716 MONTHLY REVIEW OF LITERATURE AND ART. 



livery of the valet that occupies the academic chair of the professor, and sits 

 enthroned in the boudoir of the courtesan. Upwards of 100,000 Austrian 

 troops occupy at this moment the Lombardo Venetian kingdom, while a 

 rapacious administration bleeds it through every pore. But we need no 

 better commentary on the tender mercies of the Austrian government than 

 the highly interesting work before us. 



Arrested in the year 1820 on a charge of carbonarism, Silvio Pellico, after 

 passing two years of probationary incarceration in the dungeons at Venice, 

 was sent off to the fortress of Spielberg, in Moravia. The cruelties he saw 

 and endured are almost of a nature to stagger belief, did we not well know 

 the spirit of the Austrian government. His companion in misfortune, Piero 

 Maroncelli, a distinguished poet, was, during his confinement, obliged to 

 submit to the amputation of a limb ; and it will be scarcely credited, 

 that although the danger was imminent, it was necessary to send off a 

 courier to Vienna for permission to perform the operation. After eight years 

 and a half incarceration they were liberated by the clemency of the Emperor 

 Francis. Pellico, on reaching Vienna, relates that he was taken by the 

 police agent, who accompanied him to see the gardens of Schoenbrun. 

 The emperor suddenly approached, and the commissary hastily made him 

 retire, lest his emaciated person should give the monarch pain. Had this 

 employ 6 known his imperial master as well as we do, he might have 

 saved himself the trouble ; for the man who could listen with the most 

 phlegmatic indifference to the bulletin of the battle of Way gram, and then 

 rise and coolly say, " Now let us go and feed the pigeons," would have be- 

 trayed no emotion, or felt no sympathy at the sufferings of an Italian Car- 

 bonaro. 



We have read this little work with pleasure, for it has improved our 

 opinion of the human heart. In the gloomy fortress of Spielberg, beneath 

 the obdurating influence of Austrian tyranny, in the bosoms even of its 

 myrmidons, some of the warmest affections of our nature are perceived. 

 Let those of our readers who may be sceptical on this point read the death- 

 bed scene of the Veteran Schiller, the gaoler of Spielberg, and they will 

 arrive at the same conclusion as ourselves. 



LECTURES ON POETRY AND GENERAL LITERATURE. BY JAMES MONT- 

 GOMERY. LONDON : LONGMAN AND Co. 



THESE lectures were delivered by Mr. Montgomery, at the Royal Insti- 

 tution, in the years 1830-1. They are precisely what might be expected 

 from the general character of the writer's muse ; at once elegant and natural, 

 with the refinements of a most delicate perception conveyed in words of un- 

 affected simplicity. Mr. Montgomery ventures no new theory makes no 

 new startling discovery ; but, merely recommends and enforces received 

 opinions by winning diction, and illustrations from the stores of a mind, 

 enriched and elevated by a contemplation of the noblest things in their high 

 and subtle essences. One example must serve of the style in which the 

 writer has treated his subject ; one proof of the critical acuteness and poetic 

 sympathy which the author has brought to his task. He is contending for 

 the pre-eminence of poetry over the sister arts. He takes " the Dying 

 Gladiator," and opposes to it the two splendid stanzas from Childe Harold. 



" Myriads of eyes had gazed upon that statue ; through myriads of minds 

 all the images and ideas connected with the combat and the fall, the spec- 

 tators and the scene had passed away in the presence of that unconscious 

 marble which has given immortality to the pangs of death ; but not a soul 

 among all the beholders through eighteen centuries not one had ever before 

 thought of 'the rude link/ the ' Dacian mother,' the ' young barbarians.' 

 At length came the poet of passion; and looking down upon 'the dying 



