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Miss Landon always depicts love,' been sufficient to urge others to emuthough her verse is redolent of it, in i lation, in the hope of attaining the gloomy colours. Thus in her for- laurel crown, which she so becommer volume she says,

ingly wears. But you shall hear. Love's bright fount is vever pure;

THE SPIRIT OF POESY. And all his pilgrims must endure

I know not whethrer Love can fing All passion's mighty suffering,

A deeper witchery from his wing Ere they may reach the blessed spring.

Than falls, sweet Power of Song, from thine.

Yet, ah! the wreath that binds thy shrine, Again:

Though seemingly all bloom and light, Where is the sorrow but appears

Hides thorn and canker-worm and blight! In Love's long catalogue of tears? Planet of wayward destinies,

Thy victims are thy votaries ! And again, still more strongly:

Alas! for him whose youthful fire Spirit of Love! soon thy rose-plumes wear. Is vowed and wasted on the lyre! The weight and the sully of canker and care!

Alas! for him who shall essay Falsehood is round thee; Hope leads thee on, The laurel's long and dreary way! Till every hue from thy pinion is gone.

Mocking will greet, neglect will chill But one bright moment is all thine own,

His spirit's gush, his bosom's thrill; The one ere thy visible presence is known;

And, worst of all, that heartless praise When, like the wind of the south, thy power, Echoed from wbat another says. Sunuing the heavens, sweetening the flower, He dreams a dream of life and light, Is felt, but not seen. Thou art sweet and calm

And grasps the rainbow that appears As the sleep of a child, as the dew-fall of | Afar all beautiful and bright, balm.

And finds it only formed of tears. Fear has not darken'd thee; Hope has not Ay, let him reach the goal, let fame

Pour glory's sunlight on his name, Thy blossom expand-it but opens to fade. ·

Let his songs be on every tongue, Nothing is known of those wearing fears

And wealth and honours round him flung, Which will shadow the light of thy after Then let him shew his secret thought years.

Will it not own them dearly bought? Then art thou bliss : but ouce thrown by

See him in weariness fling clown The veil which shrouds thy divinity,

The golden harp, the violet crown; Sland confessed, and thy quiet is fied!

And sigh for all the toil, the care, Wild fashes of rapture may come instead, The wrong that he has had to bear; But pain will be with them. What may

Then wish the treasures of his lute restore

Had been, like his own feelings, mute; * The gentle happiness known before?

And curse the hour when that he gave Such is Miss Landon's description | To sight that wealth, his lord and slave. of love. I hope she has not, from || Mr. Montague. She seems a “wild experience, felt the truth of her own and wayward girl,” this young lady: picturings! But for me, I hold, that but, nevertheless, she has great gethe heart which has never loved," nius, and I have read ber producthat heart which has never thrilled tions with infinite pleasure. But responsive to “woman's sigh,” is cold what do you think of Sotheby's and cheerless as yon marble statue, i poems? and as incapable of being animated Reginald. I was much pleased to good or generous deeds. But in with them in the perusal: but I have “ The Troubadour” Miss Landon not the book, and can only recollect speaks of poetry in terms as despair-one short piece. It is ing as she does of love, and here,

TO AN ORANGE-TREE. certainly, she cannot be drawing from

Sweet is the vernal rose

That scents the morning gale; her own experience: for her course

And sweet at daylight's close has been brilliant; her success has

The silver lily blows,

Filling with fragrant breath the dewy vale. ; The quiet smile, which, on the innocent cheek They ilourish and decay;

l Of kindness and its kind, its consciousness They bloom, and blooming, fail;

doth speak! Leaf after leaf fades, falls, and dies away.

1 The Counsellor. So much for poThy morrow, like thy day,

| etry. I have been occupied in read. Beholds thee gifted with perpetual growth, Thee, child and mother both;

ing, during our “ recess," Perceval's And every season sweet,

“ History of Italy," and liave been Spring, summer, autumu, not in slow ad

more pleased with it than I have vance, Nor singly, thee, with separate offerings,

been with any book for a long time. greet;

It possesses the interest of romance But, like the Graces, that iu linked dance

with the truth of history; and its Join hand in hand, and wreathe their mingled

pages contain the origin of many of feet, With all their treasures, all at once, endow'r

our romantic stories of The golden fruit, green leaf, and silver flow'r:

- - - that land, Mrs. Montague. And what do you

Where the poet's lip and the painter's hand

Are most divine, think of your favourite Dr. Southey's

Some passages I noted in my tablets; poem, " The Tale of Paraguay?". Reginald. That the beautiful de

and I will read you an account of a

tragedy, originating in the feuds bedicatory stanzas to his daughter form

tween the Guelfs and Ghibelines, the best part of the volume. The subject of the tale is bad, as the

that took place at Bologna in 1276;

and which forms the ground-work of small-pox can never be made poetical. Yet the poem (which is in the

a very interesting tale I have met

with somewhere, but where I do not Spenserian stanza) contains some beautiful lines. The joy of a father

now recollect. on the birth of the first-born is de

The noble families of Gieremei and

Lambertazzi of Bologna, chief of the scribed by the poet in exquisite lan

Guelf and Ghibelin factions in their city, guage:

had long been opposed in deadly animoBut seldom may such thoughts of mingled

sity, when Bonifazio Gieremei and Imiljoy A father's agitated breast dilate,

da, the daughter of Orlando de LamAs when he first beheld that infant boy. bertazzi, forgot the enmity of their houses Who hath not proy'd it, ill can estimate in the indulgence of a mutual and ardent The feeling of that stirring hour, the weight l passion. In one of their secret interOf that new sense, the thoughtful pensive

views in the palace of Lambertazzi, the In all the changes of our changeful state,

| lovers were betrayed to the brothers of Even from the cradle to the grave, I wis

Imilda : she fled at their approach, but The heart not undergoes a change so great they rushed upon Bonifazio, immediately as this.

dispatched him with their poisoned dagAnd the feelings of the parents, gers, and dragged his body to a deserted when they detect the first dawn of court. The unhappy girl, returning to intelligence in the young cherub, are the chamber, discovered his cruel fate by not less touchingly depicted. the stains of blood, and traced the corpsc Oh! bliss for them, wlien in that infant face to the spot where it had been thrown. It They now the unfolding faculties descry, was yet warm, and with mingled agony And fondly gazing trace, or think they trace, and hope she endeavoured to suck the The first faint speculation in that eye

venom from its wounds. But she only Which hitherto has roll'd in vacancy! Oh! bliss in that soft countenance to seek

imbibed the poison into her own veins; Some mark of recognition, and espy

1 and the ill-fatad pair were found stretched

bliss.

lifeless together. This sad catastrophe , celebrated on the same day of the year, inflamed the hatred of the two houses to and in the same church. The eve of the desperation; their respective factions in Purification was consecrated to this pubthe city espoused their quarrel; they flew lic festival, and the state annually into arms; and for forty days the streets creased the general joy of the occasion, and palaces of Bologna were the scenes Il by endowing twelve maidens with marof a general and furious contest, which riage portions. In the morning, gondolas, terminated in favour of the Guelfs. The elegantly ornamented, assembled from Lambertazzi and all their Ghibelin asso | all quarters of the city at the episcopal ciates were driven from the city; their || church of St. Olivolo. The affianced houses were razed, and twelve thousand pairs disembarked amidst the sound of citizens were involved in a common sen music; their relations and friends, in their tence of banishment.

most splendid habiliments, swelled their Rosina. Dreadful, that men should

retinue; the rich presents made to the suffer their passions so far to get the

brides, their jewels and ornaments, were better of their reason, and to uver.

proudly borne for display; and the body come every feeling of humanity in

of the people, unarmed and thoughtless

of danger, followed the glad procession. their breasts!

The Istrian pirates, acquainted with the The Counsellor. I will read you

existence of this annual festival, had the another extract, not less romantic.

| boldness to prepare an ambush for the During the ninth and the first sixty nuptial train in the city itself. They seyears of the tenth centuries, from the go- cretly arrived over. night at an uninhavernment of Angelo Participazio to the bited islet, near the church of Oliyolo, coming into Italy of Otho the Great, the and lay hidden behind it with their barks, Venetian affairs, with brief intervals of| until the procession had entered the repose, were wholly occupied with civil church, when, darting from their concommotion and naval wars. The doges cealment, they rushed into the sacred of the republic were often murdered; its edifice through all its doors, tore the fleets were sometimes defeated; but, un shrieking brides from the arms of their der every adverse circumstance, the com defenceless lovers, possessed themselves .mercial activity, the wealth, and the pow of the jewels which had been displayed er of the state were still rapidly increas in the festal pomp, and immediately put ing. In the ninth century, the Vene- to sea with their fair captives and their tians, in concert with the Greeks, en booty. But a deadly revenge overtook countered, though with indifferent suc them. The doge, Pietro Candiano III. cess, the navies of the Saracens; but had been present at the ceremony : he the Narentines, and other pirates of Dal- shared in the fury and indignation of the matia, were their constant enemies, and affianced youths ; they flew to arms, and were frequently chastised by the arms of throwing themselves under his conduct the republic. The Venetian wealth in- | into their vessels, came up with the spoilvited attacks from all the freebooters of ers in the lagunes of Caorlo. A frightthe seas; and an enterprise, undertaken | ful massacre ensued; not a life among . by some of them who had established the pirates was spared ; and the victors themselves on the coast of Istria, de- returned in triumph with their brides to serves, from its singularity, and the ven- | the church of Olivolo. A procession of geance of the republic, to be recorded the maidens of Venice revived, for many · in this place. According to an ancient

centuries, the recollection of this delicustom, the nuptials of the nobles and verance on the eve of the Purification. principal citizens of Venice were always But the doge was not satisfied with the

punishment which he had inflicted upon || out delay, and perchance some wonthe Istriots. He entered vigorously up- || drous tale of melancholy love may on the resolution of clearing the Adriatic hereafter appear, founded on some of all the pirates who infested it; he

of his narrations, from the pen of conquered part of Dalmatia ; and he ||

Reginald Hildebrand. transmitted to his successors, with the

The conversation now turned on ducal crown, the duty of consummating |

subjects not immediately connected his design.

with literature, and here I close this Reginald. Thank you, counsellor;

long paper. you have afforded us the most inter

REGINALD HILDEBRAND. esting treat of the evening. I bave

Elmwood-Hall, seen Perceval's volumes, but not read

Aug. 14, 1825. them. I shall, however, do so withi- ||

ANECDOTES, &c.
HISTORICAL, LITERARY, AND PERSONAL.

KING GEORGE IV. | sador to the court of France, the During the king's visit to the queen, as it is reported, cautioned Continent, a deputation of the miners him against carrying on bis intrigues of the Hartz, in his Hanoverian do- there; and when he arrived, even minions, waited upon his Majesty at personally repeated her injunctions Rothenkirchen. They begged per- to him. In spite of these injunctions, mission to present him with a goblet, however, he took the liberty to pay out of which, they said, George II. bis addresses to a very handsome and George the III. had condescend young widow. She complaisantly ed to drink. The king immediately received his declaration, but on conrecollected, that when the miners dition, that she should have a confivisited England, his late father had dant, to which the count agreed; drunk out of the goblet; and three being delighted to find that she was old miners being presented to him so far from being offended with his as the remains of those who had overtures. He called every day to been at court on that occasion, the see the lady; and one afternoon was king good-humouredly said, “ Do | rather surprised to find his wife, you still sing the song you sung at Countess Fuentes, at her house. Windsor?--Gestern Abend war Vet- “ Now that we three are alone," said ter Michael da?” As this song is the widow, “ I have an affair to comnational in the Hartz, it may easily municate, which concerns both my be imagined how delighted the ho-honour and my happiness.” This nest miners were with his Majesty's introduction interested her visitors, excellent memory and pleasantry who expressed their acknowledge

ments for so high a mark of confiGALLANTRY REBUKED. dence. “ The fact is this," continued Count Fuentes, a Spanish noble- the widow to the countess: “ your man, was notorious for his gallantries, husband protests that he is in love and so successful in his addresses, with me, and I received his declarathat yhen he was appointed ambas- |tion, on condition of having a confi

172

ANECDOTES, &c. JUISTORICAL, LITERARY, AND PERSONAL.

dant in our courtship. I believe, JAMES v. OF SCOTLAND AND DOUGLAS madamn, that I can never find a more

OF KILSPENDIE. prudent one than you, and I entreat i James V. had sworn that no Doug. you to take me under your protec- las ever should serve him; and lie tion, that I may regulate my conduct preserved his rash oath inviolate, agreeably to your advice." The hus- with a vigour that in one instance at band's confusion may easily be con- least cannot be applauded. Douglas ceived: the countess pardoned him, of Kilspendie was his great favourite and, it is said, that he was reformed in the days of his youth, and so for ever.

highly did James esteem his courage

and nobleness of mind, that he called REMARKABLE RECLUSE. him his Greysteil, a name taken froin About fifty years ago an unfortu- some champion of a romance no nate female wanderer took up her longer extant. He was, however, residence in a dark vault among the banished with his chief, and served ruins of Dryburgh Abbey, which, many years in France. At length, during the day, she never quitted. weary of exile and anxious to lay When night fell, she issued from his bones in bis own country, the this miserable habitation, and went aged warrior threw himself upon the to the house of Mr. Halyburton of clemency of his native sovereign. As Newmains, or that of Mr. Erskine || James returned from hunting near of Sheffield, who resided in the neigh- Stirling, he recognised his ancient bourhood; and from their charity favourite, and exclaimed, “ Yonder she obtained such necessaries as she comes our Greysteil, Archibald of could be induced to accept. Attwelve Kilspendie!" Douglas approached, each night she lighted her candle, and on his knees implored permission and returned to her vault, assuring to end his days in obscurity within her friends that, during her absence, the bounds of his own country; but her habitation was occupied by a implacable to the name of Douglas, spirit, to whom she gave the uncouth James took no notice of the suppliappellation of Fatlips; describing him cant, and rode briskly up the hill toas a little man wearing heavy iron ward Stirling Castle. Kilspendie, shoes, with which he trampled the though loaded with a hauberk, or clay floor of the vault to dispel the || shirt of mail, under his garments, still damps. This circumstance caused kept pace on foot, endeavouring to her to be regarded by the well-in-catch one pitying glance of his once formed as deranged in her under- partial master: alas! all exertions standing, and by the vulgar with ter- were unavailing! Spent by over fa. ror as a weird woman. Her strange tigue, and sunk in grief, the exile mode of life was supposed to have was compelled to sit down at the been occasioned by a vow never to castle-gate, where he asked for a hehold the sun until a man, to whom glass of water. Even this simple she was attached, had returned. He boon was refused by the attendants, fell during the civil war of 1745-6, who caught the royal spirit of merand she would never more behold the ciless severity, James blamed the light of day.

discourtesy of his menials: yet he allowed Kilspendie no indulgence

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