476 Varieties: Critical, Literary, and Historical. ANTIPATHIES.-LAROCHEJAQUELEIN. From the London Literary Gazette. CHATEAUBRIAND. [VOL. 2 country teeming with recollections suited to his ardent imagination; he then visitThe Journal des Maires mentions a ed Turkey, Egypt, and lastly Jerusalein, woman who is seized with horrible con- the principal object of his journey. He vulsions whenever she sees a serpent or afterwards landed on the coasts of Afria toad. It likewise tells the story of M. ca, surveyed the spot on which Carthage Charles d'Escars, Bishop of Langres, once stood, and returned home through who fell into a trance at every eclipse of Spain in 1807. Soon afterward he pubthe Moon. A more extraordinary lished his Martyrs, and in 1811 l'Itinéinstance of this kind of phenomenon is raire de Paris à Jérusalem. At last related in the Memoirs of Madame de came the time when he found himself Larochejaquelein. The sight of a squirrel enabled to express freely his hatred to produced on the intrepid Henri de Bonaparte, and his devotion to the cause Larochejaquelein all the physical effects of the legitimate monarch. It was so of fear; the hero of La Vendée could early as the beginning of April 1814, not approach this weak and innocent that these sentiments burst forth with animal without trembling. This he equal beauty and eloquence, in his book himself confessed, though he smiled at entitled De Bonaparte et des Bourbons ; his own weakness, and made useless of which a prodigious number of copies efforts to overcome it. was printed by order of government, and which had an incalculable effect on the Chateaubriand was born in 1769, at public mind. He produced, at the end Comburg, near Fougères, of an antient of the same year, a work which was refamily in Brittany. He entered the ser- markable from the prevalent supposition vice in 1786, in the regiment of Na- that an august hand had influenced its varre, and was soon afterward presented composition: it was intitled Reflexions to the unfortunate Louis XVI. The Politiques sur quelques Brochures du army having revolted at the beginning of Jour. M. de Chateaubriand had been the Revolution, Chateaubriand went appointed several months by the King to over to North America in 1790, and an- fill the place of French ambassador at imated with enthusiasm for the beauties Stockholm: but he had not departed of nature, wandered with infinite delight for that city when his Majesty was obin the immense forests of the new world. liged to go to the Netherlands at the end It may be easily imagined what a power- of March 1815. He therefore accomful impression such scenes would make panied the King, and held at Ghent the on so elevated an imagination; and it station of one of his Majesty's ministers. cannot be doubted that he owed to them The report which he addressed to the much of his singular and romantic turn. King in the month of May, on the situHe lived there two years, returned to ation of France, was made public and Europe in 1792, and, resuming ser- printed even at that time in Paris withvice, was wounded in that year by a out any impediment from Bonaparte's shell before Thionville. This accident, police. Immediately on his return, the added to severe illness, which for three King created M. de Chateaubriand a years kept him on the point of death, peer of France and Minister of State: prevented him from remaining in the ar- but he throughout shewed himself an my. He then went to England, where Ultra-Royalist, and chose to dissent he experienced all the inconveniences of from the change adopted in September poverty, but became intimate with M. 1816 respecting the mode of treating the de Fontunes, whom he had slightly revolutionary party. His publication inknown in Paris; and it was this enlight- titled De la Monarchie selon la Chorte ed writer who first encouraged him to appeared a few days after the dissolution publish his Génie du Christianisme, of the Chamber of Deputies; it was which appeared in 1802. Anxious to seized by the police; and, three days add still farther to his stock of informa- after its publication, an order was intion, he departed for Egypt in July serted in the official journal, purporting 1806, taking his route through Italy, that M. de Chateaubriand was no longer and travelling through antient Greece, a to bear the title of Ministre d'Etat. Translations,) THE current was against us, and as we (From an unpublished volume of Original Poetry and came near the city (Cairo) the wind lulled almost into a calm. While we were busy at the oar, we heard some unusual sounds on the river's side, and our watermen suddenly WHEN o'er the surface of the dark green threw themselves on their faces, and began a prayer. A procession was seen in a few moments after, advancing from a grove of date trees at a short distance from the bank. It' was a band of Bedouins, who, in one of their few ventures into the half-civilized world of Lower Egypt for trade, had lost their Chief by sickness. The train were mounted, and the body was borne in the middle of the foremost troop in a kind of palancuin, rude, but ornamented with the strange mixture of savageness and magnificence, that we find not unfrequently among the nobler barbarians of the East and South." The body was covered with a lion's skin; a green, golden-embroidered flag waved over it; and some remarkably rich ostrich feathers on lances made the pinars and capitals of this Arah hearse. The tribe seemed not to observe our boat, though they moved close to the shore; their faces were turned to the setting sun, which was then touching the horizon in full grandeur, with an immense canopy of gorgeous clouds closing round him in shade on shade of deepening purple. The air was remarkably still, and their song, in which the whole train joined at intervals, sounded almost sweet. Their voices were deep and regular, and as the long procession moved slowly away into the desert, with their diminishing forms, and fading chorus, they gave us the idea of a train passing into eternity. I send you a translation of their song or hymn, such as I could collect it from the unclassic lips of a Cairan boatman. UR Father's brow was cold; his eye OUR was heavily; Pangs thick and deep his bosom wrung, Shoot up bis eagle shafts to sail. Fling loose his camel's golden rein. Whose is the hand that now shall rear, seas, With gentlest motion steals the rippling breeze: roars, And the curv'd wave aloft impetuous soars, Evil and toilsome is the fisher's lot, And oft, in vain, pursue his finny prey. Near may a murm'ring fount my senses charm, From the Monthly Review, Oct. 1817. ANACREONTIC. [From a volume of Poems, just published.] BY ARTHUR BROOKE, ESQ. NELL me not how fair she seemed, T Nor how her glances mildly beamed, For not on me those glances turned, From the Manuscript Journal of a late traveller That long indeed would be thy task in Egypt. To answer all that love would ask. NOLL, Britain, toll Thy knell the deepest, Fair Saint, that sleepest. O'er Albion's bier Both flow'r and flow'ret. Thy pearly dew-drops, Shamrock, shed; And, neighbour Lily, bow thy head, With long long farewell greet her; Drooping wail her obsequies, Oh! England's rosé Mind of Freedom, heart of Worth, From the Gentleman's Magazine, October 1817. By Professor SMYTH. HOU Bee! come freely, come, [VOL. 2 From the Naval Chronicle, Sept. 1817. We make the following extract from Phrosyne, a Gre cian Tale, from the elegant pen of H. Gally Knight, Esq. just published, and wish our limits would per mit us to give one from Alastar, an Arabian Tale, contained in the same volume, and equally inter esting. PHROSYNE.---A GRECIAN TALE. Ghore RECIA! though on thy heaven-deserted The virtues rest, and Freedom smiles no more; From Paphian groves, and Piudus' beechclad head, Though ev'ry muse and ev'ry grace be fled--- Thron'd on a height, above th' Albanian The Grecian city, Callihete, stands-- Respected still, th' unviolated right, Yearly the youthful of that hardy band, At Summer's call, desert their native land; Traders, or Sailors, o'er the neigh'bring main They rove, and brave the danger for the gain, Hence wealth is theirs, to other Greeks un known; Hence ampler minds, enlarged by these alone. From the Gentleman's Magazine. To thereford my webiny, wer; Upon a Fly that flew into a Lady's Eye, and Delight me with thy wandering hum, I'll follow as thy ramble guides; That roam'st along the summer's ray, Glean'st every bliss thy life supplies, And meet'st prepar'd thy wintery day! Bear home thy store, in triumph gay, there lay buried in a Tear. [From an old Author-Qu. who?] OOR envious soul! what couldst thou see Pio that bright orb of parity? O had the fair Ægyptian Queen VOL. 2.] And in an emulative chafe Have begg'd thy shrine her epitaph? To rip up all the Western bed Then, then compare it: Here's a gem Original Poetry. We strive not then to prize that tear, From the Monthly Review, Oct. 1817. SELECTIONS FROM THE IDyls of Gesner, TRANSLATED INTO VERSE. [Just published.] To those who love pastoral poetry, and the whole gen. tle class of composition connected with it, these selections afford a portion of their favourite entertainment. One of the best attempts in the book is THE NAVIGATION. 479 For none before this peaceful vale had known, Or such as summon, with their solemn tone, Or, haply, save some more impressive chime, Such sound as this had left yon village dome. But hark again! it is the convict's knell, SMOOTH glides the vessel which to distant Now child of sorrow, quit thy prison-cell, Conveys the lovely nymph my heart adores. most, Thy cup of bitterness to drain at last. A few short moments make thy life a dream, From the Literary Gazette, Nov. 15, 1817, If Pulci should not this week favour you with any THE sparks that shoot from Beauty's eyes A flame, a bright as that which dyes In livid gleams across the skies, That dries the mournful night's pearl tears; That flows from Cynthia's silver urn. 480 *SIR, Poetry. Translation of an Ancient Latin Ballad. To the Editor of the European Magazine. The following little poem has never before appeared in an English dress, nor indeed has the original found its way into this country-it was put into my hands by a friend, together with the Latin manu · script; and will, I doubt not, be considered a curious and interesting document by your literary readers. R.A.D----. LA HOGUE-BYE. THE ancient monument of La Hogue-Bye, or, as it is now more generally called, La Tour d'Auvergne, is situated in a beautifully romantic spot in the parish of St. Saviour, in the Island of Jersey, and is built upon an artificial mound of earth, raised to such a height as to be easily distinguished from the coast of Normandy, while it commands a delightful and extensive prospect of the greater part of the Island, which, from the number of orchard-grounds, has the appearance of a continued forest. The monument has been kept in a state of preservation, and the grounds tastefully laid out, and planted with a variety of beautiful shrubs. The incidents related in the annexed little Ballad, are with some variation, grounded upon an old Latin manuscript. HOGUE-BYE; OR THE KNIGHT OF HAMBEYA-A Romantic Tale : Translated from the French by R. A. D----, Esq. YON Gothic tow'r, that lifts its head ΤΟΝ Above the neighb'ring wood, Which oft the swain will lean to hear, When Love and Glory reign'd, At length the Knight of Hambeya came, The country of heroic fame, He vow'd to lay the monster dead, For fear could not the knight subdue, Attended by a single page, The dragon soon he found; But undismay'd the knight advanced, * The Island of Jersey, previous to the conquest, composed a part of the Dukedom of Norinandy. + Cesarea is the ancient name of Jersey. Now agonized upon the earth [VOL. 2 "May Heaven bless our gallant knight, His master's virtuous wife; And with unhallow'd passion fired, Th' assassin then, with wicked speed, Alas! I'm bound to tell; And well revenged his death. 'Oh! bear,'---he cried.--- this last request To her my soul adored. "Tell her, the fiend you nobly slew And, pointing to his wounded breast, "Oh! wife, the damned treacherous slave He said, and vanished from her sight, His master's restless shade appeased, Which ceaseless from the coast opposed Till Death at last her eye-lids closed |