soars to the mansion of thunder, and sustaining his audacious flight, seems to say to mortals, I was born upon the earth; but live in the heavens.

The sixteenth meditation, La Priere,' has the touching power, the simple magnificence of some of the finer parts of the Seasons.' We give the commencing verses, as a sample. The brilliant king of day, setting in his glory, slowly descends from his chariot of victory. The dazzling clouds, which conceal him from our eyes, preserve, in furrows of gold, his trace in the heavens, and a reflexion of purple overflows the expanse. As a lamp of gold, suspended in the azure, the moon is balanced on the verge of the horizon. The softened rays sleep upon the turf, and the veil of night is unfolded upon the mountains. It is the hour, when nature, a moment meditative, between the night, which falls, and day, which flies, raises itself to the Creator of the day and the night, and seems to offer to God, in its own brilliant language, the magnificent homage of creation.

The thirtieth meditation is 'La poesie sacree.' It opens thus. Her front is crowned with palms, and with stars. Her immortal view, which nothing can dim, traversing all time, raising all veils, awakens the past; plunges into the future. Under her eyes the calendars of the world are unrolled. Ages flow at her feet, like a torrent; at her pleasure, descending, or remounting their courses, she strikes the hour to the tombs; or on her virginal lyre, announces to the world grown old, the day, the father of

days. *

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* It is man, that sighs.

Eden hath fled. Lo, travail and death! His voice expires in tears. The accord of joy is broken off upon his lyre, and Job draws from it a sound sad, as his destiny. Oh! perish forever the day, which saw me born. Oh! perish forever the night, which conceived me; and the bosom, which gave me being, and the knees, which received me. Let God efface it forever from the number of days! May it, always obscured with the shadow death, not find its place among the days. May it be, as though it had not been. Then might I still have slept in oblivion, and might have finished my sleep in that long night, which shall have no morning.

We were particularly struck with the first ode of the second part, or volume. It is entitled, 'Le Passe," and seems to have been addressed to a friend, on his reunion, after a long absence. The following is the literal version of three or four of the stanzas. Thus our star, grown pale, throwing dying lights upon the noon of our life, scarcely shines amidst our tears. The shadow of death, which advances, already obscures the half of our rapid existence; and, near the fatal term, there remains for us but hope and friendship. Friend, whom the same day saw born, my companion from the cradle, and whom the same day may, perhaps, put to repose in the same tomb, this is the term, which dispenses the painful pilgrimage, that the same destiny hath marked for us. * * And now return thou over that space, which our steps have already measured. Let us search the trace of love and pleasure. Treading along the faded banks, let us remount the stream of years, while icy remembrance, like the dim star of the shades, still enlightens, with its sombre tints, the empty scene of the past. Here upon this show of the world arose thy first sun.

*

Look! What a profound night has replaced that vermeil morning. Every thing, and the heavens seemed to smile; the leaf, the wave, the zephyr murmured their sweet accords. Listen! The leaf is torn; and the winds over the stream, now dry, sound in hoarse moanings. Dost thou recollect this beautiful shade, this sea with silver wave, which cradled only the image of the shore, repeated in its bosom? A loved name blew over the wave. But not a voice replies; except the wave groaning against a rock. Unhappy one! what name dost thou pronounce? Seest thou not among these thorns that name engraven on a coffin?

Seest thou the palace, which throws its shadow on the bosom of the waters? There under a strange form, an angel, exiled from her sphere, enkindled within thee celestial love. Why tremble? What noise astounds thee? It is but a shadow that shivers at the footsteps of the mor tal, whom she loved. Alas! where thou reposest, is mourning, emptiness, or death; and nothing hath sprouted under our steps, but pain or

remorse.

The allusion to the return of Ulysses, strikes as a charming thought. So from foreign shores, when the man, unknown to the tyrants, turns in secret his wandering steps towards the sojourn of his fathers, the ivy had covered his mounds. The sacred roof hung in ruins. In his gardens the streams had run dry, and on the threshhold which was his joy, in the shade, a fierce dog barked at the hand which had fed him. *

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In vain in the arid desert every thing is effaced under our steps. Come where eternity resides; we shall find again even the past. There are our dreams full of charms, and our adieus steeped with tears, our vows and our last sighs. There our youth shall flourish anew, and the objects of our griefs shall be restored to our regrets. So, when the winds of the autumn have scattered the shade of the groves, the agile swallow abandons the shelter of the palace of kings. Following the sun in his march, it remounts towards the source where this star still forms the day; and in his path finds still another heaven, another morning, another rest for its loves. We would gladly have translated the entire 'Poete Mourant,' but we found the harmony too deep and impressive to be marred by any version but one which should give the tones, the rhythm and spirit of the original. Take the first and last stanzas of his ode to Buonaparte, as samples of the whole:

On a rock, beaten by the moaning wave, the mariner, from far, sees a tomb whiten on the shore. Time hath not yet browned the narrow stone; and under the verdant tissue of the thorn and the creeper, we distinguish a broken sceptre. * * His coffin has closed. God hath judged him. Silence! His crime, his exploits are weighed in the balance. Let not the hand of feeble mortals touch him more. Who, Lord, can sound thy infinite clemency?

There are beautiful thoughts in the meditation, 'Les Etoiles.' In the limpid azure of these waves of crystal, reminding me still of my natal globe, I would come each night, slow and solitary upon the mountains, which I loved to illumine, near the earth I would love to glide under the shade of branches, to sleep upon the meadows, to float upon the waters, gently to pierce through the veil of a cloud, like a glance of love, which modesty shades. I would visit man; and if there is here below a pensive

brow, eyes, which close not, a soul in mourning, a heart oppressed, pouring out before God its pious grief, a wretch concealing his pains from the light, and allowing his tears to flow by night; an unquiet genius; an active thought; by an instinct too strong, darted into infinity; my ray, penetrated with a holy friendship, prodigal of its pity for sorrows, too well known, as a secret of love shed into a tender heart, would delight itself to descend upon these dejected brows.

We give the entire ode 'Le Papillon,' or the butterfly. To be born with the spring, to die with the roses upon the wing of zephyr, to swim in the pure heaven, balanced upon the bosom of flowers, scarcely unfolded, to be drunk with perfumes, with light and azure, shaking still in youth the dust from thy wings, to fly away like a breath to the eternal vaults; such is the enchanting destiny of a butterfly. It resembles desire; which never is still; and without satisfying itself, deflouring every thing, it soars at length aloft, still in search of pleasure.

The beginning of 'Elegie' is beautiful. Let us cull, let us cull the rose in the morning of life. Our rapid springs respire at least of flowers. Let us abandon our hearts to chaste pleasures. Let us love without measure, O my well beloved.

There is inexpressible grandeur in the Ode to Solitude. We have not space to give it entire, and we are unwilling to give an extract, the beauty of which would be lost from its want of connection. The sentiments in the Crucifix are exceedingly tender and solemn; but are too idiomatic to endure a translation. In short, we consider the whole contents of these volumes as a treasure of splendid and beautiful imagery, that power over the imagination, which, by a word, or a phrase, awakens a whole volume of meditations, of the original and consecrated diction of poetry; of frequent and most completely successful efforts of the sublime; in fact, as the real and genuine poetry of the highest order of inspiration.

To every intelligent reader, it will be wholly unnecessary to observe, that the peculiar charm of this and all other poetry, must vanish with the rhythm, the inversion, the peculiar phrase and delicacy of arrangement of verse, which must necessarily be lost in a plain prose translation. But to form a just comparative estimate of La Martine, as a poet, let most of the verse that now passes for poetry, undergo a similar transfusion into French, or any modern language. As we have often said, we repeat, that rhythm, harmony, peculiar diction, inversion; those clues to illimitable stretch of imagination, which constitute the drapery of poetry, are its adventitious ornaments. The real substratum is mind, invention, grand conception, thoughts that burn,' and that, which will not be lost in a translation. Apply this test to our favorite verses, the Georgics and Bucolics of Virgil. A plain prose translation of them, when read for the first time by a mind really endowed, and gifted with the keen ‘indoles,' with the genuine poetic temperament, will be as certain to start him to the actual transgression of verse making, as drawing the gate gives motion through the first wheel to all the subordinate movements of a manufactory.

We have only to add, that we should consider it among the most acceptable presents that could be made to American poetry, to give a fine metrical translation of La Martine's 'Meditations Poetiques.'

Code Civil. Manuel complet de la politesse, par l'auteur du code Gour mand. Tous les hommes sont egaux devant la politesse:' pp. 247. 12 mo. Paris: 1828.

Code des Gens Honnetes, ou l'art de ne pas etre dupe des fripons. Bruxelles: 12 mo. 248 pp.

'PELHAM' and 'The Disowned' purport to give us exact and living pictures of English high life. If such are really the manners of the English in the upper walks of life, and the people so hollow hearted, so perfidious, so destitute of all feeling and all sense of moral obligation, the slaves of a tone and an unwritten law, that compel the subjects to become baboons or Yahoos-if such are really the fair samples of fashionable English men and women, what additional reasons have Americans to love their country above all others. We have sufficient numbers of dandies and biped apes, and sufficient numbers of the other sex, who would, doubtless, consider such a course of things a consummation devoutly to be desired in our country. But our simplicity is not yet sufficiently corrupted, and perverted, to give currency to such an order even in our largest cities. There is still a good fund of ancient plainness, frankness and love of nature. Truth, integrity and honor are something more than abstract names. We have not the fortune to know any society, corresponding in the most distant resemblances to that described in these volumes. But their great success in this country is, as it seems to us, a fearful omen, that the taint is becoming epidemic even here, and that the devourers of these books would be Pelhams and Disowned, if they could. If this be the re sult of our boasted advances in knowledge, if such be the fruit of lyceums and lectures, and all sciences, and all philosophy, laid open, and rendered accessible by male and female, the congregated mass of the affluent in cities, we should pray for a return to the higher taste, the better manners, the warmer feeling, the more unsophisticated nature of more ignorant days.

In the books before us, we have curious, and very striking pictures of French manners, both in high and low life. There seems more simplicity, more archness, more nature in them, than in the English books first named. But they give us in some respects, views sufficiently abhorrent of the state of manners and morals in the splendid and polished capital of France.

The object of the code des gens honnetes,' is to instruct opulent young men in the arts, which will be put in practice, to trick them out of their money. The first chapter gives the history of privileged and unprivileged thievery, with due cautions, thence resulting to the pupil. In an amusing tone of irony, the author goes into details upon the several species of thieve ry, and classes of thieves. We should infer, that the art is far more scientifically understood, more ingeniously practised, and has much more numerous professors, than in our country. In giving these sage lessons to the young Telemachus, he is brought acquainted with dangers at home and abroad, in the house and by the way, in the dilligence and the hotel, in the shop and the theatre, dangers from strangers, and dangers from false brethren, domestics and servants in the interior of his own mansion. He VOL. III.-No. 1.

is cautioned to look to his hat, his handkerchief, his pocket-book, his watch, and every thing, that may not be properly called the real and immovable estate, that a person carries about with him. A hundred most laughable anecdotes of cheats and thievery are given, which show the infinite ingenuity, which can be sharpened by want, and carried into effect, even when the people, forewarned by the experience of others, are continually on their guard. If we had space, we could give sufficiently amusing specimens of this perverse and bad ingenuity, which would at the same time throw great light upon the order of things and the state of society in France. We shall bind ourselves, in our extracts from this volume-which does not seem to us so well written as the other-by two, the one a tale of a theft recently committed in Paris, and the other an instruction to the pupil, to draw himself creditably off, from an attempt to extort money from him, on the score of religious charity.

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6

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The following is a translation of the narrative. M. E a physician, well known for his skill in mental disorders, saw arrive at his gate, one morning, a lady, who seemed forty years, although still young and fresh. Madame the Countess de * was admitted within the gate of the celebrated physician. The Countess introduced herself on the spot, and spoke, as a mother in desolation and despair, in the following terms. Sir, you see a woman, a prey to the most violent chagrin. I have a son; he is very dear to me, as well as my husband; he is our only son Tears, like rain, fell, such as Artemisia shed over the tomb of Mausoleus. 'Ah, yes! Y-es, alas, sir! and for some time, we have suffered the most horrible fears. He is now at that age, when the passions develope Although we gratify all his wishes, money, liberty, &c. he evidences many signs of complete dementation. The most remarkable is, that he is always talking about jewelry, or of diamonds, which he has sold, or given to some woman, all unintelligible. We suspect, that he has become amorous of a woman, no better, perhaps, than she should be, and that he has involved himself in burdensome engagements, to satisfy her desires. This, sir, is but a conjecture. The father and I are lost in sounding the causes of this folly.'

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Well, Madam, bring your son here * Ah, to-morrow, sir! by all means, at noon. That will do. The doctor respectfully conducted the lady to her carriage, not forgetting to scan the coat of arms and the lacqueys.

The next morning the pretended Countess drove to a famous jeweller, and after having a long time cheapened a set of thirty thousand crowns, she finally purchased it. She took it, and negligently drew a purse from her reticule, found there ten thousand francs, in bank notes, and spread them out; but immediately gathering them up, she said to the jeweller; you had better send a person with me. My husband will pay him. I find I have not the entire sum.

The jeweller made a sign to a young man, who, proudly delighted to go in such an equipage, started off with the Countess M. M. She drove to the doctor's door. She whispered the doctor, this is my son. I leavé him with you. To the young man she said, my husband is in his study. Walk in. He will pay you. The young man went in. The Countess and the carriage went off, at first slow and noiseless; soon after the horses galloped.