general characteristic of the poem, which accordingly is not without striking passages, but the lack of human interest mars the total effect. Campbell was nearer the mark when, after observing that Glover does not make his pictures grotesque by introducing modern accessories and details, he added,-'but his purity is cold, his heroes are like outlines of Grecian faces, with no distinct or minute physiognomy.' In agreement with this line of criticism, Southey describes Leonidas as 'cold and bald, stately rather than strong in its best parts, and in general rather stiff than stately.' The terseness which Glover, writing about Spartans, affected, made him often pile a number of short abrupt sentences one upon the other; hence the stiffness and baldness of which Southey complains. Thus we read in Book xii :—

'On living embers these are cast. So wills
Leonidas. The phalanx then divides.

Four troops are form'd, by Dithyrambus led,
By Alpheus, by Diomedon. The last

Himself conducts. The word is given. They seize
The burning fuel.'

The conclusion, where Leonidas, after performing impossible feats of valour and slaughter, dies without a word, rather of exhaustion than of wounds, exhibits an uninteresting flatness, which Glover, who knew Virgil well, and must have noted how wonderfully effective are the last words of Dido, Turnus, Pallas, and Mezentius, ought sedulously to have avoided.

Of the Athenaid, a sequel to Leonidas, with its thirty books, it is enough to say that it is simply unreadable. It appears to be a florid reproduction, with new incidents and scenery, of the story of the Græco-Persian war, from Thermopyla to Platea.

The opposition to Sir Robert Walpole found in Glover an enthusiastic ally. One of his chief objects in writing London is said to have been to exasperate the public mind against Spain, a power to which Walpole was held to have truckled. In the same year,

after the news came of Vernon's success at Porto Bello, Glover wrote the spirited ballad of Hosier's Ghost, rather perhaps with the design of damaging Walpole than exalting Vernon. The political aim interests us no more; but the music and swing of the verse,— perhaps also the naval cast of the imagery and the diction,—will keep this ballad popular with Englishmen for many a year to

come.

T. ARNOLD.

POLYDORUS AND MARON.

[From Leonidas, Book IX.]

'I too, like them, from Lacedæmon spring,
Like them instructed once to poise the spear,
To lift the ponderous shield. Il destined wretch!
Thy arm is grown enervate, and would sink
Beneath a buckler's weight. Malignant fates,
Who have compelled my free-born hand to change
The warrior's arms for ignominious bonds;
Would you compensate for my chains, my shame,
My ten years anguish, and the fell despair,
Which on my youth have preyed; relenting once,
Grant I may bear my buckler to the field,
And, known a Spartan, seek the shades below!'
'Why to be known a Spartan must thou seek
The shades below?' Impatient Maron spake.
'Live, and be known a Spartan by thy deeds;
Live, and enjoy thy dignity of birth;
Live, and perform the duties which become
A citizen of Sparta. Still thy brow

Frowns gloomy, still unyielding. He who leads
Our band, all fathers of a noble race,
Will ne'er permit thy barren day to close
Without an offspring to uphold the state.'

'He will,' replies the brother in a glow,
Prevailing o'er the paleness of his cheek,
'He will permit me to complete by death
The measure of my duty; will permit
Me to achieve a service, which no hand
But mine can render, to adorn his fall
With double lustre, strike the barbarous foe
With endless terror, and avenge the shame
Of an enslaved Laconian.' Closing here
His words mysterious, quick he turned away
To find the tent of Agis. There his hand
In grateful sorrow ministered her aid;

While the humane, the hospitable care
Of Agis, gently by her lover's corse

On one sad bier the pallid beauties laid
Of Ariena. He from bondage freed

Four eastern captives, whom his generous arm
That day had spared in battle; then began
This solemn charge. 'You, Persians, whom my sword
Acquired in war, unransomed, shall depart.
To you I render freedom which you sought
To wrest from me. One recompense I ask,
And one alone. Transport to Asia's camp
This bleeding princess. Bid the Persian king
Weep o'er this flow'r, untimely cut in bloom.
Then say, th' all-judging pow'rs have thus ordained..
Thou, whose ambition o'er the groaning earth
Leads desolation; o'er the nations spreads
Calamity and tears; thou first shalt mourn,

And through thy house destruction first shalt range.'

BALLAD OF ADMIRAL HOSIER'S GHOST.

As near Porto-Bello lying

On the gently-swelling flood,

At midnight with streamers flying

Our triumphant navy rode;

There while Vernon sat all-glorious

From the Spaniards' late defeat;
And his crews, with shouts victorious,
Drank success to England's fleet;

On a sudden, shrilly sounding,
Hideous yells and shrieks were heard;
Then each heart with fear confounding,
A sad troop of ghosts appeared;
All in dreary hammocks shrouded,
Which for winding sheets they wore,
And with looks by sorrow clouded
Frowning on that hostile shore.

On them gleamed the moon's wan lustre,
When the shade of Hosier brave

His pale bands was seen to muster,
Rising from their watery grave :

O'er the glimmering wave he hied him,
Where the Burford reared her sail,
With three thousand ghosts beside him,
And in groans did Vernon hail.

'Heed, O heed, our fatal story,
I am Hosier's injured ghost,

You, who now have purchased glory
At this place where I was lost;
Though in Porto-Bello's ruin

You now triumph free from fears,
When you think on our undoing,
You will mix your joy with tears.

'See these mournful spectres sweeping Ghastly o'er this hated wave,

Whose wan cheeks are stained with weeping;

These were English captains brave :
Mark those numbers pale and horrid,
Those were once my sailors bold,
Lo, each hangs his drooping forehead,
While his dismal tale is told.

'I, by twenty sail attended,
Did this Spanish town affright;
Nothing then its wealth defended
But my orders not to fight:
O! that in this rolling ocean
I had cast them with disdain,

And obeyed my heart's warm motion,
To have quelled the pride of Spain;

'For resistance I could fear none,
But with twenty ships had done
What thou, brave and happy Vernon,
Hast achieved with six alone.

Then the Bastimentos never
Had our foul dishonour seen,
Nor the sea the sad receiver

Of this gallant train had been.

Thus, like thee, proud Spain dismaying,
And her galleons leading home,
Though condemned for disobeying,
I had met a traitor's doom.

To have fallen, my country crying
"He has played an English part,'
Had been better far than dying
Of a grieved and broken heart.

Unrepining at thy glory,
Thy successful arms we hail;
But remember our sad story,
And let Hosier's wrongs prevail.
Sent in this foul clime to languish,
Think what thousands fell in vain,
Wasted with disease and anguish,
Not in glorious battle slain.

'Hence with all my train attending,
From their oozy tombs below,
Through the hoary foam ascending,
Here I feed my constant woe;
Here the Bastimentos viewing,
We recall our shameful doom,
And, our plaintive cries renewing,
Wander through the midnight gloom.

'O'er these waves for ever mourning
Shall we roam deprived of rest,
If to Britain's shores returning
You neglect my just request;
After this proud foe subduing,
When your patriot friends you see,
Think on vengeance for my ruin,

And for England shamed in me!'