Where man can boast that he has trod My gold and silver ye shall fling Back to the clods that gave them birthThe captured crowns of many a king, The ransom of a conquered earth; For e'en though dead will I control The trophies of the capitol. But when beneath the mountain-tide Pillar or mound to mark the spot; My course was like a river deep, And from the northern hills I burst, Across the world in wrath to sweep, And where I went the spot was cursed, Nor blade of grass again was seen Where Alaric and his hosts had been. See how their haughty barriers fail Before my ruthless sabaoth, Not for myself did I ascend In judgment my triumphal-car: With iron hand that scourge I reared And Vengeance sat upon the helm, Across the everlasting Alp I poured the torrent of my powers, And feeble Cæsars shrieked for help In vain within their seven-hilled towers; I quenched in blood the brightest gem That glittered in their diadem, And struck a darker, deeper dye In the purple of their majesty, And bade my Northern banners shine. Upon the conquered Palatine. Far worse thy fate rock; Thou art at rest, Than that which doomed him to the barren Child of ambition's martyr! Life had been Through half the universe was felt the shock times When down he toppled from his high For thou wert one whose path in these dark estate, And the proud thought of still acknowledged Must lead to sorrows-it might be, to power Could cheer him e'en in that disastrous hour. But thou, poor boy! Hadst no such dreams to cheer the lagging hours: crimes. Thou art at rest! The idle sword has worn its sheath away, The spirit has consumed its bonds of clay, And they who with vain tyranny comprest Thy chain still galled though wreathed with Thy soul's high yearnings now forget their fairest flowers; Thou hadst no images of by-past joy, No visions of anticipated fame, To bear thee through a life of sloth and shame. And where was she Whose proudest title was Napoleon's wife- Trebling a mother's tenderness for thee? No! Round her heart Children of humbler, happier lineage twined; Thou couldst but bring dark memories to mind Of pageants where she bore a heartless part : She who shared not her monarch-husband's doom Cared little for her first-born's living tomb. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. LA FONTAINE. EAN DE LA FONTAINE, one of France's most distinguished poets, was born on the 8th of July, 1621, at Château Thierry. The house of his birth is still standing, and remains unchanged. His early education under the village schoolmaster was meagre, but in 1641 he entered the Oratory at Rheims, where he made good progress. At the age of twenty-six he married a lady whom his father had chosen for him. His father also resigned his post as forester in his favor, but neither the wife nor the position suited the son, and he soon resigned the one and deserted the other. Like many authors in bygone days, La Fontaine lived mostly on the patronage of distinguished and noble patrons. He died at the ripe old age of seventy-four, at Paris, on April 13, 1695. His fables are the chief productions of his pen. Of them Wright says: "La Fontaine makes each fable a little drama, with its exposition. A painter of animals, whom he studied with an artist's attention and the warm imagination of a poet who identifies himself with everything and to whom nothing in nature is indifferent, he joined to the charm of a learned and at the same time simple language which seems alike of the past and present that of a free, easy, varied versification expanding and contracting with marvellous propriety as the thought requires. The habitual character of his narrative is an ingenuous wit, a piquant simplicity, a familiar good-nature full of sense, spirit and unreserve; but when his subject bears him to it, he becomes serious, touching, melancholy, elevated, sublime; the goodnatured man disappears; we hear the inspired accents of the most eloquent poesy. La Fontaine,' says Sainte Beuve, 'versifying the subjects of fables furnished by tradition, does not at first go beyond the limits of the branch. His first book is an essay; in it we see the fable pure and simple. Thus conceived, the fable seems to me a small and quite insignificant branch. Among the Orientals at first, when primitive wisdom was disguised under happy parables to speak to kings, it might have its elevation and its grandeur; but transplanted to our West, and reduced to a short story with its twoor four-line moral, I see only a form of instruction suited to children. How, then, did La Fontaine become a great poet in this very branch of fables? It is because he went beyond it; he appropriated it to himself, and saw in it from a certain moment only a pretext for his inventive genius and his talent of universal observation." "We do not pretend here to class La Fontaine's fables; this would show an unconsciousness of their spirit and assail their diversity. But in the first rank in the order of beauty we must place the great moral fables 'The Shepherd and the King,' | Cardinal Morton, archbishop of Canterbury, 6 The Peasant of the Danube,' involving an eloquent sentiment of history, and almost of statesmanship; then those other fables which in their whole are a complete painting, of a more finished turn, and equally full of philosophy-'The Old Man and the Three Young Men,' 'The Cobbler and the Financier,' the last as perfect in itself as a great scene as a short comedy of Molière. Some are properly elegies- Tircis and Amaranth and others elegies under a less direct and more enchanting form, such as the 'Two Doves.' If human nature seems often harshly treated by La Fontaine, if he says that childhood is 'without pity' and old age 'pitiless' (manhood making the best terms it can with him), it is enough to save him from the reproach of calumniating man, and leaves him as one of our great consolers, that friendship found him so habitual and so touching an interpreter. His 'Two Friends' is a masterpiece of this kind; but whenever he has to speak of friendship, his heart opens, his observant raillery expires; he has words that are felt, tender and noble accents. After reading this selection of La Fontaine's best fables, we feel our admiration for him renewed and refreshed, and exclaim, with the eminent critic Joubert, 'There is in La Fontaine a plenitude of poesy nowhere else to be found in our French writers.' who was accustomed to say of him to his guests, "This boy who waits at table, whoever lives to see it, will prove a marvellous man." In 1497 he entered at Oxford, where he continued two years, and then, being designed for the law, removed to New Inn, London, and soon after to Lincoln's Inn, of which his father was a member. About the age of twenty he became disgusted with the law and shut himself up during four years in the Charter-house, devoting himself exclusively to the services of religion. He had a strong inclination to take orders, and even to turn Franciscan, but was overruled by his father, whose authority was, moreover, reinforced by the amorous propensities of the son, which were not to be subdued even by the austerities of the cloister. Accordingly, he married Jane, eldest daughter of John Colt, Esq., of Newhall, Essex. About this period, too, he was appointed law-reader at Furnival's Inn, which he held. for three years, and besides read a public lecture in the church of St. Laurence, Old Jewry, upon St. Austin's treatise De Civitate Dei. At the age of two and twenty he was elected member of the Parliament called by Henry VII. in 1503 to demand a subsidy and nine-fifteenths for the marriage of Margaret, his eldest daughter, to James, king of Scotland. More opposed this demand with such force of argument that it was finally rejected by the House. In 1508 he was made judge of the sheriff's court, also a justice of the peace, and became eminent at the bar. In 1516 he went to Flanders, in the retinue of Bishop Tonstal and Dr. Knight, who were sent by Henry to renew the alli |