280- 
Onn’ entend point le ciel, parle voix dutonnerre, 
Annoncer sa vengeance, et menacer la terre : 
Tout Srémit en silence, et dans le ciel muet, 
La foudre épouviniée elle-méme se tait. 
The direful news of Balder’s mortal doom, 
Involv’d all nature in convulsive gloom : 
The rayless sun, in darkness, veils his head ; 
The widow’d world beweeps her Balder 
dead. 
No peals of vengeance thro’ the skies re- 
sound, 
Nor subterranean thunders tear the ground: 
But one deep, silent tremor thrills the 
whole, 
And heaven’s own thunder lacks the power 
to roll. ‘ 
The concluding idea is very fine, and 
the whole description is strikingly beau- 
tiful. There are many similar passages 
in this poem,—which is the sum, how- 
eyer, of the praise we can bestow. 
‘ As I have not been fortunate enough 
to meet. with the poem itself (or I 
should, probably, have been tempted to 
translate the whole), I can only add to 
the partial commendation of the re- 
viewer, and in reply to what I regard as 
his prejudices,—that enough has, I 
think, been quoted to shew, that the 
Northern Mythology is quite as suscep- 
tible of poetic treatment as the thread- 
bare fables of the gods of Greece and 
Rome, to which the critics of France 
are so bigotedly, and exclusively de- 
voted. And so, recommending the sub- 
ject to the notice of your poetical cor- 
respondents, I remain, Sir, your’s, &c. 
A DescENDANT FROM THE 
ScANDINAVIANS. 
- Torres of the Monrn. 
An Attic Scene. 
seeeeeee «* After short silence then, 
And summons read, the great consult began.” 
£. Ir has been objected, that the Topic 
of the Month ought not to appear in 
the front of our miscellany; and the ob- 
jection is good, if it were only from the 
awkward necessity it imposes, that the 
first pages of the work should be last 
printed. Besides, the Topic of the 
Month is not always an important one ; 
and a frivolous:commencement. of an 
important series is like a prologue of 
jests., and clenches before a tragedy— 
which throws the auditors out of uni- 
son with the performance. 
Q. Is it not, in fact, unreasonable to 
assume, that every month will have a 
topic ?—at least a topic, like the circu- 
lation of the Monthly Magazine, uni- 
versal? The Stock Exchange, St. Ste- 
Topics of the Month :— St. David's Day. 
[April 1, 
phen’s, the circles of Science, the cote- 
ries of Fashion, the Belles at their toi- 
lettes, the Dandies in Bond-street, the 
Poets in their garrets, and the traders 
in their counting-houses,—have they 
not, each, their separate topics—not for 
the month, but for the day ? , 
Our Cambrian Antiquary, however, 
would persuade us, that the very first 
day of March offered a topic worthy, 
not only of the conversation of the 
month, but of the world.—It is 
Tur LEEK 
that is worn upon St. David’s Day!— 
For, is it not, he inquires, the emblem 
and memorial of the anniversary and 
birth-day of all nations? Wasnot Adam 
a Welchman? and are not the Hebrew 
and the Greek and the Phenician and: 
the Hindoostanee and all the languages. 
of the world, derived from the Welch, 
or Cumrac ? - 
E. On the other side of the Severn 
we would, perhaps, for peace-sake, admit 
his doctrine to be orthodox; nor will 
we, at the hazard of an angry contro- 
versy, call jn question his inferences 
here. So, let the world, for the pre-" 
sent, be born upon St. David’s Day; let 
the serpent tempt Eve in the triads of , 
Talliessen ; the Welch language be the - 
primitive mother of all tongues; and , 
the leek be the symbol of all theogenies ; 
and, as such, be worshipped by all. 
But, as our antiquarian researches are 
not equally confined to the ages before . 
the flood, can you refer us to any more 
probable conjecture, relative to the ori- » 
gin of this symbol of Cambrian nationa~ 
lity, than that which is usually assigned? 
C. I have a treatise in my hand, 
upon that very subject, which, if you . 
please, I will read to you. : 
E. Nay, give it to the compositor, » 
for that purpose, at once; for it is ne- 
cessary that he, at least, should be able 
to read the hand-writing of every com- 
municant—and we have some corre- 
spondents who would much oblige us if 
they would take the hint. 
‘“< It is a common error to trace the ori- 
gin of the Welch custom of wearing leeks 
on St. David’s-day to a victory, gained by 
Cadwallo, in the sixth century, neara field 
of leeks. It is a much more probable sup- 
position that they were a Druidic symbol, 
employed in honour, of the British Cend- - 
ven, or Ceres. There is nothing strained 
or far-fetched in this hypothesis. The ; 
Druids were doubtless a branch of the 
Pheenician 
- 
