What contradictions she could reconcile.
Her bosom's snow is warm as opening spring,
And underneath the alabaster skin,

You trace the wanderings of the purple veins.
Who would believe that darkness could enlighten?
And yet no darkness ever was so deep

As that within her large love-darting eyes.
Slender, yet rounded; earthly, yet ethereal;
Her brow like ivory smooth; her dark hair falling
In showers of glossy ringlets from her shoulders;
As lightly moved as is the butterfly,

Yet mild and gentle as the turtle-dove.

But why attempt to paint her? my weak words
Are powerless to describe the inimitable.

ALADDIN (fetching his breath with difficulty).
Ah! peace, good friend- -no more, no more, I pray you,
Your picture takes away my very breath-

If she be like it, she is fair indeed.

BEDREDDIN.

Like 'tis a feeble, faithless, wretched daub,
Beside the original. Words are like threads
Viewed on the wrong side of the tapestry,
When they would paint a woman's beauty.

Bedreddin is too modest. 'Tis a charming Oriental portrait, worthy of the glowing pencil of Ferdusi or Hafiz, and quite enough to put a less tinder-hearted Mussulman than Aladdin in a state of combustion. His fate is sealed; we no longer feel the least apprehension for Fatima or Doctors' Commons, though perhaps, seeing the direction his fancy has taken, a lunatic asylum or the galleys appear no unlikely termination to his career. He hurries to the baths, setting the bastinado and the bowstring at defiance, sees Gulnara (the Badrol poudor of the original tale), and Love, inextinguishable Love, at once and for ever takes possession of his soul.

Love works upon him its usual transformation. The idler becomes earnest, concentrated, energetic. From the first a dim hope, gradually strengthening into confidence, awakens in his breast, that he-the tailor's son-shall be the husband of the princess of Persia. For what diamonds and rubies in her father's crown can be compared with those fruits of the cave which lie in his humble room at home, and which he now knows to be priceless jewels, such as Ormuz and Golconda never rivalled? The sultan is the sovereign of kingdoms, but is not he himself the possessor of that which can pur chase kingdoms, and sovereigns too, the inexhaustible wonderful lamp?

Faint heart never won fair lady, so he drowns his mother's remonstrances, and Morgiana is despatched with fear and trembling, her basket on her head, to tempt the sultan's curiosity and avarice with the present of the fruits of the cave; the pearls, diamonds, sapphires, rubies, and amethysts, plucked from the chrystal stalks of the subterannean garden.

We think we see the sultan's face when the basket is uncovered, and he and the vizier are handling its contents. No wonder he instantly promised the princess in marriage to the owner of the treasure," and no questions asked;" such a temptation would have made him promise, as the Persians say, "to eat his father." But Persians are men of their word in general, and it was very unhandsome, to say the least of it, in the Sultan, first to pocket Aladdin's present, and then break faith with him and marry her to that son of the Vizier, who, though a good fellow enough, after his kind, is not fit to hold a candle to Aladdin. Most men would have given up the matter in despair when they saw the bridal party walking home from the mosque, and witnessed the illuminations after the ceremony. But Aladdin, though taken aback by this trick of the Sultan's, does not lose courage, he knows there is oil in the lamp yet, and that many things fall out between the cup and the lip. He

hurries to his room-he lays hold of the lamp-the Giant has his orders and now Saladin, the young bridegroom, had better look to himself.

We need not go into all the particulars of the transfer of the new married couple from their palace to Aladdin's apartment, or of the false position in which poor Saladin is left night after night-watching the transit of Venus from a cold balcony, while

Aladdin occupies his place beside his bride. Every one must sympa thize with his situation, and, instead of wondering, as his father-in-law appears to do, at his applying for a divorce, we only wonder how flesh and blood could have put up with such treatment during the whole honey-moon. Saladin's reasoning seems to us quite unanswerable.

I love your lovely daughter, gracious Sultan,
But not for her, not for the world itself
Would I attempt again this wild adventure.
Ye cannot judge what 'tis to find yourself,
Stiff as a stone, upon a terrace planted,
Contemplating the stars and milky way.
Ye cannot know what 'tis to find yourself
Pulled here and there and everywhere by spirits;
To see a cursed stranger coolly place him
In your own bed, beside your wedded wife,
While you above, like a chained dog, must stand
And bay the dogstar and the grinning moon.
Gulnara! she may take the matter coolly,
Snugly she lies in her warm downy bed,
So broad, so roomy, that the naked sword
That lies between her and her demon lover,
Can do no harm; and then besides, that sword-
Yourself allowed that what our eyes behold not,
Our hearts do most unwillingly believe;
Now my own eyes have seen Gulnara laid
By the enchanter's side-but for the sword,
The naked sword, that I have never seen!
Perchance this sword is, after all, a dream-
(On your own principles, most gracious Sultan)—
A mere illusion of the maiden's brain.
GULNARA (with contempt).

Audacious slave!

"Audacious slave" is all very well, but we agree with Saladin. The sword may have been an airdrawn dagger after all. De non apparentibus et de non existentibus, eadem est ratio. On this brocard we take our stand, and maintain that, under the circumstances, the Mufti, had matters come to the push, must have awarded a separation. But matters do not come to the push, for the Sultan is brought at last to see the case in its proper light, to admit that no man of woman born could be expected to stand this persecution, and to agree that the divorce shall be quietly carried through, and things restored to their status

proposals, when they are renewed, are sneered at by the Sultan, and bitterly opposed by the Vizier, who never can forgive his son's course of practical astronomy on the terrace-and the loss of his connexion with the " very magnificent threetailed Bashaw." Before that universal solvent, however, the wonderful lamp, all obstacles give way. Its key of gold opens even the stubborn heart of the Sultan ; and Aladdin's plebeian coat of arms

-(three needles proper, we presume, in a field of cloth of gold)—is quite forgotten amidst the sparkle of the gems in which it is set. That last procession of the forty white and black slaves with the forty basins of massy gold, filled with a fresh crop of fruits from the

Ochlenschlaeger's Aladdin.

1834.1
gardens below-has done the busi-

ness.

The tailor's son is the betrothed son-in-law of the Sultan of Persia; Gulnara has discovered in the threatened and long dreaded husband, the mysterious the secretly beloved youth who had caught her eye and gained her heart at the baths; who had so often occupied Saladin's place by her side; and now, in all the pomp of the bridal procession, and surrounded by shouting multitudes, the happy pair take their way towards the palace with its hall of the four-and-twenty windows, which, to the sound of flutes and soft recorders, under the noiseless hammers of the operatives of the lamp, has risen like an exhalation of the night to receive them.

So ende part first of Aladdin :-So end too the days of boyish thoughtlessness, of youthful impetuosity, of ever-increasing, uninterrupted, infinite success. Aladdin has reached that pinnacle, beyond which there is no rising he is in that position of overstrained good fortune, which made the philosopher of Samos shun the roof of Polycrates when the very sea itself returned him-with its compliments-in the inside of a codfish, the ring which he had dropped into its waters to try his fortune. We feel that even the mighty lamp itself has no armour against fate-no spell strong enough to screw the everchanging wheel of fortune to the sticking point. There is something solemn, agitating, startling, suspicious, in the dead calm, and sultry stillness that seem to sit upon the sea of life;-and in those dusky clouds which we begin to see sailing up from Africa-lurid and thunderladen-towards Ispahan-we already prepared, by some instinctive shrinking, to anticipate the bursting of the storm. Gradually, therefore, and naturally, the play slides into a more earnest tone;not discarding entirely the humorous- -(for from the cradle to the tomb, what portion of man's life is there with which the comic mixes not?)-but becoming, like the close of life itself-more serious-more concentrated-more touching than the commencement; the deeper affections and more self-balanced energies of the man are now to supersede the boiling passions, and bound

are

631

less self-confidence of youth; Alad-
din is to undergo the sufferings which
are inseparable from human pride
and human forgetfulness of the
source of good; and now deserted
by the powers of air, he must from
his own bosom and his own re-
sources draw the lamp which is to
light him in safety through the pal-
pable obscure into which his levity
has plunged him.

Noureddin-the disappointed en-
chanter, has not been idle all this
while in his African study; he has
been handling the sand-box to some
purpose, and now by his skill in
geomancy has discovered the as-
tounding fact-that the youth whose
bones he believed to be mouldering
some fifty fathoms under ground, is
alive and well-master of the lamp,
proprietor of a palace which is one
of the wonders of the world, and
husband of a princess who is herself
the seventh wonder thereof. What
can be more seductive than the ruse
which he puts in practice to recover
the long sought for treasure: "NEW
LAMPS FOR OLD"-a cry as irresisti-
ble in the nineteenth century as the
ninth-a cry which has made many
a one at the present day exchange
the good old steady lantern-though
haply encased in a rusty or horn
cover-by which he used to walk
slowly but surely along the king's
highway, for a flashy flickering ignis
fatuus, that on pretence of leading
him to his point by a shorter cut,
leaves him all at once up to the
neck in a quagmire. Gulnara, we
think, was quite justified as matters
stood in making the most of what
she took for a piece of old lumber;
but how a steady person like Alad-
din should have left home without
locking up the most valuable article
in the house, would be a phenome-
non passing our belief, if we had not
seen cases in our own day, where
people, reckoned wise in their gene-
ration, not only allowed their old
lamps to be sold, but actually snuf-
fed them out with their own hands,
and exchanged them as old iron for
some trumpery tin article, which on
the very first trial left them in utter
darkness.

Meantime, the lamp, transferred to the custody of Noureddin, has done its duty; and while the unconscious Aladdin is following the

hounds, his wife and his palace are flying through the air in the direction of W.S W. towards the interior of Africa. It is morning, and the Sultan, taking, as usual, a mouthful of fresh air at his palace window, gives a glance towards the opposite

side of the square, where Aladdin's palace should be-but is not. He begins to doubt if he be fairly awake, after all-he calls Casan- Casan can throw no light upon the case -then the Vizier, who enters.

VIZIER.

What ails thee, mighty Sultan? art thou ill?
What grieves the mighty majesty of Persia ?
Thy cheek is feverish, thine eye is wild.

SOLIMAN.

So, then, you know not what has happened? Did you
Not pass Aladdin's palace as you came?

By Mecca and Medina, you are right;
For there was nothing in the world to see!

It is too true: the palace was in the position of the Spanish fleet when they eluded the observation of the governor of Tilbury. The Vizier puts his head out of the window, and admits the disappearance of the palace, but cooly observes, that "lightly come was lightly gone," and that there was nothing peculiarly remarkable in the fact that a palace which had been raised in one night should disappear in another. Aladdin, he would take the liberty of saying, he had never liked; he was satisfied he was some goodfornothing enchanter after all; and would recommend that, if still within bis majesty's dominions, he should be instantly arrested and brought to justice. We have a strong suspicion, from the readiness with which the Sultan listens to this advice, that he had never altogether forgiven Aladdin for his vainglorious display in finishing the twenty-fourth window of the hall, after the king had wasted half the crown jewels upon it to no effect. Be that as it may, however, immediate orders are issued for Aladdin's arrest; he is found in a wood at no

great distance from the capital, on his knees adoring his Maker, in the morning sun; for his peaceful slumbers in the forest where he has past the night, and the calm beauty and peacefulness of all about him “under the opening eyelids of the morn❞ have awakened in his heart all those feelings which have been smothered amidst the bustle of life and the pomp of palaces, and which seek an outlet long unused but not altogether choked up-through the channel of devotion. He passes at once from the splendours of his magic palace and the society of Gulnara, to the gloom and solitude of a prison, from which the only passage is to be to the scaffold. At first the violence and suddenness of the change unmans him; his despondency gives a voice even to the croaking of the deathwatch in the dungeon wall; but gradually his native cheerfulness of heart and confidence in providence, return to him; the prison, with its dreary vista of the block and executioner, lose their terrors —and visions of hope, or at least of cheerful resignation, hover over him.

The Prison.

ALADDIN (fastened to a stone by a heavy iron chain. He remains gazing fixedly in deep thought, then bursts out).

Almighty God! is this a dream? a dream!

What sound was that? Sure 'twas the deathwatch spoke.

DEATHWATCH.

Pi, pi, pi,

No hope for thee.

ALADDIN.

Is this thine only chant, ill-boding hermit,
Croaking from rotten clefts and mouldering walls-
Thy burden still of death and of decay?

DEATHWATCH.

Pi, pi, pi,

No hope for thee.

ALADDIN.

I do begin to credit thee-thou speakest

With such assurance that my heart believes thee.
Prophet of ill-Death's hour-glass, who hath sent thee
Hither, to shake me with thy note of death ?

DEATHWATCH.

Pi, pi, pi,

No hope for thee.

ALADDIN.

It cannot change its ditty if it would;
'Tis but a sound-a motion of the mouth-
Her song is but pi, pi; the rest was fancy.
'Twas I that heard it-'twas not she that sung?

DEATHWATCH.

No hope for thee.

ALADDIN.

Ha! insect-What is this ?-Think'st thou to shake
My fixed philosophy with that croak of thine?

ᏢᎥ !

DEATHWATCH.

ALADDIN.

Well-be it as it may-my hope is gone.
This brief, but oft repeated warning-note
Weighs down my bosom, fills my heart with fear.
Yes, 'tis too clear. It must be so.

Th' Enchanter

Is master of the lamp. The lamp alone
Could thus undo its work. O levity-
Thou serpent, that from Paradise drove forth
Adam ;-destroyer of all earthly bliss,

Tempter, that in good hearts dost sow the seed
Of evil, bane of health, and wealth, and peace,
Through thee, and thee alone, I suffer here.
How dark these dungeon walls close over me!
How hollow sounds the rushing of the wind,
Howling against the tower without! 'Tis midnight-
Midnight! and I must tremble for the dawn.
The lovely dawn, which opes the eyes of men,
The leaves of flowers, to me alone is fearful;

To them it brings new life, but death to me.

[The moon breaks through the clouds and shines into the prison.

What gleam is that? Is it the day that breaks?

Is death so nigh? Oh, no; it was the moon.

What wouldst thou, treacherous, smiling apparition ?

Com'st thou to tell me I am not the first

Upon whose ashy cheeks thy quiet light

Fell calmly on his farewell night of life;