The Sun.
London, England, 1850-04-03 00:00:00

WIEDNEgDAY P.VENING, APRIL 3, 1850

many become clamorous for the decision, calling
loudly for " A ring, a ring!"

A STUDENT—GO call thy daughter, hostess,
Here's that will make her hueest.
HOSTESS—Sir ?
STUDENT—A ring."
But in the midst of this mysterious scene, in the
tavern, the guy Lelio tells a tale of burning woe and
tragedy—how the young Francesca, to purchase the
escape of Santo from his dungeon, had yielded up
her, beauty,.•to. a liyerffifrit:ithd. having gained the
ransqm fas4l44lo44i.qii 'beauty by her poniard.
The pathetic nature of the incident is inde-
scribably enhanced by the rude " setting "
of the comic by which it is surrounded.
Then comes a •charming scene before an Italian cot-
tage at sunset, the emancipated monk gaining over to
his cause a young.father and mother who are there
watching the gambols of their children in the midst
of the serene and unruffled felicity of their domestic
seclusion, The song of the children is a dainty bijou
:of verse, so dainty, that we give it by way of quo-
tation :
" [The children are sporting. The girl hides
among myrtles, and sings.
" GlRL—Whither R ingest thou, wiugest thou, winny
wind 4
Where, winny wind, whero, oh 'where?
Boy (singing.)—My sister, my sister, I flit forth to find,
My sister, my :Aster, the or augc-flaw'r Air !
GlRL—Since thy songs thy soft sister seek,
What wouldst With her? say, oh say.
13or—Oh, to pat her 0.-all-white cheek,
And court Lor with kisses all thy I
[The child bursts from her hiding place, and the
children chase each other user the plain."
The appreciation of the charms of a child is not only
evinced by Sydney Yendys in this sweet little lyric,
but in a subsequent, passage, where Santo calls the
boy-7-." the yindicatiokof God—the everlasting promise
which no mu .keeps;.' &c. ' Beautifully and nobly is
it said by Santo, when appealing to the father's
patriotism, that on scanning the surface. of the Roman

" Mere and there
Rude heaps, that had been cities, clad the ground
With history. And far and near, where grass
Was greenest; and the unconscious goat browsed free,
The teeming soil was sown with desolations."
With reference to the subsequent developement of
the narrative we shall consign it to the curiosity of
the reader, satisfied that by so doing we shall best for-
ward the interests of the poem, and convinced, likewiie,
that our previous excerpts and observations will inevi-
tably tickle the poetic appetite of the public into a zest
for further examination. Among the most remark-
able 'passages in the work, we must, however,
be 'permitted to particularise the description given by
Santo (pp. 95-96), of the awakening of the
dumb genius of his patriotism—and his dream of
the combat of Telemachus in the Colosseum. Our
author's idea of the nature and c.,ftce of the poet
is worthy of consideration. " The good man,' he
says, " hears _

" The voice in which God speaks to man. The poet
In some rapt moment of intense attendance,
The skies being genial and the earthly air
Propitious, catching on the inward ear
• The awful .aed unutterable meanings
Of a divine soliloquy."
The notion is consonant with that of the Viscomte
de Chateaubriand, when speaking of the entrance
of the allied armies into Paris, he says that then
" God had pronounced one of those words by which
the. silence of eternity is at long intervals inter-
rupted." Poets—they both heard the voice of the
unseen Divinity. For felicities of expression we
may particularile also these : of manly passion :
We men are calm or hurricane.. The heart
Fills silently, and at the last wrong bursts."

Of the sorrows of Mary and of Rome:
Thou who three days didst watch a tomb in tears,
Pity our vigil of a thousand years." .

Of autumn :

Behold,
Even now the harvest scedeth, and the ear
Bends rich with death."
A multiplicity of other minor beauties scattered
throughout the pages by way of poetic decoration,
might be instanced, but we have said enough. " The
Roman," with its pensive lyrics, and its heroic
songs of war, and its tender lays of love, and its con-
trasting and variegated metres, may now plead itself for
the approving voice of criticism. That 'occasionally
it should be marred with such- undignified epithets
'as " kickshaws," and such applauding cries as
" W ell done," is an accidental and subordinate
blemish that can only be invested with im-
portance by the declaration, that as a
whole, " The Roman " is an elegant poetic.
composition. Its prevailing characteristic is this.
Elegance of execution—fervour of thought—aptitude
of scholarship fluency of expression grace of
imagery—combine together for its embellishment.
They leave the mind unsatisfied with the abruptness
and confusion of the " end," but this kind of termi-
nation was possibly the most appropriate that could
have been selected, being the most in accordance with
The sudden and calamitous close of the Italian Revo-
lution. Such are the' prominent peculiarities and
merits of a poem, the perusal of which must be plea-
surable to every lover of our literature.