look at your royal dynasties. Your deity is the deity of foreign aristocracies: analyze the blue blood of Spain. Your god is the Hymen of France: what is French domestic life? All that surrounds him hastens to decay; all declines and degenerates under his sceptre. Your god is a masked Death." "This language is terrible! My daughters and you must associate no longer, Miss Keeldar; there is danger in such companionship. Had I known you a little earlier But, extraordinary as I thought you, I could not have believed-" peration, he hurled an oath at the dog and a coarse epithet at his mistress. "Poor Mr. Sympson! He is both feeble and vulgar," said Shirley to herself. "My head aches, and I am tired," she added; and, leaning her head upon a cushion, she softly subsided from excitement to repose. One entering the room a quarter of an hour afterward found her asleep. When Shirley had been agitated, she generally took this natural refreshment; it would come at her call. MR. DONNE'S SUCCESS IN LIFE. This gentleman turned out admirably. His little school, his little church, his little parsonage, all owed their erection to him, and they did him credit; each was a model in its way. If uniformity and taste in architecture had been the same thing as consistency and earnestness in religion, what a shepherd of a Christian flock Mr. Donne would have made! There was one art in the mastery of which nothing mortal ever surpassed Mr. Donne: it was that of begging. By his own unassisted efforts he begged all the money for all his erections. In this matter he had a grasp of plan, a scope of action, quite unique; he "We must leave this place; they must begged of high and low-of the shoeless pack up at once." cottage brat and the coroneted duke. He "Do not hurry my aunt and cousins; give sent out begging-letters far and wide-to them time." "No more intercourse; she's not proper." He made his way to the door; he came back for his handkerchief; he dropped his snuff-box; leaving the contents scattered on the carpet, he stumbled out. Tartar lay out side, across the mat; Mr. Sympson almost fell over him. In the climax of his exas old Queen Charlotte, to the princesses her daughters, to her sons the royal dukes, to the prince-regent, to Lord Castlereagh, to every member of the ministry then in office; and, what is more remarkable, he screwed something out of every one of these personages. It is on record that he got five pounds from the close-fisted old lady Queen Char lotte, and two guineas from the royal prof- | times past and filled my mind with serious ligate her eldest son. When Mr. Donne and profound contemplations. set out on begging expeditions, he armed himself in a complete suit of brazen mail. That you had given a hundred pounds yesterday was with him no reason why you should not give two hundred to-day; he would tell you so to your face, and ten to one get the money out of you: people gave to get rid of him. After all, he did some good with the cash; he was useful in his day and generation. CHARLOTTE BRONTE THE PAST AND PRESENT. FROM THE FRENCH OF CONSTANTINE FRANCIS, COUNT DE VOLNEY. Ν IN the eleventh year of the reign of Abdul-Hamid, son of Ahmed, emperor of the Turks, when the victorious Russians seized on the Crimea and planted their standards on the shore that leads to Constantinople, I was travelling in the empire of the Ottomans and through those provinces which were anciently the kingdoms of Egypt and Syria. My whole attention bent on whatever concerns the happiness of man in a social state, I visited cities and studied the manners of their inhabitants, entered palaces and observed the conduct of those who govern, wandered over the fields and examined the condition of those who cultivate them, and, nowhere perceiving aught but robbery and devastation, tyranny and wretchedness, my heart was oppressed with sorrow and indignation. I saw daily on my road fields abandoned, villages deserted and cities in ruin. Often I met with ancient monuments, wrecks of temples, palaces and fortresses, columns, aqueducts and tombs; and this spectacle led me to meditate on sep Arrived at Hems, on the banks of the Orontes, and being at no great distance from Palmyra of the desert, I resolved to see its celebrated monuments. After three days' travelling through an arid wilderness, having traversed the valley of caves and ulchres, on issuing into the plain I was suddenly struck with a scene of the most stupendous ruins-a countless multitude of superb columns stretching in avenues beyond the reach of sight. Among them were magnificent edifices, some entire, others in ruins. The ground was covered on all sides with fragments of cornices, capitals, shafts, entablatures, pilasters, all of white marble and of the most exquisite workmanship. After a walk of three-quarters of an hour along these ruins, I entered the enclosure of a vast edifice formerly edifice formerly a temple dedicated to the sun, and, accepting the hospitality of some poor Arabian peasants who had built their huts in the area of the temple, I resolved to stay some days to contemplate at leisure the beauty of so many stupendous works. Every day I visited some of the monuments which covered the plain, and one evening, absorbed in reflection, I had advanced to the valley of sepulchres. I ascended the heights which surround it, and from whence the eye commands the whole group of ruins and the immensity of the desert. The sun had just sunk below the horizon: a red border of light still marked his track behind the distant mountains of Syria; the full moon was rising in the east on a blue ground over the plains of the Euphrates; the sky was clear, the air calm and serene; the dying lamp of day still softened the hor rors of approaching darkness; the refreshing breeze of night attempered the sultry emanations from the heated earth; the herdsmen had led the camels to their stalls; the eye perceived no motion on the dusky and uniform plain; profound silence rested on the desert; the howlings only of the jackal* and the solemn notes of the bird of night were heard at distant intervals. Darkness now increased, and already through the dusk I could distinguish nothing more than the pale phantasies of columns and walls. The solitude of the place, the tranquillity of the hour, the majesty of the scene, impressed on my mind a religious pensiveness. The aspect of a great city deserted, the memory of times past, compared with its present state, all elevated my mind to high contemplations. I sat on the shaft of a column, and there, my elbow reposing on my knee and head reclining on my hand, my eyes fixed sometimes on the desert, sometimes on the ruins, I fell into a profound revery. purple of Tyre was exchanged for the precious thread of Serica, the soft tissues of Cachemire for the sumptuous tapestry of Lydia, the amber of the Baltic for the pearls and perfumes of Arabia, the gold of Ophir for the tin of Thule. And now a mournful skeleton is all that subsists of this powerful city; naught remains of its vast domination but a doubtful and empty remembrance. To the tumultuous throng which crowded under these porticos has succeeded the solitude of death; the silence of the tomb is substituted for the bustle of public places ; the opulence of a commercial city is changed into hideous poverty; the palaces of kings are become a den of wild beasts; flocks fold on the area of the temple and unclean reptiles inhabit the sanctuary of the gods. Ah! how has so much glory been eclipsed? How have so many labors been annihilated? Thus perish the works of men, and thus do empires and nations disappear. I And the history of former times revived in my mind. I recollected those distant ages when many illustrious nations inhabited these countries; I figured to myself the Assyrian on the banks of the Tigris, the Chaldean on those of the Euphrates, the Persian reigning from the Indus to the Mediterranean. enumerated the kingdoms of Damascus and Idumea, of Jerusalem and Samaria, the warlike states of the Philistines and the commercial republics of Phoenicia. This Syria, said I, now so gal- said I, now so depopulated, then contained a hundred flourishing cities and abounded with towns, villages and hamlets. Every where were seen cultivated fields, frequented roads Here, said I-here once flourished an opulent city; here was the seat of a powerful empire. Yes! These places now so desert were once animated by a living multitude; a busy crowd circulated in these streets now so solitary. Within these walls, where a mourn ful silence reigns, the noise of the arts and shouts of joy and festivity incessantly resounded. These piles of marble were regular palaces; these prostrate pillars adorned the majesty of temples; these raised galleries surrounded public places. Here a numerous people assembled for the sacred duties of religion or the anxious cares of their subsistence; here industry, parent of enjoyment, collected the riches of all climates, and the * A kind of fox that roves only during the night. According to the calculations of Josephus and Strabo, Syria must have contained ten millions of inhabitants, there are not two millions at the present day. and crowded habitations. Ah! what are become of those ages of abundance and of life? How have so many brilliant creations of human industry vanished? Where are those ramparts of Nineveh, those walls of Babylon, those palaces of Persepolis, those temples of Baalbec and of Jerusalem? Where are those fleets of Tyre, those dockyards of Arad, those workshops of Sidon, and that multitude of sailors, of pilots, of merchants and of soldiers? Where those husbandmen, those harvests, those flocks and all the creation of living beings in which the face of the earth rejoiced? Alas! I have passed over this desolate land, I have visited the palaces once the theatre of so much splendor, and I beheld nothing but solitude and desolation. I sought the ancient inhabitants and their works, and could only find a faint trace like that of the foot of a traveller over the sand. The temples are fallen, the palaces overthrown, the ports filled filled up, the cities destroyed, and the earth, stripped of inhabitants, seems a dreary burying-place. Whence proceed such fatal revolutions? What causes have so altered the fortunes of these countries? Why are so many cities destroyed? Why has not this ancient population been reproduced and perpetuated? Why have blessings been banished hence and transferred for so many ages to other nations and different climes? the situation in which I left her. I called to mind her fields so richly cultivated, her roads so sumptuously constructed, her cities inhabited by a countless people, her fleets spread over every sea, her ports filled with the produce of either India, and, comparing with the activity of her commerce, the extent of her navigation, the magnificence of her monuments, the arts and industry of her inhabitants, what Egypt and Syria had once possessed, I was gratified to find in modern Europe the departed splendor of Asia. But the charm of my revery was soon dissolved by a last term of comparison. Reflecting that such had once been the activity of the places I was then contemplating, Who knows, said I, but such may one day be the abandonment of our countries? Who knows if on the banks of the Seine, the Thames or the Zuyder Zee, where now in the tumult of so many enjoyments the heart and the eye suffice not for the multitude of sensations-who knows if some traveller like myself shall not one day sit on their silent ruins and weep in solitude over the ashes of their inhabitants and the memory of their greatness? At these words, revolving in my mind the T course of vicissitudes which have transmitted the sceptre of the world successively to people so different in religion and manners from those of ancient Asia to the most recent of Europe, this name of a natal land revived in me the sentiment of my country, and, turning my eyes toward her, I began to reflect on Translation of JOEL BARLOW. WOMAN. FROM THE SANSKRIT OF CALIDASA. HERE in the fane a beauteous creature stands, The first, best work of the Creator's hands, Whose teeth like pearls, whose lips like cherries, show, And fawnlike eyes still tremble as they glow. Translation of J. WILSON. * In 1782, at the close of the American war. Cared not to see a slave, Therefore to man the spear and sword Into his hand he gave, And gave therewith the valiant mood, The speech-tide highly raging, And bade him shed his dearest blood And die the battle waging. Then we're but Heaven's own will and way In honest faith maintaining: We do not earn a tyrant's pay Our brother-men by braining; But whoso fights for sluggard shame To pieces all we'll cleave him: In German soil and German name No portion will we leave him. O sacred German Fatherland, To feed the kite and crow, Now roar and lighten whatso can, LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE.* A DIALOGUE. FROM THE JOURNAL OF SAMUEL PEPYS, SECRETARY TO THE ADMIRALTY IN THE REIGNS OF CHARLES II. AND JAMES II. WHAT is liberty of conscience? B. I know not, for, in truth, there is no liberty of science or conscience, nor believing what we please, no more than believing any object to be of that color of which we desire it should be. A. But what is meant by that vulgar expression "liberty of conscience"? B. Leave from the sovereign power that all or any of its subjects may worship God and profess opinions in matters purely spiritual as themselves think best for the quiet of their own souls here and eternal happiness after death. A. What is a Church? B. All the subjects of any sovereign assembled by his leave in the most representative to consult of spiritual matters; this representative is the national Church, being the vox populi, which is said to be vox Dei. A. What are matters spiritual? B. Such as concern the essence of God, of his persons and attributes, of angels, good and bad, of the spirits and souls of man and beast, of incorporeal substances, of invisible. *This curious document shows the crude ideas of the seventeenth century on liberty of conscience. |