"I did, however, go to Saint Roch; but it was impossible to get near you, the crowd was so great, and nothing but guards and police-officers. "But love will suffer nothing for having presented me with difficulties. It will be, I hope, only the better rewarded. Thus, my divine princess, I take the liberty to propose to your royal highness to adjourn our dear deliberations till the Fête des Rois, from the 8th to the 10th of January.

"Now, let us say at the bottom of our souls, Domine salvum fac regem,' &c., &c., till his majesty and all the royal family shall have returned to Parliament. I will accompany you there in heart and mind; and I pray God to preserve you from all dangers and accidents.

"On going out of Saint Roch, I came to dine at the Palais Royal. It is from thence that I write to your royal highness, so that you may not lay down without the certainty of my faithful and sincere attachment to the illustrious daughter of our kings, to her whom I love and esteem in the highest degree.

"In a little letter which I wrote yesterday hastily to his majesty the king, I finished with detailed compliments for the members of his family; but I believe that I omitted M. le Général Baron Athalin.

"I pray you, my princess, to correct my stupidity, and to say all that your royal heart will suggest to you to the general.

"Permit me, my princess, to make to your royal highness a tender confidence, which I beg of you beforehand to communicate to no one.

"I should much wish that their majesties would consent to marry us before Lent, so that the said Lent should be precisely for us that period of marriage which is called the honeymoon.

"But, for holy souls like ours, the honeymoon will last the whole duration of our life. Such is also the opinion of my princess.

"Towards the end of 1836, in a Russian anecdote of the revolution of 1830, which I related to his majesty the king-long life to the conclusion of that anecdote !-I already preluded the hope of seeing us one day united by the bonds of the most glorious Hymen.

"Since that epoch, my divine princess, your royal highness has never been absent from my thoughts, notwithstanding a great number of marriages projected and abandoned.

"But I am so overwhelmed with cares, occupations, studies, journeys, &c. &c., that my tender loves have been a great deal too much neglected.

"Nevertheless, by combining the good-will of your royal highness with mine, we can always, while we love one another well and infinitely much, attend to such duties as it has pleased Providence to impose

upon us.

"Work has this advantage: that it makes time pass without ennui, and that is a great deal.

"If your royal highness will be kind enough not to be angry, I take up another sheet of paper, in order to prolong the conversation in such amiable company, and before I run through that ribambelle of newspapers with which I conclude my evenings.

66 I possess a very essential secret, and one which cannot but interest the fair sex it is the art of retrograding in life; a secret replete with charins and enjoyments.

"For now some time back, every twelve months I become a year younger; to such a degree that I never feel better than in a state of extreme youth. That is why, my divine princess, I come to the feet of your royal highness, to supplicate you to be my companion in this pleasant pilgrimage, which one undertakes so gladly when

So

says the romance.

L'amour, l'estime et l'amitié
Sont les compagnons du voyage.

"Your highness will not want this secret for a long time yet, but I will put it in your power to communicate it to others.

66

Thus, my princess, your royal highness will see that I am opposed to any foreign dukes or princes coming to take away from us the most beautiful of our roses, the delicate flower of our amiable youth.

"If I am so fortunate that the Moniteur shall transmit this news to them, there will be some dozens of them pretty well mystified.

"Under any circumstances, if their majesties condescend to grant me so great a favour, I will justify in the eyes of all my anxiety and zeal to render myself worthy of the favour shown to me.

"I have the ear of his majesty the Emperor of Russia. That monarch knows the rectitude of my sentiments and the admiration which I have never ceased to entertain for the late Emperor Alexander as well as for himself. Such support has already enabled me to spare my country many misfortunes and calamities.

"From 1830 to 1834 I kept the whole of the North in order, and that by means of the most agreeable and intimate relations.

"I can also compliment your illustrious family for possessing so pretty a group of heroes.

"At Mascara, the Duke of Orleans fought like a real Cossack. "At Constantine, Nemours gained immortality on the breach. "In twenty combats, D'Aumale beat the Arabs-the Arabs who are, nevertheless, good and courageous warriors.

"The Duke of Joinville appears to navigate with as much talent as order and prudence.

"There is still another young brother who will undoubtedly not fail to follow in the footsteps of his seniors.

"And to you, my illustrious princess, a considerable share of glory is reserved. You will give to all peace and prosperity.

"You shall be the Princess of Peace, and that title is legitimately due to your royal highness.

"Not to further abuse the repose and patience of your royal highness, I now conclude my letter, and sign myself with all the respect and deep regard which are due to your royal highness,

66 Your very

"My Princess,

obedient and very affectionate servant,
"L. H., PRINCE of Peace.

"Palais Royal, Christmas Day, in the evening."

"P.S. Would your royal highness have the ineffable kindness to grant me a few lines, or a little visit in my hermitage at the Roule, so as to enable me to pass a time which will be very long, infinitely long?

April-VOL. CIII. NO. CCCCXII.

2 E

Some of the letters are, if possible, even more ridiculous than the rhodomontade of the Prince of Peace. One of them, from Madame de Mirbel, an artist engaged upon a portrait of the king, addressed to General Athalin, is entirely occupied with the importance to her of obtaining one of the king's tufts of hair-those which used to complete the pear so nicely-and of which she asserts that she has seen three different ones upon the royal head! Another confidential note to General Athalin complains of the number of grisons (drunkards) who were seen at a fête given at the Tuileries, and orders that in future there shall not be free access to wine at the buffets.

A very curious album was found in the king's study. It contained original drawings, engravings, lithographs, and caricatures. The first in the book were two interiors at Twickenham. There was also the portrait of a man, with a low forehead and remarkable physiognomy, sketched with great talent by the king. Beneath it was written,

“RICHARD PATCH,

whom I saw tried and condemned for the murder of Mr. Bligh, in 1806. Drawn by Louis Philippe, Duke of Orleans; since 1830, King of the French."

There are also rough but interesting sketches in the same album by some of the younger branches of the family.

The king, queen, and the princes alike kept all letters and the least important manuscripts. It was a kind of family tradition to do so. The queen writes upon the occasion of her Majesty Victoria's visit to Eu:

"You will have seen by the note which I wrote last night to Victoria, what were our day's pleasures. The journey to Sainte Catherine, with ravishing weather, was really charming; every one was gay, in good humour, and amused. The post horses and our French postilions diverted Queen Victoria. In the evening, Le Château de ma Nièce.' It is a little pièce de société, pretty, and written in an excellent spirit; but 'L'Humoriste,' with Arnal, made the queen and the whole of the company, even Lord Aberdeen, roar with laughter."

Lord Aberdeen had also his successes as well as Arnal. "Le père," adds the Queen, "is much pleased with his conversations with Lord Aberdeen." In another letter Queen Amélie writes: "Ce n'est pas d'aujourd'hui que les ministres anglais ont tout tenté pour bien vivre avec la France."

Louis Philippe's throne was so besieged with intrigues, conspiracies, and dangers, that in 1830 General Sebastiani resuscitated the Cabinet Noir, and the intimacy of correspondence and family secrets were alike sacrificed to the supreme interests of politics. Among the letters found in the Tuileries were numerous copies of epistles written to brothers, wives, and children. Dr. Véron publishes some, chiefly of Talleyrand, whose death, he says, was announced to Guizot in the following terms: "Well! do you know that Prince Talleyrand has made his triumphal entry into hell. He has been very well received. Satan showed him every attention, saying to him at the same time, Prince, you have gone a little beyond my instructions.'" These letters possess, however, only

6

a temporary political interest, and many must have poorly indemnified the secret service for the trouble of reading and copying them.

Dr. Véron also publishes a letter of General Bedeau, one of Marshal Bugeaud, another of General Trézel, the latter correcting a few misstatements in the marshal's letter; as also what he calls a Rapport curieux inédit et inconnu d'un général sur les journées de Février." But we do not find much in them that throws any additional light upon the indecision, vacillation, and folly which clouded like a destiny the last days of the Monarchy of July.

THE EMIGRANT'S THOUGHTS.

BY MARY C. F. MONCK.

THE sunset with a glory tinged the old man's silvered hair,

And flushed his broad upturned brow, deep marked by pain and care;
His brown, toil-hardened hands were clasped, his eyes were downward cast,
As he thought of "the old country," and the dead and buried past.

The red bird in the maple was singing clear and sweet,

The bees were humming in the flow'rs that blossomed at his feet;

The broad Missouri wandered by, the forest trees between,

And vines had decked the log-house porch with fresh and living green.
But the old man saw unheeding the beauty round him spread,
A scene far-vanished in the past was present in its stead;
And his heart was sick with yearning unfelt for many a day,
As busy memory restored the lost and far away.

And he said, "Oh! does the Shannon flow as it used to flow?
Do the branching chesnuts shadow still the shining waves below?
And as it glides by hill and vale, fair town and fortress strong,
Does it sing aloud, as it was wont, its old deep mellow song?
"Are the cottage-walls yet standing beside the noble flood?
Do the herons still come back each year to build within the wood?
Do the larks soar up at morning from meadows wet with dew?
Are the wild ducks in the sedges where the lilies thickest grew?
"Is the hawthorn scent as heavy upon the breath of May?
Do primrose blossoms carpet yet the coppice where I lay?
Does the robin from the hazels that grew beside our door,
At morn, and eve, and sunset, his voice of gladness pour?

"Do the mowers sing their wild sweet songs through morning's early hours,
While covering the level sward with swathes of grass and flow'rs?
Oh! I close mine eyes, and half forget all I have known of pain,

And almost dream that I am back on Irish soil again.

"And if I might-alas! I know 'twere scarce a blessing now—
For Time, whose hand hath marked so deep the furrows on my brow,
Has levelled many a happy home, and many a well-known tree,

And left scarce one of all I loved to waste a thought on me.

The churchyard on the hill can show my kindred's grassy graves-
Within the home where I was born the nettle darkly waves;
But the deepest love my old heart knows turns to my native shore,
Though well I know that I shall see its hills and streams no more.'

"

LITERARY LEAFLETS.

BY SIR NATHANIEL.

No. XXX.-MEMOIRS OF JAMES MONTGOMERY.*

BIOGRAPHIES abound, but good biographies are far to seek. Of the illustrious who have lately been removed from amongst us, few indeed have been happy in the memoir-writers into whose hands, whether by selection for the task or not, they have fallen. Recent biographies, to be reckoned almost by the dozen, only tend to enhance our estimate of such performances as Lockhart's life of Scott, Moore's of Byron, and Stanley's of Arnold. James Montgomery deserved a better "life" than the heavy work now before us, which has the advantage of being compiled by devoutly admiring and long attached friends, but the disadvantage of being wrested by their affection and prolixity into a repertory of sadly diffuse and overgrown platitudes. The two volumes now published bring him down to the year 1812 only. They do not give us either the life, the whole life, or nothing but the life. They give us intercalated histories of the United Brethren, Herrnhuters, Moravians, Bohemians, or Germans, and paste and scissors' episodes on the services of the Brethren at Fulneck, and the missionary labours of Montgomery's relatives in Barbadoes and Tobago. The style of the dual biographers is not without pomp of phrase and specific gravity of utterance. A copy of verses by Mrs. Hofland, which Montgomery once printed in the Sheffield Iris, is reproduced in these pages in the following florescent terms: "The poetical corner [of the Iris], which had heretofore [1794] been The Repository of Genius,' now assumed the less intelligible title of CEMPTUCET, or the Bower of the Muses,' and contained the following Parnassian flower from the pen of a friend, Barbara Hoole-afterwards Mrs. Hofland. This not inelegant composition was received with complacency by the editor, as displaying those principles which he would wish to maintain in the 'Iris,' and it must be confessed that the lines contain touches not unworthy the Iris de Calo, which the author was anxious should shine in the atmosphere of public favour." "The organisation of Montgomery's mind," we are told, à propos of his political leaders in the journal aforesaid, was exquisitely poetical; and never, perhaps, did a person embark on the stormy sea of politics more reluctantly, or was less adapted by talents and disposition to stem the tide or escape the dangers of his situation, than the editor of the Iris.' He had none of the qualities of a 'good hater,' said to be so essential to success; and while he heard the strains of his country's lyre rising around him, he sighed to swell with his own notes the music which enchanted him." We are introduced by the Wesleyan editors (who, by the way, are individually champions of the antagonistic parties into which Wesleyanism is now divided) to a Rev. William Miles, as "the author of a Chronological History of the

* Memoirs of the Life and Writings of James Montgomery, including Selections from his Correspondence, Remains in Prose and Verse, and Conversations on Various Subjects. By John Holland and James Everett. Vols. I., II. London: Longman. 1854.