bust, the medallion, or the statue, claim our notice, and give an interesting character to the scenery in which they are placed. Some of the mythological figures of Greece and Rome, and some personifications of the virtues and passions, have also been adopted, but require much judgement in the choice of scene, and much attention to classical minutiæ to produce their due effect. Beneath sculpture of this kind, inscriptions are common, though seldom attaining the end proposed. A curious felicity of expression, terse and pointed, brevity and originality of conception, should unite, requisites not easily obtained, though assiduously sought for. Several excellent productions in this class may be found in the Anthologia, intended for either pictures or statues; that beautiful one commencing Eλxε ταλαν, and which I have selected for the motto of one of these sketches, is beyond all praise. The following lines written by our late worthy poet laureat, are in the true spirit of the greek epigram, and were meant to be placed beneath a statue of Somnus in the garden of the late learned Mr. Harris of Salisbury. The translation, which does great justice to the original, is from the pen of the celebrated Peter Pindar,

and was produced, asserts Mr. Polwhele, in a

few minutes.

ad somnum.

Somne levis, quamquam certissima mortis imago, Consortem cupio te, tamen, esse tori:

Alma quies, optata veni; nam, sic, sine vitâ Vivere, quam suave est; sic, sine morte, mori.*

to sleep.

Come, gentle sleep, attend thy votary's prayer,
And, tho' death's image, to my couch repair!
How sweet, thus lifeless, yet with life to lie,
Thus, without dying, O how sweet to die!

WOLCOT.

This cursory view of the Inscription, and its various classes, will not, I flatter myself, prove unentertaining to the reader: the quotations are, certainly, of the most exquisite beauty, and will tend, I hope, to support my assertion, that the cultivation of this species of poetry may produce the most pleasing, and even the most salutary and beneficial effects.

I have seen a copy in which the first and third lines are given thus:,
Somne veni, et quamquam certissima mortis imago es—
Huc ades, haud abiture cito: nam &c. ́

NUMBER VIII.

There would he dream of graves, and corses pale; And ghosts, that to the charnel-dungeon throng, And drag a length of clanking chain, and wail, Till silenc'd by the owl's terrific song,

Or blasts that shriek by fits the shuddering isles

Anon in view a portal's blazon'd arch

Arose; the trumpet bids the valves unfold;
And forth an host of little warriors march,
Grasping the diamond lance, and targe of gold:
Their look was gentle, their demeanour bold,
And green their helms, and green their silk attire;
And here and there, right venerably old,

The long rob'd minstrels wake the warbling wire, And some with mellow breath. the martial pipe inspire.

Beattie.

Of the various kinds of superstition which have in any age influenced the human mind, none appear to have operated with so much effect as what has been termed the Gothic.

T

Even in the present polished period of society, there are thousands who are yet alive to all the horrors of witchcraft, to all the solemn and terrible graces of the appalling spectre. The most enlightened mind, the mind free from all taint of superstition, involuntarily acknowledges the power of gothic agency; and the late favourable reception which two or three publications in this style have met with, is a convincing proof of the assertion. The enchanted forest of Tasso, the spectre of Camöens, and the apparitions of Shakspeare, are to this day highly pleasing, striking, and sublime features in these delightful compositions.

And although this kind of superstition be able to arrest every faculty of the human mind, and to shake, as it were, all nature with horror, yet does it also delight in the most sportive and elegant imagery. The traditionary tales of elves and fairies still convey to a warm imagination an inexhausted source of invention, supplying all those wild, romantic, and varied ideas with which a wayward fancy loves to sport. The Provençal bards, and the neglected Chaucer and Spenser, are the originals from whence this exquisite species of

fabling has been drawn, improved, and applied with so much inventive elegance by Shakspeare. The flower and the leaf of Chaucer is replete with the most luxuriant description of these præternatural beings.

The vulgar gothic therefore, an epithet here adopted to distinguish it from the regular mythology of the Edda, turns chiefly on the awful ministration of the Spectre, or the inno cent gambols of the Fairy, the former, perhaps, partly derived from Platonic Christianity, the latter from the fictions of the East, as imported into Europe during the period of the Crusades; but whatever be its derivation, it is certainly a mode of superstition so assimilated with the universal apprehension of superior agency, that few minds have been altogether able to shake it off. Even to Philosophy admitting of the doctrine of immaterialism, it becomes no easy task consistently to deny the possibility of such an interference. Whilst it therefore gives considerable latitude to the imagination, it seems to possess more rationality than almost any other species of fabling; for confined by no adherence to any regular mythological system, but depending merely upon the possible, and

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