LITERARY NOTICES. LETTERS OF LUCIUS M. PISO, from Palmyra, to his Friend MARCUS CURTIUS, at Rome. Now first Translated and Published. In two volumes, 12mo. pp. 498. New York: C. S. FRANCIS. Boston: JOSEPH H. FRANCIS. We shall offer no apology, nor will our readers deem one necessary, for devoting so large a portion of the review department of the present number of this Magazine to an extended notice of the work before us. The letters contained in the first volume have already appeared in our pages; and the great and deserved popularity which they have acquired, will insure eager readers for the remainder, (the issue of which public opinion has hastened,) which advance in interest to the very close of the work. The conception of the plan is most felicitous- the execution masterly, beyond modern example. The author seems, primarily, to have saturated his mind with the very spirit of the past. He has rolled back the tide of time, and placed us in Palmyra, the magnificent capital of the East, and caused all her glories to pass palpably before us, as if we were gazing upon a moving panorama. Commencing with the first faint dawn of the Christian faith, he infuses into the reader 'a soul of old religion.' His characters are marked with great force; while a nice verisimilitude of individual nature is combined with elegance of fancy, and a richness of ideal coloring, wholly unsurpassed by any kindred writer. The plot-if a succession of events converging to a final point may be so denominated — is natural and unperplexed; while the minor descriptive scenes, which are often interwoven, and the inferior characters, are equally well sketched. Though fluctuating between history and romance, the work no where fails to disguise the presence of the latter. The reader is with the characters and of them, from first to last, such is the author's happy freedom of delineation, and the harmony and ease both of incident and style. We proceed to justify our encomiums by liberal extracts, commencing with a stirring picture, which our readers would readily recognise, without consulting the quis sculpsit. "1 am just returned from a singular adventure. My hand trembles as I write. I had laid down my pen, and gone forth upon my Arab, accompanied by Milo, to refresh and invigorate my frame after our late carousal-shall I term it ?-at the palace. I took my way, as I often do, to the Long Portico, that I might again look upon its faultless beauty, and watch the changing crowds. Turning from that, I then amused my vacant mind by posting myself where I could overlook, as if I were indeed the builder or superintendent, the laborers upon the column of Aurelian. I became at length particularly interested in the efforts of a huge elephant, who was employed in dragging up to the foundations of the column, so that they might be fastened to machines, to be then hoisted to their place, enormous blocks of marble. He was a noble animal, and, as it seemed to me, of far more than common size and strength. Yet did not his utmost endeavor appear to satisfy the demands of those who drove him, and who plied without mercy the barbed scourges which they bore. His temper at length gave way. He was chained to a mass of rock, which it was evidently beyond his power to move. It required the united strength of two, at least. But this was nothing to his inhuman masters. They ceased not to urge him with cries and blows. One of them, at length, transported by that insane fury which seizes the vulgar when their will is not done by the 1837.] Literary Notices. 69 brute creation, laid hold upon a long lance, terminated with a sharp iron goad, long as my sword, and rushing upon the beast, drove it into his hinder part. At that very moment, the chariot of the Queen, containing Zenobia herself, Julia, and the other princesses, came suddenly against the column, on its way to the palace. I made every possible sign to the charioteer to turn and fly. But it was too late. The infuriated monster snapped the chains that held him to the stone at a single bound, as the iron entered him, and trampling to death one of his drivers, dashed forward to wreak his vengeance upon the first object that should come in his way. That, to the universal terror and distraction of the gathered, but now scattered and flying crowds, was the chariot of the Queen. Her mounted guards, at the first onset of the maddened animal, put spurs to their horses, and by quick leaps escaped. The horses attached to the chariot, springing forward to do the same, urged by the lash of the charioteer, were met by the elephant with straightened trunk and tail, who, in the twinkling of an eye, wreathed his proboscis around the neck of the first he encountered, and wrenching him from bis harness, whirled him aloft, and dashed him to the ground. This I saw was the moment to save the life of the Queen, if it was indeed to be saved. Snatching from a flying soldier his long spear, and knowing well the temper of my horse, I put him to his speed, and running upon the monster as he disengaged his trunk from the crushed and dying Arabian for a new assault, I drove it with unerring aim into his eye, and through that opening on into the brain. He fell as if a bolt from heaven had struck him. The terrified and struggling horses of the chariot were secured by the now returning crowds, and the Queen with the princesses relieved from the peril which was so imminent, and had blanched with terror every cheek but Zenobia's. She had stood the while I was told - there being no exertion which she could make-watching with eager and intense gaze my movements, upon which she felt that their safety, perhaps their lives, depended. "It all passed in a moment. Soon as I drew out my spear from the dying animal, the air was rent with the shouts of the surrounding populace. Surely, at that moment I was the greatest, at least the most unfortunate, man in Palmyra. These approving shouts, but still more the few words uttered by Zenobia and Julia, were more than recompense enough for the small service I had performed; especially, however, the invitation of the Queen : "But come, noble Piso, leave not the work half done: we need now a protector for the remainder of the way. Ascend, if you will do us such pleasure, and join us to the palace.' "I needed no repeated urging, but taking the offered seat- whereupon new acclamations went up from the now augmented throngs - I was driven, as I conceived, in a sort of triumph to the palace, where passing an hour, which, it seems to me, held more than all the rest of my life, I have now returned to my apartment, and relate what has happened for your entertainment. You will not wonder that for many reasons my hand trembles, and my letters are not formed with their accustomed exactness." The reader would scarcely pardon an omission to record the return of Calpurnius, the captive brother of the noble Piso, in whose fate he must have become deeply interested. While at the palace, soon after the adventure above recorded, the writer is interrupted by a confused noise of running to and fro. Presently, some one with a quick, light foot approaches: "The quick, light foot by which I was disturbed, was Fausta's. I knew it, and sprang to the door. She met me with her bright and glowing countenance bursting with expression: 'Calpurnius!' said she,' your brother, is here- and seizing my hand drew me to the apartment, where he sat by the side of Gracchus-Isaac, with his inseparable pack, standing near. "I need not, as I cannot, describe our meeting. It was the meeting of brothers—yet, of strangers, and a confusion of wonder, curiosity, vague expectation, and doubt, possessed the soul of each. I trust and believe, that notwithstanding the different political bias which sways each, the ancient ties which bound us together as brothers will again unite us. The countenance of Calpurnius, though dark and almost stern in its general expression, yet unbends and relaxes frequently and suddenly, in a manner that impresses you forcibly with an inward humanity as the presiding though often concealed quality of his nature. I can trace faintly the features which have been stamped upon my memory and the form too - chiefly by the recollected scene of that bright morning, when he with our elder brother and venerable parent, gave us each a last embrace, as they started for the tents of Valerian. A warmer climate has deepened the olive of his complexion, and at the same time added brilliancy to an eye, by nature soft as a woman's. His Persian dress increases greatly the effect of his rare beauty, yet I heartily wish it off, as it contributes more, I believe, than the lapse of so many years, to separate us. He will not seem and feel as a brother, till he returns to the costume of his native land. How great this power of mere dress is upon our affections and our regard, you can yourself bear witness, when those who parted from you to travel in foreign countries have returned metamorphosed into Greeks, Egyptians, or Persians, according to the fashions that have struck their foolish fancies. The assumed and foreign air: chills the untravelled heart as it greets them. They are no longer the same. However the reason may strive to overcome what seems the mere prejudice of a wayward nature, we strive in vain nature will be uppermost - and many, many times have I seen the former friendships break away and perish. : "I could not be alive to the general justness of the comparison instituted by Isaac, between Calpurnius and Julia. There are many points of resemblance. The very same likeness in kind that we so often observe between a brother and sister such as we have often remarked in your nephew and niece, Drusus and Lavinia - whose dress being changed, and they are changed. "No sooner had I greeted and welcomed my brother, than I turned to Isaac and saluted him, I am persuaded with scarcely less cordiality. "I sincerely bless the gods,' said I, 'that you have escaped the perils of two such passages through the desert, and are safe in Palmyra. May every wish of your heart, concerning your beloved Jerusalem, be accomplished. In the keeping of Demetrius will you find not only the single talent agreed upon, in case you returned, but the two which were to be paid had you perished. One such tempest upon the desert, escaped, is more and worse than death itself, met softly upon one's bed. "Now, Jehovah be praised,' ejaculated Isaac, who himself has moved thy heart to this grace. Israel will feel this bounty through every limb: it will be to her as the oil of life.' "And my debt,' said Calpurnius, 'is greater yet, and should in reason be more largely paid. Through the hands of Demetrius I will discharge it.' We are all bound to you,' said Fausta, 'more than words or money pay.' · "You owe more than you are perhaps aware of, to the rhetoric of Isaac,' added Calpurnius. Had it not been for the faithful zeal and cunning of your messenger, in his arguments not less than his contrivances, I had hardly now been sitting within the walls of Palmyra.' Isaac,-after narrating the particulars of an affray in which he became involved in the streets of Ecbatana, by disputing the sincerity of a Persian false prophet, who was 'speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after him,' closes with the following beautiful and pathetic defence of the 'ancient covenant people :' "One word, if it please you,' said Isaac, 'before I depart. The gentile despises the Jew. He charges upon him usury and extortion. He accuses him of avarice. He believes him to subsist upon the very life-blood of whomsoever he can draw into his meshes. I have known those who have firm faith that the Jew feeds but upon the flesh and blood of Pagan and Christian infants, whom, by necromantic power, he beguiles from their homes. He is held as the common enemy of man - a universal robber whom all are bound to hate and oppress. Reward me now with your belief, better than even the two gold talents I have earned, that all are not such. This is the charity, and all that I would beg; and I beg it of you for that I love you all, and would have your esteem. Believe that in the Jew there is a heart of flesh as well as in a dog. Believe that some noble ambition visits his mind as well as yours. Credit it not it is against nature- that any tribe of man is what you make the Jew. Look upon me, and behold the emblem of my tribe. What do you see? A man bent with years and toil- this ragged tunic his richest garb - his face worn with the storms of all climates-a wanderer over the earth; my home - Piso, thou hast seen it — a single room, with my good dromedary's furniture for my bed at night, and my seat by day; this pack-my only apparent wealth. Yet here have I now received two gold talents of Jerusalem! what most would say were wealth enough, and this is not the tythe of that which I possess. What then? Is it for that I love obscurity, slavery, and a beggar's raiment, that I live and labor thus, when my wealth would raise me to a prince's state? Or is it that I love to sit and count my hoarded gains? Good friends, for such you are, believe it not. You have found me faithful and true to my engagements; believe my word also. You have heard of Jerusalem, once the chief city of the East, where stood the great temple of our faith, and which was the very heart of our nation, and you know how it was beleaguered by the Romans, and its very foundations rooted up, and her inhabitants driven abroad as outcasts, to wander over the face of the earth, with every where a country, but no where a home. And does the Jew, think you, sit down quietly under these wrongs? Trajan's reign may answer that. Is there no patriotism yet alive in the bosom of a Jew? Will every other toil and die for his country, and not the Jew? Believe me again, the prayers which go up morning, noon, and night, for the restoration of Jerusalem, are not fewer than those which go up for Rome or Palmyra. And their deeds are not less-for every prayer there are two acts. It is for Jerusalem, that you behold me thus in rags, and yet rich. It is for her glory, that I am the servant of all, and the scorn of all; that I am now pinched by the winters of Byzantium, now scorched by the heats of Asia, and buried beneath the sands of the desert. All that I have and am is for Jerusalem. And in telling you of 1837.] Literary Notices. 71 myself, I have told you of my tribe. What we do and are, is not for ourselves, but for our country. Friends, the hour of redemption draweth nigh!" - Soon after Calpurnius's return who has imbibed a hatred of Rome during his long captivity, and who espouses Zenobia's cause with great zeal — the Roman ambassadors leave Palmyra, bearing with them, from the Queen to Aurelian, a virtual declaration of war. The busy note of preparation for contest resounds through the city, the whole aspect of which is changed. Even Fausta makes ready for battle, and dons her armor. Of the latter, and how it became the noble Palmyrene maiden, the an nexed extracts speak: "As I descended to the apartment where we take together our morning meal, and which we were now for the last time to partake in each other's company, I found Fausta already there, and surveying with sparkling eyes and a flushed cheek, a suit of the most brilliant armor, which, having been made by the Queen's workmen, and by her order, had just now been brought and delivered to her. "I asked the honor, said the person with whom she was conversing, 'to bring it myself, who have made it with the same care as the Queen's, of the same materials, and after the same fashion. So it was her order to do. It will set, lady, believe me, as easy as a riding dress, though it will be all of the most impenetrable steel. The polish too, is such, that neither arrow nor javelin need be feared; they can but touch and glance. Hercules could not indent this surface. Let me reveal to you diverse secret and perfect springs and clasps, the use of which you should be well acquainted with. Yet it differs not so much from that in which you have performed your exercises, but what you will readily comprehend the manner of its adjustment.'" "She was now a beautiful vision to behold as ever lighted upon the earth. Her armor revealed with exactness the perfection of her form, and to her uncommon beauty added its own, being of the most brilliant steel, and frequently studded with jewels of dazzling lustre. Her sex was revealed only by her hair, which parting over her forehead, fell toward either eye, and then was drawn up and buried in her helmet. The ease with which she moved, showed how well she had accustomed herself, by frequent exercises, to the cumbrous load she bore. I could hardly believe, as she paced the apartment, issuing her final orders to her slaves and attendants, who pressed around, that I was looking upon a woman reared in all the luxury of the East. Much as I had been accustomed to the sight of Zenobia performing the part of an emperor, I found it difficult to persuade myself, that when I looked upon Fausta, changing so completely her sex, it was any thing more than an illusion." We make the following striking extract, for the purpose of contrasting it with a kindred picture, though reversed: "The city itself was all pouring forth upon the plains in its vicinity. The crowds choked the streets as they passed out, so that our progress was slow. Arriving at length, we turned toward the pavilion of the Queen, pitched over against the centre of the army. There we stood, joined by others, awaiting her arrival - for she had not yet left the palace. We had not stood long, before the braying of trumpets and other warlike instruments announced her approach. We turned, and looking toward the gate of the city, through which we had but now passed, saw Zenobia, having on either side Longinus and Zabdas, and preceded and followed by a select troop of horse, advancing at her usual speed toward the pavilion. She was mounted upon her far-famed white Numidian, for power an elephant, for endurance a dromedary, for fleetness a very Nicœan, and who had been her companion in all the battles by which she had gained her renown and her empire. "Calpurnius was beside himself: he had not before seen her when assuming all her state. Did eye ever look upon aught so like a celestial apparition? It is a descent from other regions; I can swear 't is no mortal- still less a woman. Fausta - this puts to shame your eulogies, swollen as I termed them.' "I did not wonder at his amazement, for I myself shared it, though I had seen her so often. The object that approached us, truly seemed rather a moving blaze of light than an armed woman, which the eye and the reason declared it to be, with such gorgeous magnificence was she arrayed. The whole art of the armorer had been exhausted in her appointments. The caparison of her steed, sheathed with burnished gold, and thick studded with precious stones of every various hue, reflected an almost intolerable splendor, as the rays of a hot morning sun fell upon it. She too, herself, being clothed in armor of polished steel, whose own fiery brightness was doubled by the diamondsthat was the only jewel she wore-sown with profusion all over its more prominent parts, could be gazed upon scarcely with more ease than the sun himself, whose beams were given back from it with undiminished glory. In her right hand, she held the long, slender lance of the cavalry; over her shoulders hung a quiver, well loaded with arrows; while at her side depended a heavy Damascus blade. Her head was surmounted by a steel helmet, which left her face wholly uncovered, and showed her forehead like Fausta's, shaded by the dark hair, which, while it was the only circumstance that revealed the woman, added to the effect of a countenance unequalled for marvellous union of feminine beauty, queenly dignity, and masculine power. Sometimes it has been her usage, upon such occasions, to appear with arms bare, and gloved hands; they were now cased, like the rest of the body, in plates of steel. "Calpurnius,' said Fausta, saw you ever in Persia such horsemanship? 'See now, as she draws nearer, with what grace and power she moves? Blame you the enthusiasm of this people?' "I more than share it,' he replied; 'it is reward enough for my long captivity, at last to follow such a leader. Many a time, as Zenobia has in years past visited my dreams, and I almost fancied myself in her train, I little thought that the happiness I now experience, was to become a reality. But, hark! how the shout of welcoine goes up from this innumerable host.' "No sooner was the Queen arrived where we stood, and the whole extended lines became aware of her presence, than the air was filled with the clang of trumpets, and the enthusiastic cries of the soldiery, who waved aloft their arms, and made a thousand expressive signs of most joyful greeting. When this hearty salutation, commencing at the centre, had died away along the wings, stretching one way to the walls of the city, and the other toward the desert, Zenobia rode up nearer the lines, and being there surrounded by the ranks which were in front, and by a crowd of the great officers of the army, spoke to them, in accordance with her custom. Stretching out her hand, as if she would ask the attention of the multitude, a deep silence ensued, and in a voice clear and strong, she thus addressed them: 'Men and soldiers of Palmyra! Is this the last time that you are to gather together in this glittering array, and go forth as lords of the whole East? Conquerors in so many wars, are you now about to make an offering of yourselves and your homes to the Emperor of Rome? Am I, who have twice led you to the gates of Ctesiphon, now to be your leader to the footstool of Aurelian? Are you thinking of any thing but victory? Is there one in all these ranks who doubts whether the same fate that once befel Probus shall now befall Aurelian? If there be, let him stand forth! Let him go and intrench himself within the walls of Palmyra. We want him not. (The soldiers brandished and clashed their arms.) Victory, soldiers, belongs to those who believe. Believe that you can do so, and we will return with a Roman army captive at our chariot wheels. Who should put trust in themselves, if not the men and soldiers of Palmyra? Whose memory is long enough to reach backward to a defeat? What was the reign of Odenatus, but an unbroken triumph? Are you now, for the first time, to fly or fall before an enemy? And who the enemy? Forget it not-Rome! and Aurelian! the greatest empire and the greatest soldier of the world. Never before was so large a prize within your reach. Never before fought you on a stage with the whole world for spectators. Forget not, too, that defeat will be not only defeat, but ruin! The loss of a battle will be not only so many dead and wounded, but the loss of empire! For Rome resolves upon our subjugation. We must conquer, or we must perish; and forever lose our city, our throne, and our name. Are you ready to write yourselves subjects and slaves of Rome!-- citizens of a Roman province and forfeit the proud name of Palmyrene? (Loud and indignant cries rose from the surrounding ranks.) If not, you have only to remember the plains of Egypt and of Persia, and the spirit that burned within your bosoms then, will save you now, and bring you back to these walls, your brows bound about with the garlands of victory. Soldiers! strike your tents! and away to the desert!' "Shouts long and loud, mingled with the clash of arms, followed these few words of the Queen. Her own name was heard above all. Long live the great Zenobia!' ran along the ranks, from the centre to the extremes, and from the extremes back again to the centre. It seemed as if, when her name had once been uttered, they could not cease through the operation of some charm to repeat it again and again, coupled, too, with a thousand phrases of loyalty and affection." The Queen takes farewell of her sorrowing friends, and departs at the head of her armed ranks, while the Princess Julia and Piso ascend the walls of the city, and from the towers of the gate observe the progress of the army: "We returned to the city, and from the highest part of the walls, watched the departing glories of the most magnificent military array I had ever beheld. It was long after noon, before the last of the train of loaded elephants sank below the horizon. I have seen larger armies upon the Danube, and in Gaul. But never have I seen one that in all its appointments presented so imposing a spectacle. This was partly owing to the greater proportion of cavalry, and to the admixture of the long lines of elephants, with their burdens, their towers, and litters- but more, perhaps, to the perfectness with which each individual, be he on horse or foot, be he servant, slave, or master, is furnished, |