THE SHIPWRECK.

[William Falconer, born in Edinburgh, 11th February, 1732; lost at sea in the Aurora frigate, December, 1769. His father was a barber and wig-maker in the Netherbow, and afterwards a grocer, but always unforWhen about fourteen the poet was tunate in business. sent to sea. In 1750 he was second mate on board the Britannia, which, on the passage from Alexandria to Venice, was shipwrecked on the coast of Greece. Only three of the crew survived, of whom Falconer was one; He and it was this incident which inspired his poem. served some time as midshipman in the Royal Navy, then was appointed purser, and was engaged in that capacity in the Aurora when it was lost on the passage to India. The Shipwreck first appeared in 1762. and was received with high favour by the public. The most important of his other poems are: The Demagogue; A Poem, sacred to the Memory of H.R.H. Frederic Prince of Wales; Ode on the Duke of York's Second Departure from England as Rear-admiral: To Miranda; The Fond Lover; and The Description of a Ninety-gun Ship. The Rev. John Mitford, in his life of Falconer prefixed to the Aldine edition of the Shipwreck, says of that poem: "It is a singularly elegant production of a person who had received no education beyond the mere elements of language, and who was subsequently occu pied in the severe duties and business of a seafaring life -equally without learning or leisure. The poetical powers of Falconer, in whatever rank they may be placed, were the gift of nature." Falconer compiled a valuable Marine Dictionary (1769).']

The moment fraught with fate approaches fast! While thronging sailors climb each quivering mast; The ship no longer now must stem the land, And "Hard a starboard!" is the last command: While every suppliant voice to Heaven applies, The prow, swift wheeling, to the westward flies; Twelve sailors, on the fore-mast who depend, High on the platform of the top ascend: Fatal retreat! for, while the plunging prow Immerges headlong in the wave below, Down prest by watery weight the bowsprit bends, And from above the stem deep-crashing rends: Beneath her bow the floating ruins lie; The fore-mast totters, unsustained on high; And now the ship, forelifted by the sea, Hurls the tall fabric backward o'er her lee; While, in the general wreck, the faithful stay Drags the main top-mast by the cap away: Flung from the mast, the seamen strive in vain, Through hostile floods, their vessel to regain; Weak hope, alas! they buffet long the wave, And grasp at life though sinking in the grave; Till all exhausted, and bereft of strength,

O'erpowered they yield to cruel fate at length; The burying waters close around their head, They sink! for ever numbered with the dead.

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Those who remain the weather shrouds embrace,
Nor longer mourn their lost companions' case;
Transfixt with terror at the approaching doom,
Self-pity in their breasts alone has room:
Albert, and Rodmond, and Palemon, near
With young Arion, on the mast appear;
Een they, amid the unspeakable distress,
In every look distracting thoughts confess,
In every vein the refluent blood congeals,
And every bosom mortal terror feels;
Begirt with all the horrors of the main

They viewed the adjacent shore, but viewed in vain:
Such torments, in the drear abodes of hell,
Where sad despair laments with rueful yell,
Such torments agonize the damned breast,
That sees remote the mansions of the blest.
It comes! the dire catastrophe draws near,
Lashed furious on by destiny severe :

The ship hangs hovering on the verge of death,
Hell yawns, rocks rise, and breakers roar beneath!
O yet confirm my heart, ye Powers above!
This last tremendous shock of fate to prove;
The tottering frame of reason yet sustain,
Nor let this total havoc whirl my brain;
Since I, all trembling in extreme distress,
Must still the horrible result express.

In vain, alas! the sacred shades of yore
Would arm the mind with philosophic lore;
In vain they'd teach us, at the latest breath
To smile serene amid the pangs of death:
Immortal Zeno's self would trembling see
Inexorable fate beneath the lee;
And Epictetus at the sight, in vain
Attempt his stoic firmness to retain:
Had Socrates, for godlike virtue famed,
And wisest of the sons of men proclaimed,
Spectator of such various horrors been,
E'en he had staggered at this dreadful scene.

In vain the cords and axes were prepared,
For every wave now smites the quivering yard;
High o'er the ship they throw a dreadful shade,
Then on her burst in terrible cascade;
Across the foundered deck o'erwhelming roar,
And foaming, swelling, bound upon the shore.
Swift up the mountain billow now she flies,
Her shattered top half-buried in the skies;
Borne o'er a latent reef the hull impends,
Then thundering on the marble crags descends:
Her ponderous bulk the dire concussion feels,
And o'er upheaving surges wounded reels-
Again she plunges! hark! a second shock
Bilges the splitting vessel on the rock-
Down on the vale of death, with dismal cries,
The fated victims shuddering cast their eyes
In wild despair; while yet another stroke
With strong convulsion rends the solid oak:
Ah Heaven!-behold her crashing ribs divide!
She loosens, parts, and spreads in ruin o'er the tide.

Oh, were it mine with sacred Maro's art
To wake to sympathy the feeling heart,

Like him, the smooth and mournful verse to dress
In all the pomp of exquisite distress;
Then, too severely taught by cruel fate,
To share in all the perils I relate,
Then might I, with unrivalled strains, deplore
The impervious horrors of a leeward shore.

As o'er the surf the bending main-mast hung,
Still on the rigging thirty seamen clung:
Some on a broken crag were struggling cast,
And there by oozy tangles grappled fast;
Awhile they bore the o'erwhelming billows' rage,
Unequal combat with their fate to wage;
Till all benumbed, and feeble, they forego
Their slippery hold, and sink to shades below:
Some, from the main yard-arm impetuous thrown
On marble ridges, die without a groan:
Three with Palemon on their skill depend,
And from the wreck on oars and rafts descend;
Now on the mountain-wave on high they ride,
Then downward plunge beneath the involving tide;
Till one, who seems in agony to strive,
The whirling breakers heave on shore alive:
The rest a speedier end of anguish knew,
And prest the stony beach-a lifeless crew!

Next, O unhappy chief! the eternal doom
Of Heaven decreed thee to the briny tomb:
What scenes of misery torment thy view!
What painful struggles of thy dying crew!
Thy perished hopes all buried in the flood
O'erspread with corses, red with human blood!
So pierced with anguish hoary Priam gazed,
When Troy's imperial domes in ruin blazed;
While he, severest sorrow doomed to feel,
Expired beneath the victor's murdering steel-
Thus with his helpless partners to the last,
Sad refuge! Albert grasps the floating mast.
His soul could yet sustain this mortal blow,
But droops, alas! beneath superior woe;
For now strong nature's sympathetic chain
Tugs at his yearning heart with powerful strain:
His faithful wife, for ever doomed to mourn
For him, alas! who never shall return,
To black adversity's approach exposed,
With want, and hardships unforeseen, inclosed;
His lovely daughter, left without a friend

Her innocence to succour and defend,
By youth and indigence set forth a prey
To lawless guilt, that flatters to betray-
While these reflections rack his feeling mind,
Rodmond, who hung beside, his grasp resigned;
And, as the tumbling waters o'er him rolled,
His outstretched arms the master's legs enfold:
Sad Albert feels their dissolution near,
And strives in vain his fettered limbs to clear,
For death bids every clenching joint adhere:
All faint, to Heaven he throws his dying eyes,
And "Oh protect my wife and child!" he cries-
The gushing streams roll back the unfinished sound,
He gasps! and sinks amid the vast profound.

Five only left of all the shipwrecked throng Yet ride the mast which shoreward drives along; With these Arion still his hold secures And all assaults of hostile waves endures: O'er the dire prospect as for life he strives, He looks if poor Palemon yet survives"Ah wherefore, trusting to unequal art, Didst thou, incautious! from the wreck depart? Alas! these rocks all human skill defy; Who strikes them once, beyond relief must die: And now sore wounded, thou perhaps art tost On these, or in some oozy cavern lost:" Thus thought Arion; anxious gazing round In vain, his eyes no more Palemon foundThe demons of destruction hover nigh, And thick their mortal shafts commissioned fly: When now a breaking surge, with forceful sway, Two, next Arion, furious tears away; Hurled on the crags, behold they gasp, they bleed! And groaning, cling upon the elusive weed: Another billow bursts in boundless roar! Arion sinks! and memory views no more.

Ha! total night and horror here preside, My stunned ear tingles to the whizzing tide; It is their funeral knell! and gliding near Methinks the phantoms of the dead appear!

TALES OF THE ARABIANS.

[Jean Charles Leonard Simonde de Sismondi, born at Genoa, 9th May, 1773; died 25th June, 1842. Historian and miscellaneous writer. His chief works are: Historical View of the Literature of the South of Europe (from which we quote), translated by Thomas Roscoe; History of the Crusades against the Albigenses in the 13th Century; History of the French; The Battles of Cressy and Poictiers; Religious Opinions during the 19th Century; Julie Sevère, an historical novel, &c.]

If the eastern nations possess not the epic or the drama, they have been the inventors of a style of poetry which is related to the epic, and which supplies amongst them the place of the drama. We owe to them those tales of which the conception is so brilliant, and the imagination so rich and varied; tales which have been the delight of our infancy, and which at a more advanced age we never read without feeling their enchantment anew. Every one is acquainted with the Arabian Nights' Entertainments; but, if we may believe the French translator, we do not possess the six-and-thirtieth part of the great Arabian collection. This prodigious collection is not confined merely to books, but forms the treasure of a numerous class of men and women, who, throughout the whole extent of the Mohammedan dominion, in Turkey, Persia, and even to the extremity of India, find a livelihood in reciting these tales