by the very persons who are to share the money. The trick has been discovered, and "Le Bien Aimé" is no longer like "Henri Quatre," except in the eyes of the emigrants who are to pocket the indemnity. He will, I suspect, have to do a great many clever things, before he can work himself up again with the nation. But what of that?-Apropos, there were only four Americans saw the coronation, of whom I was onethink of that, and bite thy nails with mortal envy! I am now satisfied with the glories of this world, and know exactly what is the extent of all the combined powers of the holy alliance of frippery, trumpery, and mummery. I am now ready to go on my grand tour, and shall get through as soon as I can, so as to get back to Paris in February, or as I hope in January, as I expect to get tired of putting my nose into every old pile of stone and mortar. I shall then have nothing to detain me, but a trip to Ireland and Scotland, which I intend shall be a flying one, and then for the good land of liberty and a quiet home. Yours affectionately. RECOLLECTIONS. My youth was happy-I was full :-Earth, In all my dreams, looked beautiful— My step was joy-my voice was mirth— His mother's love; and yet repress, I said my youth was happy-yet I had some hours of shadowed thought; I have been wandering, when the sky Was rent by the loud Thunderer ; I have had softer feelings: Night And I have gaz'd on woman's eye, Of my heart's blood were backward rushing, And whelming spirit, life, and hope, In its most wild tumultuous gushing. Deeming love's dream-his Heaven-his all. I never interchang'd with men My deeper feelings-I have kept My sanctuary closest, when Their eyes would scan it. They ne'er wept As I would wish to weep-they never How can I hold communion? Still Ay, must, or the swell'd heart will breakFlow full and freely. I have felt As I would give a world to shed One burning tear; and yet have dwelt As if I were among the dead, Myself the only living thing, Left of a total withering. And yet there is a pride in feeling That thoughts are mine they never knew; That though my heart may need their healing, Grief never will the soul subdue. There is a pride in self-communion On things men cannot feel nor share In soaring on a nobler pinion, To some bright home of purer air Where man hath never been. They waken Such thoughts as these-an energy A spirit that will not be shaken, They make man nobler than his race, And give expansion, strength, to thought; I have a nameless feeling, when No kindred eye, or kindred mind, My heart's delirious joys a dream- Press gently through the lash; and know, That though they shame my manlier years, They have a luxury in their flow, Too high for their conception. Strange I have met here and there a heart, And learn'd their feelings to enshrine, Save when some thought the life-blood started, Of life's continuance. Her eye Was fraught with too much eloquence; Too passionate-not soon to die. She must fade soon-Oh! how the flowers, Like Heaven's broad mantle, covereth all! Roy. CRITIQUE ON CERTAIN PASSAGES IN DANTE. (Continued.) In the [We again call the attention of amateurs to this critique. present instance, the explanation offered is one of the happiest we have ever seen.] GENTLEMEN, Among the arguments I offered, in my last communication, to support the interpretation I proposed, of the thirtieth line of the first canto of Dante's Inferno, I omitted to call your attention to the thirty-first line: And lo! not far from the hill's first ascent-* which not only points out the place of the first appearance of the panther, but shows conclusively that Dante had not yet reached the "cominciar dell' erta"-the beginning or foot of the ascent; because the interjection ecco is almost always used to denote the time and place of the first appearance of a new object, or the first occurrence of a new event. If Dante was prevented from going further by the "panther," when this panther was only "quasi al cominciar dell' erta," it follows of course that Dante had not yet arrived at the foot of the hill, his progress towards it being intercepted by the panther.I now pass on to another passage, which appears to me to have been always strangely misunderstood. INF. CANT. III. v. 109, 111. Caron dimonio, con occhi di bragia Batte col remo qualunque s' adagia. The commentators have uniformly made batte an active verb, and have agreed to consider this last line as meaningthat Charon, impatient at the delay, Beats soundly with his oar the loitering shades! Let us see how this strange commentary is supported by the context. At verse 71, Dante seeing a great number of souls collecting on the bank of a river, turns to his conductor, saying, Master, give me to know what souls are these, And what is that which makes them seem, (for so At verse 111, 117, these souls, which according to the commentators, require the stimulus of Charon's oar, (a long oar * Ed ecco, quasi al cominciar dell' erta. |