"A nation powerful and strong, from the North," replied the soldier, with something like an affectation of importance, and wishing to impress on his auditors an adequate idea of the dignity of his charge.

"And yet we know them not," replied his questioner with a sneer. "They are Franji," said a second.

"No," says a third, "they are Babylonians.-They crossed our tribe last year by Bagdad, and refused or neglected to pay us tribute. By Allah ! they owe it to us still!"

The conversation for a moment paused-the hint was ominous; we were apprehensive of the commentary: the eyes of all were fixed upon us—we remained silent.

"What," says another voice," do they do here, or indeed at Tedmor?" "They come, says Nicole," to see the country."

,,

"No, no, they come for treasure, for treasure deep hidden in the earth, and there is much of it at Tedmor. Do you think we do not know these things? This very morning we saw them looking for it here-even here round our tents. One of them," pointing to our party, "had a magical instrument to his eye, by which he was enabled to look downwards into the very entrails of the earth. You may be learned, and you may be cunning, but you must not think to deceive us in this manner.”

*

This conjecture produced a momentary smile: but it soon faded away from our countenances. Our situation, we easily perceived, was every moment becoming more critical, the evening was fast approaching: there was no time for hesitation; we called on the soldier, and, in the strongest tone we could with prudence assume, urged, through him, the necessity of coming to some immediate decision. Besides the wish to avoid a night in such a camp, and surrounded with such friends, I confess I felt a more exclusively personal interest in expediting these arrangements. I felt the feverish symptoms augmenting, slow head-ache, and rheumatic and bilious pains, to such a degree that I doubted much the practicability of continuing the journey; and though one of my friends, with a kindness which I shall not easily forget, professed his readiness, in any case, to accompany me, I would have suffered a great deal rather than avail myself of such a sacrifice, or consented to have deprived him, together with myself, of all prospect of seeing Tedmor. After several minutes consultation amongst themselves, their decree was pronounced, and the conference broken up: they refused, as was I believe their intention from the outset, to accompany us to Tedmor, and required us immediately to mount our camels for Homs. We sprang with alacrity from our disagreeable posture, for all this time we had been lying amongst their bags, provisions, and every other disagreeable accompaniment, with scarcely room to turn round in; our camels were harnessed instantly, a strong countermovement had been given by the Sheikh : its execution was pressed with proportionate activity. It was now about sunset: the Desert shone like a great sea: the mists were light, the breeze refreshing, the night promised to be fine; the word was given, "Let us be off." We looked once more towards Palmyra with regret, and then sprang out into a long trot across the immensity of the Desert.

(To be continued.)

* An eyeglass.

THE LYRE'S COMPLAINT.

"A large lyre hung in an opening of the rock, and gave its melancholy music to the wind. But no human being was to be seen."-Salathiel.

A DEEP-TONED lyre hung murmuring
To the wild wind of the sea;-
"O melancholy wind," it sigh'd,
"What would thy breath with me?
"Thou canst not wake the spirit
That in me slumbering lies;

Thou strik'st not forth th' electric fire
Of buried melodies.

"Wind of the lone dark waters!
Thou dost but sweep my strings
Into wild gusts of mournfulness
With the rushing of thy wings.
"But the gift, the spell, the lightning,
Within my frame conceal'd-
Must I moulder on the rock away,
With their triumphs unreveal'd?

"I have power, high power, for Freedom
To wake the burning soul;

I have sounds that through the ancient hills
Like a torrent's voice might roll:

"I have pealing notes of Victory,

That might welcome kings from war;
I have rich deep tones to send the wail
For a Hero's death afar:

"I have chords to lift the Pean
From the Temple to the sky,
Full as the forest-unisons,

When sweeping winds are high.

"And Love-for Love's lone sorrow

I have music that might swell

Through the summer-air with the rose's breath,
Or the violet's faint farewell.

"Soft-spiritual—mournful—

Sighs in each note enshrined ;

But who shall call that sweetness forth?
Thou canst not, Ocean-wind!

"No kindling heart gives echoes
To the passion of my strain ;
I perish with my wasted gifts,
Vain is that dower-all vain!
"I pass without my glory,
Forgotten I decay-

Where is the touch to give me life?
-Wild fitful wind, away!"

So sigh'd the broken music,

That in gladness had no part ;

-How like art thou, neglected lyre!
To many a human heart!

Sept.-VOL. XXIII. NO. XCIII.

R

F. H.

ENGLISH RESIDENTS ABROAD.

"If they be grieved, let their toad-swoln galls burst in sunder for me with puffing eholer; let them turn the buckle of their dudgeon anger behind, lest the tongue of it catch their own dottrel skins. I weigh them not a niffle."-STUBBES.

I AM One of the class of English residents abroad, and if a fair field and no favour be still in vogue in the land of our birth, I should wish to be allowed a little space in the columns of the "New Monthly," for replying to a formal attack upon our whole fraternity in the last Number of the " Quarterly Review." The writer modestly assumes merit to himself for using the mild tone of reprimand or dehortation, when he might have successfully visited us with the light shafts of ridicule, or the heavier weapons of contumelious reproach; and I for one, judging by what he has said, can easily forgive him for all that he has forborne from urging, being equally disposed "to scorn his smiles, and treat with smiles his scorning." He is manifestly angry, but he wishes us no farther harm than to leave us to the consequences of our own errors, which, in his estimate, are of no mean magnitude, and not likely, therefore, to be of trifling calamity in their results. He is as merciful as my Lord Herbert of Cherbury; who, in the praise of his own tenderness, observes with an amusing naiveté, "I never used revenge, as leaving it always to God, who the less I punish mine enemies, will inflict so much the more punishment on them." For a Christian charity of this nature it becomes us to be thankful! Infinite pains are taken by the writer, who castigates his countrymen, to make careful reservations-he excepts some of the absent, not the present company, since noblemen, and the friends of Government, and the staunch opposers of all reform and innovation, might at the very moment of his writing, be enrolled among the offenders; it is admitted, however, that the great mass of the permanent dwellers upon the Continent are respectable families of the middling classes of life, driven from England by the pressure of taxation and high prices upon their narrow incomes, or by their desire to give a cheaper education to their children than they can obtain at home. These motives may be thought by some to be rather praiseworthy than culpable, but even allowing them to afford no defence for expatriation, the culprits could never have expected arraignment from the quarter whence their present censurer has started. What! is he not of that ultra-loyal party, the Church and King men par excellence, who, during the war, were accustomed at Pitt Club dinners, and other festive meetings of the friends of good government and social order, to shout out with triumphant glee and three vociferous huzzas, the established toast of "The land we live in, and may those who don't like it leave it!" Is he not one of those who chuckled at Windham's sneer against economy, when he stigmatised it as a pitiful saving of " cheeseparings and candle-ends,"—has he not been always provided with jibe, sarcasm, or abuse, for those who advocated retrenchment, vilipending them as grumblers and radicals-was he not more clamorous than a parrot against rain in railing at those who deprecated profusion and wastefulness, and predicted their results-can he deny his participancy with the men who pamper the aristocracy and the landholders, at the expense of the less thriving classes, by keeping up bread at a high and artificial price; and is he not at this very moment one of those who

support the insulting mockery of appointing a Finance Committee to suggest retrenchments, and then stultify their proceedings by refusing to effect a single saving? If oppressive taxation be the great cause of absenteeism, its reduction would seem to be the simplest remedy for the evil; but this would not answer the purposes of those, who, having long tasted the sweetness of the public money, do not like to see any of the pretty pickings, any of the loaves and fishes, removed from their grasp. That we should be assailed by a man of this stamp ; by a man who, having perhaps feathered his nest by a corrupt adherence to every administration, ought to show a little consideration for those who have had more principle, or less good luck than himself, is surely "the unkindest cut of all." Why, we are the inevitable results of his system, the work of his hands, his own act and deed, his victims; and to scold us for not staying at home to pay more taxes, when he has already taken from us nearly all the " means whereby we live," is to imitate the footpad, who maltreats the poor man he has robbed for not having a heavier purse.

"Quo lapsus sum, quid feci ?" do I boldly demand on behalf of myself and my brother absentees. What is the head and front of our offending? We have taken the gentlemen of this stamp at their wordwe have submitted to their favourite toast, we have reluctantly left the country when we could no longer live in it with comfort, we have given them what they so often and so tauntingly prayed for-" a good riddance of bad rubbish!" and we cannot but smile, when they want to woo us back for the purpose of swelling the revenue in which so many of them have a strong personal interest, to find how completely their note is changed, how bland, and courteous, and urbane, and even fawning and complimentary, these hip! hip! hip! three-times-three gentlemen can suddenly become. Lo and behold! instead of being the "bad rubbish" of which they wanted to get rid, we are converted into respectable country gentlemen, the most estimable characters in the world, so long as they reside upon their native soil, and discharge the duties of their several stations. Euge! Papa! the grumblers and radicals are "all honourable men;" and every individual capable of paying taxes, is unexpectedly rendered as important to his country as the lost Italian author of whom Boerhaave mournfully said "Omnibus potiùs quam hocce carere possumus." The fatal consequences of our absence are next pourtrayed in a long and lachrymose jeremiade. The chimneys of the family mansion are smokeless, the pew at church is closed, the village church-yard is no longer a place of pleasant meeting for the landlord and his tenants, and the neglected clergyman participates no more in the customary hospitalities, a grievance that is exceedingly naif, and savours vehemently of the Cassock, especially when the writer seems to share the regret of Selden, that the "Fairies have left off dancing, and the parsons conjuring."-We are next made responsible for the increase of poverty and crime in the neighbourhoods we have abandoned, a grave and unsupported charge, in answer to which it is sufficient to state, that if we had remained at home we should ourselves have become impoverished in a few years, and have thus contributed to swell the ranks of paupers, or perchance of criminals, the avoidance of either of which contingencies we hold to afford a present excuse for ourselves, and to make our absence an ultimate benefit, instead of a detriment to

our native country. But, admitting that absenteeism may be productive of much local evil in England, as well as in Ireland, granting even that it is the real parent of all those mischiefs which are now sworn against it, who are the guilty parties, who are the most culpable, the victims or the authors of the system that has engendered it? Needless was it for the Reviewer to enlarge upon the blessings of living in one's own country. Attachment to our native land, endeared as it must ever be to us by so many ties, sympathies, and associations, is so universal and natural a feeling, that no man can be disrooted and transplanted without pain. "So violent a wrench from all we love," can never be the result of choice; and wherever, therefore, expatriation prevails to any considerable extent, and among the respectable classes, it may safely be affirmed that the fault is not in the individuals, but springs from some intolerable defect in the system or government of the country. Let Ireland be restored to a state of tranquillity by conceding Catholic Emancipation, and redressing her other grievances; let the taxation be reduced in England, and all the necessaries of life be kept down to a lower level by allowing the free importation of corn, and an Irish or English emigrant would soon become as scarce upon the Continent as a French one now is in England. Until some approximation be made towards these desirable results, I doubt whether many of them will be wheedled back, even by the smooth-tongued cajolery of the writer in question, unless he can first disprove that important fact in household economy-" Qu'on vit de bonne soupe, et non de beau langage."

But if we smile at his blandishments when he would decoy us within the pale of taxation, we must laugh outright when he hints at coercion, and by way of punishment, should we contumaciously refuse to come into Court, suggests the propriety of a property tax; that is to say, that when the admitted cause of the evil is an excess of taxation, the remedy is to be an increase of the imposts! This is indeed to smother a fire with gunpowder, to cure an atrophy by bleeding, to lure the absentee back to his house by running away with his furniture. It is ludicrous to see how instantly these gentry who have a pensioner's interest in the revenue, propose taxation as the infallible succedaneum, the universal panacea that is to salve all the maladies of the State. With one eye on the Red Book, and the other on the Schedule of the year's Revenue, they have a single simple method for adjusting the balance,to impose fresh burthens if the latter falls short. As to effecting their object by any retrenchment of the former, it is a thought that never enters their heads. To give him his due, however, the Reviewer is particularly courteous, and even friendly, at the very moment that he is suggesting this playful little plan for putting his hand into our pockets. He rivals the politeness as well as the conduct of Lamorce and the Bravoes in the last act of "The Inconstant:"-" Ha! ha! ha! Sir, you have got the prettiest ring upon your finger there-but I would not take it upon any account-a family ring! (Takes it.)—Oh, dear Sir, an English watch, Tompion's, I presume. (Takes it.) But, Sir, above all things, I admire the fashion and make of your sword-hilt. (Takes it.) Lookye, Sir, mine is a family wig, and I would not part with it, but if you like it-(They exchange wigs.) Oh, Sir, we shall rob you.

"

"That you do, I'll be sworn," says Mirabel aside; and so might the English absentee say openly, if he is to be heavily and vindictively amerced