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From this very general outline of the story, and from these extracts, our readers will perceive that this singular Poem abounds in striking, though somewhat extravagant, situations, incidents, and characters. There is something very fine in the Vision of the Silver Veil floating ever in the van of battle, and in the unquaking and invincible faith of the Believers in the mysterious Being whose glories it is supposed to shroud. The wildness and madness of religious fanaticism entempests and tumultuates the whole Poem; and perhaps that fanaticism strikes us with more mournful and melancholy awe, from the wickedness of him who inspires it, and who rejoicingly awakens both the good and bad passions of man, to delude, to mock, and destroy him.

The character of Mokanna is, we think, originally and vigorously conceived, though perhaps its formation is attributed too exclusively to the gnawing sense of his hideous deformity of countenance. But this is an Eastern tale; and in all the fictions of the East, whether they regard characters or events, nature is described only in her extravagancies. Nor does this proceed solely from the wayward imagination of Eastern genius; for the history of those mighty kingdoms exhibits the wonderful career of many a wild and fantastic spirit, many a dream-like change, many a mysterious revolution. Thrones have been overturned, and altars demolished, by men starting suddenly up in all the power of savage enthusiasm and every realm has had its Prophets and Impostors, its Conquerors and Kings. The display, indeed, of successful imposture in politics or religion has not been confined to the kingdoms of the East; but there it has assumed the wildest and most extravagant form,—has sprung from, and been supported by, the strongest passions,—and has most lamentably overthrown, ruined, and degraded, the character of man.

Different, indeed, as the situations in which Mokanna is placed are to those of another fictitious personage, there is, notwithstanding, a striking similarity in their characters, and in the causes to which the formation of that character is attributed,—we mean the Black Dwarf. He comes deformed into the world; the injury, scorn, misfortunes, and miseries, which that deformity brings upon him, distort his feelings and his reason,—inspire him with a malignant hatred of his kind, and a sullen disbelief in the goodness of Providence. So far he bears a general resemblance to Mokanna. But the Black Dwarf is the inhabitant of a lonely cottage on a lonely moor; his life is past in a hideous solitude; the few persons who come in contact with him are low or ordinary mortals; his hatred of his kind is sullenly passive, or active only in bursts of passion, of which man, rather than men, is the uninjured object; while the darkness of his soul is occasionally enlightened by transient gleams of pity, tenderness, penitence, and remorse. But Mokanna starts up from the unknown region of his birth, at once a Prophet and a Conqueror; he is for ever surrounded with power and majesty; and the "Silver Veil" may be supposed to be the shrine of incarnate Deity. His hatred of man, and horror of himself, urge him to destroy. He is the Evil Spirit; nor is he satisfied with bloodshed, though it drench a whole land, unless he can also ruin the soul, and create wickedness out of misery. Which of these characters is the most impressive, we shall not decide. They are both natural; that is to say, we can conceive them to exist in nature. Perhaps greater power of genius was required to dignify and impart a character of sublimity to the