THE MIRROR OF LITERATURE, AMUSEMENT, AND INSTRUCTION.

No. 469.] Saturday January 1, 1831 [price 2d.

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[Illustration:  Copied from one of the prints of last year’s Landscape Annual, from a drawing, by Prout.  This proves what we said of the imperishable interest of the Engravings of the L.A.]

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Petrarch and Arqua; Ariosto, Tasso, and Ferrara;—­how delightfully are these names and sites linked in the fervour of Italian poetry.  Lord Byron halted at these consecrated spots, in his “Pilgrimage” through the land of song:—­

    There is a tomb in Arqua;—­rear’d in air,
    Pillar’d in their sarcophagus, repose
    The bones of Laura’s lover:  here repair
    Many familiar with his well-sung woes,
    The pilgrims of his genius.  He arose
    To raise a language, and his land reclaim
    From the dull yoke of her barbaric foes: 
    Watering the tree which bears his lady’s name
  With his melodious tears, he gave himself to fame.

    They keep his dust in Arqua, where he died;
    The mountain-village where his latter days
    Went down the vale of years; and ’tis their pride—­
    An honest pride—­and let it be their praise,
    To offer to the passing stranger’s gaze
    His mansion and his sepulchre; both plain
    And venerably simple; such as raise
    A feeling more accordant with his strain
  Than if a pyramid form’d his monumental fane.

    And the soft quiet hamlet where he dwelt
    Is one of that complexion which seems made
    For those who their mortality have felt,
    And sought a refuge from their hopes decay’d
    In the deep umbrage of a green hill’s shade,
    Which shows a distant prospect far away
    Of busy cities, now in vain display’d,
    For they can lure no further; and the ray
  Of a bright sun can make sufficient holiday,

    Developing the mountains, leaves, and flowers,
    And shining in the brawling brook, where-by,
    Clear as a current, glide the sauntering hours
    With a calm languor, which, though to the eye
    Idlesse it seem, hath its morality. 
    If from society we learn to live,
    ’Tis solitude should teach us how to die;
    It hath no flatterers, vanity can give
  No hollow aid; alone—­man with his God must strive;

    Or, it may be, with demons, who impair
    The strength of better thoughts, and seek their prey
    In melancholy bosoms, such as were
    Of moody texture from their earliest day,
    And loved to dwell in darkness and dismay,
    Deeming themselves predestin’d to a doom
    Which is not of the pangs that pass away;
    Making the sun like blood, the earth a tomb,
  The tomb a hell, and hell itself a murkier gloom.[1]