The fierce volcano’s flame Ne’er flashed more wildly than his furious glance! No more. ’Tis done—the double deed of death. The reeking steel, red from his rival’s heart, Is quivering now within her heaving breast. Here is murder in the first degree once more. Now some people may call this strong writing; we call it fustian run mad. Next come Riot and Folly and Theft and Love and Misery and Guilt, of which we do not recognise any one but Love as belonging to the Passions. Just here there occurs a passage, which is so clearly applicable to the “divine Fanny Elssler,” that, “in the opinion of this court,” an action on the case for heavy damages will lie. Although the _danseuse_ alluded to figures under no name whatsoever, and is merely described as “Another,” we beg leave to put it to the immense jury, consisting of the subscribers to this Magazine, what other than the “splendiferous Madam,” above named, can possibly be signified? Read the remarkable passage, and record your verdicts. Another, too, in tinselled garb, is near, ’Mid scenic splendor, like a thing of light— With limbs scarce veiled, and gestures wild and strange, She gaily bounds in the lascivious dance, Moving as if her element were air, And music was the echo of her step. Around her bold, unblushing brow are twined The deadly nightshade and the curling vine, Enwreathed with flowers luxuriant and fair, Yet poisonous as the Upas in their breath. Her sparkling eye, keen as the basilisk’s, Who marks his prey, beams with a flashing light— False as the flame which hovers o’er the gulf Of dark oblivion—tempting to destroy. Mysterious power! men shudder while they gaze— Despise, yet own her fascinating spell. As bursts the “deafening thunder of applause,” ’Mid showers of votive wreaths, and _parfum vif_— Descending like bright Juno from her cloud, With glance erratic round th’ enchanted ring— She smiles on all above, and all below, With regal condescension, and accepts The worthless homage offered at her shrine. Let not the reader hastily conclude that he has yet ascended with Mrs. Katharine A. Ware to the cloud-capped summit of turgidity. In the concluding passages of her perfectly ferocious poem, she excels herself. A higher Alp of nonsense towers above the smaller Alps we have already passed. To change the metaphor, all the former passages are mere rattling musket shot, compared to this concentrated, thundering discharge of the artillery of bombast:—