filled. He has many great fragments of the whole work ready' You may think that persons who love as we do, have no need of two apartments; we are always in the same. I, with my little work, still-still-only regarding, sometimes, my husband's sweet face, which is so venerable at that time with tears of devotion, and all the sublimity of the subject; my husband reading me his young verses, and suffering my criticism. Ten books are published, which I think probably the middle of the whole. I will, as soon as I can, translate you the arguments of these ten books; and what, besides, I think of them. The verses of the poem are without ryhmes, and are hexameters, which sort of verses my husband has been the first to introduce in our language; we being still closely attached to ryhmes and iambicks.

I am very glad, Sir, that you will take my English as it is. 1 know, very well, that it may not always be English, but I thought for you it was intelligible.

I wish, Sir, I could fulfil your request of bringing you acquainted with so many good people as you think of. Though I love my friends dearly, and though they are good, I have, however, much to pardon, except in the single Klopstock alone. He is good, really good, in all his actions, all the foldings of his heart. I know him, and, sometimes, I think if we knew others in the same manner, the better we should find them. For, it may be that an action displeases us which would please us, if we knew its true aim and whole extent. No one of my friends is so happy as I am; but no one has had courage to marry as I did. They have married-as people marry; and they are happy-as people are happy.

Hamburg, August 26, 1758.

Why, think you, Sir, that I answer so late? I will tell you my reasons. Have not you guessed that I, summing up all my happiness, and not speaking of children, had none? Yes, Sir, this has been my only wish ungratified for these four years. But thanks, thanks to God! am in full hope to be a mother in the month of November. The little preparations for my child (and they are so dear to me) have taken so much time, that I could not answer your letter, nor give you the promised scenes of the Messiah. This is, likewise, the reason wherefore I am still here; for properly we dwell in

Copenhagen. Our staying here, is only on a visit (but a long one) which we pay my family. My husband has been obliged to make a little visit alone to Copenhagen, I not being able to travel yet. He is yet absent-a cloud over my happiness! He will soon return-But what does that help ? he is yet equally absent! We write to each other every post -but, what are letters to presence? But I will speak no more of this little cloud; I will only tell my happiness! But I cannot tell how I rejoice! A son of my dear Klopstock ! Oh, when shall I have him? It is long since I made the remark, that the children of geniuses are not geniuses. No children at all, bad sons; or, at the most, lovely daughters, like you and Milton. But, a daughter or a sop, only with good heart, without genius, I will, nevertheless, love dearly.

This is no letter, but only a newspaper of your Hamburg daughter. When I have my husband and my child, I will write you more, (if God gives me health aud life.) You will think that I shall be not a mother only, but a nurse also; though the latter, (thank God!) that the former is not so too, is quite against fashion and good manners, and though nobody can think it possible to be always with the child at home.

M. Klopstock.

Alas! the pleasant hopes of her pure and loving heart were not to be realized in this world. She did not live to bless her babe. The angels took them both to a heavenly home. Were it not for a belief in another existence, how severe and mysterious would appear the dispensations of Providence!

In a letter to a friend, Klopstock gives an account of the tender farewell they took of each other, under circumstances so peculiarly agonizing. After having prayed with her for a long time, he said, as he bent over her, "Be my guardian angel, if God permits." "You have ever been mine," she replied. And when, with stifled voice, he again repeated, "If God permits, be my guardian angel!" She fixed her eyes upon him full of love, and said, "Ah, who would not be your guardian angel!" Just before she died, she said, with a serene smile of an angel, "My love, you will follow me!"

She was buried at Ottensen, in the neighbourhood of Hamburg. Klopstock requested her sisters to plant two trees by the grave, and her intimate friend promised to cover it with wild flowers. On the top of the grave-stone were carved two sheaves of wheat, one reclining upon the other; under which was written :

After her death, her husband published a small volume of her writings, to which is prefixed an affectionate sketch of her character; some letters that passed between them during their brief separation; and letters from Klopstock to his friends, giving an account of her last illness. Their letters to each other are short, but very fervent-full of romantic tenderness, which a heartless world envies while it scorns. At one time she writes, "Ah, when will you come home? it is wearisome, wearisome, living without you, to one who has lived with you." Again, she writes, "God be thanked! I have received your letter! What a joy it was to me! What will it be when you come! I know not what I write, I am so full of joy. I received your letter at table; I ate no more, as you may suppose. I was half beside myself, the tears started to my eyes. I went to my chamber. I could thank God only with my tears. But, He understands our tears so well."

In one of his letters to her, he writes, "I know how much you think of me, my best and dearest wife; I know it by my own feelings. Beloved Meta, how I do long to see you! I fold thee fast to my heart." These letters, so full of glowing

expressions warm from the heart, were written when Kolpstock bad been united to his Meta* more than four years-one of the many beautiful proofs that, true love grows deeper and stronger with time! He rejoined his wife at Hamburg, after an absence of about seven weeks; in less than two months after which she went from him, to be no more his companion in this vale of tears.

Her posthmous works, consist of Letters from the Dead to the Living; a Tragedy, called the Death of Abel; and several smaller pieces. They were written entirely for her own amusement, without the slightest idea of their ever being published. Her husband says, she blushed, and was very much embarrassed, whenever he found her writing, and expressed a wish to see what she had been doing. He informs us that her criticisms upon his poetry were always extremly apt and judicious. He says, he knew instantly, by her countenance, whether his thoughts pleased her; and so perfect was their sympathy, that their souls could hold delightful communion almost without the aid of language.

Klopstock possessed one of the common attributes of great genius in an eminent degree; he had the simplicity and frankness of a little child. A perpetual cheeerfulness, almost amounting to gaiety, formed a pleasing contrast to the seriousness of his writings. The pleasure he took in his own reputation, sometimes excited a smile; but his was a kind of vanity that is never very offensive-it was instantly felt to be the childish ingenuousness of a heart too guileless to conceal any of its feelings. He died March 14, 1803, when he had nearly finished his 79th year. He lived unmarried till a few years before his death, when he allowed the marriage ceremony to be performed between him and a kinswoman of his wife, who had attended upon him faithfully during the feebleness and sufferings incident to advancing years; he had no fortune to bequeath her, and he took this step in order to give her a legal claim to his pensions. During the latter part of his life he resided at Hamburg. According to the wish he had always expressed, he was buried by the side of his beloved Meta. His funeral was conducted with almost princely pomp, and every possible honour was paid to his memory.

MRS. D. L. CHILD.
Meta is the contraction for Margaret.

DINNERS OF THE RUSSIAN NOBILITY.

The curious spectacle presented at their dinners has not a parallel in the rest of Europe. The dishes and the wines correspond with the rank and condition of the guests. Those who sit near the master of the house are supposed to have no connexion with the fare of the tenants at the lower end of the table. In barbarous times we had something like it in England, and perhaps the custom is not even now quite extinct in Wales, or in English farm-houses, where all the family, from the master to the lowest menial, sit down together. The choicest dishes at a Russian table are carefully placed at the upper end, and are handed to those guests stationed near the owner of the mansion, according to the order in which they sit; afterwards, if any thing remain, it is taken gradually to the rest. Thus, a degree in precedency makes all the difference between something and nothing to eat; for persons at the bottom of the table are often compelled to rest satisfied with an empty dish. It is the same with regard to the wines; the best are placed near the top of the table, but in proportion as the guests are removed from the post of honour, the wine before them diminishes in quality, until at last it degenerates inte simple quass. Few things can offer more repugnance to the feelings of an Englishman than the example of a wealthy glutton, pouring forth eulogium upon the choice wines he has set before a stranger merely out of ostentation, while a number of brave officers and dependants are sitting by him, to whom he is unable to offer a single glass. I sometimes essayed a violation of this barbarous custom, by taking the bottle placed before me, and filling the glasses of those below; but the offer was generally refused, through fear of giving offence by acceptance, and it was a mode of conduct which I found could not be tolerated even by the most liberal host. Two tureens of soup usually make their appearance as we often see them in England; but, if a stranger should ask for that which is at the bottom of the table, the master of the house regards him with dismay, the rest all gaze at him with wonder; and when he tastes what he has obtained, he finds it to be a mess of dirty abominable broth, stationed for persons who never venture to ask for soup at the upper end of the table. The number of attendants in waiting is pro