Who left his blissful seats above- When he to fair Olympia pressed, And stampt an image of himself, a sovereign of the world. The listening crowd admire the lofty sound; 66 A present deity!" they shout around; "A present deity!" the vaulted roofs rebound; With ravished ears The monarch hears And seems to shake the sphere. The praise of Bacchus, then, the sweet musician sung, Of Bacchus, ever fair and ever young! The jolly god in triumph comes! Sound the trumpet! beat the drums! He shows his honest face. Now give the hautboys breath! - he comes! he comes ! Bacchus, ever fair and young, Bacchus' blessings are a treasure; Sweet the pleasure; Sweet is pleasure, after pain! Soothed with the sound, the king grew vain; Fought all his battles o'er again; And thrice he routed all his foes, and thrice he slew the slain, The master saw the madness rise; His glowing cheeks, his ardent eyes! He chose a mournful muse, He sung Darius, great and good, By too severe a fate, Fallen fallen! fallen! fallen!— The various turns of fate below; The mighty master smiled to see For pity melts the mind to love. Softly sweet, in Lydian measures, War, he sung, is toil and trouble; Honor but an empty bubble; Never ending, still beginning, Fighting still, and still destroying: Take the good the gods provide thee. Who caused his care, And sighed and looked, sighed and looked, At length, with love and wine at once oppressed, Now strike the golden lyre again A louder yet, and yet a louder strain! And rouse him like a rattling peal of thunder. Has raised up his head! As awaked from the dead, And amazed, he stares around. See the snakes that they rear, And the sparkles that flash from their eyes! Behold a ghastly band, Each a torch in his hand! Those are Grecian ghosts, that in battle were slain, And unburied remain, Inglorious, on the plain. Give the vengeance due To the valiant crew. Behold how they toss their torches on high! How they point to the Persian abodes, And glittering temples of their hostile gods! The princes applaud with a furious joy; And the king seized a flambeau, with zeal to destroy: Thais led the way To light him to his prey; And, like another Helen, fired another Troy. Thus long ago, Ere heaving bellows learned to blow, While organs yet were mute,— Timotheus to his breathing flute And sounding lyre, Could swell the soul to rage, or kindle soft desi:e. At last, divine Cecilia came, Inventress of the vocal frame: The sweet enthusiast, from her sacred store, With nature's mother wit, and arts unknown before. Or both divide the crown: Dryden's dramatic pieces number about thirtytragedies, comedies, tragi-comedies and operas. The earliest was The Wild Gallant, a comedy (1662), the latest, Love Triumphant, a tragi-comedy (1694). The larger, and by far the best part of his prose writings are of a critical character. ON SHAKESPEARE. Shakespeare was the man who of all modern, and perhaps ancient poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul. All the images of nature were still present to him, and he drew them not laboriously, but luckily; when he describes anything, you more than see it, you feel it, too. Those who accuse him to have wanted learning, give him the greater commendation. He was naturally learned; he needed not the spectacles of books to read nature; he looked inwards, and found her there. I cannot say he is everywhere alike; were he so, I should do him injury to compare him with the greatest of mankind. He is many times flat, insipid- his comic wit degenerating into clenches, his serious swelling into bombast. But he is always great when some great occasion is presented to him; no man can say he ever had a fit subject for his wit, and did not then raise himself as high above the rest of poets, "Quantum lenta solent inter viburna cupressi." The consideration of this made Mr. Hales of Eton say that there was no subject of which any poet ever writ but he would produce it much better done in Shakespeare; and however others are now generally preferred before him, yet the age wherein he lived, which had contemporaries with him, Fletcher and Johnson, never equalled them to him in their esteem; and in the last king's court, when Ben's reputation was at its highest, Sir John Suckling, and VOL. VIII.-23 with him the greater part of the courtiers, set our Shakespeare far above him.- Essay on Dramatic Poesy. On the last day of April, 1700, the Postboy announced that "John Dryden, Esq., the famous poet, lies a-dying;" and he died at three o'clock on the next morning. The body was embalmed, and lay in state for several days at the College of Physicians and Surgeons. The pompous public funeral took place in Westminster Abbey on May 13, the body was interred in the Poets' Corner, by the side of the graves of Chaucer and Cowley. It was not until twenty years afterward that a modest monument was put up at the expense of Lord Mulgrave, afterward Earl of Buckinghamshire. D U CHAILLU, PAUL BELLONI, a Franco-American explorer; born at Paris, July 31, 1835; died at St. Petersburg, Russia, April 30, 1903. His father had established himself as a trader on the West Coast of Africa, where Paul joined him at an early age. In 1852 he went to the United States, with a large cargo of ebony, and published several papers relating to the Gaboon country. In 1855 he returned to Africa and spent three or four years in exploring the almost unknown region lying about two degrees on each side of the equator. He returned to America in 1859, taking with him a large collection. of curiosities, stuffed birds, and animals, among which were several skins and skeletons of the gorilla, a huge ape. In 1861 he published an account of these expe |