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his fellow-man. Solitary reflection, whilst it deepens, also narrows; if too much indulged, tends to conceit, bigotry, and all those faults of which self is the base; free intercourse with our kind, on the contrary, not only warms and invigorates, but tends to correct many a constitutional fault and acquired folly.

The question how far one should yield to his own idiosyncracies, is one which we have never yet seen fully discussed; we can, at present, only glance at the opposite sides. The oft quoted motto

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And in the work be

we have long held to be of the widest application.
fore us, our author happily expresses a similar sentiment.

"Dearest friend!

If thou partake the animating faith

That Poets, even as Prophets, each with each
Connected in a mighty scheme of truth,
Have each his own peculiar faculty,

Heaven's gift, a sense that fits him to perceive
Objects unseen before, thou wilt not blame
The humblest of this band that dares to hope
That unto him hath also been vouchsafed
An insight that in some sort he possesses,
A privilege whereby a work of his,

Proceeding from a source of untaught things,
Creative and enduring, may become

A power like one of Nature's."

Such is the high ground assumed, worthy of the noblest poet. The inference is clear enough. He that would accomplish the utmost possible, must act from within, and in accordance with his own constitution. And we are persuaded that it is on this very point that most of us fail. Allured by flattering appearances, or driven by trials and severities, we forsake our own true path, and waste our lives in vain and painful efforts, too often illustrating these pointed lines of Goethe:

"Much to be pitied is the man

Who fails to do the thing he can,

But undertakes what he was never made for;
No wonder that his work gets poorly paid for !"

Each in his own peculiar sphere should be superior to every other; since that which is natural to him, auother can attain only by laborious imitation. Moreover, when we act in obedience to the inmost law of our being, we find, if we persevere, all the laws of nature acting as forces to aid and support us. We feel also a satisfaction in our efforts, not otherwise to be attained. If we mistake not, the dissatisfaction, the ennui and disgust so generally expressed, arise from our desertion of our own posts. The burden that is crushing us to earth, is clearly enough none of ours; for that, according to the proverb, we should be fitted to endure. Could we escape from the artificial life we are leading to the simplicity of nature, and in humility and trustful confidence apply ourselves only to the tasks which God and nature impose, how joyous would be our life, how inexpressible the satisfaction our successful labors would then afford! But if it be true that without self-reliance and fidelity to our own pecu

liar constitution, nothing of real value can be attained; it is equally true, that he that will be under no obligation to others, will be able to confer little upon them. Great wealth is the result of many exchanges. The Creator has not so endowed the most gifted of his children, that he can be independent of his brethren. The most perfect characters have many faults, the strongest many weaknesses, which it is the part of friendship to correct, to compensate, and, if possible, remove. The happiest culture is undoubtedly that which, leaving the stronger features of the character to their natural development, still soften many an asperity, modifies whatever is extravagant, and tends to produce a happy harmony among all the faculties. We need humility, and an open, loving spirit, that we may be ready to receive instruction from every one on any point wiser than ourselves.

The characteristics of the PRELUDE are the same as those which distinguish the author's other works; simplicity, fine descriptions of nature, and the subtler workings of his own mind, with general reflections upon man and life. The diction is often but a single remove from prose. To many the poet's delineation of the growth and development of his mind and character would have been quite as attractive without the rhythm. One naturally thinks while reading it, of the " Poetry and Truth from My Life" of Goethe; and must allow that the work of the German, though written in prose, is far more poetical. The details of actual life lose often much of their homely charm, when committed to the formality of blank Still the work is of great value as a faithful record of the inner life of a distinguished poet of our own day. Wanting the attractions of narative and incident, it pleases by the pictures which it presents of the poet, in the various stages of his progress, and the scenes and objects in which he most delighted. It is calm and cheerful, and tends to make us contented with our lot.

verse.

"The poet's soul was with me at that time:
Sweet meditations, the still overflow
Of present happiness, while future years
Lacked not anticipations, tender dreams,
No few of which have since been realized;
And some remain, hopes for my future life.
Four years and thirty, told this very week,
Have I been now a sojourner on earth,
By sorrow not unsmitten; yet for me

Life's morning radiance hath not left the hills,

Her dew is on the flowers. Those were the days
Which also first emboldened me to trust

With firmness, hitherto but lightly touched

By such a daring thought, that I might leave

Some monument behind me which pure hearts
Should reverence."

To the admirers of Wordsworth, this poem will need no commendation; and those with whom he is less a favorite, will find it not more attractive than the "Excursion." They will think it often tedious and prosaic, and passionless, as are all his works. But as the matured production of one of the most cultivated poets of our age, it certainly demands a careful perusal; and the revelation which it gives of the internal history of a noble and peculiar genius, the delineations of external nature, and the wise reflection with which it abounds, will certainly amply reward the reader.

MIRABEAU.

NEXT to Napoleon, the COUNT DE MIRABEAU was the most extraordinary person to whom that mother of prodigies, the French Revolution, gave birth. Down to that period, his life had been diversified by a sufficient number of marvellous deeds and disgusting vices, to have furnished materials for a "select library" of heroic or revolting romances.

Born in 1749, he became the most eminent and celebrated member of one of the oldest and most distinguished families of Provence. His father, the Marquis de Mirabeau, was a leading partizan of the school of Political Economists, founded by Quesnay; and after its chief, one of its ablest writers. An ultra-liberalist on paper, and an ardent advocate of theoretical equality, his life was one continuous exemplification of unbending aristocracy, making him a worthy sire of him of whom Neckar said, he was a "Tribun par calcul, et Aristocrat par goût." In boyhood, the Count exhibited a rare combination of intuitive genius, exquisite sensibility, generous daring, and vehement passion. From some cause, never fully explained, his father seems to have hated him from his very birth. Instead of providing for him that species of mental and moral nurture which would have given a right direction to his strong propensities, and caused them to shoot up and bear comely and valuable fruits, he first poisoned the soil whence they sprung, and then threw them out upon the world to grow without culture or die of neglect. By means admirably adapted to blight or to poison the heart of his child, he thwarted, indiscriminately, all his boyish plans and stifled all his youthful aspirations. At the age of fourteen, he placed him in a military school, where his robust intellect and versatile taste made large acquisitions in languages, mathematics, music and drawing, while his precocious appetite and fiery temper sought enjoyment and exercise in debauchery and broils. Leaving this school, he entered the army, became an adept in the practice of athletic sports, read with avidity all the works on military science that came in his way, and contracted the worst vices of a gay and dissolute camp. He fell violently in love, and wished to marry and quit the service. But his father, so far from yielding to his importunities, and seizing this opportunity to make his wayward son a man of purity and peace, was deeply incensed, and was on the point of banishing the Count to an unhealthy tropical colony, when the interference of some members of the Mirabeau family so far appeased his ferocity, that he commuted his sentence to imprisonment in a fortress on the island of Ré, in the bay of Biscay. This outrage unsealed the waters of bitterness in the soul of young Mirabeau; and thenceforth the persecutions of the unnatural father were returned with all the intensity of hatred which the abused son could command. The war between them was open and relentless. During the ten or twelve following years, the Count endured a series of vexations and cruelties at the hands of the Marquis, that aroused the deepest indignation and abhorrence in impartial minds. These were repaid by repeated instances of studied contempt or malignant abuse on the part of the son, that excite mingled emotions of admiration and disgust.

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Having been released from Ré, Mirabeau entered the army in Corsica, where his skill and bravery soon won him a captain's commission. Ambitious to rise in the service, he applied to his father for aid in purchasing a regiment. It was refused, and he left the camp forever. Being now two years in his majority, he married a beautiful young lady of small fortune, and retired to Limousin, a central province of the kingdom, and commenced agriculture. For a few months he passed a comparatively quiet and orderly life in this rural district. But, like the storm petrel, smooth seas and calm skies were not his favorite elements. Growing discontented with his monotonous pursuits, and looking around for a way of escape, he found himself entangled in hopeless bankruptcy. His father had scarcely given him a livre since he drove him from home to struggle against poverty and neglect in the army. He had settled in Limousin with his father's approval. He had been expected to keep up the dignity of the family, by living like a nobleman's heir. Aristocratic exaction had aided to plunge him into his pecuniary difficulties. A suitable opportunity was now afforded for parental interference to relieve him from his embarrassments. The Marquis did interfere. He brought a charge of lunacy against the Count, caused him to be arrested under a Lettre de Cachet, and confined to his estate! Subsequently, escaping from confinement to avenge an insult to his sister, his father procured another Lettre, which threw him into the castle of If. After remaining here some time, his place of imprisonment was changed to the fortress of Joux. His agreeable manners so won upon the commander of the fortress, that he gave him permission to live in the adjoining town.

It was while residing here, in 1775, that he met with an adventure which blazoned his name through Europe. Associating with the aristocracy of the town, he saw Sophie, the wife of the Marquis Monnier, president of the Chamber of Commerce of Dole. According to the practice of the ancient regime, she had been wedded, while a girl, to a superannuated man of threescore. Allied to an austere, jealous old civilian, the life of this brilliant beauty of eighteen was one round of vexation and torment. Captivated by her ripe charms, Mirabeau, then a dashing young nobleman of twenty-six, avowed his passion to the Marchioness. She was flattered by his adoration, and intoxicated by his fascinating conversation. They contracted a guilty connection. He fled to Dijon, whither she followed him. He was there arrested by his father, but contrived to escape into Switzerland, where he was immediately joined by the MarchionHunted in his mountain retreat by the spies of his father, he and his mistress took refuge in Holland. The noblesse and aristocracy of France, whose matrimonial infidelities were the jest of every court and camp in Europe, affected to be outraged beyond measure at this transgression of conjugal rights. The rage of the Marquis de Mirabeau knew no bounds. He trumpeted his virtuous indignation in the ears of the continent. A striking evidence of the unmixed purity of his anger is found in the fact, that fifteen years before, having been fascinated with the charms of Madame de Pailly, the lickerish old Marquis turned his constant wife, the partner of his youth, the mother of his children, out of doors, that he might have larger accommodations for this voluptuous Swiss mistress, who had, from that hour to this, shared his bed, ruled his household, stimulated to frenzy his hatred of his son, and goaded him to persecute with unflagging libels and lawsuits his discarded wife, filling the families

ess.

of both parties with contention, and furnishing rich food for backbiters in the saloons of Paris.

In Holland, Mirabeau remained about two years, supporting himself and his paramour by literary labors. Gross charges having been published against him by his father, he retorted by lifting, before the eye of Europe, the curtain which concealed the infidelities of the parental mansion. President Monnier prosecuted him for seduction in one of the French courts, and he was condemned to death and decapitated in effigy. An attempt was now made to get possession of his person. His father, not content that he should live in exile, unknown except as a seducer and a satirist, induced the government to violate the clearest principles of international law, by causing him and his mistress to be arrested in Holland, by a French officer, without the consent of the Dutch authorities, and brought to France. On their arrival, he was lodged in the castle of Vincennes, and she, being in a critical state of health, was kept under the eye of the police till she was delivered of a daughter, when she was sent to a convent. Throughout nearly the whole of his long confinement, Mirabeau was treated with extreme rigor. For some time he was deprived of pen, ink, paper and books. When these were at length granted to him, he employed the dreary hours in reading and writing. Everything he wrote was subject to the inspection of the governor of the castle. During his incarceration, he prepared some of his most celebrated works; among them, Lettres á Sophie and Lettres de Cachet; the former, scandalous in the extreme; the latter, worthy of the best phase of his character. This able and eloquent exposure of the manifold abuses of this convenient instrument of public persecution and private malice, of which, during his life, he was seventeen times the victim, contributed to swell the rising tide that was soon to whelm king, nobles, and Lettres de Cuchet in undistinguishable ruin. Being denied the use of paper suitable for the composition of such a work, he wrote the Lettres on blank leaves torn from the books he read, and concealed the manuscript from his keepers by stitching it in the folds of his garments, and when he left the castle carried it away unobserved. The public authorities at length began to believe, that his imprisonment was instigated by his father more from a love of revenge than a love of justice, and orders were given for his liberation. In 1780, Mirabeau, with broken health, but unsubdued spirit, turned his back on Vincennes, where he had been kept a close prisoner three years and six months.

A reconciliation, which subsequent events proved to have been heartless on both sides, was now patched up between the father and the son. Mutual charges of inconstancy passed between him and Sophie. She bitterly upbraided him for suspecting her of infidelities of which he was notoriously guilty. They separated forever. After lingering a few years in obscurity and remorse, the Marchioness terminated her wretched life by inhaling the fumes of charcoal. Mirabeau having procured a revocation of the sentence of death that had been pronounced against him for the seduction of this woman, attempted to regain the confidence of his long neglected wife. Failing to accomplish this by negociation, he harassed her with a lawsuit, which terminated in his defeat and her triumph, and the disgrace of both. Another quarrel was now fastened upon him by his father; and quitting France, in 1784, he repaired to London, accompanied by a new mistress with whom he became acquainted while dwelling in

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