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have been ill-calculated to rouse the feelings of the Romans, since they performed real tragedy in their circuses. The combats of the gladiators," said he, "the sight of men consigned to the fury of wild beasts, were far more terrible than all our dramatic horrors put together. These, in fact, were the only tragedies suited to the iron nerves of the Romans."

There are many scattered sayings which mark the man.

Speaking of the elements of society, he said, "Democracy may be furious-but it has some heart-it may be moved. As to Aristocracy, it is always cold and unforgiving."

One day, when the Emperor was reproaching an individual for not correcting the vices which he knew he possessed," Sir," said he," when a man knows his moral infirmity, he may cure his mind, just as he would cure his arm or his leg."

It was asked in his presence, how it happened that misfortunes which were yet uncertain often distressed us more than miseries that had already been suffered: "Because," observed the Emperor, "in the imagination, as in calculation, the power of what is unknown is incommensurable."

The same promptness of scientific analysis will be recognised in the following anecdote.-The Count Las Cases, who, by the way, is singularly prone to exalt every casual coincidence into a miraculous interference, related an instance of the kind, as reported to him by Charette, the hero of La Vendée. Charette, in his youth, was off Brest in a small cutter, when a furious gale of wind came on. The mast was carried away; the vessel became unmanageable, and certain destruction seemed inevitable. At the moment of extreme danger, the whole crew, by a spontaneous impulse, made a vow of a taper to Our Lady of Rocouvrance at Brest, if she would vouchsafe to ensure their safety. The wind instantly abated. It was in the month of December, and the night was long and dark. The vessel, which had got entangled among ridges, drifted along at hazard, and the crew had resigned themselves to the will of fate, when they unexpectedly heard the ringing of a bell. They sounded, and finding but little depth of water, they cast anchor. At daybreak they found that they were at the mouth of the river of Landernau. The bell they had heard was that of the neighbouring parish church.

"The cutter," continued the Count, "had miraculously escaped the numerous sand-banks that are dispersed about the entrance of Brest. She had been carried through the narrow inlet of the port, had passed three or four hundred ships that were lying in the roads, and had at length found a calm station at the mouth of the river."-"This," said the Emperor, "shews the difference between the blindfold efforts of man, and the certain course of nature. That, at which you express so much surprise, must necessarily have happened. It is very probable, that with the full power of exerting the utmost skill, the confusion and errors of the moment would have occasioned the wreck of the vessel; whereas, in spite of so many adverse chances, Nature saved her she was borne onward by the tide; the force of the current carried her precisely through the middle of each channel, so that she could not possibly be lost.""

We could recommend this explanation to our Irish friends as a formula of reasoning that may be occasionally applied to the course of miracles which Prince Hohenlohe has undertaken for the benefit of the tongue-tied ladies of their country.

Among the numerous historical details that are scattered throughout the present publication, there is a full account of the affair of the unfortunate Duke d'Enghien, and of the manner in which Napoleon recurred to it. In the presence of strangers he adopted a line of argument founded almost exclusively on the law of nature and state politics. With those whom he admitted to the intimacy of private conversation, he descended into the following particulars :

"I was one day alone, I recollect it well; I was taking my coffee, half-seated on the table on which I had just dined, when sudden information is brought to me that a new conspiracy has been discovered. I am warmly urged to put an end to these enormities. They represent to me that it is time, at last, to give a lesson to those who have been day after day conspiring against my life; that this end can only be attained by shedding the blood of one of them; and that the Duke d'Enghien, who might now be convicted of forming part of this new conspiracy, and taken in the very act, should be that one. It was added, that he had been seen at Strasburg; that it was even believed that he had been in Paris; and that the plan was, that he should enter France by the East, at the moment of the explosion, whilst the Duke of Berry was disembarking in the West. I should tell you (observed the Emperor) that I did not even know precisely who the Duke d'Enghien was (the Revolution having taken place when I was yet a very young man, and I having never been at Court); and that I was quite in the dark as to where he was at that moment. Having been informed on those points, I exclaimed, that if such were the case, the Duke ought to be arrested, and that orders should be given to that effect. Every thing had been foreseen, and preparedthe different orders were already drawn up-nothing remained to be done but to sign them; and the fate of the young Prince was thus decided. He had been residing for some time past at a distance of about three leagues from the Rhine, in the States of Baden. Had I been sooner aware of this fact, and of its importance, I should have taken umbrage at it, and should not have suffered the Prince to remain so near the frontiers of France; and that circumstance, as it happened, would have saved his life. As for the assertions that were advanced at the time, that I had been strenuously opposed in this affair, and that numerous solicitations had been made to me, they are utterly false, and were only invented to make me appear in a more odious light. The same thing may be said of the various motives that have been ascribed to me. These motives may have existed in the bosoms of those who acted an inferior part on the occasion, and may have guided them in their private views; but my conduct was influenced only by the nature of the fact itself, and the energy of my disposition. Undoubtedly, if I had been informed in time of certain circumstances respecting the opinions of the Prince, and his disposition-if, above all, I had seen the letter which he wrote to me, and which, God knows for what reason, was only delivered to me after his death, I should certainly have forgiven him."

We had noted several other striking passages for insertion; but we are reminded by our limits that it is time we take a final leave of this interesting work-the most attractive and important, in numerous points of view, that has appeared in modern times. To the extraordinary person of whom it treats, we foresee that we shall have many future occasions to recur. His character and conduct have raised questions of vital interest that will long be remembered and discussed. Among these (and it is one of not the least singular circumstances of his history) the question of his personal merits has met with rather a curious destiny in this country. He is detested and decried for his despotism and aggression by that class of politicians among us who would abridge, if they could, both at home and abroad, the privileges of thought and action-by the admirers of the Holy Alliance-the apologists of the Spanish expedition-by the very men whose doc

VOL. VI. No. 34.-1823.

38

trines, if not repelled by the free spirit of the nation, would reduce England to a condition of lazy acquiescence, which, had it existed in Napoleon's day, would in all likelihood have laid us at his feet. While the only favour, on the other hand, that has been shewn his memory, has been from those who have uniformly asserted the principles of general freedom-who have laboured, and are labouring, to keep up in the breast of Englishmen those sentiments of political hardihood and pride, which would be sure to baffle, were the attempt to be ever made, the designs of an adventurous usurper. This single fact, we apprehend, if attentively meditated upon, will go pretty far towards enabling us to appreciate the merits of Napoleon's career. He must have done much for the people whom he was called to govern, to have entitled him to the hatred of the one party, and to the forgiveness of the other; he must have been a great reformer, as well as a great despot Had his tyrannical propensities been unrelieved by any acts of public virtue, his revilers could not, upon the principles of their school, be sincere in their condemnation, and every friend of human happiness would blush to be his apologist.*

THE ISLE OF FOUNTS,

An Indian Tradition.

SON of the Stranger! wouldst thou take
O'er yon blue hills thy lonely way,
To reach the still and shining Lake,

Along whose banks the West-winds play?
-Let no vain dreams thy heart beguile,
Oh! seek thou not the Fountain-Isle!

Lull but the mighty Serpent-King,t

Midst the great Rocks, his old domain,

Ward but the Cougar's deadly spring,

-Thy step that Lake's green shore may gain;

And the bright Isle, when all is past,

Shall vainly meet thine eye at last!

*We have not room to speak of the Eighth and last Part of this publication.It comprises a variety of interesting correspondence undertaken with the view of alleviating the situation of the captive, and also the adventures and sufferings of the Count Las Cases after his separation from Napoleon. With regard to the removal of Las Cases from St. Helena, he unquestionably violated the conditions upon which he had himself consented to remain. The innocent or unimportant nature of the documents which he attempted to transmit through a secret channel to Europe, did not render him the less amenable to the consequences of a breach of his own agreement. But in other respects (with the honourable exception of his treatment by Lord Charles Somerset at the Cape of Good Hope) he seems to have been miserably buffeted about. The account of his journey from Gravesend to Francfort, where at last he found an asylum, is more like a chapter of Caleb Williams than a detail of probable occurrences, and affords a very edifying picture of the prevailing horror at the idea of allowing any authentic intelligence of Napoleon's condition and sentiments to transpire.

The Cherokees believe that the recesses of their mountains, overgrown with lofty pines and cedars, and covered with old mossy rocks, are inhabited by the Kings or Chiefs of the Rattlesnakes, whom they denominate the "bright old inhabitants." They represent them as snakes of an enormous size, and which possess the power of drawing to them every living creature that comes within the reach of their eyes. Their heads are crowned with a large carbuncle of dazzling brightness. See Notes to Leyden's "Scenes of Infancy."

Yes! there, with all its rainbow-streams,
Clear as within thine arrow's flight,
The Isle of founts, the Isle of dreams,
Floats on the wave in golden light,
And lovely will the shadows be
Of groves whose fruit is not for thee!
And breathings from their sunny flowers,
Which are not of the things that die,
And singing voices from their bowers,
Shall greet thee in the purple sky;
Soft voices, e'en like those that dwell
Far in the green reed's hollow cell.
Or hast thou heard the sounds that rise
From the deep chambers of the Earth?
The wild and wondrous melodies,

To which the ancient Rocks give birth ?*
-Like that sweet song of hidden caves,
Shall swell those Isle-notes o'er the waves.

The emerald waves !-they take their hue
And image from that summer-shore ;
But wouldst thou launch thy light canoe,

And wouldst thou ply thy rapid oar,
Before thee, hadst thou morning's speed,
The sunbright land should still recede !

Yet on the breeze thou still shalt hear
The music of its flowering shades,
And ever shall the sound be near

Of founts that ripple through its glades!
The sound, and sight, and flashing ray,
Of joyous waters in their play.

But woe for him who sees them burst

With their bright spray-showers to the Lake!
Earth has no spring to quench the thirst

That semblance in his soul shall wake,
For ever pouring through his dreams,
The gush of those untasted streams!

Bright, bright in many a rocky urn,
The waters of our deserts lie,
Yet at their source his lip shall burn,
Parch'd with the fever's agony !
From the blue mountains to the main,
Our thousand floods may roll in vain.
E'en thus our Hunters came of yore

Back from their vain and weary quest;
-Had they not seen th' untrodden shore,
And could they midst our wilds find rest?
The lightning of their glance was fled,
They dwelt amongst us as the dead!

They lay beside our glancing rills,

With visions in their darken'd eye,
Their joy was not amidst the hills,
Where elk and deer before us fly;
Their spears upon the cedar hung,

Their javelins to the wind were flung.

* The Stones called by the South American Missionaries Laxas de Musica, from which travellers on the Oroonoco have occasionally heard, towards sun-rise, subterraneous sounds, resembling those of the organ.-Humboldt's Travels.

They bent no more the forest-bow,

They arm'd not with the warrior-band,
The moons waned o'er them dim and slow-
-They left us for the Spirit's land!
Beneath our pines yon greensward heap
Shows where the Restless found their sleep.
Son of the Stranger! if at eve

Silence be midst us in thy place,
Yet go not where the mighty leave

The strength of battle and of chase!
Let no vain dreams thy heart beguile,
-Oh! seek thou not the Fountain-Isle !

F H.

PERANZUles.

A Spanish Historical Fragment.*

THE same age that produced the Cid gave birth to Pedro, Lord of Valladolid, whose surname Anzúres, or Anzúles, was by the soft pronunciation of the Castilians blended with his baptismal appellation, into Peranzúles. He must have known the former hero at the height of his glory, and heard, probably with a pang of generous emulation, of the conquest of Valencia; that noble city, whose possession crowned the Spanish hero's career of glory, and which, with every title to be distinguished from two smaller towns of the same name, by calling herself the Great, or taking the addition of any of the Spanish monarchs, has preferred the badge of her ancient lord, and is still known as Valencia of the Cid.

The memory of Peranzúles is, however, preserved with veneration in the early annals of Spain, not so much for his achievements in the field, as for his being the model of that firmness of mind, which, fixed on justice and honour as upon a rock, leads its possessor through life, unshaken by the storms which make the very sands boil in the surface of those boisterous gulfs, the courts of nascent and half-civilized states. Peranzules stands, in Spanish history, as the original of the genuine national honour,-not the ruffian spirit of revenge, which, under the reign of Spanish despotism, concealed the knife under the same cloak that hid the face-but that intrepid fear of just blame, which steels the heart against every other fear in the universe.

Hardly any thing but his loyalty could mark the distance which se parated the Lord of Valladolid from those to whom he paid allegiance. By descent and connexions he was almost a peer of the independent princes who reigned in different parts of Spain. His knightly accomplishments, and probably some mental cultivation above the rude champions who surrounded the throne of Alphonso VI. induced the Castilian monarch to intrust the education of his daughter Urraca to Peranzúles. Whether the probability of her succeeding to the throne made the acquisition of something above feminine softness desirable, in the opinion of a warlike monarch; or that, the Castilian females being deemed too deficient in all but the arts of pleasing, tutors were pre

* See Mariana's History of Spain, Book X. Chap. 8.; and Zurita, Annals of Aragon, Book I. Chap. 28.

The year of the Cid's death is not well known. It is supposed to be 1098.

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