Rogers, in calm and even sense, Made my dim flame burn denser : Shall I in Fashion's corps enlist, A light gay epigrammatist? No!-there I'm marr'd by Spencer. Thus "cribb'd and cabinn'd"—“ poor indeed!" Toward scenes of toil and tillage; But there, alas! my weary hack Hit on another beaten track, Encountering Crabbe's Village. Two pathways still to me belong, Anticipated! hideous bore! Great Jove! compassionate my lot! On -, Byron, Moore, and Scott, Sew Crabbe and Rogers in a sack, So shall I, with majestic tread, Up Pindus stretch my sinews: ON THE NOVELS OF LA FAYETTE. MADAME LA FAYETTE is the reputed, and certainly the principal author of the " Princesse de Cleves and “ Zayde,"-fictitious compositions, which are justly considered to form an era in literature, and to have been the first of our modern novels. It was owing to the modesty of the fair author, that they did not appear under her name. "Zayde" was published under that of her friend Segrais, who has yielded the merit to its right owner. "The Princess of Cleves,' 9 19 says he, in his Mémoires Anecdotes, "is by Madame La Fayette, who disdained answering the Père Bouhours' critique upon it. 'Zayde,' which appeared with my name, is also her's. It is true I had some part in it; but this was solely the arrangement of the romance, in which the rules of art are observed with great exactness." Mademoiselle de la Vergne was born in 1633, of a parent noble both by birth and military achievements. Every care was bestowed on her education: Menage and Rapin were her instructors in the study of the classics, for which she retained a predilection even to her latest days; and a story is related of her early acuteness in correcting both her instructors as to the construction of a passage in some Latin author. She nevertheless seems to have been a favourite with them; and Menage has chosen his pupil for the goddess of his verse, perhaps, like many of his literary brethren, for want of a less ideal love. She married the Conte de la Fayette, at the age of twenty-two, and was soon courted and admired in the fashionable and literary circles, which epithets were at that time synonimous. She soon became intimate with Madame de Rambouillet, and her coterie then on the decline. "Madame La F.," says a writer of that day, "a beaucoup appris de Madame R., mais elle avoit l'esprit bien plus solide." It was in this society that she formed her intimacies and friendships, particularly that with the Duc de la Rochefoucault, which connexion seems to have had great influence upon both. Throughout her writings the bold and original sentiments of her friend appear, strengthening her feminine tenderness and sensibility; and there are some sayings of her's recorded, of a spirit altogether different from her natural character, as well as that of her sex, and which are completely of the school of Rochefoucault. "C'est assez que d'être," mentioned by Segrais as an oft-repeated sentiment of her's, was evidently derived from the author of the "Maxims." Their friendship lasted till the death of the latter. "Monsieur de la Rochefoucault is dead," writes Madame de Sevigné: "Monsieur de Marsillac is afflicted beyond all description; nevertheless, my child, he will find solace in the presence of the king and the amusements of the court; but where shall Madame La Fayette find such a friend, such a companion? Where shall she seek such sweetness and agreeability, -one who will so esteem herself and her son? She is infirm, and * It was not Bouhours who wrote the criticism, but his pupil, M. de Valincourt. confined to her chamber. M. de Rochefoucault was also fond of a sedentary life. This rendered them necessary to one another. Nothing can be compared to the confidence and the delights of their friendship.' The plot of the "Princess of Cleves" is simple, but the tale begins in a very perplexing way. All the characters are introduced to us one by one-all full-length portraits, and not a link between them; so when we do meet, and become interested with them in the novel, we are compelled to look back to the commencement, as to an index, for their character. This fault she has avoided in "Zayde," or rather over-avoided, by plunging at once too deep in medias res, and converting the principal story into a kind of episode. The Princess of Cleves marries without a stronger sentiment for her husband than that of esteem, and afterwards meets with an object of love in the Duc de Nemours; the resisting and concealment of which passion with singular firmness and delicacy, even after the death of her husband, forms the gist of the novel. The story, though one of interest, is often made unpleasantly subordinate to the sentiment and political memoir, of which it is made the vehicle. The casuistries of love, which filled so many pages of the ancient, as well as of the heroic romances, could not be dispensed with; and was as essential to the taste of the age, as a trap-door to the followers of Mrs. Radcliffe, or fate to the German dramatists and tale-writers. The political memoir scattered through the "Princess of Cleves," though often irrelevant, is at times lively and interesting: we will make choice of the description of the state of the court of Henry the Second, as a solitary extract. "Madame de Chartres, who had taken so much pains to inspire her daughter with virtue, did not neglect the same care in a place where it was so necessary, and where there were so many dangerous examples. Ambition and gallantry were the soul of this court, and occupied equally men and women. There were so many interests and so many different cabals, in which females always mingled, that love was confounded with business, and business with love. Neutrality or indifference was impossible; each meditated the elevation of themselves and friends, and the destruction of others. Ennui or indolence was not to be found; intrigue or pleasure filled up every moment of leisure. The ladies of the court had each their particular attachments for the Queen, for the Queen Dauphine, for the Queen of Navarre, for Madame, sister of the King, or for the Duchess of Valentinois. Those who were of an advanced age, and professed austerity of morals, attached themselves to the Queen. Those who were younger, and thought but of pleasure and gallantry, paid their court to the Queen Dauphine. The Queen of Navarre had her favourites; she was young, and had an ascendancy over the King her husband, who, by his connexion with the Constable, had acquired much importance. Madame, the King's sister, had also her followers. And the Duchess of Valentinois had all whom she deigned to notice, but those were few; and, except those who possessed her familiarity and confidence, she received no company, unless on those days when it was her pleasure to hold a court like the Queen. "Between these different factions there was a due quantity of emulation and jealousy, besides the private piques and rivalries of individuals, which subdivided party into party. The interests of ambition found themselves joined with others, less important, but as sensibly felt. All this spread throughout the court a sort of agitation without open disorder, which was at once agreeable and dangerous to a young person. Madame de Chartres saw the peril, and thought but on the means to ensure her daughter from it. She besought her, not as a mother, but as a friend, to confide to her all the compliments of gallantry paid to her; and she promised, in return, to aid her in the conduct of those affairs in which youth is so often embarrassed." Such details, perhaps, entitle this composition to the character of an historical novel-a species which has lately been raised so high in public estimation, and which many erroneously look upon as a new invention. The principal attraction of this novel, to the English reader at least, is its historical associations-as the unfortunate Mary Queen of Scots is a conspicuous character throughout, whom "we are so accustomed to contemplate in affliction and misery, that we feel a certain sympathy and satisfaction while viewing her in the gaiety and frivolity of youth." "Zayde" is more intricate, and is divided into several underplots, all of which turn on love and friendship, their casuistries and refinements, without the least mixture of political character or story. It is a modernized cause, pleaded at the Cours d'Amour, embodied in a tale; and the questions debated are, Whether love be more lasting, when gradual, or when born at first sight-the several merits and demerits of jealousy, &c. The character of Alphonse, the original of Sheridan's Falkland, was taken, as we are informed by Segrais, from the life. "La jalousie d'Alphonse, qui paroit extraordinaire, est dépeinte sur le vrai; mais moins outrée qu'elle ne l'étoit en effet;" and we do not doubt it. It is difficult to account for the fact that " Zayde" was the most popular of the compositions of Madame La Fayette: for ourselves, we esteem it much inferior to her other work; yet there is more variety in it, and a nearer approach to the modern novel. It was by way of introduction to "Zayde" that Huet, bishop of Avranches, wrote his celebrated essay, "De l'Origine des Romans," which turned the attention of the public to that curious subject, so completely and elegantly elucidated by the publication of Mr. Dunlop. "If it be true, as I have proved, and as Plutarch assures us," says Huet, "that one of the greatest delights of the mind is the tissue of a fable well invented and well told, what success ought you† not to expect from Zayde,' in which the adventures are so new and so interesting, and of which the narrative is so elegant and so just? I wish, for the interest of the great monarch whom Heaven has set over us, that we had the history of his wonderful reign written in a style as noble, and with as much accuracy and discernment." It was this wish of Huet's, most likely, that urged her to write the " Mémoires de la Cour de "Zayde" was translated into English, soon after its publication, by P. Porter. The Essay is in a letter to Segrais. France," &c. a posthumous publication, as elegant and entertaining as her fictitious compositions. She was also the author of a "Life of Henrietta of England," and "Portraits of Persons about Court." Madame La Fayette had the misfortune to outlive the most of her friends; and died at the age of sixty, having devoted the last years of her life exclusively to religion. In these commencements of the modern novel there is nothing to be sought beyond the mere story and general sentiment. There is little or none of picturesque description, or individual character. The former had been rendered insipid by the ruralities of the Bergeries, while those days had not yet felt that travelling mania and curiosity, which give a relish for strange scene and costume. The latter is seldom aimed at, either in idea or reality, by a people eminently social: it is the reflective and retired that display prominence of character. Society blends all into one tone, and the difference of persons exists but in degree. Fashion directs the prevailing sentiment, while ingenuity refines it to nonsense, and affectation converts it into cant. The connexion between the sexes, with its several laws, principles, and relations, formed the sentiment, the nonsense, and the cant of those days; on this the sçavant employed his learning and logic, the petit maître his wit, and the literary lady her supposition and paradox. Youth gave up its soul, manhood its business, and age its vacuity, to discuss the pleadings of the tender passion. All were busied in developing "les sentiers du cœur, mais ils en ignoroient les grandes routes." Y. JONATHAN KENTUCKY'S JOURNAL. NO. VI. July 19.-Coronation day. Awakened at three o'clock, a. M. with the offer of tickets for the Hall and the Abbey. Thinking, however, that to get up at such an hour to see a sight which was not to commence till ten, would be, as we Americans say, “to give too much for my whistle," I turned about upon my pillow to take another nap, and resolved to spend the day in an excursion to Windsor. This is a truly royal residence; realizing what the imagination warm from the perusal of a tale of chivalry-would figure out as the palace of a king. Nothing can be more grand than the park and the castle ;-proudly placed as it is on a commanding eminence. The prospect from the terrace is, in the strictest sense of the word, superb. The eye ranges over a vast expanse of rich, populous, and luxuriant landscape; the extent of which may perhaps be collected from the information of a board upon the leads of the Round Tower-that twelve counties are visible. Combined with this general character of magnificence, there is also enough of particular objects of interest to arrest the attention of the spectator, and interrupt the usual monotony-if such a term may be used-of a bird's eye view. Thus the antique towers," that rise up in the "watery glade ” below, pre |