and to recompense him for the evils which he had suffered. It received him as a citizen of the town, in the month of June, 1536; it gave him the house formerly inhabited by the Vicar-General, and assigned to him a pension of two hundred gold crowns, as long as he should sojourn in Geneva. He was admitted into the council of Two Hundred in 1537. Bonnivard did not now cease to be useful; after having laboured to make Geneva free, he succeeded in making it tolerant. Bonnivard prevailed upon the council to accord to the Calvinists and peasants a sufficient time for examining the propositions which were made to them; he succeeded by his meekness. Christianity is always preached with success, when it is preached with charity. Bonnivard was learned. His manuscripts, which are in the public library, prove that he had diligently studied the Latin classics, and that he had penetrated the depths of theology and history. This great man loved the sciences, and thought they would constitute the glory of Geneva; accordingly, he neglected nothing to establish them in this rising town. In 1551, he gave his library to the public; it was the commencement of our public library. And a portion of his books, are those rare and beautiful editions of the fifteenth century, which are seen in our collection. Finally, during the same year, this good patriot appointed the republic his heir, on condition that it would employ his wealth in supporting the college, the foundation of which was being projected. It appears that Bonnivard died in 1570; but this cannot be certified, as an hiatus occurs in the Necrology, from the month of July 1570 to 1571. SONNET ON CHILLON. ETERNAL Spirit of the chainless Mind! Brightest in dungeons, Liberty! thou art, To fetters, and the damp vault's dayless gloom, And thy sad floor an altar-for 'twas trod, Worn, as if thy cold pavement were a sod, THE PRISONER OF CHILLON. I. My hair is gray, but not with years, In a single night, As men's have grown from sudden fears: And mine has been the fate of those Six in youth, and one in age, Proud of Persecution's rage; II. There are seven pillars of Gothic mouli, This is a beautiful poem; and we cannot help considering it the more so from there being nothing of the author's idiosyncrasy mingled with it a very rare circumstanos in Byron's writings ! Ludovico Sforza, and others.-The same is asserted of Marie Antoinette's, the wife of Louis XVI., though not in quite so short a period. Grief is said to have the same effect: to such, and not to fear, this change in hers was to be attributed.-B. And in each pillar there is a ring, For in these limbs its teeth remain, III. They chain'd us each to a column stone, But even these at length grew cold. A grating sound-not full and free As they of yore were wont to be; It might be fancy-but to me They never sounded like our own. IV. I was the eldest of the three, And to uphold and cheer the rest I ought to do and did-my best, And each did well in his degree. The youngest, whom my father love Because our mother's brow was given To him-with eyes as blue as heaven, For him my soul was sorely moved; And truly might it be distress'd To see such bird in such a nest; For he was beautiful as day (When day was beautiful to me As to young eagles, being free)A polar day, which will not see A sunset till its summer's gone, Its sleepless summer of long light, The snow-clad offspring of the sun: And thus he was as pure and bright And in his natural spirit gay, V. The other was as pure of mind, With joy-but not in chains to pine: And so perchance in sooth did mine; Had follow'd there the deer and wolf; VI. Lake Leman lies by Chillon's walls: Which round about the wave enthralls: Sounding o'er our heads it knock'd; Wash through the bars when winds were high, And then the very rock hath rock'd, The Château de Chillon is situated between Clarens and Villeneuve, which last at one extremity of the Lake of Geneva. On its left are the entrances of the Rhone, and opposite are the heights of Meillerie and the range of Alps above Boveret and St. Gingo. Near it, on a hill behind, is a torrent; below it, washing its walls, the lake has been fathomed to the depth of 800 feet (French measure); within it are a range of dungeons, in which the early reformers, and subsequently prisoners of state, were confined. Across one of the vaults is a beam black with age, on which we were informed that the condemned were formerly executed. In the cells are seven pillars, or, rather, eight, cae being half merged in the wall; in some of these are rings for the fetters and the fettered: in the pavement the steps of Bonnivard have left their traces-he was confined here several years. It is by this castle that Rousseau has fixed the catastrophe of his Heloise, in the rescue of one of her children by Julie from the water; the shock of which, and the illness produced by the immersion, is the cause of her death. The château is large, and seen along the lake for a great distance. The walls are white.-B. Because I could have smiled to see VII. I said my nearer brother pined, I said his mighty heart declined, He loathed and put away his food; It was not that 'twas coarse and rude, For we were used to hunter's fare, And for the like had little care: The milk drawn from the mountain goat Was changed for water from the moat. Our bread was such as captives' tears Have moisten'd many a thousand years, Since man first pent his fellow-men Like brutes within an iron den: But what were these to us or him? These wasted not his heart or limb My brother's soul was of that mould Which in a palace had grown cold, Had his free breathing been denied The range of the steep mountain's side; But why delay the truth ?-he died. I saw, and could not hold his head, Nor reach his dying hand-nor dead, Though hard I strove, but strove in vain To rend and gnash my bonds in twain. He died-and they unlock'd his chain And scoop'd for him a shallow grave Even from the cold earth of our cave. I begg'd them, as a boon, to lay His corse in dust whereon the day Might shine-it was a foolish thought, But then within my brain it wrought, That even in death his freeborn breast In such a dungeon could not rest. I might have spared my idle prayerThey coldly laugh'd-and laid him ther The flat and turfless earth above The being we so much did love; His empty chain above it leant,* Such murder's fitting monument! VIII. But he, the favourite and the flower, • This is a fine image, however short |