He was their chief-what is he now?
The curling lip, the bended brow,
Speak of one passion left alone
When life, and all of life, are gone-
As if some fiend in very scorn

Had bid that look in death be worn, &c.-P. 4.

There are many other instances which might be quoted to make good this charge; but we turn gladly to the more grateful task of giving a few specimens of Mr. Mant's power, only saying further on this subject, that we trust he will beware of this fault for the future. Lord Byron's style, vicious enough even in him, is intolerable in his followers. Let Mr. Mant study diligently the old English writers. All the poets of Queen Elizabeth's time, those exemplaria Græca of English literature, will amply repay his toil: the poorest of them will enrich the vocabulary of any modern, (and this, as might be expected from the nature of his past employment, is one of Mr. Mant's principal wants) and the most fanciful will purify his taste.

Mr. Mant succeeds remarkably in descriptions of the sea, and of those who "do their business in its mighty waters:" many of his lighter touches, too small and passing to extract, are singularly happy. Thus his description of the hasty manning of a frigate's boats, gives the whole scene in a few words :

Ascending from the hollow waist,
The heavy yawl a moment sways,
Suspended on the straining stays;
Upon the yards a moment rests,

Then sinks upon the billows' breasts.-P. 197.

We can hear its splash and see it float off upon the waters.

A rising hurricane is thus depicted :—

There murky clouds, expanding as they rise,
Spread their deep mantle o'er the waning skies:
Their sides, with tempest fraught and swol'n with rain,
Flung their huge shadows o'er the darkened main;
With mighty groans within, the wind advanced,
And the gloom darkened where the lightning glanced;
In hollow murmurs moaned the distant swell,
And one by one the scattered rain-drops fell.-P. 39.

At the burial of the pirate captain, we are told—

The body has sunk, and the vessel's sides
Are wet with the splash as the wave divides;
The body has sunk, but they still may trace
Its wavering way to its resting place,

Till the small faint speck of crimson hue

Is lost in the depths of the ocean blue;

And the ground shark glides from his coral cave,
To prowl o'er the seat of the pirate's grave.-P. 8.

The following is in another style:

There was a low and wooded key,

A little bay confining,

Where, in its noontide radiancy

The cloudless sun was shining;

And there, within that little bay,

On the bright tranquil deep,

A single vessel floating lay,

And slept, or seemed to sleep-P. 238.

The sixth canto contains a beautiful and very forcible description of the death of a traitor to his pirate brethren, who, by rovers' law, was sentenced to be left to perish upon a tropical island,

Bound fast to some marsh rooted tree,

Which herbage rank, and swamps surround.-P. 257.

We have only room for a sample of the tale :

Upon a wild and lonely key, a tropic day had closed;

The light wind stirr'd not in the heavens, the waveless deep reposed.
A streamlet wandered murmuring on along the shelving ground,

And fragrancy and freshness shed on the green herbage round;
And, as it widen'd in its course, and mingled with the sea,

Bright shone the pebbly bed beneath the water's purity.-Pp. 258, 259. Then follows a graceful description of the tropical vegetation of the spot, which formed altogether

a scene for childhood's dreams, that sky so still and clear,

The freshness of the clustering trees, and the mild brook murmuring near..
But there was one sad living man, alone in that fair place,

Who felt not amid nature's fruits luxuriant nature's grace;

On whom the freshness of the woods, the waters, breathed in vain,

And gave in every added charm a deeper thrill of pain.-Pp. 259, 260. We cannot follow out the fearful picture which succeeds; only one stanza we must insert, which Mr. Turner might paint, and which gives a favourable specimen of our author's power :

Time past; what knew the senseless wretch of the career of time?

What roused him with a clammy touch, and cold moist track of slime?

A something crawl'd about his limbs; is it the viper's brood?

Or nauseous reptile of the earth, or reveller of the flood?

He knew not: but the bursting sweat fell from his brow like rain.

His shuddering body strove to scare that unseen thing in vain :

He tried to shriek; his parched lips the sound of fear deny;

The wild deer had not left his lair for that low feeble cry.-Pp. 263, 264. We shall be glad to meet Mr. Mant again, when his taste is ripened by his present studies; and in the discharge of that new and sacred office, for which we believe that he is preparing, we doubt not that he will turn to good account his years of wandering upon the waters. For truly do these men works of the Lord, His wonders in the deep."

MISCELLANEOUS.

see the

The Editor is not to be held responsible for the opinions expressed in this department of the Remembrancer.]

A NEW VERSION AND ANCIENT INTERPRETATION OF THE XVIIITH OF ISAIAH.

(Continued from page 551.)

WHILE attentively perusing this elegant, yet obscurely worded little poem, or rather section of a series of poetical denunciations against Israel's foes, we have often thought that the real object of Isaiah's delineation was a gad-fly, and nothing more. This is the seventh hypothesis; and the grounds of our preference will now be stated.

A more felicitous denomination than that of p, "cymbalum alarum," or winged cymbal, cannot possibly be imagined to denote a cruel hymenopterous insect, remarkable for the jarring, cymbal-like hummings which announce its approach. That Isaiah should have called it TZILTZAL is not surprising, for, in the country which it infests, it is still known as the TZALTZALIA. Bruce notices this "jarring noise, accompanied by humming"-the signal of terror and dispersion "among the cattle, who instantly quit their food, and run wildly about, till they are exhausted with fatigue." The same traveller informs us that, in the

Ethiopic version and in Geez, it is called TZALTZALIA. He adds, that even "the thick skin of the camel is no security against its attacks ;" and this is so true that he might have confirmed the fact by an appeal to king Juba, who mentions the ointment of whale's blubber with which the camel-drivers near the Arabian Gulf preserved their cattle from the annoyances of this troublesome insect. But the description of its ravages by Philo-our Lord's contemporary, and an Alexandrian allegorizing Jew-is extremely curious. "The dog-fly," (Kvvoμvia) says this philosophical poet in prose, "derives its name from the two most impudent of living creatures-the dog and the fly." Endowσι yap καὶ ἐπιτρέχουσιν ἀδεῶς, κἄν ἀνείργη τὶς, εἰς τὸ ἀήτητον ἀντιφιλονικοῦσιν, ἄχρις ἂν αἵματος καὶ σαρκῶν κορεσθῶσιν. Ἡ δὲ κυνόμυια δηκτικὸν καὶ 'H ἐπίβουλον ζῶόν ἐστι. Καὶ γὰρ πόῤῥωθεν μετὰ ῥοίζου καθάπερ βέλος εἰσακοντίζεται, καὶ ἐπεμπίπτουσα βιαίως εὖ μάλα ἐγχρίμπτεται. Η Such is Philo's account of the fly of the fourth plague. Shameless, undaunted, insatiable, it tears the flesh and sucks the blood of man and beast. It is heard, at a considerable distance, sounding the note of alarm. It then rushes, with a cymbal-like humming and the rapidity of an arrow, on its prey. So much for Isaiah's TZILTZAL; let us now endeavour to ascertain its country or

Many years had elapsed since this paragraph was written when a passage of Horapollo met our eye. It proves that, in hieroglyphical language, the Zon depoterns, or dog-fly, was the offspring of the eril principle: it sprang from "the poisonous blood of the crocodile," (Leviathan himself,) "and denoted SLAUGHTER." The epithet depoterns seems peculiarly to denote the rectilinear upward-jerks of the tabanus, or asylum.

Bruce remarks that "the sands of the Atbara," one of the rivers of Cush, "afford a retreat from the tormentor's pursuit, so that emigrations thither from the black loamy soil where it is hatched annually take place." The dark land, where its armies are prepared for the hour of vengeance, extends "from the mountains of Abyssinia northward to the confluence of the Nile and Astaboras. All the inhabitants of the seacoast of Melinda, down to Cape Gardafu, to Zaba, and the south coast of the Red Sea, put themselves in motion, and remove to the next sand, in the beginning of the rainy season, to prevent all their stock of cattle from being destroyed."

The Abyssinian traveller has thus discovered for us "the land of the dog-fly wings or armies," a land which Isaiah threatens at a moment when a far more formidable host, breathing slaughter like its prototypethe blood-sucking brood of Leviathan the crocodile-was advancing with hasty strides. From a comparison of Bruce's narrative with the Alexandrian Philo's traditional identification of the grievous y of the fourth plague with the dog-fly of the black soil near the rivers of Cush, it may be fairly inferred that thereabouts was the country of the friendly messengers" afterwards mentioned by the prophet.

This is the fly often alluded to in the pictorial idiom as an hieroglyph of war and wickedness. Its swarms were often summoned as minis

Travels in Abyssinia.

Philo, ed. Francof. p. 622.
Browne's Vulgar Errors, b. ii. c. 7.

Juba apud Plin. Hist. Nat.

§ Horapollo, ed. Caussin, p. 77.

ters of Jehovah's wrath against incorrigible impiety. "And it shall come to pass in that day that the Lord shall hiss for the fly, 3, that is in the uttermost part,, of the rivers of Egypt. They shall come and shall rest all of them in the desolate valleys, and in the holes of the rocks, and upon all thorns and bushes," Isa. vii. 18, 19-thus (adds Bruce) "cutting off from their victims the usual retreat to the desert." Having thus given, from priestly traditional sources, the Egyptian theogony of the or, let us remark that its Syrian name was Ɔ?, DEBO, properly the TABANUS, a large gad or sting-fly; Arabic, DSEBAB; Castillan TABAN; Old French, TABAN and TAVAN. And here it may be pardonable to notice what seems to be a mythological mistake. Baal-Zebub was the Fly-God himself" the prince of the power of the air"-rather than the "God of Flies," or Zevç 'Añoμvios of Pausanias. (Eliac. 14.) He was Evil personified under the semblance of a 3, or ox-fly-a fit representative of the chief of the Theusiou, or Deuses, as they are still called in Britanny;* St. Luke's ???, chief of the devils, xi. 15. Indeed, traces of this vulgar error were not uncommon among the most civilized European nations in the time of our grandfathers; for, when Urbain Grandier, curate of Loudun, was burnt alive for bewitching a nunnery in 1634, "a large fly was seen flying and buzzing round his head, which, being interpreted, was no other than Baal-Zebub himself, watching for an opportunity to fly away with the malefactor's soul."+

66

..V

is therefore neither an "isle of the west," nor an "isle of the Gentiles," nor "an isle of the ocean," nor "an isle far away," phrases at Isaiah's service, had the vision related to the fleets that “rule the waves," whenever the cause of justice and liberty summons them from their peaceful station at Devonport. Terra cymbalo alarum is a rendering which ought not, however, to be hastily cancelled. As the land of the “Tziltzal Flies" is likewise that of the "Tziltzal Wings," the "Tziltzal Bands," the "Tziltzal Armies," and the “ Tziltzal Swarms," so it is that of the Typhonical "Cymbal of Wings," the complete sistrum. Observe how the reduplicative onomatopeia in DSEBAB coincides with that in TZILTZAL; and you will at once perceive why the sistrum (o), or Egyptian" Cymbal," is the discordant ritual and musical image of personified evil. It was adorned with the winged likeness of Typhon's female faculty or concubine-the commander in chief of the seventy-two winds-EWC, the black fiend, or Ethiopian queen, or "devil of the south," the Simoom. In Palestine, , the "flies of death,"

*For Augustin's Dusi, those Gallican fiends whom the African Father compares to Enoch's fallen angels, see City of God, xv. 23. Theus or Toes is probably the same as the Uvello-Ghernerhuian Tus, plural TUZET, whose favourite haunts are the funeral cromlechs of the most westward of the channel isles. But whether the etymon be the Irish TUS, Vorst, Chief, Prince, Leader, or the Coptic TWXI, TOSI, to (give origin to) to plant or engender, judicent peritiores. The indecent em blems which disfigure many a pagan sepulchre countenance the surmise that the libertine commander-in-chief of the Theusiou was "MAN-US Genius," the Genital Spirit, or Spiritus Rector of the human race.

+ Diction. Historiq. au mot GRANDIER. Jablonsky's Pantheon, iii. 125-127.

(Eccles. x. 1,) were proverbial; and "the black death," or "fud hyll dhu," of Wales and medieval Europe has of late exercised the ingenuity of High-Dutch medical historians.* We must, however, allow that the Hebrew, TLELATZAL, (Deut. xxviii. 42,) was not the Egyptian and Ethiopian TZILTZAL, but a tree-cricket, so called from the shrill tintinnabular noise which it makes.

The simple remark that Philo calls the dog-fly Tývor, a "fowl," or "flying" creature, that the "lady-bird" is an English beetle, and that the proper meaning of (Gen. vii. 14) is a "winged creature," will obviate a very frivolous cavil on our version of the term . It con. centrates, according to the well-known rule of poetical involution, all the secondary acceptations; and, since the offspring of Leviathan's blood is still called TZALTZALIA "in the country which it infests," the inference that this is the true op, TZILTZAL CENAPHAIM of the *, "land between the rivers of Cush,' seems to the proposer of a new hypothesis as satisfactory as it is unstrained.†

(To be continued.)

ON CONSCIENCE.

DEAR SIR,-It is the profound observation of Bishop Butler, that, from the very economy and constitution of man, it belongs to the faculty of conscience to govern and preside; and that if it had strength, as it has right; if it had power, as it has authority, it would absolutely govern the world.

But it is quite manifest, that it can only be a tender and enlightened conscience, to which Bishop Butler would ascribe such right and such authority. And if, therefore, in this, as in other instances, we would avoid the practice of calling things by their wrong names, we must clearly understand the exact scope and signification of the language which we employ. For if conscience may be compared to a glass, in which we may view both ourselves and our actions, we should consider that even as a glass, when falsely constructed, may represent a beautiful face monstrous and frightful, so conscience, when falsely informed, will make even lovely actions appear mis-shapen and terrifying by distorted representations of those things which are, in themselves, perfectly lawful and right.

Now, 'the allegation in plea of conscience ought never to be admitted,' says Dr. South, barely for itself. For when a thing obliges only by a borrowed authority, it is ridiculous to allege it for its own. Take a lieutenant, a commissioner, or an ambassador of any prince; and, so far as he represents his prince, all that he does or declares in that capacity, has the same force and validity, as if actually done or declared by the prince himself in person. But then, how far does this reach? Why so far, and so far only, as he keeps close to his instructions. For still, as great as the authority of such persons is, it is founded, not upon their own will, nor upon their own judgment, but upon their commission.

In like manner, every dictate of this vicegerent of God, where it has a Divine word or precept to back it, carries with it a Divine authority. But if

Baxter's Gloss. Brit.

✦ ERRATA.-P. 546, line 3, for

read MD. P. 547, 3d line from the bottom, for by read P. 551, 15th line from the foot of the page,

כִּי לְצֵל עולם הבא read עולם הבה P. 548, line 6, for

for read.