614 The Cave of Har Hassan. [JUNE, 



" All created beings pass away, and disappear, but you have the con- 

 solation of the prophet of God. 



" Maimonna, daughter of Hassan, son of AH El Hud, the son of 

 Moaiz of Susa, whom God enlighten and bless, lies in this sepulchre, the 

 prey of death. She ceased to live on Thursday, the 16th of the great 

 month Sehaban, in the year of the Hegira 569. She professed that there 

 was no God, but God alone without equal !" 



" Oh ! thou, who regardest this tomb ! behold, I am betrothed to it ad 

 a bride ! My eyelids are sealed with ashes ! my attractions have passed 

 away ! 



" Nevertheless, my mournful state of probation is transitory. In the 

 hour of resurrection, when the Creator shall restore me to life, I shall 

 once more joyfully behold my relatives, and exultingly reap the reward 

 of my sorrows." 



" The beautiful nature of your docile and uniformly serene mind, my 

 Maimonna, shone in conflicting efforts now in skilfully striving to repel 

 death, and now in seeking to draw advantage from it. 



" It is death itself that offers a transit to the state of celestial reward, 

 where the abodes of the blessed are enjoyed in serenity amongst the 

 shades of most delightful gardens, and the murmurs of the softest 

 rivulets. For this reason we venerate the creed of our Fathers. But the 

 faithless offenders, sprinkled with the waters of oblivion they who have 

 left no good works behind them shall rise in condemnation, to suffer the 

 most agonizing torments and everlasting punishments." 



OVAII. 



RETZSCII'S OUTLINES FROM SHAKSPEARE. 



. 



THE first series of this striking and most interesting production is 

 before us ; and if, on a careful examination, we do not find it quite so 

 good as we had led ourselves and been led by others to look for, we are 

 willing to confess that the disappointment is owing to our own exag- 

 gerated and unreasonable expectations, and not to any thing like a 

 failure on the part of the distinguished artist. On hearing that the work 

 was in progress, we had thought of the Faust of Goethe, as compared 

 with the Hamlet of Shakspeare ; and considering that the same talents 

 were to be employed upon the latter which had so eminently succeeded 

 with the former, we (with a somewhat uncritical simplicity, which the 

 reader will be kind enough to forgive in us) jumped to a false conclusion 

 accordingly. 



Perhaps so much reputation was never before gained, with so little 

 effort, and by so apparently inadequate means, as Retzsch at once 

 started into the possession of, almost immediately his outlines from the 

 Faust became generally known throughout Europe. His own country- 

 men admired him, because he reflected from the great work of their great 

 poet all that even they can understand of it. We English admired him, 

 partly because our critics apprised us that we were in duty bound so to 

 do, and partly because we really do see farther into that which is natural 

 and true than any of our neighbours. The French admired him, for a 

 reason pretty nearly opposite to the last named, but which it would be 



