-that although his brother had once had L.4000 or L.5000, he had - spent it all in foreign travel, and had left only fifteen shillings in ready money. Before the Sequestrators, D'Ewes's adroitness did not forsake him. I told them that I had one word to trouble them with concerning myself. That I was lately unhappy in the .⚫ death of a brother, who had left me his sole executor, with only fifteen shillings. If it be taken from me, it concerns this Agentleman near me, (viz. Sir Ralph Verney, who stood next me on my left hand, whose father, Sir Edmund Verney, being knight-marshal and bearing the King's standard, was slain at Edgehill,) and some members also of your Lordships' house, (for Earls Holland and Manchester were then present at the * Committee ;) whereupon Earl Holland asked me who it was had so little wit to move such a thing.' D'Ewes merely remarked that it had been moved, and so got off scot-free.

One cannot wonder that a man whose heart had long been cold to the Parliament cause, and who was thus badgered in the House, should lose all interest in its proceedings. He removed from Goat's Alley to Great Russell Street, cultivated the acquaintance of Archbishop Usher, who was then Lecturer at Covent-Garden Church, fell back upon his Antiquarian studies, amassed MSS., planned great historical works, and attained the consummation of his wishes, in the birth of a thriving boy. His Parliamentary Notes descend only to November 1645, but he continued in the House until December 1648. He was then excluded by Colonel Pride and the army. His death took place on the 18th April 1650.

It is principally-though not entirely, witness his before mentioned Journals of Queen Elizabeth's Parliaments as a member of the Long Parliament, and as a taker of Notes of its memorable Sayings and Doings, that Sir Simonds D'Ewes is worthy of being had in remembrance; and our chief object in presenting our readers with a sketch of his character, is to direct public attention to those Notes. We are not acquainted with any Historical Memorials of that momentous period, that can be at all compared with them in point of importance; and yet they remain unpublished inaccessible to all but the frequenters of the reading-room of the British Museum; illegible to those not acquainted with the manuscript characters of the period; and subject to all the chances to which the information contained in one single copy of a work is ever liable. The extracts which we have given, exhibit the nature of the historical materials and anecdotes to be found in them; but of these they present only an imperfect idea, and insignificant portion; for we have strung together only those which are the most nearly connected with

the Collector. There is not, however, a man of any parliamentary importance during that ever memorable period, whose character they do not strikingly illustrate. Cromwell, Hampden, Pym, Strode, Martin-all the leaders without exception-and many other persons who exercised an influence in that House for which the world has not yet given them credit, are here brought before us times out of number in their very habits as they lived—and with a reality which we seek in vain in any of the other memorials of that period. A man of D'Ewes's character would of course chronicle many things which it would have been well to let die; but, in spite of his trifling, and his verbose semi-legal phraseology, and his prejudices, which were violent, he has written down on these blotted sheets, facts and circumstances which, if published, would do more towards making known the real history of the times, and the characters and motives of the men who overturned the Monarchy, than any publication yet given to the world.*

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ART. IV. Lyrical Compositions selected from the Italian Poets; with Translations. By JAMES GLASSFORD, Esq. Second Edition, greatly enlarged. 12mo. Edinburgh: 1846.

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A FEW months only have elapsed, since the author of this precious volume closed a long life, calmly and modestly devoted to the most ennobling pursuits of our lettered nature. He, indeed, laid upon the altar of Philosophy and Literature, an offering as pure as any that has ever been there presented as little alloyed by those meaner motives which are commonly needed to prompt a continued devotion to mental exertion.

* It is not a little surprising that so valuable a Repertory should not yet, in one way or another, have seen the light. The funds of our private Publishing Societies would have been far better employed in printing this Diary than upon hundreds of such Pieces as some of them have published. It forms five volumes of the Harleian Manuscripts, No. 162 to No. 166, preserved in the British Museum; and it is quite distinct from the Autobiography of D'Ewes, (in the same collection, No. 646,) lately published, and whose title is given at the head of this Article. The Autobiography, which comes down only to 1636, certainly contains some curious passages, but, as a whole, it is exceedingly uninteresting. It would, however, have been of greater historical value, had it been more intelligently and carefully Edited.

The highest reward for years of secluded labour, was found by him in the refined pleasure attendant on the labour itself; and the fame which would have been sought and gained by spirits more enterprising than his, but not more richly endowed, was supplied to him in the approbation bestowed on his pursuits by those chosen friends, who had learned how to value his intellectual accomplishments, and his moral worthan

His first works were of a professional cast. In 1812, when he had been nearly twenty years a member of the Scottish bar, appeared his Remarks on the Constitution and Procedure of the Scottish Courts of Law;' an enlightened and manly estimate of the excellencies and imperfections of the Scottish judicial system, accompanied by a valuable appendix of historical matter. In 1820 he published An Essay on the Principles of Evidence, and their application to Subjects of Judicial Inquiry. This treatise, but for the length to which it was allowed unwittingly to extend, would have appeared in the Supplement to the Encyclopædia Britannica-its original destination; and to this it owes a breadth of plan which must have affected unfavourably its reception by the public. Metaphysicians do not seek for instruction in law-treatises lawyers distrust independent metaphysical speculation. Mr Glassford's able Essay being partly metaphysical, partly professional, was ill calculated to command an audience in either quarter. The first part of it, a systematic analysis of the origin of human knowledge, is founded mainly on the doctrines of Stewart, and the other Masters of the Scottish Metaphysical School; but it exhibits much general reading, and no inconsiderable power of original philosophic thought.

Its author had already attained, in a careful study of the writings of Bacon, a thorough mastery of the principles of the Inductive Logic; and had indeed executed a translation of the First Book of the Novum Organum; to which he had been encouraged, and which was greatly commended by Mr Stewart. This translation, with a series of notes, and an appendix of remarks, was printed the year before his death. It was then, like most of his later volumes, communicated only to his private friends; but it has since been made accessible to the public. It possesses distinguished merit in all its parts. The translation, if not every where beyond question, is, in the main, exceedingly faithful as well as clear; in point of closeness it may be compared favourably, not only with the paraphrase of Shaw, but even with Mr Wood's estimable version; and the perusal is made at once more agreeable, and more instructive, by the chaste and happy manner in which the diction, without being rendered

ruggedly antique, is approximated to that of the English writings of the immortal author. The notes and appendix abound in thoughtful illustrations, both of the principles upon which the Baconian philosophy rests, and of the nature and limits of its applications; while, at not a few points, the writer diverges to gather attractive matter for reflection from those poetical studies, which shared his attention with the laws of scientific discovery... In the study of Poetry, as in the study of Philosophy, Mr Glassford's position was much higher than that of the merely receptive amateur. He delighted to speculate on the processes of the poetical art, as well as on the profound problems suggested by its results; he delighted to practise poetical composition, in that unassuming manner of which he twice gave pleasing specimens; and as to which, it is admitted by all competent inquirers, that success in it must be gained by the exercise of powers, among which skill in the use of versified language is but one of the smallest. Several years ago he printed privately, with a critical preface, a modernized version of the Ella,' and some other pieces of the ill-fated Chatterton. But his favourite poetical reading lay in the Literature of Italy; and his affection for it, and his admirable knowledge of its masterpieces, gave birth to the Translations, Preface, and Notes, which, with the original text of the poems selected for translation, fill the interesting and polished volume now before us. It was first published in 1834; but its enlargement and correction were among the latest occu pations of his ever thoughtful life, and the new edition before us, has been issued, as already mentioned, under directions left by him to his Executors.

Lyrical poetry, although in some of its walks it is the proper poetry of the people, is yet, in the mass, and especially in its most highly elaborated developments, less extensively popular than any other species. The pure lyric is caviare to the multitude: if it has gained an audience fit, though few, it has attained its utmost triumph, even over those to whom it is originally addressed. The mixed lyric, again, as well as the pure, is at once less readily appreciable than any other kind of poetical composition by those to whom its language is not native, and less easily transferable into a foreign tongue, even by those who attempt the task with the most masterly skill, and the finest natural endowments. The execution of a perfect lyrical translation would be a poetical quadrature of the circle. But there exist English versions of foreign lyrics, which are, at the same time, delightful poems in themselves, and excellent representatives of the poems from which they are taken; and such praise, in both respects, belongs to not a few of the little pieces which now lie before us,

The sterner and more passionate touches of his original are those with which the translator deals least satisfactorily. It happens sometimes, also, that he is unable to catch with complete exactness of apprehension, or to remodel with complete aptness of expression, some deeply pregnant burst of fancy, or some highly felicitous turn of diction; but in such passages he is often singu larly successful. Altogether, his translations evince both a rare capacity for apprehending poetical images, especially those which are suggested by external nature, and a very delicate sense of that which is graceful and tender in moral feeling. The taste of the diction is almost every where without a fault.

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A taste not less accurate, and a severe seriousness of sentiment, have directed the choice of the specimens translated ; and these form a collection of small poems, at once beautiful in themselves, and interestingly illustrative of the history of Italian poetry. The picture which it presents is no doubt flattering; the translator has gathered rich and fragrant flowers, in a garden in which grow many worthless herbs, and not a few noxious weeds: but elevated feeling and purely beautiful imagery are never more worthy of admiration, than when they arise in the midst of thought that is grovelling, and taste that is perverted.

The lyrical poetry of Italy is one of the most remarkable features in the literature of the nation. Indeed, if we compare the history of that literature with the literary history of other European countries, we may find reason for believing its characteristic peculiarity to consist in the sedulous cultivation, and systematic moulding of the lyric. It is little to say that the number of lyrical poems written in the Italian language has been greater than the number of poems belonging to any other class. This is nothing more than what is true in regard to every other cultivated nation. The lyric, in one or another of its forms, is the vehicle of expression which naturally suggests itself to minds struggling, rather to give vent to poetic feeling, than to create works of poetic art. But it is a different thing to assert what is equally true, that by the Italians the lyrical poem has been more thoroughly elaborated into a work of art than by the poets of any other country; and that, in the standard poetical literature of Italy, the lyric holds a more distinguished place than that which belongs to it in the poetry of any other European language.

The fact is so. It is not indeed to be forgotten, that the Italians have bestowed upon the world masterpieces of genius in higher circles of the poetic sphere. It is not to be forgotten that their delicate and musical language was so moulded, in the great Epic of Dante, as to express worthily the sternest manli