the chapters of "Ship and Shore," particularly the Funeral Procession, the World, and the stanzas on a Morning at Messina. The few found in the subsequent volume are happy specimens of the art. One, in particular, is beautifully touching; we refer to the lines written on an incident which occurred at Egina. The poems are all characterized by ease, sprightliness, and point. They show a richness of rhythm, a brightness of fancy, and a power of conception, which belong to the genuine poet. We have so long detained the reader by an account of the general features of Mr. Colton's books, that we have but a brief space in which to advert to particulars, or to bring into view the kind and amount of the information which they embody. What of critical remark remains, will be conveniently introduced, as we touch upon a few detached portions. Although the writer's object seems partly to have been to excite and amuse, in order to find readers, in these days of novel-patronizing mania, and he has hence thrown upon his pages, in rapid succession, passion, sentiment, philosophy, and the warm hues of poetry; yet he has not forgotten the more important concern of sober and solid improvement. Information of a valuable description is communicated, and that in no inconsiderable degree. After all that has been written respecting the countries included in his descriptions, the reader will find much that is new in fact, or by way of comment, as well as rendered peculiarly interesting, by the manner in which the relation is given. Our author's description of Madeira, at which island he spent a short time, is the most interesting which we recollect to have read respecting that "paradise of the Atlantic." It is a fresh, lively picture of a spot eminently enchanting by its natural features, and its associations in the gay world. In a single chapter, there is a succinct account of its physical aspect, wines, climate, the city of Funchal, priests, society, and the usual items embraced in such sketches. But we should do injustice to the author's charming description of the scenery of Madeira, not to notice, in another part of the narrative, his ride to the Curral. We will give it, however, in his own words. The conclusion will be found to consist of one of those fine, sentimental touches, to which allusion has before been made. "From the convent we passed the humble church of St. Antonio, and thence onward and upward through a continuous series of vineyards, all sheltered from the chilling effects of the north winds, by the heights to which we were tending. The orange-tree was bending under its golden burden; the banana revealing between the bright expanse of its broad leaves its delicious treasures; and the low winds, which had slept amid the flowers through the night, were abroad, scattering the perfume of their gathered sweets. A mile or two further of these gradual ascents, and cultivation ceased; the vine, save here and there, could not find soil in which to strike its roots; and even where it could effect this foothold, was chilled into sterility. We continued on, now in a zigzag motion, up the steep height, and then on a path of frightful narrowness and elevation around its sharp pinnacle, till our steps were at length suspended on the verge of the Curral. "This inland wonder is a valley of a wild ravine character, lying at a depth of three thousand feet beneath the cliff on which we stood, and surrounded on all sides by an equal, and, at many points, by a still loftier range of rocks. Far down in its green bosom, a cluster of white cottages may be seen, in the midst of which stands the delicate church of Nossa Senhora do Livramento, and near by, the humble mansion of the goodly padre. These habitations, from our elevated position, appeared not larger than what might well accommodate the prattlers of the nursery; and the hawk, which wheeled midway, dwindled to the form of a bird that might rock itself to slumber in a rose-bud. "The quiet aspect of this little village contrasted strangely with the mountain barrier which towered in wildness and grandeur around it. In many places these precipices dropped to the bottom with an almost perpendicular front; in others they were broken, and there the til and vinhatico cast below the deep umbrage of their forest gloom. While over the wave-worn steep rushed some stream, on its exulting course, to the torrent that called to it from beneath. It was a place where the thunder-cloud would seem most at home, yet as the calm bow will sometimes attend this minister of sublime terror, so this sweet hamlet smiled out from its terrific dwelling-place. "We now commenced our descent to the valley, which we reached by an extremely narrow path, cut along the steep face of the rocks, and requiring in us a philosopher's steadiness of brain, and a ropedancer's dexterity of balance. The ingenuity displayed by our Burroqueros, in getting down our ponies, was quite original, and but for the perils attending it, would have been burstingly ludicrous. When a smooth precipitous descent of several feet occurred, where the animal could obtain no foothold, they would let him down upon his patient haunches, by the flowing length of his tail, with many appliances of a steadying character, nicely adjusted to the emergency of the occasion. This will appear about as credible as the story of the flying-horse; but if there never be a greater deviation from truth, exaggeration and falsehood will cease among travellers. "On reaching the small church of the hamlet, we found a tiny flag flying from something like a liberty pole in its court, and a little cannon sending out its noisy breath. On enquiring for the occasion of this military display, we were informed that it was in honour of the sainted lady, whose image we now discovered on the flapping banner. I had heard of prayers being offered to saints, but the homage of gunpowder was a novelty. It is a little singular that the same element which the assassin employs for the destruction of his victim, the suppliant should use in worship of his saint. But enough of this heterodox deviation. "Standing in the centre of this deep valley, though the indications of human life and industry are around one in a variety of forms, yet there is very little that forcibly reminds him of man. This domestic sentiment is overwhelmed in the mightier impressions of nature. From the bottom of a profound abyss, he is looking up to mountains which steeply enclose him on all sides, and tower to the very heavens in the wildest magnificence. From the broken summits, around which the cloud rallies in darkness, down to the torrent that rolls at his feet, every thing awes and subdues him. Wherever he turns, the threatening mass of some lofty cliff, or the shadowy mysteries of some unpierced chasm, or the hollow voice of some unseen water-fall, or the perpetual gloom of the forest tree, impresses him with sublime terror. He feels as one shut out from the gayer scenes of earth-confined within an insurmountable barrier of precipitous rock, and doomed forever, in his helplessness and desertion, to tremble under a sense of height and depth, solitude, solemnity, and danger. "Yet the unpretending tenants of this secluded spot pursue their quiet vocations, as free of alarm as they are of molestation. They cultivate their vines in the very crater, whose bursting energies throw up this island from the bed of the ocean. Every thing around them has upon it the marks of volcanic violence, and seems still to be pillared upon a slumbering earthquake; but these ominous appearances and recollections do not disturb their calm and ever cheerful contentment. "This results from the force of habit. It is this mysterious principle in our nature that enables the mariner to sing under the dark frown of the coming storm-that makes the peasant sleep soundly at the shaking foot of Etna-and the chamois hunter pursue his game, in lightness and glee, along the glittering verge of the avalanche. Can any thing within the range of our conceptions more thoroughly adapt man to his condition than nature? and this she effects so silently and unperceived by the individual himself, that, before he is aware of it, he is singing under the clouds that mantle the tempest-looking with exulting sensations into the eye of the volcano-or holding a carnival over the ashes and bones of an entombed city. Let those who treat with lightness the untutored influences of nature, find in reason, if they can, a more effective and pervading power." In the prosecution of the voyage our author touched at Lisbon. That city, with the portion of its vicinity which he visited, is neatly though not very extensively described. His keen sense of the ludicrous seems to have found several appropriate objects in this stage of his adventures. The reader will not soon forget his humorous account of the " literary hotel of Madame Julia." At the close of the chapter which contains a notice of his few rambles about Malaga, occurs one of the beautiful poetic pieces before alluded to, viz. The Funeral Procession. We give it below. "But yesterday and thou wert bright And warm and fast around thee fall "No more, sweet one! on thee, no more No more the purple twilight pour "Yet as the sweet surviving vine, And bloom as freshly as before; To breathe in fragrant beauty there." The chapter which describes the passage from Malaga to Mahon is well worthy of the reader's attention, notwithstanding its light and eccentric character, as giving, we doubt not, a just account of some of the common superstitions of sailors. Passing by other places described, or incidents recorded, we come to the voyage from Milo to Smyrna, and the short visit at Cape Colonna, on the southern extremity of Attica. Here, as our author descants on the magnificent remains of the temple of Minerva, we find, immediately following it, a specimen of that beautifully pensive, moralizing strain, which is a striking characteristic of these productions. "Lingering around the relic, which now seems to sanctify Colonna, I found myself invaded by one deep and melancholy sentiment-a sentiment of utter desolation. I was standing where thousands once thronged to pay their festive devotions, where the ancient Sunium embraced its happy multitudes, where the eloquent Plato, with his serene philosophy, soared like an angel with his golden lyre to heaven. Now not a human being to be seen, not a solitary voice to be heard, and not even a sound stirring to relieve the unbroken silence of the place, except the hollow moan of the wave, as it died on the desolate shore. I could have sat down there and wept over the dark destiny of man; for if a people so inventive in monuments, to perpetuate their power and splendour, become a blank, how soon will those spots, now the seats of refinement, opulence, and gaiety, be changed to empty sepulchres! and the ruin will never stop, nor will it ever be repaired. Babylon is still a desert, and Palmyra known only to the wandering Arab. Other continents may perhaps be discovered, and other islands emerge from the ocean, but over all that now smiles in the light of the sun, the dark tide of ruin and death moves on with a slow but inevitable tread. "The only solace in our doom is the assurance that nature in her salient and self-restoring power may remain-that the same sun which gilds our palaces will gild our graves-that the same sky which pavilions our pomp and pride, will canopy our dust. But this cannot benefit us, or serve to cheer the pilgrim, who may ages hence wander to our tombs. What know the dead who were sepulchred here of the surviving light and influences of nature? It is of no moment to them that the succession of morn and eve, the budding spring and mellow autumn are still repeated. And the stranger who pauses here, only feels a deeper sadness at seeing the wave still sparkle on its strand, and the light with its purple and gold still fringing the cliff, while all else only bespeaks decay and ruin." For other specimens of this sort, we refer our readers to remarks on the earthquake at Lisbon, page 120; on nature and man, page 242; on ancient tombs, page 254; on the ruins of Scio, page 278; on the burial-ground of the Turks and Armenians around Smyrna, page 229 and onward, all in "Ship and Shore," besides others of equal interest in the "Visit to Constantinople and Athens." Of the perils of the voyage from Smyrna to the city of Constantine, described at the commencement of the latter volume, we have a vivid picture. The prospect of Constantinople from the island of Marmora, and a night scene in the city itself, are richly painted. There is much of the colouring of poetry in these touches. Of the various objects of curiosity and interest in this great city our author has drawn a striking picture, and communicated no inconsiderable degree of information concerning the present state of affairs in the Turkish capital. In describing the cha. racter of the Turk, which is the subject of some subsequent chapters, he has put forth, in our opinion, one of his happiest efforts. Indeed, we think, few things in the present volumes, or elsewhere, of the kind, are equal to his delineations of the Turks, and also of the Greeks; the latter following the other in the course of the narrative. He has evidently made these people a subject of much and discriminating thought, and thrown the distinctive features of their character into bold relief. An extract from the twentieth chapter, in which the Turk and Greek are brought into contrast, is given below. The antithesis is wonderfully elaborated and sustained. The correctness of the portraiture is abundantly avouched by history. "The Turks and Greeks, though living for centuries under the same government, the same political institutions, and in constant habits of intercourse, yet present, in their characteristic features, even to the casual observer, the most striking contrasts: the Turk is patient and enduring; the Greek, restless and refractory: the Turk is enquiring and distrustful; the Greek, inconsiderate and sanguine: the former acts from reflection; the latter, from impulse: the Turk submits in silence to his wrongs, and conceals his resentments till the perpetrator is within his fatal reach; the Greek flies into passion, and loses his redress in the loudness of his premonitory execrations: the Turk exercises his ingenuity in preventing a disaster; the Greek, in escaping from its consequences: the Turk fails in his enterprises from a want of confidence in himself; the Greek, from a vain, over-calculating excess of this confidence: the former is defeated by having too little enthusiasm; the latter, by having too much: the Turk will liberate a caged bird, and lop off the head of a human being; the Greek will keep the cage close, and overthrow the gallows, when perhaps it ought to stand: the Turk takes care of his horse and dog; the Greek takes care of himself: the former feeds the stranger, but puts him to death for the impiety of a look into his harem; the latter allows him to kiss his wife, and then starve: the Turk cherishes his wife here, and divorces her in a future state; the Greek neglects her here, and expects to live with her hereafter: the Turk prides himself in the number and appearance of his children; the Greek, in the number and livery of his VOL. 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