My sister Dona Sancha is, At least the priest asserted this, When that I got baptismal grace. "I rest beneath the greenwood tree, For I have travelled long to see Bastard Mudarra near and farSon of the Spanish renegadeHim who commands a ship to sid The Moorish king, Aliatar. "Certes, unless he shuns my wrath, "Yes, by my Christian soul and faith, No other hand shall to the death His miscreant body doom but mine; This is the dearest hope I hold""They call thee Don Rodrigo boldRodrigo of De Lara's line? "Then listen, lord!-The youth who now "I, son of the bold renegade Who doth command a ship to aid The royal Moorish potentate I, and my dagger, and my wrong— We three are here, we three are strong!"Rodrigo said: "thou comest late!" "For thee, Rodrigo, far too soon, Unless thou deem thy life a boon Of which thou'rt weary-Dost thou quake? Thy face is white; wretch, yield to me Thy life, so may thy spirit be Thy angel's in the burning lake! "Now, with my true Toledo blade, And the good help of God to aid— "Yes, Dona Sancha's nephew here Shall in thy ruddy heart's blood dear Slake all this long-devouring thirst. My uncle, die! no more for thee Days, hours, or fleeting moments be!"— "Nephew, Mudarra, hear me first! "Wait thee a moment, till I stand Where thou didst send them first, begone! "If to this moment, everywhere, I've worn my thirsty dagger bare, "Tis that I thought, and hugged the thought, That, to avenge the renegade, Thus, should my agate-hilted blade Find its red scabbard in thy throat!" It should have found it four or five stanzas back;-though the harangue is bloody and bitter enough; and anything in the way of prolixity has had excellent epic precedent in Homer. Victor Hugo's sentiment is very often injured by very great extravagancies and exaggerations. He has a genius for gorgeous enumerations and graphic details. He gets a heap of grand and luxuriant images, and he " glides o'er them like a golden fish." He exhibits all the French taste for dramatic effect, and his movement sometimes, compared with Byron'sfor instance-or Cowper's, is that stage carriage of which Mrs. Crummles's gait, walking up the aisle, in Nicholas Nickleby, is the caricature-a pausing, pronounced advance on a measured stride. Every stanza has its pointed rounding-and this, to an American taste, may, in some instances, be thought amusing enough. In his Greek Child-a boy lying amidst the ruins of Scio, which the Turks had desolated, is addressed, and asked what he looks for or mourns for; and all the beautiful and poetical attractives of childhood are poured interrogatively out, till they are completely exhausted, and then the child-"the child of the blue eyes" a high-stomached young rogue!-cries out-no, none of these Je veux de la poudre et des balles. "I want powder and ball!" In another lyric, a dervish witnesses the grief of a Pacha, and in nine stanzas sums up the probable, picturesque causes of his awful and ominous look, and you think it must be one of the finest and weightest of them, till you come to end, and find it is only Son tigre de Nubie est mort! His Nubian tiger is dead! In another, called Mazeppa, the poet desires to say that a fated bard is like the Ukraine chief, carried in painful transit amidst perils and discomforts, till he sinks and then becomes a king-posthumously as it were : Il court, il vole, il tombe This the poet says, in twenty-three stanzas— about one hundred and forty lines. He does not leave out a bound of the animal-a rood of the long way, or a pang of the victimmaking all up into stanzas with a good point -a palpable hit, at the end of each. Byron would have put the matter into three rapid lines and a hemistich-Cowper or Moore into a couplet. These exaggerations, so incompatible with an Anglo-Saxon taste, could be easily multiplied. We are apt to smile at them; but our dramatic and sentimental neighbours of the other republic are vividly touched with them. Perhaps they laugh in turn, and deservedly, at some of our own literary complacencies. These things are, however, but the weeds as we think them-of a rich soil, the exuberances of a glowing mind leaping, in its error, over climax into anti-climax-making that step which, Tom Paine says, divides, at times, the sublime and the ridiculous. Victor Hugo has a crowd of countervailing beauties. The following Orientale is picturesque and natural. An Arab is made to remember the French Sultan (Bonaparte) who sent the echoes of his name from the Pyramids and Tabor all through the East: BOUNABERDI. Souvent Bounaberdi, Sultan des Francs d'Europe, etc. Lo, Bounaberdi, the Frank Sultan, oft, Whence, looking o'er the ocean and the sands, The world's two parts are in his sight, at once, Stretched far below him in profound expanse. Thus, on the summit stands he, lone and high: And the old chieftain, as by turns he sees The desert cloud, and hears the ocean tossed, Dreams as a lover dreams, and shapes from these A host, a numberless and viewless host, Marching before his shadow-going by Beneath the horizon's edge, eternally. O, Bounaberdi, when to yonder height The poem called Vau is considered one of the most graceful of the Orientales. Here is the wrong side of the tapestry : WISH. Si j'etais la feuille que roule, etc. Were I a leaf, swept to and fro In the light wind's uncertain sigh, And borne along the river's flow, Marked by the dreamer's vacant eye I would all freshly flee away Beyond the river's stormy sweep, Beyond the forest vast and gray, Beyond the gorge so dim and deep, My flight should be, away, away. Beyond the she-wolf's grim retreat, Beyond the ring-dove's forest haunt, Beyond the plain where pilgrims meet Three graceful palm-trees by a fount; Beyond the rocks whence rudely go The storms that waste the standing corn, Beyond the lake where, bending low, The lonely bushes seem to mourn; Beyond the sands where sternly goes, With ataghan, the chieftain Moor. And wrinkled forehead swarth, that shows Like Ocean's in a stormy hour: O'er Arta's mirror-pond, afar, Swift as the feathered arrow strays, And o'er the mount whose summits bar Corinth's and Mykos' mutual gaze As by a charm attracted down, I'd pause, in morning's early rays, And to the priest's fair daughter gay, And sports before her door at even; There, fugitive light leaf, would I, My wanderings done, my wishes crowned, Alight upon her brow and lie Mid the fair ringlets clustering round; There, tho' but for an instant's flight, That sweeps the Sultan's starry brow. Five years after his Orientales, Victor Hugo published his Feuilles d'Automne. These are of a graver and more subdued tone-treating chiefly of domestic feelings, affections, and remembrances. Some of the best and worthiest sentiments of the poet will be found in this collection. There is a household and pathetic interest in the two following lyrics, which induces us to offer them in American, in preference to others of more profound philosophy and higher pretensions. INFANCY. When baby comes, the family circle cries With great applause: its little sparkling eyes Brighten all bosoms in that happy place, And saddest brows, and guiltiest, it may be, Unwrinkle on a sudden, but to see That innocent glad face. Yes, whether June has greened the sward, or whether Sometimes we speak, while stirring up the fire, At night, when man sleeps and his spirit dreams, You are the dawning, infant! and my mind Odours of flowers whose sweetness comes from you A forest, too, whose shadows, softly wild, For your fine eyes are full of infinite sweetness, It looks so fair, the infant with its smile, Its soft sweet trust, its voice that knows no guile, And, gracious Lord, to all whom I hold dear, And even unto my foes, this grace be granted ;- Home by no children haunted! The next treats of a more melancholy household, and its sentiments are extremely natural and touching. THE GRANDMOTHER. Grandmamma, wake, if you are sleeping there! Your lips don't stir-your breath don't come to us. Your head bends lower than it used to be; We and the lamp will all be dead and gone! Near the dark lamp we'll both be dead, and then What will you do when you awake distressed, And find us deaf, in turn, while you complain? Praying your saint to make us live again You must embrace us long upon your breast. We'll chafe your hands in ours; sing us the lay Of the poor troubadour-how the knight of fame Would win, by favour of the friendly fay, Trophies as nosegays for his lady gay, And how his war-cry was a loving name. Tell us what sign the phantoms ever fled, Or show us, in your Bible, pictures fine- A wisp is dancing on the embers low, How cold your arms are! you did lately say Thus mourned they long alone; at morning-tide, Two little children, kneeling unconsoled. MADAME ROLAND IN PRISON. BY PHOEBE GARDINER. WITH spirit undismayed she kneels in prayer, The world has lost for her its charmed power; In chains she suffers for her country's wrong, No mother with her gentle hand is near, Pursues with tireless wing its viewless way; Death's shadow falleth fast upon her brow; CHAPTER III. BY MRS. C. H. BUTLER. (Concluded from p. 216.) TEA was over ere Horace came down stairs, notwithstanding the repeated summons of the housekeeper-and to his credit be it said, his appearance was now much more becoming the society of such charming young ladies, than the negligent attire in which he paid his first devoirs. As he drew near the open door of the parlour, a skilful hand swept over the keys of the piano, as if to test its tone and finish, and then, above the music of gay voices arose the enlivening air of a waltz, and by the time Horace entered the room, the whole bevy of fair girls were tripping it like so many fays to the lively music,-all, except the charming musician, Gabriella, who, with her head bent archly over one shoulder, while her fingers swiftly swept the keys, nodded gaily to the dancers as they flew past her in the giddy waltz. Round and round on twinkling feet they airily glide-forms all lightness-arms entwining, and rosy lips parted with smiles that would vanquish St. Anthony, -gently and lightly round and round they float. For a moment or two the delighted old uncle contents himself with humming the air, and beating time with hand and foot, then skimming into the circle, he throws his arm round little Meggie, and away they twirl with the rest-twirling, whirling, rising, sinking, round and round-and faster Gabriella touches the keys, and faster fly the merry waltzers. Now they take a wider circuit, and nearerever nearer to the spot where Horace stands entranced, they come circling on, their floating ringlets mingling with his breath, and bright eyes gazing roguishly into his, as round and round they circle past—while round and round in bewildering maze the brains of Horace are circling too! Are these beautiful forms real he sees before him? Do such fair beings indeed exist; and like the maidens of old who enticed the angels from their pure abode, are these bewitching forms about to turn him from the | would cause us all much chagrin-is it not so, cloud-land in which he had so long loitered? | girls ?" But the gay measure suddenly ceases,―and panting and laughing, each fair waltzer sank down. "Whe-w-w-you good for nothing little rogues, you have made my old head spin like a top-steady-steady-take care-there I am safe!" cried the old gentleman plunging down upon a corner of the sofa. "Ah! are you there, Mr. Diogenes?-why where's your tub?" addressing Horace. And as if for the first time aware of his presence, six pair of bewitching eyes turned full upon our hero. “I have been a silent spectator of your enjoyment, fair cousins," said Horace, bowing to the lovely circle. "True, Constance-I am sure my visit instead of being a pleasure, will only be a vexation, if Cousin Horace sacrifices his own enjoyment!" said Kate. "And so will mine-indeed it will!" cried another. "And mine," added a third, "and besides, our dear uncle is so kind, and has so many plans for our amusement, that I really don't see any necessity for Cousin Horace to waste a single moment upon us!" "You see how it is-so banish all restraint, and let not another minute of your valuable time be thrown away," said Constance in a grave and decided manner. "And here," cried Kate, demurely handing "Indeed; but not a participator, of course," him a little silver candlestick, "is a light remarked Gabriella. "Why of course not," added Kate; "our folly can only be annoying to our cousin." "You wrong me, Miss Mansfield," said Horace; "I assure you that in the present instance I believe the spectator enjoyed even more than the performers." "And you'll dance with me next time, Cousin Horace, won't you?" cried little Meggie, the youngest of the six fair girls, not yet in her teens, tripping across the room, and catching his hand. "Come, Constance is going to play for us." "For shame, Meggie !” exclaimed Constance gravely, lifting her finger in reproval-"how can you thus annoy your cousin!" 66 Pray do excuse the child-she is very thoughtless-I beg you will not heed her foolish request. Fie, Meggie!" added Gabriella. "Never trouble yourselves, girls," exclaimed Mr. Mansfield; "not even the charmed fiddle I read about when a boy, were it in the hands of old Orpheus himself, could make our solemn scholar here cut a single caper!" Horace felt exceedingly annoyed. "Is there not a charm more potent here, my dear father?" he said, smiling at little Meg. "Ah yes, you will dance-there, I knew you would. Constance-Kate-Cousin Horace will dance!" exultingly cried the little gipsy. Constance arose, and taking the little girl by the hand drew her away, saying, at the same time, in a most grave and earnest manner, which her laughing eyes more than half belied, "Cousin Horace, as we are to be the guests of my dear uncle for some weeks, we trust you will not out of any courtesy to us, neglect or forego those pleasures so much more congenial to you we know the study, not the drawingroom, is the spot where you most love to be, and therefore to feel that our presence here compels you, through politeness merely, to forsake it, -and now do, dear cousin, return to your books, and give yourself no trouble about us." In vain Horace tried to speak-in vain he essayed to refute the charges they were heaping upon him-his tongue refused all utterance. He looked to his father for assistance—but just at that moment the old gentleman was engaged in a desperate battle with a horned-beetle, which with flying handkerchief he was chasing from corner to corner-and so poor Horace suffered himself to be bowed and courtesied out, by his kind considerate cousins! |