But it is not to be imagined that the amiable moralist, who so feelingly exhorts his fellow-bard, and fellow-sufferer, has not had a more minute sympathy with his fate.

* Helas! tel fut ton sort, telle est ma destinée. J'ai vidé comme toi la coupe empoisonnée; Mes yeux, comme les tiens, sans voir se sont ouverts;

J'ai cherché vainement le mot de l'univers.
J'ai demandé sa cause à toute la nature,

J'ai demandé sa fin à toute créature;
Dans Pabyme sans fond mon regard a plongé;
De l'atome au soleil j'ai tout interrogé ;
J'ai devancé les temps, j'ai remonté les âges.
Tantôt passant les mers pour écouter les sages;
Mais le monde à l'orgueil est un livre fermé !
Tantôt pour deviner le monde inanimé,
Fuyant avec mon ame au sein de la nature,
J'ai cru trouver un sens à cette langue obscure.
J'étudiai la loi par qui roulent les cieux :

and evil confounded together, and too often misplaced; the poet, like many another superficial reasoner, looking to effects, without being able to trace the cause, scoffed at the wisdom and the power of the Creator; but his voice expending itself fruitlessly on the air, he had not even the honour of irritating the being he blasphemed. But one day, in the midst of these convulsions of the mind, a sudden illumination seemed to descend on him from heaven, irresistibly impelling him to adore that which he had defied; and, yielding himself up to the breath of inspiration, he gave vent to his feelings in a hymn, from which the first of our extracts was taken, and which is a strain full of the force of Byron, but brightened by a

Des empires détruits je méditai la cendre :
Dans ses sacrés tombeaux Rome m'a vu descendre;
Des mânes les plus saints troublant le froid repos,
J'ai pesé dans mes mains la cendre des héros.
J'allois redemander à leur vaine poussière
Cette immortalité que tout mortel espère !
Que dis-je ? suspendu sur le lit des mourants

yet lighted upon him.

We cannot resist one passage more. It is that which concludes the poem; and in giving it we are forced to omit one of the most pathetic effusions of mourning sensibility, one of the most

Sur ces sommets noircis par d'éternels nuages,

Sur ces flots sillonnés par d'éternels orages,
J'appelois, je bravois le choc des éléments.
Semblable à la sibylle en ces emportements,
J'ai cru que la Nature, en ces rares spectacles,
Laissoit tomber pour nous quelqu'un de ses oracles;
J'aimois à m'enfoncer dans ces sombres horreurs.
Mais en vain dans son calme, en vain dans ses
fureurs,

Cherchant ce grand secret sans pouvoir le surprendre,

J'ai vu partout un Dieu sans jamais le comprendre!

Seeing around him all the conflicting

elements of nature without any apparent rule for their guidance; finding good

Alas! such was thy fate, and such I knew: Like thee, the poison'd cup I've emptied too! With open eyes but sightless, madly spurr'd, Wild-searching still the "universal word." Throughout creation's bounds I 've ask'd its cause; Sought for the world's design in Nature's laws; In thought and study-head-heart-every where From the red sun to unsubstantial air! I've outstripp'd Time in speed-his steps retracedTo hear the wise, th' expanded waters pass'd— But earth to pride is but a volume clasp'd ! In Nature's depths at each fond hope I grasp'd; Traversed the lifeless globe from Pole to Pole; Studied the laws by which the wide Heav'ns roll, By Newton led, have ranged their brilliant fields; Pluck'd every fruit that hist'ry's harvest yields, Rome in her sacred vaults has heard my plaints; I've grasp'd the holiest relics of the saints; Weigh'd in my hands the ashes of the brave; And sought immortal knowledge in the grave! What say I Bending o'er the couch of death, I've strain'd to catch it from life's latest breath; And baffled there--the fluttering spirit fledMy thirsting soul would snatch it from the dead! On proud peaks mantled by eternal clouds, On waves which blackening tempest ever shrouds

despair, and piety, that we have ever seen, at least from the pen of a French poet. Recovering himself and his subject, he thus returns to Lord Byron.

† Fais silence, ô ma lyre! et toi, qui dans tes

Et qu'un éclair d'en haut pergant ta nuit profonde, Tu verseras sur nous la clarté qui t'inonde.

Courage t enfant déchu d'une race divine,
Tu portes sur ton front ta superbe origine!
Tout homme en te voyant reconnait dans tes yeux
Un rayon éclipsé de la splendeur des cieux !
Roi des chants immortels, reconnois-toi toi-même !
Laisse aux fils de la nuit le doute et le blasphème;
Dédaigne un faux encens qu'on t'offre de si bas,
La gloire ne peut être où la vertu n'est pas.

Viens reprendre ton rang dans ta splendeur premiere,
Parmi ces purs enfans de gloire et de lumière,
Que d'un souffle choisi Dieu voulut animer,
Et qu'il fit pour chanter, pour croire et pour aimer!
We have chosen this piece for our
extracts, because it gives a fair specimen
of the author's powers, united with a
subject of strong interest to the English
reader. Many of the other poems con-
tain ideas and verses full as beautiful,
and all bear the stamp of the same
hand. To look for a continued flight of
sublimity would be to do a great in-
justice to the work. These effusions
are, in truth, very unequal; but, in the
midst of repetitions and other inaccura-
cies, some thought, of sterling worth,
is ever sure to sparkle through the dross
which negligence has left around it.
Classical study has furnished Mr. De La-
martine with many allusions and adapta-
tions of former thoughts. For instance,
when he tells us, "J'ai pesé dans mes
mains la cendre des héros," we cannot
forget "Expende Annibalem, quot li-

And like the lightnings piercing thy dark night, Thou'lt cast on us reflection of thy light!

*

Bear up, thou fallen child of godlike race;
Thy splendid source upon thy front we trace;
In seeing thee the wond'ring world must own
A clouded ray from heaven's effulgent throne !
Sovereign of deathless song! fulfil thy lot,.
Leave doubt and blasphemy to things of nought;

Spurn the false incense which their praise exhales

Fame never flourishes where virtue fails -
Take, take thy rank in splendour as at first,
On glory's song let thy full glories burst,
Those whom God's choicest breath has deign'd to
raise,

To trust his power and glorify his ways!

bras in duce summo invenies?" Juv. Sat. x.; but while he can give a new turn to an ancient expression, while the aspirations of originality soar beyond the efforts of imitation, we are not inclined to deny this immemorial privilege to any author of native merit. To the servum pecus, who not only borrow a style, but live upon the thoughts of others, we can shew no mercy; but we are far from thinking that every poet who writes in the measure or treats the subject which another may have used, is at once to be classed among the imitatores, so obnoxious to Horace, as well as to every critic who has followed him.

Lovers of French literature have long looked in vain for the grand desideratum, a good epic in that language. In the specimen before us there is, we think, great promise for the accomplishment of such a hope. We trust therefore that Mr. De Lamartine, undazzled by public applause, will know that he has not yet performed his duty to the world of letters. From talents like his much is to be expected. He has as yet written only on the subject of private emotions and personal concerns. That is not enough, and should not at any rate be repeated. Although egotism is certainly easiest pardoned in a poet, yet when he gives us too much of self he never fails to satiate. We buy his books to complete our set; but the fine edge of our interest is soon worn down when each succeeding volume is but the echo of that which came before. not then this young and highly gifted' author follow the example of his countrymen Parny and Bertín, and give us elegies in praise of his wedded joys, as he has already chaunted to us the song of his sorrows; but, satisfied with having established for himself an interest far beyond the common, let him indulge his aspirations in their highest flights, and complete the triumph which he has begun for the poetry of his country.

Let

the country, filled that country which he never saw with creatures of his fancy. But Phillis, and Damon, and Strephon, are no more; he that should now form his cockney poetry of such materials as these, would appear to the present generation as one of the seven sleepers, a relic of the olden time, a fit subject for the Antiquarian Society. But there is a state of being yet remaining which has

neither the simplicity and rusticity of the country, nor the polish of the city I beg pardon, I mean town. There is no small portion of the population of this kingdom who enjoy what may be called urbs in rure, who live in country towns, and read the London newspapers, and magazines, and novels, and plays, and who sometimes visit London itself once in two, three, five, or ten years, and wonder, when they go to town, what the people are in such a hurry about. These people have pleasures peculiar to themselves. As an ancient monarch promised a great reward to him who should discover or invent some new pleasure, the reward of gratitude, at least, is due to him who performs what is at all events equivalent to this, who points out to their possessors delights and privileges of the existence and value of which they were not before aware. Not less grateful must be the permanent inhabitants of the vast metropolis to him who shews them where they may enjoy pleasures so refined, and by such means induces an emigration that may check that preposterous expansion of one city, which was a matter of lamentation in the days of Elizabeth, and forms a subject of astonishment to us moderns.

But to my subject. The inhabitants of country towns enjoy, in a peculiarly high degree, a most exquisite sense of their own personal importance. I think it was King James the First, who, to persuade his nobility to keep themselves more in the country, told one of them, that in London they were like great ships at sea, very insignificant, but in the country, like great ships in the river, objects of importance, shewing their bulk and bravery to great advantage. This royal simile, most happy in itself, may be most happily pursued. So a coal-barge, dancing attendance among its fellows upon a Newcastle collier, looks a mere nothing in the pool; but towed amidst the swans and wherries above Kingston, looks big and consequential. Thus a man whom nobody knows in London, can say to his correspondents, if he lives in a country town, "Oh, merely direct to Mr. -; every body knows me." It is really quite amusing to hear with what affected disgust and indifference these highly-favoured sons and daughters of notoriety sometimes speak of this their privilege. How wearied will they pretend to be of the eyes that gaze on all their movements, and the tongues that talk of all their actions! How pathetically do they lament that every thing

they do or say must be known to all their neighbours, and how do they affect to envy the retirement and obscurity of the great city, where the left hand scarcely knows what the right hand does! So have we heard of princes, amidst the splendours of royalty and the bustle of a court, bewailing that exalted station which fixes all eyes upon them, and regulates all their looks and words, which leaves them no choice of conduct, or selection of amusement, or quietness of enjoyment; with what pathos have they sighed for retirement, with what beauties has their imagination filled the recesses of solitude! But how few of them have voluntarily relinquished the pomps, and splendours, and publicity of life which with so much affectation they have bewailed. When Pope wrote his "Ode on Solitude," his little breast was burning for distinction; and when he said,

Thus let me live unseen, unknown,
Thus unlamented let me die;
Steal from the world, and not a stone?
Tell where I lie-

he would have been very much disappointed even if that stanza had been

66

n

unseen, unknown." I contend, then, that it is no small pleasure to live in such circumstances, that we must be seen and known, and form the topic of conversation; and even though there be deeply blended with that conversation a censorious animadversion on our con duct, yet even this is preferable to obscurity; as I once knew a man far more honest than Pope in the instance above quoted, who plainly said, "I would rather be kicked than not noticed." People in London may excite the notice of their own small circle; but it is the lot of comparatively few to excite the attention of all. The inhabitant of a country town is known to all; he carries his very history in his face; he sees the opinions which his neighbours entertain of him reflected in their looks; he cannot walk through a single street without a gratification to his pride by a salutation from a superior, or an exercise of his condescension by a well-managed move to an inferior. "What a shocking place is London !" said a lady, who had visited it the first time in her life; "the people pass by one with as much con tempt and indifference, as if one was no better than the ground they walk on." This ruling passion too is strong in death, if I may credit a story I once heard. A lady in her last moments, was consulting with her undertaker con

cerning the arrangements for her funeral; she insisted that a hearse, rarely seen in that town, should convey the coffin to the church; and paused to ask, "How do you think the procession will look as it passes down the High Street."

I must not dwell too long on one pleasure when so many demand to be noticed. The great advantage which this mode of life affords for moral improvement is not to be overlooked. How many persons may be found whose ignorance of themselves is the only insuperable obstacle to their improvement, and that not only in morals, but in all the graces and elegancies of social life! The pulpits of the metropolis may talk of moral deformities and their remedy; the stage may ridicule eccentricities of behaviour; but what does all this amount to, when nobody knows for whom it is intended, or to whom it is applicable? It is not so in a country town. There we are never at a loss to know ourselves. Some kind, good-natured friend, who has seized, by observation or report, upon some failure or folly in our conduct, and who has not that arrogance and self-conceit which would presume of his own individual judgment to pronounce us right or wrong, first tells the tale to all who love to hear such tales, and thus enriched or elucidated by the commentaries of the whole neighbourhood, it comes home to ourselves, and we have the satisfaction to hear that every body says we are very great rogues, or very great fools. Is not such a condition most admirably adapted. for the highest improvements in wisdom and virtue, where the earliest weeds of vice are eradicated, and the first obliquities of folly are corrected? He that lives in a country town is like a bird in a cage set round with open wires, where every flutter is seen, and every twitter is heard. There are indeed some perverse ones who think that this kind of discipline is not best adapted for the benevolent purpose for which it is used; who see nothing but malice and idleness in those who mind the affairs of others for the purpose of censure; who think also that such persons are more delighted with a tale of calumny than with a narrative which does honour to its subject. Preposterous men! How unwisely do they argue! He that should tell us of our good deeds, would be only repeating what we are sufficiently well acquainted with, and ready enough to discover without the assistance of a friend. This ould be merely pampering a bloated

vanity, or poisoning the mind with flattery. But he that makes us know our faults, becomes endeared to us by the strongest obligations; and if such feel a pleasure in speaking upon such topics, their love for us must be the greater; for in publishing those faults to all our neighbours, they are thus kindly taking the most effectual steps for our reformation, and why should they not feel pleasure while they are doing good?

But I must proceed with my catalogue of blessings. What fine opportunities are afforded for the study of human nature! Could Sir Joseph Banks have studied entomology to any good purpose among the plagues of Egypt, where such myriads of insects must have been fluttering around him and distracting his attention? And who can study human nature amidst the tumult and din of an immense metropolis, where shapes and forms of human mould flit by us, and are gone in an instant? In a country town, on the other hand, we can meditate upon our subject, and see it day after day, and year after year, and watch its growth, and see it in tumult or in calm, in the dishabille of the morning, or the decoration of the evening. Then again in parties—the same periodical arrangements-the same number of card tables-the uniform rejection, or at least speedy evaporation, of every subject of conversation that does not lead directly to the "proper study of mankind;" all these things keep the mind fixed to its great object; and the question is not what, but whom, shall we talk about. It is, in fact, almost an impossibility for any but the most obtuse to be in ignorance, or even in doubt, upon the subject of character. It is not left to individual judgment, or silent meditation, but the information requisite may be gained from every quarter, and there is this farther advantage, that the memory, however treacherous, may be constantly refreshed; for those who are in pursuit of knowledge are patient in its investiga tion, and will not let the subject pass away by one discussion.

I have in my list another great advantage-a very nice distinction of ranks, This is one of the great marks of civilization, and nowhere is it better understood than in country towns. Does not every sensible moralist say that distinction of ranks is one of the indispensable requisites of a well-ordered society? And is not society best ordered when that distinction is most exquisite and delicate? Who does not admire the susceptibility of that lady who most violently reproved

Beau Nash for giving her daughter a linen-draper for her partner, and whose anger was softened by being informed that it was a wholesale linen-draper? The distinction of ranks may be compared to the beauteously blended colours of the rainbow. The broad, plain republican glare of common sunshine is Hat and insipid, compared with the varicgated light of the rainbow; but how much would the beauty of that celestial arch be improved if, instead of seven, it were melted into seventy shades! Ignorant people may see pride in this; but, on the contrary, it affords most abundant opportunity for condescension. What can be more refreshing to the mind than to think how courteously we have behaved to our inferiors! What more delightful than to tell our equals that we have had a bow or a word from one whose rank entitled him to withhold

both! Some inconveniences, however, attend this minute distinction, which it would be unfair not to notice. The ranks too often meet in much too close contact. Theatres, for instance, have no other distinction, than box, pit, and gallery; and so where the distinction is in danger of being forgotten, these lovers of arrangement and beauty in society have kindly invented a plan by which order may be still preserved; they are so shocked to find themselves on the same bench with an inferior, and so tender, that they will not tell him of his distance; and they merely forget him for the time, and kindly contrive not to see him, lest if they should recognize him, they might wound his feelings, and make him blush for assuming to sit among his superiors. Sometimes, indeed, it occurs that very unthinking and arrogant persons who really ought to sit in the pit, will have the impudence to occupy a place in the boxes, and look down with contempt upon their own equals this is too bad. What situation or condition in life, however, is totally free from all disadvantages? But my object is to point out the pleasures, not the evils, of living in a country town; these latter are, comparatively speaking, very few, and greatly outweighed by the above-named advantages, and countless others, which press for notice, but must be passed over in silence.

One more I will mention the great facilities and deep interest of conversation. I defy the metropolis, east or west, to produce any thing like it. Who can enter into the most interesting of all discussions, that of man as he is, among

persons to whom he is unknown, and whose business and history he is totally unacquainted with? What a delightful sensation must he experience who should introduce a most exquisitely amusing tale of some lady or gentleman who had not quite strictly preserved the exact. line of duty and propriety, and in the midst of his story be interrupted by a little gentleman, with a fierce look, at the opposite corner of the table, calling out, "Sir, that is my sister!" "That is my brother!" A country town obviates all such inconveniences; each knows each, and all are known to all. This knowledge obviates the difficulties which would otherwise be felt, and precludes the necessity of having recourse to those insipid generalities and prosing abstractions which are forced upon mixed companies for want of more piquant and spicy topics of discourse. It is really abominable for any persons pretending to the least degree of polish or civilization, to introduce, or suffer to be introduced, topics of conversation not interesting or not intelligible to all their company. It reminds one of the fable of the Fox and the Crane, where Reynard treats his guest with a broad expanded dish of food, which his own tongue alone was capable of lapping. And who has not seen, when the conversation has been what pedants call interesting, one half of the company nearly vapoured to death, or politely pretending to be entertained with what they could not understand; but if a piece of intelligence touching human conduct has been brought forward, how chearful the attention, how fixed every eye, how silent every tongue; all have listened arrectis auribus, and proved the universality of that never-to-be-too-much-applauded maxim of the Roman dramatist

"Homo sum, et nihil humanum à me alienum puto,"

Here must I unwillingly pause, for I am summoned to attend the first meeting of a club or society-I do not know which we are to call it yet-where we are to have the most interesting of all possible conversation, to the utter exclusion of politics, scandal, and weather. What we shall make of it I cannot conjecture. It looks very chimerical at present; but if any thing worth notice occurs, I will send it for your edification, and give you a list of characters and persons in this new drama. I have made up my mind to be, if possible, merely a hearer and observer.

A. L.