. Among the things forbidden to women is that of allowing their features to be seen by men not wearing turbans-unless indeed they are handsome, and have soft and captivating manners; in that case their veils may be drawn aside without the apprehension of incurring blame, or in any degree exceeding the discretionary power with which they are traditionally invested. But they must scrupulously and religiously abstain from all such liberties with Mullahs and Jews; since, respecting them, the prohibition is imperative. It is not necessary, however, to be very particular in the presence of common people: there is nothing criminal in being seen by singers, musicians, servants of the bath, and such persons as go about the streets to sell their wares and trinkets.'-p. 61.

'On the very day a woman goes to the house of her husband, upon being married, it is necessary that everything of importance relating to her own interest and advantage should be first settled; all arrangements made to secure her own comfort, and the uninterrupted exercise of her own will; so that she may be exonerated from the responsibility which might otherwise attach to her; for it is right that all blame should be invariably laid upon the back of her husband. It is not to be conceived that a woman can live all her life with one husband, in one house. Why should he deprive her of the full enjoyment of this world's comforts? Days and years roll on and are renewed, whilst a woman continues the same melancholy inmate, in the same melancholy house of her husband. She has no renewal of happiness-none.

"The seasons change, and spring

Renews the bloom of fruit and flower;

And birds, with fluttering wing,

Give life again to dell and bower.

But what is woman's lot?

No change her anxious heart to cheer;

Confined to one dull spot

And one dull husband all the year!"'—pp. 65, 66.

For a woman to be without familiar friends of her own sex is reckoned a heavy misfortune; and there is no one so poor who does not struggle hard to avoid so great a curse. A woman dying without friends or gossips has no chance of going to heaven; whereas happy is that woman whose whole life is passed in constant intercourse with kind associates, for she will assuredly go to heaven. What can equal the felicity of that woman whose daily employment is sauntering hand in hand with friends, amidst rose-bowers and aromatic groves, and visiting every place calculated to expand and exhilarate the heart? That woman, at the day of resurrection, will be seen dancing with her old companions on earth, in the regions of bliss. The very circumstance of living in such a state of social freedom and harmony always produces a forgiveness of sins. If a damsel dies before she has established a circle of intimates, to whom she can communicate her most secret thoughts and actions, the other world can never be to her a

scene

scene of happiness and joy. But if she is more favourably circumstanced, every supplication for pardon will have the effect of angelprayers; and this is the reward of those who in this life cultivate social connexions, and are bound in the endearing ties of friendship.' -pp. 74, 75.

Trifling as this little work may appear in itself, yet it is impossible to glance over it without feeling that such gossiping pages as these are calculated to make us better acquainted with Persian female manners than a more grave and learned treatise. Life is composed of really little things-especially domestic life, in which the routine of one day scarcely differs from that which follows or precedes it. Foreigners can seldom penetrate the privacy of oriental families; and native writers too rarely think of describing habits which are of every hour's use, and have therefore no novelty to recommend them.

ART. IX. Poems by Hartley Coleridge. Vol. I. 8vo. pp. 157. Leeds, 1833.

TWO

WO sons of Dryden were clever versifiers; but we are not aware of any instance in our literary history of the son of a great poet achieving for himself the name of poet. Here, however, is such a claim advanced by the son of Coleridge; and, weak and merely imitational as many of the pieces included in this volume are, we are bound to say that we consider its author as having already placed himself on high vantage-ground, as compared with any of the thymers of these latter years. From the locality of the publication, Leeds, taken together with various melancholy allusions in the verses themselves, we are compelled to believe that the fate of this gentleman has not been such as his birth, education, and talents, with the well-won celebrity of several of his immediate connexions, might have been expected to lead him to. What his actual situation may be we know not; but we are grieved to hear the language not only of despondency, but of self-reproach bordering almost on remorse, from one who must be young, and who certainly possesses feelings the most amiable, together with accomplishments rich and manifold, and no trivial inheritance of his father's genius. It is impossible to read the two following sonnets without deep and painful interest :—

Too true it is, my time of power was spent
In idly watering weeds of casual growth,-
That wasted energy to desperate sloth
Declined, and fond self-seeking discontent,
That the huge debt for all that nature lent
I sought to cancel,-and was nothing loath
To deem myself an outlaw, sever'd both

From

From duty and from hope,-yea, blindly sent
Without an errand, where I would to stray:-
Too true it is, that, knowing now my state,
I weakly mourn the sin I ought to hate,
Nor love the law I yet would fain obey:
But true it is, above all law and fate
Is Faith, abiding the appointed day.'-p. 13.

• If I have sinn'd in act, I may repent;
If I have err'd in thought, I may disclaim
My silent error, and yet feel no shame-
But if my soul, big with an ill intent,
Guilty in will, by fate be innocent,
Or being bad, yet murmurs at the curse
And incapacity of being worse,

That makes my hungry passion still keep Lent

In keen expectance of a Carnival;

Where, in all worlds, that round the sun revolve

And shed their influence on this passive ball,
Abides a power that can my soul absolve?
Could any sin survive, and be forgiven-

One sinful wish would make a hell of heaven.'-p. 27.

We have no desire to penetrate the mystery in which this unfortunate shrouds his sorrow. Let us rather afford our readers some evidence, that whatever may have been his errors, he has the gentle heart, as well as the power and music of a poet. We remember no sonnets so nearly resembling the peculiar and unaccountable sweetness of Shakspeare's, as the three following, all addressed 'To a Friend.'

When we were idlers with the loitering rills,
The need of human love we little noted:

Our love was nature; and the peace that floated
On the white mist, and dwelt upon the hills,
To sweet accord subdued our wayward wills:
One soul was ours, one mind, one heart devoted,
That, wisely doating, ask'd not why it doated,
And ours the unknown joy, which knowing kills.
But now I find how dear thou wert to me;
That man is more than half of nature's treasure,
Of that fair beauty which no eye can see,
Of that sweet music which no ear can measure;
And now the streams may sing for other's pleasure,
The hills sleep on in their eternity.'

In the Great City we are met again,

Where many souls there are, that breathe and die,
Scarce knowing more of nature's potency,
Than what they learn from heat, or cold, or rain,-

The

-

The sad vicissitude of weary pain :-
For busy man is lord of ear and eye,
And what hath nature, but the vast, void sky,
And the throng'd river toiling to the main?
Oh! say not so, for she shall have her part
In every smile, in every tear that falls,
And she shall hide her in the secret heart,
Where love persuades, and sterner duty calls:
But worse it were than death, or sorrow's smart,
To live without a friend within these walls.'

'We parted on the mountains, as two streams
From one clear spring pursue their several ways;
And thy fleet course hath been through many a maze
In foreign lands, where silvery Padus gleams
To that delicious sky, whose glowing beams
Brighten'd the tresses that old Poets praise;
Where Petrarch's patient love, and artful lays,
And Ariosto's song of many themes,
Moved the soft air. But I, a lazy brook,
As close pent up within my native dell,

Have crept along from nook to shady nook,

Where flow'rets blow, and whispering Naiads dwell.
Yet now we meet, that parted were so wide,

O'er rough and smooth to travel side by side.'-p. 3.

The following, To SHAKSPEARE,' is worthy of being so inscribed it seems to us hardly inferior to any sonnet in Wordsworth :

'The soul of man is larger than the sky,
Deeper than ocean—or the abysmal dark
Of the unfathom'd centre. Like that Ark,
Which in its sacred hold uplifted high,
O'er the drown'd hills, the human family,
And stock reserved of every living kind,
So, in the compass of the single mind,
The seeds and pregnant forms in essence lie,
That make all worlds. Great Poet, 'twas thy art
To know thyself, and in thyself to be

Whate'er Love, Hate, Ambition, Destiny,

Or the firm, fatal Purpose of the Heart

Can make of Man. Yet thou wert still the same,

Serene of thought, unhurt by thy own flame.'

Some stanzas 'To the Nautilus' appear to us full of life and grace. We quote two of them :—

Where Ausonian summers glowing,
Warm the deep to life and joyance,
And gentle zephyrs nimbly blowing
Wanton with the waves that flowing
By many a land of ancient glory,
And many an isle renown'd in story,

Leap

Small Marinere,

Are thine within thy pearly dwelling,-
Thine, a law of life compelling

Obedience, perfect, simple, glad, and free,

To the great will that animates the sea.'-pp. 57, 58. We are not less pleased with an address To certain Golden Fishes :'

Restless forms of living light
Quivering on your lucid wings,
Cheating still the curious sight
With a thousand shadowings;-
Various as the tints of even,
Gorgeous as the hues of heaven,
Reflected on your native streams
In flitting, flashing, billowy gleams.
Harmless warriors, clad in mail
Of silver breastplate, golden scale ;-
Mail of Nature's own bestowing,
With peaceful radiance mildly glowing,-
Keener than the Tartar's arrow,
Sport ye in your sea so narrow.
Was the sun himself your sire?

Were

ye

born of vital fire?

Or of the shade of golden flowers,

Such as we fetch from eastern bowers,
To mock this murky clime of ours?
Upwards, downwards, now ye glance,
Weaving many a mazy dance;
Seeming still to grow in size
When ye would elude our eyes-
Pretty creatures! we might deem
Ye were happy as ye seem,-
As gay, as gamesome, and as blithe,
As light, as loving, and as lithe,

As