kind of an affair, which can lead to no possible results, save destruction of life and property; and this leads us to notice an opinion, pretty generally abroad, that all the ports of the empire are to have their separate infliction. This is scarcely credible.

"Solitudinem faciunt, pacem appelant."

Not only will the punishment far transcend any real or imaginary offence that has been committed, but it will be a feat unexampled even in the 66 sea of darkness," in which neither regard to the useless destruction of life and property will have a place, nor will there be any sincere desire exhibited to bring the actual responsible gerents to a brief solution of the question at issue. Tangiers, Asafi, Mazighan, Azamor, Agadir, Dar el Beida, Fedalah, and Mehdiyah, which scarcely possess an Arab tenant, may indeed, one after another, receive the punishment due, if at all, to the kerchiefed rovers of the desert, without France or Morocco arriving one step nearer to a better understanding.

We come, then, to the moveable column under Marshal Bugeaud (9000 men), General Lamoriciere (5000 men), and General Dedeauhas (5000 men), making a total of 19,000 men, and which is properly considered as sufficient to subject the province of Fez, notwithstanding the apprehensions which the commander-in-chief appears to entertain of the clouds of Arab, Moorish, and Negro cavalry, which cover the plains, are congregating under Sidi Mohammed at Fez, or have approached the frontier under Mulai Mamu.* The royal treasury at Mequinez constitutes no bad magnet to the iron column, advancing across the so-called desert of Angad. There are, in fact, many towns, villages, and encampments on the road. Half way from Uchdah is Taza, a populous town capable of supplying the wants of a large army; and nine hours from Fez is the Ecbatana of Morocco—a glorious scramble, unless, perchance, the valuables are previously carried off to the unexplored regions of Tafilelt.

There are just two solutions to the events now in progress;-the French, humbled by the ridicule which attends upon this bombardment of inoffensive towns, may make serious overtures of peace with the emperor, the negotiation of which may be hastened by the movement which has no doubt already taken place, of the Algerine army;-or, they may continue to act on the offensive, when the whole Mohammedan population will be roused to a holy war, and a war of desperation, the limits of which will not even be traced by the snowy outline of the Atlas.

* On the 14th of August, the French force, reduced by sickness and other causes to 17,000 strong, advanced to engage the Moorish cavalry, the numbers of which were increasing every day, and already amounted to about 24,000 men. The engagement took place on the Ysly, and after a conflict, in which both sides are said to have suffered severely, the Moors were worsted, and 1000 to 1200 tents, 11 pieces of artillery, and 16 stand of colours (each petty Arab tribe has its distinguishing flag), fell into the hands of the conquerors. This occurred after Marshal Bugeaud had been made aware of the operations of the French fleet; yet it does not appear that it was a battle fought with the intention of opening the road to Fez, so much as with the view to disperse the cavalry already collected, and which threatened to assemble in overwhelming numbers. The effect of the defeat of Mulai Mamu will probably be to bring Sidi Mohammed to the frontier, and the next battle the French may have to deliver, will not impossibly be against 40,000 Negro, Moorish, and Arab cavalry.

If offensive operations are continued, the fleet must, on the coming on of the equinoctial gales, either take possession of a point on the coast,* or return without having made a step towards bringing the war nearer to a conclusion, and not improbably with the loss of a vessel or two on a lee-shore. While the occupation of Fez and Mequinez by a French force, will only serve to increase the complications of France in Northern Africa. She will not permit the Sultan's fleet to assert its master's authority at Tunis, a rebel pashalic, now allied to Algeria -the alliance of the wolf and the lamb; and so delicate a question is this, that there is no telling the day when it may not lead to serious events.†

No fact can be more self-evident in the present day, that even a peace declared at Tangiers, Mogador, or Fez, could not be a permanent thing. It might produce a temporary lull, but there would be a certain revival of hostilities. The indefinite perpetuation of war in Northern Africa does not depend solely on the ambition of France, nor yet on the hostility of the Mussulmans, which might, to a certain extent, be restrained by mediation; but it arises from, and is entertained by the contact of civilization with barbarity, and does not result more from the facilities to encroachment offered to the one, than from the stationary and unimproving condition of the other; and which leaves no other futurity for these territories, than what belonged to them when the Romans were there; or what has happened to America, India, or any other country in which civilization and progress have been brought into neighbourhood with the pride, obstinacy, and fanaticism of an incapable religion, and a barbarian condition.

Abd-el-Khadr, "the evergreen," is in himself a multitude. He is the living representative of Mohammedanism in the west. Were he driven out of Morocco, the kingdom of Fezzan, or even of Tombuktu, are by Mussulman law, and by the sympathy of feeling, as open to him as ever Algeria itself was. Were he to be slain, his spirit would rise up, phoenix-like, at a hundred different points. The problematic abdication of Mehemet Ali would open the field to Ibrahim Pasha, looked upon from the Indus to the Atlantic, as the only man capable of reviving the ancient glories of Mohammedanism; and the occupation of Algeria, and the threatening complications with the neighbouring nations, must eventually lead to one of the greatest struggles of the Mussulman race, against a Christian enemy, that has occurred since the Moors were expelled from Spain and Portugal. What we have

*Since the above was written, the news has arrived in this country of the fall of Mogador, and that the French, after "destroying the town and its batteries," had taken possession of the port, as also of a little island in front thereof, and which they were busy in fortifying. Thus the fleet has secured itself a place of refuge from the evils here enumerated, and occupied a position from whence to carry on further operations. The position of the army and of the fleet, at nearly the two opposite extremities of the empire, would, had they any other enemy to deal with, lead to their certain destruction; but against a nation which places its whole reliance on cavalry, they will be able to hold what will be called a "temporary" position. It remains to be seen, if other nations will look on with indifference to this gradual conversion of Morocco into a French province, and the creation of a new maritime force at the pillars of Hercules.

†The French fleet at Tunis is very formidable. It consists of five ships of the line: the Ocean, 120 guns, 1017 men; the Marengo, 82 guns, 679 men; the Inflexible, 90 guns, 853 men; the Neptune, 86 guns, 815 men; and the Alger, 82 guns, 683 men.

hitherto said applies only to the relation of the French and the Mohammedans. Christian nations have also a real and a practical interest in the question. France at present repudiates the intention of aggrandizement; but this we have seen will inevitably be forced upon her by the necessities of the case. Already a large proportion of her press advocates the measure-some solely with a view to the benefit to be derived from the conquest; others, to the effect it would have in an anticipated humiliation of Great Britain. The actual possession of so long a line of coast as would be comprised by Morocco, Algeria, and Tunis, if not Tripoli, on the Mediterranean, would certainly very materially affect the existing balance of power, and would call the attention of other nations besides Great Britain. But we do not think that even the possession of these territories would give the command over that sea, of which we possess the keys, and wear the diadem. We do not even think that it would affect our occupation of Gibraltar, so seriously as some have opined; and it is generally admitted, that if necessary, the whole thing could be put an end to in precisely a similar manner to what the occupation of Egypt by the French was once overthrown.

But this is not at all a desirable termination to progressive events. The day ought to be gone by when civilization shall lend itself to support ignorance and barbarity against civilization. "The time has arrived," said Mr. Milnes, in his place in the British House of Commons, "when Christian civilization must extend itself to Morocco." Our merchants, men of fame and men of wisdom, have, it appears, taken fright at the anticipated loss of a commerce estimated at 40,000,000 of dollars annually, and of which one-half has hitherto been with England. Their interests, generally, go a very great way in such matters,

"Non nostrum tantas componere lites ;"

but we fear they can no longer materially influence the question of Morocco. It has been found by experience, that the protective system adopted by the French in Algeria, has not answered. The natives will go to other markets, and other channels of commerce; and if France, in pursuance of the same system, were to march its armies against all neighbouring competition, it will have to follow, step by step, the British merchantmen round the whole terrestrial globe.

It is more consonant with the present state of opinions upon sub jects of general policy, and of the relations of the different families of men with one another, for Great Britain to keep in mind, that, after superiority by sea, the overland route to India, and the countries connected therewith, are to her of primary importance, and most deserving of attention, than by any hurried or rash interferences to hasten that collision, which circumstances, not to be avoided, as the change of ministry, or the break up of a monarch's health (and we regret very much here to have to say, that it comes to us from quarters to whom accurate information is generally accessible, that the health of the King of the French is such as to excite the most serious apprehensions among his medical attendants) may bring upon us in a day, but with our existing ministry, not one, it is to be anticipated, which shall be marked out from the rest, by our being unprepared.

274

A JAR OF HONEY FROM MOUNT HYBLA.

BY LEIGH HUNT.

NO. IX.

PASTORALS OF WILLIAM BROWNE.-PASTORAL MEN:-CERVANTES-BOCCACCIO— CHAUCER-COWLEY-THOMSON-SHENSTONE, ETC.

THE only undramatic pastorals in the language worth mention are those of Browne, a young poet, who wrote in the beginning of the reign of James the First, received the praises of Drayton and Ben Jonson, and may remind the reader of some of the earlier poems of Keats. He was a real poet, with a great love of external nature, and much delicacy and generosity of sentiment; and, had his judgment been matured, would now have been as admired by the many as he is regarded by the few. His verses are of such unequal merit, that it is difficult to select any long passage, or scarcely, indeed, any short one, that does not contain matter unworthy of him; yet in all you may discern promise, in many sweetness and beauty, in some grandeur; and there is nobody who loves poets like Spenser, but will have a considerable bit of lurking affection, in the green places of his heart, for William Browne, and lament that he did not live to become famous. Much of his "Britannia's Pastorals," as he called them, was written before he was twenty. They were collected into a body of English verse, for the first time, by Anderson; but Davies published an edition in three volumes duodecimo; and the lover of poetry and field-walks, who is not always in a mood for higher stimulants, and can recognise beauty in a hedgerow elm as well as a mountain forest, may reckon himself lucky in being able to put one of them in his pocket. The pastorals consist of a story, with a number of episodes, none of which, or story either, can we ever remember; so we will say nothing more about them. The names of the persons hum in our ears, and we have some conception of two or three of the facts; but the scenes in which they take place, the landscapes, the pastoral images, the idealized country manners, these are what we are thinking of while the story is going on; just as a man should be hearing some local history while going over meadows and stiles, and glancing all the while about him instead of paying it attention. We shall, therefore, devote this article to passages marked with our pen; as the same man might go over the ground afterwards in other company, and say, "There is the church I spoke of, in the trees"-"Yonder is the passage I mentioned, into the wood "-" Here the ivy full of the singing-birds." We may, perhaps, over-rate Browne, out of affection for the things he likes to speak of; but sometimes his powers are not to be mistaken. He calls Cephalus, whom Aurora loved, him,

"The soul of art, best loved when love is by."

Raleigh, spoken of under the character of a shepherd, is "a swain

"Whom all the Graces kissed;"

and Pan, a god that,

"With gentle nymphs in forests high Kiss'd out the sweet time of his infancy.'

That is very beautiful. Warton, in his "History of Poetry," has expressed his admiration of a "charm" in Browne's Inner Temple Masque, in which, down by the banks of Lethe, dew-drops are said to be for ever hanging

"On the limber grass,

Poppy and mandragoras ;"

And Lethe is described as flowing

"Without coil,

Softly, like a stream of oil."

And the fourth eclogue of his "Shepherd's Pipe" is thought, not improbably, to have been in the recollection of Milton, when he wrote Lycidas. Like that poem, it is an elegy on the death of a friend. The line marked in the following quatrain might have appeared in Lycidas, without any injury to it. It is, indeed, very Miltonic:

"In deepest passions of my grief-swoll'n breast,

Sweet soul! this only comfort seizeth me,

That so few years should make thee so much blest,
And give such wings to reach eternity."

In this poem is a description of autumn, in which the different metres are unfortunately but ill-assorted:-they look like bits of elegies begun on different plans; but the third line of the first quatrain is well felt; the fourth not unworthy of it; the watery meadows are capitally painted; and the closing stanza is like an affecting one taken out of some old English ballad:

"Autumn it was, when droop'd the sweetest flowers,

And rivers, swollen with pride, o'erlook'd the banks;
Poor grew the day of summer's golden hours,

And void of sap stood Ida's cedar ranks.

"The pleasant meadows sadly lay
In chill and cooling sweats

66

By rising fountains, or as they
Fear'd winter's wasteful threats.

Against the broad-spread oak
Each wind in fury bears;

Yet fell their leaves not half so fast,
As did the shepherd's tears."

The feeling of analogy between the oak, with its scattered leaves, and the naturally strong man shedding fast tears for sorrow, is in the best imaginative taste. Had Browne written all thus, he would have found plenty of commentators. The "Shepherd's Pipe" was a somewhat later production than the other pastorals; and had he lived, he would probably have surpassed all that his youth produced. Unfortunately, his mind never appears to have outgrown a certain juvenile ambition of ingenious thoughts and conceits; and it is these that render it so difficult to make any long quotation from his works. The sixth line in the following is very obscure, perhaps corrupted. But the rest has great liveliness and nature: