At length he is freed; but by this time his prison had become a hermitage to him, and the boon was hardly acceptable.

With spiders I had friendship made,

And watched them in their sullen trade-
Had seen the mice by moonlight play,
And why should I feel less than they?
We were all inmates of one place,
And I, the monarch of each race,
Had power to kill-yet, strange to tell!
In quiet we had learned to dwell-
My very chains and I grew friends,
So much a long communion tends
To make us what we are :-even I

Regained my freedom with a sigh.

The history of Bonnivard will be found to be very different from that which is implied by the poem of which we have been speaking. He had no brothers living at the time of his imprisonment, and was not at all a person of the character of Lord Byron's prisoner. It is surprising that more justice has not been done to so eminent a man; and the more so, as Geneva abounds with third or fourth rate literary people, from almost all the nations of Europe, who might employ themselves profitably in collecting all the particulars respecting this sincere but somewhat eccentric man's life.

François de Bonnivard was born in the year 1496, of a respectable and ancient family, which had been long seated at Lunes. He was educated at Turin; and became, before he was twenty, prior of St. Victor, a sort of fauxbourg to the city of Geneva. This benefice, the revenues of which were very considerable, had been ceded to him by his uncle, the late prior.

Although he had the strongest inducements, as far as his pecuniary interests were concerned, to favor the claims of the Duke of Savoy, he was a strenuous and uncompromising opposer of them. When the progress of the Reformation and the welfare of the city required it, he sacrificed, without hesitation, the whole of his benefice, which might be regarded as his patrimony, and left himself without any other resource than his talents, without any other revenue

-but his good spirits

To feed and clothe him.

Lord Byron has added in the shape of a' note, written in French, some account of Bonnivard's life, furnished to him, as he says, by a citizen of that republic, which is still proud of the memory of a man worthy of the best age of freedom. It is as follows:

This great man, (Bonnivard deserves this title by the rectitude of his principles, the nobleness of his intentions, the wisdom of his counsels, the courage of his conduct, the extent of his knowledge, and the vivacity of his mind,) this great man, who must excite the admiration of all persons by whom heroic virtue can be properly appreciated, will inspire also the warmest gratitude in the minds of every Genevese who loves the liberties of his native city. Bonnivard was ever one of its firmest supporters: to secure the freedom of our republic he did not fear to lose his own: he gave up his repose; he scorned his wealth; he neglected nothing that could tend to establish the prosperity of a city which he had chosen as his own; he cherished its rights as zealously as the best and most honest of the citizens; he served it with the intrepidity of a hero; he wrote its history with the naiveté of a philosopher, and with the warmth of a patriot.

In the beginning of his History of Geneva he says, that, "from the time he commenced the study of the history of nations, he had felt the deepest interest for republics, the rights of which he always espoused." This inclination it was, probably, that induced him to adopt Geneva as his country.

'While he was still very young Bonnivard openly announced himself as the defender of Geneva against the Duke of Savoy and the bishop.

In 1519 he was made to experience the consequences of his boldness, and to suffer for the cause he had taken up. The Duke of Savoy having entered Geneva with five hundred men, Bonnivard, who knew he had good reason to fear his resentment, thought it prudent to withdraw to Fribourg. On his journey, however, he was betrayed by two men who accompanied him, and delivered into the hands of the duke, by whom he was sent to Grolée, and there kept a prisoner for two years. Eleven years afterwards he was still more unfortunate, for, being met upon the Jura by some robbers, they, not content with plundering him, gave him up to the Duke of Savoy. He was then sent to the castle of Chillon, where he remained until the year 1536; when, upon the taking of that fortress by the Bernese, Bonnivard was liberated, and the Pays de Vaud freed for ever from the domination of the Dukes of Savoy.

When Bonnivard returned to Geneva he found it free, as well from

the duke's claims as from the burdensome superstitions and exactions of the Romish clergy. He was treated with great respect by the citizens; and, by way of recompensing the injuries he had suffered in their cause, they conferred upon him the freedom of the city. A house, formerly occupied by the vicar-general, was assigned to him, together with an annual pension of two hundred crowns of gold, so long as he should continue in Geneva. This sum bore no comparison to that which he had voluntarily relinquished; but, perhaps, it was at that period, and in the then present state of Geneva, as large as they were able to afford. In the year following his return he was admitted into the Council of Two Hundred.

'Bonnivard's exertions for the welfare of the city did not finish here. He had laboured to make Geneva free; he now succeeded also in making it tolerant. Bonnivard prevailed upon the council by which the city was governed to grant the ecclesiastics and the peasants time to discuss and consider the propositions of the reformed religion, which were now submitted to them. His policy upon this occasion forms a remarkable contrast to the ferocious tyranny which was recommended by the persecuting and sanguinary Calvin, and his brethren, at the same period and in the same place. Bonnivard, the advocate of true religion, succeeded by his mildness. Christianity is always preached

with success when it is preached in charity and moderation.

'Bonnivard was, moreover, a learned man: his manuscripts, which still remain in the public library, sufficiently show that he was well read in the Roman classics, and that he had studied theology and history profoundly. He was devoted to the sciences, and believed that they would be a means of elevating the glory of Geneva; and, impressed with this idea, he omitted no means of fixing them in this infant city. In 1551 he gave his own library for the public use, and thus laid the foundation of the public library at Geneva. His books consist generally of those rare and valuable editions whi. were published in the fifteenth century. In the same year he bequeathed to the republic all that he was possessed of, on condition that it should beapplied towards completing a college which was then projected.

'He died, in all probability, in the latter part of the year 1571; but this is not quite certain, because there is a vacuum, in the necrology of Geneva, from July, 1570, to the beginning of the year 1571.'

Accompanying the poem last mentioned were several sınaller ones, of inferior merit. One of these, called 'Darkness,' is a piece of incomprehensible and disagreeable rant. It is in the worst style of the German school, and means nothing in the world.

Another, called a Dream,' is at least more interesting, because it relates more to the poet's own history, which he has taken an opportunity of here exhibiting, covered with a fantastical veil of mystery. To unriddle this mystery it is only necessary to know that Lord Byron had been attached in his youth to a lady who, it was believed, loved him no less, but who, influenced by one of those caprices which illnatured people say are so very common with the gentle sex, married another. Lord Byron was only a nobleman and a gentleman; the more favored lover had the reputation of being as great a rake as any in the three kingdoms, a sporting man and a spendthrift. Who could blame the lady for preferring the latter?

In the hour of his affliction Lord Byron seems to have reviewed the circumstances of his past life; and they rose upon his memory like a dream-a painful struggling dream-which ended in agony and tears, that could neither be suppressed nor dried up on his awakening. The lady of his boyish love is thus described :

I saw two beings in the hues of youth

Standing upon a hill, a gentle hill,
Green and of mild declivity, the last
As 'twere the cape of a long ridge of such,
Save that there was no sea to lave its base,
But a most living landscape, and the wave
Of woods and cornfields, and the abodes of men
Scattered at intervals, and wreathing smoke
Arising from such rustic roofs;—the hill
Was crowned with a peculiar diadem
Of trees, in circular array, so fixed,
Not by the sport of nature, but of man :
These two, a maiden and a youth, were there
Gazing-the one on all that was beneath
Fair as herself but the boy gazed on her;
And both were young, and one was beautiful:
And both were young-yet not alike in youth.
As the sweet moon on the horizon's verge,
The maid was on the eve of womanhood;
The boy had fewer summers, but his heart
Had far outgrown his years, and to his eye
There was but one beloved face on earth,
And that was shining on him; he had looked

Upon it till it could not pass away;

He had no breath, no being, but in hers;
She was his voice; he did not speak to her,
But trembled on her words; she was his sight,
For his eye followed hers, and saw with hers,
Which colored all his objects :-he had ceased
To live within himself; she was his life,
The ocean to the river of his thoughts,
Which terminated all: upon a tone,

A touch of hers, his blood would ebb and flow,
And his cheek change tempestuously-his heart
Unknowing of its cause of agony.

But she in these fond feelings had no share:
Her sighs were not for him; to her he was
Even as a brother-but no more; 'twas much,
For brotherless she was, save in the name
Her infant friendship had bestowed on him;
Herself the solitary scion left

Of a time-honoured race.-It was a name

Which pleased him, and yet pleased him not-and why?
Time taught him a deep answer-when she loved
Another; even now she loved another,

And on the summit of that hill she stood,
Looking afar if yet her lover's steed

Kept pace with her expectancy, and flew.

Then he describes his own travels in such a manner as to leave no doubt in the minds of his readers that he means to identify himself with the person of his poem. The sorrow which his betrayed love occasions is not all his own; the faithless lady finds that misery follows close upon her broken vows:

A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.
The lady of his love was wed with one
Who did not love her better:-in her home,
A thousand leagues from his-her native home,
She dwelt, begirt with growing Infancy,
Daughters and sons of Beauty-but, behold!
Upon her face there was the tint of grief,
The settled shadow of an inward strife,