and despised, because they have not the merit of when nature and true taste feel nothing but disfalling in with modern taste; a physical dogma is as gust.

absurd in the abstract as it is in the concrete-as We have, through life perhaps, cherished a favogross in the mental as it is in the animal appetite- rite air, and we ask a lady at the piano to play it as absurd as it would be to say that the palate has for us; she commences, and in executing-literally the right to usurp the functions of the ear, and de-executing it—we find ourselves in a fog of "variacide upon what should, and what should not, please tions," and obscured by a cart-load of "science," the latter organ; just about as rational as for the which render identity impossible, and make us auricular organ to undertake to regulate the facul- anxious for the creaking of a grindstone, or the ties of its brother member, and tell the palate when rumbling of an iron-waggon over the pavement, to relish oysters, and when to prefer a dish of to relieve us. This is vogue-musical vogue, and Chinese bird's nests "fried in fat," and how the which can only be reached by those who are edulatter delicacy tasted best-manipulated with chop-cated for it. Heaven be thanked that I, at least, sticks, or carried to the mouth through the medium was not educated in such a school. There is no of knife, fork or spoon ! telling what a man might not have been educated

The simple music of our forefathers, the martial to. It is easy enough to teach any thing. Cannisounds that led them to battle and to victory, the bals are taught to prefer human flesh to any thing "wood-notes wild" which have thrown a romance that could be placed before them; and the ladies over our rural reminiscences, are voted vulgar by of the Celestial Empire are educated in the full a vulgar cognoscenti, and every natural note and belief, that small feet, educated into a deformity combination of natural notes are flouted, as so much which makes them cripples for life, are of all things heathenism, by the runners after the caterwauling the most charming. This Chinese vogue, howof Italian professors, whether they play their "va- ever, is considered out of taste among most other riations" in the shape of bearded bassos-pumpkin people, though the pinching process is, we acknowvines in the vernacular-or unbearded Cypreans ledge, "practiced to some extent in this commuwho sing unintelligible contralto. The beautiful nity;" but outlandish as we may look upon such airs of Ireland, of Scotland, of England, and of our own country (if we have any,) are mere bores that the poodleism of fashion pretends to turn up its pug-nose at; while the "difficult passages" of a mustachioed savage from Milan, Mantua, Bologna or the Black Forest, are swallowed with a gusto equal to that of a half-starved Neapolitan, when theft or charity has supplied him with a mouthful of macaroni.

propensities, they are quite as natural, and rather more rational, than the education of the taste which requires us to consider modern music any thing but an abomination.

This is what I choose to say, Mr. Editor, of musical "vogue." If you think it too outrageous, you had better not permit me to say any thing about the other members of that fantastic family.

WHERE ART THOU, WANDERER, WHERE?

BY MRS. E. J. EAMES.

Those who profess to be knowing in these mat-
ters tell us that it requires an "educated taste" to
relish Italian music, and that a novice in these
mysteries does not himself know what he likes.
Nature has provided him no medium through
which he has the least insight into his own sensa-
tions! He must put himself into training before he
can distinguish an agreeable from a disagreeable
sound, or know for an instant whether a melody be
melodious or not. He is called upon to consider
a guttural cadenza, ghastly as the last grunt of a
doomed porker, as the ne plus ultra of vocal ex-
cellence, and to be in utter ecstasy with it, while
he would vastly prefer the torment of a concert of
broken-headed drums, and the cracked fifes of a
Barkhemstead militia company. What we ought In lovely Greece, and classic Italy —

Where art thou, wanderer, where?
Where stray, this hour, thine ever-restless feet—
What lovelier place than home, what voice more sweet,
What truer, tenderer care,
Dost thou, afar from us, my brother, meet?
To what bright phantom doth thy spirit bow?
Wealth? 'tis not worth thy childhood's happy home!
Fame? 'tis a false gem glittering on the brow!
Love? doth not a fair meek image sometimes come,
With all-beseeching glance and tear-dimm'd eye,
Calling thee back by Nature's holiest tie?

Amid the splendid pomp of some proud English hall,
In courtly bower, or at the midnight ball,

Where art thou, wanderer, where?

Amid the bright and fair?
Canst thou be happy there, a stranger 'mong them all?
Where art thou? sailing upon that sunny sea,
Whose shining ripples wash the shores of Spain?

to like in music is a very different thing from what Roam'st thou through grove, and hill, and flowery plain? we do like, according to the canons of musical criti-Pausing by each old haunt of fallen glory, cism, and we are actually called upon for ecstasy To gather treasures for thy future story?

VOL. VIII-25

Where art thou, wanderer, where?
Beneath the sultry blue of Asia's far-off sky,

By mosque, and idol-fane, and snowy-mountain high,
Or Persian valley fair-

Where strange bright birds and flowers enchant thine eager
eye?

Or art thou where the stars of Afric shine?
In Moorish palace, or by Nile's green shore-
'Mid pyramids, spice-woods, and golden mine?
Or where the harp of Memnon play'd of yore?
Or doth the Southern cross, magnificent and grand,
Shine on thy path in the Cordillera land?

O! wheresoe'er thou art,

We pray thee, burst each flowery spell, and come.
Fain with soft-links of love, would we draw home
The wanderer's step and heart,

Never again from its dear scenes to roam.
Come, for thy kind old father waits to bless-
Come, ere thy mother's dimming eye is clos'd-
Brother and sister wait for thy caress-

Thy wife-thy child-'tis long since they repos'd
Upon thy heart. O, by that fair boy's promise-
By thy early love for her, linger no longer from us!
March, 1842.

THE "PROMETHEUS UNBOUND"
OF SHELLEY.

It has been stated by Macaulay, in one of his incomparable essays, that the present is rather a critical than an original age; and although we cannot entirely coincide in this opinion, believing as we do, that talent has rather changed its direction, than ceased its efforts; yet, to a certain extent, we must admit the justice of the remark. We believe that as much good has been done, by directing the attention of the public to hidden beauties of thought and diction in neglected authors, as by working up the old ore into new shapes to please the popular

taste.

own words, "worm-like, was trampled; adder-like, revenged." Shelley's nature, though, was far different from Byron's; there was no bitterness in his heart; in spite of all his wrongs, he loved his race; and, in his Italian exile, he cherished the same warm sympathy and gushing kindness, which characterized his boyish years. The malice of his enemies might banish him from the shores of his country, but could not erase its memory from his heart. His writings too have shared the hard fate which seemed to cling to their author. Steeped as they are in the spirit of human love, breathing the loftiest sentiment and the purest morality, and enriched and adorned by a fancy as varied as it was beautiful, they have nevertheless been stamped with reprobation, as the ravings of an atheist and misanthrope. With the strange inconsistency of hate, as Talfourd well observes, "this poet is said to deny Deity, who sees Deity in every thing." What was the pretext for this unsparing warfare against him? Why, the publication of an Infdel poem, Queen Mab." The noble defence of Sergeant Talfourd, in the case of Moxon, has now placed this matter in its true light. But even had the fact been otherwise, we do most solemnly protest against the principle involved, that men should be persecuted for mere opinion's sake. If an opinion be founded on false premises, it can easily be refuted by argument; if it be true, it can do no injury; and that policy is as short-sighted as it is unjust, which makes a martyr of the man who candidly and honestly avows his opinions. Not that we are attempting to defend the opinions contained in "Queen Mab;" but this poem was written when Shelley was a boy of 18, and was never intended for publication; and many of the sentiments there expressed were afterwards repudiated by him in his maturer years. We merely allude to the injustice of punishing the man for the indiscretions of the

In no country has the influence of reviewers boy. been more powerfully felt than in Great Britain; The Westminster Review, for April, 1841, conand although they may have passed many hasty tains an able and eloquent sketch of the life and judgments, and effected some injustice-as the fate character of Shelley, in which the "Revolt of Isof poor Keats can testify-yet, upon the whole, lam" and the "Cenci" are highly praised; but it their influence has been decidedly beneficial. The leaves unnoticed our especial favorite, the "Profull though tardy justice, they have of late awarded metheus Unbound." And, as we do not recollect to Shelley, would do much to redeem many sins, 'ever to have seen any separate notice taken of it, both of omission and commission. His case has we will venture briefly to convey our own impres been one of peculiar hardship; seldom has so much sions of this production, relying on the kind forobloquy been heaped upon the head of one man. bearance of the "gentle reader." His whole life was so embittered by constant and The "Prometheus Unbound" is, both in subject unrelenting persecution, that it became a torture to and construction, an attempt to imitate the ancient him. For a mere speculative difference of opinion, drama; an attempt in which only one other of the he was made a scoff and a finger-point-his feel- moderns has succeeded: need we mention Talings outraged his complaints disregarded-his fourd? And even Ion," ," beautiful and classical as children wrested from his guardianship by the strong it is, both in spirit and execution, does not strictly arm of the law-and he himself finally driven from adhere to the ancient model; for the chorus, “the his country, amidst the exultant yells of enemies, idealized Spectator," as Schlegel finely calls it, is whose enmity he had never provoked. not introduced. Shelley, on the other hand, does Byron too was driven forth; but he, to use his' not deviate from the form of the ancient drama.

66

with his divining rod, may have sought in vain.

When the drama opens, Prometheus is lying chained to a rock on the Indian Caucasus, with two of the Oceanides, Panthea and Ione, seated at his feet. He thus bursts forth in an address to

Prometheus.

The "Prometheus Unbound," was intended as a that his drama has been as little read as its Gresequel to the "Prometheus Vinctus" of Eschylus; cian model, by the mass of readers. We take no one was written by Eschylus himself, but only the credit to ourselves for a familiarity with its beauoutline of the plot has reached us: in it, the Titan ties. The rude laborer with his spade may often is reconciled to his foe, the secret in his posses- lay bare the treasure, for which the philosopher, sion is revealed to Jupiter, by which the danger that menaced him is arrested, and his rule more firmly established than before. The plot of Shelley's drama is different; he rightly thought that reconciling the champion with the oppressor of mankind was but a "lame and impotent conclu- Jupiter: sion," and one which marred the character of Prometheus; he therefore preserves the unity of the character and, by the downfall of Jupiter, and the liberation of Prometheus, he shadows forth the triumph of good over evil. No one saw more clearly than Shelley the high contrast he provoked, in selecting a subject which the mighty master of the tragic muse had already made his own; he himself earnestly deprecates any such comparison; but the issue of the high attempt has proved, that it was dictated, not by the promptings of an idle vanity, but by the happy audacity of genius, confident of its own resources. We do not pretend to compare this drama with its great prototype; for, who could ever hope to reach the unapproachable sublimity of Eschylus? He towers above his own contemporaries like a giant cliff, grim, frowning and inaccessible from the distance. The first conception of the Prometheus was his; and for that age, grand was the conception of mind triumphing over brute force of the terrible wrath of Omnipotent malice, baffled by the firm endurance of an indomitable will, animated by superior intellect; for Promethus knows more than his enemy, and in that knowledge is his superior.

"Monarch of Gods and Demons, and all spirits
But One, who throng those bright and rolling worlds
Which Thou and I alone of living things
Behold with sleepless eyes! regard this Earth,
Made multitudinous with thy slaves, whom thou
Requitest for knee-worship, prayer and praise,
And toil, and hecatombs of broken hearts,
With fear and self-contempt and barren hope.
Whilst me, who am thy foe, eyeless in hate,
Hast thou made reign and triumph, to thy scorn,
O'er mine own misery and thy vain revenge.
Three thousand years of sleep-unshelter'd hours,
And moments aye divided by keen pangs
Till they seem'd years-torture and solitude,
Scorn and despair,-these are mine empire."

*

*

"No change, no pause, no hope! Yet I endure.
I ask the Earth, have not the mountains felt?
I ask yon Heaven, the all-beholding Sun,
Has it not seen? The Sea, in storm or calm,
Heaven's ever-changing shadow, spread below,
Have its deaf waves not heard my agony?
Ah me! alas, pain, pain ever, for ever!"

*

"And yet to me welcome is day and night,
Whether one breaks the hoar frost of the morn,
Or starry, dim and slow, the other climbs
The leaden-color'd east; for then they lead
The wingless, crawling hours, one among whom
-As some dark Priest hails the reluctant victim-
Shall drag thee, cruel King, to kiss the blood
From these pale feet, which then might trample thee
If they disdain'd not such a prostrate slave.
Disdain! Ah no! I pity thee."

Herein we think the Titan of Eschylus infe

His crime too, what was it? "Sympathy for the race of man!" The literature of the world does not present a picture more darkly grand than that of the Titan, chained to his rock, and suffering strange tortures, yet supported and sustained by his own steady soul, and laughing to scorn the vain malice of his vindictive enemy. Nor is the exe-rior to that of Shelley. The former is drawn as a cution inferior to the conception; for now, when stern, fierce, implacable being, returning the hate Athens, her laws, her customs and rites, are but of Jupiter with equal bitterness, and awaiting with the dim shadows of a shade, almost lost in the twi-stern joy the doom which he knows will crush his light of a remote antiquity, the "Prometheus" still enemy. Not so the Prometheus of Shelley. From remains, to delight and fascinate the scholar who the lofty height of his moral superiority, he looks possesses the key to its hidden treasures; a drama down with pity upon his foe, and recalls the curse belonging to no one age nor nation, but to all man- which, in the first bitterness of his heart—“ e'er kind. Valuable is it, too, in another respect. It misery made him wise"-he had pronounced upon embodies the philosophy of the age-that dark and him. The ruling principle of the Prometheus gloomy fatalism which made man a puppet in the of Eschylus, is hate; that of Shelley's, is benevohands of Fate, and which extended even to his lence. Thus, at the end of this invocation to Jugods; for Jupiter, though Lord of heaven and piter, he calls on the Elements to repeat to him earth, is the slave of Destiny, and subject to a doom his curse, so that he may recall it. The Elements, he may not fathom nor avoid. fearful of the wrath of Jupiter, refuse to repeat it;

Our space will not allow us to do more than to as also does the Earth; who finally summons the give a few specimens of the manner in which Shel-"Phantasm of Jupiter," who repeats the curse. ley has performed his task; for we really believe Prometheus then asks :