PROTESTATIONS PUT TO THE PROOF.

A TALE, FROM THE GERMAN OF WIELAND.

beautiful. This was a sight poor Hann knew not how to support.

THERE lived at Samarcanda a young, spread over her complexion, she was yet tailor, named Hann, who was married to a beautiful young creature of the name of Gulphena, and of whom he was passionately fond: her eyes were black and sparkling, her shape easy and slender, her hair as soft as silk, her arms and bosom beautifully formed, her age about twenty years, and the worthy Hann looked on his wife as an angel.

Gulphena was buried; Hann, in an agony of sorrow, threw himself on her tomb.His sobs might be heard at an immense distance; he was, however, resolved to pass nine whole days in this manner, according to his vow.

Now it happened that Assa, the prophet, passed near the tomb. The groans of the tailor had disturbed his devotions, he ap

Many people said that he only argued like a young tailor; but they did not reflect, that there are certain seasons whenproached him, and asked him the reason of the wise Solomon himself would have arhis lamentations, and why he thus grovelled gued just in the same manner. on the earth.

"Ah! Sir," replied the poor widower, "I possessed a treasure, which is now enclosed in this tomb. A wife! and such a wife!— She loved me as never woman yet loved her husband; and I buried her this morn

It was in one of those moments of rapture that Hann said to his beloved: "My dear, dear wife, what would become of me if I should see your beauties frozen by the ice of death? To see thee deprived of the breath of life, the bare idea fills me withing." horror. Yes, I swear to thee, that if ever I experience such anguish, I will mourn over thy tomb nine days; and will weep till the source of weeping becomes dry."

"And I, my dearest life," replied the youthful wife, "If ever I should be so wretched as to lose thee, my beloved Hann-I will be buried alive with thee,"

"There is a wife as a wife ought to be," said the happy tailor to himself; and he pressed her to his bosom, doubting nothing of the truth she had uttered: she spoke it, and he felt assured she spoke as she felt.

"Since thou regrettest thy wife so much," said the prophet, "we must restore to thee a treasure thou art so worthy to possess." At these words he struck the tomb with his wand, which opened at its touch, and Gulphena, fresh and blooming as ever, issued from her grave, and threw herself into her husband's arms. What a blessed re-union! What joy! What embracing! To see them any one would imagine they would have stifled each other with kisses. The happy pair, however, though intoxicated with love, turned to thank the man who had thus miraculously produced their present felicity. They looked for him in vain, he had vanished.

About a year after these protestations, they were one night eating their pilau, and resting from their daily labours; it so fell Hann now began to perceive that Gulout that the beautiful Gulphena, more phena was almost without any covering, taken up with looking at her husband than and could not possibly enter the town in at what she ate, had the misfortune to that condition, notwithstanding it was swallow a bone, which choaked her.-getting dusk. "Light of my eyes," said he; Hann tried every effort to save her; he clapped her on the back, he tried to get it out of her throat, he tried to make it go down; all his efforts were in vain-Gulphena expired in his arms.

Poor Hann was in a state bordering on despair; but there was no remedy; the habiliments of death were put upon Gulphena; and, notwithstanding the paleness

"hide thyself behind these rocks, I will run home and bring thee thy clothes. The moon begins to shine, fear nothing, I shall not be gone a minute."

Hann set off with the swiftness of an arrow. In the mean time the King's son passed by, preceded by a prodigious number of torches, the splendid light of which dissipated the shades of night; by this

light the attendants first perceived a woman in disordered attire leaning against a rock, and seeking to shield her form amongst some briars which grew near, a form that the light of the torches rendered more fair and lovely than it really

was.

The son of the King made a sudden stop, and approached alone and unattended the place where the fair one was anxiously endeavouring to conceal herself: the son of the King did not turn away his head or put his hand before his eyes. "Ah!" said he to Gulphena," How is it that so much beauty becomes left in such a situation, and at such an hour as this?"

66

My Lord," replied the wife of the tai lor," the disorder of my dress will not permit me to satisfy your questions."

The Prince acknowledged the justice of her refusal in such a situation, and intreated her to accept of his own cloak. Now, Madam," said he," only one word; are you married? If you are not, come with me, embellish my harem like the rising sun, confer happiness on a mighty Prince, and pleasures, without end, shall await you in that kingdom of which you will be the pride and ornament.”

In the twinkling of an eye the beautiful Gulphena felt the full force of the happiness now offered her, and how far it was removed from the poor trade of a tailor. In that twinkling, husband, love, vows, fidelity, the grave itself, all was forgotten."My Lord," said she, "I am free; the will of your devoted slave is yours." The son of the King did not give her the trouble of repeating what she said; a horse was immediately given to her; and full of joy, she followed the Prince, by the light of the torches, to his harem.

me, would be worse than death: she who promised to bury herself alive with me in the tomb! Pearl among women, another's arms will now enfold thee! Alas! at this moment, perhaps, she tears her hair, and wounds her lovely face! What do I say? sooner than suffer dishonour she would stab herself!

Poor mistaken Hann! thy faithful wife is by no means in danger of treating her self with such barbarity. Luxuriously reclining on the couch of pleasure, intoxicated with new delights, she thinks not of thee, nor the griefs thou mayest endure.

In the mean time the tailor runs all over Samarcanda; he runs backwards and forwards; he spares neither cost nor pains; he seeks his wife by day and by night; he is a stranger to food and rest, and he yet hopes the prophet Assa will again restore her to his wishes. At length he meets one of the Prince's attendants, and learns from him all that has happened; is informed of the little resistance made by Gulphena, and that she was the chief ornament of the Prince's harem.

Hann, still persuaded in his own mind of his wife's fidelity, loses no time; he flies to the palace, makes his way like a madman, through a host of guards and pages; asks every one for his wife, arrives in the presence of the Prince himself, and conjures him, on his knees, to restore to him this model of virtue.

The son of the King was a good Prince; and, perhaps, too, he began to be weary of the beautiful Gulphena, whose charms, in his eyes, had lost much of their first attraction. Scarce had he heard the request of the tailor, than he graciously recounted all the history, recorded above. Hann sought yet to persuade himself it could not be true; he rather imagined that Gulphena, but just restored to life, might have committed some mistake. "Let her come in," said he to the Prince;" she is my wife; and you will see, yes, you will see, with what ardour she will fly to my arms.'

Scarce was she departed, than the transported tailor arrived, furnished with clothing for his wife. Alas! he seeks her in vain. He calls her by name, he is almost frantic; he fears she has been carried off by banditti: he is right in thinking she has been carried off-but by whom? She could, he was sure, never consent to it. Such a suspicion would never enter his mind. Oh! why, said he, did not I take her home, naked as she was? Wretch The lady made her appearance. The hothat I am! What must now be the anguish nest tailor, dazzled with the splendour of of my faithful wife, to whom life, without her jewels, and the magnificence of her

"Very well," said the son of the King, "we shall see; I myself, will keep at a distance."

clothing, scarcely knew his wife again; he, thought he was in a dream. Gulphena, on the contrary, knew him again but too well. She drew back, grew pale and red by turns; but that presence of mind, so natural to her sex, did not forsake her in this necessity. The Prince, when he saw her turn pale, approached her. "Dost thou know this man?" said his Highness."Know him, indeed! but too well," said this loving wife; "it is that ruffian, who having met me on the road, beat me most unmercifully, dragged me amongst the tombs, and left me in the place where your Highness found me.”

A chill of horror ran through the veins of poor Hann, at hearing this; the current of his blood seemed stopped, his eyes became fixed, his knees trembled under him, and he endeavoured in vain, as he opened his mouth, to speak.

All the court were now unanimously convinced of his guilt, by his silence and his terrified countenance; they were certain proofs of his crime. "Carry him to the Cadi," said the Prince. Hann was immediately loaded with fetters and carried before him. The judge takes down the information, and the lady is the accuser; Hann does not contradict her. Of what use is life now to him? He is declared

guilty, and according to custom, is led from the tribunal to the scaffold.

Who can now succour this unhappy man? Already he is at the foot of the fatal ladder. Who will save his honour and his life? Both must have been evidently lost, if by good luck, Assa, the prophet, had not just then passed by. His presence shed around a heavenly light. "He is in-, nocent," cried he, "and I can prove it." The executioners stayed their hands from the work of death; and the people stood transfixed with wonder to hear those words from lips which had never been stained with falsehood; the crowd followed Hann and the prophet to the palace. The golden gate was opened. The Sultan and his son advanced. Assa spoke with authority,— he demanded Gulphena; and a circle was made round her and the prophet. Sinking under the weight of guilt, Gulphena lifted up her eyes for a moment, knew Assa again, and fell lifeless at his feet.

Hann was loaded with honours and wealth; his wife was again interred, but she might have remained in her tomb to the end of the world, her dear husband never felt the least desire to go and weep and fast over her ashes, even for nine seconds.

S. G.

LETTER FROM A RETURNED FRENCH EMIGRANT.

of Austria, his Majesty the King of Prusia,
and the Prince Regent of England, who
wished to conduct all things in proper
form. It was time, without doubt; for I was
just on the point of being struck off the list of
the living, by reason of the extreme misery
to which the reversion of my property to
national property had reduced me.
turned then in the packet to my native
country on the 15th of April, quite over

1 re.

SIR, It is now just two-and-twenty years since I quitted France, laden with arms and baggage, but with very little money; for those gentlemen, the Jacobins, took care to strip me of all I had. I often made an effort to return, and to prove to those who governed, as well as to their ministers, that I never had been away; but I must first found my proofs on pecuniary means. Nothing is so difficult to be proved as what a man says who is notjoyed, as you may well believe, and I was worth a halfpenny. I could, I was sure, not long before I saw Paris, the place of never make my proofs clear to these gentle- ny nativity. men, for I was maintained on the list of the emigrants. At length, by the greatest luck in the world, I was invalided, and struck off, on the first of March, by his Majesty the Emperor of all the Russias, in conjunction with his Majesty the Emperor

I found the city much improved in embellishments, I must say; and I think the produce of what I possessed formerly contributed to add to its beauty, and to raise those new monuments on the ruins of the ancient ones. I am fond of architecture,

it is a fine art, and is pleasing to the eye, who tenderly loved me. I wished I could of taste: but it has cost us dear. The fact bút see my house standing, though it might is, I have nothing left to live on; and in have been in the possession of a stranger. the midst of the boldest designs, in the I submitted myself, however, to the inter⚫ midst of new raised markets, we are not a est of the public, who are as fond of fine bit better fed. I cannot, therefore, but feel || streets as they are of fountains: I recoltruly melancholy as I contemplate the dif- lected also, that time destroys all things; ferent orders, lonic, Doric, mixed, &c. which but which, according to my ideas, seems to I find multiplied every where, as well as destroy peculiarly quick in revolutions, the bridges, which have certainly a fine where every one is occupied with the reeffect over the Seine. generation of mankind, and the applica tion of the grand principles of philosophy.

I was not less disposed, notwithstanding my vexations, to go and return thanks to God for my happy return into the fine

I had once a very good house near the ancient Chatelet: my first care was to walk that way, to cast a glance as I went along. We do not pay for looking, as the saying is. But how surprised was I to find, in-kingdom of France, for which I have alstead of my house, a fiue fountain! throwing ways preserved the liveliest affection; a its clear waters to an immense height tenderness which I inherit from my anwith a most agreeable murmur. I confess at first I shed a few tears at this change, near the church of St. Charles: in this cestors: they once founded a little chapel and recollected that in this place of clear chapel are interred several of my relations, water, I had dispensed my wine of Cham- and it is filled with little monuments which bertin and Champaign. However, as I reattest their public and private virtues. I flected that this fountain must be very useful to the hackney coachmen of the neigh-sentiments of filial piety. Well, the chapel went to the chapel, my heart filled with bourhood, for all the cooks in the quarter to wash their salads in, and for all the inhabitants to drink, I considered the public interest, and dried my eyes with this consolation. I then washed my face, and in the hollow of my hand took a few drops of this water to drink, and to which I fancied I had some right: I found it very good, but in the present state of my stomach it was too cold. 1 retired, after having examined for a moment the column of this fountain. It is surmounted by a beautiful Goddess which I did not well recollect: I found her legs rather too long; but that is not a serious fault;-divine forms certainlydo not resemble human forms. The great essential in a fountain is clear water.

While I was thus gazing on the wreck of my former property, I went to the rue St. Honore, where I had once a small house, which I used to let ready furnished, and where I fancied, perhaps, I might now lodge incognito. Well, Sir, instead of my house I found a fine street which led to the gardens of the Thuilleries. This opening, made in a strait line, I found extremely convenient, especially for the inhabitants of La Place de Vendome. Alas! I could not help, however, regretting my house, which had been left me by a good aunt

has disappeared; and you will never guess, Sir, by what it has been replaced-by a sot's hole! I could scarce believe my eyes. I was resolved, however, to see what a sot's hole was. I saw it was a place for smoking and swearing; and I examined it no farther, but made a mental prayer and departed to the Thuilleries. I could scarce restrain my tears as I beheld these beautiful walks, which are the pride of the country and an honour to the arts. The place appeared to me more charming than ever, in thinking that it was now inhabited by that noble family which Providence had recalled to govern this delightful country. When I thought of the long suffering of our rulers I soon forgot my own; and since every good Frenchman owes his life to his King, he owes him also his fortune when exigencies require. I renounced my wealth with cheerfulness: nor can we, according to my ideas, pay too dearly for our deliverance from that horde of banditti who have desolated France for five-and-twenty years, in making new streets, raising fine foun|| tains, and speaking always of felicity, glory, grandeur, &c. so willing is rhetoric to pay compliments to human folly.

EDMUND DE ST. H

FUGITIVE POETRY.

COMMEMORATION OF REYNOLDS.
BY M. A. SHEE, R. A.

And seems a window, whence the soul of woe
Looks forth upon the suffering world below.
On either side-dread guardians of her state!
Terrific stand ber ministers of fate;
At her command prepared to shake the soul,
To point the dagger, or present the bowl.
A glow divine-an awe-inspiring gloom,
That Gods themselves in thunders might as-

In shadowy grandeur shrouds each fearful form,
While distant lightnings gild the encircling

The following lines are on the portrait of Goldsmith:

"Who that has read-and who but reads the page?

Where Wakefield's Vicar wins both youth and

Where touched from life with simplest grace and

The Primrose family-for ever please!

Who that has traced the Traveller, and pursued
The map of man, through various realms re-

With Johnson, Burney, and Baretti placed,
Behold the bard of nature, truth, and taste."

The reflections which follow the review of those portraits of eminent men, are particularly well expressed:

"Blest be the skill which thus enshrines the