countered Ludwig Tieck, and they discoursed with each tentively looking at me. I presumed this was my countryother confidentially and faithfully, as brothers who had man. Thorwaldsen!' I exclaimed. Ehlenschlæger,' been long separated.' But all these intellectual feasts he replied. We embraced each other instantly, and from and poetical delights were now interrupted by the horrors that moment had woven our indissoluble bond of brotherof war. He left Dresden to visit Goethe again at Wei- hood.' During the intense heat of summer, he resided at mar, intending to proceed to Paris. He knew that Grotta Ferrata, where he wrote his tragedy of Correggio. France and Prussia were at war, but as he read no news- After the summer heats had passed away, having been papers, he did not know that Napoleon had led his army four years absent from his native land, he thought of rebetween the Elbe and the Saale, and had cut off the turning to Copenhagen, that he might witness the first Prussians from the former. In his chapter entitled 'the representation of his play of Axel und Walburg. In the battle of Jena,' he gives a graphic and interesting sketch venerable city, he had associated with its most brilliant of what he saw, and an accurate picture of the miseries society, composed of all distinguished by ancient blood, inseparable from the quarrels of nations. We dined one rank, and genius; and he took his departure with feelday with Goethe, and then hastened to quit Weimar, that ings of regret and admiration. Leaving Rome, he passed seat of the muses, now converted into a lazaretto of through a beautiful mountain district to Terni; Perugia, wounded soldiers; while its beautiful theatre, where for the residence of Pietro Vanucci, Raphael's master; Arezso many years the masterpieces of Schiller had been re- zo, where Petrarch was born; to Florence and Pisa, with presented, was made an hospital for dying cripples. We its hanging tower and Campo Santo, where the nobles of set off for Gotha, on our way to Paris, as soon as horses the middle ages sleep in consecrated earth that had been could be procured. Our carriage was frequently driven brought from the Holy Land for that purpose. He then through cultivated fields, and when we remonstrated with passed on to Heidelberg, by Milan, the Lago Maggiore, the driver, the only answer we received was, 'Oh, it is with its beautiful islands, where he visited Voss, the war-time!" In Paris he spent eighteen months, visiting author of the celebrated idyll Louise, and found him such all the usual places of attraction. He there wrote a new as he had prefigured to himself; tall, thin, somewhat tragedy, in Danish, entitled Palnatoke; translated his grave and pedantic, but intelligent and frank, and in his Aladdin and Hakon Jarl into German; and prepared an house cordial and hospitable. He passed two days at edition of his minor poems in the same language. He Weimar, for intercourse with Goëthe; he had dedicated witnessed the performances of Talma, Mademoiselle Mars, his Aladdin to him, and expected a paternal reception. Potier, and other celebrated actors of the day. He met He received him coldly but politely. He dined with him with his countryman Malte Brun, and Frederick Schlegel, twice, and bade an affectionate farewell to his illustrious whom he had fancied to be a lean, thin, and critical-look- friend, whom he never saw again. He hastened to ing personage, with sharp solemn features-instead of Copenhagen, where he met with a welcome and honourwhich, a fat and rather jovial countenance, with an ex- able reception not only from his immediate friends but pression of humorous irony, greeted him with friendly from his sovereign and noble patrons. The lady to whom smiles. He was detained in Paris some time, waiting for he was betrothed had become the confidential friend of his remittance from the Danish government; and when his kind protectress the Countess Schimmelmann. He it did arrive, it only sufficed to pay his debts. Borrow- had the honour of reading his Correggio to the royal ing a small sum, he set out for Germany, to sell his works family; and shortly after the king appointed him extrato Cotta, with the produce of which he intended to visit ordinary professor of aesthetics in the University of CopenItaly. He received a liberal price for his productions; hagen. The delightful residence of Count Schimmeland the delighted poet set off for Schaffhausen. His mann, Christianholm, was about a mile from the city; animated record shows that his mind was strikingly im- here he was invited to take up his residence the followpressed by the romantic scenery, historical associations, ing summer. Near to it, on the borders of a beautiful and simple people of Switzerland. Having been invited lake, was the little village Gjentofte. To its humble by Madame de Staël, when in Paris, to visit her at Cop-church, one lovely morning, he and his bride walked pel, he accordingly proceeded thither. There he met with A. W. Schlegel, Bonstetten, Sismondi, Werner, Friedericka Brun, and other celebrated persons in the world of letters. Schlegel was cold but polite. I felt great esteem,' he writes, for his profound learning, acuteness, wit, and extraordinary talent for languages. He has delivered much that is true and excellent in a fine strain of eloquence on poetry and art. He seems to me, however, not free from a certain one-sidedness, and undue partiality. How quick, intellectual, witty, and amiable Madame de Staël was, is well known to the world. I know no woman who has manifested so much genius. She was by no means handsome, but her bright hazel eyes had much that was attractive. Her genius and countenance, her voice almost, was manly; her soul, however, was intensely womanly, as she has proven in Delphine and Corinne! After spending some months with his brilliant hostess, in the spring of 1809 he departed for Italy. Nothing that he had witnessed in his wanderings struck him so profoundly as the Alps. With emotions somewhat different, but not less intense, did he linger among the ruins of old Rome: The city that so long reigned absolute, Many a joyous hour did he spend among those scenes alone, where they met the clergyman, who united them in this quiet and unostentatious manner, and then returned to Christianholm. Since this time his life has passed pleasantly on, in the calm and honourable pursuits of literature, respected by his countrymen and cotemporaries, rejoicing in the inestimable blessings of a happy home, made joyous and radiant by the affection of a be loved wife and the sweet society of his four children. In 1815, he was made a Knight of Damebrog by the King of Denmark, and, in 1827, he was appointed professor ordinarius and assessor consistorii. In 1838, at the close of his autobiographical sketch, he informs us that he was happy and contented, and yet in the full freshness of life and bloom as a son of the muses. THE SON AND HEIR:* OR, THE EFFECTS OF PASSION. My youth was passed in the thoughtless and extravagant gaiety of the French court. My temper was always vio lent; and I returned home one morning, long after midnight, frantic with rage at some imaginary insult which I had received. My servant endeavoured to speak to me as I entered the house, but I repulsed him violently, and rushed up to my room. I locked the door, and sat down instantly to write a challenge. My hand trembled so much that it would not hold the pen; I started up and paced the room; the pen was again in my hand, when I heard a low voice speaking earnestly at the door, entreat * Some passages from the Journal of the Earl of A-1, in the London Magazine. ing to be admitted. The voice was that of my father's old and favourite servant. I opened the door to him. The old man looked upon me with a very sorrowful countenance, and I hastily demanded the reason of his appearance. He stared at me with surprise, and spoke not; he walked to the table where I had sat down, and took from it a letter, which, in my rage, I had not noticed. It announced to me the dangerous illness of my father; it was written by my mother, and entreatingly besought me instantly to return to them.-Before dawn I was far from Paris. My father's residence was in the north of England. I arrived there only in time to follow the corpse of my beloved father to the grave. 6 Immediately on my return from the funeral, my mother sent to me, requesting my attendance in her own apartment. Traces of a deep-seated grief were fresh upon her fine countenance, but she received me with calm seriousness. Love for her living child had struggled with her sorrow for the dead; and she had chosen that hour to rouse me from the follies, from the sins of my past life. My mother was always a superior creature. I felt, as I listened to her, the real dignity of a Christian matron's character. She won me by the truth, the affection, the gentleness of her words. She spoke plainly of my degrading conduct, but she did not upbraid me. She set forth the new duties which I was called upon to perform. She said, 'I know you will not trifle with those duties. You are not your own, my son; you must not live to yourself; you profess the name of a Christian,-you can hold no higher profession. God hath said to each of us, My son, give me thine heart.' Have you given your heart and its desires to God? Can you be that pitiful creature —a half Christian ? I have spoken thus, because I know that if you have clear ideas of your first duties, and do strive to perform them, then will your relative duties be no longer lightly regarded. Oh, my son, God knows what I feel in speaking to you thus in my heaviest hour of affliction, and I can only speak as a feeble and perplexed woman. I know not how to counsel you, but I do beseech you to think for yourself, and to pray earnestly to God for his wisdom and guidance.' Before I left my mother's presence, she spoke to me also on my master passion-anger, mad ungovernable rage. She told me that even in the early years of my childhood, she had trembled at my anger; she confessed that she had dreaded to hear while I was absent, that it had plunged me into some horrid crime. She knew not how just her fears had been; for had not my father's death recalled me to England, I should probably have been the murderer of that thoughtless stripling who had unknowingly provoked me, aud whom I was about to challenge to fight on the morning I left Versailles. My mother did not speak to me in vain. I determined to turn at once from my former ways, to regulate my conduct by the high and holy principles of the religion I professed, and to reside on my own estate in habits of manly and domestic simplicity. About three years after I had succeeded to the titles and possessions of my forefathers, I became the husband of Lady Jane N, and I thought myself truly happy. Two years passed away, and every day endeared my sweet wife to my heart; but I was not quite happy. We had no child; I had but one wish; one blessing seemed alone denied the birth of a son. My thoughts, in all their wanderings, reverted to one hope-the birth of a son-an heir to the name, the rank, the estates of my family. When I knelt before God, I forgot to pray that he would teach me what to pray for; I did not entreat that his wisdom would direct me how to use what his goodness gave. No, I prayed as for my life, I prayed without ceasing, but I chose the blessing. I prayed for a son-my prayers were at last granted, a son was born to us-a beautiful healthy boy. I thought myself perfectly happy. My delight was more than ever to live in the pleasant retirement of my own home, so that year after year passed away, and only settled me down more entirely in the habits of domestic life. My boy grew up to be a tall and healthy lad; his intellect was far beyond his years; and I loved to make him my companion, as much from the charming freshness of his thoughts, as from the warmth of my attachment towards the child. He was not without the faults which all children possess, which are rooted deep in human nature; but in all his faults, in his deceit (and what child is not taught deceit by his own heart?) there was a charming awkwardness, an absence of all worldly trick, which appeared then very new to me. I used all my efforts to prevent vice from becoming habitual to him; I strove to teach him the government of himself, by referring not only every action, but every thought, to one high and holy principle of thinking and acting-to God; and I strove to build up consistent habits on the foundation of holy principle. I was so anxious about my son that I did not dare to treat his faults with a foolish indulgence. I taught him to know that I could punish, and that I would be obeyed; yet he lived with me, I think, in all confidence of speech and action, and seemed never so happy as when he sat at my feet, and asked me, in the eagerness of his happy fancies, more questions than I could answer. I cannot go on speaking thus of those joyous times which are gone for ever-I will turn to a darker subject-to myself. While I gave up my time, my thoughts, my soul's best energies to my child, I neglected myself, the improvement of my own heart and its dispositions. My own natural faults had been suffered by me to grow almost unchecked, while I had been watchful over the heart of my child. Above all, the natural infirmity of my character-anger, violent outrageous anger, was at times the master, the tyrant of my soul. Too frequently had I corrected my child for the fault which he inherited from me; but how had I done so ?-when passionately angry myself, I had punished my boy for want of temper. Could it be expected that Maurice would profit by my instructions, when my example too often belied my words ? But I will pass on at once to my guilt. The Countess, my mother, had given to Maurice a beautiful Arabian horse. I loved to encourage the boy in all manly exercises. While a mere child he rode with a grace which I have seldom seen surpassed by the best horsemen. My boy loved his Araba courser, as all noble-spirited boys love a favourite horse. He loved to dress, and to feed, and to caress the beautiful creature; and Selim knew his small gentle hand, and would arch his sleek and shining neck when the boy drew nigh, and turn his dark lustrous eye with a look like that of a pleased recognition on him when his master spoke. My child was about eleven years old at the time I must now speak of. He usually passed many hours of the morning in the library with me. It was on the 17th of June, a lovely spring morning. Maurice had been very restless and inattentive to his books. The sunbeams dazzled his eyes, and the fresh wind fluttered among the pages before him. The boy removed his books, and sat down at a table far from the open window. I turned round an hour after, from the perusal of a volume which had abstracted all my thoughts. The weather was very hot, and the poor child had fallen fast asleep. He started up at once when I spoke. I asked him if he could say his lesson ? He replied, "Yes,' and brought the book instantly; but he scarcely knew a word, and he seemed careless, and even indifferent. I blamed him, and he replied petulantly. I had given back the book to him, when a servant entered, and told me that a person was waiting my presence below. I desired the boy, somewhat with an angry tone, not to stir from the room till I returned, and then to let me hear him say his lesson perfectly. He promised to obey me. There is a small closet opening from the library; the window of this closet overlooks the stable. Probably the dear child obeyed me in learning perfectly his lesson; but I was detained long; and he went to the closet in which I had allowed him to keep the books belonging to himself. A bow and arrows which I had lately given him were there; perhaps the boy could not resist looking on them; they were lying on the floor when I entered after wards. From that closet Maurice heard the sound of a whip-he heard quick and brutal strokes falling heavily. Springing up, he ran to the window; beneath he saw one of the grooms beating, with savage cruelty, his beautiful and favourite little courser. The animal seemed almost maddened with the blows; and the child called out loudly to bid the man desist. At first the groom scarcely heeded him, and then smiling coldly on the indignant boy, told him that the beating was necessary, and that so young a gentleman could not understand how a horse should be managed. In vain did my child command the brutal fellow to stop. The man pretended not to hear him, and led the spirited creature further away from the windows. Instantly the boy rushed from the room, and in a few moments was in the yard below. I entered the library shortly after my son had left it. The person who had detained me brought news which had much disconcerted, nay displeased me. I was in a very ill humour when I returned to the room where I had left Maurice; I looked vainly for him, and was very angry to perceive that my request had been disobeyed; the closet door was open; I sought him there. While I wondered at his absence, II declared my guilt; my wife drew me towards her; and heard his voice loud in anger. For some moments I gazed from the window in silence. Beneath stood the boy, holding with one hand the reins of his courser, who trembled all over, his fine coat and slender legs recking and streaming with sweat; in his other hand there was a horsewhip, with which the enraged boy was lashing the brutal groom. In a voice of loud anger, I called out. The child looked up; and the man, who had before stood with his arms folded, with a smile of calm insolence on his face, now spoke with pretended mildness, more provoking to the child, but which then convinced me that Maurice was in fault. He spoke, but I silenced him, and commanded him to come up to me instantly. He came instantly, and stood before me yet panting with emotion, his face all flushed, and his eyes sparkling with passion. Again he would have spoken, but I would not hear. 'Tell me, sir,' I cried; ' answer me one question, are you right or wrong?' Right,' the boy replied proudly. He argued with me-my fury burst out. Alas, I knew not what I did! but I snatched the whip from his hand-I raised the heavy handle-I meant not to strike where I did. The blow fell with horrid force on his fair head. There was iron on the handle, and my child, my only child, dropt lifeless at my feet. Ere he fell, I was deadly cold, and the murderous weapon dropt away from my hand. Stiffened with horror, I stood over him speechless, and rooted awhile to the spot. At last the yells of my despair brought others to me-the wretched groom was the first who came. I saw no more, but fell into a fit beside my lifeless child. When I awoke to a sense of what passed around me, I saw the sweet countenance of my wife bent over me with an expression of most anxious tenderness. She was wiping away the tears from her eyes, and a faint smile broke into her face as she perceived my returning sense. I caught hold of her arm with a strong grasp, and lifted up my head; but my eyes looked for the body of my child-it was not there. Where is it ?' I cried; where is the body of my murdered boy ?' When I spoke the word' murdered,' my wife shrieked-I was rushing out ---she stopped me, and said, ' He is not dead—he is alive.' My heart melted within me, and tears filled my eyes. My wife led me to the chamber where they had laid my child. He was alive, if such a state could be called life. Still his eyelids were closed; still his cheeks, even his lips, were of a glassy whiteness; still his limbs were cold and motionless. They had undressed him, and my mother sat in silent grief beside his bed. When I came near, she uncovered his fair chest, and placed my hand over his heart; I felt a thick and languid beating there, but the pulse of his wrists and temples was scarcely perceptible. My mother spoke to me. We have examined the poor child,' she said, but find no wound, no bruise, no marks of violence. Whence is this dreadful stupor ? No one can answer me.' 'I can answer you,' I said; no one can answer but myself. I am the murderer of the child. In my hellish rage I struck his blessed head.' I did not see the face of my wife or my mother-as I spoke I hung my head; but I felt my wife's hand drop from me; I heard my mother's low heart-breaking groan. I looked up, and saw my wife. She stood before me like a marble figure, rather than a creature of life; yet her eyes were fixed on me, and her soul seemed to look out in their gaze. Oh, my husband,' she cried out at length, 'I see plainly in your face what you suffer. Blessed God, have mercy, have mercy on him! he suffers more than we all. His punishment is greater than he can bear!' She flung her arms round my neck; she strove to press me nearer to her bosom; but I would have withdrawn myself from her embrace. Oh, do not shame me thus,' I cried; remember, you must remember, that you are a mother.' I cannot forget that I am a wife, my husband,' she replied, weeping. No, no, I feel for you, and I must feel with you in every sorrow. How do I feel with you now, in this overwhelming affliction.' My mother had fallen on her knees when rising up, she looked me in the face. Henry,' she said, in a faint deep voice, I have been praying for you-for us all. My son, look not thus from me.' As she was speaking, the surgeon of my household, who had been absent when they first sent for him, entered the chamber. My kind mother turned from me, and went at once with him to the bedside of the child. I perceived her intention to prevent my encountering the surgeon. She would have concealed, at least for a while, her son's disgrace; but I felt my horrid guilt too deeply to care about shame. Yet I could not choose but groan within me, to perceive the good man's stare, his revolting shudder, while I described minutely the particulars of my conduct towards my poor boy. I stood beside him as be examined the head of my child. I saw him cut away the rich curls, and he pointed out to me a slight swelling beneath them; but in vain did he strive to recover the lifeless form; his efforts were, as those of my wife and mother had been, totally without success. For five days I sat by the bedside of my son, who remained, at first, still in that death-like stupor, but gradually a faint life-like animation stole over him; so gradually indeed, that he opened not his eyes till the evening of the fourth day, and even then he knew us not, and noticed nothing. Oh, few can imagine what my feelings were! How my first faint hopes lived, and died, and lived again, as the beating of his heart became more full and strong; as he first moved his small hand, which I held in mine, and at last stretched out his limbs. After he had unclosed his eyes, he breathed with the soft and regular respiration of a healthy person, and then slept for many hours. It was about noon on the fifth day that he awoke from that sleep. The sun had shone so full into the room that I partly closed the shutters to shade his face. Some rays of sunshine pierced through the crevices of the shutter, and played upon the coverlid of his bed. My child's face was turned towards me, and I watched eagerly for the first gleam of expression there. He locked up, and then around him without moving his head. My heart grew sick within me, as I beheld the smile which played over his face. He perceived the dancing sunbeam, and put his fingers softly into the streak of light, and took them away, and smiled again. I spoke to him, and took his hand in my own; but he had lost all memory of me, and saw nothing in my face to make him smile. He looked down on my trembling hand, and played with my fingers; but when he saw the ring which I wore, he played with that, while the same idiot smile came back to his vacant countenance. My mother now led me from the room. I no longer refused to go. I felt that it was fit that I should com mune with my own heart, and in my chamber, and be still.'-They judged rightly in leaving me to perfect solitude. The calm of my misery was a change like happiness to me. A deadness of every faculty, of all thought and feeling, fell on me like repose.-When Jane came to me I had no thought to perceive her presence. She took my hands tenderly within hers, and sat down beside me on the floor. She lifted up my head from the boards, and supported it on her knees. I believe she spoke to me many times without my replying. At last I heard her, and rose up at her entreaties. You are ill, your hands are burning, my beloved,' she said. Go to bed, I beseech you. You need rest.' I did as she told me. She thought I slept that night, but the lids seemed tightened and drawn back from my burning eyeballs. All the next day I lay in the same hot and motionless state-I cannot call it repose. For days I did not rise. I allowed myself to sink under the weight of my despair. I began to give up every idea of exertion. My mother, one morning, came to my chamber. She sat down by my bedside, and spoke to me. I did not, could not, care to notice her who spoke to me. My mother rose, and walked round to the other side of the bed, towards which my face was turned. There she stood and spoke again solemnly. Henry,' she said, I command you to rise. Dare you to disobey your mother? No more of this unmanly weakness. I must not speak in vain. I have not needed to command before. My son, be yourself. Think of all the claims which this life has upon you; or rather, think of the first high claim of Heaven, and let that teach you to think of other duties, and to perform them! Search your own heart. Probe it deeply. Shrink not. Know your real situation in all its bearings. Changed as it is, face it like a man; and seek the grace of God to support you. I speak the plain truth to you. Your child is an idiot. You must answer to God for your crime. You will be execrated by mankind, for your hand struck the mind's life from him. These are harsh words, but you can bear them better than your own confused and agonized thoughts. Rise up and meet your trial. Tell me simply, that you obey me. I will believe you, for you never yet have broken your word to me.' I replied immediately, rising up and saying, 'I do promise to obey you. Within this hour I will meet you, determined to know my duties, and to perform them by the help of God.' Oh! with what a look did my noble mother regard me, as I spoke. God strengthen you, and bless you,' she said; I cannot now trust myself to say more.' Her voice was feeble and trembling now, her lip quivered, and a bright flush spread over her thin pale cheek; she bent down over me and kissed my forehead, and then departed. Within an hour from the time when my mother left me, I went forth from my chamber, with a firm step, determined again to enter upon the performance of my long-neglected duties. I had descended the last step of the grand staircase, when I heard a laugh in the hall beyond. I knew there was but one who could then laugh so wildly; and too well I knew the sound of the voice which broke out in tones of wild merriment ere the laugh ceased. For some moments my resolution forsook me. I caught hold of the ballustrade to support my trembling limbs, and repressed, with a violent effort, the groans which I felt bursting from my heart-I recovered myself, and walked into the hall. In the western oriel window, which is opposite the doors by which I entered, sat my reverend mother; she lifted up her face from the large volume which lay on her knees, as my step sounded near: she smiled upon me, and looked down again without speaking. I passed on, but stopped again to gaze on those who now met my sight. In the centre of the hall stood my wife, leaning her cheek on her hand. She gazed upon her son with a smile, but the tears all the while trickled down her face. Maurice was at her feet, the floor around him strewed over with playthings, the toys of his infancy, which he had for years thrown aside, but had discovered that very morning, and he turned from one to the other, as if he saw them for the first time, and looked upon them all as treasures. An expression of rapturous silliness played over the boy's features, but, alas! though nothing but a fearful childishness was on his face, all the child-like bloom and roundness of that face were gone. The boy now looked indeed older by many years. The smiles on his thin lips seemed to struggle vainly with languor and heaviness, his eyelids were half closed, his cheeks and lips colourless, his whole form wasted away. My wife came to me, and embraced me; but Maurice noticed me not for some minutes. He looked up at me then, and, rising from the ground, walked towards me. I dreaded that my mournful appearance would affright him, and I stood breathless with my fears. He surveyed me from head to foot, and came close to me, and looked up with pleased curiosity in my face, and then whistled as he walked back to his toys, whistled so loudly, that the shrill sound seenied to pierce through my brain. Aug. 15.-This day I have passed some hours with my poor boy. He is changed indeed. All his manliness of character is gone; he has become timid and feeble as a delicate girl. He shrinks from all exertion, he dislikes bodily exercise. The weather was so delightful this morning that I took Maurice out into the park; he gazed round upon the sky, and the trees, and the grass, as if he had never looked upon them before. The boy wandered on with me beyond the boundaries of the park into the forest; he made me sit down with him on the bank of a narrow brook, and there he amused himself with plucking the little flowers that grew about in the grass, and throwing them into the water. As we sat there, I heard afar off the sounds of huntsmen; soon after a young stag came bounding over the hill before us, and crossed the stream within twenty yards of the spot where we sat. The whole heart of the boy would once have leapt within him to follow in the boldest daring of the chase; but now he lifted up his head, and stared at the stag with a look of vacant astonishment. The whole hunt, with the full rush and cry of its noisy sport, came near. Up sprang the boy, all panting, and ghastly with terror. Make haste, make haste,' he cried out, as I rose; 'take me away.' He threw his arms round me, and I felt the violent beating of his heart as he clung to me. I would have hurried him away; but as the dogs and the huntsmen came up close to us the boy lost all power of moving. I felt him hang heavily on me, and, raising his face from my shoulder, I saw that he had fainted. I took him in my arms, and carried him along the banks of the stream till we were far from all sight and sound of the chase; and then I laid him on the grass, and bathed his face and hands with water. He recovered slowly, and lay for some minutes leaning his head upon my bosom, and weeping quietly; his tears relieved him, and he fell asleep; I raised him again in my arms, and carried him still asleep to his chamber. Aug. 19.-My poor injured child loves me. I cannot tell why, but for the last few days he has seemed happier with me than with any other person. He will even leave his mother to follow me. I feel as if my life were bound up in him; and yet to look on him is to me a penance, at times almost too dreadful to be borne. How he did sit and smile to-day among the books, for whose knowledge his fine ardent mind once thirsted! They are nothing to him now! He had been before amusing himself by watching the swallows which were flying and twittering about the windows; when, taking up a book, I tried to read. Maurice left the window, and sat down on the low seat where he had been used to learn his lessons. He placed a book on the desk before him, and pretended to read; he looked up, and our eyes met. Again he bent his head over the volume; I had a faint hope that he was really reading; and, passing softly across the room, I looked over his shoulder. The pages were turned upside down before him, and he smiled on me with his new, his idiot smile; he smiled so long, that I almost felt as if he wished to give a meaning to his look, and mock the anguish which wrung my heart. Aug. 20.-I had ordered the Arabian horse to be turned out, and this morning I took Maurice to the meadow where Selim was grazing. The little courser raised up its head as we approached, and, recognising its master, came towards us. Maurice had not noticed the horse be court, with which he had probably, at the time, been in secret communication. fore, but then he retreated fearfully, walking backwards. incurred the suspicion and indignation of the court, who The sagacious animal still advanced, and, turning quickly, surmised, and probably with justice, that he aspired to the boy fled from him; but the sportive creature still fol- the lieutenant-generalship or throne of the kingdom; lowed, cantering swiftly after him. Maurice shrieked and his conduct, on returning from his chateau, or from loudly, like a terrified girl. Groaning with the heaviness England, to which he had been banished under the disof my grief, I drove away the once favourite horse of my guise of an envoy, was certainly such as to confirm that poor idiot boy. opinion. The most turbulent spirits of the capital were Sunday, Aug. 30.-I have just returned from divine supposed to be in his service; the neediest of the populaservice in the chapel attached to my house. While the tion of Paris in his pay. He, it was supposed, had been chaplain was reading the psalms, Maurice walked softly the secret instigator of the violence displayed in the early down the aisle and entered my pew. He stood before me, stages of the revolution-the attack on the palace at Verwith his eyes fixed on my face. Whenever I raised my sailles, the overthrow of the Bastile. It was surmised, eyes, I met that fixed but vacant gaze. My heart melted indeed, that Mirabeau himself had been supported by his within me, and I felt tears rush into my eyes. His sweet vast ducal wealth; but whether the supposition were well but vacant look must often be present with me. It seemed or ill founded, certain it is, that, finding the duke irreto appeal to me, it seemed to ask for my prayers. Sin- solute and vacillating in disposition, he soon threw him ner as I am, I dared to think so. It must be to all an off with the contemptuous expression that the profligate affecting sight to see an idiot in the house of God. It idiot [or some coarser name] was not worth the trouble must be a rebuke to hardened hearts-to hearts too cold people gave themselves about him;' and shortly afterand careless to worship there-it must be a rebuke towards, as already narrated, entered the service of the know that one heart is not unwilling but unable to pray. Bitterly I felt this as I looked upon my child. He stood before me a rebuke to all the coldness and carelessness which had ever mingled with my prayers. His vacant features seemed to say, You have a mind whose powers are not confused; you have a heart to feel, to pray, to praise, and to bless God. The means of grace are daily given to you, the hopes of glory are daily visible to you.' Oh God! my child stood before me as a more awful rebuke as a rebuke sent from Thee. His vacant look seemed to say, 'Look upon the wreck which your dreadful passions have made. Think upon what I was. Think upon what I am!' With a broken heart I listened to the words of life; for while I listened, my poor idiot child leaned upon me, and seemed to listen too; when I bowed my head at the name of Jesus, the poor boy bowed his. They all knelt down; but just then, I was lost in the thoughtfulness of my despair; my son clasped my hand, and when I looked round, I perceived that we alone were standing in the midst of the congregation. He looked me earnestly in the face, and kneeling down, he tried to pull me to kneel beside him. He seemed to invite me to pray for him; I did fall on my knees to pray for him, and for myself; and I rose up, hoping that, for my Saviour's sake, my prayers were heard, and trusting that our Heavenly Father feedeth my helpless child with spiritual food that we know not of. THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. THE CONVENTION. In the ranks of the convention, however, another body of men were found of a far different temper the Girondists, who have acquired such a memorable name in history. This party was so called, because most of them proceeded from the department of the Garonne; and amongst them were comprised almost all that remained of eloquence, worth, and principle in France. In their ranks were seen the calm philosophy of Bailly, the profounder science of Condorcet, the eloquence of Vergniaud, and the wit of Louvet. Lavoisier, dear to chemistry; Petion, the republican mayor of Paris; and the tranquil Roland, ranked among them; while their counsels were supposed to be guided by the celebrated wife of the last-mentioned, who, when only eighteen years of age, wrote brilliant treatises on politics, and carried Plato instead of her breviary to church. All of them were able, but they were chiefly men of theory. More conversant with books than with men, with the dead than with the living-deeply imbued with the spirit of ancient Greece and Rome-they attempted to ingraft the principles of these old republics upon modern institutions; but they were baffled in the design. In the affairs of public life, they had the mortification to find themselves subdued by men far their inferiors in ability, but superior to them as tacticians; and, in the struggle which ensued, most of them died a violent death. The venerable Bailly, after being dragged, amidst snow and sleet, through the capital, was executed, in derision, on a dunghill, though he protested to the last that it was 'with cold and not with fear he trembled;' Vergniand was condemned after a most brilliant speech; and Condorcet was scarcely permitted to raise his voice before it was silenced for ever. Louvet alone, of all the eminent members of the party, survived the advent of better times; but his sufferings amidst the rocks and forests of his native district were so terrific, that death must have been welcomed as a relief. Lavoisier in vain solicited a brief respite from the guillotine, to enable him to complete some chemical experiment in which he was engaged; Petion, with a companion, was found dead in a field, half devoured by wolves; and Roland, like an old Roman-the configuration of whose mind his own much resembled-fell upon his sword, on learning the death of his heroic wife, who expired upon the guillotine exclaiming, 'Oh, liberty, what crimes are perpetrated in thy name!' THIS celebrated body, which has acquired a name so memorable in the annals of crime, soon succeeded the constituent assembly, as its predecessor was called, in consequence of having originally been summoned to frame a constitution for the country, though it terminated its career by abolishing almost every form of constitutional government. What it left undone, the convention quickly accomplished. This new assembly consisted of some of the most daring democrats of France, along with all the choicest republican members of the first or national assembly; for, in conformity with the injudicious act which rendered the members of the first assembly ineligible for the second, the members of the latter were in their turn excluded from the convention. If their persons were excluded, however, their spirit remained. Robespierre, Danton, and Marat, who had scarcely dared to raise their voices in the first assembly before Mira- At first they were so strong, and so confident in their beau's commanding presence, now guided the legislators, strength, that one of their earliest attempts was to destroy and reigned uncontrolled. Here, too, the polished and Marat and Robespierre. The former of these, a miseprofligate, but undecided, vague, over-abused, and over-rable, cynical, bloodthirsty, but disinterested maniac, who estimated Duke of Orleans, the father of the present King of the French, found a seat, under the ludicrous but revolutionary title of Philip Equality-the designation for which he had chosen to abjure all his ancestral titles. At the outbreak of the revolution he had had formerly been employed in the stables of the Count D'Artois, had, in consequence of some real or imagined insult, adopted the revolutionary cause with a ferocity that startled even the boldest of his associates. He had offered to complete the revolution with the assistance of a hun |