J 829.] The Venus de Medicis. 543 



Wert struggling with a savage plunderer. 



Full of thy godlike spirit, but unarmed, 



Save with the memory of bright days gone by, 



The thrilling thought of Marathon, and the strait 



Where the barbarian shrank before the light 



Of thy immortal eye, Leonidas ! 



Better the eternal city were thy tomb. 



Better to slumber in its glorious ruins, 



Than thus to stand alone, the mournful shade 



Of the Promethean race that, nursed in freedom 



And filled with fire divine, made Greece a heaven. 



Goddess ! farewell : unto mine island-home 

 I bear thy memory as a talisman ; 

 And oft the magic touch of sleep will tint 

 Thy marble beauty with the blush of life. 

 And thou wilt seem to hover o'er my couch, 

 Telling sweet tales of Freedom and of Greece. J. R. O. 



THEATRICAL MATTERS. 



The doubts which were entertained of the opening of Covent Garden 

 have been fortunately ended, not merely by its opening, but by its suc- 

 cessful opening. Several good performances have followed each other, 

 and popularity has unquestionably returned to this fine Theatre. But 

 the meteor of the hour is Miss Fanny Kemble. Criticism has been so 

 loud in the praise of this young and certainly very interesting per- 

 former, that we can scarcely add any thing to opinions in which we so 

 fully concur, except to hope that there will be no injudicious attempt to 

 urge her into characters for which her time of life is yet unfit, nor 

 expect her graceful immaturity to seize the full honours of the stage. 

 Her Juliet has attracted and deserved universal attention. It justly 

 increased the public feelings to know that she was not originally inten- 

 ded for the stage, but has adopted it from a sense of the difficulties of 

 Covent Garden. Her first appearance was a pledge of her success. 

 On Charles Kemble's coming forward as Mercutio, he was received with 

 much applause. Mrs. Kemble, who played Lady Capulet, for that night, 

 to introduce her daughter, was also highly welcomed ; but the tumult 

 of exultation rose so high when the debutante of the evening trod the 

 stage for the first time, that it really justified the alarm she manifested. 

 She did not disappoint the hope that it would be her's to gain a new 

 triumph for that name, which for half a century has shed lustre on 

 the British drama ; there is about her that quality which made 



" Pritchard genteel, and Garrick six feet high !" 

 a mind to conceive, and skill to execute her conceptions. Louder plau- 

 dits never shook the walls of a theatre than those which requited her 

 exertions. The characteristics of her performance were delicacy and 

 feeling. Her consciousness of the ill luck that must attend her rash 

 love for Romeo, was shadowed in her whole expression. Her astonish- 

 ment at the nurse's advice to discard Romeo, followed by her wild burst 

 of indignation, were highly effective. And her parting with her lover 

 in the garden after the marriage, was perfectly beautiful. She is faint- 

 ing in the arms of the nurse, yet still continues waving her adieus. The 

 poison scene was excellent ; her gradual accumulation of horrors, until 



