not in that moment when she actually murders her children, but at some minutes previous to the murder at a time when motherly love still struggles with jealousy. The artist makes us but anticipate the catastrophe that ensues, and our imagination outstretches every thing which the painter could have exhibited to us relating to that horrible moment. But so far from blaming the painter for representing Medea to us in a moment when the struggle is undecided, we rather wish it would have remained so in the real occurrence, that the combat of the passions had either remained undetermined, or at least had lasted sufficiently long for time to subdue her rage, and at length insure a victory to maternal feelings. As to his Ajax, Timomachus does not represent him when he is raging, but sitting down, exhausted after having performed his mad deeds, and forming the design to kill himself; and this is really the raging Ajax, not because we see him in a rage, but because we perceive that he has raged, because we are forcibly struck with the magnitude of his previous rage, which we conjecture from his being now driven to despair by shame, of which he himself appears to be sensible; in like manner as we perceive the violence of a storm by the wrecks and corpses which are thrown on the shore. As to Poetry and the extent of its efforts, without at present entering into an examination how far the poet can succeed in describing corporal beauty, this must be considered as indisputable, that the whole of the immense region of perfection is open to his imitation; that the imperceptible covering under which he makes an accomplished object to appear beautiful, is but have formed of the sufferer. But should the sculptor, in placing before us the group, represent the forehead of Laocoon as bound with a turban, he would considerably weaken the effect for the forehead would ́ be partially covered, and the forehead is the seat of expression. THE SOULS OF THE JUST. SOULS of the just! whose truth and love, Recalls his beams when shadows fall. But there are wistful eyes that find And shine with you, all bright and warm, Around one glorious Deity! T. D. New Monthly Magazine. pents, although it may be considered unbecoming for a man to cry out in the agony of pain; yet as this Laocoon is the very person whom the poet has previously called us to admire as a prudent patriot, and a tender father, we do not attribute his crying out to his mental weakness, but solely to his insupportable sufferings. If it has been proved to be just in the painter not to represent his Laocoon as crying out, still it should be considered justifiable in the poet so to describe him. Another distinction between the poet and the artist is, that the artist ought not to represent his images as covered with garments; and to this rule we find that the ancients adhered. For instance, the poet describes his Laocoon as clothed with a pontifical dress, but the artist represents him as naked. The reason for this deviation in the latter is obvious: for though it may be considered as contrary to the rules of costume to represent the son of a king, who was also a priest, as undressed, yet no garment wrought by slavish hands can possess so much beauty as the work of eternal wisdom, expressed in an organized body. Necessity has given rise to dress, but what has the artist to do with that? Beauty is the highest object for the imitation of art; and although it be agreed that there is some beauty in dress, yet what is it when compared with the beauty of the human form? Should he who can accomplish the greater object satisfy himself with the less? It is not so with the poet; a garment with him is no garment, for it covers nothing: our imagination penetrates every thing. If the forehead of Laocoon, described by Virgil, is encircled with a priestly turban, so far from injuring, it strengthens the conception we have formed of the sufferer. But should the sculptor, in placing before us the group, represent the forehead of Laocoon as bound with a turban, he would considerably weaken the effect: for the forehead would be partially covered, and the forehead is the seat of expression. THE SOULS OF THE JUST. SOULS of the just! whose truth and love, Recalls his beams when shadows fall. But there are wistful eyes that find And shine with you, all bright and warm, Around one glorious Deity! T. D. New Monthly Magazine. as the fancy resort to Moulsey Hurst, or Wormwood Scrubs, to witness two fellow-creatures half-murdering each other for a purse of gold and their colours, a silk handkerchief, of vulgar pattern, for the neck of a ruffian. How much more honourable would it be to bleed for their national flag! But there is knavery as well as barbarity in these contests, and we will leave the scrubs of all denominations to themselves. From the latter I was driven by the almost certainty (if I remained) of breaking my neck over the stone walls, which it was quite fashionable and almost necessary to leap over, in and out of the sporting field. In each of these counties there was a prodigious deal of Match-Making; the country gentlemen who really had some hundreds of pounds annually, dipped and mortgaged a little, had another drawback of their unemployed stock, in the form of fine-grown, smiling-eyed, affable young ladies: now the market being overstocked, and the price being much lowered by the over-produce of these fair and flourishing plants, the owners were obliged to part with these valuables (for such as wives and mothers, they generally were) at a very low rate indeed; since this was not a dead stock on hand, but one which consumed other articles which must come from, instead of going to, market. For these mighty reasons, parents were incessantly on the alert for sons-in-law; sisters helped each other off in the best manner they could; the brothers turned husband-hunters; and if a stranger came amongst them, he was not made game of in the vulgar ordinary way, but he was either ensnared by bright eyes and warm complexions, brought down by the long bow of |