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And when his song repeats the mournful strain
Of Aedon-who weeps, and weeps in vain,
Her rash revenge-her son unconscious slain-
Then flies away, and ends her piteous tale
Amid the lonely woods-a nightingale!
Then with rich wine his skilful hands distil
The strong Nepenthes-antidote of ill.

He culls the Moly-flower of human craft—
And with the peaceful Lotus blends the draught.
Charmed by the philtre, men forget to feel
Love for their kindred, or their country's weal;
Then saw they Ossa, and thy crimsoned wood,
Peneus and Olympus, red with blood,
What time unto the bridal-feast did crowd
As guests, the monstrous children of the cloud.
That fatal night when Theseus' friend was wed-
When Theseus' self, midst the great feast outspread,
Midst wine, and joy, and late-spoke bridal vows,
Was forced to snatch his friend's half-naked spouse
Out of the drunken arms of savage Eurytus-
Suddenly, sword in hand, cried hot Pirithous,
-"Stay! traitor, here my wrath must be appeased."
But, ere he reached the Centaur, Dryas seized
Upon a mighty torch-branched iron tree,
Bristling and red with flaming hair-which he
Hurled on the impious quadruped; it falls,
Crushing him down-in vain the monster calls

For pity. Vainly too, amid the gloom,

Strikes with his hoof the ground about to be his tomb.
The banquet-table crushes on the grass
Evagrus, Cymele, and Periphas,
Impelled by Nessus. Then Pirithous
Slaughters Petræus and Antimachus-
And Cyllarus, with feet so white and fair,
And swarthy Macareus, who doth wear

Three lions'-skins his own great spoil-the rest
Hides his four sides, and arms his double breast;
Bending beneath a rock's stupendous weight,
Raised for revenge, Bianor meets his fate.
Struck by an antique vase of wondrous size,
Hurled from Alcides' hand, the monster dies.
Alcides and his club in triumph pile
Clanis, Demoleon, and Lycothas vile-
And golden-haired Ripheus, who doth wear
Shades of his native clouds amid his hair.
Eurynomus doth seek a second fight,
For with his feet, moving in rapid flight,
He strikes at Nestor's shield. As Helops flies
(Four-footed monster) agile Crantor tries
To reach him-but Eurynomus is first,
And with a knotty maple-tree had burst
Upon him-had not mighty Theseus seen
The flying monster-with a conqueror's mien,

And smeared with blood, a burning oak he sweeps
From off the altar. On his haunch he leaps,
Drags backs his head, even by his dreadful hair_
And as the monster gapes in wild despair,

And opes
his mouth to gasp and pant for breath,
Plunges at once therein the burning tree and death!—
The altar is despoiled-the flames arise-

The woods are filled with shrieks and woman's cries;

Hoofs strike the earth, and corses strew the ground,
And broken vases lie, and wailing shrieks resound!

Thus the great sage, in Figures bold and strong,
Unfolds the tissue of his holy song.

His three young guides, moved by the noble sight,
Look on his face with wonder and delight;
See from his lips the words of wisdom flow,
As from the mountain's top the winter's snow-
While round about, with boughs in every hand,
Men, women, children, dance, a varied band,
Virgins and youths the quiet hamlet's pride-
Sing as they dance :O father, here reside,
Stay with us, great blind prophet, sweet-voiced sage,
Friend of the gods, and glory of the age.

Games for five years will mark the day as blest,
On which we first received great HOMER as our guest."

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To the sound of the waters moving,
The birds mid the bright flowers sing.

Oh! sweet is the bliss of loving,

And sharp is jealousy's sting.

Through these woods where tranquillity reigneth,
To the sound of the streams sonorous,

The birds, in musical chorus

Sing of the bliss that paineth;
The water that never remaineth,
But runneth in crystal glidings,
Whispereth ever the tidings
That never the heart disdaineth.

To the sound of the waters moving,
The birds mid the bright flowers sing,

Oh! sweet is the bliss of loving,
And sharp is jealousy's sting.

II.

The narcissus, in summer hours,

Loves splendour and glory weareth;

Dark jealousy never neareth

The pansy and violet flowers;

The waves by the sloping shores
Mingle in mute embraces,

And the sands, like bright-eyed faces,

Look up through the crystal pores!

To the sound of the waters moving.
The birds mid the bright flowers sing,

Oh! sweet is the bliss of loving,
And sharp is jealousy's sting.

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And love, that should be his strength and stay,
Becometh his bane full soon,

Like flowers that are born

Of the beams at morn,

But die of their heat ere noon.

Far better the heart were the sterile clay,

Where the shining sands of the desert play,

And where never the perishing flow'ret gleams,

Than the heart that is fed with its wither'd dreams, And whose love is repelled with scorn,

Like the bee by the rose's thorn.

D. F. M. C.

GENERAL CAVAIGNAC.

EUGENE CAVAIGNAC (chief of the executive government of the French Republic) was born at Paris, on the 15th October, 1802. He is the second son of Jean Baptiste Cavaignac, and the younger brother of Godefroi Cavaignac (the celebrated political writer), and nephew of Lieutenant-General Cavaignac, an officer who served with much distinction in the armies of Napoleon. Jean Baptiste Cavaignac, the father of Godefroi and of Eugene, was well known in the times of the first French Revolution, as an ardent friend of liberty. When the revolutionary struggle commenced, he was a barrister at Toulouse, and embraced with zeal the cause of the republican party. In 1792, he was elected a deputy of the National Convention, for the department of Lot, and took an active part in all its proceedings, either as a deputy or as a commissioner in the provinces. Jean Baptiste Cavaignac was the friend of Vergniaud, Sieyès, Brissot, Guadet, Condorcet, and Gensommé. During the terrible scenes of anarchy, confusion and violence, that took place in those sad times, he appears to have acted with the party of the Girondists, of whom Vergniaud was the wellmeaning leader. Jean Baptiste Cavaignac was one of the 387 deputies who, in company with Vergniaud and the Duke of Orleans, voted for the death of Louis XVI. The true friends of order and of liberty in France deeply regretted the stain which was cast on the French Republic by the cruel and unnecessary execution of a king who had already been deprived of all political power. The Girondists discovered, when too late, the fatal error they had committed, in yielding the life of a dethroned king to the violence of the Jacobins. Jean Baptiste Cavaignac, however, acted with a large, though a mistaken, party; and it must be remembered, to his honour, that he and his friends afterwards prevailed upon the convention, in 1795, to decree unanimously, as their last legislative act, the abolition of the punishment of death. Baptiste was sent to Verdun,

Jean

as

commissioner of the convention, after that town had been taken by the Prussians, and reported, in terms of severity and harshness, against the conduct of various persons. He afterwards, in 1793, was sent as commissioner into the western provinces, and was in Brest when the news of the revolutionary movements in Paris, on the 31st of May, arrived. He appears to have been much disgusted at the scenes of violence that then took place in the convention, and shortly afterwards, with his colleagues, Merlin and Sivêste, signed an energetic protest against the injury done to the popular cause by the violent proceedings of the Jacobin party. This manifesto was widely circulated in the west of France, and Jean Baptiste Cavaignac was denounced to the Convention as its author. In all probability he would have suffered for his boldness, in daring to state the truth in those days of terror, had not the convention been appeased by receiving (on the very day that the denunciation was made) the news that by his valour and skill, he had succeed. ed in raising the siege of Nantes, which was then invested by the royalist party. Jean Baptiste remained for some time in La Vendeè, where he did good service in the republican armies. A few months after leaving La Vendeè, he was sent as commissioner to the army of the Western Pyrennees. He spent some time in organising this corps, and assisted in the military operations which ended in the total defeat of the Spanish army. During his mission in the south-west of France, he appears to have acted with much cruelty towards the persons who were then called aristocrats. In one of his letters he says "The aristocrats are pursued, arrested, and all their estates confiscated; every day some of their heads roll on the scaffold. We must order the arrest of all the former nobles and of the priests-we must strike them, and destroy them."

However barbarous these words may seem, it ought to be remembered that the whole of France was in those days given up to the same excesses, by order of the Jacobin party. Jean Baptiste

Cavaignac was at this time charged with an atrocious crime. His accuser stated that at Dax, in the department of the Landes, one Labarriere had been condemned to death for a political offence, and that his daughter, a young woman of great personal attractions, consented to become the mistress of Cavaignac on consideration of his saving her father's life, and that he took advantage of the filial affection of the poor girl, while, at the same time, he allowed the father to perish on the scaffold. This charge caused great excitement, but the convention (having made the fullest inquiry into the matter) honorably acquitted him; and the committee unanimously determined that the charge was false and calumnious. He was defended on this occasion by his friend, Boissy d'Anglas.

Jean Baptiste had shown so much skill in military operations in the Vendeè, and in the South of France, that he was sent as commissioner to the army of the Rhine and Moselle. After returning from this latter mission, he was entrusted with a military command in Paris, and assisted in preserving order during the insurrectionary attempts in 1775 and 1776. After the dissolution of the National Convention, he became a member of the Council of Five Hundred, and was present when that body was expelled from the council-chamber in the palace of St. Cloud, by Napoleon Buonaparte, on the 18th Brumaire, 1797. During the consulate, he was sent as commissary-general to Pondicherry, from which place he returned to Paris in 1805. After his return to France from India, in consequence of his great administrative abilities, he was invited by Joseph Buonaparte (then king of Naples), to assist him in arranging the Neapolitan finances. In the reign of Murat, he became a Neapolitan privy-councillor, and his two sons, Godefroi and Eugene, were made pages to the king. But in consequence of an imperial order relating to Frenchmen in the service of foreign powers, Jean Baptiste Cavaignac gave up the lucrative offices he held at Naples, and returned to France. He was rewarded for his various services by an appointment as prefect. On the return of the Bourbons to France, in 1815, Louis XVIII. (not satisfied with the execution of the gallant and

chivalrous Ney), gratified the vengeance of the royalists, by decreeing that all the former members of the convention, who had taken part in the death of Louis XVI., should be banished from France.

In consequence of this decree, Jean Baptiste was obliged to leave his native country, and after ten years spent in exile, died at Brussels on 24th March, 1829. His political opinions are thus stated by his son Godefroi, at the bar of a court of justice, when the latter was tried and acquitted on a charge of treason against Louis Philippe :

My

"My father," said Godefroi to his judges, "was one of those illustrious members of the convention who had the courage, in the face of allied Europe, to declare that royalty had ceased to exist in France, and that our native country was a republic. Owing to the genius, to the skill, and to the courage of my father and his political associates, the armies of the French Republic were victorious and successful against the allied forces of the European sovereigns. father battled for the republic in her armies and in the senate. For this crime-for the crime of loving France as a patriot-he died in unmerited exile, a victim to the vengeance of Louis XVIII. Notwithstanding the attempt of the Bourbons and the party of reaction, France still reaps some of the fruits of that great revolution, which my father helped to produce. Although some few of the men who owe their origin to the republic have accepted places and office from the Bourbons, my father and his companions in exile suffered for the sacred cause of liberty, to which others have been traitors. Devotion to liberty and suffering in exile were the last offerings of feeble old age by those who, in their manhood, exerted themselves so gallantly in the defence of the rights and liberties of their country."

Jean Baptiste Cavaignac was much attached to his children, and spared no pains in their education. At an early age, the best authors were placed in their hands; and their father, regardless of the fatigue occasioned by his public duties, employed his leisure in instructing his sons in their duties as French citizens. Actuated by his own strong feelings as a republican, he allowed no opportunity to escape him of inculcating the same principles in the minds of his sons. It has often been remarked how

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