stream. If Ebenhead and myself had thought of crossing at the narrowest point, instead of going up to the Cape above it, we should have been swept down to Tenedos. The strait is however not extraordinarily wide, even where it broadens above and below the forts: as the frigate was stationed some time in the Dardanelles, waiting for the firman, I bathed often in the Strait, subsequently to our traject, and generally on the Asiatic side, without perceiving the greater strength of the opposing stream, by which Mr. Turner palliates his own failure. Our amusement in the small bay, which opens immediately below the Asiatic

fort, was to dive for the land tortoises, which we flung in on purpose, as they amphibiously crawled along the bottom: this does not argue any greater violence of current than on the European shore. With regard to the modest insinuation, that we chose the European side as "easier," I appeal to Mr. Hobhouse, and Admiral Bathurst, if it be true or no? (poor Ebenhead being since dead). Had we been aware of any such difference of current, as is asserted, we would at least have proved it, and were not likely to have given it up in the twenty-five minutes of Mr. Turner's own experiment.

LINES ON THE DEATH OF THE PRINCESS CHARLOTTE.
AMID November's chill and lonesome night,

The moon sat high in mild and lovely light;
Unto the heaven look'd many an ancient eye,

Hoar heads were bared-and wither'd hands held high:
'Twas silence all throughout the midnight air-
Save woman's sigh, or man's sublimer prayer-
To shield the princely mother in her moan,

And bless the world with an illustrious son.

But long before day brighten'd through the gloom,
Came horse and rider wreath'd with sweat and foam;
He pass'd and spoke not,—and he wiped a brow
Where some dread tidings sat in drops of woe.-
Soon in the porches and the streets were seen,
Men with gray locks, old dames, and striplings green;
And mournful words were rife; and in the ear
Of youth, age spoke-till he wax'd pale with fear-
For some had seen dread things at dead of night-
Paul's holy dome stream with sepulchral light:
Through the dark city shrieking in a throng
The dead were heard, with wail and funeral song.
Some saw a Form of mild majestic air,

Shake a gold circlet from her shining hair,

Then drop two radiant tears; and upward sweep
Through the third heaven, and leave the world to weep.
Even while they whisper'd, all at once came on
The voice of lamentation and loud moan;
From vale to city came the sound, and shook

A dread like doomsday-through each heart it strook ;
Veil'd virgins wept, and tears wet all their way :
Each old man hid his face and audibly did pray.

Now there came to me-one whose furrow'd cheek
Was wet with tears; too full his heart to speak,
Upon my head he laid his ancient hand

And sobb'd aloud, and shook drops on the sand;
"My son," he said-but even while on his tongue
The death of my loved-lovely Princess, hung,
He shook his patriarch locks, and mute pass'd by ;-
He could not name the name he loved so tenderly.

Thou beauteous Princess !-late I saw thee go
Through church and street in bridal pomp and show:
Caps were flung high above the reeking press;
Glad shouts were there, and clang of smitten brass.
There swept the proud steeds-white as winter snow,
And the brimm'd wine-cups to the light did glow.—
Ah! who could deem that man would weep this morn
O'er his high hopes, and Britain's beauty shorn!

Shrouded she lay-like one in slumber deep,-
And one stood by whose sadness knew no sleep:
I got one glance but of her forehead fair,
Her temples white, and her long clustering hair :
Death from her living charms no lustre took;
Her meek bright spirit 'lumined still her look.
Too lovely was she and too good and fair

For dwelling out of heaven, and breathing mortal air.
When this head's hoar, and I shall hail afar
In yon blue vault some new and shining star,
I'll deem 'tis she in saintly splendour come,
To shine on Britain in the hour of gloom;
In every eye she was as light of heaven,-
The drop of dearest blood unto our bosoms given.
This is no time thy gentle deeds to sing,
Thy smiles to woo-to want thy ministring;
To sing this isle's proud hope-and call it mine—
Of being ruled by a brave race of thine.

Thou'rt pass'd like a bright vision—and we seem
Like men whom sorrow wakes from a sweet dream:
From a sweet dream we wake, and think and mourn
On what is gone, and never can return.

There is a flower, whose meek and modest hue
Shuns the gay sun, to smile mid twilight dew,
Spreads its green leaf in gladness, giving far
Its chaste pure bosom to the steadfast star;

This small fair flower, far sweeter than those born
In golden fragrance to the sun at morn,
Showing its blossom to the lark alone,

Is emblem meet of our lamented One

In whom, thou, Prince! hadst from thy bosom riven As much of loveliness as earth can yield to heaven.

"Tis not, young Prince, to thee alone is doom'd
To mourn o'er blasted hope, or love entomb'd:-
Where grass grows green, or golden grain can glow,
From burning deserts to the eternal snow,
From pathless mountain to the spicy vale,

Where birds can soar, or British ships can sail,-
From shepherd's shealing to the sculptur'd stone
Of tower and temple- all is wail and moan.

A cry is heard among the mighty ones,
The good, the great, who keep, or counsel thrones:
For the wide world has found a theme which seeks
Sighs from all hearts, and tears from sternest cheeks.

The cold sun sinks in the cold west; and see
Its glimmering gold fades fast from tower and tree;
The moon is up, and has already given
Her sober silver to the earth and heaven;

Each star is woke, and in man's sight seems dim,-
Pale as himself-in mild and mournful trim:

The funeral pomp is near-through the cold air
Waves torch and plume-and nobles' heads are bare;
The moonlight mingles with the grosser flames,
And rustic's sobs with sighs of high born dames.
This regal city has flung early out

Her worth and beauty-not with song and shout,
But with a sadden'd eye that loves to seek
The ground, and with a paleness of the cheek.
Temple and tower and palace peal around
A holy note-
e-a slow and solemn sound.

Far from the scene where star and torchlight show
Nobles in tears, and majesty in woe,

He who presumes in this sad theme to fling
His rustic hand o'er an untutor'd string,
Apart and lonely as his days have flown
Mute and inglorious-nameless and unknown-
He too will wail; and sadly will he call
His loved one near by his lone cottage wall—
No lights to 'lumine him—but those which cheer
An angel's visit- should one visit here.
He too will ponder on a tender theme-

Life's passing pageant-Hope's deceiving dream-
Virtue and sweetness, to our glad isle given,
Flown like the dew on the lark's wing to heaven.—
Mild maiden majesty fled like the beam
Of the moist star upon the troubled stream,
While heaven and earth give sign that God has trust
Of as much sweetness as death sweeps to dust.
Rude though his verse be—though it lacks the might
Of tender Campbell,-or Scott's glowing flight,
Rogers's elegance,-the feeling strong

Of Byron's lay,- -or Southey's noble song,—
Though he be none of these, at whose high call
Wealth showers her gems, and gifts of fortune fall,-
Who come abroad in pomp, and pall, and stand
With princes and the proud ones of the land :-
Yet he is one for this sad theme who brings
A grief as tender as the babe's heart-strings,—
Can drop as true a tear, as warmly call

To heaven, as can the mightiest of them all,

To bless his country, and her kingly line,

And make them like yon stars-bright, lasting, and divine.

SONNET.

BY CHARLES LAMB.

THEY talk of time, and of time's galling yoke,
That like a millstone on man's mind doth press,
Which only works and business can redress :
Of divine Leisure such foul lies are spoke,
Wounding her fair gifts with calumnious stroke.
But might I, fed with silent meditation,
Assoiled live from that fiend Occupation-
Improbus labor, which my spirits hath broke-
I'd drink of time's rich cup, and never surfeit―
Fling in more days than went to make the gem,
That crowned the white top of Methusalem-
Yea on my weak neck take, and never forfeit,
Like Atlas bearing up the dainty sky,
The heaven-sweet burthen of eternity.

TABLE TALK.

No. IX.

ON PEOPLE OF SENSE.

PEOPLE of sense (as they are called) give themselves great and unwarrantable airs over the rest of the world. If we examine the history of mankind, we shall find that the greatest absurdities have been most strenuously maintained by these very persons, who give themselves out as wiser than every body else. The fictions of law, the quibbles of school divinity, the chicanery of politics, the mysteries of the Cabbala, the doctrine of Divine Right, and the secret of the 'philosopher's stone, -all the grave impostures that have been acted in the world, have been the contrivance of those who set up for oracles to their neighbours. The learned professions alone have propagated and lent their countenance to as many perverse contradictions and idle fallacies, as have puzzled the wits, and set the credulous, thoughtless, unpretending part of mankind together by the ears, ever since the distinction between learning and ignorance subsisted. It is the part of deep professors to teach others what they do not know themselves; and to prove by infallible rules the truth of any nonsense they happen to take in their heads, or chuse to give out to amuse the gaping multitude. What every one felt and saw for himself-the obvious dictates of common sense and humanity-such superficial studies as these afforded a very insufficient field for the exercise of reason and abstruse philosophy, in the view of " the demure, grave-looking, spring-nailed, velvet-pawed, green-eyed despisers of popular opinion:-their object has regularly been, by taking post in the terra incognita of science, to discover what could not be known, and to establish what could be of no use, if it were. Hence one age is employed in pulling down what another with infinite pomp and pains has been striving to build up; and our greatest proof of wisdom is to unlearn the follies and prejudices that have been instilled into us by our predecessors. It took ages of in

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genuity, of sophistry, and learning, to incorporate the Aristotelian, or scholastic philosophy into a complete system of absurdity, applicable to all questions, and to all the purposes of life: and it has taken two centuries of metaphysical acuteness, and boldness of inquiry, to take to pieces the cumbrous, disproportioned edifice, and to convert the materials to the construction of the modern French philosophy, by means of verbal logic, self-evident propositions, and undoubted axioms-a philosophy just as remote from truth and nature, and setting them equally at defiance. What a number of parties and schools have we in medicine,-all noisy and dogmatical, and agreeing in nothing but contempt and reprobation of each other!Again, how many sects in religion, -all confident of being in the right, able to bring chapter and verse in support of every doctrine and tittle of belief, all ready to damn and excommunicate one another; yet only one, out of all these pretenders to superior wisdom and infallibility, can be right;-the conclusions of all the others, drawn with such laboured accuracy, and supported with such unflinching constancy and solemnity, are, and must be, a bundle of heresies and errors! How many idle schemes and intolerant practices have taken their rise from no better a foundation than a mystic garment, a

divining-rod, or Pythagoras's golden thigh!-When Baxter, the celebrated controversial divine, and Nonconformist Minister, in the reign of Charles II. went to preach at Kidderminster, he regularly every Sunday insisted from the pulpit that baptism

was necessary to salvation, and roundly asserted, that "Hell was paved with infants' skulls." This roused the indignation of the poor women of Kidderminster so much, that they were inclined to pelt their preacher as he passed along the streets. His zeal, however, was as great as theirs, and his learning and his eloquence greater; and he poured out such torrents of texts upon

them, and such authorities from grave councils and pious divines, that the poor women were defeated, and forced, with tears in their eyes, to surrender their natural feelings and unenlightened convictions to the proofs from reason and Scripture, which they did not know how to answer. Yet these untutored, unsophisticated dictates of nature and instinctive affection have, in their turn, triumphed over all the pride of casuistry, and merciless bigotry of Calvinism. We hear it said, that the Inquisition would not have been lately restored in Spain, but for the infatuation and prejudices of the populace. That is, after power and priestcraft have been instilling the poison of superstition and cruelty into the minds of the people for centuries together, hood-winking their understandings, and hardening every feeling of the heart, it is made a taunt, and a triumph over this very people (so long the creatures of the government, carefully moulded by them, like clay in the potter's hands, into vessels not of honour, but of dishonour) that their prejudices and misguided zeal are the only obstacles that stand in the way of the adoption of more liberal and humane principles. The engines and establishments of tyranny, however, are the work of cool, plotting, specious heads, and not the spontaneous product of the levity and rashness of the multitude. It is a work of time to reconcile them to such abominable and revolting abuses of power and authority, as it is a work of time to wean them from their monstrous infatuation. We may trace a speculative absurdity or practical enormity of this kind into its tenth or fifteenth century, supported story above story, gloss upon gloss, till it mocks at Heaven and tramples upon earth, propped up on decrees, and councils, and synods, and appeals to popes, and cardinals, and fathers of the church (all grave, reverend men!) with the regular clergy and people at their side battling for it, and others below (schismatics and heretics) oppugning it; till in the din,

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and confusion, and collision of dry rubs and hard blows, it loses ground, as it rose, century by century; is taken to pieces by timid friends and determined foes; totters and falls, and not a fragment of it is left upon another. A text of Scripture or a passage in ecclesiastical history is for one whole century" torn to tatters, to very rags," and wrangled and fought for, as maintaining the doctrine of the true and catholic church: in the next century after that, the whole body of the Reformed clergy, Lutherans, Calvinists, Arminians, get hold of it, wrest it out of the hands of their adversaries, and twist and torture it in a thousand different ways, to overturn the abominations of Anti-Christ: in the third, a great cabal, a clamour, a noise like the confusion of Babel, jealousies, feuds, heart-burnings, wars in countries, divisions in families, schisms in the church, arise, because this text has been thought to favour a lax interpretation of an article of faith, necessary to salvation; and in the fourth century from the time the question began to be agitated with so much heat and fury, it is discovered that no such text existed in the genuine copies. Yet all and each of these, popes, councils, fathers of the church, reformed leaders, Lutherans, Calvinists, independents, presbyterians, sects, schisms, clergy, people, all believe that their own interpretation is the true sense, that, compared with this fabricated and spurious faith of theirs, "the pillar'd firmament is rottenness, and earth's base built on stubble;" and are so far from being disposed to treat the matter lightly, or to suppose it possible that they do not proceed on solid and indubitable grounds in every contradiction they run into, that they would hand over to the civil power, to be consigned to prison, to the galleys, or the stake (as it happened) any one who doubted for a single instant that they were people of sense, gravity, and wisdom. Sense (that is, that sort of sense which consists in pretension and a claim to superiority) is shown, not

It appears, notwithstanding, that this sophistical apology for the restoration of the Spanish Inquisition, with the reversion of sovereign power into kingly, hands, was false and spurious. The power has once more reverted into the hands of an abused people, and the Inquisition has been abolished.