Lidda, (Elisabetta) Jeu vegnu ddocu chivi? E chi su locca ? Beata chidda rina, chi ti tocca." "Pidda. Whilst the Signor is at sea with the bark, Go we to play between the sandy beach and the coffer? There whilst I sat, I heard said to me Blessed that sand, that thee touches." We must now attend the Wanderer to Malta, and are glad to find that our fellow-subjects at once made a favourable impression upon his mind, for which, as far as we may judge from his first words upon landing, no kindly predisposition had prepared the way since he slightingly says :- "We shall, of course, only stay till we can obtain a passage to Alexandria. "Città-Valetta makes a pleasing impression upon the stranger who arrives by sea. The lower part of the town adjoining the harbour, which in most seaports is nearly impassable from the filth of the fishmarket, the tar-barrels, &c., is here cleanlily paved with flag stones, and so one ascends, by a flight of broad stone steps, to the upper town, where the streets and alleys, often very steep, are all neatly paved. "This external cleanliness forms the most striking contrast with the dirty Sicilian towns, amongst which Catania alone can compare with Città-Valetta. The natives, likewise, are a much finer race of men in Malta than in Sicily. The sailors, porters, and labourers, are generally tall and well made; they dress in bright colours, as green, light blue, and red; and set off their fine figures by a showy sash twisted round the bips. The women are fairer than the Sicilians, and wear the peculiar Maltese garb. A light black silk mantle is thrown over the head and held fast to the waist by the left arm, whilst the ends, hanging down over the forehead, conceal either the right or the left eye; for it would be a terrible breach of decorum did a maiden look with both eyes at any person she may chance to pass in the street. In this, as in other things, Malta forms the point of transition between Europe and the East, where the women are completely veiled. But the Maltese fashion is attended with a great disadvantage; the constant closing of one eye produces a squint, which cruelly disfigures the most beautiful faces." At the British hotel, where he takes up his quarters, our Wanderer finds English comforts, which, as usual, he seems duly to prize; and an amusing table d'hôte. "At the table d'hôte, round which assemble a mixed society of merchants, ship-clerks, officers-civil and military, &c.—one learns all the news of the day, and often gains, from anecdotes related by the guests, a deeper insight into Maltese life. Here, the very reverse of the Babylonian confusion of tongues occurs; if there no one understood the other, here everybody understands everybody. All languages that border upon the Mediterranean are here brought together. The most opposite Oriental and Occidental elements have here blended into a peculiar language, easy enough to be understood. "English is the language of government, and of the majority of the military, public functionaries, and merchants, who constitute the first class of society; Italian ranks next, and, at Città Valetta, may be considered as the language of general intercourse. Maltese, which is nearly related to the Punic language, is spoken only by native Maltese, and would scarcely repay the trouble of learning it, (unless with philological views) since every islander, down to the sailor and porter, blunders out a word or two of English and Italian, often oddly enough distorted." At Malta our Wanderer professes to have first discovered the exquisite propriety of one of the epithets given by Homer to the sea; which epithet, we must fairly confess, has often perplexed our untravelled selves, acquainted only with our own Northern Ocean, and its tints of deep blue or transparent emerald green. The epithet we mean is oivo, purple, or red-wine colour. "A peculiar charm is found in the tints of the sea, varying with the time of the day; it is impossible to tire of looking upon them, and we here find the complete justification of father Homer, when he speaks of the purple waves.' Not that we are to think of the purple as meaning violet-so taken what would become of the purple roses ?-no; the epithet is literally correct; it depends, like all the immortal poet's images, upon unprejudiced perception, and needs no far-fetched sophistical interpretation to be alike intelligible and natural. The sea actually does assume, in place of its ordinary deep azure, a purple hue, that is to say, a dull red hue, beheld not immediately at one's feet, but further off towards the horizon. This unusual colour appears in full magnificence towards evening, provided you have the open sea before you, for it is never perceived in bays and harbours." The Wanderer's admiration of English nautical skill, and of the arrangement of an English man-of-war, is satisfactory, but not worth translating, any more than his civilian description of the appearance of Città-Valetta's impregnable works. We should equally incline to pass over his vehement complaints of the heat, "which it needs no ghost to tell us" must be oppressive upon a rock in latitude 36°, did they not give rise to a description of the manner of life at Malta, with which we shall conclude. "The houses are built of limestone. . . . The streets are paved with the same; so that, wherever the eye turns, it falls upon a dazzling white surface. It is best to learn of the natives, who, at every sunny spot, carefully wink or half close their eyes, to save them from injury. "In the hotel the only resource for alleviating the heat is opening doors and windows, to let the air circulate; and then one is in constant danger of seeing open books and scattered papers thrown into disorder by sudden gusts of the sea-breeze, and some of the latter even carried out of the door or the window. Besides, in the afternoon the whole atmosphere is so heated, that opening the windows produces little coolness. All these inconveniences are avoided in the library, where I have now almost domiciliated myself., . . "About 4 or 5 o'clock we rise, and take our walk along the ramparts, or the wide and clean main street. In the port the sound of the hammer and the hum of the undulating throng are now hushed; but upon the open sea the first glimmering of twilight shows a line of fishing boats, that, having gone out in the night, are now returning with the fruits of their labour. We tried bathing at this early hour, when the water is coolest; but the refreshment lasted not long, and we have returned to our accustomed evening bathe." Yet this must have been still less refreshing, if, as he tells us, the sea is, in the evening, by the thermometer, full three or four degrees hotter than the air. "At eight o'clock to the library, there to remain till dinner-time at the table d'hôte. Here, as in Sicily, it is customary, and therefore no solecism in good manners, for gentlemen to throw off their heavy cloth coats, and every one fans himself with an enormous fan. Most persons indeed wear only white linen jackets, in which it is even allowable to make visits, provided they be not visits of introduction, or of especial ceremony. The immoderate heat authorizes these "The next hours of oppressive heat are dedicated to the siesta, a custom to which, only here, have we begun to conform regularly, in compensation for early rising and late going to bed. . . . ... "One inconvenience peculiar to Città-Valetta, is the incessant violent ringing of church bells, to which I cannot inure myself. In the south, if once the innate indolence be overcome, every thing is done with increased vehemence and impetuosity, ringing amongst the rest; and here, at Malta, the sole object seems to be to make a stunning noise. The great bells are accompanied by many smaller ones, which the alert boy-choristers pull with indescribable zeal. Almost all day long, for mass, matins, vespers, complines, &c., resounds this assuredly not harmonious ringing, which we enjoy in full perfection at the British hotel, being close to a church. On Sundays and holidays the crashing clatter is still worse, and upon a favourite saint's day it can hardly be endured. Every polished Maltese complains of this nuisance; the English complain, foreigners complain; the very priests would fain moderate the din; but the government will not interfere, inasmuch as it is a fundamental principle of English colonial policy not to disturb or repress such external practices as, proceeding directly from, are chiefly interesting to, the people; and, in general, not to govern too much. A good rule, but I could wish for one exception, if it were only to prove it. "Towards sun-set every one hurries out of doors to breathe freely. Such a passeggiata or promenade is here indispensable, and to remain at home at this time were to violate the first rule for the preservation of health. The houses are now so heated through and through by the sun, that no cool nook can be found in them; on the port, out of the town, in sight of the dark sea, one breathes under less oppression. The Maltese passeggiata differs strikingly from an Italian and a Sicilian, in the entire absence of carriages, which are useless upon this uneven ground. Great and small, all walk indiscriminately along the smooth pavement, beside the harbour, and out through the gates. South of the town lies the only Valetta garden, where several contiguous rows of trees are to be seen; a rarity throughout the island. Amongst the fortifications indeed, and under the shade of the high walls, a custom-house officer or a bridge-inspector has here and there insinuated a little garden, at which the government, in the expectation of a long peace, connives. There, looking down from the precipitous ramparts, one sees the neatly ordered beds of culinary vegetables; the eye reposes refreshingly upon their soft verdure, upon the varied tints of the numerous flowers. Here and there are seen orange hedges and different fruit trees; and, beside an inner gate, a banana tree spreads wide its gigantic leaves, six or eight feet in length; a strangely marvellous apparition, that distinctly brings the vicinity of the tropics before the astonished eyes of the son of the north." We now lay down the pen, but look forward with pleasure to our traveller's wanderings in the Levant, which we shall lose no time in presenting to the reading public of England. ART. V.-Thaddäus Kosciuszko, nach seinem öffentlichem und häuslichen leben geschildert, von Karl Falkenstein, Königlich Sachsischem Bibliothekar, &c. &c. (Thaddeus Kosciuszko, delineated in his public and domestic Life, by Charles Falkenstein, Royal Saxon Librarian, &c. &c.) 8vo. Leipzig. 1834. THERE is in the Polish character a something of barbaric splendour and rudeness, of the very spirit of Orientalism, mingled with European education and refinement, an ardour of patriotic valour, alloyed by versatility,-both no doubt heightened, if not produced, by the strange, exciting, or rather distracting constitution of the old and truly republican monarchy of Poland,―combined with such a gay, light, mirthful gallantry-whence the Poles were once termed the French of the north-that all, blending together, give the nation a peculiar hold upon the imagination. Then, although the history of Poland is but little known to the general reader, what is known breathes a tone of romance, yet further enhancing the effect of those qualities with which it so well harmonizes. Nor has this tone of romance in actual life even now faded, however sadly or harshly coloured in later years by those reverses, that desolation, and ruin, which, in some measure, originated in the very qualities we have enumerated. No! Never, even in these our utilitarian days, has Polish romance been deadened into the cold common-place of modern philosophic civilization. The interest which this gallant and vivacious, but somewhat fickle nation, is certain to awaken in every breast, has within the last few years been wonderfully augmented and enlivened by the fearful struggle, more nobly and generously than judiciously audacious, in which they have been engaged against the northern Colossus, with whose overwhelming might they had already been proved utterly unable to cope, even when they themselves were still a nation, and when that Colossus was not yet further strengthened by provinces torn from Sweden, Persia, and Turkey, as well as by a large portion of their own territories. The Poles were no doubt unwise, we have already said so, in rising against Russia; but even the extravagant temerity of enthusiastic patriotism and love of liberty kindles a sympathetic glow in the heart, whilst the calculating despondency of selfish prudence is approved with feelings more akin to dislike than to indifference. And if, as we doubt there is but too much reason to apprehend, that rash insurrection, which has deprived Poland of even the poor shadow of nationality restored to her by the congress of Vienna, was instigated by the liberal party, as they proudly style themselves, in France and England, if this same party-from a cautious fear of provoking either the active enmity of Russia, or the equally formidable active hostility of the tax-payers at home, -afterwards left the Poles whom they had instigated to insurrection, to perish unaided,-if we say England has thus even in the remotest degree co-operated in the final annihilation of Poland, although a bitter and remorseful shame must rob our sympathy of the pleasing self-satisfaction usually blending with and sweetening that emotion-those very painful feelings must needs deepen our sympathy in every thing relative to a country, once, under her great Sobieski, the deliverer of Austria, perhaps of Europe, from Turkish bondage. Touched with sympathies such as these, combined with a desire to institute a comparison between the struggle and the disasters of 1794, and those of 1831, we took up Falkenstein's Life of Kosciuszko, which, though originally published some few years ago, has, from feelings in a great measure analagous to our own, been lately reprinted with additions and corrections. Our main object in opening the volume was disappointed. Of the political condition of Poland prior to the new constitution, or even to the |