lightful selections, under the title of "Russian Anthology." The reader will, probably, feel some surprise to see the Councils of Kings treated with such manly freedom by a Russian` Poet of the last century.

"THE LION'S COUNCIL OF STATE.

A Lion held a court for State affairs :
Why? That is not your business, Sir, 'twas theirs!
He call'd the Elephants for counsellors—still

The council-board was incomplete;

And the King deem'd it fit

With Asses all the vacancies to fill.

Heaven help the State-for lo! the bench of Asses
The bench of Elephants by far surpasses.

He was a fool—the 'foresaid King-you'll say ;
Better have kept those places vacant, surely,
Than fill them up so poorly.

O no! that's not the Royal way;

Things have been done for ages thus-and we
Have a deep reverence for autiquity:

Nought worse, Sir, than to be, or to appear
Wiser and better than our fathers were.

The list must be complete, even though you make it
Complete with Asses; for the Lion saw

Such had for ages been the law

He was no radical-to break it!

'Besides,' he said, my Elephants' good sense
Will soon my Asses' ignorance diminish,
For wisdom has a mighty influence.'

They made a pretty finish!

The Asses' folly soon obtain'd the sway;
The Elephants became as dull as they!"

POETRY OF THE HINDOOS AND THE PERSIANS.

"In their descriptions of female charms, the images of the Hindoo poets are invariably taken from nature; consequently, are seldom extravagant, and they are always calculated to raise in the mind the sweet ideas of tenderness and delicacy. The Hindoo nymph is lovely, but her charms are never heightened by that kind of bacchanalian tint which glows in the attractions of the Persian beauty. With the one, we sigh to repose among shady bowers, or wander by the side of cooling streams; to weave chaplets of the lotus, or the jessamine, for her hair; and even fancy ourselves enamoured of one of the legitimate shepherdesses of our pastoral poetry. With the other, we burn to share the luxurious pleasures of the banquet; to celebrate her eyes in anacreontic measures; or toast her jetty ringlets in bowls of liquid ruby. Our heated

imagination pourtrays a Phryne or a Lais, and we picture to ourselves the wanton attractions Love is of a Grecian or Roman courtezan.

equally the ruling passion of both, but it is of different kinds: that of the Hindoo is evident, vet tender; that of the Persian, voluptuous and intoxicating.

"Nor is the character of their lovers less distinctly marked: the passion of the Hindoo youth is breathed for his mistress only; while that of the Persian is equally excited by wine and music, by roses and nightingales, as by all the blandishments of his 'sugar'd' charmer.” Broughton, on the Poetry of the Hindoos.

THE EARL OF ESSEX..

THE elegant courtier, but unfortunate Earl of Essex, was a lover of nature in all her wild varieties; and when ordered to take the command of the army in Ireland, a commission which most willingly he would have foregone, he wrote a letter to his Mistress, Queen Elizabeth, in which he complained of the appointment as a species of banishment, and closed his letter with the following lines:

Happy he could furnish forth his fate,

In some unhaunted desert, most obscure
From all society, from love and hate

Of worldly folk; then should he sleep secure.
Then 'wake again, and yield God ev'ry praise,
Content with hips and haws and brambleberry;
In contemplation passing out his days,

And change of holy thoughts to make him merry: Who, when he dies, his tomb may be a bush, Where harmless robin dwells with gentle thrush."

RICHARD TARLTON.

THIS ancient Comedian, more celebrated as a clown and a jester than as a poet, like too many of his fraternity, joined some humour to a great deal of profligacy. He was brought to London by Queen Elizabeth's Earl of Leicester, who found him in a field keeping his father's swine, and "being," says Fuller, " highly pleased with his happy unhappy answers," took him into his service. He afterwards became an actor at the Bull, in Bishopsgate Street; and, according to the veracious Chronicler, Sir Richard Baker, "for the Clown's part he never had his equal, nor ever will.”

"He was, perhaps," says Gifford, "the most

popular comic performer that ever trod the stage; and his memory was cherished with fond delight by the vulgar, to the period of the Revolution. It is afflicting to add, that this extraordinary man lived and died a profligate; for I give no credit to the songs and sonnets* which tell of his recantation and repentance. These were hawked about as commonly as 'dying-speeches,' and were, probably, of no better authority."

Not to mention the repentant verses thus doubtfully ascribed to Tarlton, he wrote "Tragical Treatises, containing sundry discourses and pretty conceits, both in prose and verse;" and, also, "Toys," in verse.

A Collection of old stories newly polished, and of some new ones, was published in 1611, under the title of "Tarlton's Jests;" and several of his witticisms are also to be found in Chettle's "Kind-heart's Dream." Some of these stories are ridiculous enough: for instance, during the time that he kept the Tabor, a tavern, in Gracechurch Street, he was chosen Scavenger, but was often complained of by the Ward, for neglect: he laid the blame on the