584i The Forest Sanctuary. [June, 



In many a peasant-home ! — the midnight sky 

 Brought softly that I'ich world round those who came to die. 



LII. 



The darkly-glorious midnight sky of Spain, 

 Burning with stars ! — What had the torches' glare 

 To do beneath that Temjjle, and profane 

 Its holy radiance ? — By their wavering flare, 

 I saw beside the pyres — I see thee 7iow, 

 O bright Theresa ! with thy lifted brow, 

 And thy cUisp'd hands, and dark eyes fill'd with prayer ! 

 And thee, sad Inez ! bowing thy fair head, 

 And mantling up thy face, all colourless with dread ! 



The martyrs sometimes showed a serenity and courage almost inconceivable. 

 There have been instances of their delivering the noblest addresses to the mul- 

 titudewhile theflame was gathering round them— of praying with unchanged coun- 

 tenances while their limbs were actually consuming — of parting with life in the 

 midst of exclamations, and hymns of holy and invincible rejoicing. From witness- 

 ing this scene of horror, and yet of lofty and generous emotion, the Spaniard flies, 

 and finds himself in a lonely cathedral. He spends the night in meditation, and 

 feels a new influence on his spirit; he speaks of his faith, and is tin-own into a 

 dungeon: where he is tortured, but after a long confinement is set at liberty. 

 In the mountains he finds his wife and son, and with them passes the Atlantic. 

 His wife dies at sea — he arrives in the New World, and there prepares him for an 

 old age of faith and prayer, his thoughts still reverting to the rich recollections 

 of the sights and sounds of Spain. 



We have now given the beauties of this fine poem, and have left ourselves no 

 room for even the few strictures that we might feel compelled to make. The story 

 is not sufficiently marked by incident. It is much more a narrative of others 

 than of the intended hero. The Spaniard's conversion is not distinctly marked, 

 nor does he appear to have been converted on much stronger grounds than 

 those of hatred for the inquisition, and admiration of a picture in a cathedral 

 window. The Bii)le is an after-instrument, and altogether too faintly introduced. 

 The author has here flung away a most noble, yet natural opportunity of 

 sustaining the moral purpose of her poem. It also disappoints us unnecessarily 

 to know, that the Spaniard was unable to lead his beloved wife to the Truth, and 

 that she perished in darkness ; for those vague and shadowy hues of the truth 

 which the poet talks of as dawning on her mind, could not satisfy her belief, 

 more than they can satisfy our interest in her conversion. The Spaniard's 

 confinement in the Inquisition is touched in colours that almost elude the eye ; 

 facts ought always to be stated, at least, with distinctness. 



Some of the descriptions are beautiful. But it must be acknowledged, that 

 we are at last growing a little weary of description. Goats, and guitars; blue 

 mountains, and olive groves; moorish castles and castanets, have had their day, 

 and are now fallen into disuse by the higher classes of literary taste. We will 

 venture to say, that nine out often of the very worst writers of the time cannot 

 talk of Switzerland without bringing in Mount Blanc and the Banz des Vachcs ; 

 nor of Germany, without "The Rhine, the Riiine, be blessings on the Rhine;" 

 and the " winecup ;" and the " warhorn ;" and the " minnesinger;" Szc. Sec; 

 but these things have lost their merit by their merciless use, and we nuist not 

 see Mrs. Ilemans, who ought to rank with the highest, condescending to adopt 

 the means of the most desperate of the dabblers in Helicon. 



