an event which made such an impression upon her lover, that he lost his senses. His mind being absorbed in her image, and familiar with the scenery of the place, he imagined that she was still alive and dwelt upon this Lake. Determined to find her on whom his soul was fixed, he went in pursuit of her, and as he was never seen after, it is supposed he perished in some of the dangerous morasses which environ it.

"They made her a grave too cold and damp
For a soul so warm and true,

And she's gone to the Lake of the Dismal Swamp,
Where all night long, by a fire-fly * lamp,

She paddies her white canoe.

And her fire-fly lamp I soon shall see,
And her paddle I soon shall hear;
Long and loving our life shall be,
And I'll hide the maid in a cypress tree,
When the footstep of death is near."

Away to the Dismal Swamp he speeds,
His path was rugged and sore;

The fire-fly is an insect common in this part of the country; in its flight it emits a beam of light brighter than the glow-worm.

Through tangled juniper beds of reeds,

Through many a fen where the serpent feeds,
And man ne'er trod before.

And when on the earth he sunk to sleep,

If sleep his eyelids knew,

He lay where the deadly vives * do weep
Their venomous tears, and nightly steep
The flesh with blistering dew!

And near him the she-wolf stirr'd the brake,
And the rattle-snake breath'd in his ear,
Till he starting cried-from his dream awake,
"Oh! when shall I see the frozen lake,
And the white canoe of my dear!"

He saw the Lake, and a meteor bright
Quick o'er the surface play'd.

"Welcome," he said, 66

my dear one's light."

And the dim shore echoed for many a night
The name of the death-cold maid!

Till he form'd a boat of the bucher bark

Which carried him off from the shore,

Far he followed the meteor spark,

The winds were high and the clouds were dark,
And the boat returned no more.

* A plant that grows wild in America, resembling the vine, but of a most pernicious quality.

But oft from the Indian hunter's camp,

This lover and maid so true

Are seen, at the hour of midnight damp,
To cross the lake by their fire-fly lamp,
And paddle their white canoe."

BOCCACIO'S TESEIDE.

BOCCACIO was the disciple of Petrarch; and, although principally known and deservedly celebrated as a writer or inventor of tales, he was, by his contemporaries, usually placed as a poet in the third rank, after Dante' and Petrarch. But Boccacio having seen the Platonic sonnets of his master, Petrarch, in a fit of despair, committed almost all his poetry to the flames, except a single poem, of which his own good taste had long taught him to entertain a more favourable opinion. This piece, thus happily rescued from destruction, was, until lately, so scarce and so little known, even in Italy, as to have left its author but a slender proportion of that eminent degree of poetical reputation which he might have justly claimed from so extraordinary a performance.

It is an heroic poem, in twelve books, entitled, "La Teseide," and written in the octave stanza,

called by the Italians ottava rima, which Boccacio adopted from the old French Chansons, and here first introduced among his countrymen.

The story of this admirable production of the great Tuscan novelist is well known to the English reader, in consequence of its having been selected by Chaucer as the ground-work of his Knight's Tale, the finest of his poems, and the first conspicuous example of the English heroic couplet extant. "Dryden's paraphrase of this poem," says Warton, "is the most animated and harmonious piece of versification in the English Language."

MILTON.

It is well known, that in the bloom of youth, and when he pursued his studies at Cambridge, this poet was extremely handsome. Wandering one day during the summer far beyond the precincts of the University into the country, he became so heated and fatigued, that, reclining himself at the foot of a tree to rest, he soon fell asleep. Before he awoke, two ladies, who were foreigners, passed by in a carriage. Agreeably astonished at the loveliness of his appearance, they alighted, and having

Im

admired him (as they thought) unperceived for some time, the youngest, who was very beautiful, drew a pencil from her pocket, and having written some lines upon a piece of paper, put it with her trembling hands into his own. mediately afterwards, they proceeded on their journey. Some of his acquaintances, who were in search of him, had observed this silent adventure, but at too great a distance to discover that the highly-favoured party in it was our illustrious bard. Approaching nearer, they saw their friend, to whom, being awakened, they mentioned what had happened. Milton opened the paper, and, with surprise, read these verses from Guarini :

"Occhi, stelle mortali,
Ministre de mei mali,—
Se chiusi m' uccidete,
Aperti che farate ?"

"Ye eyes! ye human stars! ye authors of my liveliest pangs! if thus, when shut, ye wound me, what must have proved the consequence had ye been open?" Eager, from this moment, to find out the fair incognita, Milton travelled, but in vain, through every part of Italy. His poetic fervour became incessantly