SE

Duke of Orleans, have been inserted in this volume; and as the American reader is seldom very familiar with French poets, we shall venture to give a little sketch of their author. Charles d'Orleans was born in 1391, and his life was highly colored by the vicissitudes of that stormy period. He was a nephew of the unhappy Charles VI., and was still a mere lad when, in 1406, his father Louis, Duke of Orleans, and regent of the kingdom, was assassinated in the streets of Paris, an event which placed the youth at once in nominal possession of his father's duchy. The crime was laid at the door of John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy; and the widowed. princess, Valentine Visconti, urged doubtless by the nobles of her political party, sought every possible means of bringing the offender to punishment; a criminal suit, extraordinary in its details, stands recorded in the French annals in connection

with this circumstance.

In order to excite the public sym

pathies to the utmost, the widowed duchess, with her children, appeared repeatedly in the streets, and courts of justice, in gloomy mourning procession. On all these occasions the young duke held a prominent position at the side of his Italian mother. His father's murderer and kinsman, however, was too powerful for legal punishment; a few years later he fell under the dagger of the assassin on the bridge of Montereau, and in the presence of the dauphin. The consequences of these crimes were ruinous to France; the powerful house of Burgundy, after the murder of Duke John, rose in open rebellion, and Henry V. of England, through their means, obtained what without them he would scarcely have dared seriously to aim at-possession of the throne of St. Louis. On the famous field of Agincourt, Charles d'Orleans, sharing the fate of so many others, was made prisoner. He was immediately sent to England, where his captivity and exile were prolonged through a period of nearly five and twenty years, and varied only by removals from one stronghold to another. During part of that time he was confined in Pontrefact Castle, where his cousin, Queen Katherine, the wife of Henry V., paid him a visit in one of her progresses. Captivity, as in the case of several other royal and princely exiles, led him to seek consolation and amusement from poetical composition. His verses are very pleasing indeed, full of the simplicity of natural feeling, with much ease and grace of expression. Absence does not appear to have diminished his love of country; he cherished a longing desire to return to France, and envied, as he tells us, even the birds which were flying toward his native shores. At length, after a captivity extending over half a lifetime, he was liberated, and returned to France. Having some claims upon the Duchy of Milan, through his mother, a Visconti, he raised troops, not iong after his return to Paris, and led an expedition into Italy, but failed to conquer the ducal crown. He was more successful as a poet than as a soldier; but he left, however, a reputation superior to either of these distinctions, that

of a good and honest man. His death took place in the year 1461.

The Duke of Orleans, who figures in Shakspeare's drama of Henry V. at the battle of Agincourt, was this same poetprince. His character is not unworthily sketched in the play, where he appears loyal and brave, superior to the other French princes figuring in the same scenes. When the French are already in full flight, he exclaims:

"We are enough yet living in the field
To smother up the English in our throngs,
If any order might be thought upon."

To which the Duke of Bourbon is made to reply, very expressively:

"The devil take order now! I'll to the throng;

Let life be short, else shame will be too long."

Shakspeare was probably not aware that the duke was a poet, else he would doubtless have made an allusion to the fact in Act iii., Scene vii., where some pleasantry occurs between the dauphin and his companions regarding a sonnet he had himself written to his horse.

SONG.

FROM THE FRENCH.

I stood upon the wild sea-shore,
And marked the wide expanse;

My straining eyes were turned once more

To long-loved distant France:

I saw the sea-bird hurry by

Along the waters blue;

I saw her wheel amid the sky,
And mock my tearful, eager eye,
That would her flight pursue.

Onward she darts, secure and free,
And wings her rapid course to thee!
O that her wing were mine to soar,
And reach thy lovely land once more!

O Heaven! It were enough to die
In my own, my native home-
One hour of blessed liberty

Were worth whole years to come!

Translation of MISS COSTELLO.

CHARLES, DUKE OF ORLEANS, 1891-1467.

SONG OF COLMA

OSSIAN.

The wind is

It is night, I am alone; forlorn on the hill of storms. heard on the mountain, The torrent pours down the rock. No hut receives me from the rain; forlorn on the hill of winds!

Rise, moon! from behind thy clouds. Stars of the night, arise! Lead me, some light, to the place where my love rests from the chase alone! his bow near him unstrung; his dogs panting 'round him. But here I must sit alone by the rock of the mossy stream. The stream and the wind roar aloud. I hear not the voice of my love! Why delays my Salgar-why the chief of the hill his promise? Here is the rock, and there the tree! Here is the roaring stream! Thou didst promise with night to be here. Ah! whither is Salgar gone? With thee I would fly from my father; with thee from my brother of pride. Our race have long been foes; we are not foes, O Salgar!

Cease a little while, O wind! Stream, be thou silent awhile! Let my voice be heard around. Let my wanderer hear me! Salgar, it is Colma who calls. Here is the tree and the rock. Salgar, my love! I am here. Why delayest thou thy coming? Lo, the calm moon comes forth. The flood is bright in the vale. The rocks are gray on the steep; I see him not on the brow. His dogs come not before him with tidings of his near approach. Here I must sit alone!

Who lie on the heath beside me? Are they my love, and my brother? Speak to me, O my friends! To Colma they give no reply. Speak to me; I am alone! My soul is tormented with fears! Ah! they are dead! Their swords are red from the fight. O my brother! my brother! why hast thou slain my Salgar? Why, O Salgar, hast thou slain my brother? Dear were ye both to me! What shall I say in your praise? Thou wert fair on the hill among thousands! He was terrible in the fight! Speak to me; hear my voice; hear me, sons of my love! They are silent; silent forever! Cold, cold are their breasts of clay! Oh! from the rock on the hill-from the top of the windy steep, speak, ye ghosts of the dead! speak, I will not be afraid! Whither are ye gone to rest? In what cave of the hill shall I find the departed? No feeble voice is on the gale; no answer half-drowned in the storm!

I sit in my grief; I wait for morning in my tears! Rear the tomb,