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1817.] approaching and inevitable darkness of his fate:

That awful chorus does not, unless we be greatly mistaken, leave an impression of destiny upon the mind more powerful than that which rushed on the troubled spirit of Azo, when he heard the speech of Hugo in his hall of judgment.

In all these productions of immortal poets, we see the same desire to represent incest as a thing too awful to spring up of itself, without the interference of some revengeful power—the same careful avoidance of luxurious images—the same resolution to treat unhallowed love with the seriousness of a judge, who narrates only that he may condemn the guilty and warn the heedless. It was reserved for the happier genius of Leigh Hunt, to divest incest of its hereditary horror—to make a theme of unholy love the vehicle of trim and light-hearted descriptions, of courtly splendours and processions, square lit towers, low-talking leaves, and cheeks like peaches on a tree. What the Rape of the Lock is to the Iliad, that would Rimini be to Parasina. It would fain be the genteel comedy of incest.

Surely never did such an idea enter into the head of any true poet, as that of opening a story like Rimini with a scene of gaiety. What sort of heart must that be, which could look forward to the perpetration of such fearful guilt, without feeling incapacitated for present jollity? And yet Mr Hunt has ushered in the fatal espousal of Francesca with all the glee and merriment of any ordinary wedding; and she, the poor victim of unhappy passion, is led to the altar of destruction, trickt out, as if in mockery, with all the gawds and trappings that his laborious imagination could suggest. The reader feels the same disgust at this piece of ill-timed levity, with which one might listen to a merry tune played immediately before an execution. We have no sympathy with those who come to survey Mr Hunt's "marriage in May weather." We cannot enjoy the sunshine of his "sparkling day." We turn away with contempt from his brilliant spectacle of

We shut our ears to his "callings, and clapping doors, and curs," and cannot think of taking our seat, "with upward gaze," to stare at his "heaved-out tapestry." What a contrast is the opening of Parasina! What a breathing of melancholy! What a foretaste of pity!

"It is the hour when from the boughs The nightingale's high note is heard; It is the hour when lovers' vows Seem sweet in every whispered word; And gentle winds, and waters near, Make music to the lonely ear. Each flower the dews have lightly wet, And in the sky the stars are met, And on the wave is deeper blue, And on the leaf a browner hue,