Where angels bashful look'd. Others, though great, The loftiest thought; and proudly stoop'd, as though With Nature's self 6. Suns, moons, and stars, and clouds his sisters were; 7. With terror now he froze the cowering blood; Exulting in the glōry of his might, And seem'd to mock the ruin he had wrought. 8. As some fierce comet of tremendous size, Of Fame's dread mountain sat: not soil'd, and wōrn, But, as some bird of heavenly plumage fair 9. The nations gazed, and wonder'd much, and praised; Critics before him fell in humble plight,— Confounded fell,—and made debasing signs To catch his eye; and stretch'd, and swell'd themselves, With weaker wing, unearthly fluttering made, 10. Great man! The nations gazed, and wonder'd much, Wits wrote in favor of his wickedness; Of fame; drank early, deeply drank; drank draughts His goddess, Nature, woo'd, embraced, enjoy'd, And all his sympathies in being died. 11. As some ill-guided bark, well built, and tall, Which angry tides cast out on desert shōre, Ard then, retiring, left it there to rot And molder in the winds and rains of heaven; And cast ashore from pleasure's boisterous surge, A gloomy wilderness of dying thought, ROBERT POLLOK' 89. MIDNIGHT-THE COLISEUM. HE stars are forth, the moon above the tops I linger yet with Nature, for the night Hath been to me a more familiar face I learn'd the language of another world. 'See Biographical Sketch, p. 167.—a Col i sẻ' um, the amphitheatre of Vespasian, at Rome, said to have held 110,000 spectators. The ruins are still standing. It is said to have been built in one year, by the compulsory labor of twelve thousand Jews. It was called the Coliseum, from the colossal statue of Nero, which was placed in it. In this amphitheatre were exhibited the contests of gladiators and wild animals, and other savage spectacles in which the Romans delighted. Of distant sentinels the fitful song 8 Some cypresses beyond the time-worn breach While Caesar's chambers and the Augustan halls 4. And thou didst shine, thou rolling moon, upon With silent worship of the great of old The dead, but scepter'd sovereigns, who still rule LORD BYRON. GEORGE GORDON BYRON, the descendant and head of an ancient and noble family, was born in London, January 22d, 1788. He entered Trinity College, Cambridge, 1805, with a rare reputation for general information, having read an almost incredible list of works in various departments of literature before the age of fifteen. He neglected the prescribed course of study at the university, but his genius kept him ever active. His first work, "The Hours of Idleness," appeared in 1807. It received a castigation from the "Edinburgh Review," to which we owe the first spirited outbreak of his talents, in the able and vigorous satire entitled, "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers," published in 1809. He took his seat in the House of Lords a few days before the appearance of this satire; but soon left for the Continent. He returned home in 1811, with two cantos of "Childe Harold," which he had written abroad. They were published in March, 1812, and were immediately received with such unbounded admiration, as to justify the poet's terse remark, "I awoke one morning, and found myself famous." In May of the next year, appeared his "Giaour;" in November, the "Bride of Abydos," written in a week; and, about three mouths after. 'Hearth. Glåd'i à tor, a sword-player; a prize-fighter. the "Corsair," written in he almost incredible space of ten days. January 2d, 1815, he was married to Miss Milbanke, the only daughter and heiress of Sir Ralph Milbanke; and his daughter, Augusta Ada, was born in December of that year. The husband and wife, for an unknown cause, separated forever, on the 15th of January of the next year. He quitted England for the last time on the 25th of April, 1816, and passed through Flanders, and along the Rhine to Switzerland, where he resided until the close of the year. He here composed the third canto of "Childe Harold," the "Prisoner of Chillon," "Darkness," **The Dream," and a part of “Manfred." The next year he went to Italy, where he resided several years, and where he wrote the fourth canto of " Childe Harold," "Mazeppa," "The Lament of Tasso," "Beppo," "Don Juan," and his dramatic poems. In 1823 he interested himself in the struggle of the Greeks to throw off the Turkish yoke and gain their independence. In December of that year, after making his arrangements with judgment and generosity, he sailed for Greece, and arrived at Missoloughi on the 5th of January, 1824, where he was received with great enthusiasm. In three months he did much to produce harmony and introduce order; but he had scarcely arranged his plans to aid the nation, when he was seized with a fever, and expired on the 19th of April, 1824, soon after having celebrated, in affecting verses, the completion of his thirty-sixth year. I 90. VIEW OF THE COLISEUM. WENT to see the Colise'um by moonlight. It is the monarch, the majesty of all ruins; there is nothing like it. All the associations of the place, too, give it the most impressive character. When you enter within this stupendous circle of ruinous walls and arches, and grand terraces of masonry, rising one above another, you stand upon the arena of the old gladiatorial combats and Christian martyrdoms; and as you lift your eyes to the vast amphitheater, you meet, in imagination, the eyes of a hundred thousand Romans, assembled to witness these bloody spectacles. What a multitude and mighty array of human beings! and how little do we know in modern times of great assemblies! One, two, and three, and at its last enlargement by Constantine,' more than three hundred thousand persons could be seated in the Circus Maximus! 2. But to return to the Colise'um; we went up under the con duct of a guide, upon the walls and terraces, or embankments which supported the ranges of scats. The seats have long since disappeared; and grass overgrows the spots where the pride, and power, and wealth, and beauty of Rome sat down to its bar 1 CONSTANTINE I., called the Great, was born 274 proclaimed emperor of Rome by the army 306, and died in 337. |