345] Memoirs of the Duke of Brunswick. THE BELL SAVAGE. [346 Marquis of Ischia which he conferred on The Spectator has explained the sign the sculptor Canova, an annual pension of the Bell Savage inn plausibly enough, of 3,000 Roman crowns. This celebrain supposing it to have been originally the ted artist has disposed of this revenue in figure of a beautiful female found in the the following manner: First, a fixed woods, and called in French, La Belle donation to the Roman Academy of Sauvage. But another reason has been Archaiology of six hundred crowns. assigned for that appellation still more Second, one thousand and seventy probable: namely, that the inn was once crowns, to found annual prizes, and a the property of Lady Arabella Savage, triennial prize for painting, sculpture, and familiarly called Bell Savage's ino, and architecture, which the young artists represented, as at present, by a bell and of Rome and the Roman States only are a savage, or wild man, which was the competent to obtain. Third. One hunhieroglyphical rebus for her name, such dred crowns to the Academy of Saint rebusses being much in use in the fif Luke. Fourth. One hundred and twenteenth and sixteenth centuries. Bolt in ty crowns to the Academy of the Lynx. Tun is an instance for the name of Bolton. And fifth. One thousand one hundred crowns to relieve poor, old, and infirm artists residing in Rome.-New M.Mag. REWARDS TO THE LEARNED. The Pope has attached to the title of MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PERSONS. From the New Monthly Magazine. THE LAST DAYS OF THE DUKE OF BRUNSWICK. By the Rev. Dr. MEYER. NOT far from the tomb of the great tion of the government by his eldest son bard of religion and German inde- in favour of the Duke of Oels. He has pendence (Klopstock) at Ottensen near been censured for having as an indepenAltona, repose under a plain stone with- dent prince taken part in the conflict at out name or inscription, the remains of his advanced age and against his better one of the most illustrious princes of his judgment: but he was still active and age, CHARLES WILLIAM FERDINAND, vigorous for his years, and thoroughly Duke of BRUNSWICK. Mortally wound- convinced that he should gain nothing ed at Jena, and flying from the ancient by retiring from the bloody stage. seat of his ancestors, to escape the vengeance of an inexorable tyrant, he arrived here in the last days of October, 1806, that he might die in peace upon a foreign soil, Should Prussia prove victorious, he knew that his country, inclosed as it was by foreign states, would soon be swallowed up; and on the other hand Napoleon, as conqueror, would never forgive him An obscure presentiment growing up for having, about a year before, on the into a strong conviction, assured the violation of the Prussian territory, advisDuke that the war begun against his ad- ed hostilities, (though to no purpose,) vice would prove disastrous to Prussia. with the apparent certainty of success. Hostilities neve.cheless commenced; and In this personally doubtful and dangerhis Highness was firmly resolved to pre- ous situation, it seemed to him more fer death in the field to the disgrace of glorious to fight and fall for Prussia. being vanquished by a despot thirsting Impetuous courage and hatred to the for revenge and blood. Previously to cruel enemy of Germany confirmed him the opening of the eventful campaign, in this resolution. be arranged all his family affairs, and in The battle of Jena was fought, and particular hastened the act of renuncia- the Duke appeared in the full uniform 2B Eng. Mag. Vol. I. 347] Memoirs of the Duke of Brunswick. [348 one of the most convenient, at Ottensen. Here his life slowly drew to a close amid the most painful conflicts. He enjoyed, though but for a few moments, the sight of his consort, who hastened to him on her flight, and the mutual distress of such a meeting and such a parting may be more easily conceived than described. In the intervals of tranquillity the prince gave his opinion with perfect self-possession and singular penetration respecting of a field-marshal decorated with all his orders. The fortune of war favoured Napoleon; the Prussian commander courted death. He found it, though not as he had often wished, upon the field of battle. Mortally wounded in the forehead, he was doomed for twenty-seven days to struggle with the agonies of death and the keenest pangs of mind. Removed from the field, and carried by peasants in a basket over the trackless mountains of the Harz Forest, because the issue of the war; he had the newsall the roads were occupied by hostile troops, the dying hero, after a few days' rest in his capital, was overtaken by the insolent message in which the furious Corsican announced his deposition. "The House of Brunswick," such were the words, "has ceased to reign. Let General Brunswick be gone and seek another country for himself beyond the sea; wherever my troops shall find him he will be their prisoner."* [La Maison de Brunswic a cessée de regner. Que la General Brunswic s'en aille chercher une autre patrie au delà des mers; partout où mes troupes le trouveront, ils le rendront prisonnier.] The unfortunate prince was thus obliged to quit his much-loved home, the bones of his fathers, and his subjects imploring heaven to spare the life of their adored sovereign, and exposed to all the horrors of war and the devastations of barbarians. His only hope now was to die in peace abroad in the arms of his princely relatives of Holstein. But even this satisfaction was denied him. Borne in a large wicker basket, shaped like a litter, and covered with sail-cloth, in the most inclement season of the year, to the banks of the Elbe, his weakness would not admit of his being conveyed any farther. With that sympathy which the misfortunes of a hero so cruelly persecuted by fate cannot fail to excite, he was received at Neumühlen ; but he refused the offers of the proprietors of several villas, who respectfully tendered them for his residence, and took a house, not papers read to him; he most accurately predicted Napoleon's operations, and expressed himself with energy and truth on the subject of the unfortunate circumstances which had occasioned and attended the preceding disasters. These bowever were topics on which he touched only in the narrow circle of his friends and companions in arms: in the presence of visitors, to whom he did not deny admittance, he spoke little, and only concerning the most indifferent matters, which they erroneously attributed to a total apathy of mind. This Thus did the Duke retain his mental faculties unimpaired. The corporeal organs also fulfilled their functions till in the night of the 7th of November a paralytic affection of the tongue prevented him from communicating his wishes and feelings to those about him: but he remained perfectly sensible till the last moment. An extraordinary phenomenon occurred a few hours before the paralytic attack, when he complained that he felt as if he had two heads. sensation may be ascribed to the destruction of the equilibrium of the two lobes of the brain by the breaking of the sac of pus in the right lobe, where the Duke was wounded. The pressure of the pus upon the brain and the origin of the nerves induced paralysis of one half of the body. To accelerate that death which was now so desirable, he had refused all solid and almost all liquid sustenance. A few hours before his death, his speech seemed to have entirely forsaken him; when in a loud voice, and a Surely the most infatuated partisan of the tone expressive of painful apprehensions, ex-emperor cannot consider without profound admiration the retributive decrees of Provi- he tried Gulatin! Galatin! an excladence, by which the sentence pronounced by mation which proves but too plainly how the tyrant, in all the arrogance of power, exceedingly his death was embittered by upon a brave but unfortunate prince, has been the agonizing sense of his manifold misEDITOR. fortunes. He had dispatched Galatin, fulfilled to the very letter upon himself. 349] Thomas Paine, Author of the " Age of Reason." [350 his private secretary of legation, as a last (although his personal circumstances were resort, to Berlin, if possible, to move so deplorable that the air of his chamber Napoleon. His uncertainty respecting could scarcely be indured) to his bedside. the issue of this mission tended in no In performing this humane office she had small degree to aggravate the pains of the opportunities of conversation with bis last moments. On the morning of him which authorise the writer's belief the tenth of November he expired. that he exhibited another proof of Dr. His son and avenger in the glorious Young's assertion, that" Men may live yet to him fatal conflict with the tyrant, fools, but fools they cannot die." The found his father a corpse, and experi- letter proceeds to say, that she found him enced the additional pain of being de- frequently writing, and believed from nied by the modern Attila permission to what she saw and heard, that when his place the remains of his beloved parent pain permitted, he was almost always so in the sepulchre of his ancestors. In engaged, or in prayer, in the attitude of the night of the 23d of November, the which she more than once saw him when corpee, enveloped in a triple coffin, was he thought himself alone. One day he deposited by the faithful attendants of inquired if she had ever read the the deceased in a vault of the church of "Age of Reason," and on being answerOttensen. THOMAS PAINE. To the Editor of the New Monthly Magazine. SIR, ed in the affirmative desired to know her opinion of that book. She replied, she was but a child when she read it, and probably he would not like to know what she thought of it. Upon which he ΤΗ HE subjoined account of the con- said, if old enough to read, she was capacluding scenes of the life of Thomas ble of forming some opinion, and from Paine, was read at a public meeting her he expected a candid statement of some weeks ago by a very respectable what that opinion had been. She then member of the Society of Friends, in my said, she thought it the most dangerous hearing. From his brother I procured and insinuating book she had ever seen; this copy of the account. I rather think that the more she read the more she that Wm. Dilwyn, his daughter, and the wished to read, and the more she found your person who visited Paine and gave her mind estranged from all that is good; theount to Dilwyn's daughter, are of and that from a conviction of its evil tenthe same society. As almost the whole dency she had burnt it, without knowing world was injured by Paine's pernicious to whom it belonged. Paine replied to principles, I hope you will not refuse to this, that he wished all who had read it increase the circulation as widely as pos- had been as wise as she: and added, “If sible of his recantation. Wishing you ever the devil had an agent on earth I increasing and continued success, I re- have been one." At another time when main, &c. A. B. she was in his chamber, and the master The following is an extract of a letter of her family was sitting by his bed-side, received by Mr. William Dilwyn, of one of Paine's former companions came Walthamstow, Essex, from his daughter in; but seeing them with him, hastily in America. The writer is of the most went out, drawing the door after him unquestionable respectability, and ap- with violence, and saying, "Mr. Paine, pears recently to have received the in- you have lived like a man; I hope you formation stated in it from a person will die like one." Upon which, Paine, equally entitled to credit. The latter turning to his principal visitor, said, has resided in a family in the near neigh-"You see what miserable comforters 1 bourhood of the celebrated Thomas have." An unhappy female, who had Paine, who resided at Greenwich, near accompanied him from France, lamentNew York, and during his last illness ed her sad fate, observing, "For this had contributed to his comfort by occa- man I have given up my family and sionally preparing and sending him food friends, my property and religion ; judge, and refreshments more adapted to his sit- then, of my distress, when he tells me nation than he usually enjoyed. These that the principles he has taught me will the informant chose to be the bearer of not bear me out!" But the Nymphs fly away from his passionate The shepherds oft hear him, thy willows beside, Nay, Proteus, forsaking his dolphin-tail'd herd, For there, I persuade me, true peace may be found: Where Shakspeare reposes, 'tis all ballow'd No spirit there wanders, or thing that's unblest, And there thou dost murmur, and linger with And feed'st with thy Of Meles,of Mineius, we now think do more; While pale lilies shall droop o'er the imaging wave, And the cuckoo shall utter the same mocking stave, While the nightingale chants, the coy angel of Spring, He of Poets, and thou of all Rivers art King, River Avon. Then take thou these flowers, fresh pluck'd from thy meads, And my musick I breathe through thy own native reeds; Thou mayst find many Poets more learned than me, But never a Poet more faithful to thee, January 1817. From the Panorama. River Avon. THE BARD'S FAREWELL TO HIS LAS, for thee! abandon'd Lute! The cattle, by whom thy blithe meadows are A Thy voice is hush'd--thy chords are mute, shorn, Start away in amaze at that sea-toned horn, For Shakspeare here slumbers, the king of our And thy mould softly pillow his dear loved For his heart was as gentle, as keen was his And one line, which he breath'd, we can never We never shall look on his likeness again, The utmost I ask, is to dwell on thy shore The page of life clos'd, lay me down by his side, Yet 'mid thy silver strings, Still waves his airy wings: Plaintive as Mem'ry fondly heaves She dwells on scenes gone by. The heart that bade these notes awake, * The two Rivers, on whose banks Homer and Virgil were born, Poetry. Written during a Tempest, when sailing up the Bristol Channel. By the Author of “Amusements in Retirement." T THE waves run high; wild tempests rage! And of each wild and angry wave From the New Monthly Magazinė. As he reckless cloud on high, Our joys and ills are gone; On rapid pinion borne. Then why, amid the meteor gleam, Th' uplifted portals wide display DORIS ; FROM THE GERMAN OF HALLER. The purple in the west that shone Is fading to a greyer hue; [354 The moon uplifts her silver horns, Where nothing stirs but you and I: Which strive to beckon silently, And cradles the contented soul; And make a life of love its whole. Dearer than plans of palac'd pride? Bounds not thy bosom--by my side? What means this ail, what troubles mé ? O cast thy vain reserve away, Let me its real name betray, Far more than that I feel for thee. Thou startlest, and thy virtue frowns, And the chaste blush my charge disowns, And lends thy cheek an angrier glow Not by the heart, my Doris, no. Which love and fate prepare to bind; To doubt is not to be unkind. Coldness cannot perpetual prove; The love of all herself shall love. "Tis pleasure's wish, 'tis virtue's choice; See thy companions, one by one, Steal from the virgin throng, and own That Nature's call is duty's voice. Each will be proud to make to thee; But not on one who loves like me. A third in skilful language woo; A heart at least Heav'n gave me too. |