F. H. Kelly is cast by violence into Palermo, and falls through the boards: Mr. Cobbett and Mr. Wilberforce are thrown violently against each other, and some favourite American trees of the former are torn up by the roots: an eddy of the remorseless gale carries divers schoolboys prematurely to town for the Christmas holidays: numerous caitiffs in white great coats are blown from their own houses into those of other people, muttering something about the compliments of the season: flights of Norfolk turkies are driven to London: dinner-cards whisk through the air bringing heterogeneous relations together on Christmasday: gallanti-showmen can hardly keep their legs: red morocco almanacs sail about on the wings of the wind, and the vendors of them, from fear of a falling stack of chimnies, are forced to take refuge in the first blind alley, where the few of them that read Horace, reflect, that the year 1823 is rapidly following her departed sister, and exclaim

"Eheu! fugaces, Posthume, Posthume,
Labuntur Anni."

THE FIELD OF GRUTLI.

ON Italy when parting sunbeams play,
And lake, and plain, and palace, float in light,
What scene is fairer than her close of day-

What sky is brighter than her cloudless night?
I've seen the midnight moonlight silvering o'er
Fair Venice-seen Benacus' sunset strand,
And dreamt till fancy from the gulphs of yore
Before me bade the Lyric Roman stand:
But never feeling to my inmost soul

So thrill'd, as when the dark Waldstetter sea
I felt beneath in waves tumultuous roll,

Bearing to Grutli's field of Liberty

To Grutli's field, where, when th' o'erhanging tower
Of Silesberg at midnight still had flung

To rock, and vale, and lake, the startling hour-
So far, that forked Mythen's echoes rung-

In former days, by midnight unappall'd,

The gallant Schweitzer launch'd his silent bark
With muffled oar-and they of Unterwald,

And Uri's men-sought, guiding through the dark,

The cynosure of freedom kindled there:

And there with pure, devoted, fearless heart
Did each stern patriot to his Country swear

Again its ancient freedom to impart.

And how they kept their vow, let the page tell
Which registers the tyrant Gessler's death;

The hosts that in Morgarten's valley fell;

And Morat's blood-stain'd lake, and Laupen's crimson'd heath.
No-while my memory holds, my life-pulse beats,

No other scene can e'er again excite

The emotion kindled by those wild retreats

Of patriot freemen--or the deep delight

With which I gazed, green Grutli, on thy shore,

And those sublime and glacier'd peaks around,

And the dark surge lashing the rock-base hoar,

And drank of that pure rill which glads thy sacred ground.

R.

FERNEY.

"Rousseau, Voltaire, our Gibbon, and de Staël,

Leman! these names are worthy of thy shore."-BYRON.

FROM Calvin down to Madame de Staël, the banks of this "lake of beauty" have scarcely ever been without their great man, for it is no bull to include her in this term. It is true Madame de Staël owed little of her inspiration to her country,-nor was her genius at all of the dry severe order which seems to be its natural product. But still she lived much at Coppet, if she did not much love it; and her name is inseparably interwoven with the associations connected with Geneva and its neighbourhood. But it is her name only. Her residence on the banks of the lake was but the physical, not the mental, locale of her works. Neither, indeed, does the place itself convey any very romantic feelings or ideas; it is a substantial, and, for the Continent, peculiarly comfortable gentleman's house,—and nothing more.

But Ferney is the direct contrary of all this, if we except its outward appearance, which is exactly that of a French chateau, and therefore formal and unsightly enough. But, otherwise, it is, of all places inhabited by men of genius, one which has the greatest claims to interest. It is a name more closely connected with its great owner, than is generally that of the dwelling of any writer. "Du chateau de Ferney" is the date of nearly all those interesting letters, which, like the scattered limbs of Osiris, have been collected since his death. "Le patriarche de Ferney" is the name by which he is familiarly distinguished by his disciples. In a word, Ferney is almost as intimate to the ear of his admirers as his own name.

There is scarcely any man, distinguished for intellect, who ranks higher than Voltaire.

"He ran

Through each mode of the lyre, and was master of all !"

-poet in all styles,-dramatist-historian-and, as a wit, superior even to him of whom the line I have quoted was originally written.* Where is the man who, like him, attained a high rank in every branch of literary genius? Who can bear, like him, comparison and competition with those who have devoted their whole lives and minds to the cultivation of one pursuit? It has been the fashion of late to undervalue Voltaire as a poet, and, as I think, solely because of his unapproached pre-eminence as a wit. When a man is associated in our minds with ludicrous sensations, even though it be only as exciting them against others, it is with difficulty that we can reconcile ourselves to his being equal to the higher branches of poetry. But it will scarcely, I think, be doubted, that the author of Zaire and Mérope is entitled to the rank of a poet of a very high, if not of the very first, order. Indeed, I think it is owing to the insurmountable nature of the French school, that Voltaire is not by the side of the highest poets of all. We English never can be brought to think the language itself equal to the

* Moore's verses on the death of Sheridan.

VOL. VII. No. 37.-1824.

3

nobler, even if it be to the more tender, degrees of expression. But added to this, the ineffable trammels of the French Theatre-its statue-like coldness and rigidity-its monotony-its heartless inflation -who can be a poet fettered down by such shackles as these? But Voltaire, while he feared to abandon the forms, at least, of a style, without which he knew that in France he had no chance of success, showed how he felt the iron of his chains-and, by what he has done in despite of them, proves what he could have done had he been wholly free.

But if our national taste blind us in some measure to the beauties of Voltaire's higher poetry, there cannot be—and I believe there are not -two opinions with respect to his unrivalled wit. Sheridan, our greatest name in that way, "pales his ineffectual fires" before Voltaire. To borrow, and differently apply, one of the expressions of the former, Voltaire's wit" is as keen, but, at the same time as polished, as his sword." Perhaps, on this account, it cuts the deeper-but, at all events, we turn from the severity of the wound to gaze upon the beauty of the weapon.

But the wit is not wit alone; it always carries with it argument equally unavoidable and resistless. Look at the whole of Candide; throughout that which appears to slight readers, nothing more than a laughable, and somewhat loose tale, there is never for an instant lost sight of the metaphysical position which it is his object to establish. This is displayed in every illustration, however ludicrous-prompted in every incident, however farfetched-while the whole is stamped and graven on the mind by the matchless felicity of his imagery and terseness of his phrase. There is at times, too, a dash of the pathetic, seldom conjoined with such powers of satire. There are one or two flashes of real nature and tender feeling in L'Ingenu, which go more to the heart, at least to my heart, than all the spun-out sophisms and wrought protestations of Julie and St. Preux. But the truth is, that Voltaire was a man of both great generosity and tenderness of feeling. His exertions in behalf of the family of Calas bespeak more active and effective benevolence, than all the cosmopolitism of le citoyen de Génève ; and who so fully as he answered that truest touchstone of goodness of heart, and kindliness of disposition-being beloved by his friends? A man who excites strong attachments-not merely the attachment of sexual love, for that is frequently unconnected with real merit of any kind, but the affection of a surrounding family and independent friends —such a man never can be deficient in those qualities which alone deserve, as they alone create, such attachment.

In this, as in almost every thing else, how different from Rousseau ! No one loved him-no one could love him. Those, who, from similarity of opinion, and admiration of genius, and, still more, from common hatreds, were inclined to form, and in fact who did form, connexions of friendship with him, never could hold them above a year or two. Perversely and peevishly selfish, the manner as well as the matter made any continuance of intercourse with him impossible. Self, self, was all that he loved it was his Alpha and Omega-his first and his last-his only-his all. Indeed, I cannot at all comprehend how any one who has read the Confessions can ever hear afterwards the name of Rousseau mentioned without mingled feelings of contempt and disgust. It is

not of his filthy details that I now speak. Some of them, it is true, are utterly bestial-but of others, the filthiness chiefly consists in their being recorded and published. But there are disclosures in the Confessions of a nature (to me) far more revolting than these. For a sample, the case of the unhappy fellow-servant of Rousseau's in Italy, whom he allowed to be discharged with ignominy for a theft committed by himself. He records the prayers and entreaties of the poor girl (who knew he was the thief), which must have cut into two any thing worthy of being called a human heart. But the truth is, that Rousseau had no heart at all:-ay, despite Julie, and St. Preux, and Madame Houdetot, not so much as would fill the shell of a shrivelled hazel. It is true he made Madame Houdetot's old flannel petticoat into an under-waistcoat, but I will be bound he would not have given so much as a shirtfrill to save her from perishing with cold.

His defenders have pleaded madness, but his madness was not of a nature to make the plea admissible. It was of that sort and degree which prove it, as I may say, to be, to a certain extent, under the control of the person in whom it exists. It was affiché-he was vain of it -and if it was true in a little, it was feigned in a great deal. It was more the sourness and skinless ess of exorbitant vanity and self-love than at all what we are accustomed to call insanity. It was no more to be pitied than the real madness of Swift, which was caused by, or rather which was, only the excess of all the bad passions which belong to human nature.

What a difference, indeed, between the citoyen de Génère, and the patriarche de Ferney!-the one talked sentiment, the other felt it ;the one preached universal philanthropy, the other did substantial, but at the same time extensive good ;—the one preached love and practised hatred, the other, if he wrote epigrams, displayed in his deeds kindliness and warmth of heart. What a contrast, indeed, do the circle and habits of Ferney form to what has been so forcibly and justly called "the mire and strife,

And vanities of that man's life!" *

But I go even farther—and now I speak under correction, and tremblingly, as it becomes a literary heretic. To my shame be it spoken, I never could read through the Nouvelle Heloise. It is to me dull, and that simply because I think it unnatural. Those letters are not, in my humble judgment and experience, the letters which two people would write under such circumstances. They have the tone of what the French call faire des phrases :-de belles phrases, I admit, but still they are "head-work." It has often been spoken of as matter of wonder that Rousseau wrote slowly and with difficulty. Now this does not at all surprise me. His eloquence, eloquence though it be, has the appearance of being painfully elaborated: it does not, in my view at the least, seem heartgushing and spontaneous. I am perfectly aware

Moore's Rhymes on the Road.--If I have sometimes lost patience at the praises lavished on Rousseau by those who, one would think, ought to know or to feel better, I have been proportionably gratified by seeing, at last, a man of genius stand forward to speak of him as he deserves.

this is far from being the general opinion; but, after having tried once and again, I cannot help its being mine. I first attempted to read the Heloise when I was between seventeen and eighteen, and again about two years afterwards-ages when the head is brimmed with poetry, and the heart with passion. And yet, the first time I did not get through a volume-the whole appeared to me so overwrought-the author seemed so much se battre les flancs to be tender and impassioned, that, after considerable toil, I gave up the labour in despair. The next time I got farther, having finished the second volume. But still my feeling remained the same. I could not see nature and passion in what seemed to me the work of an author, not the feelings of overwhelming and uncontrollable love. Take one instance, which is not far from the beginning of the book, and of which poor Julie herself is made to complain, Rousseau evidently thinking some apology to be necessary. I mean when, at the crisis almost of their fate, when it is doubtful even whether they shall ever meet again, St. Preux writes her a long letter on the relative merits of French and Italian music! And this is the nature, directness, and simplicity for which Rousseau has acquired so much fame!

But all this, as I have said, is quite under correction; for where so many and such people have united in admiring passion and eloquence, they assuredly must in some measure exist. I am only grieved that I am blind to them. But with respect to Rousseau as a man, it is more matter of fact and less matter of opinion. The apostle of love-the beau idéal of all that is fond and fervent, impassioned, delicate, and tender, is content to share his mistress, and his first mistress, with her servant of all work!-the creator of Julie and St. Preux marries his maid—the author of Emile sends his children to the Foundling hospital!—and, therefore, all who visit Geneva must talk ecstasies about Rousseau !

But

Give me Ferney! for the reality of Voltaire, with all his faults, is to me relief after the sickly and crazy eloquence of Jean Jacques :— proceed we thither. The house stands about a mile within the French boundary, on the road between Geneva and Gex. It is of considerable extent, square-built, with broad eaves, the walls white, and the shutters of bright green. An avenue of poplars leads up to the door from the gate, about fifty yards. On one of the wings are astronomical and geometrical emblems, on the other theatrical ones, meaning, perhaps, to designate the observatory, if one there were, and the theatre. I have read somewhere that the theatre stood before this wing-and I do not exactly see what Voltaire would do with an observatory. Certain it is, however, these emblems exist there. There are only two rooms of the house which are shown, the rest being occupied by the family of the present proprietor. These two are said to be exactly in the same state in which they were when Voltaire left Ferney on his last journey to Paris, and they have every appearance that the truth is so. The first was the salon de compagnie; it is an octagon form, with crimson tapestry, and a large ornamented and gilded stove, crowned with a bust of Voltaire. This recalled to my mind the famous story of Phidias Pigalle, recorded by Grimm; but I could not make out from our very stupid conductor whether this had any thing in common