網頁圖片
PDF
ePub 版

party spirit and his want of toleration for
other sects broke out.
p. 323, &c.

We find we must defer our Review of "Ormond" till our next number.

eyes,

Now won-won by the Victory of Victories!
For this, had bled their battle round the world;
For this, they round the world had come to war;
Some, with the shattered ensign that unfurled
And some, the blue Atlantic stemming far;
Its lion-emblems to the Orient-star;
And some, a matchless band from swarthy Spain,
With well-worn steel, and breasts of many a

scar;

And all their plains to their last conquering plain

vain.

show

over all.

triumphant
The gale has come,—at once the fleecy haze
Floats up,-then stands a purple canopy,
Shading the Imperial City from the blaze.
Glorious the vision! tower and temple lie
Beneath the morn, like waves of ivory,
With many an azure streak, and gush of green,
As grove and garden on the dazzled eye
Rise in successive beauty, and between,
Flows into sudden light the long, slow, serpent

(bility, and wild and boundless exultation to | When first they strove their downward gaze to a popular mind, of all others the deepest and fill firmest to receive the mightier impressions. With the full grandeur of their glorious prizeOn this intellectual ocean the tempest of a PARIS!-the name that from their cradle still time unequalled in human vicissitude, was let Stung them in dreams: now, glittering in their PARIS, IN 1815, A POEM. loose, and when its magnificent heavings had It has been justly observed, that English subsided, its old boundaries were to be found poetry has, within these few years, changed no longer; the innumerable little erections its characteristics. From the laborious that idleness or absurdity had erected as if pomp of Johnson, and the polished epigram to limit that vast and unfathomed mass of of Pope, down to the affected sentiment of force had been carried away, and a new soil the Hayley and Della Cruscan school, all created for a new and bolder architecture. has been cleared away, and the ground filled Other causes may have assisted in the great up with a "building of immortal verse," developement of the English mind within that restoring us to the natural and vigorous the last quarter of a century; but in our tastes of the English mind, promises to live poetry the result has been a passion for as long as nature in its vigour has power thought, for nervous compression, for daring Were sport, and all their trophies to this trophy beyond feeble and quaint affectation. All originality, for the out-pouring of the whole our tastes had hitherto been imported. Our feeling of the whole man, even in its rude- And there are symbols round the Mount that admiration had been solicited to faded copies ness, if in its truth; and an utter loathing of French and Italian design. The sickly of the old affectations of language, and sen- What terror on the boastful land has been ; and artificial forms of feeling in those arti- timent, of full-dress phrase, and sickly sen-Glares from its embrasures the iron row, ficial countries had been erected as standards sibility. With scarp and fosse is cut the tender green, for the stature and proportion of English Our limits in this review are restricted by The steel-barb'd frize, the pyramid of ball, The howitz watches down the spiked ravine, genius, and the highest praise of the poet the variety of matter which it is the pur-Start on the eye from cot and vintage-screen: twenty years since was to have left no line pose of our Journal to lay before the reader, And from the summit tower, the flag-staff tail unpainted by personal satire, pedantic con- and we shall therefore make our few extracts Lifts England's banner'd crossceit, or fashionable allusion. We had from the poem of" Paris in 1815," without learned grimace from its regular professors, further observation than that in a brief preand a Court dress was indispensable for the face it announces itself as the writing of poetry which desired to be received among a visitant at Paris in the memorable year in the wise or the wealthy, the fair and the which the concluding blow was given to polite, the accomplished distributors of Napoleon, that it gives descriptions of the praise, and the potent wielders of patronage. prominent objects of the capital, and that Where the inspiration was administered by the author's view of them is taken chiefly in drawing rooms, excellence must be gradu- connexion with their revolutionary celebrity. ated by the connexion of the poet with high We make the extracts as they casually meet life; the boudoir was thus the Parnassus. us. The first view is at morning from In this arrangement the multitude were ex-Montmartre, at that time a British quarter. cluded. The infinite and splendid resources The spectator is glancing round the horizon of poetic feeling open through the outer still shadowed with the early vapours. range of society, general, rich, and powerful as the sunlight and the air, were contemned in the eagerness to force a meagre and Shoots up thy Parian pile! His transient hold, exotic luxuriancy in the narrow confine of Who wore the iron crown of Regicide! art and ceremonial that struts in upper life, He treads its halls no more-his hour is told. and poetry was rapidly degenerating into The circle widens; Sevres bright and cold the state where its most illustrious employ- Peeps out in vestal beauty from her throne, ment would be found among birthday odes, Spared for Minerva's sake, when round her elegies on lapdogs, mottos for Albums, and From yon high brow the Invader's fiery zone, rolled, sonnets to "an eye-brow." We have sud- Resistless, as can tell thy faded towers, Mendon! denly plunged into a different order of being. A trumpet !-at the sound Mont Martre's spread, The poetry of England, as if by an irresisti- With martial crowds, a glittering, crimson tide ble sympathy, sprung into strength and Pouring incessant from its sun-bright head splendour with the national cause, and the Part, that in splendour deepen down its side, most signal struggle that ever tried and en- In square and line, and column wheeling wide nobled the arms of a people, seemed sent not To many a solemn touch of harmony. less to elevate the national genius to the Part, to the far champaign that clanging ride, most stately supremacy. Like the long flashes of the Summer sky, Like fresh plumed eagles from their aery high. The British bands! a power is in the sound! It speaks of freedom, virtue, valour nighIt calls up England upon foreign ground! Far be from us the false philosophy That owns not Country's nobly-partial tie! In distance and in death to fix the eye The thoughts that like a second nature come On the heart's classic soil,-by temple, tomb, By all love's names endear'd,-by all in one,

St. Cloud! How stately from the green hill's

side

All our present poetry has been born and matured with the war against France. Bacon observes that mind like the works of nature enlarges in all its proportions together. The war which raised up among us in that hour of the world's darkness, the successive splendors of those statesmen and heroes, whose light is still living on our eye, though their forms have obeyed the general law, and gone down from before us, gave energy to the whole spirit of the peo-War has its mighty moments: - Heart of man! ple. The occasional privations, the fierce Have all thy pulses vigour for a thrill hazards, the dazzling successes of that mys- Prouder than thro' those gallant bosoms ran, terious and solemn time, were made to give When first their standards waved above that boldness and majesty, tragic depth of sensi

our Home.

hill;

Seine.

The traveller then leaves the Mount and plunges into the darkness and crowd of Paris, sees the Abbaye prison, and recollects sketches the general aspects of the Streets the detail of massacres of September; from them all by meeting the Royal Proand the people, and is suddenly abstracted cession on its way to Notre Dame, previously to the opening of the Chambers. We have room only for the stanzas in which he speaks of the Church service.

The pile is full; and oh, what splendours there
The Gothic shapes, fantastic, yet austere ;
Rush in thick tumult on the entering eye!
The altar's crown of seraph imagery;
Champion and king that on their tombstones

lie,

Now clustered deep with beauty's living bloom;
And glanced from shadowy stall and alcove
Like new-born light thro' that mysterious gloom,
high,
The gleam of warrior steel, the toss of warrior
plume.

The organ peals;-at once, as some vast ware,
Bend to the earth the mighty multitude,
Silent as those pale emblems of the grave
In monumental marble round them strew'd.
Low at the Altar, forms in cope and hood
Superb with gold wrought cross and diamond
twine,

Toss their untiring censers round the shrine,
As in the pile, alone with life endued,
Where on the throne of clouds the Virgin sits
divine.

Gorgeous! but love I not such pomp of prayer;
Rather let me the meek devotion share,
Ill bends the heart mid mortal luxury.
Where in their silent glens and thickets high,

England, thy lone and lowly chapels lie¦
The spotless table by the eastern wall,
The marble, rudely traced with names gone by,
The pale-eyed pastor's simple, fervent call,

Those deeper wake the heart, where heart is all

in ail,

[ocr errors]

examining an eruption of Vesuvius the victim of imprudent curiosity, this circumstance alone would not perhaps have entitied him to hold a higher rank than Empedocles; but he commanded the fleet of Misenum, and it highrst emotion was that of curiosity on the sight of the phenomenon, his second feelings prompted him to attempt the rescue of his vessels and the inhabitants of the towns on the coast. After having given every necessary direction, he hastened to save one of his friends, who resided in a retired spot, and thus perished in the fu bilas they have done from the year 1800, it will ment of the most affecting duty; it is for in a short time be increased beyond calcula- this that we admire his courage and his tion. Pennsylvania alone could maintain death.

himself to the dull country life here; many pine after home. The farmer is, as I have already said, his own master, he sells his corn very well, pays his taxes, and does not want to buy any thing. The soil produces him every thing, and with a small capital, The poem then gives a rapid glance at the a laborious farmer can in a very short time Temple, where the Royal family were confined, prosper. An acre of uncleared land in a fine at the Margue or receptacle for Suicides, the country and good soil costs two or three dok Boulevards, the Tuileries, the Royal Apartlars, of which the half is paid directly, and the ments, and the throne of Napoicon. This other half in six months. The population evadently comprehends but a portion of the of the United States is now eight millions; sights and singularities of the French me but if the Europeans will continue to come tropolis, but a second part is to follow, and the subject may suil have no tear of being exhausted. The present is about the length of Lord Byron's minor poems,

EXTRACTS of LETTERS from a Swiss Taa-
VELLER I NORTH AMERICA in the
Summer of 1816.

(Concluded)

Women are not less sensible to glory than

on an extent of twenty-seven millions of The history of Ines de Castro offers a subacres, fourteen millions of men. There isject which belongs of right to the province therefore room enough for new comers of Romance; it is even astonishing that it The climate here is not the most agreeable, should have so long escaped the observation on account of the sudden changes of the air. of the authoress of so many sopels The The thermometer sometimes changes in one event is as affecting as terrible, the heroine The country round Philadelphia and further afternoon 20%, from warm to cold; the great excites the liveliest interest; history has not inland is inexpressibly beautiful; all md-est beat which I experienced here was 95, disdained to preserve her memory, the epic cates great prosperity Fruit which only wants cold, and lasts four or five months. The Go- and finally she inspired Lamotte, to produce The Winer, they say, is very rough and Muse has strewed flowers over her tomb; to be gathered, and delightful meadows where the finest cattle graze, one sees continuvernment and its rights are much like those a tragedy, which is never performed without ally; there are also many handsome country of Switzerland; one lives quite tree, and exciting the highest interest. is not plagued about pass-ports or any thing Liegance and taste are predk minant quais houses The farmer is there his own mas else. There is no public police: dueling is ties in Mad. de Genius' talent: consequentiy ter; he does not want to work, because the forbidden under severe penalties; when she never strays from the busy world and the sou produces every thing without much labour whoever loves a country hfe and has they quarrel they settle it after the Engish court; it may be added, that her figures are fashion. I see that there are many insuth- generally an French and all modern, cume plenty of money, does very well to come to cient laws which are partly too mild and prising under that bead the age of Lous America, it is a real Paradise. But as our give the worked too much liberty; for these XIV and all that succeeded him down to Swiss arrived here without money and with eleven years only one man has been con- the Revolution exclusively; she appears to out prospects-that is a misery! There lately arrived a ship with 500 of these undemned to death, and he was haned a few write from memory rather than from imagihappy people who were not even able to pay murders, many blamed the Government for highly natural and entertaining. days ago. Though he had committed three nation, and her works are consequently for their passage. Many of them regret their his condemnation; the clergy detenied him emigration, but it is now too late. They in the pulpit, the journalists in their papers, to love, they were the soul of chivalry, and were sold here as servants. Children are and the Quakers sent petitions to the Pre-have frequently exercised the happiest irbest paid for; girls and boys who are not sident for his release. at de to pay for their passage, serve till their fluence over Princes, by making an advar» 18th and 21st year, like black slaves. A buy themselves estates; the poor live beauty, to inspire them with no se sentie Here are many French refugees; the rich tage us use of the powers of grace and healthy and robust man must work four or five years to pay for his passage, which is great nusery, about 400 of them enlisted ments, or to correct their vicious melinaod wars, Oid people cannot find any body¦ themselves in the service of the Spaniards, tions. Mad de Genlis has endeavoured to to take them, so that there are now about present in loes an addional example of 30 of them on board the ship, who wart with these feelings, so bun urat ie to her sex, but an anxi sus heart to know their fate. If they it appears to us, that she ought to have find nobody to take them for their passiger | made her less imprudent than she is in the money, they are thrown into prison, where Les Tabienuz de M. le Cunte de Farben, on first part of the work Sue seems to furget they must work with malefactors in sawing: la mort de Plise l'ancien, et Ines de Castre, too suddenly the precepts and last commartie, tak they have earned enough to par Mud la Contense de Gentis Imards of a grandinother, who bestowed on pay for their passige, which may last ten The death of the elder Pliny is one of the her the most tender cares, and resolves tog of twelve years, What barhanans are the finest subiects that can possibly be chosen, precipitately to abandon the peaceful abite men, the blood-sickers, who grow nch by for painting the idea whach Horace in- of her infant wears for the splend. i tum alt surti a trathe'-There are some Germans spires of the Pailosopher who stands ali ne i of a court. All this, it is true, in matinged who do so, and circulate the most tempting imidst the ruins of the world, is there, and explained with much nature and debe The last who sailed for this, reauze. Pliny the eller resembled the scary: the character of women, and of young purpose, said, before his departure, that this great men who appeared in Rome and Italy women in particular, is every where wal should be his last voyage, and if this one at the period when civilization was first in maintained, and the sport of the work is saccreded, he should be rich enough. The|troduced into those comatries by the arms. undoubtedly augmented by those circumaat in which brought the last refugees guned and arts of Greece. Whether warners, | stances, though they perhaps tend in some measure to diminish the interest which lues at trait 30,000 florins. Persons who can states nen, or philosophers, they were a ¦ pay for their passage and have still a little" hitely superior to the rude and fervers should inspire Baunty prala thing in their hands to buy a heroes of the early ages of the Repubic, Her first interview with the Prince pres smalt prece of land and maintain themselves, but the splendor of their raing served only sents a scene fuil of strung emotion and ef for a while do very well; but the others are to mark the overthrow of aŭ that was va¡ feet; and is happily conceived to establish more tu appy than they would ever be in¦ mali e in the morais and institutions of their the relations with are thenceforward to A good workman is not badly oft, country. jeast between the hero and the herome of but lieve increase very much, and will, in Noble and laudable as a desire to promote, the history. In the absence of her guardian the end, have but little profit Besides, a the advancement of science undoubtedly 19, who had gone to Lisbon, to solicit for her a young kurupean cannot so soon accustom yet, it Pany had perished merely through place near the person of the Queen, Lasa

who by flattering promises and briliant
prospects enticed these poor strangers and

sent them to àfexico.

We find we must defer our Review of "Ormond" till our next number.

fill

eyes,

Now won-won by the Victory of Victories!
For this, had bled their battle round the world;
For this, they round the world had come to war;
Some, with the shattered ensign that unfurled
Its lion-emblems to the Orient-star;
And some, the blue Atlantic stemming far;
And some, a matchless band from swarthy Spain,
With well-worn steel, and breasts of many a
And all their plains to their last conquering

plain

vain.

party spirit and his want of toleration for [bility, and wild and boundless exultation to | When first they strove their downward gaze to other sects broke out. p. 323, &c. a popular mind, of all others the deepest and firmest to receive the mightier impressions. With the full grandeur of their glorious prizeOn this intellectual ocean the tempest of a PARIS!-the name that from their cradle still time unequalled in human vicissitude, was let Stung them in dreams: now, glittering in their loose, and when its magnificent heavings had PARIS, IN 1815, A POEM. It has been justly observed, that English subsided, its old boundaries were to be found no longer; the innumerable little erections poetry has, within these few years, changed that idleness or absurdity had erected as if its characteristics. From the laborious pomp of Johnson, and the polished epigram to limit that vast and unfathomed mass of of Pope, down to the affected sentiment of force had been carried away, and a new soil the Hayley and Della Cruscan school, all created for a new and bolder architecture. has been cleared away, and the ground filled Other causes may have assisted in the great scar; developement of the English mind within up with a "building of immortal verse," that restoring us to the natural and vigorous the last quarter of a century;-but in our tastes of the English mind, promises to live poetry the result has been a passion for as long as nature in its vigour has power thought, for nervous compression, for daring Were sport, and all their trophies to this trophy beyond feeble and quaint affectation. All originality, for the out-pouring of the whole our tastes had hitherto been imported. Our feeling of the whole man, even in its rude- And there are symbols round the Mount that admiration had been solicited to faded copies ness, if in its truth; and an utter loathing What terror on the boastful land has been; of the old affectations of language, and senWith scarp and fosse is cut the tender green, timent, of full-dress phrase, and sickly sen-Glares from its embrasures the iron row, The howitz watches down the spiked ravine, sibility. Our limits in this review are restricted by The steel-barb'd frize, the pyramid of ball, the variety of matter which it is the pur-Start on the eye from cot and vintage-screen: pose of our Journal to lay before the reader, And from the summit tower, the flag-staff tall and we shall therefore make our few extracts Lifts England's banner'd cross from the poem of "Paris in 1815," without further observation than that in a brief preface it announces itself as the writing of a visitant at Paris in the memorable year in which the concluding blow was given to Napoleon, that it gives descriptions of the prominent objects of the capital, and that the author's view of them is taken chiefly in connexion with their revolutionary celebrity.

We had

us. The first view is at morning from
Montmartre, at that time a British quarter.
The spectator is glancing round the horizon
still shadowed with the early vapours.
St. Cloud! How stately from the green hill's

of French and Italian design. The sickly
and artificial forms of feeling in those arti-
ficial countries had been erected as standards
for the stature and proportion of English
genius, and the highest praise of the poet
twenty years since was to have left no line
unpainted by personal satire, pedantic con-
ceit, or fashionable allusion.
learned grimace from its regular professors,
and a Court dress was indispensable for the
poetry which desired to be received among
the wise or the wealthy, the fair and the
polite, the accomplished distributors of
praise, and the potent wielders of patronage.
Where the inspiration was administered by
drawing rooms, excellence must be gradu-We make the extracts as they casually meet
ated by the connexion of the poet with high
life; the boudoir was thus the Parnassus.
In this arrangement the multitude were ex-
cluded. The infinite and splendid resources
of poetic feeling open through the outer
range of society, general, rich, and powerful
as the sunlight and the air, were contemned
in the eagerness to force a meagre and
exotic luxuriancy in the narrow confine of
art and ceremonial that struts in upper life,
and poetry was rapidly degenerating into
the state where its most illustrious employ-
ment would be found among birthday odes,
elegies on lapdogs, mottos for Albums, and
sonnets to "an eye-brow." We have sud-
denly plunged into a different order of being.
The poetry of England, as if by an irresisti-
ble sympathy, sprung into strength and
splendour with the national cause, and the
most signal struggle that ever tried and en-
nobled the arms of a people, seemed sent not
less to elevate the national genius to the
most stately supremacy.

side

Shoots up thy Parian pile! His transient hold,
Who wore the iron crown of Regicide!
He treads its halls no more-his hour is told.
The circle widens; Sevres bright and cold
Peeps out in vestal beauty from her throne,
Spared for Minerva's sake, when round her

rolled,

From yon high brow the Invader's fiery zone,
Resistless, as can tell thy faded towers, Meudon!
A trumpet!-at the sound Mont Martre's spread,
With martial crowds, a glittering, crimson tide
Pouring incessant from its snn-bright head-
Part, that in splendour deepen down its side,
In square and line, and column wheeling wide
To many a solemn touch of harmony.
Part, to the far champaign that clanging ride,
Like the long flashes of the Summer sky,
Like fresh plumed eagles from their aery high.
The British bands! a power is in the sound!
It speaks of freedom, virtue, valour nigh—
It calls up England upon foreign ground!
Far be from us the false philosophy
That owns not Country's nobly-partial tie!
The thoughts that like a second nature come
In distance and in death to fix the eye
On the heart's classic soil,-by temple, tomb,
By all love's names endear'd, by all in one,

All our present poetry has been born and matured with the war against France. Bacon observes that mind like the works of nature enlarges in all its proportions together. The war which raised up among us in that hour of the world's darkness, the successive splendors of those statesmen and heroes, whose light is still living on our eye, though their forms have obeyed the general law, and gone down from before us, our Home. gave energy to the whole spirit of the peo-War has its mighty moments :- Heart of man! ple. The occasional privations, the fierce Have all thy pulses vigour for a thrill hazards, the dazzling successes of that mys- Prouder than thro' those gallant bosoms ran, terious and solemn time, were made to give When first their standards waved above that boldness and majesty, tragic depth of sensi- bill;

show

over all.

triumphant
The gale has come,-at once the fleecy haze
Floats up,-then stands a purple canopy,
Shading the Imperial City from the blaze.
Glorious the vision! tower and temple lie
Beneath the morn, like waves of ivory,
With many an azure streak, and gush of green,
As grove and garden on the dazzled eye
Rise in successive beauty, and between,

Flows into sudden light the long, slow, serpent

Seine.

The traveller then leaves the Mount and

plunges into the darkness and crowd of
Paris, sees the Abbaye prison, and recollects
the detail of massacres of September;
sketches the general aspects of the Streets
and the people, and is suddenly abstracted
from them all by meeting the Royal Pro-
cession on its way to Notre Dame, previously
to the opening of the Chambers. We have
room only for the stanzas in which he speaks
of the Church service.

The pile is full; and oh, what splendours there
Rush in thick tumult on the entering eye!
The Gothic shapes, fantastic, yet austere;
The altar's crown of seraph imagery;
Champion and king that on their tombstones
lie,

Now clustered deep with beauty's living bloom;
And glanced from shadowy stall and alcove
high,

Like new-born light thro' that mysterious gloom,
The gleam of warrior steel, the toss of warrior
plume.

The organ peals;-at once, as some vast wave,
Bend to the earth the mighty multitude,
Silent as those pale emblems of the grave
In monumental marble round them strew'd.
Low at the Altar, forms in cope and hood
Superb with gold wrought cross and diamond
twine,

As in the pile, alone with life endued,
Toss their untiring censers round the shrine,
Where on the throne of clouds the Virgin sits
divine.

Gorgeous! but love I not such pomp of prayer;
Ill bends the heart mid mortal luxury.
Rather let me the meek devotion share,
Where in their silent glens and thickets high,

in all,

England, thy lone and lowly chapels lie; himself to the dull country life here; many examining an eruption of Vesuvius the The spotless table by the eastern wall, pine after home. The farmer is, as I have victim of imprudent curiosity, this circumThe marble, rudely traced with names gone by, already said, his own master, he sells his stance alone would not perhaps have entitled The pale-eyed pastor's simple, fervent call; corn very well, pays his taxes, and does not him to hold a higher rank than Empedocles; Those deeper wake the heart, where heart is all want to buy any thing. The soil produces but he commanded the fleet of Misenum, him every thing, and with a small capital, and if his first emotion was that of curiosity The poem then gives a rapid glance at the a laborious farmer can in a very short time on the sight of the phenomenon, his second Temple, where the Royal family were confined, prosper. An acre of uncleared land in a fine feelings prompted him to attempt the rescue at the Margue or receptacle for Suicides, the country and good soil costs two or three dol- of his vessels and the inhabitants of the Boulevards, the Tuileries, the Royal Apart-lars, of which the half is paid directly, and the towns on the coast. After having given ments, and the throne of Napoleon. This other half in six months. The population every necessary direction, he hastened to evidently comprehends but a portion of the of the United States is now eight millions; save one of his friends, who resided in a sights and singularities of the French me- but if the Europeans will continue to come retired spot, and thus perished in the fulfiltropolis, but a second part is to follow, and as they have done from the year 1800, it will ment of the most affecting duty; it is for the subject may still have no fear of being in a short time be increased beyond calcula- this that we admire his courage and his exhausted. The present is about the length tion. Pennsylvania alone could maintain death.

of Lord Byron's minor poems.

EXTRACTS of LETTERS from a SWISS TRA-
VELLER in NORTH AMERICA in the
Summer of 1816.

(Concluded.)

were sold here as servants.

on an extent of twenty-seven millions of The history of Ines de Castro offers a subacres, fourteen millions of men. There is ject which belongs of right to the province therefore room enough for new comers. of Romance; it is even astonishing that it The climate here is not the most agreeable, should have so long escaped the observation on account of the sudden changes of the air. of the authoress of so many novels. The The thermometer sometimes changes in one event is as affecting as terrible, the heroine The country round Philadelphia and further afternoon 200, from warm to cold; the great-excites the liveliest interest; history has not inland is inexpressibly beautiful; all indi- The Winter, they say, is very rough and Muse has strewed flowers over her tomb; est heat which I experienced here was 950. disdained to preserve her memory; the epic cates great prosperity. Fruit which only wants to be gathered, and delightful meadows cold, and lasts four or five months. The Go- and finally she inspired Lamotte, to produce. where the finest cattle graze, one sees continu-vernment and its rights are much like those a tragedy, which is never performed without ally; there are also many handsome country is not plagued about pass-ports or any thing of Switzerland; one lives quite free, and exciting the highest interest. houses. The farmer is there his own mas- else. There is no public police: duelling is ties in Mad. de Genlis' talent: consequently Elegance and taste are predominant qualiter; he does not want to work, because the forbidden under severe penalties; when she never strays from the busy world and the soil produces every thing without much labour: whoever loves a country life and has they quarrel they settle it after the English court; it may be added, that her figures are plenty of money, does very well to come to cient laws which are partly too mild and prising under that head the age of Louis fashion. I see that there are many insuffi- generally all French and all modern, comAmerica, it is a real Paradise. But as our Swiss arrived here without money and with-give the wicked too much liberty; for these XIV. and all that succeeded him down to. out prospects-that is a misery! There eleven years only one man has been con- the Revolution exclusively; she appears to lately arrived a ship with 500 of these undemned to death, and he was hanged a few write from memory rather than from imagihappy people who were not even able to pay murders, many blamed the Government for highly natural and entertaining. days ago. Though he had committed three nation, and her works are consequently for their passage. Many of them regret their his condemnation; the clergy defended him emigration, but it is now too late. They in the pulpit, the journalists in their papers, to love; they were the soul of chivalry, and Women are not less sensible to glory than best paid for; girls and boys who are not sident for his release. Children are and the Quakers sent petitions to the Pre- have frequently exercised the happiest irable to pay for their passage, serve till their fluence over Princes, by making an advan 18th and 21st year, like black slaves. A buy themselves estates; the poor live in beauty, to inspire them with noble sentiHere are many French refugees; the rich tageous use of the powers of grace and healthy and robust man must work four or five years to pay for his passage, which is great misery; about 400 of them enlisted ments, or to correct their vicious inclina80 dollars. Old people cannot find any body who by flattering promises and brilliant present in Ines an additional example of themselves in the service of the Spaniards, tions. Mad. de Genlis has endeavoured to to take them; so that there are now about 50 of them on board the ship, who wait with prospects enticed these poor strangers and these feelings, so honourable to her sex ; but an anxious heart to know their fate. If they it appears to us, that she ought to have find nobody to take them for their passagemade her less imprudent than she is in the money, they are thrown into prison, where Les Tableaux de M. le Comte de Forbin, ou first part of the work. She seems to forget: they must work with malefactors in sawing la mort de Pline l'ancien, et Ines de Castro, too suddenly the precepts and last commarble, till they have earned enough to par Mad. la Comtesse de Genlis. mands of a grandmother, who bestowed on pay for their passage, which may last ten The death of the elder Pliny is one of the her the most tender cares, and resolves too or twelve years. What barbarians are the finest subjects that can possibly be chosen precipitately to abandon the peaceful abode men, the blood-suckers, who grow rich by for painting: the idea which Horace in- of her infant years for the splendid tumult such a traffic!-There are some Germans spires of the Philosopher who stands alone of a court. All this, it is true, is managed who do so, and circulate the most tempting amidst the ruins of the world, is there and explained with much nature and delipamphlets. The last who sailed for this realized. Pliny the elder resembled those cacy: the character of women, and of young purpose, said, before his departure, that this great men who appeared in Rome and Italy women in particular, is every where well should be his last voyage, and if this one at the period when civilization was first in-maintained; and the spirit of the work is succeeded, he should be rich enough. The troduced into those countries by the arms undoubtedly augmented by those circumship which brought the last refugees gained and arts of Greece. Whether warriors, stances, though they perhaps tend in some at least 30,000 florins. Persons who can statesmen, or philosophers, they were all measure to diminish the interest which Ines pay for their passage and have still a little infinitely superior to the rude and ferocious should inspire. money remaining in their hands to buy a heroes of the early ages of the Republic; small piece of land and maintain themselves but the splendor. of their rising served only for a while do very well: but the others are to mark the overthrow of all that was vamore unhappy than they would ever be in luable in the morals and institutions of their Europe. A good workman is not badly off; country. but these increase very much, and will, in Noble and laudable as a desire to promote the end, have but little profit. Besides, a the advancement of science undoubtedly is, young European cannot so soon accustom yet, if Pliny had perished merely through

sent them to Mexico.

Her first interview with the Prince presents a scene full of strong emotion and ef fect; and is happily conceived to establish the relations which are thenceforward to exist between the hero and the heroine of the history. In the absence of her guardian who had gone to Lisbon, to solicit for her a place near the person of the Queen, Ines

wrapt in the brilliant dreams of her youthful imagination, was strolling near a road, whence she suddenly heard a great noise of horses and chariots. This was the suite of the Prince Royal, who was then travelling through the provinces. Ines, concealed behind the bushes, dared not gratify her lively curiosity; at the sound of a coach which was overturned and broken to pieces, she was near fainting, when at the same moment she heard the cries of an unfortunate wretch who was begging for his life, hurried by fear and pity, she rushed forward, crying aloud for pardon, towards a furious young man, who was pursuing a postilion with a drawn sword in his hand. On hearing the soft accents of that plaintive voice, which appeared to descend from heaven, the Prince (for it was himself) eagerly turned, and was struck with astonishment on beholding the celestial figure of Ines, who, on her knees, and, with uplifted hands, still repeated pardon, pardon. He instantly ran towards her, raised her, descended on one knee, and laid at her feet the sword which had excited her alarm.

After this scene, and a short residence at the Castle, in order to recover from the bruises he had received in his fall, it is not at all surprising that he should become violently enamoured of Ines, or that the sentiments of the latter should acquire new force; for she is now no longer governed by imagination alone; a handsome and valiant Prince, is an equally powerful enchanter.

were proceeding to Macarieff for purposes | tioned them concerning their mode of living
of trade; I with the view of giving concerts. and their wives: they assured me that they
We had engaged what the Russians call a were permitted to have as many as their for-
Yemchik.'
tunes enabled them to maintain. They told
We had set out with only one servant, me that their wives all agreed very well to-
who was not far removed from an idiot, and gether, and that those who were old passed
consequently could not be of much use to us. into the service of the young ones. We
I did not entertain the very best opinion of stopped for four hours in the morning, as well
our coachman, and I was not deceived. I as in the evening, to let our horses rest, and
communicated my fears to my companions, during this time we had an opportunity of
who having made the journey before, knew observing something of the customs of these
better than I did the danger of having an people. They are exceedingly neat in their
unsafe coachman, for the woods of Mourum, persons: their costume is pleasing and even
like all the forests in the neighbourhood of elegant. They had yellow boots, a short
the Volga, are infested with banditti, and it waistcoat without sleeves, (which on parti-
is no uncommon thing to see the bodies of cular occasions is embroidered with gold,)
travellers who have been assassinated, lying they shave their heads and wear a small
on the sides of the high-way. The Prince pointed leather cap. The prince wore a long
of Georgia, who inhabits Liscowen, is so con- robe and a cafetan, and his head was like-
vinced of the truth of this, that during the wise shaved; but in this particular they are
fair of Macarieff, he frequently patroles the all alike; the shaving of the head is one of
roads himself when he supposes it likely the laws laid down by their religion.
that foreigners will pass the night at Lis-
cowa.2

We observed them when they were at their prayers, at some distance from us. My travelling companions told me, that They are all Mahometans. I could almost since I spoke Russian better than they did, have fancied tha: Moliere had seen a party I must beg of the first Tartar Caravan that of Tartars at their devotions before he wrote might happen to pass, to allow us to travel the Bourgeois-Gentilhomme: their contorunder its protection. Almost all the Persian tions were so grotesque that I could scarcely and Tartar merchants bear the title of refrain from laughing. They jumped about, Prince; they carry to this fair shawls, pearls, and pinched and pulled their beards; it &c. and are all followed by numerous reti- was the most singular scene imaginable. nues of servants, some of whom assist in They are passionately fond of music: I conveying their merchandise, whilst others happened to have along with me an instruattend on their persons. We were soon ment, which contributed in no small degree She quickly departed for the court, where overtaken by one of these caravans. I to gain the kind marks of attention which she no sooner appeared than she gained a made my request to the Prince as intelligi- they showed to us. They ran up to me multitude of admirers; but these were ea- bly as I could, (for they all speak Russian) whenever they heard me playing at a dissily rejected, for who could eclipse a Prince, and we gained permission to travel along tance. I sang to them some Russian airs, in the midst of a court where every eye was with his suite: we slept in our own carriage. and played the Siganski, (the national dance directed towards him? Ines, like Berenice, We were quickly joined by other parties of of Russia) with which they declared themwas transported with the homages which the same kind; we made the most laugh- selves enchanted. We travelled in this manher lover received; but he became pressing, able reflections on this whimsical mode of ner until our coachman was pleased to say and she then perceived the danger of her travelling, amidst Tartars, Boucars, Arme- that one of his horses had been seized with situation. It was necessary to come to a nians, Persians, Turks, Bachekirs, and Kal-a lameness, and owing to this circumstance prompt decision, and she determines on muks. We only wanted a party of Chinese we were left completely in the rear. Fear flight. An attendant, whom she had made to complete our escort. All these northern began to take possession of our minds; but the confederate of her design betrayed her, nations respect the rights of hospitality, and our coachman showed himself indifferent to and conducted her to a church, where Don travellers never run any risk by placing all our apprehensions. By good fortune, Pedro had prepared every thing for their themselves under their convoy. Our Tar- however, we soon rejoined our Tartar Prince, union, and where they exchanged vows of tars were extremely polite in their manners; who had stopped in consequence of some mutual fidelity at the foot of the altar. they treated us with the utmost respect, and accident which had happened to his Kibika, never offered to say or do any thing which (travelling-carriage.) We gave him our driwas not within the bounds of the strictest decorum.

Here, Madame de Genlis again enters the domain of history. Our readers are acquainted with the manner in which Ines died by poison, after having given birth to a Prince, and at the very moment when her rank and title were about to be publicly acknowledged. Madame de Genlis has well prepared and brought about this catastrophe; she has omitted no circumstance which could contribute to render it affecting, solemn, and terrible.

Madame de Genlis's style is beyond all praise, and is so well known that any extract would be superfluous.

ver's passport, and requested that he would direct the Master of the Police to institute

In the evening they invited us to take tea some enquiry, in case we should not arrive along with them. They seated themselves at Macarieff on the following day. Whe upon the ground in the eastern style, round ther he was intimidated by this threat, or a little carpet which was spread out upon meant to alarm us merely for the sake of a the grass; having placed some tea-boxes on joke, I know not, but nothing extraordinary one side for us to sit upon; we formed alto-happened to us. We crossed the great woods gether a most singular groupe. We ques-of Mourum, where we saw innumerable swarms of serpents, which abound in these 'Yemchik, a kind of coachman, who drives forests; the necks and tails of these repshort journeys with a troyka, (three horses.) He tiles are black, spotted with yellow, and delivers his passport to those who engage him, they are extremely venomous. We then which is the custom with all persons who are passed over a vast uncultivated plain; my hired in Russia, in order that in case of acci- female companion and I dared not venture dents complaint may be made to their masters, to make a mutual communication of our reor to the police, if they belong to the emperor. 2A little town separated by the Volga from flections, and we at length burst into an I departed from Moscow on the 11th of Macarieff, where a considerable trade is carried immoderate fit of laughter at the forcible July, (N. S.) I was accompanied by an ex- on during this curious fair, at which all the expression of terror which was depicted in tremely agreeable lady, and her husband who merchants of Asia are in the habit of assem-the countenances of each of us. The lady was a man already advanced in life: they then began to relate to me all the tales of

A JOURNEY TO THE FAIR OF MACARIEFF.
FROM L'INCENDIE DE MOSCOW, BY MA-
DAME FUSIL,

bling.

« 上一頁繼續 »