over-knee military boots, which may be brushed (and, I hope, kept soft with an underhand suspicion of oil), but are not permitted to be blackened or varnished; Day and Martin with their soot-pots forbidden to approach. The man is not of godlike physiognomy, any more than of imposing stature or costume; close-shut mouth with thin lips, prominent jaws and nose, receding brow, by no means of Olympian height; head, however, is of long form, and has superlative gray eyes in it. Not what is called a beautiful man; nor yet, by all appearance, what is called a happy. On the contrary, the face bears evidence of many sorrows, as they are termed, of much hard labour done in this world; and seems to anticipate nothing but more still coming. Quiet stoicism, capable enough of what joy there were, but not expecting any worth mention; great unconscious and some conscious pride, well tempered with a cheery mockery of humour, are written on that old face, which carries its chin well forward, in spite of the slight stoop about the neck; snuffy nose, rather flung into the air, under its old cocked-hat, like an old snuffy lion on the watch; and such a pair of eyes as no man, or lion, or lynx of that century bore elsewhere, according to all the testimony we have. "Those eyes," says Mirabeau, "which, at the bidding of his great soul, fascinated you with seduction or with terror" (portaient au gré de son âme héroïque, la séduction ou la terreur). Most excellent, potent, brilliant eyes, swift-darting as the stars, steadfast as the sun; gray, we said, of the azure-gray colour; large enough, not of glaring size; the habitual expression of them vigilance and penetrating sense, rapidity resting on depth. Which is an excellent combination; and gives us the notion of a lambent outer radiance springing from some great inner sea of light and fire in the man. The voice, if he speak to you, is of similar physiognomy: clear, melodious, and sonorous; all tones are in it, from that of ingenuous inquiry, graceful sociality, light-flowing banter (rather prickly for most part), up to definite word of command, up to desolating word of rebuke and reprobation: a voice "the clearest and most agreeable in conversation I ever heard," says witty Dr. Moore. "He speaks a great deal," continues the doctor; yet those who hear him regret that he does not speak a good deal more. His observations are always lively, very often just; and few men possess the talent of repartee in greater perfection" The French Revolution may be said to have, for about half a century, quite submerged Friedrich, abolished him from the memories of men; and now on coming to light again, he is found defaced under strange mud-incrustations, and the eyes of mankind look at him from a singularly changed, what we must call oblique and perverse point of vision. This is one of the difficulties in dealing with his history-especially if you happen to believe both in the French Revolution and in him; that is to say, both that Real Kingship is eternally indispensable, and also that the Destruction of Sham Kingship (a frightful process) is occasionally so. On the breaking out of that formidable Explosion and Suicide of his Century, Friedrich sank into comparative obscurity; eclipsed amid the ruins of that universal earthquake, the very dust of which darkened all the air, and made of day a disastrous midnight. Black midnight, broken only by the blaze of conflagrations ; wherein, to our terrified imaginations, were seen, not men, French and other, but ghastly portents, stalking wrathful, and shapes of avenging gods. It must be owned the figure of Napoleon was titanic especially to the generation that looked on him, and that waited shuddering to be devoured by him. In general, in that French Revolution, all was on a huge scale; if not greater than anything in human experience, at least more grandiose. All was recorded in bulletins, too, addressed to the shilling-gallery; and there were fellows on the stage with such a breadth of sabre, extent of whiskerage, strength of windpipe, and command of men and gunpowder, as had never been seen before. How they bellowed, stalked, and flourished about; counterfeiting Jove's thunder to an amazing degree! Terrific Drawcansir figures, of enormous whiskerage, unlimited command of gunpowder; not without suffi cient ferocity, and even a certain heroism, stage-heroism in them; compared with whom, to the shilling-gallery, and frightened excited theatre at large, it seemed as if there had been no generals or sovereigns before; as if Friedrich, Gustavus, Cromwell, William Conqueror, and Alexander the Great were not worth speaking of henceforth. THOMAS CARLYLE. AWAIT THE ISSUE. In this God's world, with its wild whirling eddies and mad foam oceans, where men and nations perish as if without law, and judgment for an unjust thing is sternly delayed, dost thou think that there is therefore no justice? It is what the fool hath said in his heart. It is what the wise, in all times, were wise because they denied, and knew for ever not to be. I tell thee again, there is nothing else but justice. One strong thing I find here below: the just thing, the true thing. My friend, if thou hadst all the artillery of Woolwich trundling at thy back in support of an unjust thing; and infinite bonfires visibly waiting ahead of thee, to blaze centuries long for thy victory on behalf of it, I would advise thee to call halt, to fling down thy baton, and say, "In God's name, No!" Thy" success?" Poor devil, what will thy success amount to? If the thing is unjust, thou hast not succeeded; no, not though bonfires blazed from north to south, and bells rang, and editors wrote leading articles, and the just things lay trampled out of sight, to all mortal eyes an abolished and annihilated thing. Success? In a few years thou wilt be dead and dark -all cold, eyeless, deaf; no blaze of bonfires, ding-dong of bells, or leading articles visible or audible to thee again at all for ever. What kind of success is that? It is true all goes by approximation in this world; with any not insupportable approximation we must be patient. There is a noble Conservatism as well as an ignoble. Would to Heaven, for the sake of Conservatism itself, the noble alone were left, and the ignoble, by some kind severe hand, were ruthlessly lopped away, forbidden any more to show itself! For it is the right and noble alone that will have victory in this struggle; the rest is wholly an obstruction, a postponement and fearful imperilment of the victory. Towards an eternal centre of right and nobleness, and of that only, is all this confusion tending. We already know whither it is tending; what will have victory, what will have none! The Heaviest will reach the centre. The Heaviest, sinking through complex fluctuating media and vortices, has its deflections, its obstructions, nay, at times its resiliences, its reboundings; whereupon some blockhead shall be heard jubilating: "See, your Heaviest ascends! but at all moments it is moving centreward, fast as is convenient for it; sinking, sinking; and, by VOL. III. laws older than the world, old as the Maker's first plan of the world, it has to arrive there. Await the issue. In all battles, if you await the issue, each fighter has prospered according to his right. His right and his might, at the close of the account, were one and the same. He has fought with all his might, and in exact proportion to all his right he has prevailed. His very death is no victory over him. He dies, indeed; but his work lives, very truly lives. A heroic Wallace, quartered on the scaffold, cannot hinder that his Scotland become, one day, a part of England; but he does hinder that it become, on tyrannous unfair terms, a part of it; commands still, as with a god's voice, from his old Valhalla and Temple of the Brave, that there be a just, real union, as of brother and brother, not a false and merely semblant one as of slave and master. If the union with England be in fact one of Scotland's chief blessings, we thank Wallace withal that it was not the chief curse. Scotland is not Ireland; no, because brave men rose there, and said, Behold, ye must not tread us down like slaves; and ye shall not, and cannot!" Fight on, thou brave, true heart, and falter not, through dark fortune and through bright. The cause thou fightest for, so far as it is true, no further, yet precisely so far, is very sure of victory. The falsehood alone of it will be conquered, will be abolished, as it ought to be; but the truth of it is part of Nature's own laws, co-operates with the world's eternal tendencies, and cannot be conquered. THOMAS CARLYLE. IN THE DOWNHILL OF LIFE. [JOHN COLLINS, of whom we can learn nothing except that he was one of the proprietors of the Birmingham Daily Chronicle, and died in 1808.] In the downhill of life, when I find I'm declining, Than a snug elbow-chair can afford for reclining, And a cot that o'erlooks the wide sea; And blithe as the lark that each day hails the dawn, With a porch at my door, both for shelter and shade too, As the sunshine or rain may prevail; And a small spot of ground for the use of the spade too, With a barn for the use of the flail: 61 A cow for my dairy, a dog for my game, And a purse when a friend wants to borrow; I'll envy no nabob his riches or fame, Nor what honors await him to-morrow. From the bleak northern blast may my cot be completely Secured by a neighbouring hill; And at night may repose steal upon me more sweetly And while peace and plenty I find at my board, And when I at last must throw off this frail covering On the brink of the grave I'll not seek to keep hovering, Nor my thread wish to spin o'er again: But my face in the glass I'll serenely survey, And with smiles count each wrinkle and furrow; And this old worn-out stuff which is threadbare to-day, May become everlasting to-morrow. LINES WRITTEN IN THE CHURCH YARD OF RICHMOND, YORKSHIRE. [HERBERT KNOWLES, a native of Canterbury (1798– 1817), produced, when a youth of eighteen, the following fine religious stanzas, which, being published in an article by Southey in the Quarterly Review, soon obtained general circulation and celebrity: they have much of the steady faith and devotional earnestness of Cowper.] Lord, it is good for us to be here: if thou wilt, let us make here three tabernacles; one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias.-Matthew, xvii. 4. Methinks it is good to be here, If thou wilt, let us build-but for whom? But the shadows of eve that encompass with gloom Shall we build to Ambition ? Ah no! Affrighted, he shrinketh away; For see, they would pin him below In a small narrow cave, and, begirt with cold clay, To Beauty? Ah no! she forgets Nor knows the foul worm that he frets The skin which but yesterday fools could adore, Shall we build to the purple of Pride, And here 's neither dress nor adornments allowed, But the long winding-sheet and the fringe of the shroud. To Riches? Alas! 'tis in vain ; Who hid, in their turns have been hid; The treasures are squandered again; And here in the grave are all metals forbid But the tinsel that shines on the dark coffin-lid. To the pleasures which Mirth can afford, The revel, the laugh, and the jeer? Ah! here is a plentiful board! But the guests are all mute as their pitiful cheer, And none but the worm is a reveller here. Shall we build to Affection and Love? Friends, brothers, and sisters are laid side by side, Unto Sorrow?-the dead cannot grieve; Not a sob, not a sigh meets mine ear, Which Compassion itself could relieve. Ah, sweetly they slumber, nor love, hope, or fear; Peace! peace is the watchword, the only one here. Unto Death, to whom monarchs must bow? Ah no! for his empire is known, And here there are trophies enow! Beneath the cold dead, and around the dark stone, The first tabernacle to Hope we will build, The second to Faith, which insures it fulfilled; And the third to the Lamb of the great sacrifice, Who bequeathed us them both when He rose to the skies. LETTER TO MONSIEUR DE COULANGES. [MARIE DE RABUTIN-CHANTAL, Marquise de Strigné, was born in 1626, in Paris, and died in 1696. She received a fine education, married a nobleman at eighteen, and was greatly admired in society for her wit and beauty. The Duchesses de Longueville and Chevreuse were among her intimate friends. Her chief distinction rests upon her letters to her daughter, Madame de Grignan,—not intended for publication,—many of which are admirable specimens of vivacious and piquant epistolary style.] PARIS, Monday, Dec. 15, 1670. I am going to tell you a thing, the most astonishing, the most surprising, the most marvellous, the most miraculous, the most magnificent, the most confounding, the most unheard-of, the most singular, the most extraordinary, the most incredible, the most unforeseen, the greatest, the least, the rarest, the most common, the most public, the most 66 private till to-day, the most brilliant, the DESCRIPTION OF A FUNERAL PARIS, Friday, May 6, 1672. My Dear Child:-I must return to narration, it is a folly I can never resist. Prepare, therefore, for a description. I was yesterday at a service performed in honou of the Chancellor Segnier at the Oratory. Painting, sculpture, music, rhetoric, in a word, the four liberal arts, were at the expense of it. Nothing could exceed the beauty of the decorations; they were finely imagined, and designed by Le Brun. The mausoleum reached to the top of the dome, adorned with a thousand lamps, and a variety of figures characteristic of him in whose honour it was erected. Beneath were four figures of Death, bearing the marks of his several dignities, as having taken away his honours with his life. One of them held his helmet, another his ducal coronet, another the ensigns of his order, another his chancellor's mace. The four sister arts, painting, music, eloquence, and sculpture were represented in deep distress, bewailing the loss of their protector. The first representation was supported by the four virtues, fortitude, temperance, justice, and religion. Above these, four angels, or genii, received the soul of the deceased, and seemed pruning their purple wings to bear their precious charge to heaven. The mausoleum was adorned with a variety of little seraphs, who supported an illuminated shrine, which was fixed to the top of the cupola. Nothing so magnificent or so well imagined was ever seen; it is Le Brun's Indeed, madam, it is not. "It is Mademoiselle de Retz, then." No, nor she either; you are extremely provincial. "Lord bless me," say you, "what stupid wretches we are! it is Mademoiselle de Colbert all the while.' Nay, now you are still further from the mark. "Why, then, it must certainly be Mademoiselle de Crequy." You have it not yet. Well, I find I must tell you at last. He is to be married next Sunday at the Louvre, with the king's leave, to Mademoiselle-Mademoiselle de Mademoiselle -guess, pray guess her name; he is to be married to Mademoiselle, the great Made-master-piece. moiselle; Mademoiselle, daughter to the late Monsieur; Mademoiselle, grand-daughter of Henry the IVth; Mademoiselle d'Eu, Mademoiselle de Dombes, Mademoiselle de Montpensier, Mademoiselle d'Orleans, Mademoiselle, the king's cousin-german,-Mademoiselle, destined to the throne,-Mademoiselle, the only match in France that was worthy of Monsieur. What glorious matter for talk! If you should burst forth like a bedlamite, say we have told you a lie, that it is false, that we are making a jest of you, and that a pretty jest it is, without wit or invention; in short, if you abuse us, we shall think you are quite in the right; for we have done just the same things ourselves. Farewell, you will find by the letters you receive this post, whether we tell you truth or not. The whole church was adorned with pictures, devices, and emblems, which all bore some relation to the life, or office, of the chancellor; and some of his noblest actions were represented in painting. Madame de Verneuil offered to purchase all the decoration at a great price; but it was unanimously resolved by those who had contributed to it, to adorn a gallery with it, and to consecrate it as an everlasting monument of their gratitude and magnificence. The assembly was grand and numerous, but without confusion. I sat next to Monsieur de Tulle, Madame Colbert and the Duke of Monmouth, who is as handsome as when we saw him at the palais royal. (Let me tell you in a parenthesis, that he is going to the army to join the king.) A young father of the Oratory came to speak the funeral oration. I de sired Monsieur de Tulle to bid him come down, and to mount the pulpit in his place; since nothing could sustain the beauty of the spectacle, and the excellence of the music, but the force of his eloquence. My child, this young man trembled when he began, and we all trembled for him. Our ears were at first struck with a provincial accent; he is of Marseilles, and called Lené. But as he recovered from his confusion, he became so brilliant; established himself so well; gave so just a measure of praise to the deceased; touched with so much address and delicacy all the passages in his life where delicacy was required; placed in so true a light all that was most worthy of admiration; employed all the charms of expression, all the masterly strokes of eloquence, with so much propriety and so much grace, that every one present, without exception, burst into applause, charmed with so perfect, so finished a performance. He is twenty-eight years of age, the intimate friend of M. de Tulle, who accompanied him when he left the assembly. We were for naming him the Chevalier Mascaron, and I think he will even surpass his friend. As for the music, it was fine beyond all description. Baptiste exerted himself to the utmost, and was as sisted by all the king's musicians. There was an addition made to that fine Miserere; and there was a Libera, which filled the eyes of the whole assembly with tears; I do not think the music in heaven could exceed it. There were several prelates present. I desired Guitaut to look for the good Bishop of Marseilles, but we could not see him. I whispered him, that if it had been the funeral oration of any person living, to whom he might have made his court by it, he would not have failed to have been there. This little pleasantry made us laugh, in spite of the solemnity of the ceremony. My dear child, what a strange letter is this? I fancy I have almost lost my senses! What is this long account to you? To tell the truth, I have satisfied my love of description. MADAME DE SÉVIGNE. LETTER TO MADAME DE GRIGNAN. LAMBESC, Tuesday morning, 10 o'clock, 1672. When we reckon without Providence, we must frequently reckon twice. I was dressed from head to foot by eight o'clock; I had drank my coffee, heard mass, taken leave of everybody, the mules were loaded, and the tinkling of their bells gave me notice that it was time to mount my litter; my room was full of people, entreating me not to think of setting out on account of the heavy rain which had fallen incessantly for several days, and was then pouring more violently than ever; but I resisted all their arguments, resolving to abide by the promise I made you in my letter of yesterday, of being with you by Thursday, at farthest: at that very instant, in came M. de Grignan in his night-gown and slippers, and talked to me very gravely of the rashness of such an undertaking, saying that the muleteer would not be able to follow the litter; that my mules would fall into some ditch on the road; that my people would be so wet and fatigued, that they would not be able to lend me assistance; so that I changed my mind in a moment, and yielded to his sage remonstrances and now, my dear child, the trunks are brought back, the mules are unharnessed, the footmen and maids are drying themselves by the fire, for they were wet through in only crossing the courtyard; and I dispatch you this messenger, knowing your goodness will make you uneasy, and wishing to lessen my own uneasiness, being very anxious about your health; for this man will either bring me word here, or meet one on the road. In short, my dear, he will be with you at Grignan on Thursday instead of me; and I shall set out the first moment it pleases God and M. de Grignan, who is become absolute master of me, and well knows my reasons for wishing so much to be at Grignan. I should be glad if this affair could be kept a secret from M. de la Garde, for he will take a most unmerciful pleasure in finding everything turn out as he foretold; but let him take care, and not grow vain upon this pretended gift of prophecy. MADAME DE SEVIGNÉ DURANDARTE AND BELERMA. [MATTHEW GREGORY LEWIS, author of "The Monk," was born in London in the year 1775, died 1816. His father was deputy-secretary in the War-office. When a child, Lewis had pored over" Glanville on Witches," and other books on diablerie; and in Germany he found abundant food of the same description. Romance and the drama were his favourite studies; and while resi |