BLACKWOOD'S

EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

NO. CCCLVI. JUNE, 1845. VOL. LVII.

Transcriber's note: Minor typos have been corrected and footnotes moved to the end of the article. The index for Volume 57 is included at the end of this issue.

CONTENTS.

Púshkin, the Russian Poet. No. I., [657]
The Novel and the Drama, [679]
Marston; or, the Memoirs of a Statesman. Part XVII., [688]
Lebrun's Lawsuit, [705]
Cennino Cennini on Painting, [717]
Æsthetics of Dress. No. IV., [731]
Suspiria de Profundis: being a Sequel To the Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, [739]
Hannibal, [752]
Stanzas written after the Funeral of Admiral Sir David Milne, C.G.B., [766]
Stanzas to the Memory of Thomas Hood, [768]
North's Specimens of the British Critics. No. V.—Dryden on Chaucer—Concluded, [771]
Index, [794]

EDINBURGH: WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, 45, GEORGE STREET; AND 22, PALL-MALL, LONDON.

To whom all Communications (post paid) must be addressed.

SOLD BY ALL THE BOOKSELLERS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM.

PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE AND HUGHES, EDINBURGH.

BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

NO. CCCLVI. JUNE, 1845. VOL. LVII.

PÚSHKIN, THE RUSSIAN POET.

No. I.

Sketch of Púshkin's Life and Works, by Thomas B. Shaw, B.A. of Cambridge, Adjunct Professor of English Literature in the Imperial Alexander Lyceum, Translator of "The Heretic," &c. &c.

Among the many striking analogies which exist between the physical and intellectual creations, and exhibit the uniform method adopted by Supreme Wisdom in the production of what is most immortal and most precious in the world of thought, as well as of what is most useful and beautiful in the world of matter, there is one which cannot fail to arise before the most actual and commonplace imagination. This is, the great apparent care exhibited by nature in the preparation of the nidus—or matrix, if we may so style it—in which the genius of the great man is to be perfected and elaborated. Nature creates nothing in sport; and as much foresight—possibly even more—is displayed in the often complicated and intricate machinery of concurrent causes which prepare the development of great literary genius, as in the elaborate in-foldings which protect from injury the germ of the future oak, or the deep-laid and mysterious bed, and the unimaginable ages of growth and hardening, necessary to the water of the diamond, or to the purity of the gold.

Púshkin is undoubtedly one of that small number of names, which have become incorporated and identified with the literature of their country; at once the type and the expression of that country's nationality—one of that small but illustrious bard, whose writings have become part of the very household language of their native land—whose lightest words may be incessantly heard from the lips of all classes; and whose expressions may be said, like those of Shakspeare, of Molière, and of Cervantes, to have become the natural forms embodying the ideas which they have expressed, and in expressing, consecrated. In a word, Púshkin is undeniably and essentially the great national poet of Russia.

In tracing, therefore, this author's double existence, and in essaying to give some account of his external as well as his interior life—in sketching the poet and the man—we cannot fail to remark a striking exemplification of the principle to which we have alluded; and as we accompany, in respectful admiration, his short but brilliant career, we shall have incessant occasion to remember the laws which regulated its march—laws ever-acting and eternal, and no less apparent to the eye of enlightened criticism, than are the mighty physical influences which guide the planets in their course, to the abstract reason of the astronomer.

Alexander Púshkin was born (as if destiny had intended, in assigning his birth-place—the ancient capital of Russia, and still the dwelling-place of all that is most intense in Russian nationality—to predict all the stuff and groundwork of his character) at Moscow, on the 26th of May 1799. His family, by the paternal side, was one of the most ancient and distinguished in the empire, and was descended from Rátcha, a German—probably a Teutonic knight—who settled in Muscovy in the thirteenth century, and took service under Alexander Névskii, (1252-1262,) and who is the parent root from which spring many of the most illustrious houses in Russia—those of Púshkin, of Buturlín, of Kaménskii, and of Metelóff. Nor was the paternal line of Púshkin's house undistinguished for other triumphs than those recorded in the annals of war; his grandfather, Vassílii Lvóvitch Púshkin, was a poet of considerable reputation, and was honoured, no less than Alexander's father, with the intimacy of the most illustrious literary men of his age—of Dmítrieff, Karamzín, and Jukóvskii.

But perhaps the most remarkable circumstance connected with Púshkin's origin—a circumstance of peculiar significance to those who, like ourselves, are believers in the influence, on human character, of race, or blood, is the fact of his having been the grandson, by the mother's side, of an African. The cold blood of the north, transmitted to his veins from the rude warrior of Germany, was thus mingled with that liquid lightning which circles through the fervid bosom of the children of the desert; and this crossing of the race (to use the language of the course) produced an undeniable modification in our poet's character. His maternal grandfather was a negro, brought to Russia when a child by Peter the Great, and whose subsequent career was one of the most romantic that can be imagined. The wonderful Tsar gave his sable protégé, whose name was Annibal, a good education, and admitted him into the marine service of the empire—a service in which he reached (in the reign of Catharine) the rank of admiral. He took part in the attack upon Navarin under Orlóff, and died after a long and distinguished career of service, having founded, in his new country, the family of Annibáloff, of which Púshkin was the most distinguished ornament, and of whose African origin the poet, both in personal appearance and in mental physiognomy, bore the most unequivocal marks. To the memory of this singular progenitor, Púshkin has consecrated more than one of his smaller works, and has frequently alluded to the African blood which he inherited from the admiral.

In 1811, Púshkin obtained (through the interest of Turgénieff, to whom Russia is thus, in some sort, indebted for her great poet) admission into the Imperial Lyceum of Tsárskoë Seló, where he was to receive the education, and to form the friendships, which so strongly coloured, not only the literary productions of his whole career, but undoubtedly modified, to a considerable extent, the personal character of the poet. This institution, then recently established by the Emperor Alexander, and always honoured by the peculiar favour and protection of its illustrious founder, was modelled on the plan of those lycées which France owed to the genius of Napoleon; and was intended to confer upon its pupils the advantage of a complete encyclopedic education, and, not only embracing the preparatory or school course, but also the academic curriculum of a university, was calculated to dismiss the students, at the end of their course of training, immediately into active life. The Lyceum must be undoubtedly considered as having nursed in its bosom a greater number of distinguished men than any other educational institution in the country; and our readers may judge of the peculiar privileges enjoyed by this establishment, (the primary object of whose foundation was, that of furnishing to the higher civil departments in the government, and to the ministry of foreign affairs in particular, a supply of able and accomplished employés,) from the fact of its having been located by the emperor in a wing of the palace of Tsárskoë Seló—the favourite summer residence of the Tsars of Russia since the time of Catharine II. It is to the last-named sovereign, as is well known to travellers, that this celebrated spot is indebted for its splendid palace and magnificent gardens, forming, perhaps, the most striking object which gratifies the stranger's curiosity in the environs of St Petersburg.

The students of the Lyceum are almost always youths of the most distinguished families among the Russian nobility, and are themselves selected from among the most promising in point of intellect. The system of education pursued within its walls is of the most complete nature, partaking, as may be concluded from what we have said, of both a scientific and literary character; and a single glance at a list of the first course (of which Púshkin was a member) will suffice to show, that it counted, among its numbers, many names destined to high distinction. Among the comrades and intimate friends of Púshkin at the Lyceum, must be mentioned the elegant poet, the Baron Délvig, whose early death was so irreparable a loss to Russian literature, and must be considered as the severest personal bereavement suffered by Púshkin—"his brother," as he affectionately calls him, in the muse as in their fate. Nor must we forget Admiral Matiúshkin, a distinguished seaman now living, and commanding the Russian squadron in the Black Sea. We could specify a number of other names, all of more or less note in their own country, though the reputation of many of them has not succeeded, for various reasons, in passing the frontiers.

From the system of study, no less than from the peculiar social character, if we may so express it, which has always prevailed in the Lyceum of Tsárskoë Seló, we must deduce the cause of the peculiar intensity and durability of the friendships contracted within its bosom—a circumstance which still continues to distinguish it to a higher degree than can be predicated of any other institution with which we are acquainted; and we allude to this more pointedly from the conviction, that it would be absolutely impossible to form a true idea of Púshkin—not only as man, but even as a poet—were we to leave out of our portrait the immense influence exerted on the whole of his career, both in the world of reality and in the regions of art, by the close and intimate friendships he formed in the Lyceum, particularly that with Délvig. Few portions of poetical biography contain a purer or more touching interest than the chapter describing the school or college friendships of illustrious men; and the innumerable allusions to Lyceum comrades and Lyceum happiness, scattered so profusely over the pages of Púshkin, have an indescribable charm to the imagination, not less delightful than the recital of Byron's almost feminine affection for "little Harness," or the oft-recalled image of the Noble Childe's boyish meditation in the elm-shadowed churchyard of Harrow.

During the six years which Púshkin passed at the Lyceum, (from 1811 to 1817,) the intellect and the affections of the young poet were rapidly and steadily developing themselves. He could not, it is true, be considered as a diligent scholar, by those who looked at the progress made by him in the regular and ostensible occupations of the institution; but it is undeniable, that the activity of his powerful, accurate, and penetrating mind found solid and unremitting occupation in a wide circle of general reading. His own account of the acquirements he had made at this period, and of the various branches of study which he had cultivated with more or less assiduity, proves that, however desultory may have been the nature of his reading, and however unformed or incoherent were his literary projects, he possessed, in ample measure, even at this period, the great elements of future fame; viz. the habit of vigorous industry, and the power of sustained abstraction and contemplation.

His personal appearance, at this time, was a plain index of his character, intellectual as well as moral. The closely-curled and wiry hair, the mobile and irregular features, the darkness of the complexion, all betrayed his African descent; and served as an appropriate outside to a character which was early formed in all its individuality, and which remained unchanged in its principal features during the whole of the poet's too short existence. Long will the youthful traditions of the Lyceum recall the outlines of Púshkin's character; long will the unbiassed judgment of boyhood do justice to the manliness, the honour, the straightforwardness of the great poet's nature, and hand down, from one young generation to another, numberless traits exemplifying the passionate warmth of his heart, the gaiety of his temper, and the vastness of his memory. In all cases where circumstances come fairly under their observation, the young are the best judges of internal character, as well as the most unerring physiognomists of the outward lineaments of the face. Púshkin was extremely popular among his comrades—the generosity of his character had peculiar charms for the unsophisticated minds of the young; and the vigour of a body never enfeebled in infancy by luxurious indulgence, enabled him to obtain, by sharing in their sports, no less consideration among them than he derived from the play of his penetrating and sarcastic humour. His poetical existence was now already begun: to the Lyceum period of Púshkin's life we must ascribe not only a considerable number of short pieces of verse—those first flutterings of the bird before it has strength to leave the nest—but even the conception of many poetical projects which time and study were hereafter to mature into masterpieces. The short and fugitive essays in poetry to which we have just alluded, appeared in a literary journal at various periods, and under anonymous signatures—a circumstance to be deplored, as it has deprived us of the means of examining how far these slight attempts, composed in the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth years of his age, gave promise of future excellence. In themselves, they were probably so crude and unlicked as to justify the poet in the indifference which prevented him from claiming these early compositions, and allowing them to be incorporated in the collections of his writings. During his residence at the Lyceum, however, he undoubtedly meditated the plan of his charming romantic poem, "Ruslán and Liudmíla," and probably even composed the opening of the work. To this period, too, are to be assigned some stanzas of great merit, entitled "Recollections of Tsárskoë Seló," and an "Epistle to Licinius"—both works exhibiting considerable skill and mastery in versification, but by far too much tinged (as might indeed be expected) with the light reflected from the youthful poet's reading to deserve a place among his original productions. For the amusement of his comrades, also, he wrote a number of ludicrous and humorous pieces, which derived their chief merit from the circumstances which suggested them; and were calculated rather to excite a moment's laughter in the merry circle of schoolfellows, than to be cited as specimens of the author's comic powers, particularly when we reflect, that the broadly humorous was never Púshkin's favourite or even successful manner of writing: in the delicate, subdued, Cervantes tone of humour, however, he was destined to become perhaps the most distinguished writer of his country—but let us not anticipate. One production, connected with the Lyceum, is, however, too important (not perhaps in itself, so much as in the circumstances accompanying it) to be passed over in a biography of our poet. This is a didactic poem entitled "Infidelity," which Púshkin composed and read at the public examination at the Lyceum, at the solemn Act, (a ceremony resembling that which bears the same name at Oxford and Cambridge, and which takes place at the conferring of the academical degree.) It was on this occasion that Púshkin was publicly saluted Poet, in the presence of the Emperor, by the aged Derjávin—the greatest Russian poet then living, and whose glory was so soon to be eclipsed by the young student whom he prophetically applauded. It is impossible not to be affected by the sight of the sunset of that genius whose brightest splendour is worthily reflected in the sublime ode, "God"—one of the noblest lyrics in the Russian, or, indeed, in any language—thus heralding, as it were, the dawning of a more brilliant and enduring daybreak; even as in the northern summer the vapoury evening glow melts imperceptibly into the dawn, and leaves no night between.

This event, so calculated to impress the vivid and ardent imagination of the young poet, has been most exquisitely described by himself in the literary journal, "Sovreménnik," (The Contemporary,) vol. viii. p. 241.

On quitting the Lyceum, in October 1817, Púshkin entered the civil service, and was immediately attached to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Young, noble, cultivated, possessed in the highest degree of those talents which are certain to enchant society, he plunged, as might naturally have been expected, with all the ardour of his African blood, into the pleasures and amusements of the capital. His success in society, and the eagerness with which he was welcomed every where, might easily have been foreseen, particularly when we keep in mind the universal hospitality which distinguishes the higher classes of Russian society, and the comparative rarity in this country of literary celebrity, which tends to render merit of that nature certain of a respectful, if not exaggerated appreciation. "The three years," to quote the words of one—himself a personal friend of the poet's—who has succeeded in seizing with admirable fidelity the principal features of Púshkin's intellectual physiognomy, "the three years which he passed in St Petersburg, after quitting the Lyceum, were devoted to the amusements of the fashionable world, and to the irresistible enchantments of society. From the splendid drawing-room of the great noble down to the most unceremonious supper-table of a party of young officers, every where Púshkin was received with exultation, and every where did he become the idol of the young, who gratified both his vanity and their own by the glory which accompanied his every step."

The eagerness with which the young poet plunged into the glittering stream of fashionable life, must not be attributed only to the natural thirst for pleasure in a young man just released from the bonds of a school life, and to the first vivid sense of liberty excited in the mind of a youth, who had been passing six years of his life in a spot which, however beautiful, was still but a beautiful seclusion. We must keep in mind the different constitution of society in Russia, and particularly the fact, that the absence (at least for social purposes) of a middle class in that country, renders the upper ranks the only section of the social system in which intellectual pleasure can be sought, or intellectual supremacy appreciated. Púshkin himself always attached no inconsiderable importance to his success in the beau monde; and it is incontestably to his friction (if we may so style it) with that beau monde that he owed some of the more attractive, if not the more solid, qualities of his genius, and much of the refinement and good taste which distinguish his style. Like all men of the higher order of intellect—like Scott, like Cervantes, and Michael Angelo—Púshkin was endowed by nature with a vigorous and mighty organization, bodily as well as mental: and though he may appear to have been losing much valuable time in the elegant frivolities of the drawing-room, he was not less industrious at this period of his career in amassing a store of observation derived from a practical study of human character, than successful in filling up—in the short intervals of ball and festival—the poetical outlines which he had roughly sketched at the Lyceum. He worked in the morning at his poem, and passed the greater part of his nights in society; very short intervals of repose sufficing to repair, in so vigorously constituted a being, the loss of energetic vitality caused by the quick succession of intense intellectual labour, and equally intense social enjoyment. It was at this period that the enchanting creations of Wieland and Ariosto were first presented to his young and glowing imagination. These poets are emphatically and essentially the poets of the young: the "white soul" of youth, as yet untinged with the colouring reflected from its own peculiar fantasy, or the results of reading, mirrors faithfully the fairy splendour of their magic style, even as the Alpine snow the rosy light of dawn: and Púshkin, with the natural desire of imitating what he so well knew how to admire, conceived the happy thought of transporting Armida and Oberon to a scenery admirably adapted for their reproduction—to the world of ancient Russia. The popular superstitions of the Sclavonic races, though naturally possessing a tone and local colouring of their own, and modified by the nature which they reflect, are neither less graceful nor less fertile in poetry than the delicate mythology so exquisitely embodied by the great German or the yet greater Italian: and the poem of "Ruslán and Liudmíla"—the result of Púshkin's bold and happy experiment—may be said to have been the very first embodiment of Russian fancy, at least the first such embodiment exhibited under a form sufficiently European to enable readers who were not Russians to appreciate and admire. The cantos which compose this charming work were read by Púshkin, as fast as they were completed, at the house of his friend and brother poet, Jukóvskii, where were assembled the most distinguished men of Russian literary society. In 1820 the poem of "Ruslán and Liudmíla" was completed, and its appearance must be considered as giving the finishing blow to the worn-out classicism which characterizes all the poetical language of the eighteenth century. This revolution was begun by Jukóvskii himself, to whom Russian literature owes so much; and he hailed with delight the new and beautiful production of the young poet—the "conquering scholar," as Jukóvskii affectionately calls Púshkin—which established for ever the new order of things originating in the good taste of the "conquered master," as he designates himself.

The ever timid spirit of criticism was, as usual, exemplified in the judgments passed by the literary journals upon this elegant innovation. Some were alarmed at the novelty of the language, others shocked at the irregularity of the versification, and others again at the occasional comic passages introduced into the poem: but all forgot, or all dared not confess, that this was the first Russian poetry which had ever been greedily and universally read; and that, until the appearance of "Ruslán and Liudmíla," poetry and tiresomeness had been, in Russia, convertible terms.

Immediately on the publication of "Ruslán and Liudmíla," the poet, becoming in all probability somewhat weary of a life of incessant and labouring pleasure, left the capital and retired to Kishenév; he took service in the chancery (or office) of Lieutenant-General Inzóff, substitute in the province of Bessarabia. From this epoch begins the wandering and unsettled period of the poet's life, which occupies a space of five years, and concludes with his return to his father's village of Mikháilovskoë, in the government of Pskoff. The effect upon the character and genius of Púshkin, of this pilgrim-like existence, must be considered as in the highest degree favourable: he stored up, in these wanderings, we may be sure, effects of scenery and traits of human nature—in fact the rough materials of future poetry. Fortunately for him, the theatre of his travels was vast enough to enable him to lay in an ample stock not only of recollections of the external beauties in the physical world, but also a rich supply of the various characteristics of national manners. He traversed the whole south of Russia—a district admirably calculated to strike and to impress the warm and vivid imagination of our poet; and "he took genial tribute from the wandering tribes of Bessarabia, and from the merchant inhabitants of Odessa, and from the classic ruins of the Tauride, and from the dark-blue waves of the Euxine, and from the wild peaks of the Caucasus."

It was at this epoch of Púshkin's career that the mighty star of Byron first rose, like some glittering, but irregular comet, above the literary horizon of Europe. The genius of the Russian poet had far too many points of resemblance, in many of its most characteristic peculiarities, with the Muse of the Noble Childe, for us to be surprised at the circumstance that the new and brilliant productions of Byron should have a powerful influence on so congenial a mind as was that of Púshkin. When we allow, therefore, the existence of this influence, nay more, when we endeavour to appreciate and measure the extent of that influence; when we essay to express the degree of aberration (to use the language of the astronomer) produced in the orbit of the great poetic planet of the North by the approach in the literary hemisphere of the yet greater luminary of England—we give the strongest possible denial to a fallacious opinion, useless to the glory of one great man and injurious to the just fame of the other, viz. that Púshkin can be called in any sense an imitator of Lord Byron. In many respects, it is true, there was a strange and surprising analogy between the personal character, the peculiar tone of thought, nay, even the nature of the subjects treated by the two poets: and to those who content themselves with a superficial examination of the question—those "who have not attayned," as Sir Thomas Browne quaintly phrases it, "to the deuteroscophie or second sight of thinges"—these analogies may appear conclusive; but we trust to be able to show, that between these two great men there exists a difference wide and marked enough to satisfy the most critical stickler for originality.

The next production of Púshkin's pen was a brilliant "Epilogue" to the poem of "Ruslán and Liudmíla"—in which he replies to the strictures which had appeared in the various literary journals. This piece was immediately followed (in 1822) by his "Prisoner of the Caucasus," a romantic poem, which breathes the very freshness of the mountain breeze, and must be considered as the perfect embodiment, in verse, of the sublime region from whence it takes its title. So deep was the impression produced by this splendid and passionate poem, that it was reprinted four times before it was incorporated into the edition of the author's collected works;—the impressions having been exhausted in 1822, 24, 28, and 35. The reader, in order to appreciate the avidity with which the poem was read, must bear in mind the small amount of literary activity in Russia, as compared with England, with Germany, or with France. We shall not attempt to give, in this place, any analysis of this, or the other works of Púshkin, as it is our conviction that short and meagre fragments—all that our space would admit of—are very unsatisfactory and insufficient grounds on which to judge a work of fiction, and particularly a work of poetry in a language absolutely unknown to almost all our readers, many of the chief peculiarities depending too upon the nationality of which that language is the expression and vehicle. It is, however, our intention, should the specimens of lyric poetry presented in the translations accompanying this notice be favourably received in England, to extend the sphere of our humble labours, and to endeavour to Daguerreotype, by faithful versions, portions of the longer poems (and in particular the narrative pieces) of the great writer whose portrait we are attempting to trace. We shall, we trust, by so doing succeed in giving our countrymen a more just idea of the merit and peculiar manner of our poet, than we could hope to do by exhibiting to the reader the bare anatomy—the mere dry bones of his works, to which would be wanting the lively play of versification, the life-blood of fancy, and the ever-varying graces of expression.

Between the first of these two remarkable poems ("Ruslán and Liudmíla") and the second—"The Prisoner of the Caucasus," the mind of Púshkin had undergone a most remarkable transformation; "there is hardly any thing," to use the words of the elegant critic whom we have already quoted, "common to the two poems, except the beauty of the verses." There is not a greater difference between an early and a late picture of Raphael; and what is interesting and curious to remark, is the circumstance, that poet and painter (in their gradual advance towards consummate excellence in their respective arts) seemed to have passed through the same stages of development. In the earlier work all is studied, elaborated, carefully and scientifically composed; worked out from the quarry of memory, chiselled by the imagination, and polished by a studious and somewhat pedantic taste: while the imagery, the passion, and the characters of the later production are modelled immediately from Nature herself. The reader perceives that the young artist has now reached the first phase of his development, and has thrown aside the rule and compass of precedents and books, and feels himself sufficiently strong of hand and steady of eye to look face to face upon the unveiled goddess herself, and with reverent skill to copy her sublime lineaments. We cannot better express our meaning, than by allowing Púshkin himself to give his own opinion of this poem. In the latter part of his life, he writes as follows—"At Lars I found a dirtied and dog's-eared copy of 'The Prisoner of the Caucasus,' and I confess that I read it through with much gratification. All this is weak, boyish, incomplete; but there is much happily guessed at and faithfully expressed."

The indomitable activity which we have mentioned as forming a marked feature in Púshkin's intellect, though exhibited most strikingly throughout his whole career, was never more forcibly displayed than at the present period. Although the first fervour of his passions was now in sole degree moderated by indulgence, and by that satiety which is the inevitable attendant on such indulgence, it is not to be imagined that the poet, in retiring from the capital, intended by this to seclude himself from the gayer pleasures of society. We know, too, how absorbing of time is the wandering life which he led—and many have learned from experience, how difficult it is for a traveller to find leisure for intellectual pursuits. Some idea, therefore, of Púshkin's activity may be formed from a knowledge of the circumstance, that during this roving period he had not only been storing his memory with images of the beauties of nature, taking tribute of grandeur and loveliness from every scene through which he wandered, but found time to pursue what would appear, even for an otherwise unoccupied student, a very steady and incessant course of labour. During the whole of his life, he made it his practice to read almost every remarkable work which appeared in the various languages he had acquired. That this was no easy task, and that the quantity of intellectual food which he unceasingly consumed, must have required a powerful and rapid digestion to assimilate it, we may conclude from his own statement of his occupations and acquirements. On quitting the Lyceum, he was acquainted with the English, Latin, German, and French languages; to this list he managed to add, during his wanderings, a complete knowledge of the Italian, and a competent proficiency in Spanish.

But let us hear his own account of these studies, extracted from a poem written in Bessarabia—

"In solitude my soul, my wayward inspiration
I've school'd to quiet toil, to fervent meditation.
I'm master of my days; order is reason's friend;
On graver thoughts I've learn'd my spirit's powers to bend;
I seek to compensate, in freedom's calm embraces,
For the warm years of youth, its joys and vanish'd graces;
And to keep equal step with an enlighten'd age."

We cannot refrain from quoting in this place a passage from another poem, written at this period; our readers will be pleased, we think, with so graceful a tribute to the glory of the great exile-bard of Rome, whose fate and character had so much in common with those of Púshkin himself—

"Sweet Ovid! Love's own bard! I dwell by that still shore
Whither thine exiled gods thou broughtest—where of yore
Thou pour'dst thy plaints in life, and left thine ashes dying;
With deathless, fruitless tears these places glorifying.

* * * * * *

Here, with a northern lyre the wilderness awaking,
I wander'd in those days, when liberty was breaking—
Roused by the gallant Greek—her sleep, by Danube's tide;
And not one friend would stand, a brother, by my side;
And the far hills alone, and woods in silence dreaming,
And the calm muses then would list with kindly seeming."

The influence exerted upon our poet's mind and productions by the Byronian spirit, to which we alluded a few pages back, may be traced, in very perceptible degree, in the next poem which he gave to the public, "The Fountain of Bakhtchisarái," a work in which is reflected, as vividly as it is in the storied waters of the fount from which it takes its name, all the wealth, the profuse and abounding loveliness, of the luxurious clime of the Tauric Chersonese. The scene of the poem is one of the most romantic spots in that divine land; and the ruined palace and "gardens of delight" which once made the joy and pride of the mighty khans—the rulers of the Golden Horde—is perhaps not inferior, as a source of wild legend and picturesque fairy lore—certainly not inferior in the eyes of a Russian reader—to the painted halls and fretted colonnades of the Alhambra. The success instantly obtained and permanently enjoyed by this exquisite poem must be attributed to something more than the profusion and beauty of the descriptive passages, so thickly and artfully interwoven with the action of the tale—a species of wealth and profusion, it may be remarked, which suits well with the oriental character of the story, and with the abounding loveliness of the scenery amid which that action is supposed to take place. In this poem, too, we may remark the first decided essay made by the poet towards delineating and contrasting, in an artistic manner, the characters of human personages. The dramatic opposition between the two principal characters of the tale, Maria and Zarema, is well conceived and most skilfully executed. This poem first appeared in 1824, and was reprinted in 1827, 1830, 1835. The powers of dramatic delineation which may be seen, as it were, in embryo in this work, were to be still further developed in Púshkin's next production, which was begun in the same year, (1824,) and appeared in 1827. Those powers, too, were destined to be exhibited in their full splendour in a historical tragedy—perhaps the finest which the Russian literature can be said to possess. The work to which we have alluded as being the second trial of his wings in the arduous regions of dramatic creation, was the short but exquisite tale entitled "The Gipsies." This tale, which is esteemed by the Russians a masterpiece of grace and simplicity, is a poem in dialogue; the persons being only four in number, and the action a wild yet simple catastrophe of love, jealousy, and revenge. The dramatis personæ are gipsies; and it is difficult to select what is most admirable in this exquisite little work—the completeness and distinctness of the descriptions of external nature—the artful introduction of various allusions, (particularly in one most charming passage, indicating Ovid's exile in the beautiful country which is the scene of the drama,) or the intense interest which the poet has known how to infuse into what would appear at first sight a subject simple even to meagreness. Poets of many nations have endeavoured, with various qualifications, and with no less various degrees of success, to represent the picturesque and striking features of the nomad life and wild superstitions of the gipsy race: none however, it may be safely asserted, have ever produced a picture more true or more poetical than is to be found in the production of Púshkin. He had ample opportunities of studying their peculiar manners in the green oceans of the southern steppes. It is at this period that Púshkin began the composition of his poem entitled "Evgénii Oniégin," a production which has become, it may be said, part of the ordinary language of the poet's countrymen. The first canto appeared in 1825, 1829. This work, in its outline, its plan, in the general tone of thought pervading it, and in certain other external circumstances, bears a kind of fallacious resemblance to the inimitable production of Lord Byron; a circumstance which leads superficial readers into the error (unjust in the highest degree to Púshkin's originality) of considering it as an imitation of the Don. It is a species of satire upon society, (and Russian fashionable society in particular,) embodied in an easy wandering verse something like that of Byron; and so far, perhaps, the comparison between the two poems holds good. Púshkin's plot has the advantage of being (though sufficiently slight in construction, it must be confessed) considerably more compact and interesting than the irregular narration which serves Byron to string together the bitter beads of his satirical rosary; but, at the same time, the aim and scope of the English satirist is infinitely more vast and comprehensive. The Russian has also none of the terrible and deeply-thrilling pictures of passion and of war which so strangely and powerfully contrast with the bitter sneer and gay irony forming the basis of the Don; but, on the other hand, the interest of the reader (scattered, in Byron's work, upon the various, unconnected, and somewhat monotonous outlines of female characters in Julia, Haidée, Gulbeyas, &c.,) is in "Evgénii Oniégin" most powerfully concentrated upon the heroine, Tatiana—one of the most exquisite tributes that poetry has ever paid to the nobility of woman. To show the difficulty of judging of this work, we need only mention, that while many compare it to "Don Juan," others consider is as rather resembling "Childe Harold;" while the author himself professed that it was rather to be placed in the category of "Beppo."

On leaving Odessa, (in 1824,) Púshkin, who appears to have loved the sea with all the fervour of Shelley himself, bade farewell to the waves with which he had communed so earnestly, and whose deep voices his verse so nobly echoed, in some grand stanzas "To the Sea," of which a translation will be given in a subsequent part.

It is to this epoch that we must ascribe the first outline of the historical tragedy to which we have alluded; but which did not appear till a much later period. We shall recur to this work when we reach the date of its completion.

As the composition of "Evgénii Oniégin" extended over a considerable space of time, our readers may not be displeased at our reverting occasionally to the progress of this work and to the character of its merits. This production must be considered as the fullest and most complete embodiment that exists in Russian literature, of the nationality of the country. It will be found to be the expression of those apparently discordant elements the union of which composes that hard riddle—the Russian character. A passage of Púshkin's dedication will not incorrectly exhibit the variety of its tone:—

"Accept this heap of motley traits,
Half gay, half sad, half false, half real,
Half every-day, yet half ideal,
The careless fruit of idle days,
Of sleepless nights; slight inspirations
Of unripe years, of wasted art—
The reason's frigid observations,
And sad conclusions of the heart."

During the most tranquil and laborious portion of Púshkin's life, which passed principally at Mikháilovskoë, and which occupies the period from his leaving Odessa at the end of the year 1824 to 1826, he continued to labour upon his tragedy, and to produce the second and third cantos of "Evgénii Oniégin," in addition to which, our indefatigable poet found means to collect and publish a number of smaller poems, some of which will be found among the translations which we are about to offer; and to aid his friend and brother-poet Délvig in an annual volume of prose and verse (illustrated after the manner of our Keepsakes, &c.) entitled "Northern Flowers." This publication was commenced in 1826, and continued to appear, always enriched with something by Púshkin, till its existence closed at the early and lamented death of the projector and editor.

Púshkin's life at this period was characterized by intense industry, and an uniformity of exertion modified and compensated by variety of occupation. He has left a minute description of the manner in which his time was distributed between labour and repose; and even if we did not possess his letters, it is described with sufficient accuracy in the fourth canto of "Evgénii Oniégin," to enable us to transcribe it here. He was in the habit of rising early, and of devoting the morning and forenoon to those parts of his literary occupation which demanded the exercise of the intellectual or reasoning powers, the memory, &c. &c. Before dinner (whatever was the state of the weather) he took somewhat violent walking exercise; he then dined, (it should be remarked that the dinner-hour is earlier in Russia than is usual in England,) and having passed the evening in society either at home or at some neighbouring country-house, he returned to his poetical labours, which he sometimes continued far into the night.[1] He has frequently repeated that he found himself more perfectly disposed to composition in the season of autumn; and that his poetical vein flowed most generously and abundantly on a dark and stormy night. To those who are acquainted with the climate of Russia (particularly of that part of the Empire where Púshkin now resided) this will not be surprising; and the abundance and splendour of the descriptions of the autumnal season introduced into his various works, will show that his mind and imagination had something in harmony with that which is, in our opinion, the most poetical portion of the year. Like many persons of a highly nervous organization, the brilliant sunshine of spring-tide produced in Púshkin's temperament an impression of melancholy, which he explained by a natural tendency to consumption.

In autumn 1826, Púshkin re-entered the government service in his original department, viz., that of the foreign affairs; and in 1827 he printed, besides the third canto of "Evgénii Oniégin," the "Gypsies," a new poem of inferior merit entitled the "Robber-Brothers," and a comic tale, also in verse, which, though slight in construction, is a masterpiece of graceful and elegant satire. It is entitled "Count Nulin," and describes the signal discomfiture of certain designs meditated by the count (a most delightful specimen of a young Russian coxcomb) against the virtue of his hostess, a fair châtelaine, at whose country-house the said count passes a night in consequence of a disabled travelling-carriage.

To this period, too, must be assigned the composition of "Poltáva," a work, the proper title of which would be "Mazépa," but which received its name in order that the public might not confound it with Byron's tale, the hero of both being the same historical personage. It is almost unnecessary to state that there is no resemblance whatever between these two remarkable works. While the production of Byron is rather an admirable development of certain incidents, either entirely invented by the poet, or only slightly suggested by passages of the old Kazak Hetman's biography, the Mazépa of Púshkin is a most spirited and faithful version of the real history of the romantic life of the hero; the actual events adopted by the Russian poet as the groundwork of his tale, being certainly not inferior in strangeness, novelty, and romantic incident, to the short fiery tale, dawning rosily in mutual love, and finishing with the wild gallop on the desert steed, which thrills us so deeply in the pages of Byron.

In 1829 was given to the world an edition of Púshkin's collected works, arranged in chronological order; and the author had another opportunity of visiting the East—those climes whence he had drawn, and was to draw again, so much of his inspiration. He once more crossed the Caucasus, and leaving in his rear his beloved Georgia, he followed the movements of the Russian army in its campaign, and accompanied it as far as Arzerám, receiving, during this journey, the most flattering attentions from Marshal Paskévitch, the commander-in-chief of the expedition. We may judge of the delight with which he seized this opportunity of indulging his taste for travelling, and of the vast store of recollections and images which he garnered up during this pilgrimage—so peculiarly attractive to a poet, as combining the pleasure of travelling with the splendour and picturesque novelties of a military march—by the letters in which he has described his impressions during this interesting period. These letters are models of simplicity, grace, and interest, and have become classical in the Russian language.

In 1830, Baron Délvig commenced the publication of the Literary Gazette, an undertaking in which Púshkin took as active and zealous an interest as he had done in the Northern Flowers, edited by his friend and schoolfellow. He not only contributed many beautiful poems to this periodical, but also several striking prose tales and other papers, in which, by the elegance and brilliancy of the style, and the acuteness and originality of the thoughts, the public found no difficulty in identifying Púshkin, though they appeared anonymously. He now visited Moscow, in order to superintend the printing of his Bóris Godunóff, the tragedy which he had been so long engaged in polishing and completing, and respecting the success of which he appears to have been more anxious than usual, as he determined to write himself the preface to this work. The subject of this tragedy is the well-known episode of Russian history which placed Boris upon the throne of the Tsar; and writers have taken various views of the character of the hero of this scene, Púshkin representing Boris as the assassin of the son of Ivan IV., while the ancient chroniclers, and the modern historians in general, as Ustriáloff, Pogódin, Kraévskii, &c. &c., concur in asserting that that prince was elected by the clergy and the people. Whatever may be the historical truth of the design, Púshkin has given us in this tragedy a dramatic picture full of spirit, of passion, of character, and of life; and some of the personages, particularly those of the pretender Dimítri, and the heroine Marina, are sketched with a vigorous and flowing pencil. The form of this play is ostensibly Shakspearian; but it appears to us to resemble less the works of Shakspeare himself, than some of the more successful imitations of the great dramatist's manner—as, for instance, some parts of the Wallenstein. As to the language and versification, it is in blank verse, and the style is considered by Russians as admirable for ease and flexibility. At this time Púshkin's life was about to undergo a great change; he was engaged to a young lady whom he afterwards married, and retired, in the spring of this year, to the village of Boldino, in the province of Nijegorod, in order to make preparations for his new existence as a married man, and in this spot he remained, in consequence of the cholera breaking out in Moscow, until the winter. In spite of the engrossing nature of these occupations, he seems never to have been more industriously employed than during this autumn. "I must tell you," he writes, "(but between you and me!) that I have been working at Boldino as I have not done for a long time. Listen then! I brought with me hither the two last cantos of 'Oniégin,' ready for the press, a tale in octaves, (the Little House in the Kolomora,) number of dramatic scenes—'The Stingy Knight,' 'Mozart and Salieri,' 'The Feast in the Time of the Plague,' and 'Don Juan.' Besides this, I have written about thirty small pieces of poetry. I have not done yet; I have written in prose (this is a great secret) five tales," (Ivan Biélkin's Stories.) The year 1831 began afflictingly for Púshkin. On the 14th of January Baron Délvig died. All Púshkin's letters in which he makes any allusion to this loss, breathe a sentiment of the most deep and permanent sorrow. The following is extracted from a letter to a friend, dated the 31st of this month:—"I knew him (Délvig) at the Lyceum. I watched the first unnoted unfolding of his poetic mind—the early development of a talent which we then gave not its just value. We read together Deljávin and Jukóvskii; we talked of all that swelleth the spirit, that melteth the heart. His life was rich and full—rich, not in romantic adventures, but in the most noble feelings, the most brilliant and the purest intellect, and the fairest hopes."

But the grief caused by this great and irreparable loss—a grief which threw its dark cold shadow over the whole of Púshkin's subsequent existence—was not unrelieved by feelings of a brighter tone: the void caused by friendship was filled up with love. In February of this year he was married, at Moscow, to the lady to whom (as we have mentioned above) he had been some time engaged. Mlle. Gontcháreff was of an ancient Russian family, and a person of singular beauty. "I am married," (writes the poet to one of his friends, in a letter dated February 24.) "I have now but one desire in the world, and that is, that nothing in my present life be changed. This existence is so new to me, that I feel as if I had been born again. The death of Délvig is the only shadow in my bright existence." Púshkin was desirous of editing a volume of the "Northern Flowers," in the following year, for the benefit of the family of his departed friend, for which he now began assiduously to collect materials. This labour detained him until the month of May in Moscow; and, before his migration to St Petersburg, the tragedy of Bóris Godunóff was printed. Among all the works of Púshkin there is not one which exhibits so high a degree of artistic skill, or so vigorous and powerful a genius, as this drama, in which every word, every dialogue, seems to unite the certainty of study and meditation with the fire and naturalness of a happy improvisation, and in which there is not a character nor an allusion which destroys the truth and vigour of the composition, viewed as a faithful mirror of Russian nationality, Russian history, and Russian character. The remainder of Púshkin's short, alas! but laborious life, however filled with the silent activity of intellectual occupation, offers but few materials for the biographer: it was passed principally at St Petersburg, varied by occasional journeys to Moscow, and the usual autumnal retirements, which we have mentioned as having been so favourable for the execution of the poet's literary tasks. We shall content ourselves with giving a slight account of the principal works in which Púshkin employed his great powers—powers which had now reached their highest point of vigour, retaining all the freshness and vivacity of youth, while they had acquired the maturity and solidity of manhood. The subjects of these works, however, being for the most part historical, are of a nature which renders them less susceptible of analysis in our pages—and indeed their local nature would cause such analysis to be devoid, in a great measure, of interest to the English reader. There is, however, one episode in the poet's life, which must possess peculiar interest to those who delight to watch that fond fidelity with which genius returns to the scenes where it was first developed, and which brought back Shakspeare, loaded with glory, to pass the calm evening of his life amid the native shades of Stratford. On quitting Moscow for St Petersburg, Púshkin passed a winter at Tsárskoë Seló. "This was a most blessed thought," he says, in a letter of 26th March; "I can thus pass my summer and autumn in a most enchanting and inspiring seclusion; close to the capital, in the circle of my dearest recollections. I shall be able to see you every week, and Jukóvskii also. Petersburg is within an hour's drive. Living is cheap here. I shall not want an equipage. What can be better?" And, in fact, it is certain that he never was so perfectly happy in his society and his occupations, and in himself, as in these summer and autumn months which he passed, as he says:—

"In those bright days when yet all ignorant of fame,
And knowing neither care, system, nor art, nor aim,
Thy tutelary shades, O Tsárskoë! were flinging
Gay echoes to his voice, the praise of Idlesse singing."

The beautiful retirement of Tsárskoë Seló was at this period dignified by the presence of two great poets, each producing works worthy of the imperial groves under whose shade they were meditated. Púshkin and Jukóvskii were not only residing here together, but they were engaged in a friendly rivalry, and each writing so industriously as though determined never to meet without some new poetic novelty. The deep impression produced by Jukóvskii's patriotic stanzas, written at this period, entitled "Russian Glory," was worthily responded to by the noble poems written by Púshkin, "To the Slanderers of Russia!" and "The Anniversary of Borodino,"—all these works being spirited and majestic embodiments of national triumph and exultation.

It is curious and delightful to remark, too, that the poets of Tsárskoë Seló were occupied, at this period, with the composition of two similar works of another and no less national character. These were "tales" or legends in the popular taste of the Russian people, that of Jukóvskii was entitled "The Lay of the Tsar Berendéi," and Púshkin's, "The Lay of the Tsar Saltán."

In this year, too, was printed Púshkin's small collection of prose tales, under the assumed name of Ivan Biélkin, which appeared with a biographical preface, describing the life and character of the supposed author. The tales are of extraordinary merit, remarkable for the simplicity and natural grace of the style, and the preface is a specimen of consummate excellence in point of quiet Addisonian humour.

In the year 1831, Púshkin girded up his loins to enter upon the great historical task; which had so long attracted his imagination, and which, difficult and arduous as was the undertaking, he was probably better calculated than any literary man whom Russia has yet seen, to execute in a manner worthy of the sublime nature of its subject. This was the history of Peter the Great. He now began to set seriously about preparing himself for approaching this gigantic subject, and passed the greater part of his time in the archives, collecting the necessary materials for the work. In his hours of relaxation he produced the third volume of his smaller poems, and superintended the publication of another volume of the "Northern Flowers," which appeared in 1832. But these must be considered as the results rather of his play-moments, than as the serious occupation of his time. His mornings were generally passed among the records preserved in the various departments of the government, from whence, after the labours and researches of the day, he usually returned on foot to his late dinner. He was an active and indefatigable walker, prizing highly, and endeavouring to preserve by constant exercise, the vigorous frame of body with which he was blessed by nature. Even in summer he was accustomed to return on foot from his country residence to his labours in the city, and was in the habit of taking violent corporeal exercise in gymnastics, which he would continue with the patience and enduring vigour of an athlete. These walks (it should be remarked that a taste for walking is much more rare among the Russians than in England, from the severity and extreme changes in the climate of the North, the heat in summer rendering such exercise much more laborious than with us, and the cold in winter necessitating the use of the heavy shubá of fur)—these walks were Púshkin's principal amusement, if we except bathing, an exercise which the poet would frequently continue far into autumn—a season when the weather in Russia is frequently very severe.

In the prosecution of his great historical labour, it was evidently difficult for the lively imagination of Púshkin to escape the temptation of being drawn aside from his chief aim, by the attractive and romantic character of many episodes in Russian history—to wander for a moment from the somewhat formal and arid high-road of history, into some of the "shady spaces," peopled with romantic adventure and picturesque incident. It was under the influence of some such attraction, that he conceived the idea of working out in a separate production, the detached epoch rendered so remarkable by the rebellion of Pugatchéff. Finding that he had already performed the most serious portion of the drudgery of collecting materials for his principal historical enterprise, he drew, with a wonderfully rapid and lively pencil, the vigorous sketch of the events of that extraordinary conspiracy, and has left us a work which, whatever be its imperfections and slightness, viewed as a work of history, cannot be denied to be a most admirable and striking outline of the picturesque and singular events which form its subject. Convinced of the importance, to an author of history, of a personal knowledge of the scenes in which his events took place, Púshkin, when the history of Pugatchéff's rebellion was already on the verge of completion, determined (before his work was published) to examine with his own eyes that eastern region of European Russia, which had been the theatre of the strange drama of that singular pretender's life, and to enable himself to infuse into a narration founded upon dry records, the life and reality which was to be obtained from questioning the old inhabitants of that country, many of whom might remember the wild adventures of which, in their youth, they had been witnesses or actors. In 1833, Púshkin was enabled to gratify this natural curiosity; and the result of his visit to the scene of the rebellion enabled him to communicate to his already plain, vigorous, and concise narration, a tone of reality, a warmth of colouring, and a liveliness of language, which renders it impossible to leave the book unfinished when once opened, and which no elaborateness of research, and no minuteness of detail, could otherwise have communicated.

During the first two years of its existence, the periodical entitled "The Reading Library" was honoured by the appearance in its pages of that division of Púshkin's smaller poems, afterwards published separately as the fourth volume of his collected works, in the year 1835. In this journal, too, were printed his two prose tales "The Queen of Spades" and "Kirdjáli," the former of which has, we believe, appeared in English, and of the latter a translation has been attempted, together with several others of his smaller prose works, by the author of the present notice. A journey which he made to Orenburg gave him the materials for fresh prose tales. The most remarkable of these, the beautiful and well-known story, "The Captain's Daughter," first appeared in the periodical entitled "The Contemporary," which is justly considered as the chief miscellaneous journal that appears in Russia, and which partakes of the nature of what we in England call the review and magazine. In all his writing, prose or verse, Púshkin is most astonishingly unaffected, rational, and straightforward; but in the last-named story he has attained the highest degree of perfection—it is the simplicity of nature herself.

This period must be considered as that in which Púshkin had arrived at the summit of his glory. He was now enjoying the universal respect and admiration of his countrymen, a respect and admiration shared by the sovereign himself, who distinguished the great poet by naming him "gentilhomme de la chambre;" he was in the very flower of health, life, and genius; he had completed the laborious part of his great task, in collecting materials for the history of Peter the Great—all seemed to prophesy a future filled with bright certainties of happiness and glory.

But the end was not far off; the dark and melancholy event which was to put a sudden and a fatal conclusion to this glorious and useful career was near at hand. The storm which was to quench this bright and shining light was already rising dimly above the horizon; and the poet's prophetic eye foresaw—like that of the seer in the Scripture—the "little cloud like a man's hand," that was rising heavily over the calm sky; he seems to have had an obscure presentiment of the near approach of death, little suspecting, perhaps, that that death was to be one of violence, of suffering, and of blood. He had, a few months before, lost his mother, and had himself accompanied her last remains to the monastery of Sviatogórsk, and had fixed upon a spot where he wished to be buried by her side; leaving for this purpose a sum of money in the treasury of the monastery.

It is, we believe, generally known, even in England, that Púshkin was mortally wounded in a duel, on Wednesday 27th January, and that he died, after lingering in excruciating[2] torment during two days and nights, at half-past two in the afternoon of the 29th of January 1837.

Respecting the causes which led to this melancholy conclusion of a great man's life, and the details which accompanied that sad and deplorable event, it is not our intention to speak. Under any circumstances, to dwell upon so lamentable an affair would serve no good purpose; and would rather minister to a morbid curiosity in our readers, than in any respect illustrate the life and character of Púshkin; but the propriety of avoiding more than an allusion to this sad story will be evident, when we reflect that the poet's dying wish was, that the whole circumstance should if possible be buried in oblivion. Respect, then, to the last desire of a dying man! Respect to the prayer of great genius, whose lips, when quivering in the last agony, murmured the generous words, "Pardon, and Forget!"

The foregoing brief notice is presented to the English reader less in the character of a complete biography of Púshkin, (a character to which it has evidently no pretensions,) than as a kind of necessary introduction to the translated specimens of his poetry, which it is intended to accompany. For a perfect biography, indeed, of the poet, the materials, even in Russia, are not yet assembled; nor, perhaps, has a sufficient period of time been suffered to elapse since his death, to render it possible to attempt a life of Púshkin, with any hope of preserving that distance and proportion, which is necessary for the successful execution of a portrait, whether traced with the pencil or the pen. The artist may be too near to his original in time as well as in space.

The general accuracy of the preceding pages may be depended on; the materials were obtained from various sources, but principally from two persons who were both acquainted—one intimately so—with Púshkin. We should be indeed ungrateful, were we to let pass the present opportunity afforded us, of expressing our deep obligations to both those gentlemen for the assistance they have given us; and we cannot deny ourselves the gratification of publicly and particularly thanking M. Pletniéff, rector of the Imperial University of St Petersburg, not only for the kind manner in which he facilitated the composition of these pages, by supplying us with a copy of his own elegant and spirited critical sketch of Púshkin's works and character (a short but masterly article, reprinted from the "Sovreménnik," or Contemporary, a literary journal of which M. Pletniéff is the editor,) but for the many delightful and intellectual hours which we have passed in his society.

Thomas B. Shaw.

St Petersburg, February 5th/17th, 1845.

THE LAST HOURS OF PÚSHKIN.

Letter from Jukóvskii to Sergei Púshkin, the Poet's Father.

February 15th/27th, 1837.

I have not till now succeeded in mustering up the courage to write to you, my poor friend, Sergei Lvóvitch. What could I say to you, overwhelmed as I am by the national calamity which has just fallen upon us all, like an avalanche, and crushed us beneath its ruin? Our Púshkin is no more! This terrible fact is unhappily true, but nevertheless it still appears almost incredible. The thought, that he is gone, cannot yet enter into the order of common, evident, every-day ideas; one still continues, by mechanical habit as it were, to seek him; it still seems so natural to expect to see him at certain hours; still amid our conversations seems to resound his voice, still seems to ring his lively childlike laugh of gaiety; and there, where he was wont to be seen in daily life, there nothing is changed, there are hardly even any marks of the melancholy loss we have undergone—all is in its common order, every thing is in its place; but he is gone from us, and for ever. It is hardly conceivable! In one moment has perished that strong and mighty life, full of genius, and glowing with hope. I will not speak of you, his feeble and unhappy father; I will not speak of us, his mourning friends. Russia has lost her beloved, her national poet. She has lost him at the very moment when his powers had reached their maturity, lost him when he had reached that climacteric—that point at which our intellect, bidding farewell to the fervid, and sometimes irregular force of youth agitated by genius, devotes itself to more tranquil, more orderly powers of riper manhood, fresh as the first period, and if less tempestuous, yet certainly more creative. What Russian is there who does not feel as if the death of Púshkin had torn away one of his very heart-strings? The glory of the present reign has lost its poet—a poet who belonged to it, as Derjávin belonged to the glory of Catharine, or Karamzín to that of Alexander.

The first terrible moments of agony and bereavement are over for you; you can now listen to me and weep. I will describe to you every detail of your son's last hours—details which I either saw myself, or which were related to me by other eyewitnesses. On Wednesday the 27th January/8th February, at ten o'clock in the evening, I called at the house of the Prince Viázemskii, where I was told that both he and the princess were at Púshkin's, and Valúeff, to whom I afterwards went, addressed me on my entrance with the words:—"Have you not received the Princess's note? They have sent for you long ago; hurry off to Púshkin's: he is dying." Thunderstruck with this news, I rushed down-stairs. I galloped off to Púshkin's. In his antechamber, before the door of his study, I found Drs Arendt and Spásskii, Prince Viázemskii and Prince Mestchérskii. To the question, "How is he?"—Arendt answered me, "He is very bad; he will infallibly die." The following was the account they gave me of what had happened: At six o'clock, after dinner, Púshkin had been brought home in the same desperate condition by Lieutenant-Colonel Danzás, his schoolfellow at the Lyceum. A footman had taken him out of the carriage, and carried him in his arms up-stairs. "Does it hurt you to carry me?" asked Púshkin of the man. They carried him into his study; he himself told them to give him clean linen; he changed his dress, and lay down on a sofa. At the moment when they were helping him to lie down, his wife, who knew nothing of what had happened, was about to come into the room; but he cried out in a loud tone—"N'entrez pas; il y a du monde chez moi." He was afraid of frightening her. His wife, however, had already entered by the time that he was laid down completely dressed. They sent for the doctors. Arendt was not at home, but Scholtz and Zadler came. Púshkin ordered everybody to leave the room, (at this moment Danzás and Pletniéff were with him.) "I am very bad," he said, as he shook hands with Scholtz. They examined his wound, and Zadler went away to fetch the needful instruments. Left alone with Scholtz, Púshkin enquired, "What do you think of my state—speak plainly?" "I cannot conceal from you the fact, that you are in danger." "Say rather, I am dying." "I hold it my duty not to conceal from you that such is the case. But we will hear the opinion of Arendt and Salomon, who are sent for." "Je vous remercie, vous avez agi en honnête homme envers moi," said Púshkin. Then, after a moment's silence, he rubbed his forehead with his hand, and added, "Il faut que j'arrange ma maison." "Would you not like to see any of your relations?" asked Scholtz. "Farewell, my friends!" cried Púshkin, turning his eyes towards his library. To whom he bade adieu in these words, whether it was to his living or his dead friends, I know not. After waiting a few moments, he asked, "Then do you think that I shall not live through the hour?" "Oh no! I merely supposed that it might be agreeable to you to see some of your friends—M. Pletniéff is here." "Yes, but I should like to see Jukóvskii too. Give me some water, I feel sick." Scholtz felt his pulse, and found that the hand was cold, and the pulse weak and quick; he left the room for some drink, and they sent for me. I was not at home at this moment, and I know not how it happened, but none of their messengers ever reached me. In the meanwhile Zadler and Salomon arrived. Scholtz left the patient, who affectionately shook hands with him, but without speaking a single word. Soon after Arendt made his appearance. He was convinced at the first glance that there was not the slightest hope. They began to apply cold fomentations with ice to the patient's stomach, and to give cooling drinks; a treatment which soon produced the desired effect; he grew more tranquil. Before Arendt's departure, he said to him, "Beg the Emperor to pardon me." Arendt now departed, leaving him to the care of Spásskii, the family physician, who, during that whole night, never quitted the bedside. "I am very bad," said Púshkin, when Spásskii came into the room. Spásskii endeavoured to tranquillize him; but Púshkin waved his hand in a negative manner. From this moment he seemed to have ceased to entertain any anxiety about himself; and all his thoughts were now turned towards his wife. "Do not give my wife any useless hope;" he said to Spásskii; "do not conceal from her what is the matter, she is no pretender to sentiment; you know her well. As for me, do as you please with me; I consent to every thing, and I am ready for every thing." At this moment were already assembled the Princess Viázemskii, the Prince, Turgénieff, the Count Vielhórskii, and myself. The princess was with the poor wife, whose condition it is impossible to describe. She from time to time stole, like a ghost, into the room where lay her dying husband; he could not see her, (he was lying on a sofa, with his face turned from the window and the door;) but every time that she entered, or even stopped at the door, he felt her presence. "My wife is here—is she not?" he said. "Take her away." He was afraid to admit her, because he did not wish her to perceive the sufferings which he overmastered with astonishing courage. "What is my wife doing?" he once enquired of Spásskii. "Poor thing! she suffers innocently. The world will tear her to pieces." In general, from the beginning to the end of his sufferings, (except during two or three hours of the first night, when they exceeded all measure of human endurance,) he was astonishingly firm. "I have been in thirty battles," said Dr Arendt; "I have seen numbers of dying men; but I have very seldom seen any thing like this." And it is peculiarly remarkable that, during these last hours of his life, he seemed, as it were, to have become another person; the tempest, which a few hours back had agitated his soul with uncontrollable passion, was gone, and left not a trace behind; not a word, not a recollection of what had happened. On the previous day he had received an invitation to the funeral of Gretch's son. He remembered this amid his own sufferings. "If you see Gretch," said he to Spásskii, "give him my compliments, and say that I feel a heartfelt sympathy in his loss." He was asked, whether he did not desire to confess and take the sacrament. He willingly consented, and it was determined that the priest should be sent for in the morning. At midnight Dr Arendt returned. Whatever was the subject of the conversation, it was evident that what the dying man had heard from the physician tranquillized, consoled, and fortified him. Fulfilling a desire (of which he was already, aware) on the part of those who had expressed a touching anxiety respecting his eternal welfare, he confessed and took the holy sacrament. Down to five o'clock in the morning, there had not taken place the slightest change in his condition. But about five o'clock the pain in the abdomen became intolerable, and its force mastered the strength of his soul: he began to groan; they again sent for Arendt. At his arrival it was found necessary to administer a clyster; but it did no good, and only seemed to increase the patient's sufferings, which at length reached the highest pitch, and continued till seven o'clock in the morning. What would have been the feelings of his unhappy wife, if she had been able, during the space of these two eternal hours, to hear his groans? I am confident that her reason could not have borne this agonizing trial. But this is what happened: she was lying, in a state of complete exhaustion, in the drawing-room, close to the doors which were all that separated her from her husband's bed. At the first dreadful cry he uttered, the Princess Viázemskii, who was in the drawing-room with her, darted to her side, dreading that something might happen. But she still lay immovable, (although she had been speaking a moment before,) a heavy lethargic slumber had overcome her, and this slumber, as if purposely sent down in mercy from above, lasted till the very minute when the last groan rang on the other side of the door. But in this moment of most cruel agony, according to the account of Spásskii and Arendt, the dying man's firmness of soul was shown in all its force: when on the point of screaming out, he with violent effort merely groaned, fearing, as he said himself, that his wife might hear it, and that she might be frightened. At seven o'clock the pain grew milder. It is necessary to remark, that during all this time, and even to the end of his sufferings, his thoughts were perfectly rational, and his memory clear. Even at the beginning of the terrible attack of pain, he had called Spásskii to his bedside, ordered him to hand him a paper written with his own hand, and made him burn it. He then called in Danzás, and dictated to him a statement respecting a few debts which he had incurred. This task, however, only exhausted him, and afterwards he was unable to make any other dispositions. When, at the arrival of morning, his intolerable suffering ceased, he said to Spásskii, "My wife! call my wife!" This farewell moment I dare not attempt to describe to you. He then asked for his children; they were asleep; but they went for them, and brought them half asleep as they were. He bent his eyes in silence upon each of them, laid his hand on their heads, made a sign of the cross over them, and then, with a gesture of the hand, sent them away. "Who is there?" he enquired of Spásskii and Danzás. They named me and Viázemskii. "Call them in!" said he in a feeble voice. I entered, took the cold hand which he held out to me, kissed it. I could not speak; he waved his hand, I retired; but he called me back. "Tell the Emperor," he said, "that I am sorry to die; I would have been wholly his. Tell him that I wish him a long, long reign; that I wish him happiness in his son, happiness in his Russia." These words he spoke feebly, interruptedly, but distinctly. He then bade farewell to Viázemskii. At this moment arrived the Count Vielhórskii, and went into his room; and he was thus the last person who pressed his hand in life. It was evident that he was hastening to his last earthly account, and listening, as it were, for the footstep of approaching death. Feeling his own pulse, he said to Spásskii, "Death is coming." When Turgénieff went up to him, he looked at him twice very earnestly, squeezed his hand, seemed as though he desired to say something, but waved his hand, and uttered the word "Karamzín!" Mademoiselle Karamzín was not in the house; but they instantly sent for her, and she arrived almost immediately. Their interview only lasted a moment; but when Katerína Andréevna was about to leave the bedside, he called her and said, "Sign me with the cross," and then kissed her hand. In the mean time, a dose of opium which had been given eased him a little; and they began to apply to his stomach emollient fomentations instead of the cold effusions. This was a relief to the sufferer; and he began, without a word of resistance, to perform the prescriptions of the doctors, which he had previously refused obstinately to do, being terrified by the idea of prolonging his tortures, and ardently desiring death to terminate them. But he now became as obedient as a child; he himself applied the compresses to his stomach, and assisted those who were busied around him. In short, he was now apparently a great deal better. In this state he was found by Dr Dahl, who came to him at two o'clock. "I am in a bad way, my dear fellow," said Púshkin, with a smile, to Dahl. But Dahl, who actually entertained more hopes than the other physicians, answered him, "We all hope; so you must not despair either." "No," he cried; "I cannot live; I shall die. It seems that it must be so." At this moment, his pulse was fuller and steadier. A slight general fever began to show itself. They put on some leeches: the pulse grew more even, slower, and considerably lighter. "I caught," says Dahl, "like a drowning man at a straw. With a firm voice, I pronounced the word hope; and was about to deceive both myself and others." Púshkin, observing that Dahl was growing more sanguine, took him by the hand, and said—"There is nobody there?" "No one." "Dahl, tell me the truth, shall I die soon?" "We have hopes of you, Púshkin—really, we have hopes." "Well, thank you!" he replied. As far as it appears, he had only once flattered himself with the consolation of hope: neither before nor after this moment did he feel any trust in it. Almost the whole night (that is, of the 29th, during the whole of which Dahl sate by the bedside, and I, Viázemskii, and Vielhórskii, in the next room,) he held Dahl's hand. He often would take a spoonful of water, or little lump of ice, into his mouth, doing every thing himself: taking the tumbler from a shelf within reach, rubbing his temples with ice, applying himself the fomentations to his stomach, changing them himself, &c. He suffered less from pain than from an excessive feeling of depression. "Ah! what depression!" he several times exclaimed, throwing his hands backward above his head; "it makes my heart die within me!" He then begged them to lift him up, or to turn him on his side, or to arrange his pillow; and, without letting them finish to do so, would stop them generally with the words—"There! so, so—very well; so it is very well; well enough; now it is quite right;" or, "Stop—never mind—only pull my arm a little—so! now it is very well—excellent!"—(these are all his exact expressions.) "In general," says Dahl, "with respect to my treatment, he was as manageable and obedient as a child, and did every thing I wished." Once he inquired of Dahl, "Who is with my wife?" Dahl answered, "Many good people feel a sympathy with you; the drawing-room and the antechamber are full from morning to night." "Oh, thank you," he replied; "only go and tell my wife that all is going on well, thank God! or else they will talk all sorts of nonsense to her there, I suppose." Dahl did not deceive him. From the morning of the 28th, when the news that Púshkin was dying had flown through the whole town, his antechamber had been incessantly crowded with visitors; some enquiring after him by messengers, others—and people of all conditions, whether acquainted with him or not—coming themselves. The feeling of a national, an universal affliction, was never more touchingly expressed than by this proceeding. The number of visitors became at last so immense, that the entrance-door (which was close to the study where the dying man lay) was incessantly opening and shutting; this disturbed the sufferer, and we imagined the expedient of closing that door, by placing against it a chest from the hall, and instead of it opening another little door which led from the stair-case into the pantry, and partitioning off with screens the dining-room from the drawing-room, where his wife was. From this moment, the pantry was unceasingly thronged with people; none but acquaintances were admitted into the dining-room. On the faces of all these visitors was expressed a most heartfelt sympathy; very many of them wept. So strong a testimony of general affliction touched me deeply. In Russians, to whom is so dear their national glory, it was not to be wondered at; but the sympathy of foreigners was to me as gratifying as it was unlooked for. We were losing something of our own; was it wonderful that we should grieve? But what was it that could touch them so sensibly? It is not difficult to answer this. Genius is the property of all. In bowing down before genius all nations are brethren; and when it vanishes untimely from the earth, all will follow its departure with one brotherly lamentation. Púshkin, with respect to his genius, belonged not to Russia alone, but to all Europe; and it was therefore that many foreigners approached his door with feelings of personal sorrow, and mourned for our Púshkin as if he had been their own. But let me return to my recital. Though he sent Dahl to console his wife with hope, Púshkin himself did not entertain the slightest. Once he enquired, "What o'clock is it?" and on Dahl's informing him, he continued, in an interrupted voice, "Have I ... long ... to ... be tortured thus?... Pray ... haste!" This he repeated several times afterwards, "Will the end be soon?" and he always added, "Pray ... make haste!" In general, however, (after the torments of the first night, which lasted two hours,) he was astonishingly patient. When the pain and anguish overcame him, he made movements with his hands, or uttered at intervals a kind of stifled groan, but so that it was hardly audible "You must bear it, my dear fellow; there is nothing to be done," said Dahl to him; "but don't be ashamed of your pain; groan, it will ease you." "No," he replied, interruptedly; "no,... it is of no ... use to ... groan;... my wife ... will ... hear;... 'tis absurd ... that such a trifle ... should ... master me,... I will not."—I left him at five o'clock in the morning, and returned in a couple of hours. Having observed, that the night had been tolerably quiet, I went home with an impression almost of hope; but on my return I found I had deceived myself. Arendt assured me confidently that all was over, and that he could not live out the day. As he predicted, the pulse now grew weaker, and began to sink perceptibly; the hands began to be cold. He was lying with his eyes closed; it was only from time to time he raised his hand to take a piece of ice and rub his forehead with it. It had struck two o'clock in the afternoon, and Púshkin had only three quarters of an hour left to live. He opened his eyes, and asked for some cloud-berry water. When they brought it, he said in a distinct voice,—"Call my wife; let her feed me." She came, sank down on her knees by the head of the bed, and carried to his lips one, and afterwards another spoonful of the cloud-berries, and then pressed her cheek against his; Púshkin stroked her on the head, and said, "There, there, never mind; thank God, all is well; go." The tranquil expression of his face, and the firmness of his voice, deceived the poor wife; she left the room almost radiant with joy. "You see," she said to Dr Spásskii, "he will live; he will not die." But at this moment the last process of vitality had already begun. I stood together with Count Vielhórskii at the head of the bed; by the side stood Turgénieff. Dahl whispered to me, "He is going." But his thoughts were clear. It was only at intervals that a half-dosing forgetfulness overshadowed them; once he gave his hand to Dahl, and pressing it, said: "Now, lift me up—come—but higher, higher ... now, come along!" But awaking, he said, "I was dreaming, and I fancied that I was climbing with you up along these books and shelves! so high ... and my head began to turn." After pausing a little, he again, without unclosing his eyes, began to feel for Dahl's hand, and pulling it, said: "Now, let us go then, if you wish; but together." Dahl, at his request, took him under the arms, and raised him higher; and suddenly, as if awaking, he quickly opened his eyes, his face lighted up, and he said, "Life is finished!" Dahl, who had not distinctly heard the words, answered, "Yes, it is finished; we have turned you round." "Life is finished!" he repeated, distinctly and positively. "I can't breathe, I am stifling!" were his last words. I never once removed my eyes from him, and I remarked at this moment, that the movement of the breast, hitherto calm, became interrupted. It soon ceased altogether. I looked attentively; I waited for the last sigh, but I could not remark it. The stillness which reigned over his whole appearance appeared to me to be tranquillity; but he was now no more. We all kept silence around him. In a couple of minutes I asked, "How is he?" "He is dead!" answered Dahl. So calmly, so tranquilly had his soul departed. We long stood around him in silence, without stirring, not daring to disturb the mysteries of death, which were completed before us in all their touching holiness. When all had left the room, I sate down before him, and long alone I gazed upon his face. Never had I beheld upon that countenance any thing like that which was upon it in this first moment of death. His head was somewhat bent forward; the hands, which a few moments ago had exhibited a kind of convulsive movement, were calmly stretched, as if they had just fallen into an attitude of repose after some heavy labour. But that which was expressed in the face, I am not able to tell in words. It was to me something so new, and at the same time so familiar. This was not either sleep or repose; it was not the expression of intellect which was before so peculiar to the face; nor was it the poetic expression; no! some mighty, some wondrous thought was unfolded in it: something resembling vision, some full, complete, deeply-satisfying knowledge. Gazing upon it, I felt an irresistible desire to ask him, "What do you see, my friend?" And what would he have answered if he had been able for a moment to arise? There are moments in our life which fully deserve the epithet of great. At this moment, I may say, I beheld the face of death itself, divinely-mysterious; the face of death without a veil between. And what a seal was that she had stamped upon him, and how wondrously did she tell her secret and his own! I most solemnly assure you that I never beheld upon his face an expression of such deep, majestic, such triumphant thought. The expression had undoubtedly been latent in the face before; but it was only displayed in all its purity then, when all earthly things had vanished from his sight at the approach of death. Such was the end of our Púshkin. I will describe in a few words what followed. Most fortunately, I remembered, before it was too late, that it was necessary to take a cast of the mask; this was executed without loss of time. His features had not yet entirely changed. It cannot be denied that the first expression which death had given them, was not preserved in them; but we now all possess an attractive portrait, a fac-simile of the features, and which images—not death, but a deep, majestic slumber. I will not relate to you the state in which was the poor wife—many good friends remained inseparably with her, the Princess Viázemskii, Elizabeth Zaguájskii, the Count and Countess Stróganoff. The Count took upon himself all the arrangements for the funeral. After remaining some time longer in the house, I went away to Vielhórskii's to dinner; there were assembled all the other persons who, like myself, had seen Púshkin's last moments; and he himself had been invited, three days before, to this dinner ... it was to celebrate my birth-day. On the following morning we, his friends, with our own hands, laid Púshkin in the coffin; and on the evening of the succeeding day, we transported him to the Koninshennaia (the Imperial Stables) Church. And during the whole of these two days, the drawing-room where he lay in his coffin was incessantly full of people. It nay be safely asserted that more than ten thousand persons visited it, in order to obtain one look at him: many were in tears, others stood long immoveable, and seemed as though they wished to behold his face; there was something inexpressibly striking in his immobility amid all this movement, and something mysteriously touching in the prayer which was heard so gently and so uniformly murmured amid that confused murmur of whispered conversation. The funeral service was performed on the 1st of February. Many of our greatest nobles, and many of the foreign ministers, were in the church. We carried the coffin with our own hands to the vault, where it was to remain until the moment of its being taken out of the city. On the 3d of February, at ten o'clock in the evening, we assembled for the last time around all that remained to us of Púshkin; the last requiem was sung; the case which contained the coffin was placed upon a sledge; at midnight the sledge set off; by the light of the moon I followed it for some moments with my eyes; it soon turned the corner of a house; and all that once was Púshkin was lost for ever from my sight.

V. Jukóvskii.

The body was accompanied by Turgénieff. Púshkin had more than once said to his wife, that he desired to be buried in the monastery of the Assumption at Sviatogórsk, where his mother had recently been interred. This monastery is situated in the government (province) of Pskoff; and in the riding of Opótchkoff, at about four versts from the country-house and hamlet of Mikháilovskoë, where Púshkin passed several years of his poetic life. On the 4th, at nine o'clock in the evening, the corpse arrived at Pskoff, from whence, conformably to the excellent arrangements made by the provincial government, it was forwarded on the same night, and the morning of the 5th, through the town of Ostroff to the Sviatogórsk monastery, where it arrived as early as seven o'clock in the evening. The dead man glided to his last abode, past his own deserted cottage, past the three beloved firs which he had planted not long before. The body was placed upon the holy hill (sviatáia gorá, from which the monastery takes its name,) in the cathedral church of the Assumption, and a requiem was performed in the evening. All night long workmen were employed in digging a grave beside the spot where his mother reposes. On the following day, as soon as it was light, at the conclusion of divine service, the last requiem was chanted, and the coffin was lowered into the grave, in the presence of Turgénieff and the peasants of Púshkin's estate, who had come from the village of Mikháilovskoë to pay the last honour to their kind landlord. Very strangely to the ears of the bystanders sounded the words of the Bible, accompanying the handful of earth as it was cast upon Púshkin—"earth thou art!"

FOOTNOTES:

[1] His fondness for books was absolutely insatiable; he was supplied with all the new publications as fast as they appeared; and he would devote the last money in his purse to this purpose. His extravagance in this article of expense he excused by comparing himself to the glazier, whose trade renders it necessary for him to purchase a diamond, an article which a rich man will frequently abstain from buying.

[2] The last hours of Púshkin have been minutely and eloquently described by the most distinguished of his friends and brother poets, Jukóvskii, in a letter addressed to Púshkin's father. As this letter contains one of the most touching and beautiful pictures of a great man's death-bed, and as it does equal honour to the author and its subject, we append a translation of it. It is undoubtedly one of the most singular documents in the whole range of literature.—T. B. S.

THE NOVEL AND THE DRAMA.

(Some Advice To an Author.)

You tell me, my dear Eugenius, that you are hesitating between the novel and the drama: you know not which to attack; and you wish me to give you some suggestions on the subject. You are candid enough to say that it is not point-blank advice that you ask, which you would probably heed just as much as good counsel is generally heeded by those who apply for it; but you would have me lay before you such ideas as may occur to me, in order that you may have the picking and choosing amongst them, with the chance of finding something to your mind—something which may assist you to a decision. Artists in arabesque get an idea by watching the shifting forms of the kaleidoscope; in the same manner you hope—if I will but turn my mind about a little—that some lucky adjustment of its fragments of observation may help you to a serviceable thought or two. At all events, you shall not have to complain of too much method in what follows.

If I could only, my dear Eugenius, persuade you to leave them both alone!—drama and novel both! But this is hopeless. The love one bears to a woman may be conquered—not indeed by good counsel, but by speedy flight; but the passion that draws us to poetry and romance can only die out, it cannot be expelled; for in this passion, go where we will, we carry our Helen with us. She steals upon us at each unguarded moment, and renews in secret her kisses upon our lip. Well, if I cannot persuade you to leave both alone, my next advice is that you attack both; for if you endeavour to express in either of these forms of composition all that is probably fermenting in your mind, the chance is that you spoil your work.

And by all means lay your hands first upon the drama. True, it is the higher aim of the two, and I will not pretend to augur any very brilliant success. But still it is the more appropriate to the first ebullitions of genius, and the spasmodic efforts of youth. The heart is at this time full of poetry, which, be its value what it may, must be got rid of before the stream of prose will run clear. Besides, the very effort of verse seems necessary to this age, which disdains a facile task, and seeks to expend its utmost vigour on its chosen labour. Moreover, to write a good novel one should have passed through the spring-time and enthusiasm of youth—one should be able to survey life with some degree of tranquillity; neither wrapped in its illusions, nor full of indignation at its discovered hollowness. At two-and-twenty, even if the heart is not burning with fever heat of some kind—some enthusiastic passion or misanthropical disgust—the head at least is preoccupied with some engrossing idea, which so besets the man, that he can see nothing clearly in the world around him. At this age he has a philosophy, a metaphysical system, which he really believes in, (a species of delusion the first to quit us,) and he persists in seeing his dogma reflected to him from all sides. This is supportable, or may be disguised in poetry; it becomes intolerable in prose. Add to all which, that the writer of a novel should have had some experience in the realities of life, a certain empirical knowledge of the manner in which the passions develop themselves in men and women. The high ideal forms of good and evil he may learn from his own heart; but there is in actual life, so to speak, a vulgar monstrosity which must be seen to be credited. I can figure to myself the writer of a drama musing out his subject in solitude, whether the solitude of the seashore or of a garret in London; but the successful novelist must have mingled with the world, and should know whatever the club, the drawing-room, and, above all, the boudoir can reveal to him.

Of course it is understood between us, that in speaking of the drama we make no reference to the stage. Indeed, you can hardly contemplate writing for the stage, as there is no stage to write for. We speak of the drama solely as a form of composition, presented, like any other, to the reader. I have heard the opinion expressed that the drama, viewed as a composition designed only to be read, is destined to be entirely superseded by the novel, which admits of so great a variety of material being worked into its structure, and affords an unrivalled scope for the development both of story and of character. To me it seems that the drama, especially in its more classic form, apart from its application to the stage, has a vitality of its own, and will stand its ground in literature, let the novel advance as it may.

All the passions of man represent themselves in his speech, the great prerogative of the human being; almost every thing he does is transacted through the medium of speech, or accompanied by it; even in solitude his thoughts are thrown into words, which are frequently uttered aloud, and the soliloquy is wellnigh as natural as the dialogue. Give, therefore, a fair representation of the speech of men throughout every great transaction, and you give the best and truest representations of their actions and their passions, and this in the briefest form possible. You have all that is essential to the most faithful portrait, without the distraction of detail and circumstance. With a reader of the drama the eye is little exercised; he seems to be brought into immediate contact with the minds of those imaginary persons who are rather thinking and feeling, than acting before him. To this select representation of humanity is added the charm of verse, the strange power of harmonizing diction. If the drama rarely captivates the eye, it takes possession of the ear. May it never lose its appropriate language of verse—that language which so well comports with its high ideal character, being one which, as a French poet has happily expressed it, the world understands, but does not speak—

"Elle a cela pour elle—
Que le monde l'entend, et ne la parle pas!"

The drama is peculiarly appropriate to the ideal; and it seems to me that the very fact, that whatever appertains to the middle region of art, or requires the aid of much circumstance and detail, has found in the novel a far more perfect development, ought to induce us to purify the drama, and retain amongst us its most exalted type. It is in vain that it strives to compete with the novel in the intricacy of its plot, in the number of its dramatis personæ, in the representation of the peculiarities, or as they used to be called, the humours of men. These have now a better scene for their exhibition than the old five-act play, or tragi-comedy, could afford them; but the high passions of mankind, whatever is most elevated or most tender, whatever naturally leads the mind, be it good or evil, to profound contemplation—this will still find its most complete, and powerful, and graceful development in the poetic form of the drama.

The novel and the drama have thus their several characteristics. Do you wish to hurry on your reader with a untiring curiosity? you will, of course, select the novel. Do you wish to hold him lingering, meditative, to your pages—pages which he shall turn backwards as well as forwards? you were wise to choose the drama. Both should have character, and passion, and incident; but in the first the interest of the story should pervade the whole, in the second the interest of the passion should predominate. If you write a novel, do not expect your readers very often to stand still and meditate profoundly; if you write a drama, forego entirely the charm of curiosity. Do not hope, by any contrivance of your plot, to entrap or allure the attention of your readers, who must come to you—there is no help for it—with something of the spirit, and something of the unwillingness, of the student. What some man of genius may one day perform, or not perform, it were presumptuous to assert; for it is the privilege of genius to prove to the critic what is possible; but, speaking according to our present lights, we should say that the sustaining of the main characteristic interest of the novel, is incompatible with the more intense efforts of reflection or of poetry. One cannot be dragged on and chained to the spot at the same time. Some one may arise who shall combine the genius of Lord Byron and of Sir Walter Scott; but till the prodigy makes his appearance, I shall continue to think that no intellectual chymistry could present to us, in one compound, the charms of Ivanhoe and of Sardanapalus.

I should be very ungrateful—I who have been an idle man—if I underrated the novel. It is hardly possible to imagine a form of composition more fit to display the varied powers of an author; for wit and pathos, the tragic and the comic, descriptions, reflections, dialogue, narrative, each takes its turn; but I cannot consent that it carry off all our regard from its elder sister, the drama. In the novel every thing passes by in dizzy rapidity; we are whirled along over hill and valley, through the grandeur and the filth of cities, and a thousand noble and a thousand grotesque objects flit over our field of vision. In the drama, it is true, we often toil on, slow as a tired pedestrian; but then how often do we sit down, as at the foot of some mountain, and fill our eyes and our hearts with the prospect before us? How gay is the first!—even when terrible, she has still her own vivacity; but then she exhausts at once all the artillery of her charms. How severe is the second!—even when gayest, she is still thoughtful, still maintains her intricate movement, and her habit of involved allusions; but then at each visit some fresh beauty discloses itself. It was once my good fortune—I who am now old, may prattle of these things—to be something a favourite with a fair lady who, with the world at large, had little reputation for beauty. Her sparkling sister, with her sunny locks and still more sunny countenance, carried away all hearts; she, pale and silent, sat often unregarded. But, oh, Eugenius! when she turned upon you her eyes lit with the light of love and genius, that pale and dark-browed girl grew suddenly more beautiful than I have any words to express. You must make the application yourself; for having once conjured up her image to my mind, I cannot consent to compare her even to the most eloquent poetry that was ever penned.

Undoubtedly the first dramatic writer amongst our contemporaries is Henry Taylor, and the most admirable dramatic poem which these times have witnessed is Philip van Artevelde. How well he uses the language of the old masters! how completely has he made it his own! and how replete is the poem with that sagacious observation which penetrates the very core of human life, and which is so appropriate to the drama! Yet the author of Philip van Artevelde, I shall be told, has evidently taken a very different view of the powers and functions of the drama at this day than what I have been expressing. In his poem we have the whole lifetime of a man described, and a considerable portion of the history of a people sketched out; we have a canvass so ample, and so well filled, that all the materials for a long novel might be found there. But the example of Philip van Artevelde rather confirms than shakes my opinion. I am persuaded that that drama, good as it is, would have been fifty times better, had it been framed on a more restricted plan. You, of course, have read and admired this poem. Now recall to mind those parts which you probably marked with your pencil as you proceeded, and which you afterwards read a second and a third and a fourth time; bring them together, and you will at once perceive how little the poem would have lost, how much it would have gained, if it had been curtailed, or rather constructed on a simpler plan. What care we for his Sir Simon Bette and his Guisebert Grutt? And of what avail is it to attempt, within the limits of a drama, and under the trammels of verse, what can be much better done in the freedom and amplitude of prose? Under what disadvantages does the historical play appear after the historical novels of the Author of Waverley!

The author of Philip van Artevelde, and Edwin the Fair, seems to shrink from idealizing character, lest he should depart from historic truth. But historic truth is not the sort of truth most essential to the drama. We are pleased when we meet with it; but its presence will never justify the author for neglecting the higher resources of his art. Do not think, however, that in making this observation I intend to impeach the character of Philip van Artevelde himself. Artevelde I admire without stint, and without exception. Compare this character with the Wallenstein of Schiller, and you will see at once its excellence. They are both leaders of armies, and both men of reflection. But in Wallenstein the habit of self-examination has led to an irresolution which we feel at once, in such a man, to be a degrading weakness, and altogether inconsistent with the part he is playing in life. It is an indecision which, in spite of the philosophical tone it assumes, pronounces him to be unfit for the command of men, or to sway the destinies of a people. Artevelde, too, reflects, examines himself, pauses, considers, and his will is the servant of his thought; but reflection with him comes in aid of resolution, matures it, establishes it. He can discuss with himself, whether he shall pursue a life of peaceful retirement, or plunge into one of stormy action; but having once made his election, he proceeds along his devoted path with perfect self-confidence, and without a look that speaks of retreat. A world of thought is still around him; he carries with him, at each step, his old habit of reflection—for this, no man who has once possessed, can ever relinquish—but nothing of all this disturbs or impedes him.

Do not you, Eugenius, be led by the cant of criticism to sacrifice the real interest of your dramatis personæ. Some dry censor will tell you that your Greeks are by no means Greek, nor your Romans Roman. See you first that they are real men, and be not afraid to throw your own heart into them. Little will it console either you or your readers, if, after you have repelled us by some frigid formal figure, a complimentary critic of this school should propose to place it as a frontispiece to a new edition of Potter or of Adam—applauding you the while for having faithfully preserved the classic costume. I tell you that the classic costume must ruffle and stir with passions kindred to our own, or it had better be left hanging against the wall. And what a deception it is that the scholastic imagination is perpetually imposing on itself in this matter! Accustomed to dwell on the points of difference between the men of one age and of another, it revolts from admitting the many mere points of resemblance which must have existed between them; it hardly takes into account the great fund of humanity common to them both. The politics of Cicero, it is true, would be unintelligible to one unversed in the constitution and history of Rome; but the ambition of Cicero, the embarrassment of the politician, the meditated treachery, the boasted independence, the doubt, the fear, the hesitation,—all this will be better studied in a living House of Commons, than in all the manuscripts of the Vatican. Sacrifice nothing of what you know to be the substantial interest of your piece, to what these critics call the colour of the age, which, after all, is nothing better than one guess amongst many at historic truth. Schiller fell a victim, in one or two instances, to this sort of criticism, and, in obedience to it, contradicted the natural bias of his genius. In his Wilhelm Tell, instead of the hero of liberty and of Switzerland, he has given us little more than a sturdy peasant, who, in destroying Gessler, follows only a personal revenge, and feels the remorse of a common assassin. If this were historic truth, it was not the part of the poet to be the first to discover and proclaim it. Was he to degrade the character below the rank which ordinary historians assigned to it? We do not want a drama to frame the portrait of a Lincolnshire farmer; it is the place, if place there is, for the representation of the higher forms of humanity.

After taking note of the distinctive qualities of the drama and the novel, it were well—O author that will be!—to take note of thyself, and observe what manner of talent is strongest within thee. There are two descriptions of men of genius. The one are men of genius in virtue of their own quick feelings and intense reflection; they have imagination, but it is chiefly kindled by their own personal emotions: they write from the inspiration of their own hearts; they see the world in the height of their own joys and afflictions. These amiable egotists fill all nature with the voice of their own plaints, and they have ever a tangled skein of their own peculiar thoughts to unravel and to ravel again. The second order of men of genius, albeit they are not deficient in keen susceptibility or profound reflection, see the world outstretched before them, as it lies beneath the impartial light of heaven; they understand, they master it; they turn the great globe round under the sun; they make their own mimic variations after its strange and varied pattern. Now you must take rank, high or low, amongst this second order of men of genius, if you are to prosper in the land of fiction and romance. Pray, do you—as I half suspect—do you, when sitting down to sketch out some budding romance, find that you have filled your paper with the analysis of a character or a sentiment, and that you have risen from your desk without relating a single incident, or advancing your story beyond the first attitude, the first pose of your hero? If so, I doubt of your aptitude for the novel. I know that you have some noble ideas of elevating the standard of the romance, and, by retarding and subduing the interest of the narrative, to make this combine with more elaborate beauties, and more subtle thought, that has been hitherto considered as legitimately appertaining to the novel. I like the idea—I should rejoice to see it executed; but pardon me, if the very circumstance of you being possessed with this idea, leads me to augur ill of you as a writer of fiction. You have not love enough for your story, nor sufficient confidence in it. You are afraid of every sentence which has in it no peculiar beauty of diction or of sentiment. A novelist must be liberal of letter-press, must feel no remorse at leading us down, page after page, destitute of all other merit than that of conducting us to his dénouement: he writes not by sentences; takes no account of paragraphs; he strides from chapter to chapter, from volume to volume.

"Verily," I think I hear you say, "you are the most consolatory of counsellors; you advise me to commence with the drama—but with no prospect of success—in order to prepare myself for a failure in the novel!"

My dear Eugenius, you shall not fail. You shall write a very powerful, exciting, affecting romance. Pray, do not be too severe upon our sensibilities, do not put us on the rack more than is absolutely necessary. It has always seemed to me—and I am glad to have this opportunity of unburdening my heart upon the point—it has always seemed to me, that there was something barbarous in that torture of the sympathies in which the novelist delights, and which his reader, it must be supposed, finds peculiarly grateful. It really reminds me of that pleasure which certain savages are said to take in cutting themselves with knives, and inflicting other wounds upon themselves when in a state of great excitement. I have myself often flung away the work of fiction, when it seemed bent upon raising my sympathies only to torture them. Pray, spare us when you, in your time, shall have become a potent magician. Follow the example of the poets, who, when they bear the sword, yet hide it in such a clustre of laurels that its sharpness is not seen.

To take very common instance—All the world knows that the catastrophe of a romance must be inevitably postponed, that suspense must be prolonged, and that the two lovers whose fate we have become interested in, cannot possibly be made happy in the first or even in the second volume. But the expedients employed to delay this term of felicity, are sometimes such as the laws of a civilized society ought really to proscribe. I will mention the first example that occurs to me, though your better memory will directly suggest many more striking and more flagrant. It is taken from the work of no mean artist; indeed, none but a writer of more or less talent could inflict this gratuitous anguish upon us. In the novel of Rienzi, a young nobleman, Adrian, goes to Florence, at that time visited by the plague, to seek his betrothed Irene, sister of the Tribune. Fatigue, the extreme heat, and his own dreadful anxiety, have thrown him into a fever, and he sinks down in the public thoroughfare. It is Irene herself who rushes to his assistance. Every one else avoids him, thinking him struck by the plague. She and a benevolent friar convey him, still in a state of unconsciousness, into an empty and deserted palace which stood by, and of which there were many at that time in Florence. She tends him, nurses him day and night, aided only by the same pious and charitable friar. In his delirium he raves of that Irene who is standing by his head, and who thus learns that it is to seek her he has exposed himself to the horrors of the plague. At the end of this time the friar, who had administered to the patient some healing draught, tells her, on leaving, that Adrian will shortly fall into a sound slumber—that this will be the crisis of his fever—that he will either wake from this sleep restored to consciousness and health, or will sink under his malady. Adrian falls accordingly into a sound sleep, Irene watching by his side. Now we know that the patient is doing well, and our hearts have been sedulously prepared for the happy interview that is promised us, when, on awaking, he will see beside him the loved Irene whom he has been seeking, and recognise in her the saviour of his life. But this sleep lasts longer than Irene had anticipated; she becomes alarmed, and goes away to seek the friar. The moment she has left the room, Adrian wakes!—finds himself well and alone—there is no one to tell him who it is that has preserved his life; nor has Irene, it seems, left any trace of her presence. He sallies forth again into the city of the plague to seek her, and she is destined to return to the empty chamber! Taken to a hideous sort of charnel-house, Adrian is shown the body of a female clad in a mantle that had once been Irene's, and concludes that it is the corpse of her who, for the last three days and nights, has been tending on him. I recollect that, when I came to this part of the novel, I threw the book down, and stalked for five minutes indignantly about the room, exclaiming that it was cruel—barbarous—savage, to be sporting thus with human sympathies. To be sure, I ought to add, in justice to the author, that, after exhaling my rage in this manner, I again took up the novel, and read on to the end.

I do beseech you, Eugenius, do not give us a philosophical novel. Every work of art of a high order will, in one sense of the word, be philosophical; there will be philosophy there for those who can penetrate it, and sometimes the reader will gather a profounder and juster meaning, than the author himself detected in his fiction. I mean, of course, those works where some theory or some dogma is expressly taught, where a vein of scholastic, or political, or ethical matter alternates with a vein of narrative and fictitious matter. I dislike the whole genus. Either one is interested in your story, and then your philosophy is a bore; or one is not interested in it, and then your philosophy can gain no currency by being tacked to it. Suppose the narrative and didactic portions of such a book equally good, it is still essentially two books in one, and should be read once for the story, and once without. We are repeatedly told that people are induced to peruse, in the shape of a novel, what they would have avoided as dry and uninteresting in the shape of an essay. Pray, can you get people to take knowledge, as you get children to take physic, without knowing what it is they swallow? So that the powder was in the jelly, and the jelly goes down the throat, the business, in the one case, is done. But I rather think, in gaining knowledge, one must taste the powder; there is no help for it. Really, the manner in which these good nurses of the public talk of passing off their wisdom upon us, reminds us of the old and approved fashion in which Paddy passes his bad shilling, by slipping it between two sound penny pieces. To be sure it is but twopence after all, and he gets neither more nor less than his twopenny-worth of intoxication, but he has succeeded in putting his shilling into circulation. Just such a circulation of wisdom may we expect from novels which are to teach philosophy, and politics, and political economy, and I know not what else. But such works have succeeded, you will tell me. What shall I say to Tremaine?—what to Coningsby? In Tremaine, so far as I remember, the didactic portion had sunk like a sort of sediment, and being collected into a dense mass in the third volume, could easily be avoided. As to Coningsby, I deny that it any where calls upon the reader for much exercise of his reflective powers. The novel has some sparkling scenes written in the vivacious manner of our neighbours, the French, and these we read. Some Eton boys talk politics, and as they talk just as boys should talk, their prattle is easily tolerated. Besides, I am not responsible for the caprice of fashion, nor for those adventitious circumstances which give currency to books, and which may sometimes compel us all to read what none of us heartily admires.

Certainly, if I were admitted to the counsels of a novelist, I should never have finished with my list of grievances, my entreaties, and deprecations. I will not inflict it upon you. But there is one little request I cannot help making even to a novelist in embryo. I have been annoyed beyond measure at the habit our writers of fiction have fallen into, of throwing their heroes perpetually into a sort of swoon or delirium, or state of half consciousness. That a heroine should occasionally faint, and so permit the author to carry her quietly off the stage—this is an old expedient, natural and allowable. What I complain of is, that whenever the passions of the hero himself rise to a certain pitch; or whenever the necessities of the plot require him to do one thing, whilst both his reason and his feelings would plainly lead him to do another—he is immediately thrown into a state of half frenzy, has a "vague consciousness" of something or other, makes a complete nightmare of the business; is cast, in short, into a state of coma, in which the author can carry him hither and thither, and communicate to him whatever impulse he pleases. In this sort of dream he raves and resolves, he fights or he flies, and then wakes to confused memory of just what the author thinks fit to call to his recollection. It is very interesting and edifying, truly, to watch the movements of an irrational puppet! I do beg of you, when you take up the functions of the novelist, not to distribute this species of intoxication amongst your dramatis personæ, more largely than is absolutely necessary. Keep them in a rational state as long as you can. Depend upon it they will not grow more interesting in proportion as they approximate to madmen or idiots.

And so, dear Eugenius, you are resolved, at all events, in some form or other, to be the author! This is decided. What was that desperate phrase I once heard you utter—you would strike one blow, though you put your whole life into the stroke, and died upon the broken sword!

Ah! but one does not die upon the broken sword; one has to live on. Would that I could dissuade you from this inky pestilence! This poetizing spirit, which gives all life so much significance to the imagination, strikes it with sterility in every thing which should beget or prosper a personal career. It opens the heart—true, but keeps it open; it closes in on nothing—shuts in nothing for itself. It is an open heart, and the sunshine enters there, and the bird alights there; but nothing retains them, and the light and the song depart as freely as they came. You lose the spring of action, and forfeit the easy intercourse with the world; for, believe me, however you struggle against it, so long as you live a poet, will you feel yourself a stranger or a child amongst men. And all for what? I have that confidence in your talent, that I am sure you will make no ridiculous failures. What you write for fame, will be far superior to what others write for popularity. But these will attain their end, and you, with far more merit, will be only known as having failed. And know you not that men revenge on mediocrity the praise extorted from them by indisputable celebrity? It is a crime to be above the vulgar, and yet not overawe the vulgar. There are a few great names they cannot refuse to extol; men of genuine merit, of a larger merit than they can measure, who yet cannot confessedly approach to these select few, they treat with derision and contempt.

But suppose the most complete success that you can rationally expect—what have you done? You have added one work of art the more to a literature already so rich, that the life of a man can hardly exhaust it; so rich, that it is compelled to drop by the way, as booty it cannot preserve, what in another literature, or at an earlier period of its own career, would have been considered invaluable treasure.

But the question of success or failure is not, after all, the first or most important to your happiness. Could the hope of literary fame, could the passion for it, could the esteem even of its possession, keep a steady place in your mind, there were but little danger in admitting this species of ambition as the ruling spirit of your house. But, alas! whilst it is the most tenacious, it is also the most fluctuating of passions. It rises all radiant with the morning, and before the sun is in the zenith, it forsakes you, and the bright world at your feet is as a glittering desert. But if you should make good resolutions to reform and eject your tyrant, it will not fail to return before the night descends to dash and confound them.

I remember meeting somewhere with the complaint of a young poet who had made trial of his muse and failed; the style was perhaps somewhat quaint, but it spoke the language of truth, and I copied it out. I will transcribe it for your edification, and so conclude this wandering epistle. You must not ask me for the title of the book, for I am not sure that I could give it you correctly. Besides, it would be of no use, as the work I know is out of print.

"I could do better," says the poet in reply to his friend, who had been suggesting the usual consolations and lenitives applicable to the case, "but I could not so far excel what I have written, as to make all the difference between obscurity and fame. It is not a brief and tolerated existence in the world of letters that can be a sanction and motive to my endeavours; and since a noble immortality is denied me, I am willing to sink at once into oblivion. The sentence has been passed. I have not that obstinacy of hope which can make an appeal to the decision of posterity. My labours have been futile—my whole being has been an error—my life is without aim or meaning."

"I sought it not," continued the disappointed bard, "I sought not this gift of poesy—I despised not the ruder toils of existence—I strove to pursue them, but I strove in vain. I could not walk along this earth with the busy forward tread of other men. The fair wonder detained and withheld me. Flowers on their slender stalks could prove an hindrance in my path; the light acacia would fling the barrier of its beauty across my way; the slow-thoughted stream would bend me to its winding current. Was it fault of mine that all nature was replete with feeling that compassed and enthralled me? On the surface of the lake at eventide, there lay how sweet a sadness! Hope visited me from the blue hills. There was perpetual revelry of thought amidst the clouds, and in the wide cope of heaven. This passion of the poet came to me, not knowing what it was. It came the gift of tranquil skies, and was breathed by playful zephyrs, and fell on me, with many a serene influence from the bright and silent stars.

"I saw others pursuing and enjoying the varied prosperity of life—I felt no envy at their success, and no participation in their desires. I could not call in and limit my mind to the concerns of a personal welfare. I had leaned my ear unto the earth, and heard the beating of her mighty heart, and the murmur of her mysteries, and my spirit lost its fitness for any selfish aim or narrow purpose. I stood forth to be the interpreter of his own word to man. Alas! I myself am but one—the poorest—of the restless and craving multitude.

"Gone! gone for ever! is the pleasant hope that danced before me on my path, with feet that never wearied, and timbrel that never paused! Oh, gay illusion! whither hast thou led me? and to what desolation has the music of thy course conducted? I am laden, as it were, with the fruitage of cultivated affections, but I myself am forlorn and disregarded. I kindle with innumerable sympathies, but am shut out for ever from social endearments—from the sweet relationships that make happy the homes of other men. I am faint with love of the beautiful, and my heart pants with an unclaimed devotion—but who may love the poet in his poverty?"

The disappointed bard, who, I should mention, was an Italian, resolves to quit Rome, and books, and meditations; he goes to a seaport town, becomes a mariner, and is soon advanced to the rank of captain of a small trading vessel. The same friend to whom he had poured out the lamentation I have already transcribed, encounters him in this new character, and he then gives the following account of himself:—

"I worked hard with the men, and studied diligently with the captain. One voyage to the Levant was speedily followed by a second; I gained experience; I have earned promotion—go to—I have earned money! Here I am, master of this vessel, which shall carry you to the mouth of the Tiber, or the port of Genoa."

"Then you have quite merged the poet in the sailor?" said his companion.

"Quite! quite! These hands are hard," replied the poet, gaily exhibiting his swarthy palms; "they have tugged at other than the cordage of a lyre. I, who used to burden the passing clouds with many a pensive sentiment, now ask of them what weather they predict. I, who was wont to give a thousand utterances to the winds of heaven, enquire from what point of the compass they are blowing. I, who could never behold the ocean without lapsing into dreamy emotions or endless speculations, now study its tides, and sound its shallows, and know it as the high-road I travel on. Yes," he continued, pacing the deck with animation, "I am no longer that commiserated mortal, whose musing gait marks him out for the mingled ridicule and, compassion of all observers; who burns with a passion for fame which renders him at once the most solitary and the most dependent of men. Me—I belong to the multitude—I am one of themselves. They cannot point the finger at me. I am released from that needless necessity to distinguish myself from others—from that pledge, given unsought to a heedless world, to leave behind an enduring memento of my existence. I can be filled with daily life, as with daily bread. Life is indeed a freedom—I can give all to death."

"I think," said his friend with a smile, "I trace something of the leaven of poetry even in this description of your unpoetized condition. Fear you not that the old fever will return?"

"No; I resist—I fly from all temptation. If leaning, perchance, over the side of the vessel, and looking down on the troubled water, my mind grows troubled also with agitated thoughts, I start from the insidious posture. I find something to tug—to haul. A rope is thrown to me, and I am saved! Or I seize the rudder—I grasp its handle, grown smooth by its frequent intercourse with the human palm—and, believe me, there is a magic in its touch that brings me back instantly to the actual world of man's wants and of man's energies. I feel my feet press firm upon the boarded deck; I look out and around me; and my eye surveys, and my ear listens to the plain and serviceable realities of this our habitable globe."

This seems like a case of cure. But the symptoms were deceptive. The next time we meet the poet-sailor he has embarked all he possessed in an expedition of discovery in the new world which had recently been laid open by Columbus; and this, not from love of gain, nor love of science, nor even the ardour of enterprise, but purely from the restlessness of a spirit which, ejected from its home in the world of thought, could never find another amongst those "serviceable realities" of life, which he knew so well how to applaud. He set sail from the port of Genoa, and was never heard of afterwards. The moral of which is, that you take timely warning, Eugenius, lest your poetic culture end in a voyage of discovery to New South Wales!

MARSTON; OR, THE MEMOIRS OF A STATESMAN.

Part XVII.

"Have I not in my time heard lions roar?
Have I not heard the sea, puft up with wind,
Rage like an angry boar chafed with sweat?
Have I not heard great ordnance in the field,
And Heaven's artillery thunder in the skies?
Have I not in the pitched battle heard
Loud 'larums, neighing steeds, and trumpets clang?"

Shakspeare.

The speech of the Opposition leader decided the question. No man on his side would venture beyond the line which he had drawn; and the resolutions of Government were triumphantly carried, after a brief appeal from me to the loyalty and manliness of the House. I placed before them the undeniable intention of the cabinet to promote the public prosperity, the immeasurable value of unanimity in the parliament to produce confidence in the people, and the magnitude of the stake for which England and Ireland were contending with the enemy of Europe. Those sentiments were received with loud approval—my language was continually echoed during the debate, I was congratulated on all sides; and this night of expectancy and alarm closed in a success which relieved me from all future anxiety for the fate of the Government.

The House broke up earlier than usual; and, to cool the fever which the events of the night had produced in my veins, I rambled into one of the spacious squares which add so much to the ornament of that fine city. The night was serene, the air blew fresh and flower-breathing from the walks, the stars shone in their lustre, and I felt all the power of nature to soothe the troubled spirit. Some of the fashionable inhabitants of the surrounding houses had been induced by the fineness of the night to prolong their promenade; and the light laugh, and the sound of pleasant voices, added to the touching and simple charm of the scene. A group had stopped round a player on the guitar, with which we made a tolerable accompaniment to some foreign songs. My ear was caught by a chorus which I had often heard among the French peasantry, and I joined in the applause. The minstrel was ragged and pale, and had evidently met with no small share of the buffets of fortune; but, cheered by our approval, he volunteered to sing the masterpiece of his collection—"The Rising of the Vendée"—the rallying-song of the insurrection, a performance chanted by the Vendéan army in the field, by the Vendéan peasant in his cottage, and which he now gave us with all the enthusiasm of one who had fought and suffered in the cause.

THE RISING OF THE VENDÉE.

It was a Sabbath morning, and sweet the summer air,
And brightly shone the summer sun upon the day of prayer;
And silver-sweet the village bells o'er mount and valley toll'd,
And in the church of St Florènt were gather'd young and old.
When rushing down the woodland hill, in fiery haste was seen,
With panting steed and bloody spur, a noble Angevin.
And bounding on the sacred floor, he gave his fearful cry,—
"Up, up for France! the time is come, for France to live or die.

"Your Queen is in the dungeon; your King is in his gore;
On Paris waves the flag of death, the fiery Tricolor;
Your nobles in their ancient halls are hunted down and slain,
In convent cells and holy shrines the blood is pour'd like rain.
The peasant's vine is rooted up, his cottage given to flame,
His son is to the scaffold sent, his daughter sent to shame;
With torch in hand, and hate in heart, the rebel host is nigh.
Up, up for France! the time is come, for France to live or die."

That livelong night the horn was heard, from Orleans to Anjou,
And pour'd from all their quiet fields our shepherds bold and true;
Along the pleasant banks of Loire shot up the beacon-fires,
And many a torch was blazing bright on Lucon's stately spires;
The midnight cloud was flush'd with flame that hung o'er Parthenaye,
The blaze that shone o'er proud Brissac was like the breaking day;
Till east and west, and north and south, the loyal beacons shone,
Like shooting-stars, from haughty Nantz to sea-begirt Olonne.

And through the night, on foot and horse, the sleepless summons flew,
And morning saw the Lily-flag wide waving o'er Poitou;
And many an ancient musketoon was taken from the wall,
And many a jovial hunter's steed was harness'd in the stall;
And many a noble's armoury gave up the sword and spear,
And many a bride, and many a babe, was left with kiss and tear;
And many a homely peasant bade "farewell" to his old "dame;"
As in the days, when France's king unfurl'd the Oriflame.

There, leading his bold marksmen, rode the eagle-eyed Lescure,
And dark Stofflet, who flies to fight as falcon to the lure;
And fearless as the lion roused, but gentle as the lamb,
Came, marching at his people's head, the brave and good Bonchamps.
Charette, where honour was the prize, the hero sure to win;
And there, with Henri Quatre's plume, the young Rochejaquelin.
And there, in peasant speech and garb—the terror of the foe,
A noble made by Heaven's own hand, the great Cathelineau.

We march'd by tens of thousands, we march'd through day and night,
The Lily standard in our front, like Israel's holy light.
Around us rush'd the rebels, as the wolf upon the sheep,
We burst upon their columns, as the lion roused from sleep;
We tore the bayonets from their hands, we slew them at their guns,
Their boasted horsemen flew like chaff before our forest-sons;
That eve we heap'd their baggage high their lines of dead between,
And in the centre blazed to heaven their blood-dyed Guillotine!

In vain they hid their heads in walls; we rush'd on stout Thouar,—
What cared we for its shot or shell, for battlement or bar?
We burst its gates; then, like the wind, we rush'd on Fontenaye—
We saw its flag at morning's light, 'twas ours by setting day.
We crush'd, like ripen'd grapes, Montreuil, we tore down old Vetier—
We charged them with our naked breasts, and took them with a cheer.
We'll hunt the robbers through the land, from Seine to sparkling Rhone.
Now, "Here's a health to all we love. Our King shall have his own."

This song had an interest for me, independent of the spirit of the performer. It revived recollections of the noblest scene of popular attachment and faithful fortitude since the days of chivalry. I heard in it the names of all the great leaders of the Royalist army—names which nothing but the deepest national ingratitude will ever suffer France to forget; and it gave a glance at the succession of those gallant exploits by which the heroic peasantry and gentlemen of Anjou and Poitou had gained their imperishable distinction.

But the streets of a capital, itself almost in a state of siege, were not the scene for indulging in romance by starlight; and one of the patrols of soldiery, then going its rounds, suddenly ordered the group to disperse. The Frenchman, unluckily, attempted to apologise for his own appearance on the spot; and the attempt perplexed the matter still more. The times were suspicious, and a foreigner, and of all foreigners a Gaul, caught under cover of night singing songs of which the sergeant could not comprehend a syllable, was a personage in every way formed for the guard-house. The startled Frenchman's exclamations and wrath at discovering this purpose, only made the sergeant more positive; and he was marched off as a traitor convicted of guitar-playing and other traitorous qualities.

I interposed, but my interposition was in vain. My person was unknown to the man in authority; and I was evidently, from the frown of the sergeant, regarded as little better than an accomplice. My only resource was to follow the party to the guard-house, and see the officer of the night. But he was absent; and half-laughing at the singular effect of the report in the morning, that I had been arrested as the fellow-conspirator of a French mendicant, I called for pen, ink, and paper, to explain my position by a message to the next magistrate. But this request only thickened the perplexity. As I approached the desk to write, the prisoner bounded towards me with a wild outcry, flung his arms round my neck, and plunging his hand into the deepest recesses of his very wayworn costume, at length drew out a large letter, which he held forth to me with a gesture of triumph. The sergeant looked graver still; his responsibility was more heavily involved by the despatch, which he intercepted on the spot, and proceeded to examine, at least so far as the envelope was concerned. He and his guard pored over it in succession. Still it was unintelligible. It was a mysterious affair altogether. The Frenchman and I begged equally in vain to be allowed to interpret. Impossible. At length the subaltern on duty was found; and on his arrival I was released, with all due apologies, and carried off the captive and his despatch together.

The letter was addressed to me, in French, and in a hand with which I was unacquainted. To obtain any knowledge of its contents on my way home, and from its bearer, was out of the question, until, with a hundred circumlocutions, I had heard the full and entire hair-breadth 'scapes of Monsieur Hannibal Auguste Dindon. He had been the domestic of Madame la Maréchale de Tourville, and had attended her and the countess to England in the emigration; in England he had seen me. On the reduction of the Maréchale's household he had returned to his own country, and taken service with the Royalist army in the Vendée. There, too, he had suffered that "fortune de la guerre", which is ill-luck with every body but the elastic Frenchman. He had been taken prisoner, and was on the point of being shot, when he saw the countess, a prisoner also in the Republican hands, who interceded for his safety, and gave him this letter, to be delivered to me if he should escape. After following the march of the armies, a defeat scattered the Republican division along with which they were carried; he procured a conveyance to the coast of Britanny, and they embarked in one of the fishing vessels for England. Again ill-luck came; a storm caught them in the Channel, swept them the crew knew not where, and finally threw them on the iron-bound shore of the west of Ireland. Clotilde was now actually in the capital, on her way to England!

If ever there was wild joy in the heart of man, it was in mine at that intelligence. It was a flash, bright, bewildering, overwhelming!

I longed to be alone, to hear no sound of the human tongue, to indulge in the deep and silent delight of the overladen heart. But M. Hannibal was not a personage to be disappointed of his share of interest; and, to avoid throwing the honest prattler into absolute despair, I was forced to listen to his adventures, until the blaze of the lamps in the vice-royal residence, and the challenge of the sentries, reminded him, and me too, that there were other things in the world than a Frenchman's wanderings. The substance of his tale, however, was—that his resources having fallen short on the road, and resolving not to burden the finances of the countess, which he believed to be scarcely less exhausted than his own, he had made use of his voice and guitar to recruit his purse—a chance which he now designated as a miracle, devised by the saint who presided over his birthday, to finish his perils in all imaginable felicity.

Giving him into the care of my servants, I was at length alone. The letter was in my hand. Yet still I dreaded to break the seal. What might not be the painful sentiments and sorrowful remonstrances within that seal? But Clotilde was living; was near me; was still the same confiding, generous, and high-souled being.—Sorrow and terror were now passed away. I opened the letter. It was a detail of her thoughts, written in the moments which she could snatch from the insulting surveillance round her; and was evidently intended less as a letter than a legacy of her last feelings, written to relieve an overburdened heart, with but slight hope of its ever reaching my hand. It was written on various fragments of paper, and often blotted with tears. It began abruptly. I shuddered at the misery which spoke in every word.

"I am, at this hour, in the lowest depth of wretchedness. I have but one consolation, that no life can endure this agony long. After being carried from garrison to garrison, with my eyes shocked and my feelings tortured by the sights and sufferings of war, I am at last consigned to the hands of the being whom on earth I most dread and abhor. Montrecour has arrived to take the command of Saumur. I have not yet seen him; but he has had the cruelty to announce that I am his prisoner, and shall be his wife. But the wife of Montrecour I never will be; rather a thousand times would I wed the grave!——

"This letter may never reach your hands, or, if it does, it may only be when the great barrier is raised between us, and this heart shall be dust. Marston, shall I then be remembered? Shall my faith, my feelings, and my sufferings, ever come across your mind?—Let not Clotilde be forgotten. I revered, honoured, loved you. I feel my heart beat, and my cheek burn at the words—but I shall not recall them. On the verge of the future world, I speak with the truth of a spirit, and oh, with the sincerity of a woman!——

"From that eventful day when I first met your glance, I determined that no power on earth should ever make me the wife of another. To me you remained almost a total stranger. Yet the die was cast. I finally resolved to abandon the world, to hide my unhappy head in a convent, and there, in loneliness and silence, endure, for I never could hope to extinguish, those struggles of heart which forced me to leave all the charms of existence behind for ever.

"The loss of my beloved parent gave me the power of putting my resolution into effect. I returned to France, though in the midst of its distractions, and took refuge under the protection of my venerable relative, the superior of the convent at Valenciennes. My narrative is now brief, but most melancholy. On the evening of the day when I heard your love—a day which I shall remember with pride and gratitude to the closing hour of my existence—we were suffered to pass the gates, and take the route for Italy. But, on the third day of our journey, we were stopped by a division of the Republican forces on their march to the Vendée. We were arrested as aristocrats, and moved from garrison to garrison, until we reached the Republican headquarters at Saumur; where, to my infinite terror, I found Montrecour governor of the fortress. He was a traitor to his unhappy king. The republic had offered him higher distinctions than he could hope to obtain from the emigrant princes, and he had embraced the offer. Betrothed to him in my childhood, according to the foolish and fatal custom of our country, I was still in some degree pledged to him. But now no human bond shall ever unite me to one whom I doubly disdain as a traitor. Still, I am in his power. What is there now to save me? I am at this moment in a prison!

"I hear the sounds of music and dancing on every side. The town is illuminated for a victory which is said to have been gained this morning over the troops of Poitou, advancing to the Loire. The stars are glittering through my casement with all the brilliancy of a summer sky; the breath of the fields flows sweetly in; laughing crowds are passing through the streets; and here am I, alone, friendless, broken-hearted, and dreading the dawn.——

"I spent the livelong night on my knees. Tears and prayers were my sole comfort during those melancholy hours. But time rolls on. Montrecour has just sent to tell me that my choice must be made by noon—the altar or the guillotine. An escort is now preparing to convey prisoners to Nantes, where the horrible Revolutionary Tribunal holds a perpetual sitting; and I must follow them, or be his bride!—Never! I have given my answer, and gladly I welcome my fate. I have solemnly bade farewell to this world.——

"No! My tyrant is not so merciful. He has this moment sent to 'command' (that is the word)—to command my presence in the church; as he is about to march against the enemy, and he must be master of my hand before he takes the field. The troops are already preparing for the march. I hear the drums beating. But one short hour is given me to prepare. Would I were dead!

"There are times when the soul longs to quit her tenement; when the brain sees visions; when the heart feels bursting; when a thousand weapons seem ready for the hand, and a voice of temptation urges to acts of woe.—Marston, Marston, where are you at this hour?"

The letter fell from my hands. I had the whole scene before my eyes. And where was I, while the one to whom every affection of my nature was indissolubly bound, this creature of beauty, fondness, and magnanimity, was wasting her life in sorrow, in captivity, in the bitterness of the broken heart? If I could not reproach myself with having increased her calamities, yet had I assuaged them; had I flown to her rescue; had I protected her against the cruelties of fortune; had I defied, sword in hand, the heartless and arrogant villain who had brought her into such hopeless peril? Those thoughts rushed through my brain in torture, and it was some time before I could resume the reading of the blotted lines upon my table. I dreaded their next announcement. I shrank from the pang of certainty. The next sentence might announce to me that Clotilde had been compelled by force to a detested marriage;—I dared not hazard the knowledge.

Yet the recollection, that I was blameless in her trials, at length calmed me. I felt, that to protect her had been wholly out of my power, from the day when she left Valenciennes; and, while I honoured the decision and loftiness of spirit which had led to that self-denying step, I could lay nothing to my charge but the misfortune of being unable to convince her mind of the wisdom of disdaining the opinion of the world. I took up the letter again.

"Another day has passed, of terror and anguish unspeakable. Yet it has closed in thanksgiving. I have been respited.—I was forced from my chamber. I was forced to the altar. I was forced to endure the sight of Montrecour at my side. A revolutionary priest stood prepared to perform the hateful ceremony. I resisted, I protested, I wept in vain. The chapel was thronged with revolutionary soldiers, who, regarding me as an aristocrat, were probably incapable of feeling any sympathy with my sufferings. I was hopeless. But, during the delay produced by my determination to die rather than yield, I could see confusion growing among the spectators. I heard the hurried trampling of cavalry through the streets. Drums and trumpets began to sound in all quarters. The tumult evidently increased. I could perceive even in the stony features of Montrecour, his perplexity at being detained from showing himself at the head of the troops; and with senses wound to their utmost pitch by the anxiety of the moment, I thought that I could perceive the distant shouts of an immense multitude advancing to the walls. Aide-de-camp after aide-de-camp now came hurrying in—each with a fresh summons to the general. He alternately threatened, insulted, and implored me. But no measure or entreaty on earth could make me consent. At length I heard a heavy fire of cannon, followed by the shattering of houses and the outcries of the people. The batteries of the town soon returned the fire, and all was uproar. Montrecour, gnashing his teeth, and with the look and fury of a fiend, now rushed towards me, and bore me to the feet of the priest. I felt the light leaving my eyes, and hoped that I was dying. At that moment a cannon-shot struck the roof, and dashed down a large portion of its fragments on the floor. The priest and his attendants, thinking that the whole fabric was falling, made their escape. Montrecour, with an exclamation full of the bitterness of his soul, flung me from him, and swearing that my respite should be brief, darted from the chapel, followed by the soldiers. What words ever uttered by human lips can tell the gratitude with which I saw myself left alone, and knelt before the altar covered with ruins!——

"I am now on my way once more, I know not whither. The battle continued during the day; and the sights and sounds were almost too much for the human senses to bear. At night the Royalists stormed the outworks of the fortress; and, to prevent our release on the capitulation, the prisoners were sent away in the darkness. As our carriage passed the gates, I saw Montrecour borne in, wounded. The spirit of the insulter was in him still. He ordered the soldiers to bring his litter near me, and in a voice faint through pain, but bitter with baffled revenge, he murmured—'Countess, you shall not have long to indulge in your caprices. My hurts are trifling. You are still in my power.'

"What a hideous desolation is war! We have just passed through one of the forest villages, which, but a few days since, must have been loveliness itself.—Vineyards, gardens, a bright stream, a rustic chapel on a hill—every thing shaped for the delight of the eye! But a desperate skirmish had occurred there between the retreating Republicans and their pursuers, and all that man could ruin was ruined. The cottages were all in ashes, the gardens trampled, the vineyards cut down for the fires of the bivouac, the chapel was even smouldering still, and the river exhibited some frightful remnants of what were once human beings. Not a living soul was to be seen. A dog was stretched upon the ground, tearing up with his paws what was probably the grave of his master. At the sight of the escort, he howled and showed his teeth, in evident fury at their approach; a dragoon fired his pistol at him—fortunately missed him; and the dog bounded into the thicket. But when I looked back, I saw him creep out again, and stretch himself howling upon the grave.

"I write these lines at long intervals, in fear, and only when the escort are sleeping on their horses' necks, or eating their hurried meals upon the grass.

"Last night the Royalist army crossed the Loire; and the firing was continued until morning. The heights all seemed crowned with flame. The forest in which we had stopped for the night was set on fire in the conflict, and a large body of the Royalist cavalry skirmished with the retreating Republicans till morning. It was a night of indescribable terror; but my personal fears were forgotten in the sorrow for my honoured and aged companion. She often fainted in my arms; and in this wilderness, where every cottage is deserted, and where all is flight and consternation even among the soldiery, what is to become of her? I gazed upon her feeble frame and sinking countenance, with the certainty that in a few hours all would be over. How rejoicingly would I share the quiet of her tomb!"

My eyes filled, and my heart heaved, at a reality of wretchedness so deep, that I could scarcely conceive it to have passed away. The paper fell from my hands. My mind was in the forest. I saw the pursuit. The firing rang in my ears; and in the midst of this shock of flying and fighting men, I saw Clotilde wiping the dews of death from the brow of her helpless relative.

The illusion was almost strengthened at this moment, by the flashing of a strong and sudden light across the ceiling of the chamber, and the trampling of a body of troops by torchlight, entering the Castle gates. A squadron of dragoons had arrived, escorting a carriage. Even my glance at the buildings of the Castle-square could scarcely recall me to the truth of the locality; until an aide-de-camp knocked at my door, with a request from the viceroy that I should see him as soon as possible. Safely locking up my precious record, I followed him.

There was a ball on that night in the Castle, and our way to the private apartments of his excellency leading through the state saloon, the whole brilliant display struck upon my eyes at once. By what strange love of contrast is it, that the human mind is never more open to the dazzling effects of beauty, splendour, and gaiety than when it has been wrapt in the profoundest sorrow? Are the confines of joy and anguish so close? Is there but a hair's-breadth intervention of some invisible nerve, some slender web of imagination, between mirth and melancholy? The Irish are a handsome race, and none more enjoy, or are more fitted by nature or temper, for all the ornamental displays of society; a Castle ball was always a glittering exhilaration of lustre and beauty. But I had seen all this before. To-night they mingled with the tenderness which the perusal of Clotilde's letter had shed over all my feelings. As the dance moved before my eye, as the music echoed round me, as I glanced on the walls, filled with the memories of all the gallant and the great, whose names lived in the native history of hundreds of years, I imagined the woman with whom I had now connected all my hopes of happiness, moving in the midst of that charmed circle, brilliant in all the distinctions of her birth, admired for her accomplished loveliness, and yet giving me the whole tribute of a noble heart, grateful for the devotion of all its thoughts to her happiness. I involuntarily paused, and, leaning against one of the gilded pillars of that stately hall, gave unrestrained way to this waking dream.

My conference with the viceroy was soon concluded. The prisoner had commanded a body of insurgents, who, after some partial successes, had been broken and dispersed. The leader, in his desperate attempts to rally them, had been severely wounded, and taken on the field. From the papers found on his person, an important clue to the principal personages and objects of the revolt was promised; and I proceeded to the place of temporary detention to examine the prisoner. What an utter breaking up of the vision which had so lately absorbed all my faculties! What a contrast; was now before me to the pomps and pleasures of the fête! On a table, in the guard-house, lay a human form, scarcely visible by the single dim light which flickered over it from the roof. Some of the dragoons, covered with the marks of long travel, and weary, were lounging on the benches, or gazing on the unhappy countenance which lay, as if in sleep or death, before them. A sabre wound had covered his forehead with gore, which, almost concealing all his features, rendered him a hideous spectacle. Even the troopers, though sufficiently indignant at the very name of rebel, either respected the singular boldness of his defence, or stood silenced by the appalling nature of the sight. All hope of obtaining any information from him was given up; he was evidently insensible, and all that I could do was done, in placing him in the care of the medical practitioner in attendance on the Household, and ordering that he should have every accommodation consistent with his safe-keeping for the time.

I returned to my chamber, and was again lost in the outpourings of a pen which had all the candour of a dying confession. Clotilde was again murmuring in my ear those solemn thoughts, which she believed that she was writing only to be trampled in the mazes of a French forest. Her last words were—

"Marston, Marston, we shall never meet again! In my days of wretchedness, I have sometimes wept over the resolution by which I tore myself away from you. But every calmer thought has strengthened me in the consciousness, that I could give no higher proof of the honour, the homage, the fond and fervent affection, of my soul. I dared not be a burden on your tenderness, or an obstacle to your natural distinction. What could I, helpless, houseless, fortuneless, be but a weight upon that buoyancy and ambition of eminence which marks superior natures for the superior honours of life. I relinquished the first object of my heart, and in that act I still take a melancholy pride. I showed you of what sacrifices I am capable for your sake. But what sacrifice is too vast for the heart of woman? Farewell! you will never see me more.

"Clotilde de Tourville."

During that night I found it impossible to rest; I continued alternately reading those fragments, walking up and down my chamber, and gazing on the skies. The cavalry torches still illumined the Castle-square; the blaze from the windows of the ball-room still poured its steady radiance on the gardens; and the pure serenity of a rising moon shone over all. Captivity, luxury, and the calm glory of the heavens, were at once before me. Feverish with pain and pleasure, pressed with the anxieties of state, and filled with solemn and spiritualized contemplation, I continued gazing from my casement until the torches and the lights of the fête had decayed, and the moonbeams had grown pale before the first flush of dawn. The sounds of life now came upon the cool air, and I was again in the world.

The eventful day was come—the day which I had longed for with such ceaseless impatience through years of trial—the day of which, among scenes the most disturbing, the most perilous, and the most glittering, I had never lost sight for a moment—the day which I had followed with a fond and fixed eye, as the pilgrim gazes on the remote horizon where stands the shrine he loves—it was come at last; and yet, such are the strange varieties and trembling sensibilities of human feelings, I now felt awed, uncertain, and almost alarmed, at its arrival. Before its close, I was to see the being in whom my existence was involved. When I had met Clotilde last, her sentiments for me were as devoted as were those expressed in her letter; yet she had repelled my declarations, sacrificed my happiness to a high-toned enthusiasm, and rejected all the supplications of an honourable heart, under the promptings of a spirit too noble to be called pride, yet with all the effect of the haughtiest disdain.

Still the hour advanced, and I sent a note by her attendant, soliciting an interview. Her hotel was within a short distance; yet no answer came. I grew more and more reluctant to approach her without her direct permission. There are thousands who will not comprehend this nervousness, but they are still ignorant of the power of real passion. True affection is the most timid thing in the world. At length, unable to endure this fever of the soul, I determined to make the trial at once, enter her presence, make a final declaration of all my hopes and fears, and hear my fate once for all.

I was on the point of leaving my chamber for the purpose, when a message from the viceroy stopped me. The prisoner whom I had seen brought in during the night was to be examined before the privy council, and my presence was essential. Fate, or fortune, seemed always to thwart me, and I followed the messenger. The prisoner was led into the council-room just as I entered; and at the first glance I recognised him as the unhappy being whom I had so strangely met in the North, and whose romance of rebellion had so deeply excited my interest. His features, which, in the night, disfigured with dust and blood, I had been unable to distinguish, now exhibited their original aspect, that cast of mingled melancholy and daring which marked him at once as conscious of the perils of his career, and resolved to encounter them to the uttermost. His tribunal was formed of the first men of the country, and they treated him with the dignity of justice. His conduct was suitable to this treatment—calm, decided, and with more the manner of a philosopher delivering deliberate opinions on the theory of government, than of a desperate contemner of authority, and the head of a stern and fierce conspiracy against the settled state of things. He cast his deep and powerful glance round the council-board; as if to measure the capacities of the men with whom he had once prepared himself to contend for national supremacy; but I could not discover that he had any recollection of me. I knew him well; and if ever painter or sculptor had desired to fix in canvass or marble the ideal grandeur of magnificent conspiracy, there stood its model. He spoke without the slightest appearance of alarm, and spoke long and ably, in explanation of his views; for he disdained all justification of them. He acknowledged their total failure, but still contended for their original probability of success, and for their natural necessity as the restoratives of Ireland. He was listened to with the forbearance alike arising from compassion for the fate he had thus chosen, and respect for the singular talent which he displayed in this crisis of his fate. Man honours fortitude in all its shapes. The criminal was almost forgotten in the eloquent enthusiast; and while, with his deep and touching voice, and eager but most expressive gesture, he poured out his glowing dreams, revelled in brilliant impossibilities, and created scenes of national regeneration, as high-coloured as the glories of a tropical sunset; they suffered him to take his full range, and develop the whole force of that vivid imagination, whose flame alike lured him into the most dangerous paths of political casualty, and blinded him to their palpable dangers. He concluded by declaring a total contempt for life; pronouncing, that with the loss of his political hopes it had lost its value, and making but one request to the council, that, "since fortune had flung him into the hands of their law, its vengeance might be done upon him with the least possible delay."

He was now removed; and a feeling of regret and admiration followed his removal. But his crime was undeniable, the disturbance of the public mind was too serious to allow of any relaxation in the rigour of justice; and I gave my unwilling signature to his final consignment to the state prison.

I was now once again disengaged from the fetters of office; and, resolved not to spend another day of suspense, I drove to the hotel. I found it crowded with families which had fled from their houses in the country in the first alarm of the insurrection; and in the midst of the good-humoured but unmanageable tumults of a great household of Irish strangers, was forced to make my own way at last. In passing along the gallery, my eye was caught by a valise laid outside one of the parlours, and corded, as for an immediate departure. It was marked with "La Comtesse de Tourville." I knocked gently at the door. I was unanswered. I touched it—it gave way, and I stood on the threshold. Before me, at a table, sat a female figure writing, with her face turned from me, and apparently so deeply engaged as not to have heard my entrance. But I should have known her among a million. I pronounced her name. She started up, in evident alarm at the intrusion. But in the next moment, her pale countenance was flushed by nature's loveliest rose, and she held forth her hand to me. All my fears vanished with that look and the touch of that hand. All the language of earth would not have told me half what they told at that moment. Of this I say no more. It was the golden moment of my life; I make no attempt to describe our interview, to describe the indescribable.

I returned to the Castle a new being. The burden which had weighed so long upon my spirits was removed. The root of bitterness, which continually sent up its noxious vegetation in the midst of the most flattering hopes of my public existence, was now extirpated; I was secure in the full confidence of one of the loveliest and the noblest-hearted of human beings. And yet how narrowly had I escaped the loss of all? Clotilde, hopeless of ever hearing of me more, had formed the determination to leave Ireland on that day; and weary of disappointed affections, and alienated from the world, to change her name, abjure her rank, and take the veil in one of the Italian convents connected with her family. I should thus have lost her for ever. She had waited on this eventful day only for the return of her domestic. His arrest on the night before had deranged her plans; and when he had returned, his mixture of French verbiage and Irish raptures, his guard-house terrors and his Castle feasting, formed a mélange so unintelligible, that she was compelled to believe him under the influence of a spell—that spell which is supposed to inspire so much of the wit and wisdom of one of the cleverest and most bizarre regions of a moonstruck world. Even my note only added to her perplexity. It was given by Monsieur Hannibal with such a magniloquent description of the palace in which he found me, and which he fully believed to be my own—of the royal retinue surrounding my steps—of my staff of glittering officers, and the battalions and brigades of my body-guard; that while she smiled at his narrative, she was perfectly convinced of his derangement. But all this had luckily produced delay; and the hour came when her past anxieties were to be exchanged for the faith and fondness of one who knew her infinite value, and was determined to devote his life to embellishing and cheering every hour of her existence.

We were married; and I had the delight and honour of introducing Clotilde into a circle of rank and lustre equal to the highest of her native country. The monarchy of France was long since in the tomb; its nobility were wanderers over the face of the earth. The fortunes, the hopes, the honours, all but the name of her distinguished family, had gone down in the general wreck. But now was given to me the joyous duty of replacing, by the purest and fondest of all rights, all that the chances of the world had taken away. I thought her countenance lovelier than ever. It exhibited some slight evidence of the deep and exhausting trials which she had so long endured; it was pale, yet the paleness reminded me of the exquisite hue of some of those fine sculptures which the Italian chisel has given for the admiration of mankind. Its expression, too, had assumed a loftier character than even when its first glance struck my young imagination. It had shared something of the elevation of a mind noble by nature, but rendered still loftier and more intellectual by being thrown on its own resources. Yet all this was for society. Her courtly air, inherited from an ancestry of princes; her manners, which retained the piquant animation of her own country, combined with the graver elegance of high life in ours; that incomparable taste in dress, which seems the inheritance of French beauty; and the sparkling happiness of language, scarcely less the gift of her native soil, made her conspicuous from the first moment of her introduction to the circle of the Castle.

But it was in our quiet and lonely hours that I saw the still more captivating aspects of her nature; when neither the splendid Countess de Tourville, nor the woman of brilliant conversation was before me, but an innocent and loving girl—no Armida, no dazzling mistress of the spells which intoxicate the heart by bewildering the mind; but a sweet and guileless creature in the first bloom of being, full of nature, full of simplicity, full of truth. How often, in those days of calm delight, have I seen her fine eyes suddenly fill with tears of thankful joy, her cheek glow with fond gratitude, her heart labour with the unutterable language of secure and sacred love! What hours can be placed in comparison with such hours of wedded confidence! It was then that I first became acquainted with the nature of the female heart. I then first knew the treasures which the spirit of woman may contain—the hope against hope, the generous faith, the unfailing constancy, the deep affection. How often, when glancing round our superb apartments, crowded with all the glittering and costly equipment of almost royal life, she would clasp my hand, and touchingly contrast them with the solitude of the cell, or the anxieties of the life of trial "from which I alone had rescued her!" How often, when we sat together, uninterrupted by the world, at our sumptuous table, would she, half sportively and half in melancholy, contrast it with the life of flight and fear which she had so lately led, with the rude repast snatched in forests and swamps, in the midst of civil war, with desolation round her and despair in prospect, imprisoned, in the power of a tyrant, and, at every step, approaching nearer to the place of a cruel death! Then a look would thank me more than all the eloquence in the world. Then I saw her eyes brighten, and her cheek bloom with new lustre and beauty unknown before, until I could have almost fallen at her feet and worshipped. I felt the whole supremacy of woman, with the whole homage of the heart of man.

A change in the British cabinet, by the death of one of its leading members, now produced a change in the viceroyalty; and the charge of the government, during the interregnum, necessarily devolved on the secretary. I never felt business more irksome than at this juncture, and I had, more than once, grave thoughts of casting aside the staff of office in spite of all its gilding, withdrawing from the disturbances of public life, and, with Clotilde at my side, finding some quiet corner of England, or the earth, where we might sit under our own vine and our own fig-tree, and forget revolutions and court-days for the rest of our lives.

But against this my young and lovely partner protested, with all the spirit of her ancestry; declaring that, though nothing would give her more unfeigned delight than to quit courts and cities, and fashion and fêtes, for ever, if I quitted them along with her—she could not endure the thought of my allowing "the talents which nature had given to me, and the opportunities which had been so liberally offered by fortune," to perish useless to the world. I had no answer to offer but that I had made her the arbitress of my fate, and she was welcome to do with me as was her sovereign will. Accordingly I left her, looking like Hebe in her bower, to plunge into a chaos of undecipherable papers, to be deafened with a thousand impossible applications, to marshal lazy departments, to reform antiquated abuses, and, after spending twelve hours a-day in the dust and gloom of official duty, to spend nearly as many hours of the night battling with arrogant and angry faction in the House of Commons.

But this toil, like most other toils, had its fruits; it gave me an extraordinary increase of public influence, and that influence produced, in the natural course of such things, an extraordinary crop of adherents. If I could have drunk adulation, no man was in more imminent hazard of mystifying his own brains. I began to be spoken of as one equal to the highest affairs of the state, and to whom the viceroyalty itself lay naturally open. But I still longed for a return to England. Delighted as I was with the grace of the higher ranks, amused with the perpetual whim and eccentricity of the lower, and feeling that general attachment to Ireland which every man not disqualified by loss of character must feel, my proper position was in that country where my connexions, my companionships, and my habits, had been formed. A new viceroy was announced; and I solicited my recall. But I had still one remarkable duty to undergo.

The northern insurrection had sunk, and sunk with a rapidity still more unexpected than the suddenness of its rise. The capture of its leader was a blow at the heart, and it lost all power at the instant. In the Castle all was self-congratulation, and the officials talked of the revolt with as much scorn as if there existed no elements of discord in the land. But I was not quite so easily inclined to regard all things through the skirts of the rainbow which had succeeded the storm; however unwilling to check the national exultation among a people who are as fond of painting the world couleur de rose as the French; laugh as much, and enjoy their laugh much more—my communications with England constantly warned ministers of the hazard of new insurrections, on a broader, deeper, and more desolating scale. Even my brief tour of the island had shown me, that there were materials of wilder inflammability in the bosom of the south than in the north. The northern revolt was like the burning of a house—the whole was before the eye, the danger might be measured at a glance, the means of extinction might operate upon it in their full power, and when the materials of the house were in ashes, the conflagration died. But the southern insurrection was the burning of a coalmine—a fire ravaging where human skill could scarcely gain access, kindled among stores of combustion scarcely to be calculated by human experience, growing fiercer the deeper it descended, and at every new burst undermining the land, and threatening to carry down into its gulfs all that was stately or venerable on the surface of the soil.

I continued to represent that the north had revolted only on theories of government, metaphysical reveries, pamphleteering abstractions—food too thin to nurture the fierce firmness by which conspiracy is to be carried forward into triumph; while the south pondered on real or fancied injuries, which wounded the pride of every peasant within its borders.—That the one took up arms for republicanism, the feeblest of all temptations to national resistance; while the other brooded over a sense of wrong, in visions of revenge for hereditary rights, and the hopes of restoring the fallen supremacy of its religion—motives, in every age, the most absorbing among the wild impulses of man. I repeatedly warned the Irish cabinet against an outbreak, which, if it succeeded, must convulse the empire; and which, even if it failed, must cost the heaviest sacrifices to the country. My advice was answered by professions of perfect security, and magnanimous declarations of the wisdom of extinguishing peril by exhibiting the absence of fear! My part was now done, and I was thenceforth to be only a spectator. But the course of things was not to be controlled by the confidence of cabinets. The sun went down, notwithstanding the government conviction that it would shine through the whole twenty-four hours; the political night came, as regularly as the night of nature, and with it came the march of tens of thousands of political lunatics, as brave as lions, though as incapable of discipline. My prediction was formidably fulfilled: the firebrand and the pike ravaged the land; blood flowed in torrents; and when the country returned to its senses, and the light of common sense once more dawned, ministers and people alike had only the melancholy office of burying the common offences in that great resting-place where the faults of the past generation are marked by tombs, and where the wisdom of the future is to be learned only from inscriptions recording the frailty of all that lived before.

The conspiracy which it had fallen to my lot to extinguish had been brief and local. The half-Scottish population among whom it broke out, were among the most sharp-witted and well-informed subjects of the empire; and they had no sooner made the discovery, that government was awake, than they felt the folly of attempting to encounter the gigantic strength of the monarchy, and postponed their republican dreams to a "fitter season." The time now approached when the leader of the Northern insurrection was to be brought to trial; and hostile as I was to the effects of his enthusiasm, I took no trivial interest in the individual. Still, to set him at liberty was palpably impossible; and my only resource was, to give him such aid in this extremity of his career as could be given by lightening the severities of his prison, and providing him with the means of securing able counsel. I had now an opportunity of seeing, for the first time, the genius of this singular people displayed under a new and brilliant form—the eloquence of the bar.

In England the Bar holds a high rank; from its essential value to the maintenance of public right in a country, where every possession, property, and principle of man comes continually in the shape of a question of right, and where the true supremacy is in the law. But in Ireland, the spirit of the nation compensated for the deficiency of power in the law; and the bar was, par excellence, the profession of the gentleman. This gave it the highest tone of personal manners. But it had another incentive, still more characteristic. The House of Commons was in the closest connexion with the bar. It was scarcely more than a higher bar. All the principal men of that House had either been educated for the profession, or were actually practising barristers; and as the distinctions of the senate were more dazzling, as well as more rapidly attainable, than those of the law, the force of the profession was thrown into parliamentary life. The result was, a reflected influence on both; the learning of the bar invigorating the logic of the debates, the eloquence of the debates enriching and elevating the eloquence of the courts of law. At this period the Courts abounded with eloquent men, who would have been distinguished at any tribunal on earth; but, while some might exhibit keener argument, and others more profound learning, the palm of forensic eloquence was universally conceded to one. Need I pronounce the name of Curran? Take him for all in all, he was the most extraordinary example of natural faculties that I have ever known. All the chief orators of that proud day of oratory had owed much to study, much to circumstances, and much to the stimulus of great topics, a great cause, and a great theatre for their display. When Burke spoke, he had the world for his hearers.—He stood balancing the fates of empires; his voice reached to the bosom of all the cabinets of civilized nations; and with the office of a prophet, he almost inevitably adopted the majestic language, and seized the awful and magnificent views of the prophet. This is no depreciation of the powers of that immortal mind; for what can be a higher praise than that, with the largest sphere of duty before him perhaps ever opened to man, he was found equal to the fullness of his glorious task? Sheridan, too, was awakened to a consciousness of his own powers by the national voice raised against Indian delinquencies. He had a subject teeming with the loftiest materials of oratory—the sufferings of princes, the mysteries of Oriental superstition, the wild horrors of barbaric tyranny, the fall of thrones, once dazzling the eye and the mind with all the splendours of Oriental empire; himself the chosen pleader for India, in the presence of the assembled rank, dignity, and authority of England. There can be no question of the genius which showed itself competent to so illustrious a labour. But the materials were boundless; the occasion was a summons to all the energies of the human intellect; never was the draught of human praise, the spell of that enchantress which holds the spirit of men in most undisputed sway, presented to the lip in a more jewelled goblet.

But Curran spoke almost wholly deprived of those resistless stimulants; his topics were comparatively trivial—the guilt of provincial conspiracy, incurred by men chiefly in the humbler ranks of life, and in all instances obscure. No great principles of national right were to live or die upon the success of his pleading; no distressed nation held him as its advocate; no impregnable barrier against oppression in Europe or Asia was to be inscribed with his name. He was simply the advocate in the narrow courts of a dependent kingdom—humiliated by the hopeless effort to rescue a succession of unfortunate beings whose lives were in the grasp of justice—compressed on every side by localities of time, habit, and opinion; and thwarted alike by the clamour of prejudice and the frowns of authority. Yet his speeches at the bar are matchless, to this hour. His creative powers seemed to rejoice in the very emptiness of the space which they were to fill with life, lustre, and beauty. Of all the great speakers, his images arose from the simplest conceptions; while they rapidly wrought themselves into magnitude and splendour. They reminded me of the vapours rising from the morning field—thin, vague, and colourless, but suddenly seized by the wind, swelling into volume, and ascending till they caught the sunbeams, and shone with the purple and gold of the summer cloud. This trial of the unfortunate rebel leader gave him a signal opportunity for the exertion of his extraordinary faculties. It had excited the deepest interest throughout the country. Thousands had flocked from all parts of the land to be present at a crisis which involved the national feelings in the highest degree; which involved the personal safety of individuals, perhaps of a much superior rank to the accused; and, above all, which seemed to fix the stamp of public justice on the guilt or impunity of opinions long cherished by the mind of Ireland. As the day of the trial approached, physiognomies were seen in the streets, which showed that individuals were brought together by the event who had never been seen in the metropolis before. The stern, hard, but sagacious countenances of the north contrasted with the broad, open, and bold features of the south; and those again contrasted with the long, dark, and expressive visages of the west, which still give indelible evidence of their Spanish origin. Many of those men who now filled the busy thoroughfares of the capital, had come from the remotest corners of Ireland, as if to stand their own trial. The prisoner at the bar was their representative; his cause was their cause; his judgment the decision of the tribunal on their principles; his fate an anticipation of their own.

As I pressed on to the noble building where the trial was to take place—one of the stateliest examples of architectural grace and dignity in a city distinguished for the beauty of its public buildings—it was impossible to avoid being struck with the general look of popular restlessness. The precaution of government had called in a large military force to protect the general tranquillity, and the patrols of cavalry and the frequent passing of troops to their posts, created a perpetual movement in the streets. The populace gathered in groups, which, rapidly dissolving at the approach of the soldiery, as rapidly assembled again, when they had passed by; street minstrels of the most humble description were plying their trade with a remorseless exertion of lungs; I heard the names of the Parliamentary leaders and the government frequently transpiring in those rough specimens of the popular taste; and from the alternate roars of fierce laughter and bursts of wild indignation which arose from the groups, it was evident that "men and measures" were not spared. The aspect of the multitude in the vicinity of the Law Courts was still more disturbed. Rebellion has a physiognomy of its own, and I had by this time learned to read it with tolerable fidelity to nature. It always struck me as of a wholly different character from that of the vice or the violence of the people. It wears a thoughtful air; the lips seem to have a secret enclosed, the eye is lowering, the step unsteady, the man exhibits a consciousness of danger from the glance or tread of every passer-by. His visage is sullen, stern, and meditative—I can scarcely allow this conception to be a work of fancy, for I have never been deceived in my readings of that most expressive of all betrayers of the inner man. And on this day, I could have predicted the preparation for some general and reckless rising against government, on the first opportunity when it should be found slumbering on its post: and my prediction would have been true.

The court was crowded, and it was with no small difficulty that I was enabled to reach the seat beside the judge, which had been provided for me. The arraignment and preparatory routine of the trial gave time for the court to subside into order; and the address of the principal law-officer for the prosecution, though exciting the deepest anxiety, was listened to in the most respectful silence. The case was strong, and was ably dealt with by the attorney-general. The evidence was clear and complete, and the hope of an acquittal seemed to be gradually abandoned in the expressive gloom of the spectators. The prisoner at the bar, too, seemed more dejected than I had presumed from his former intrepidity; and the few glances which I could suffer myself to give to a being in his calamitous condition, showed me a frequent writhing of the lip, a clenching of the teeth, and a nervous contraction of the features, which looked like despair. At length the counsel for the defence rose. It was the first instance of my seeing the memorable Curran engaged in his profession. I had met him from time to time in general society, and felt the delight which all experienced in his unfailing spirits and brilliant pleasantry. I had hitherto enjoyed him as the wit. I was now to be dazzled, delighted, and overwhelmed by him as the orator.

Curran was the last man to be judged of by appearances. Nature had been singularly unkind to his exterior, as if the more to astonish us by the powers of the man within. His figure was undersized, his visage brown, hard, and peasantlike, his gesture was a gesticulation, and his voice was alternately feeble and shrill. His whole effect was to be derived from means, with which that little meagre frame and sharp treble had nothing to do. But he had a singularly vivid eye. It was of the deepest black, and such was the intensity of its expression in his more impassioned moments, that it was scarcely an exaggeration to say that it shot fire. Still, a stranger would have regarded him chiefly as a humorist, from the glances of sly sarcasm, and even of open ridicule which he cast round the court during the pleadings of some of his "learned brethren." But, in that court his true faculties were known; and the moment of his rising, careless as was his attitude, and listless the look which he gave as he turned from his brief to the jury, was the signal for universal silence, and the fixing of every eye upon the great pleader.

He began by sweeping away the heap of useless facts and forensic prolixities with which his predecessors had encumbered the case; and nothing could be more admirable than the dexterity with which he seized on the most casual circumstances tending to clear the character of the accused. But it was when he arrived at higher topics that he displayed his genius.

"Nunc in ovilia, mox in reluctantes dracones." It was when, from developing the ignorance and contradictions of the informer by whom the charge of conspiracy was sustained, he rushed to the attack on the general system of the Irish government, that I saw him in full vigour. He denounced it as the source of all the tumults which had of late years shaken the "isle from its propriety." "Here was the fount," said he, "from which flowed the waters of bitterness, not the less bitter that I can trace its wanderings through centuries of national desolation, through fields of blood, through the graves of generations." After giving the most daring outline of what he termed the evils of the local sovereignty of Ireland, he surprised me into sudden acquiescence and involuntary admiration, by a panegyric on the principles of British government in the more favoured island—on "the majestic supremacy of the law, extending over all things, sustaining all things, administering life and health and purity to all; a moral atmosphere, and though invisible, like the physical, yet irresistible in its strength, penetrating through the whole national existence, and carrying on undisturbed and perpetual, in the day and night of empire, all the great processes of national animation and prosperity." Then, suddenly darting away from this lofty and solemn view, he indulged in some wild story of native humour, which convulsed the whole audience with laughter. Yet, before the burst had subsided, he touched another string of that harp which so magically responded to the master's hand. He described the long career of calamity through which an individual born with a glowing heart, brilliant faculties, and an aspiring spirit, must struggle, in a country filled with the pride of independence, and yet for ages in the condition of a province. Some part of his pathos in this sketch was probably borrowed from his own early difficulties; and I heard, poured out with the touching vehemence of painful reality, probably the very meditations which had preyed upon the heart of the student in his chamber, or darkened his melancholy walks in the cloisters of the Temple. But he suddenly started on a new train of thought; and reprobated with the loftiest rebuke, that state of the law which, while it required two witnesses for the proof of treason in England, was content with one in Ireland. This he branded with every name of indignant vituperation, frequently adopted, according to his habit, from the most familiar conceptions; yet, by their familiarity, striking the mind with astonishing force. He called it "playing at pushpin with the lives of men"—"the reading-made-easy of judicial murder"—"the 'rule of three' of forensic assassination;—given, a villain, multiplied by a false oath, the product, an execution!" He now revelled in the boldest extravagances of imagery and language, expressions which, written, might resemble the burlesque of a public jester, or the wildness of a disturbed mind, but which were followed by the audience, whom he had heated up to the point of passion, with all but acclamation. Still he revelled on. His contrasts and comparisons continued to roll out upon each other. Some noble, some grotesque, but all effective. After one dazzling excursion into the native history, in which he contrasted the aboriginal hospitality and rude magnificence of the old Irish chieftain, the Tir-Owen or O'Nial, with the chilling halls of the modern absentee; he suddenly changed his tone, and wandered away into a round of fantastic, and almost frolicsome pleasantries, which shook even the gravity of the bench. Then, suddenly checking himself, and drawing his hand across his brow to wipe away a tear—for even the hard-headed lawyer was not always on his guard against the feeling of the moment—he upbraided himself, and the bystanders, for the weakness of being attracted by any lighter conception, while the calamities of Ireland were demanding all their sympathies. And even this he did in his characteristic manner. "Alas!" said he, in a voice which seemed sinking with a sense of misfortune, "why do I jest? and why do you smile? Or, are we for ever to be the victims of our national propensity, to be led away by trivialties? We tickle ourselves with straws, when we should be arming for the great contests of national minds. We are ready to be amused with the twang of the Jew's harp, when we should be yearning for the blast of the trumpet. You remind me, and I remind myself, of the scene at one of our country-wakes. It is the true portrait of our fruitless mixture of levity and sorrow. We come to mourn, and we are turned to merriment by the first jest. We sit under the roof of death, yet we are as ready to laugh as ever. The corpse of Ireland is before our eyes: we fling a few flowers over its shroud, and then we eat, drink, and are merry. Must it be for ever pronounced—that we are a frivolous and fickle race—that the Irishman remains a voluntary beggar, with all the bounties of nature round him; unknown to fame, with genius flashing from his eyes; humiliated, with all the armoury of law and liberty open to his hands; and laughing, laughing on, when the only echo is from the chambers of the grave?"

The orator dropped his head on his clasped hands as he spoke the words; and there was an universal silence for a while. It was interrupted by a groan of agony from the prisoner. All eyes were instantly turned to the dock, and the spectacle there was startling. He seemed writhing under intolerable torture. His hands clung eagerly to the front of the dock, as if to sustain him; his lips were as colourless clay, but his features and forehead were of the most feverish crimson. At first the general impression was, that he had been overcome by a sense of his perilous state; but it was soon evident that his pangs were more physical than moral. Curran now flung his brief upon the table, and hurried to his side. A few words passed between them, inaudible to the court; but they had the unexpected effect of apparently restoring the sufferer to complete tranquillity. He again stood erect; his brow, and it was a noble one, resumed its marble smoothness; his features grew calm, and his whole aspect returned to the stern and moveless melancholy of an antique statue.

The advocate went back to his place, and commenced a singularly dexterous attempt to avert the sentence, by an appeal to the national feelings. "If," said he, "my client had been charged with any of those crimes which effect their object by individual injury, I should disdain to offer a defence, which could be accomplished only by confounding the principles of right and wrong. But here is an instance in which the noblest mind might err, in which the highest sagacity might be perplexed, in which the most self-denying virtue might discover nothing but a voluntary sacrifice." The problem before his client was "the proudest that had ever occupied the mind of ancient or modern times. It was, by what means a patriot might raise his country to the highest possible elevation. What are the essentials for such a purpose? Intrepidity, independence of heart, the steadiest perseverance, the manliest fortitude; all the great qualities of the head and the heart. Those are the tributes which he must bring to the altar of his country. But the priest must be prepared himself to be the sacrifice. Is it the hands of his countrymen that are to bind him to the horns of the altar?"

A sense of this hazardous line of observations, however, soon struck the keen understanding of the great pleader; and he admitted in all its fulness the necessity of respecting public tranquillity, of relinquishing doubtful projects of good, and of studying the prosperity of a nation, rather through the "microscope of experience" than by "vague, though splendid, telescopic glances" at times and things beyond our power. "The man," said he, "who discovers the cause of blight in an ear of corn, is a greater benefactor to the world than the man who discovers a new fixed star." From the glow on his countenance, and the sudden brightness of his eye, I could see that he was about to throw himself loose on some new current of rich and rapid illustration, when he was suddenly stopped by a shriek from the dock; the prisoner had fallen with his head over its front, and seemed gasping in the last pangs. The drops of torture stood thick on his brow, his eye was glazed, and his lips continued to quiver, without the power of utterance. The advocate approached him; the dying man caught him by the hand; and, as if the touch had restored his faculties at the instant, said, with a faint smile, and in a low tone, yet so clear as to be audible to the whole assembly, in the words of Pierre—"We have deceived the senate!" In the utterance he fell back and died. To escape the ignominy of the scaffold, the unhappy man, before he came into court, had swallowed poison!

I speak of Curran, only as I see him through the lapse of years. Time has had no other effect on my recollection, than raising my estimate of his genius. I admit, too, that in judging of an extraordinary man, time may exalt the image as well as confuse the likeness. The haze of years may magnify all the nobler outlines, while it conceals all that would enfeeble their dignity. To me, his eloquence now resembles those midsummer night dreams, in which all is contrast, and all is magical. Shapes, diminutive and grotesque for a moment, and then suddenly expanding into majesty and beauty; solitudes startling the eye with hopeless dreariness, and at a glance converted into the luxury of landscape, and filled with bowers of perpetual spring. The power of his contrasts still haunts me; Aladdin's palace, starting from the sands, was not more sudden, fantastic, or glittering. Where all seemed barren, and where a thousand other minds would have traversed the waste a thousand times, and left it as wild and unpeopled as ever; no sooner had he spoken the spell, than up sprang the brilliant fabric of fancy, the field was bright with fairy pomp, and the air was filled with genii on the wing.

Next morning, I was on my road to London.

LEBRUN'S LAWSUIT.

In France, even before the Revolution, less regard was paid to the decisions of a court of law, than to public opinion. That tyrant of our modern days had already seized the throne, and his legitimate authority and divine right were never doubted by the most anti-monarchical of the sons of liberty. The only check on the insolence of the noblesse, and the only compensation for the venality of the judges, was found in a recourse to the printer. A marquis was made to imitate the manners of a gentleman by fear of an epigram; a defeated party in a lawsuit consoled himself by satirizing the court; and from Voltaire down to Palissot, all the people who could write, and could borrow ink and paper, had pen in hand, ready to appeal from prejudiced juries, overbearing nobles, or even lettres de cachet and the Bastile itself, to the reading, talking, gossiping, laughing, quick-witted, cold-hearted citizens of Paris. The consequence was that the whole city was overrun with pamphlets. Ministers of state, marshals, and princes of the blood, were as busy as any Grub-street garretteer. Literary squabbles employed the lifetime of all the literary men—and some of them, indeed, are only known by their squibs and lampoons on their more popular brethren. But so great at last seems to have been the rage for calling in the public, that it was not even expelled from the consulting chambers of counsel learned in the law. If a case came before an advocate that gave any scope for his talents as a pamphleteer, his opinion immediately took the shape of a little historiette, and in a few days was in print. The attorney was no less literary in getting up his brief; and innumerable were the sage labours of avocats and procureurs which rushed into type before the trial was over, and did duty, very much to the reader's satisfaction, as a tale of fashionable life. In fact, a very amusing collection might be made, of the memorials of counsel which appeared in Paris about the middle of last century. The writings, for instance, which secured the fame of witty Beaumarchais among the gossips of the capital, were not the Barber of Seville, or his comedies, but the briefs which he composed in his lawsuit with the Goezmans and the Sieur Bertrand. All the laughers were on his side; and though he was beat in the trial, his triumph was complete; for it was not in the nature of Parisian public opinion to believe a man guilty who was so prodigal of bon-mots; or that the opposite party had right or justice on their side, whose pleadings were as uninteresting as a sermon. But Beaumarchais was not the only author who owed his notoriety to his legal proceedings. One of the great lyric poets of France, who is placed by his countrymen upon the same level as Pindar—Denis Leonchard Lebrun—was the town-talk for several years, during his action against his wife for the restitution of conjugal rights. And as his Mémoire, or pleading, gives a view of French life at the period, (1774,) of a grade in society omitted in the Mémoires and Souvenirs of dukes and princesses, we propose to give some account of it, and also of the hero of the process, whose strange eventful history was not drawn to a close till 1807. He was born in 1729, in the house of the Prince de Conti, in whose service his father was. His talents soon recommended him to the notice of the prince; and, before he was thirty, he had established his reputation as a poet of the first order by an ode on the earthquake at Lisbon. Acknowledged as a man of genius, and feared as a man of wit—for his epigrams were even more celebrated than his lyrics—and placed in easy circumstances by the kindness of his master, who bestowed on him the title and salary of his "Secrétaire des Commandemens," nothing seemed wanting to his felicity but a wife to share his glory; and, accordingly, in the year 1760, he married. If we believe his own account, he was the happiest of Benedicts for fourteen years; but all of a sudden, without warning, without reason, and (though she was a poetess) without even rhyme, his household gods were broken, and all his happiness engulfed. It was a second edition of the Lisbon earthquake. The opposite party denied the fourteen years' felicity, and talked wonderful things about cuffs and kicks bestowed on the spouse—and maledictions of more force than elegance; but both sides agree that the matter came to a crisis when a certain Sieur Grimod—a sort of Cicisbeo—Platonic of course—was requested to leave the house, and discontinue his visits to Madame Lebrun. This simple proceeding let loose all the winds of heaven; poor Lebrun was pounced upon by the whole female sex. Even his old mother turned against him; even his sister, a sour vestal of thirty-seven, sided with her injured sister-in-law; and what had the wretched poet to say for himself? He suspected nothing improper—a good easy man—he adored his "Fanny"—he wanted her to come back—but that horrid fellow Grimod!—he would not have Grimod within his door. So Fanny would not go within it either; and off to the avocat rushed Lebrun, to force her to come back by legal process; and off went Madame, accompanied of course by the Sieur Grimod, to her avocat, to resist the demand; and then followed paper upon paper—love, regrets, promisings, courtings, on one side; hatred, defiance, and foul names, ad libitum, on the other. And, finally, the whole case was put into a Mémoire, with the help of Monsieur Hardoin de la Regnerie, avocat; and every tea-table—but there was no tea in those days—every card-table in Paris was as well able to decide the cause as the Parliament itself.

The Mémoire commences with some general reflections on the advantages possessed by a pretty woman, in all cases of a quarrel with a man. And when, in addition to her prettiness, she has the art to appear ill-used, there is no resisting her attacks. A halo of sympathy gathers round her, while a cloud envelopes the unfortunate antagonist; and people at last think that they are performing an act of pure and disinterested justice, when they kick him into the Seine. Impressed with this disagreeable conviction, (from which we gather that Madame Lebrun was a handsome woman, while the husband was nothing to boast of—at all events compared to the Sieur Grimod,) he hurries on to the facts—and they rather alter the appearance of affairs.

It was in the year 1760, as we have said, that the Sieur Lebrun married the Demoiselle de Surcourt. Interest and ambition had nothing to do with the match. Love was the only fastener of the bond. The Sieur Lebrun and the Demoiselle de Surcourt had been acquainted—had been lovers—for three years. And that passion, born of a sympathy of tastes and sentiments, had grown in mystery—a secret correspondence was its aliment and interpreter—a delicious correspondence—where the Demoiselle de Surcourt knew how to combine the sallies of imagination with the soft outpourings of the soul, or the burning expressions of her love! Pardon the Sieur Lebrun if he transcribes a few passages from her letters; Madame Lebrun, above all, ought to excuse him. It is not betraying her secrets; it is recalling her to herself, and to a sentiment she would never have forsworn, if she had been allowed to follow the dictates of her heart:—

"From my bed, this Tuesday evening.

"If it is flattering to be loved by those we love, it is still more so when the loved object is you, my dear Misis. 'Twould make me vain to think I pleased you really as much as you say I do; but I feel my happiness too truly to give way to pride on account of it. Is it true, then, that you think of me, and prefer my remembrance to the gaieties of society? Ah! why am I not in the room where you remain for my sake? You make me wish more—I wish I could be with you wherever you think of me. You are right in saying our hearts are made for one another; they have the same sentiments, they burn with the same fires. That charming harmony is the work of love; but nature had created a sympathy between them that seems to tell us they were made to love and to be united. Yes, my dear Misis, they must love for ever; but in the mean time will you consent to languish in absence and constraint? I would not remind you of your unhappiness, since you have interdicted me from the subject, if you did not complain yourself; and your complaints make me wretched. They reveal to me your sufferings, and awaken all my affection. Do you think, if I had an opportunity of seeing you, that I would not seize it? Ah! you ought to feel assured of all I would do for you if I had it in my power. But we can't help hoping what we desire so much. Reproach me, therefore, no more; tell me rather again that you are convinced of my affection, and promise to love me all your life. I ought to be sure of it already; but every time you reproach me, I make you repeat the promise by way of expiating your fault. Good-night, my dear Misis; I hope you will think of me in your dreams. Why must I say good-night so far from you?"

Of the same period is the following:—

"From my bed, this Wednesday night.

"What! you scold me in sober truth! You write me a scrap of a letter—in the coldest, gravest style. Yes—you were sad—I see you were. Do you fancy that the lecture you gave me makes up for my grief at losing you? Ah! if I had not recalled your eyes glowing with love, and all our mutual endearments, I should have been angry with you. How strange that your very recollection pleads your excuse! Whatever may be your fault, you have but to show yourself to be forgiven. But do not presume, upon this confession, to add to your faults. Alas! if ever you deserve a punishment, its bitterness will all belong to me. Fortune befriended us when last we met; but don't you find time pass too quickly when we are together? I have always a thousand things to say to you; it is not, perhaps, the shortness of the time—it is, that the more I say to you the more I wish to say. In the same way, the more kisses I give you, the more I wish to give; all the feelings you inspire are in extremes. How you ought to love me if you wish your tenderness to equal mine! And since it is always on the increase, how cruel that we can never give way to the sentiments we feel, and express them to each other! What pleasure we are deprived of, dear Misis! why are you not beside the couch where I am now writing? Our silence alone would be more eloquent than all our letters. The kisses I would give you would no longer be in dreams, though my happiness would perhaps make me think it one. Adieu! the more I think of it, the more I feel the misery of being separated from you. It is near one o'clock. Are you in bed yet? Think of me!"

This secret correspondence lasted for three years; but, at last, a letter was opened by a servant, and the secret was discovered by the Sieur de la Motte, who passed for the Demoiselle de Surcourt's uncle, and with whom she lived. The Sieur Lebrun had but to whisper marriage, and all would have been arranged. Under other circumstances the word would have been easy—but there was a bar between them: the Demoiselle de Surcourt was of illegitimate birth. Love, however, laughed at the obstruction. The Sieur Lebrun hurried to the house of De la Motte; demanded the hand of the lady he loved; and the Demoiselle de Surcourt became his wife. The marriage contract will prove his disinterestedness. The portion he obtained was small; consisting but of eighteen hundred francs a-year. The Sieur Lebrun, secretary of the domains of the Prince de Conti, with two thousand livres a-year, might have looked higher—at all events he might have bargained for a settlement in his favour; but, so far from that, he made no claim upon her fortune, but settled all he had upon her. Is this the man whom Madame Lebrun accuses of having married her from interested motives?

Alas, sometimes, for the marriages which have been preceded by too violent a love!—illusion gives place to sad reality. The boy and girl love without having learned to know each other; and cease to love when that knowledge comes! But the attachment of the Sieur and Madame Lebrun experienced no revolution of the kind. Fourteen years passed away in uninterrupted union. Though converted into a husband, the Sieur Lebrun did not cease to be Misis; the wedded De Surcourt continued to be "Fanny"—charming names—ingenious disguises—chosen by two lovers to perpetuate the memory of the times of courtship!

More than three hundred letters, written by Madame Lebrun during that time, were in the hands of her husband—irrefragable proofs of their mutual affection; but she has found means to get away the greater part of them; enough, however, remain to make his justification complete. Never was a union more harmonious—a wife more petted and indulged. It seemed that felicity, resting on such foundations, could never be disturbed; but one single moment was sufficient to overturn the work of seventeen years!

The Sieur and Madame Lebrun had been intimate for some years with a certain Sieur Grimod, who held an appointment from the king, and lived as if his office was of great value. The Sieur Lebrun is not astonished that his wife was pleased with the acquaintance, for he prized it very highly himself; but a time came when he thought it better for all parties that it should cease. The Sieur Lebrun believes in his wife's virtue as in his own existence. What! if he had not that belief, would he be here to reclaim her by course of law? But it is not enough for a woman to have the reality of virtue—she must have the appearance also; and every man has a right to be in that respect a Cæsar. Already some indiscretions of Madame Lebrun, which the openness and purity of her mind could alone render excusable—her portrait drawn without her husband's knowledge for the Sieur Grimod—a letter from that individual to the lady, written in a style such as no one would use towards a lady he respected—had begun to inspire the Sieur Lebrun with a certain coolness. The whisperings at last, unjust as they were, no doubt, of a malicious public—the advice of his friends—his own susceptibility, made it imperative on him to come to a rupture, in which Madame Lebrun should have been glad to join. And here is the letter he wrote to the Sieur Grimod:—

This 15th January 1774.

"There are a thousand circumstances, Sir, which every day make it a man's duty no longer to see the persons who have previously been most highly prized. I experience this myself in declining an acquaintance with you, which in other respects I greatly valued. You know better than any one else how much I lose by this step. Madame Lebrun unites her regrets to mine, and begs me to assure you, and also Madame Grimod, of her affectionate thanks, ('de ses plus tendres remercîmens.') I have the honour to be, with perfect truth, and for the last time," &c.

And the Sieur Grimod immediately replied—

"Your letter, Sir, did indeed surprise Madame Grimod and me, who believed ourselves among the number of your friends, after the many years we have had the honour to know you. We do not know the motives for so sudden a quarrel; if you were pleased with our society, we were no less so with yours. The number of true friends we retain, does not hinder us from regretting those we lose, in you and Madame Lebrun, to whom we beg you will express our regret. We have the honour," &c.

After two such polite epistles, the reader would naturally expect that the Sieur Lebrun and the Sieur Grimod, with their respective wives, would toss their heads at each other when they met in the street, and give the cut direct with the utmost unanimity. But another glance into the Mémoire will soon convince him of his mistake. The Sieur Lebrun may probably look vastly majestic, and pass the Sieur Grimod with a contemptuous jerk; but sorry are we to say that Madame Lebrun joins in no such dignified proceeding. She cuts the magnanimous Lebrun instead; she stirs up against him the wrath and indignation of all his friends and relations; she continues her intimacy with the Sieur Grimod; and, as a finish to her connubial obedience, she goes one morning with three hackney coaches, and carries off every article of furniture the unhappy little man possesses. A pleasant specimen of a wife of the middle class in the year 1774! A duchess could scarcely be more sublime. Now, who was this Sieur Grimod, and what manner of rank was his considered? He had nothing to do with the noblesse; he kept no shop; he had no private fortune; but he was one of the true causers of the French Revolution, the rascally collectors of taxes, the underlings of the atrocious fermiers généraux, who wrung the last farthing from the already oppressed peasant, and made the whole realm of France as sterile, hopeless, and wretched, as a nation must inevitably become, if it is allowed to be the prey of an O'Connell in every parish. His nominal salary was under a hundred a-year; but we shall see the style he lives in, as we get on in the account—his country-houses—his carriages, and even his politenesses to Madame Lebrun; and we shall hear in every one of these luxurious enjoyments the sharpening of the guillotine axe. Madame Lebrun the wife, Madame Lebrun the mother, and Mademoiselle the sister, are all in the same story. The old lady, whose virtuous indignation towers above her sex, has no patience for the insufferable tyrant who won't let his wife see her best friends, ("qui vouloit l'empêcher de voir ses bons amis.") They trump up all manner of stories against him; and even maintain, in their first paper of accusation, that he threshed and kicked his tender-hearted spouse, and put her in bodily fear. But when the magistrate looked at our diminutive friend, and compared his powers of threshing and kicking with the tall majestic figure and full chest of the complainant, he dismissed the charge "avec une sorte d'indignation," as the Sieur Lebrun triumphantly declares; and we think the magistrate was quite justified in so doing. No, no—the Sieur Lebrun was bad enough, as you shall hear in the sequel; but he never had the cruelty, not to mention the courage, to attack so stately a woman as his wife. But, alas! from the magistrate's decision there lay a power of appeal. The three ladies—with the help, no doubt, of the irresistible Sieur Grimod—carried the cause into a higher court. They brought it before the bailliage of the Temple; but the Sieur Lebrun had some misgivings as to the impartiality of the court, and he carried it before the judges at the Châtelet. In this court, Grimod and his party knew they had no chance, suffered the case to go against them by default, and finally appealed to the Grande Chambre. And the Sieur Lebrun did all this to get back a woman that had robbed, and pillaged, and slandered him, and preferred her bon ami the Sieur Grimod, and her bonne amie the Dame Grimod, to her Misis, in spite of his ode on the earthquake at Lisbon, and his being ranked by the Parisian critics as a little above Pindar.

Well, to it they go, reply, replication, rejoinder—till at last we are verily persuaded the little man tried to get her into his power again for the express purpose of murdering her at his leisure. And what our verdict in such a case, if we had been upon the jury, would have been, we are not prepared to say.

The lady, in the course of her accusations, proved too much. She brought witnesses to state, that for the whole fourteen years of her wedded life she had been thumped and bullied worse than Cinderella; accused of trying to poison her lord and master; and, in short, had led a life of perfect misery. Oho! cries the Pindar of the reign of Louis the Fifteenth, you are a pretty woman to talk of misery and ill-treatment for fourteen years! Why, never was such a merry, happy, careless being in France. For fourteen years you did nothing but amuse yourself and worship me, as a good wife ought. I buried myself in my books, and wrote astonishing odes and epigrams, corresponded with Voltaire, and discovered grand-daughters of Corneille, and got up subscriptions for their benefit; and all the while you attended every party, went to all the theatres, and never missed a single masquerade. No, 'twas when I forbade the visits of Grimod——But at that name his eloquence leaves him, and he descends to facts. There is one fact, he says, against which the whole plot of this separation will fall to pieces. It is the harmony which always reigned between man and wife till about six weeks before she went away. The witnesses of the Sieur Lebrun to this fact are indubitable. They are her own letters—those, be it understood, which she left behind, or rather, which she was not able to carry away with her. By the perusal of some of her notes before marriage, we have seen the vivacity of sentiment which united the Demoiselle de Surcourt to the Sieur Lebrun. That vivacity is traceable, in all its force, in a letter she wrote to him after the marriage, when he had left her for a short time in the August of 1760.

"I heard yesterday from my dear Misis. I have not heard to-day. It brings back all my uneasiness. Has he slept well to-night? is he not fatigued? I hope he has nothing else to complain of but ennui. My dear Misis, I do not doubt that you think of your dear Fanny, of her grief, her love, her impatience. Tell me the day, then, the day I so long for, that is to bring you back to me again. All my thoughts turn only to you. Nothing has any interest for me that is not in some way or other connected with you. I rejoice in seeing the fine weather, for I think you can now enjoy a walk. I hate the heat, for it keeps you from exercise, and may make you ill. The moment I feel the slightest zephyr, I long to send it to you. I wish there was even a tempest for your sake. I would make the very elements do your bidding. I wish that every thing in nature may only serve to make you happy, my dear Misis. How much does she not owe him, since he has painted her so well? He makes her still more beautiful by the light of his own soul—that soul fired at once by genius and by love. You write such beautiful things, and I can't see them! I have no pleasure in life. I have no consolation left, but the hope of our meeting soon. To-day I passed the morning with your mother. She pities me. We spoke of nothing but you. She told me some anecdotes of your childhood that amused me much. You must have been interesting even then. At four years old, I really believe I should have fallen in love with you. I like every thing that belongs to you; I feel as if they brought me nearer to yourself. She and your sister send you a thousand loves, and your brother also, who supped here this evening. They talked a great deal of Homer, Greek, Latin, &c. My dear aunt and uncle were delighted with him, and think him very clever. It is now midnight. I am in my couch—my solitary couch—far from thee. Alas! nothing which you see where you now are can remind you of love. Love dwells not in palaces. I have nothing but your heart to rely on to recall me to your mind. Adieu, my dear Misis—adieu, my little man! I send you a thousand kisses. Ah! Why am I not in your arms?

"This morning, when I was just going to seal my letter, Murgi brought me yours. Ah, how sorry I am! I feel more than ever that my heart is not made for these lengthened separations. No, I can't exist absent from what I adore. I tried to reason myself into submission for five days; but how am I to endure the fifteen that it will be now? Pity me, dear Misis. It is delightful to me to see that your regret is equal to mine; but the more you make me love you, the greater is my grief. If any thing could lessen the sorrow caused me by your letter, it is to hear that you are well. The assurance of that gives me one grief less. Take care of yourself, for my sake. I can't understand how the letter I wrote you on Sunday has not reached you yet. Write to me often, if 'tis but one word. I embrace you again—Your Fanny."

Thanks to the wise precaution of Madame Lebrun, there is a blank of seven years in her correspondence with her husband. But if we lose the pleasure of reading a multitude of letters worthy of those we have transcribed, the cause of the Sieur Lebrun is no loser by the omission; for we find, at the end of those seven years, the Dame Lebrun still unchanged—a clear proof that no change has, in the interval, taken place in the Sieur Lebrun. Voici, continues the Mémoire—behold the letter she wrote to him on the 17th September 1767, from the country-house of—who do you think?—the Sieur Grimod.

"I flatter myself, my dear little man, that I shall have a good report of your health. I am told you started in first-rate condition; no doubt the open air, and the pleasures of such agreeable society, will keep you in good case. I need not wish you any new enjoyments. I have only to congratulate you on those you possess. Let me enter into them, for the description of yours will make me more fully appreciate my own. I hope, at the same time, you will perceive that there is a something wanting, and that you will have the same feelings on the subject as I have. The country agrees with me admirably, and I am in wonderful health. We walk a great deal, and musicate ('musiquons') a great deal more. We lay all the elements under contribution for our amusement. We have a gondola for our water parties, a swing for the air, and we only want Torræus and his Acheron to take a trip through fire. We have made parties to go fishing, and we intend making one to go fowling with nets and looking-glasses, as it is so beautifully described by a poet of my acquaintance, (the Sieur Lebrun himself.) I hope the same accident won't happen to us that befell the bird-catcher in the fable. It is for you to be on your guard, if you enter into such amusements; for love keeps constantly prowling in the scenes frequented by the Graces. We are, therefore, in safety here, in spite of his wings. We expect the family of M. and Madame Grimod at the beginning of next month. They have charged me to invite you to come, and take your place on the famous jonquil sofa. They send you a thousand compliments, and expect you early next month. We have half made up our minds to go and see the king hunt at St Hubert. Adieu, my dear little man! I embrace you with all my heart. Write me immediately. My respects to the ladies, and a thousand remembrances to M. le Comte de Turpin, and M. le Comte de Brancas. Tell him that I was highly flattered by his indignation, though it was altogether unjust. We return you your brilliant 'epistle.' We have answered it with a song; don't lose it. The invalid (Julia) sends you a lot of messages."

Poetry itself was employed by the Dame Lebrun to paint the feelings with which her husband had the happiness to inspire her.

The proofs brought of this latter assertion are very convincing; but before we give extracts from the poetical declarations of her connubial bliss, let us see what a curious insight this gives us, into the style of life among French poetasters and their wives in the middle of last century. We have seen that the irate Lebrun had a settled income of about a hundred and eighty pounds a-year, equal, with little pickings and stealings, to perhaps three hundred pounds at the present time. His wife, evidently a clever, brisk coquette, sends friendly messages to two of the first nobles in France, the Count de Turpin and the Count de Brancas, and in the house of the latter nobleman the Sieur Lebrun is domiciled at the time she writes. In the meanwhile, she is spending months at a time in the country mansion of the too fascinating Grimod, whom we have presented to the reader as a sub-collector of taxes. A sub-collector of taxes! Wait till the next payments are due for the income-tax, and watch the countenance of the respectable individual who will give you his receipt. Is that a man to awake jealousy in the soul of Pindar, or get up private theatricals, or even take a prominent part in an acted charade? His soul is set upon a hot beefsteak, and he thinks strong ale. He wouldn't give twopence for all the poets in England, and still less for their wives. But the Sieur Grimod is made of different metal. Less lead, but a great deal more brass—more polished, but less useful—a pinchbeck imitation of the lords and ladies who were waltzing, flirting, acting proverbs, and writing pasquinades, at the very moment when the first great throes of the "portentous doom" were beginning to shake France to her foundations, and the cloud was gathering that was to fall down in the blood and horror of the Revolution. A sub-collector of taxes! in his country-house—with his friends' wives about him, in addition to his own—giving parties of the most gorgeous magnificence—splendid masques in honour of a birthday, like Comus at Ludlow Castle—bird-huntings, where ladies, with attendant squires, sallied forth in fanciful array, armed with silken nets to catch the prey, after having wiled them from the trees by blinding them with polished mirrors—horns sounding, and music stationed in woody dells—and all carried on with a grandeur like the cavalcades of the duke and duchess in Don Quixote. A sub-collector of taxes, we say, doing all this, shows very clearly that some change or other was needed; and we will only say, that the moment we see similar proceedings going on in the same rank of life in England, we shall emigrate to some happy island—not Tahiti—where poets and poetesses, and sub-collectors of taxes, are utterly unknown. We shall extract from the mémoire—which, we again remind the reader, is a strictly legal document, though rather different from the dull concerns our Solons in Lincoln's Inn are the authors of—at some length; for we shall gain a very tolerable idea of the interior arrangements of a maison de campagne, on a fête-day in 1768.

The day of St Denis was usually chosen by the Dame Lebrun for a charming party, to which she lent all the charms of her muse. In that which she gave on the eve of St Denis, at the house of the Sieur Grimod, she had introduced all the deities of Olympus to pay compliments to her husband. First appeared Love and the Graces; then Flora, then Diana—who all sang songs in character. Apollo followed, who presented his lyre to the Sieur Lebrun, and said—

"The suffrages of all you claim,
The gods themselves your talents prize;
Through endless ages may your name
Partake their immortalities!
Take from Apollo's hand this lyre,
To sound upon the sacred hill;
And while your finger wakes its fire,
They'll say, 'it is Apollo's still.'"[3]

After Apollo, Pomona immediately came; it was the character which the Dame Lebrun had reserved for herself; and her couplet would have been out of place in any person's mouth but her own—

"Let gods their crowns bestow—
An orchard is my all:
Yet poor gifts richer grow,
When from the heart they fall.
If of Pomona's store
To taste you kindly deign,
Trust me, I'll give you as much more
When autumn comes again."[4]

The divertisement ended with a dance of Bacchus and Bacchantes. The Sieur Grimod enacted the part of Bacchus in full costume, with his head ornamented with a cap and bells!

We suspect the head of the counsel assisting in getting up this memorial had been so long surmounted with a wig, that he did not remark upon the absurdity of the masquerade of the Sieur Grimod. A cap and bells on the head of wild Bacchus! It is evident, even from the couplet chanted by the fascinating sub-collector of taxes, that he appeared in a very different character from the youthful conqueror of India; though we confess that heads, of which a cap and bells would be the fittest covering, are not altogether unknown among the heroes and conquerors of the gorgeous East. It is clear, from the verses, that the great Grimod appeared, "for this night only," in the character of Folly.

"To set every thing right,
'Tis on that I am bound;
To put sorrow to flight
The true secret I've found!
All these poor silly gods,
With their bouquets held so,
With their songs and their odes,
Without me are no go!
Folly flings
From its wings
A new light on each day.
It incites,
It invites,
To be happy and gay."

Well may the learned barrister close his account of this festival with the remark—that the life of the Dame Lebrun was a continued series of amusements; and this cruel husband, when he was not the object or the cause of her pleasures, was at least made the confidant of them all. As a proof of this confidence, a history is given of certain proceedings in the ninth year of their marriage, in which it will be seen that the Bacchus of the divertisement is not kept entirely in the background. In the month of February, in 1769, she paid a visit to Havre to see the sea. To show the terms they were on, it would be necessary to quote the letters of the Dame Lebrun at full length. It will be seen how unreservedly she entered into the pleasures of the place, and how minutely she recorded them all to a man, whom she well knew that her descriptions would enable to share them as if he had been at her side. But in the absence of the entire correspondence, which it would be tedious to transcribe, we content ourselves with copying out the passages, where the friendship and intimacy that then united the husband and wife are most strongly marked.

"We arrived in perfect health, my dear friend, on Tuesday, at two o'clock. I trust you also are flourishing. Take care of yourself, and write me how you are. M. and Madame Grimod, as also M. Sieuve, charge me with a thousand messages. M. Grimod insists on your coming as soon as possible, that you may see the sea. I also wish you could see it. In looking at it, I have often thought on the effect it would have on you; and I should be delighted if you could enjoy the prospect along with me. I tell you I now eat fish as you do. This very day I have eaten a dozen oysters, a bit of skate, some smelts, and some fresh cod—I think I shall finish by devouring all the fish in the sea. I wish I could send you some of the oysters of this place: they are as large as your hat. Adieu, my dear friend; I embrace you from my heart. I have told you all I have seen, and I will tell you all that may occur worth talking of when I arrive. Friendly regards to Julia. I hope to find her in good health, and that she has taken care of yours."

With a wonderful knowledge of the effects of small type, the poetical Lebrun and his counsellor have printed the "Advice to Julia" in italics. What! the Dame Lebrun send friendly regards ("bien des amitiés") to Julia! Why, isn't this the woman they trump up a story about, as having been a perpetual source of jealousy to the neglected wife, and monopolizing all the tenderness and pretty speeches of the once faithful and still too conquering Misis? For our own part, we think it is a shocking instance of female audacity, for the devourer of such boat-loads of fish, and the visiter of M. and Madame Grimod, to affect jealousy of Julia or any one else. Let her be contented with her Grimods and oysters, and leave Julia to listen to the harpings of Apollo in peace. We have another letter, dated a few days after the first, and still from Havre.

"I received your letter, my dear friend, when I was on board a ship, and read it on deck. We laughed amazingly at your epigrammatic witticisms; your reputation is already established here. You are known as a man of genius; so you may judge if they listened to your letter. M. Grimod, from the first, has been the trumpeter of your talents and wit; and the best of the joke is, that on the strength of his descriptions of you, they insist on believing that I am a person of infinite cleverness as well. I am delighted to hear such good accounts of your health. I was anxious to hear how you were. M. Grimod insists that I travel merely for curiosity, and not for the sake of health; and this moment, let me tell you in a parenthesis, he interrupts me to say he is sure I am writing my best, I look so pleased in writing to you. To-morrow we are going to breakfast in a ship, where the captain gives us a collation of all fine things, among others chocolate; then we prepare to go to Rouen where we shall stop two or three days to see the lions. We do nothing but go out, change the scene, dress ourselves, and pack up our trunks. It is a delightful life; we have scarcely time to breathe. But in spite of that, I am grown very fat. I eat like four, and can't do without oysters. I wished to bring you some present from this part of the country, but there is nothing remarkable except the fish. Adieu, my dear friend! I shall be delighted in relating all my experiences when we meet. I hope some day you will visit these beautiful scenes, or others as beautiful; and that the house-dove will take its flight to see all the beauties of nature, which he knows so well how to paint. You will see that there is no danger, and that I shall come back to you without any accident to my wings."

Now, be it known that the last sentence is an allusion to an incident in Lebrun's poem, De la Nature, of which some specimens had been published before this time, but which the grief brought on him by his wife's behaviour prevented his finishing—a great loss, says the disinterested author, to the world, for it was a transcendant work! In the month of April of the same year, the house-dove also took its flight. The Sieur Lebrun took a journey to Marseilles, and the tender solicitudes of his wife accompanied him.

After a few of her usual enquiries about his health, and recommendations to enjoy himself as much as he could among "les habitans aimables de cette ville," she pays him a few compliments.

"I beg you to say in rhymed prose, to M. Menier, a thousand things for me, which will become beautiful spoken by your lips, and heard by his ears. I am as much astonished as pleased with your punctuality in writing. Every post-day we are all on the look-out. Madame Grimod begs her compliments—and so do all the family, whom I delight with the reading of your letters. They are so witty and clever! If you employ much of your time in writing them, we spend a great deal of ours in reading them."

But the trips of the year 1769 are not over yet. Scarcely, says the Mémoire, had the Sieur Lebrun returned from Marseilles, when the Dame Lebrun set off, in company with M. Grimod, to visit it. She spent six weeks there, during which she wrote several letters to her husband, and cherished his answers as before. But we shall not follow the example of the Mémoire, in repeating all these tit-for-tat endearments, but pursue our own object, which is to trace the style of occupation of people of their rank. And here we must observe, that, as far as we see in this process, the whole occupation of the Grimods and others was to make tours for their pleasure, and get up fêtes for their amusement. Wherever they are, there is always something or other going on—a breakfast, a dance, or a masquerade; and in spite of the protestations of the Dame Lebrun, of her sorrow at being separated from her little man, it is evident she never allows her grief to have any effect upon her appetite. It rather seems as if, in all her distresses, she applied to the cook, and measured the extent of her sufferings by the quantity she could dispatch at a meal.

"How delighted I should be with but one quarter of an hour of your charming conversations with Madame la Comtesse de Brancas! But from intellectual feasts like that, I am doomed here to the most rigorous abstinence; and, to make up for it, I am forced to throw myself on the mullets, sardines, sprats, and tunnies, with the wines of Cyprus and Syracuse; so that I have always the body full and the mind empty. You sent me an admirable piece of wit. I laughed at it amazingly, and wished to read it to some of the people here; but I soon perceived that their appreciation of letters is limited to letters of exchange. In spite of that, they are never tired of praising you, and holding forth about your talents."

In a letter of the 25th October, after a very spirited description of a marriage-feast, and a dance to the sound of tambourines, she says:—

"We have been oppressed with the innumerable kindnesses of all this amiable family. One after another, every body was full of regrets that you were not of the party, declaring that a man of such wit and genius as you was exactly made for society. If ever you return to this country, you will be splendidly received....

"Amuse yourself as much as you can. Go and dine often with your friends. I should be sorry if I thought you were alone. Don't be surprised at my scrawl. I danced all last night, and had got to bed very late. It is now eleven o'clock, and I am obliged to be dressed by one so, you see, I have not much time to spare."

And her letter of the 22d November brings us to the end of the year '69, and also of her residence at Marseilles. Even the Mémoire grows tired of the gaieties of the Dame Lebrun, and passes over a long detail of dinners, suppers, balls, and fêtes, to tell us that, "fatiguée de bonne chère," and "lassée de plaisirs," she wrote to her husband, who was contenting himself with a Welsh rabbit and Julia at home—"One would need four stomachs in this county. I envy your frugality, and long for the little, quiet suppers we used to have at the fireside."

Now, this regret for the domestic broiled bones—though evidently caused by a momentary surfeit—is dwelt upon by the enraptured Lebrun as a triumphant disproof of the accusations of cruelty and violence, brought against him by the Grimods and his charming wife. "She regrets their quiet suppers! And yet we are told by the Dame Lebrun, and some of her witnesses, that these quiet suppers never passed off without the most horrible altercations, or nearly being stained with blood from murderous blows!" From all we can make out, this accusation of the "petit homme" attempting to pummel the lady with four stomachs, and capacity for oyster-eating that must have thrown the late Mr Dando into despair, is nothing more than an attempt to make the whole affair ridiculous, and allow the conduct of the defendant to escape the obloquy it deserved, under cover of the laughter excited by so ludicrous an image. If there were any "coups meurtriers" in the case, we will venture the long odds that the mark of them was left in the ogles, or other undefended portions of the countenance of the Sieur Lebrun. She is constantly complaining of delicate health; and yet undergoes more fatigue than a washerwoman. We have now traced her for nearly ten years. She must by this time be two or three-and-thirty; and yet, we will venture to say, no girl of eighteen ever panted so earnestly for her first ball, as the Dame Lebrun did for six or seven of those entertainments every week. We can imagine no greater misery to her, than one of the quiet suppers she talks of; and if, in the agony of her disgust, she occasionally gave the Sieur Lebrun a slap in the face, we have not the slightest doubt he deserved it, and that she enjoyed the rest of the evening with the soothing conviction in her own mind that she was a much-injured woman, and had vindicated the honour of her sex. We have seen, from one of her letters, that it took her two hours to dress—that she thought nearly as much of eating and drinking as even of Monsieur Grimod; and we shall shortly perceive, that clothes, and love, and gluttony, don't interfere with the powers of poetical compliment, and that her husband—perhaps on the principle of poetry succeeding best in fiction—is still the object of them.

The St Denis's Day of 1770, says the Mémoire, was celebrated, like the former ones, by a fête, designed and composed by the Dame Lebrun. The room represented a lawn, with a grove, fountains, &c. Naiads, hidden in the reeds, chanted these lines in honour of her husband:—

"Ye naiads smiling round,
Sing Nature's poet in your lays!
Let echoes, till they're tired, resound
With his harmonious praise!
Oh, let your fountains flow
On the greensward below;
And with their notes prolong
The birds' full-throated song!

"Thou, Flora! spread thy mantle round
All this enchanted ground!
Pour blessings on these happy, happy hours!
Laurels, and you, ye myrtles, amorous flowers!
With loving hand I pluck you now,
Stripping your leaves adown,
To be a glorious crown,
Of a new god to decorate the brow!"

In the next year, another fête owed its éclat to the talents of the Dame Lebrun; but the object of it was no longer the Pindaric poet, but the sub-collector of taxes. But as it was impossible to keep the Sieur Lebrun entirely away from any of the haunts of the Muses, he was enlisted in the corps of subject personages, and performed the Co-too to the Sieur Grimod in the character of a satyr! And this was the more in keeping, as the scene was a wood, and the hero of the entertainment enacted the part of a sort of Orson, under the name of Sylvanus. In 1772, the gaieties of the Dame Lebrun suffered no abatement, except from an attack of illness; and, for the recovery of her health, she spent the greater portion of the year at the country-house of the Sieur Grimod—sometimes with her husband, says the Mémoire, and sometimes without. The following spring was passed, as usual, in balls and masquerades. The house of the Sieur Grimod was again the scene of a splendid entertainment; but, on this occasion, the object of the fête was neither the Sieur Bacchus, nor the Sieur Sylvain, but Madame Lebrun herself. The indefatigable Bacchus, however, if not the principal personage of the day, was the chief performer. There was a procession in boats. The Sieur Lebrun did the honours of the enchanted island to his wife. Dressed as a sailor, he conducted her, disguised as Flora, in an ornamented barge, all festooned with garlands, and illuminated with coloured lamps. It was a truly fairy scene, and the Dame Lebrun did not at that time look on the composer of the spectacle as a malignant cobold, the enemy of her repose.

In January 1774, she wrote letters to her husband as full of gaiety, and as expressive of affection, as any of the others; and on the 5th of March she sued for a separate maintenance! Such is the history, contained in a lawyer's brief, of fourteen years of the wedded life of a French family of the middle rank, or rather below it. And from incidents contained in the account, we perceive that this actual labour of enjoyment, these balls, and fêtes, and entertainments of all kinds, were the usual mode of life of most of the people they associated with. Imagine the same scenes going on in England;—women, after thirteen or fourteen years of marriage, going dressed up as heathen goddesses in boats, and being attended round enchanted isles by Bacchuses and Orsons, dressed in shaggy skins, and chanting doggerel till echo was dead beat! Bacchus, a secretary, at a salary of a hundred a-year—Orson, a sub-collector of taxes! But more than all—let us think that the fault of the Sieur Lebrun does not seem to have consisted, in the eyes of his mother and sister, in allowing the intimacy between his wife and the friends, but in putting a stop to it. When such things are the fashion in England, let us prepare for the National Convention.

The demand of the Sieur Lebrun for restitution of conjugal rights, was rejected; he appealed against the decision, wrote bitter epigrams on the judges, and celebrated his wife in some elegies worthy of Tibullas, under the name of Fanny. From court to court he carried his cause, his epigrams, and his elegies; till finally, in 1781, the Parliament decided against him, and the Dame Lebrun was freed for ever from the matrimonial claim, and the little suppers beside the garret fire. But not for ever was Grimod free from the vengeance of the virtuous Lebrun. And not for the last time was heard the shrill voice of the complaining husband by the fastidious ears of Fanny. A few years passed on—Louis the Sixteenth was hurried to the scaffold—the golden locks of Marie Antoinette were defiled with the blood and sawdust, which Young France regarded as the most acceptable offering to the goddess of liberty; and who is that sharp-featured little man, sitting in the front row of the spectators of those heaven-darkening murders, with a red cap on his head, and a many-stringed harp in his hand, chanting the praises of the murderers, and exciting the drunken populace to greater horrors? Lebrun. Yes, the French Pindar is appointed poet-laureate to the guillotine, and has apartments assigned him at the national cost in the Louvre. Whenever an atrocity is to be committed, an ode is published, "by order of authority," to raise the passions of the people to the proper pitch. When the atrocity is over, another ode is ordered to celebrate the performers, and congratulate the people on their triumph. When Grimod was brought before the Convention as one of the oppressors of the people, and parasites of the aristocracy—a woman, old and trembling, was leaning on his arm—his personal crimes, if any, were so little known, that he was on the point of being dismissed from the bar for want of an accuser. Pindar, in his red cap, with his many-stringed harp in his hand, was there; and all Helicon glowed like molten lead in his vindictive heart when he looked at the miserable pair. "What sentence shall we pass on the person called Grimod, ci-devant sub-collector of taxes, and the woman beside him, who has aided and abetted him in several attempts to escape from the censorship of the Committee of Public Safety?" The accused looked timidly round, in hopes that no answer would be returned to this routine enquiry, in which case their safety would have been assured; but red-capped Pindar struck his hand hurriedly over the chords, and cried, in the shrill sharp tones, that both the prisoners remembered too well, "A la mort! à la mort!" and in ten minutes their bodies were lying headless, side by side, amidst the hootings and howlings of ten thousand demons, exemplifying to astonished Europe the perfection of civilization and philanthropy. Little more needs to be said of the Sieur Lebrun. He lived through the dangers of the Revolution; wrote odes and satires indiscriminately on friend and foe; worshipped power to the last, and was the sycophant, and would have been the murderer, of Napoleon, as he had been of Louis and Robespierre; and died at last in receipt of a pension from the state, member (like Lord Brougham) of the National Institute of France; and had his panegyric pronounced on him by his successor, as if he had united the virtues of Aristides to the genius of Homer. Whereas, we take him to have been the true type of the Frenchman of his time—a monkey, till he got the taste of blood, and then a tiger.

FOOTNOTES:

[3]In case we should have done injustice to the poetical inspiration of the Dame Lebrun, we give the originals—

"Tu captives tous les suffrages,
Tes talens sont chéris des dieux;
Puisse ton nom, dans tous les ages,
S'immortaliser avec eux!
D'Apollon reçois cette lyre,
Pour chanter au sacré vallon;
Dans tes mains même on pourra dire,
C'est toujours cette d'Apollon!"

[4]

"Que les dieux te courronnent;
Moi, je n'ai qu'un verger;
Mais le cœur assaisonne
Les presens des bergers.
Si des fruits de Pomone
Tu devenais friand,
Je te promets, à chaque automne,
De t'en offrir autant."

CENNINO CENNINI ON PAINTING.

Translated from the Italian by Mrs Merrifield.

So long ago as 1839, in the June number of this Magazine, we noticed M. Merimée's posthumous work on oil-painting. It was ushered into the world with no little parade, under the sanction and strong recommendation of a committee of the Royal Institute of France; and in this country with the somewhat authoritative and permitted dedication to the President of our Royal Academy, by the editor and translator, Mr Sarsfield Taylor. We should have cared little about reviewing such a work, had we not felt persuaded that the public, and more especially artists, required some caution, under the high influence of the mode of its publication, how they should receive a work whose direct tendency was to misguide them—to mislead them from the path towards the practice of the old masters, and to confirm artists in the evil practice of mixing varnish with the oils with which their pigments are ground.

The work was the more insidious, as it professed to take the excellence of the old masters as the attainable object. We believe that we satisfactorily showed that M. Merimée was so predisposed in favour of copal varnish, that in his researches he would make every thing bend, even the most stubborn facts, and most opposing sense of passages quoted by him, to that prejudice. We exposed the numerous, we had almost said wilful, mistranslations from the Latin and Italian—especially the former—with which the volume abounded. We showed how entirely and frequently original passages had been distorted from their plain meaning, as if with a systematic purpose, to uphold a fanciful theory. We offer a specimen:—The monk Theophilus, who wrote in the tenth century "De Arte Pingendi," mentions a "Gummi Fornis." This, though M. Merimée confesses it does not resemble it in consistence, he still will have to be copal. Theophilus says, "Hoc glutine omnis pictura superlinita lucida fit et decora, ac omnino durabilis."—"Every picture smeared over with this gluten becomes lucid and beautiful, and altogether durable." It might be thought almost impossible to mistranslate this. But the varnishing over, or smearing over, being a direct contradiction to the mixing with the pigments, with the view of rendering it according to the writer's prejudice, the passage is thus translated—"Pictures prepared with this varnish are brilliant, and remain without any alteration."

Again, M. Merimée, speaking of M. Tingry, the able professor of chemistry of Geneva, affects to regret that he did not apply his scientific knowledge to the practice of the art, in painting pictures. But the fact is, that the professor does give his attention to the subject, not only by his experiments on oils and varnishes—the vehicles of picture painting; but as one who was well acquainted with the nature of varnishes, he very distinctly warns artists against the practice which it is M. Merimée's object to establish. The passage is so important (and the authority of Tingry so undeniable) that we are here tempted once more to quote it:—

"Some of the English painters, too anxious to receive the fruits of their composition, neglect these precautions. Several artists even paint in varnish, and apply it with their colours. This precipitate method gives brilliancy to their compositions at the very moment of their being finished; but their lustre is temporary and of short duration. It renders it impossible for them to clean their paintings, which are, besides, liable to crack and to lose their colour. In a word, it is not uncommon to see an artist survive his works, and to have nothing to expect from posterity." But lest it should be said, as M. Merimée did say, that Tingry, the author of the above passage, wrote only to house painters, he adds thus—"Nothing that relates to the house painter is foreign to the artist of a higher order who paints compositions; in like manner, the precepts admitted by the celebrated painters deserve the attention of the varnisher, to whom the painter entrusts his greatest interests. The observations contained in this note are the brief result of some instructive conversations I had with Saintours, a celebrated painter, my friend and relation."[5]

We revert to our review of M. Merimée's work, as preliminary to our notice of the beautiful volume of Mrs Merrifield's translation on Tambroni's edition of Cennino Cennini, because the subject of vehicles is here again brought before the public; and we know of no subject more important, as it regards the interests of art, for the consideration of this and of every other country. For it appears incontestable that there was a period when the art of painting, through the discovery of a vehicle, broke forth into uncommon splendour and beauty, which splendour and beauty remain in works fresh and perfect to this day; and that there was a subsequent period at which this particular vehicle was lost. We therefore thank the authoress (for her notes are important, and demand that we should give her this title in addition to that of translator) for again bringing this subject before the public in so attractive a manner, by the elegance of the type, illustration, and binding of this volume, so agreeable to the eye; and for the addition of many of her own judicious remarks. So that, through this feminine grace and good sense, an interest and attention are awakened, which the bare recipes of Cennino Cennini would hardly have commanded.

Cennino Cennini has frequently been partially quoted from Vasari downwards; partially quoted, but little read. He finished writing his book on the arts the 31st day of July 1437; was born soon after 1350; had been twelve years the disciple of Agnolo Gaddi, who died 1387; son of Taddeo Gaddi, the disciple and godson of Giotto, the "father of modern art." The precepts which he delivers are therefore those acquired in immediate succession from that great first master, and as the secrets of his art. We grieve to add that the work was written in prison, dated from the Stinche in Florence, at eighty years of age, and in extreme poverty; a proof among many, that the patronage of the arts in those days was not a mantle of charity of adequate dimensions to cover the wants of the numerous professors of the art; while it tells somewhat unfavourably for the gratitude of the contemporary world to know, that the one work alone of this deserted old man, the Virgin in the Hospital of Bonifacio Lupi, (so well coloured, says Vasari, that it is to this day in good preservation,) would produce a sum that would probably not only be sufficient to have paid his debts, but to have equalled the wants of no small portion of his prolonged life. The work itself seems to bear testimony to an earnest, amiable, and religious mind; there would appear, therefore, no moral fault to which to attribute his unfortunate condition. We must suppose that struggles with the world's difficulties, incompatible though they seem with art, are necessary; and that the cradle of genius must be first rocked by Want—that necessity is the great "Magister Artium;" for we find it has ever been so, even to the present enlightened age. A few favourites occupy the Goshen of patronage, who at their death are not remembered, and whose works do "follow them;" and then, the works of those who have lived neglected, lived, worked, and died in penury, are eagerly sought after at any price. Such men, whilst they lived, were yet teaching a lesson in taste which the world were slow to learn; for it is in the nature of genius to be before the age, and in some respects to teach a novelty, which the world in not prepared to receive. Genius works on by the compulsion of its own nature, and the world is improved by it when it can no longer reward it but by a too late admiration, that reaches not, as far as we know, the dead. The complaint of Horace has been ever justified, and is still, in the eager search after works of our Wilson and Gainsborough—

"Virtutem incolumem odimus,
Sublatam ex oculis quærimus invidi."

This edition of Tambroni is not from an original MS. or printed copy, but from a transcript about a century old, discovered by Angelo Mai among the Ottobonican manuscripts. Two other copies of Cennino Cennini are known to exist; we are curious for their examination, the present rescript may in some respects be deficient. As Cennino Cennini completed his work 1437, and the discovery of Van Eyck is said to have been 1410, it might have been expected that we should find some notice of Van Eyck's vehicle. We rather lament than are surprised that we find none. Those were the days for secrecies. Cennino himself speaks of many of his recipes as great secrets; and we are told that Van Eyck only in his old age taught his secret to Antonello—and the whole story goes to show the profound secrecy with which this vehicle was retained; nor is there any reason to doubt that it occasioned the murder of Domenico, said to have been perpetrated in 1470, thirty-three years after the writing of Cennino Cennini. Vasari says positively, that "John Van Eyck would not let any one see him work, nor would he teach the secret to any one—but being old," &c. This is certainly an argument against those who would affirm, if Van Eyck had discovered a vehicle, it would have been universally known. Such secrets are slow in progress, independent of the caution to keep them so. Artists did not formerly spring up self-taught; they were bound to masters, and learned their art from the beginning, and slowly, and learned not many of their secrets till after years of servitude, for such we must call it. They had then to make as well as to grind their own colours, to make their own brushes, tablets, and cloths.

Mrs Merrifield and Tambroni certainly do not agree in their opinions respecting this discovery of a vehicle by Van Eyck. The Italian is rather foolishly sensitive for the honour of his country, and his sensitiveness seems to bias his judgment. He would not that a foreigner should have the merit. Tambroni believes, and probably truly, that Vasari never thoroughly read Cennino; but he bears testimony to the noble-mindedness of Vasari—"Whence," says he, "we are constrained to believe that he merely glanced lightly over the titles to the chapters of part of the manuscript; and that, thinking it useless, he did not care to examine and investigate the whole work. For this reason it cannot be supposed that this noble-minded man, so zealous for the honour of his country, and whose every effort had been directed to make it pre-eminent, would withhold from one of his fellow-countrymen the just fame which he deserved by so valuable a work. Nor do I intend here to reprove him, or to lessen his glory. I shall only say that he committed a great error in not having examined the work of this old master: for then, perhaps, he would not so easily have given the credit of those things to strangers which certainly were known in his own beautiful Tuscany, and in all Italy, as I shall hereafter study to prove." Yet he does not hesitate after this to charge "this noble-minded man" with fabricating "a romance or tale of the imagination." But he misquotes Vasari. As Mrs Merrifield justly observes, "he takes only part of Vasari's account into consideration, instead of stating the whole, and reasoning on it as Lanzi has done. Vasari does not limit Van Eyck's discovery to the simple fact, that he had discovered that linseed and nut oils were more drying than any he had tried; but he adds, "these then, boiled with his other mixtures, made the varnish, which he, as well as all the other painters of the world, had so long desired." It is very singular that this most important passage should have been entirely omitted by the editor, (Tambroni.) It is in these mixtures that the secret consisted, not in using the oils; and we may certainly conclude that the process of Van Eyck was very different from that of Theophilus and Cennino, both of whom used linseed oil without the mixture of any other substance. "It will be observed that lake even was used by Cennino without any addition to increase its drying qualities. The only dryer he mentions (as such) is verdigris, which he used for mordants only. The difference in the texture of pictures painted in the Flemish (that is, Van Eyck's manner) and those painted with oil alone, or with the modern megilp, (oil and mastic varnish,) is so well known that it is scarcely necessary to allude to it.

"Picture-cleaners are perfectly aware of this circumstance, having been instructed by observing the manner in which different solvents act upon such pictures, (spirit-of-wine, for instance, will dissolve old pictures, but it has no effect on pictures painted with oil only.—See Lanzi.) Vasari gives no clue by which we can discover of what those mixtures consisted; but we know that what Vasari calls vernice liquida did not form part of them, because that had been tried and disapproved of.—See Vasari's Lives of Antonello da Messina, and Alesso Baldovinetti. It is probable that the ingredients were common and cheap, or they would not have been accessible to the greater part of Europe; and they appear to have been equally successful in the sunny clime of Italy as in the fogs of Holland."

The translator here entirely agrees with the learned and indefatigable Lanzi, who, aware of discrepancies of dates, ascribes the "perfect" method to Van Eyck. He gives full credit to the facts as stated by Vasari, and speaks of the difficulties he lay under in obtaining any certain dates, particularly with regard to Venetian matters. That painting in oil was known long prior to Van Eyck, no one who has read the documents upon the subject can for a moment doubt; but it was, in the common way, so inferior in brilliancy, and probably in facility of use to other methods, that it ceased to be in use. It seems pretty clear that this "perfect method" came from Flanders, first to Naples, then to Venice; and probably by means of Antonello da Messina, (however some dates may disagree, or it may be possible there were two of that name to have given some confusion to the dates.) In fact, no dates but the strictly historical can be depended upon. There are pictures at Venice with the name of Antonello, and dated 1474—years after his supposed death. We can scarcely suppose that the "noble-minded" Vasari would have fabricated an epitaph for Antonello, if none had ever existed; we know how easily not only epitaphs, but the very monuments that bear them, are removed to give place to others. Vasari does not say, in quoting this inscription, that Antonello was the first who painted in oil, but the first who gave splendour, &c. "Sed et quod coloribus oleo miscendis splendorem et perpetuitatem Italiæ contulit." And Hackert says, that this Antonello lived some years in Venice, receiving payment from the state. "Ob mirum hic ingenium Venctiis aliquot annos publice condutus vixit." His celebrity arose from the introduction of the Flemish manner into Italy. The murder of Domenico at Florence, to whom it is said Antonello had imparted the secret, cannot be denied; it was notorious, and must be confirmed by public documents; nor can we imagine so "noble-minded" a writer as Vasari would have mentioned the disclosure of the murder by Castagno himself, if the fact had not been notorious. We set aside the labyrinth of dates, which, with regard to the same persons' lives and deaths, are inconsistent and irreconcilable; still there remains a continuous story, not only probable as to its facts, but confirmed by works that exist at this day; for whatever may have been the oil-painting of an earlier age, (and it must be observed, as Lanzi remarks, that there is no certainty that many of the works said to have been in oil, were of that vehicle, for chemists have doubted, and some have been of contrary opinion,) the oil-painting of that precise period when it is said by Vasari to have been introduced into Italy, and as it continued subsequently, is quite a different thing—and exactly agrees with the description of it given by Vasari, and as it was practised in his time. Vasari was but a little more than a century after the supposed discovery of Van Eyck, and was born soon after the death of Raffaelle, and must have known that he was speaking of a vehicle that was not oil alone. It may be here worth while to put down what Vasari does say with respect to Van Eyck's vehicle—that John of Bruges having cracked a picture by exposing it to the sun to dry, being "filosofo e filologo a sufficienza," made many experiments, and "trovò che l'olio de lino e quello de noce erano i più seccativi. Questi dunque bolliti con altre sue misture gli fecero la vernice ch' egli, e tutti pittori del mondo aveano lungamente desiderata"—"found that linseed and nut oil were the most siccative. These, then, boiled together with his other mixtures made the varnish, (vehicle,) which he and all the painters of the world had long desired." Lanzi here well observes, that the expression "long desired," shows that there must have been many attempts to make oils properly subservient to the painter's use, and that there was none successful until Van Eyck's "solo quella perfetta;" which, as Vasari says, "secca non teme acqua, che accende i colori e gli fa lucidi, e gli unisce mirabilmente"—"which when dry does not fear water, heightens the colours and makes them lucid, and unites them in a wonderful manner." We have a picture by this Van Eyck in our National Gallery; he must have no eyes who will believe that it was painted with oil alone. We have the Correggios—we say the same of them—we have the proof from the experience of picture-cleaners, the hardness of the old paint, and the test of spirits-of-wine, which, as Mrs Merrifield states, solves the paint of old pictures, and leaves the modern untouched. In a former paper, in which we dwelt much on this subject, we mentioned that we had the report of a very scientific friend, who had spent nearly a life of leisure and competence in experiments on pictures, that the paint of the old masters fused, not only where white lead had been used, but in every part; and we ourselves saw him try the experiment upon the background of an old picture, by means of the blow-pipe, and the result was a fused substance—a glass. We here leave the question of the discovery of a vehicle by Van Eyck, or by any other person, satisfied that there was a discovery by some one at some time, of a vehicle different from the first painting with oil, and from any of modern use. To dispute this fact, appears to us as absurd as if any one should deny the discovery of America, because there may be disputes as to dates and persons of the first discoverers. We are only surprised that Tambroni and others do not take any notice of the chemical differences in the substances of old and new paint—we mean subsequent to the supposed discovery; and we confess we are surprised at the unworthy, unsatisfactory, and ambiguous manner in which Tambroni settles the matter. "Now, being willing to act with generosity towards this noble writer, and to believe that his religion was not overcome by deception, we should perhaps be able to admit that we were indebted to John of Bruges for the practice of tempering colours with both nut and linseed oils, and to Antonello for having used and made common, through all Italy, a method which, in beauty, greatly exceeds distemper-painting, which, until his time, had always been preferred." Does he really mean, or believe, that this new method consisted only in the use of linseed and nut oils? Is he acquainted with the works of John of Bruges, or with that picture of Andrea del Castagno, the supposed murderer of Domenico, which is called by Guarienti "the wonder of painting;" and which, by the description of its finish, particularly of the room in which the action is represented, is supposed to have been an imitation of the style of the Flemish master? If it be asked, how could any good practice in any art be lost? we have only to answer that we are not bound to account for a notorious fact with regard to arts in general. Many have been totally lost; but the troubles, the plague, and dispersion of artists in Italy, and the charm of novelty, may be sufficient to account for these changes. Lanzi every where laments them, and tells us that Nicolo Franchini became famous for detaching pieces of paint from old pictures of inferior value, to match deficiencies in more valuable.

Although we would here willingly end the discussion as to the discovery, we feel ourselves irresistibly led by the importance of the subject to make a few observations, and perhaps throw out a few hints, presuming that they are nothing more than hints, which suggest themselves upon paying some little attention to the actual words of Vasari; and this we do solely with regard to vehicles. Why, we should ask, did Van Eyck dry his picture in the sun, and which seems to have been the practice? As far as we know the nature of gums, there is no difficulty in their drying, without the necessity of resorting to any injurious practice. Were these gums in any degree mixed with undrying substances? Why does Vasari say "che secca non teme acqua"—"which, dry, does not fear water?" Why does he mention water at all? for, supposing that he knew of oil-painting without these "altre sue misture," there would appear to be no occasion that he should mention, as a distinct property of this new vehicle, that which was common with that and the older practice. Here a suggestion seems to let in a glimmer of light. Did he convert these oils into a soap, which, when dry, was no longer soluble in water? Will this be the case with saponaceous oils? Unquestionably. One of the objections made by Lanzi to the changes from the good old method was, as when he speaks of Maria Crespi, that the paint was common and oily, and elsewhere complains of "oily appearances." The "colori oleosi" is perfectly descriptive, too, of our modern paint, notwithstanding that our painters try in vain to disguise the "oily" appearance by the admixture of varnishes, and that not a new practice, as we find from Cennino, but one rejected. But can oil be deprived of this appearance? We presume it was deprived of this quality by that process by which, when dry, it did not "fear water"—"secca non teme acqua." Oils are rendered saponaceous by alkalis. We mentioned in former papers experiments of our scientific friend, P. Rainier, M.D. of the Albany, and his use of borax with the oil. The borax he vitrified; and it was because the paint mixed with this oil and borax vitrified also, after the manner of the paint of the old masters, he so used it; but nothing occurred to him about water. We suggested that if this, his medium, resembled the old, it was probably miscible with water, as water would seem to have been introduced into the Venetian practice. Upon this we tried it, and found we could at pleasure dip the brush in this medium, or in water, and then into the paint, and work with great facility, the greater use of the water giving that crumbly appearance so often perceptible in the Venetian school; and this effect we found might be increased or omitted at pleasure. And this medium, made by mixing water with the oil through the agency of borax, when dry might be washed even with warm water with perfect impunity. When dry it did not fear water; though a saponaceous medium, it was not again soluble in water. What does Vasari mean by "che accende i colori"—"which heightens the colours?" Borax is an alkali. Alkalis are known to heighten colours, "e gli fa lucidi;" now, linseed and nut oil alone, particularly the former, takes away the lucid character from paint. Had Vasari been describing the working of this vehicle of P. Rainier, he could not have better described it than in the very words "gli unisce mirabilmente;" for it is astonishing how nicely to the hand, and to the degrees desired, these repugnant liquids unite the colours. It is singular enough that soda, which is a form of borax, is the actual constituent part of some of our most permanent colours—we need but mention ultramarine; and here we are tempted to transcribe a passage from the translator's preface, which exactly falls in with this our view.—"The use made by the early Italian artists of lyes (lisciva) is deserving of our notice and consideration. Cennino does not inform us how this lye was prepared; but it has been ascertained that lyes produced from pouring water on wood-ashes, from solutions of borax, and also of soda in water, were then used. We find from Cennino's book that ultramarine (of which soda is a constituent part) was prepared with it; that it was also used in preparing azzuro della magna, (an ore of cobalt,) and zafferano. It has been likewise ascertained that soda has a preserving influence on red, yellow, and black pigments; and the result of experiments on these colours has been so satisfactory, that a certain quantity of soda—or, to speak more correctly, of soap, which is a compound of soda with fat or oil, (but not drying oil)—is now used in preparing pigments for painting sails for the British navy. It is also used in the manufacture of printing-ink; and we have now Cennino's authority for using it with blue pigments. Sir Humphrey Davy informs us, that the Vestorian or Egyptian azure, the excellence of which is proved by its duration of 1700 years, may be easily imitated by carbonate of soda, opaque flint, and copper filings. The translator has made many experiments on the effect of the alkalis and neutral salts when mixed with colours, and has every reason to be satisfied with the addition of soda, when properly used." We have not ourselves tried sufficiently soda with oil, and have suspected it would not have the effect of rendering the paint hard; but that borax does render the paint very hard we have abundant proof. We have subjected a picture painted with it to the razor to scrape it down, and could with difficulty succeed, though the picture had not been long painted; and we have rolled together masses of paint so mixed, and they have been thought by persons into whose hands we have put them, stone. We have heard artists, who have tried this mixture of borax and oil, declare it had the contrary effect; but, on enquiry, found that they procured the vehicle from colour-makers, who sold them, we have good grounds for believing, a mixture of their own, in which, if borax formed any part, mastic varnish formed a much larger. Among our papers we found one sent us by Dr Rainier; we were not chemists enough to make it intelligible, and for that recipe which we give in a note,[6] we are indebted to our friend Mr C. T. Coathupe of Bristol, on whose chemical and general scientific knowledge we have great reliance, and who much confirmed our view, or rather Rainier's, of the advantage of rendering the oils saponaceous by the means of borax. In consequence of our communication with him, Mr Coathupe published in the Art Union one or two very valuable papers in 1842. In speaking of this vehicle we do so the more boldly as it is not our own, nor do we claim the least merit on account of it; it is solely the discovery, or re-discovery, be it which it may, of our ever valued friend Rainier, now no more. Without saying that it is or is not the old one, "che tutti i pittori del mondo aveano lungamente desiderata," we do not hesitate to say that it is a good one, and does obviate those "oily appearances so disagreeable to the eye"; and we are the more confirmed in our belief in its beneficial quality, by the authorities Mr Coathupe and Mr Field, the well-known scientific author of "chromatography;" and we are much gratified to be able to offer an extract from a letter from Mr Field upon the subject:—"I am accordingly ready to admit all the uses of Mr Rainier's medium, and go with him in believing the old painters may have employed it—the Venetians in particular, who were at that time the medium between Europe and India, in the latter of which countries borax had been employed in painting time immemorial." It should here be remarked that Mr Field, in one of his valuable publications, mentions a mixture of lac and oil by means of borax in certain proportions. They do not, however, readily mix, especially in cold weather. The translator does not seem to be aware that borax is the solvent for lac; she mentions "sulphuric or muriatic acid," but water with borax alone will dissolve lac before it boils.[7] We would venture to recommend some experiments with lac dissolved in borax to water-colour painters. It is by no means improbable that some of the old Greek paintings are in gum lac; the hardness ascribed to them, and their brilliancy too, and that they rather chip off than crack, seem to answer the properties of lac; and it is curious that lac so dissolved is durable, and not again soluble in water. It may therefore be worth while to try experiments with it, both for solid painting with white lead, as likewise as an addition of power partially used for water-colours. We know not if the ancients had any means of discharging the colour, (though a weak solution, in cases of solid painting, may not be very objectional,) but shell-lac can now be rendered perfectly white.

The reader will be disappointed if he expects to find in "Cennino Cennini" a treatise on art. It is nothing more than a book of receipts—very minute and circumstantial as to most particulars, while here and there is a provoking omission; as, for instance, he speaks of a varnish, but omits to say of what materials composed. However curious much of the matter may be, the modern painter, who has to send to the nearest colour-maker for his tube colours, and French brushes, will think the greater part superfluous, and will smile to be told—"Take the tails of the minèver, (for no other are good,) and these tails must be baked, and not raw." Nor will he trouble himself with Cennino's list of colours, though it would perhaps be better for him if he did enter a little into their chemical properties. Cennino mentions twenty-four pigments; but the best he considers to be but twelve. It is curious that among them are no browns. We have always been of the opinion that the old masters, for the most part, made their browns with blacks and reds and yellows, and gave them depth by glazing over with the same; and we are pretty much of Wilson's mind, who, when told of a new brown, said "I am sorry for it." Very many of our modern pictures are ruined by the violent contrasts of the asphaltum and similar browns with less obtrusive pigments. The very transparency is, in our eyes, an objection. Asphaltum, for instance, besides that it is a changeable and never thoroughly drying pigment, is too transparent for depth. It was a mistake of Gainsborough when he said that with asphaltum he would make a Tartarus; the depth would be but a little way from the surface; depth is not always intensity of darkness, and never of colour. There is a style of flashy painting which entirely depends on these transparent browns; but it is nevertheless not a good style; it is flimsy, and the depth aimed at is missed. The more simple the palette, the better will be the picture. We are taught by the practice as well as words of Titian, who said that "whoever would be a painter, should be well acquainted with three colours, and have a perfect command over them." There are some excellent observations on this subject in the translator's preface, who quotes from Sir Humphrey Davy on colours. "If red and yellow ochres, blacks and whites, were the colours most employed by Protogenes and Apelles, so are they likewise the colours most employed by Raffaelle and Titian in their best style. The St John and Venus in the tribune of the gallery at Florence offer striking examples of pictures, in which all the deeper tints are evidently produced by red and yellow ochres, and carbonaceous substances." Cennino's argument for the use of fine gold and good colours, will be read with more attention by the modern Germans, who have, it is said, for the purposes of their art joined the Catholic Church, than by our English artists, with whom it will but raise a smile, that the artist should be liberal in both, for that if his patron pays him not, our Lady will reward him for it in soul and body. If the practice of poor Cennino was in accordance with this recommendation, he must have been very pious in his resignation, for his reward was a prison in his old age. Cennino acquaints us how to make and prepare pannels, cloth-grounds, cements, and glues; and doubtless some of his recipes will be found practically useful. For temperas (vehicles) many recipes are given. There are two kinds of egg tempera deserving attention mentioned, and the practice of painting in the egg tempera, and afterwards glazing in oil-colour. The translator particularly recommends in a note this mode of painting, and quotes from Mr Field's Chromatography the following passage:—"Mr Clover has successfully employed the yolk of egg for sketching in body colours, in the manner and with the entire effect of oil, which sketches being varnished have retained their original purity of hue, more especially in the whites, and flexibility of texture, without a crack, after many years in a London atmosphere." The translator recommends it from her own practice and experience.

We have ourselves, in this Magazine, on a former occasion, spoken of a sort of distemper painting—though to give it that name is not very highly to recommend it. We have, nevertheless, found it very good, and admirably adapted for getting in a subject, as affording means of great rapidity of execution. We allude to the admixture of starch and oil—the less oil the more like distemper will it be; or, we should rather say, fresco, which it much more resembles; but oil may be used with it in any proportion. The starch should be made as for domestic use, with water saturated with borax, and the oil added by degrees, and the whole stirred up together while warm; and, in this medium, the colours should be ground as well as worked. It is curious that here, too, the borax is of use; for it not only enables the oil to mix with the water of the starch, but it gives the starch a consistence and toughness, which without it it never possesses. We have found colours retain their hue and purity remarkably well with this vehicle. The whole bears out equally, but without shining. The second painting may produce any desired richness. It is not unpleasant to paint upon a wet ground made with this vehicle, when the picture and ground will dry and harden together.

There is no colour concerning which we are more at a loss in looking at old pictures, than the blues. Three are mentioned by Cennino—indigo, a cobalt, and ultramarine. With regard to the sparing use of the latter, as the most expensive, some practical hints may be met with. We have often wondered with what blue their deep-toned cool greens were made, as in the landscapes of Gaspar Poussin. It was probably Cennino's azzuro della magna (German blue or cobalt.) Prussian blue is of recent invention. We believe Mr Field considers it a good colour. It is made of so many hues that it is difficult to procure good, and it is said to be affected by iron. We have heard indigo complained of as a fugitive colour; Cennino mentions it for skies with a tempera of glue. He mentions, likewise, a green cobalt, or azzuro della magna. White lead, according to him, may be used with all temperas. He says it is the only white that can be used in pictures; the whites in the old pictures are very pure, so that we may be satisfied of its durability. Many artists have doubted if the white of the best painters was white lead, and many substitutes have been proposed. We may rest assured, by the authority of Cennino, that the fault is not in the lead, but in the vehicle, whenever it changes. There is a letter of Titian's, in which he laments the death of the maker of his white; it was made, therefore, we are to suppose, with particular care, as the principal pigment for light.

Orpiment, which was so much in use in Sir Joshua's time, the ill effects of which is visible in the President's "Holy Family" in our National Gallery, was no great favourite in the olden time. In the note upon this pigment, the translator takes occasion to speak of powdered glass, in reference to a remark of Dr Ure, that powdered glass is mixed with it, which renders it lighter. Mrs Merrifield infers from this, that it, powdered glass, is opaque. Undoubtedly it is so in its dry state, and probably with the glue tempera, which alone, according to Cennino, is its proper vehicle—but mixed with oil it is transparent—and mixed in much body with pigments, will give them great richness, and that degree of transparency, even to pigments rather opaque, which we observe in the substance of the pigments of the best time. China clay, and magnesia too, are opaque in their powdered and dry state, but mixed with the pigments, vary their power ad libitum, precisely by the transparency they afford. These two latter substances have likewise a corrective quality upon oils, and we are assured by Mr Coathupe, and have certainly found it to be so, that magnesia is a dryer. We have boiled magnesia and oil together, very thick and jelly-like, and leaving the pipkin exposed, have been surprised to find no skin upon the surface. Mrs Merrifield certainly errs in thinking glass, when mixed with oils, opaque. The blacks of Cennino are from a stone, and opaque; from vine tendrils, ("very black and transparent;") from skins of almonds and kernels of peaches, ("a perfect and fine black;") and lamp black, from the smoke of linseed oil. Mr Field observes, that all carbonaceous blacks mixed with white have a preserving influence upon colours, owing chemically to the bleaching power of carbon, and chromatically to the neutralizing and contrasting power of black with white. Leonardo da Vinci in his palette, the account of which is so unfortunately broken off for lack of paper, mentions the mixing every colour with black. Yet we have met with many painters who totally reject it, and fancy it makes their pictures black. This is very absurd, for black mixed with any other pigment ceases to be black; and an artist may paint very black pictures without the use of that pigment. What Titian recommends, one who would be a colourist need not reject. It seems there was of old much caution that iron should not touch the colours. Yet there is, we believe, much iron in ochres. Mr Coathupe has clearly shown, that even Naples yellow does not suffer from contact with iron, otherwise than by abrasion, by which the steel of the knife becomes itself a pigment, as on the hone. Modern science has much enlarged the colour list. There is thus the greater temptation offered to make endless varieties. It has been remarked in language, that the best writers have the most brief vocabulary—so it may be, that the best colourists will have the fewest colours. The rule has been verified in the old masters of the best time. Cennino Cennini, who always begins from the beginning, recommends drawing with the pen—his pen, for that also he tells you how to make, had no slit. O days of Perryian innovation! It was very well, a vast improvement, almost equal to that of adding the shirt to the ruffles, to invent one slit—we have them now with two and with three.

Very strict studies in anatomy were not much in vogue among the early painters. Our author recommends drawing from nature, and lays down his canon of proportions of the human body, which will be little heeded by our academies. The old Italian is not very complimentary to the sex. Mr Etty will open his eyes with alarm, to find he has been practising all his life in a wrong direction, when he reads "leave that of woman, for there are none perfectly proportioned." We are not quite certain, if some of Mr Etty's stay-spoiled figures are taken for examples, but that the opinion of the old Italian may be in some credit. We spoke in the commencement of this paper, of the "Gummi Fornis," which M. Merimée concluded to be copal. The translator, in a note, offers a conjecture, not without its probability, that it may have been sandarac, the "Vernice da Scrivere" of Cennino, and quotes Raffaello Borghini in his "Reposo." If you would have your varnish brilliant, use much sandarac—it makes certainly a very hard varnish—it is difficult to combine it with oil. We suppose it to have been one of the condemned novelties as a vehicle for painting, from its being included in the condemned list of trash, as only fit to polish boots, that moved the satirical pen of Boschini:—

"O de che strazze se fa cavedal!
D'ogio d'avezzo, mastice e sandraca,
E trementina (per no dir triaca)
Robe che ilusterave ogni stival."

Marco Boschini.

Much has been said of late of "Encaustic Painting." It must have been discontinued before the time of Giotto, as shown by the experiments of Lanzi—no wax has been found in pictures painted after the year 1360. We know that Sir Joshua Reynolds frequently used it, as have some painters since his day. We cannot suppose that, mixed with oil, it would ever give pigments their proper hardness.

Dryers are not mentioned by Cennino, excepting verderame (verdigris,) and that as a mordant. How were the oils made to dry? Will the sun be sufficient? In the summers in Italy their mixed oils readily dry. But in Holland, as in England, for at least a great part of the year, they will not dry of themselves; and it is certain that the longer the pigments are subjected to the action of the oil, the greater is the change. White lead is by no means the best drying colour; and if lead, as a dryer, is so injurious as some will have it to be, to colours in general, why do we not find it so in white lead? Cennino recommends garlic pounded to a juice, and cleared, as a mordant. It is supposed that it gives a drying quality to oil. The practice of the old masters in drying their pictures in the sun—was it only to effect the drying? We believe exposure to the atmosphere is most beneficial to newly painted pictures. We have now a picture before us which was disagreeably oily, and yet did not well bear out. We laid it on the grass, face uppermost, where it lay for about ten days during heat and cold, day and night, dry weather and wet, and in some few burning days exposed to the sun; during these hot days, we had it frequently, plentifully washed with water, left on for the sun to take up. We have this day removed the picture to the easel. The "oily appearance" was gone, it was very dry, but pure, and clean, and bore out equally, but rather like distemper. It is a question worth considering, whether the atmosphere did not take up the impurities of the oil, which always come to the surface.

There is proof enough of this. A picture, unless it be painted with very little oil indeed, will become, in a few days after being painted, greasy—it will not take water on the surface—in fact, "secca teme acqua" will not bear water. If, in this state, the surface be lightly rubbed over with common sand and water, this greasiness will be removed, and the surface will not only be clean, but beautiful; this greasiness will, however, in a day or two come again. If the process of sanding be repeated, until the greasiness does not come again, we conjecture that we have done for the picture what time, but a long time, might do—we have removed all the impurity of the oil. We believe that pictures after that do not undergo further change, and if the paint be tolerably hard, may be varnished—and that they will become much sooner hard; for it is more than probable that this greasiness in the oil is the main cause of retarding the drying. We have followed this practice many years, and always with the same results. It is surprising how soon after painting you may sand—even coarse red sand will not remove paint, that is yet tacky—it much remedies the "colori olcesi." The translator lays much stress in the preface upon the importance of white grounds. In the olden time, it appears, that when they were not of gold, they were white; and Leonardo da Vinci thus lays down his precept—"Sempre a quelli colori che vuoi che habino belleza preparerai primo il campo candidissimo, e questo dico de' colori che sono transparenti, perche a quelli che non sono transparenti non giova campo chiaro." And yet Leonardo is said to have painted occasionally on the canvass without any other priming than a coat of glue. His pictures so painted are said to be durable, and worthy his great name. We should have doubted if Titian did always paint on a white ground—and should fix upon the "Peter Martyr" as the subject of doubt. It is said to have been the practice of Correggio; if so, he did not always derive the benefit from the ground which white grounds are said to confer, for his painting is so generally solid, and the transparency so much the effect of his glazing, that there seems to be no reason why he should have given the preference. It is said the Flemish School used white grounds—probably Rubens did so generally, not all other painters. Teniers used a light drab, and, if we were to judge from some of his skies, painted upon it when that thinly coloured ground was wet. Unless a great body of colour be used, even in the most transparent painting, white grounds are apt to give a weakness and flimsiness. Gaspar Poussin, and perhaps generally, Nicolo, painted on red grounds; the former probably often upon a vermilion ground, though most commonly on one of a deeper tone; the advantage of this, in landscapes, such as his, is evident. There is no colour so good as red to set off greens; and in fact, to make tints appear green, that on another ground would not so be; and, moreover, a red ground, from its warmth, makes those greens appear cool, deep, and refreshing, which is so strong a characteristic in the colouring of that great Italian landscape painter, Gaspar Poussin.

The most important recipes of Cennino Cennini may be those which relate to fresco-painting; and as that is now likely to be nationally revived, this publication is well-timed. So much has been said and written of late upon this subject, that we think it best simply to refer to the text and notes. To those who mean to practise fresco, they may be important. Besides the value of the recipes of Cennino, there are incidentally some curious things not unworthy of notice. All persons must have been surprised in pictures of grave subjects, and we might especially mention those of Paul Veronese, that dogs are introduced as attendants on feasts, and we find them gnawing bones on very fine floors. But we find in Cennino Cennini that it was the practice to throw their bones under the table. Cennino recommends them to be gathered and selected for black pigments. We have heard it said that Murillo was partial to the pigments made from beef bones taken after dinner.

There is a practice, or we should say happily there was, in the days of these old painters, which did not tend very much to raise the profession. "Sometimes, in the course of your practice," says Cennino, "you will be obliged to paint flesh, especially faces of men and women." He recommends the painting them with egg tempera, with oil, and with oil and liquid varnish, "which is the most powerful of temperas." He proceeds to tell how the paint is to be removed. Chapter 162 is entirely devoted to the ladies, and offers a caution now happily unnecessary, but it is so quaintly given, that we quote it:—

"It sometimes happens that young ladies, especially those of Florence, endeavour to heighten their beauty by the application of colours and medicated waters to the skin. But as women who fear God do not make use of these things, and as I do not wish to render myself obnoxious to them, or to incur the displeasure of God and our Lady, I shall say no more on this subject. But I advise you, that if you desire to preserve your complexion for a long period, to wash yourself with water from the fountains, rivers, or wells; and I warn you, that if you use cosmetics, your face will soon become withered, your teeth black, and you will become old before the natural course of time, and be the ugliest object possible. This is quite sufficient to say on this subject."

A modern painter with whom we are acquainted, declares that he has very often been called upon to paint "under the eyes" of certain "young men about town"—we presume of the Titmouse grade—that they might appear the more decently before the public and their employers.

If poor Cennino had entertained no other fears but the displeasure of the fair sex, he would have passed a happier old age. We know not that he condescended to paint faces, however, in his most abject condition. There was ever from the beginning a complaint of the little favour bestowed upon artists in general. Was the art considered a slavish practice? Grecia Capta taught it to the Romans, with whom, notwithstanding the force of some few high names, as of Fabius Pictor, it was at no time in very high repute.

The indefatigable Gaye says of the fluctuations incidental to the profession of arts—"While, on one hand, painters, sculptors, and military engineers flourish as ambassadors, magistrates, and correspondents with princes, others live overwhelmed with debt, and pleading for subsistence." A tax return of Jacopo de Domenico, painter, gives this sad account of himself—"Ever since 1400, have I gone on struggling, and eating the bread of others, until 1421; after which I returned to Florence, where I found myself plundered, and in debt, and totally destitute." The reader will be surprised at his remedy, and the modern Poor-law Commissioners, those "Indociles pauperiem pati," will deny the test of destitution, and feel a separating impulse; for he continues—"I took a wife, and went to Pisa, where I mended the roads about the gates, and staid four years." The tax returns afford curious documents. We have that of Massaccio:—"Declaration of the means of Tommaso di Giovanni, called Massaccio, and of his brother Giovanni, to the officers of the fisc, detailing their miserable means, inability, and liability—We live in the house of Andrea Macigni, for which we pay ten florins a-year." "The son of this Andrea bound himself apprentice in the studio of Nendi Bicci for two years, in 1458, aged seventeen, to have fifteen florins and a pair of shoes yearly."[8]

It was the custom of writers, in the time of Cennino, to neglect the precept of Horace. They did not rush "in medias res"—Cennino in particular. He not only begins with the beginning of every particular thing, or invention, or practice; but thinks it necessary to commence his work on the arts with a much earlier fact than the production of Leda's egg—even with the creation of the world—and immediately deduces the art of painting from the fall of Adam, who was from that event compelled to labor; hence invention—hence the art. His book is, however, written in a pious spirit; nor have we now-a-days any right, in good taste, to ridicule his mixing up with his reverence for the Creator, and the Virgin Mary, and all saints in general, and St Eustachius, and St Francis, St John the Baptist, St Anthony of Padua, "the reverence of Giotto of Taddeo, and of Agnolo the master of Cennino;" nor do we in the least doubt, nay, admire his happy zeal, when he says that he begins his book "for the utility, and good, and advantage of those who would attain perfection in the arts." We said that this is a beautiful volume; the few plates and illustrations are not the least of its charms: they are drawn on stone by the translator. We hail the republication of every old work on the arts; and although as yet we have not been so fortunate as to discover the vehicle of Titian or Correggio, we do not despair. In a former paper, if we mistake not, we mentioned a treatise of Rubens—"De Lumine et Colore"—said to have been, somewhat more than half a century ago, in the possession of a canon of Antwerp, a descendant of Rubens: surely it may be worth enquiring after. It is said to be in Latin, which, not being a living and moveable language, is the best form from which we could have a translation upon any subject relating to the arts.

FOOTNOTES:

[5] See Tingry's Painter's and Varnisher's Guide. 1803.

[6] Take two pounds two ounces and a half of borax, and one pound of acetate of lead, dissolve each in at least a pint of hot water, mix together the two solutions, and allow the precipitate to subside. Pour off the supernatant liquor as soon as it is clear, add some fresh water (rain water is preferable) to the precipitate, and agitate. Then pour the precipitate, whilst it is distributed throughout this last addition of water, upon a filter of white blotting paper, and when the water has passed through the filter, add more water. These fresh additions of water must be repeated three or four times, merely for the purpose of washing away all traces of the liquor which was retained by the first precipitate, and which was formed by the first admixture of the two solutions. The precipitate, when well washed, is to be placed in a Hessian crucible, and exposed to a red heat for half an hour. A clear glass will be formed; which must be reduced to a very fine powder.

[7] "As the very peculiar property which a saturated solution of borax possesses, of uniting so readily with oil in any proportions, has never yet been noticed by chemical writers, I experimented with its constituents, boracic acid and soda, separately, with a view to determine whether the results were to be attributed to the acid, to the alkaline base, or to the particular salt formed by their union.

"One hundred parts of borax may be said to consist of:—

Consequently, 24 fluid ounces of water, holding in solution 1 ounce (avoirdupois) of borax, will contain about 4.16 per cent of borax, or 0.702 per cent of soda only.

"I first tried the effect of a saturated aqueous solution of boracic acid with linseed oil. They would not unite. I then prepared some caustic soda by boiling a solution of carbonate of soda with quicklime, decanting the clear caustic liquor, evaporating in a silver crucible, re-dissolving in alcohol, and then distilling the spirit, and heating the residual pure soda to redness. Even in this state, soda contains 23 per cent of water, and only 77 per cent of pure anhydrous soda.

"Ten grains of this soda were dissolved in 1000 grains of distilled water. But as 10 grains of this soda contained only 7.7 grains of anhydrous soda, the 1000 grains of water would contain just 0.770 per cent of soda—a quantity that differs very little from that contained in the saturated aqueous solution of borax.

"Seven measures of the soda solution were added to four measures of linseed oil. This mixture differed so little in appearance, that it might have been mistaken by any casual observer as identical with that produced by a similar proportion of the solution of borax. It had, however, a more soapy odour; and a considerable separation of its constituent parts occurred almost immediately after agitation. This separation increased for many days. The lower liquid was of a foxy brown colour, and, after a week's repose, it amounted to 38 parts out of 59. The upper 21 parts were white and saponaceous. I tried other proportions of soda solutions with oil, but none resembled the results obtained from solutions of borax with oil.

"Fancying that solutions of the bi-carbonate of soda might be more analogous to those of the bi-borate of soda in their effects upon oil, than solutions of caustic soda, I tried many mixtures of solutions of the bi-carbonate with oil; but they were all dissimilar, in appearance, odour, and properties, from like mixtures prepared with the bi-borate of soda."—Letter from C. Thornton Coathupe, Esq., on Vehicles for Pigments. Published in the Art Union of February 1832.

[8] We are greatly multiplying artists, by "the promise to the ear," and by our Art-Unions; whether we are like to have such returns to the Commissioners of the Income-tax as those we have quoted, as a consequence of our forced and hot-bed encouragement, remains to be seen. Lord Brougham objects to the railroad mania, on account of the beggary to be induced when the employment they give rise to is over. When the ferment of patronage shall again have settled down to a selection of a few favourites, may we not entertain somewhat similar fears?

ÆSTHETICS OF DRESS.