But in another point, he was subjected to disappointment and mortification. After the abdication of Casimir, king of Poland, he was one of the most prominent candidates for that elective crown. Louis, when he heard of it, desired Condé to give up his plan of ambition as inconsistent with the interests of France; and as a request from him was the same with a command, the prince saw the glittering prize escaping for ever from his hands. In addition to this humiliation, he was harassed with debts, which, in years of neglect, had risen to the amount of nine million livres. Such was the confusion of his affairs, that the ordinary expenses of his family had not been paid for six years. His antechamber was filled with creditors, through whom, when he went abroad, he travelled as fast as the gout would let him, saying, as he passed, that he would give orders that they should be paid. But Gourville, a faithful friend, to whom he intrusted the management of his affairs, on looking into the claims, was able to pay the nine million with fifteen hundred thousand, to the perfect satisfaction of those who brought in their demands. This faithful and distinguished service brought much jealous enmity on Gourville; and among others, the Bishop of Autun reported to Condé that he had boasted of the manner in which he governed his master; to which the prince only replied, that, if so, it was true, and he really governed him well.

Lord Mahon has succeeded in throwing light upon an unaccountable passage in the domestic history of Condé. Mademoiselle says, that a young man, who was in the service of the princess, came into her chamber one day to ask for money, which he did in such a manner as to create alarm. Another young gentleman who was present took up a quarrel in resentment at his want of respect for the princess, and in the scuffle which ensued, the princess, who tried to separate them, received a sword-cut in her breast. This seems a very

natural explanation; but some base minds represented it as an affray between two of her favorites, who were jealous of each other; a version which was favored by Condé himself, who, not enjoying the presence of the person he had so much injured, was glad to seize some pretext for banishing her to Châteauroux, a measure to which he was urged on by the advice of her unnatural son. It is needless to say on which side the presumptive evidence inclines. She had always been exemplary, excellent, and far above reproach; he had

borne himself toward her with the cold malignity of an evil spirit; and surely it is easier to believe that he did her foul wrong, as usual, than to credit the fact that she had become corrupt and disloyal after more than thirty faithful years. We know, too, that he was earnestly bent on finding some pretext for a separation; and it was because he hoped that some prejudice might be excited against her by perverting the truth of this incident, that he proceeded in such a manner as to give the impression that she was guilty.

Lord Mahon, who is always diligent in his researches, has succeeded in bringing up an authority from an unexpected quarter, from the state-paper office in London. The English court at that time kept a secret correspondent in Paris, who gave information of all that was passing, and sent home a report of this transaction as part of the news of the day. He states, that the footman in question went to the princess in a state of excitement, and asked for money, which she refused him because he made a bad use of it. Infuriated by her censure, he struck her with his sword, and immediately fled. One of the pages, hearing her groans, came to her relief and saved her from bleeding to death. Finding that the criminal was arrested, and would certainly be put to death, the generous princess, from a desire to save his life, said that the wound was received in her attempt to part him from one of the pages, as the two had drawn swords upon each other. The criminal confessed his guilt; but she made every effort to save him from his doom. Shortly after, she was ordered by the king to Châteauroux, in consequence, doubtless, of lying representations, and was required before her departure to surrender her property to her son, which she readily did, saying that she should need but little, as she was moving fast on her way to the grave. When she was

taking leave of that contemptible abortion, she fainted away in his arms. Such is the account given by an observant but uninterested person; and such is the internal evidence, that no one can doubt it is true.

While she was pining in her prison, closely confined and guarded, her husband was receiving at Chantilly the troublesome and vexatious honor of a visit from the king. It was on this occasion that Vatel, the maître d'hotel to the prince, committed suicide, because there was more company than was expected, and in consequence there were some tables at

which the roast was wanting. This he might possibly have survived, though it nearly broke his heart; but the next morning, being threatened with a deficiency of sea-fish, he committed suicide with his sword. The guests ate their breakfast prepared by less illustrious hands, applauded his high sense of honor, and in an hour or two all went on as if Vatel had never existed.

Though Condé was too much advanced in life to fight for his own ambition, Louis the Fourteenth hoped to gain some renown from the services of such a chief; and probably for this purpose, for no other appeared, he declared war against Holland, and marched against it with a hundred thousand men, and, what was equally formidable, with the prince and Turenne at its head. Condé began the campaign with his usual fire and success; but he was soon wounded so severely, that he was obliged to leave the army. In 1674, he was opposed to the Prince of Orange, who had already manifested extraordinary ability in war. Condé had forty-five thousand men, and the prince with the Spaniards had about sixty thousand. When the Prince of Orange had reconnoitred Condé's position, thinking it too strong to attack, he resolved to move toward Le Quesnoy, and for this purpose marched from Seneffe at daybreak, leaving his flank exposed. The fiery glance of Condé saw the error at once, and, putting himself at the head of his cavalry, he fell upon the enemy, driving them in towards the centre at Seneffe, where they were secured by orchards and hedges. Nothing could resist his charge, and the prince was obliged to retreat, which would have been a victory in the hands of Condé, if he had been content with what he had done; but when he entered on the pursuit, the battle was renewed in another position, where they fought till both armies were exhausted, Condé himself, though an invalid, having been on horseback more than seventeen hours.

The victory was claimed by each party; it seemed to be about equally fatal and honorable to both. Condé sustained his former reputation, and did full justice to the Prince of Orange, to whom it was no small glory to stand against one so renowned in arms. The battle of Seneffe was the last of his great actions. Turenne was killed in the succeeding year; and Condé, who felt that he was no longer equal to such wearing service, wished the king to intrust the command to - No. 132.

VOL. LXIII.

13

ed the armies of Louis the Fourteenth, they were fighting battles for vanity and ambition, without the least pretence of duty, right, or patriotism on their side. They were far from being the worst of their class; compared with some, they were pure and exalted; and yet, much as we are disposed to admire them, we apprehend that it would be no easy matrer to show what good to others their talents and exploits

have done.

There is a real benefit in such narratives as this. The name of the great Condé is surrounded in many minds with a dark magnificence. His history was not generally known, though the sound of his battles rang like a trumpet in the memory and imaginations of men. But when they are brought out to the daylight, we see that the results of his activity and power were perfectly disastrous to his country, and there was no imaginable good to balance the sad record of lands that he desolated, homes that he filled with mourning, and tears which he caused to flow. The greatest value of this work, however, is found in the reverse of that picture which is here set before us. We see a tender and delicate woman, wholly unused to action or to the public eye, setting aside her natural reserve, and stepping forth with great energy, when her husband is imprisoned and oppressed; and doing all this, not in requital of affection, but in utter forgetfulness of the cold neglect with which he had treated her, and the insults and injuries which he had cast on her long-suffering head. Such a beautiful example turns the moral feeling of readers in the right direction; they see that the term heroism has been wretchedly misapplied; it inclines them to withdraw such titles and expressions of applause from the undeserving, and to give them to those, found oftenest among the meek and lowly, who are great by reason of their energy in doing good.

ART. V. Homer's Iliad; translated by WILLIAM MUNBoston Little & Brown. 1846. 2 vols.

FORD.
8vo.

event.

THE appearance of these volumes is an interesting literary A translation of the Iliad coming from Virginia does more honor to that ancient commonwealth than her political dissertations, endless as they are, or even, if it be not too heretical to say so, than the Democratic creed embraced in the Resolutions of 1798. We have so long been accustomed to political talk from old Virginia, that a purely literary work, having no possible connection with "the party," strikes us as something unexpected, strange, and surprising. A translation of the Iliad coming out from Richmond, in the same year that Mr. Pleasants was barbarously murdered there on the "field of honor," suggests incongruous and contrasted ideas. But so it is.*

It is a coincidence, not without interest in literary history, that a translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses was made in Virginia about two centuries before Mr. Munford's Iliad was completed, by George Sandys, the treasurer of the colony. We give, in a note below, the facts connected with this passage in the literary annals of the Ancient Dominion, as they probably are not generally known.† Before proceeding

* What Mr. Munford thought of duelling may be seen in the following characteristic note on the sharp censure which Sarpedon gives to Hector, in the fifth book.

ence.

"Sarpedon's character is conspicuous for magnanimity and independ Great as Hector was, he rebukes him without fear or ceremony, and with extraordinary energy. Hector, too, though stung at heart, takes the reproof with exemplary patience, nobly resolving, as Diomed did on a similar occasion, to let his actions answer for him According to the modern code of false honor, Diomed ought to have challenged Agamemnon, and Hector, Sarpedon, to give satisfaction by a duel in a gentlemanly manner! But in those times of true heroism, such absurdities were un. known." Vol. 1., p. 181.

George Sandys, the celebrated traveller and poet, was born in 1577, and died in 1643. The entry in the parish register styles him "Poetarum Anglorum sui sæculi facile Princeps.' His travels commenced in 1610, the year in which Henry the Fourth of France was assassinated; and the account of them which he published passed through many editions. In 1621, he was appointed treasurer of the company in Virginia; a fact mentioned neither by Cibber, Chalmers, nor Ellis, nor in the Biographie Universelle, and only alluded to by Whalley in a note to Wood's Athene Oxonienses. He occupied the leisure he could command from official labors and the dis turbances of Indian warfare with the translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses,