Did he a load of foreign splendours fling
O'er earth's soft infancy, and earliest spring?
No! artless, unconfined, there Nature bland
With loveliest fancies deck'd the laughing land.

He then hastens to transplant some of the most beautiful features of Milton's Eden, and concludes the episode with a picture worthy of the divine poet whom he is indirectly eulogising, and tinted, indeed, with the very colours of that matchless artist :

C'est là que les yeux pleins de tendres rêveries, Eve à son jeune époux abandonna sa main, Et rougit comme l'aube, aux portes du matin. Tout les félicitoit dans toute la nature, Le ciel par son éclat, l'onde par son murmure. La terre, en tressaillant, ressentit leurs plaisirs ; Zéphir aux antres verds redisoit leurs soupirs; Les arbres frémissoient, et la vose inclinée Versoit tous ses perfums sur le lit d'hyménée. Chant i.

There blushing like the rising morn, while love Beam'd from each eye, Eve sought the nuptial grove And to her youthful lover's longing arms Obsequious yielded all her virgin charms.

The genial hour exulting Nature hails,
Their sighs ecstatic swell the gentle gales,
Murmur the waves, fair smile the heav'ns above,
And joyful earth congratulates their love;
Whisper the groves, the rose inclines her head,
And flings fresh odours o'er the bridal bed.

In the editions subsequent to that from which the version whose merits we are considering was made, there occurs, immediately after the episode of Milton's Eden, a long description of Blenheim, occupying more than a hundred lines, and including several very beautiful passages; but of this digression, the only notice that can at present be taken, is, on my part, to lament that it had not been inserted in time to fall beneath the pen of the anonymous translator.

The specimens, indeed, which have already been given of the occasional merits of his version, must, I should imagine, unite the regrets of the reader of the original with my own, that he had it not in his power to exert his talents in the transfusion of these supplementary lines; regrets which will be heightened as we advance further in the work, not only from the recurrence of similarly situated passages in the re

cently augmented editions of the French poem, but from the increasing beauty of those extracts, which it will be my pleasing province to select from the residue of this first and early attempt to introduce M. De Lille to an English public. Let us not forget, however, in this place, the consolation which has been held out in the preceding number, that the most essential, and highly-finished parts of this noblest work of the Gallic bard, are to be found as well in the earliest as the latest impressions.

(To be continued.)

No. VI.

Thou smiling queen of every tuneful breast,
Indulgent Fancy! from the fruitful banks
Of Avon, whence thy rosy fingers cull
Fresh flowers and dews to sprinkle on the turf
Where Shakspeare lies, be present.

AKENSIDE.

Ir was on the morning of the Vigil of St. John the Baptist, 1615, one of the loveliest which the season had afforded, when Shakspeare and his friends, including Montchensey and his daughter, the younger Combe, and Mrs. Hall, set off, after an early breakfast, on their excursion to Charlecote-House. As the distance from Stratford was not much more than three miles, and they had time for the performance of their pleasant task in the most leisurely manner, they preferred walking to any mode of

conveyance.

Every thing conspired, indeed, to render the exercise they were about to undertake, even to such an invalid as Montchensey still was, and

while the heats of the day were yet unfelt, in a high degree delightful; for a gentle shower had fallen during the early part of the preceding night, and the breeze swept by with freshness, health, and fragrance on its wings. To Montchensey in particular, who had only within these few days ventured forth from confinement, it seemed, as it were, an opening paradise, and he was eloquent even to rapture on the gratifications he so keenly felt.

The occasion was, in fact, worthy of the rapture it inspired; for, whether the eye, the ear, or the faculty of smell, were considered, the appeal to the senses was alike perfect and exquisite. It was just that period when the clouds had ceased contending with the growing light; when the mists had risen like the vapours of an accepted offering, and the landscape was kindling into life and beauty. The dew-drops, those stars of the morning, glistened on every leaf; a livelier verdure mantled over the fields; a richer colouring glowed upon the flowers, and the Avon, winding and doubling through its fertile valley, now partially concealed by overhanging wood, and now sweeping unshaded through