
Into your glowing hearts; the bee to you
Hath murmur'd, and the rill. My soul grows faint
With passionate yearning, as its quick dreams paint
Your hauuts by dell and stream,-the green, the free,
The full of all sweet sound,-the shut from me!
There went a swift bird singing past my cell-
O love and freedom! ye are lovely things!
With you the peasant on the hills may dwell,
And by the streams; but I-the blood of kings,
A proud, unmingling river, through my veins
Flows in lone brightness,-and its gifts are chains!

*

Thou hast forsaken me! I feel, I know,
There would be rescue if this were not so.

Thou 'rt at the chase, thou 'rt at the festive board,
Thou 'rt where the red wine free and high is pour'd,
Thou 'rt where the dancers meet!-a magic glass
Is set within my soul, and proud shapes pass,
Flushing it o'er with pomp from bower and hall;
I see one shadow, stateliest there of all,—
Thine!-What dost thou amidst the bright and fair,
Whispering light words, and mocking my despair?
It is not well of thee !-my love was more

Than fiery song may breathe, deep thought explore;
And there thou smilest, while my heart is dying,
With all its blighted hopes around it lying;
E'en thou, on whom they hung their last green leaf-
Yet smile, smile on! too bright art thou for grief!

端

Now with fainting frame,

*

With soul just lingering on the flight begun,
To bind for thee its last dim thoughts in one,
I bless thee! Peace be on thy noble head,
Years of bright fame, when I am with the dead!

*

*

Farewell! and yet once more,
Farewell!-the passion of long years I pour
Into that word: thou hear'st not,-but the woe
And fervour of its tones may one day flow

To thy heart's holy place; there let them dwell—
We shall o'ersweep the grave to meet-Farewell !"

The preceding is very charming poetry, worthy the pen of proud names in our poetic annals.

The adieu of "Gertrude Von der Wart" to her husband on the wheel is deeply pathetic, and exhibits the power of the writer.

"Her hands were clasp'd, her dark eyes raised,
The breeze threw back her hair;

Up to the fearful wheel she gazed

All that she loved was there.

The night was round her clear and cold,
The holy heaven above,

Its pale stars watching to behold
The might of earthly love.

And bid me not depart,' she cried,

My Rudolph, say not so!

This is no time to quit thy side;

Peace, peace, I cannot go.

Hath the world aught for me to fear

When death is on thy brow?

The world! what means it ?-mine is here

I will not leave thee now.

I have been with thee in thine hour

Of glory and of bliss;

Doubt not its memory's living power

To strengthen me through this!

And thou, mine honour'd love and true,
Bear on, bear nobly on!

We have the blessed Heaven in view,
Whose rest shall soon be won.'

And were not these high words to flow
From woman's breaking heart?
Through all that night of bitterest woe
She bore her lofty part;

But oh! with such a glazing eye,

With such a curdling cheek

Love, love! of mortal agony,

Thou, only thou shouldst speak!

The wind rose high,-but with it rose
Her voice, that he might hear:

Perchance that dark hour brought repose

To happy bosoms near,

While she sat striving with despair

Beside his tortured form,

And pouring her deep soul in prayer
Forth on the rushing storm.

She wiped the death-damps from his brow,
With her pale hands and soft,

Whose touch upon the lute-chords low

Had still'd his heart so oft.

She spread her mantle o'er his breast,
She bathed his lips with dew,

And on his cheek such kisses press'd

As hope and joy ne'er knew.

Oh! lovely are ye, Love and Faith,
Enduring to the last!

She had her meed-one smile in death

And his worn spirit pass'd.

While ev'n as o'er a martyr's grave

She knelt on that sad spot,

And, weeping, bless'd the God who gave

Strength to forsake it not !"

Many of the poems in this volume have appeared in print before; but it is a pleasure to possess them in a collected state. They will, we venture to affirm, increase in public estimation the more and oftener they are perused. Among the shorter pieces in the last half of the volume, "The Last Wish' is peculiarly touching and sweet.

We have not space to extract more.

This volume will recommend itself

far better than we can do it. The public taste, if, as some contend, it be vitiated, has enough left in it of what is discerning to relish the simplicity and beauty of Mrs. Hemans's verse, and we confidently leave her " Records of Woman" to its adjudication.

"Zxlij squaak skrunchtje mpd Dijmtzgrm,
Wrmtzdbsfirp vrouwtji gruntz gij growltz."
Dutch Epic.

CAVEAT EMPTOR! This is the age of fraud, imposture, substitution, transmutation, adulteration, abomination, contamination, and many others of the same sinister ending, always excepting purification. Every thing is debased and sophisticated, and "nothing is but what is not. All things are mixed, lowered, debased, deteriorated by our cozening dealers and shopkeepers; and bad as they are, there is every reason to fear that they are "mox daturos progeniem vitiosiorem." We wonder at the increase of bilious and dyspeptic patients, at the number of new books upon stomach complaints, at the rapid fortunes made by practitioners who undertake (the very word is ominous) to cure indigestion; but how can it be otherwise when Accum, before he took to quoting with his scissors, assured us there was "poison in the pot;" when a recent writer has shown that there are still more deleterious ingredients in the wine-bottle; and when we ourselves have all had dismal intestine evidence that our bread is partly made of ground bones, alum, and plaster of Paris, our tea of sloe leaves, our beer of injurious drugs, our milk of snails and chalk, and that even the water supplied to us by our companies is any thing rather than the real Simon Pure it professes to be. Not less earnestly than benevolently do our quack doctors implore us to beware of spurious articles; Day and Martin exhort us not to take our polish from counterfeit blacking : every advertiser beseeches the "pensive public" to be upon its guard against suppositious articles-all, in short, is knavery, juggling, cheating, and deception.

This state of universal dishonesty and substitution would be bad enough were it merely confined to commodities, but it is truly alarming when it is extended to persons. It has become so much the fashion to introduce real characters into our novels, satires, and lampoons, personality has been pushed to such a confounding and confounded excess, that we no longer know who is who, (what is what we have long forgotten,) we are ignorant which is the original, which the copy, the type is supplanted by the antitype, and personal identity is altogether lost. "Methinks there are six Harries in the field," cried the disappointed Hotspur. Had he lived in our days, he would have found sixty. dest authors, who were once content to be anonymous, must now forsooth become pseudonymous, having as many aliases as a professed. swindler, and assuming them with the same petty larceny motiveJuly.-VOL. XXIII. NO. XCI.

G

Mo

that of obtaining other men's goods under false pretences. The dupes who read and admire Sterne's and Lord Lyttelton's Letters, are far from suspecting that they are forgeries; and wiser heads dream not that in these our days we have many a Chatterton and Ireland hitherto undetected. The 66 nosce teipsum" is an exploded admonition: if we cannot know others, how can we be expected to know ourselves? It is wiser and safer, and nearer to the truth, to say with Cicero, "All I know with certainty is, that I know nothing."

But the most scandalous imposition, the most cruel quæ pro qua of modern days, is that which is perpetrated by that broad-hipped mocking-bird, who, at the time of the annual migration to England, finds her way hither from Bavaria, Wetteravia, or Westphalia, and impudently passes herself off for the original, genuine Dutch Juffrow, who wending hitherward from the marshy flats of Zealand, Zutphen, and the shores of Zuyder-zee, first made our streets vocal, and, as it were, swept our echoes with the cry of " Buy a Broom!" Alas! the usurpers have almost pushed them from their stools; the Teutonic counterfeit has nearly superseded the original Flemish or Netherland Vrouw. How the former can find their way hither from such distances as Frankfort, Mentz, and the extremities of the lower Rhine, or the still more remote villages of Bavaria,-unless, like the ancient witches, they fly over upon their own broomsticks; or how they can be adequately repaid for such long journeys by the sale of their three-penny ware, it passes my comprehension to surmise; but the whole process appears to me so suspicious, to savour so strongly of the black art, that I would as soon handle the besom of destruction, whereof mention is made in the prophecies, as any of their perilous, magic-fraught commodities. Suppose they were to be suddenly smitten with the amor patriæ, the maladie du pays, to sigh for the dulce domum, who shall assure me that these switch-tailed Bavarian brushes, turning suddenly restive, shall not brush off with me; whisk me up the chimney like smoke; bear me through the air as if I bestrode a Hippogriff, and "sweep to their revenge" by depositing me in one of the muddy canals of Munich, or on the sedgy banks of " Iser rolling rapidly?" Or how, if they tempt me to the floods of the Rhine, beside which they originally grew, plunge me headlong in, leave me to bob among the willows; or, whenever I rise out of breath, push me down again with my own purchased broomstick till the breath is out of me! Such things have been, if the traditions of Germany, and of the Hartz mountains in particular, are to be credited; and, for my own part, I would not touch one of these Bavarian brooms, even if the jade who carries them would give them to me for nothing. "Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes."

And why should we run all these risks? why should we encourage impostors? why should we purchase a spurious article, when the real, original, genuine Dutch "Buy a broom" is still occasionally encountered in our streets? If the reader wishes to ascertain the real Zuyder-zee Juffrow, he has but to look attentively at her features. He will see at once that she has been born below the level of the ocean," nurtured under a dyke, has passed her whole life beneath low-water mark, and that though she may be a stray or waif of Neptune, he has never lost his legal lien upon her, never acknowledged her to be a native legitimate subject of his brother Earth. We dig muscles and