reality, than a kind of military college; they were raised at the blast of the bugle and the sound of the drum. The first clothing a child received was an uniform; the most important part of his education was to learn to carry his head aloft, to march in time, and handle a rifle. Certain it is, that a generation born in the midst of these ideas, and amidst such an order of things, cannot see it in the same ridiculous light as their forefathers; neither can it give them the same serious reflections. Obliged to take the world as they found it, they figured to themselves, without doubt, that the condition imposed upon them was natural to humau existence, and that they only received life themselves to learn how to deprive others of the valuable gift. Forty years hence all the world would have imbibed the same idea, and the successors of Bonaparte would have certainly enjoyed the effects of it.

This idea has already obtained too great an influence over the minds of the French. Children were not the only ones who familiarized themselves to the idea of contitinual war; parents had already began to make their calculations on it, and looked forward to a distant period, when they might buy off their sons from conscription: every family economized, denied themselves many comforts to lay something by for such an event. Mothers wept when they brought forth male children, doomed to sacrifice by a new and unpitying Pharaoh. Those of more elevated rank were seen coldly delivering up their sons, by destining them to war, bringing them up to it from their infancy, and marking out to them that it was the only career they could follow to procure hereafter honour and riches. And thus they completely fell into the suare spread for petty ambition by an ambition of a much greater extent, and which had the art to close up every road which led to preferment, to lead them to that of war. How many senators, courtiers, prefects, and men in place, have been known, in order to maintain their situations, to have imposed on themselves the cruel obligation of offer- || ing, as a sacrifice to their master, the blood of all their sons! It is thus that, by the system in which the French were fettered, they finished by turning all their thoughts to the side of war; all their pretensions

were lifted up to it, and it seemed requisite to their very existence. Children, marked out for the conscription from their cradles, like sheep for the slaughter, led, from that age till their departure for the army, a life in which there was no order or calculation of future establishment; they were always good enough to go and perish in the ranks as private soldiers on the field of battle: those who were ambitious of instructing themselves, were desirous only of becoming purveyors, commissaries, contractors, or directors of hospitals, surgeons, conductors of artillery, or assistant engineers. Every one rushed like a torrent into military ad ministrations, so that war drew all towards it, and absorbed not only every thought, but gave a check to industry.

some.

But one of the greatest inconveniences of this eternal war, was its influence on the French character: by associating with nations less polite they lost that elegant urbanity for which they have long been justly famed. They became negligent of all forms, and their manners and language became tinctured with rudeness and barbarity; they became severe, impatient, and quarrelIf an officer had good sense, merit, and education, he fancied he had no occa sion to cultivate them amongst a people who could not understand him, and whom, indeed, these officers inspired only with aversion: the minds of Frenchmen became gloomy; their vivacity degenerated into dullness; their merit slept, and their natural gaiety was no more: conscious that they were only detestable, they often gave cause by their ill-humour and revenge, to become yet more so.

This perpetual war had also a melan choly effect on the morals of mankind: it was not alone the character of the soldier, which became gloomy, that of the orator and the poet, those natural interpreters of the public mind, took a shade almost as dark, they hung their lyres on the cypress tree, or they sang only the exploits of the warrior. The age of Bonaparte was neither that of chivalry or poesy: even the idle singers who go about from city to city, could find no subject of composition to revive the national gaiety; neither pensions nor encouragement given to the higher order of public singers could afford them inspiration.

But it is to be hoped that the days of

serve.

Their existence no longer depends on the arbitrary caprice of a man who took away on the morrow the honours and fortunes he had granted the day before; who made a sport of destroying the works of his own hands; who, like another Saturn, devoured his own children; and whose judgment never inspired sufficient confi

THIS poem, undoubtedly the work of ●ur noble and justly admired bard, is much in the style of his Lordship's former tales. The hero, Lara, is described as a gloomy, ferocious, and, in some respects, guilty character; who has been left too soon "lord of himself," has been absent from home revelling in pleasure, and has again returned to the Gothic hall of his forefathers: a single page is his attendant, who proves to be a female, who faithfully loves him. Otho, a neighbouring chief, gives a grand entertainment, at which Lara is a guest, and where he sees an unknown, who gazes intently on him. They speak to each other, a quarrel ensues, and Sir Esselyn, the stranger, agrees to combat with Lara on the morrow; but Esselyn keeps not his appointment. Otho, in his stead, offers his bosom to the enraged Lara: Otho is wounded desperately; but on the healing of his wounds his still wounded pride renders him the foe of Lara. The extraordinary absence of Otho's friend, Esselyn, makes that chief ask him at the hand of Lara, who goes forth to meet the host that Otho has raised against him. Kaled, the faithful page, often turns the charger of Lara from the threatened danger; but he cannot prevent the fated blow. After Lara is mortally wounded, Otho questions him, who can no longer answer; but Kaled seems more silent and motionless than himself. Towards the end of the poem, it is surmised that Esselyn has been drowned, and has not perished by the hand of Lara, with whose death, and that of Kaled, the concludes.

poem

to many recent publications of this harmo nious poet, we doubt not but our readers will find the following extracts extremely beautiful. The first is the description of

Lara on his return to the mansion of his ancestors.

"He turned within his solitary hall, And his high shadow shot along the wall; There were the painted forms of other times, 'Twas all they left of virtue or of crimes, That hid their dust, their foibles, and their faults; Save vague tradition; and the gloomy vaults' And half a column of the pompous page, That speeds the specious tale from age to age; Where history's pen its praise or blame supplies, And lies like truth, and still most truly lies. He wandering mus'd, and as the moonbeam shone Thro' the dim lattice o'er the floor of stone, And the high fretted roof, and saints, that there O'er Gothic windows knelt in pictured prayer, Reflected in fantastic figures grew, Like life, but not like mortal life, to view; His bristling locks of sable, brow of gloom, And the wide waving of his shaken plume, His aspect all that terror gives the grave.” Glanc'd like a spectre's attributes, and gave

The character of Lara is admirably drawn:

"In him inexplicably mix'd appear'd Much to be loved and hated, sought and fear'd; Opinion varying o'er his hidden lot,

In praise or railing ne'er his name forgot;
His silence form'd a theme for others' prate-
They guessed-they gazed-they fain would know
his fate.

What had he been? What was he, thus unknown,
Who walked their world, his lineage only known?
A bater of his kind!"

The description of the page is beauti

ful:

reads, his thoughts dwelling solely on his daughter:

"The light was on his face; and there
You might have seen the passions driv❜n-
Resentment, Pity, Hope, Despair-
Like clouds across the face of heav'n.
Now he sigh'd heavily; and now,
His hand withdrawing from his brow,
He shut the volume with a frown,
To walk his troubled spirits down."

The reconciliation, with which the poem concludes, is extremely interesting :

"He shook his aged locks of snow; And thrice he turn'd, and rose to go. She hung; and was St. Pierre to blame, If tears and smiles together came? "Oh! no-begone! I'll hear no more!' But as he spoke his voice relented. "That very look thy mother wore When she implored," &c.

LAVINIA;

OR, THE BARD OF IRWELL'S LAMENT. THOUGH the unfortunate subject of the following little elegiac poem, Lavinia Robinson, has ceased, in some measure, to be the theme of public scrutiny and conversation, yet the memory of her fate will long live in every feeling bosom; and, as the Preface to this work remarks," There are, beyond dispute, other modes of destruction besides the dagger and the bowl, the leap from the precipice and the plunge into the river; many a gentle heart has been broken, many a feeling mind driven to despair by unprovoked hostility, by unrequited attention, by slighted love, by insults, by oppression, and by a thousand other means, which, though not so speedy in their operation as those above alluded to, are, in the end, not less efficacious and sure.". The poem opens with the following lines:

"Haste! haste! ye melancholy nymphs and
swains,

Who dwell where Irwell laves the peaceful plains,
Bring freshest flowers, the choicest of the year,
And pitying strew the lost Lavinia's bier :
But, ah! no flowers the frozen earth supplies,
And she herself, the loveliest flow'ret dies."

The endowments of Lavinia, and her approaching fate, are described as follows:

Unhappy maid! thine was no common soul, Where genius shone, and virtue crown'd the whole!

Yet treacherous fortune seem'd to lavish all
Her choicest gifts, but to secure thy fall.
Gave thee each charm, to sense and wit allied;
And beauty gave, but happiness denied!
Yet thine was bliss, nor far remov'd the date,
When in thy eye young expectation sate!
When nature's charms allur'd thy youthful breast,
And admiration came a welcome guest!
As sleeps the sunbeam on the placid lake,
When no rude winds the glassy surface break;
So in the clear expansion of thy mind,
Was joy pourtray'd and happiness defin'd!
Hark! the rains beat, the impetuous waves de-
scend,

And raging waves the fairy structure end!
So o'er thy heart, in unsuspecting hour,
The storms of misery began to low'r!"

The fancied despair of Lavinia is well expressed :

"I see her now, I see her where she stands, To Heav'n uprais'd her supplicating hands; With head thrown back, with wildly streaming hair,

With stiffen'd eye-balls, and with bosom bare,
Whence heaving sobs at intervals arose,
And the deep sighs express'd her weight of woes:
Wet with the dew her heavy garments flow'd,
Where on the gale each angry demon rode;
There horror rose, there terror and despair,
There from the clouds, upon the frantic maid,
And sobs of anguish fill the turbid air;
Rag'd the wild storm, the vivid lightning play'd.
While round her thus the gath'ring tempests roll,
Oh! where was he, the chosen of her soul?"

"And didst thou wander forth alone, sweet

maid!

'Midst the deep gloom, alone and undismay'd? Could fell despair so nerve thy timorous heart, Bid it from all it lov'd on earth to part? Oh! with what rage of anguish must it swell, When with one last, one sad and last farewell, Thy trembling hand pourtray'd the hurried scrawl,

Presage of fate, and omen of thy fall!"

That the above poem is written by a partial muse, is evident; nevertheless, it is interesting: and though we have avoided in our extracts those lines which seem to breathe much personality, we cannot forbear quoting the following, towards the conclusion of the elegy:

"Why wast thou born to be the sport of fate, And doom'd to love where thou shouldst rather hate?

To find a scorpion lurking in the breast
Where thy fond heart had hop'd at last to rest?**
Ah! at that moment all thy senses fled,
And desperation triumph'd in their stead!"