That absent from my mind should be What soothing recollections throng, Tho' beauty bless the landscape still, Tho' woods surround, and waters lave it, My heart feels not the vivid thrill, Which long ago thy presence gave it; Mirth, music, friendship, have no tone Like that, which with thy voice hath flown! And Memory only now remains, To whisper things that once delighted: Still-still, I love to tread these plains, To seek this sacred haunt benighted, And feel a something, sadly sweet, In resting on this mossy seat. A NIGHT SCENE. Now flaming no more on the soft-heaving main, The sun's parting splendour is shed; Night's dark-rolling shades have enveloped the plain, And the twilight's faint visions have fled. No longer in Day's gaudy colouring glows The landscape, in Nature's diversity gay: The loud-lowing herds are now lulled to repose, And hushed are the sounds from the hamlet that rose, And the music that flowed from the spray. How solemn the hour! In their splendid career The planets revolving are seen; And the proud towering hills 'neath their glimmering appear As the shadows of things that have been. Dread Silence, her empire o'er Nature to prove, Forbids that a whisper be heard in the vale Save the breeze breathing soft through the far-stretching grove, And the light curling waves in sweet cadence that move Where the lake's gently kissed by the gale. From behind yon dark hill, in deep sable arrayed, The moon soars majestic and slow; And her mild-beaming rays sweetly pierce thro' the shade Of the thicket that waves on its browAnd now, her full orb o'er the mountain impending, Sublime in bright glory she glows in the sky; A stream of soft light o'er the vallies descending; On the lake's silver breast trees and cottages blending With the splendours effulgent on high. Great Ruler of all! while transported I view This fabric so glorious and fair, Oh! teach me, with rapture and reverence due To trace benign DEITY there- And fervent, diffusive, unchanging like thine, May benevolence glow in heart. LINES S. -The blent, but soon selected, call Its thorns are in my breast-yet still I love this Earth with all its ill! Though lone and heartless in the strife, I dread the long fatigue of lifeAnd none to whom 'twere sweet to say, "These heavens how bright! this earth how gay!" With meeting soul and kindred mood But where are they-the Men of yore- The home of holy Liberty?- The servile neck behold her bow, Oh! bowed to earth-and crushed-and lone Greece to my pensive eye appears A widow desolate, with quenchless tears Weeping her gods and all her heroes gone! Alas! o'er all this lovely clime In heart and soul by slavery wrung The dastard sons of sires sublime Scarce know the land whereon they And feel of all its glories gone 4. Greece-Greece-alas! is all entombed- Where tyrants reign and bondsmen bow! Yes! on these plains-of yore so blest,Where sleep in death's unbroken rest The hearts with Sparta's King that bled,Their rankling chains a race of slaves Drag o'er a thousand heroes' graves, Nor ever dream what dust they tread! 5. But, ho!-the tomb's dark thraldom breaking, At length, Immortal Slumberers, waking, Arise--arise!-whose mighty story Shall live while Nature's self endures!O come arrayed in all your glory, And Greece may live and yet be yours! But ah! in vain the voice of grief To hearts that wail the wrongs of fate; No demigod to earth returns! And hark! while here my voice of woe Is raised around their dwellings lowRepeating many a hero's name With Sparta's linked-or Athens' fame,A turbaned Turk with sacrilegicus blow Lays the last column of Minerva low! J. F. REVIEW OF NEW PUBLICATIONS. Private Memoirs, which, with the Work of M. Hue, and the Journal of Clery, complete the History of the Captivity of the Royal Family of France in the Temple. Translated from the French, with Notes by the Translator; 12mo. pp. 138. London, Murray; Edinburgh, Blackwood. THERE is something interesting even in the title of this little publication. Sovereigns and Princes are so far removed from the observation of the rest of mankind, that public curiosity has always been directed with peculiar eagerness to their private history. We feel a very natural desire to enter within the vail," which ceremony interposes between them and their subjects; to see them lay aside the overpowering lustre, which prevented our near approach and our steady gaze; and to observe how far they, who never appeared to our imaginations but in the full meridian of felicity and of power, approach in their retirement the level of humanity, and are influenced by the common motives and feelings of men. The memoirs of princes, therefore, are always read with avidity, even though there be nothing very extraordinary in their details.-We contemplate with interest any portrait, which exhibits the minds of such exalted personages without the disguise of court costume: we have a secret pride in comparing them with ourselves; and in observing how completely their superiority vanishes, when they are viewed apart from those external advantages, which threw around them an adventitious glare. The abatement of admiration, however, which such memoirs generally produce, is amply compensated by the better feelings which they excite.— We enter with full sympathy into the joys and sorrows, to which we see royal hearts equally accessible with our own. The familiarity into which we seem admitted with them, is repaid with a proportionate degree of amity.-Their faults, estimated by their temptations, are scanned with a very indulgent eye; and their virtues derive additional lustre, not only from the extent of their influence, but from the difficulty of merable facilities afforded to vice, by maintaining them amidst the innuthe obsequiousness and flattery of servile dependants.-Their happiness appears so far above all ordinary competition, that we view it without envy; and over their miseries, perpetually contrasted in our minds with the brighter aspect of their lot, we shed a tear of unmingled compassion. Never have the best of these feelings been more powerfully awakened in our own breasts, than by the perusal of this journal. Nothing, indeed, can be conceived more interesting than the circumstances in which it has appeared. It is continued to the day of the dauphin's death, and of course contains much information which Clery and Hue, in their journals, could not give. It is composed from notes, either made by stealth at the moment, with pencils which the princess had found means to conceal from her persecutors, or added immediately after her release from prison, and has, therefore, an air of simplicity and nature, which the feeling of the moment alone could impress. It was written without any view to publication, and therefore represents, without disguise or concealment, the miseries and the conduct of the ill-fated captives. It is written by the Orphan of the Temple, whose restoration to her former dignity affords some compensation for her protracted sufferings; and who, by her virtues and her heroism, has commanded the admiration of the world, and proved how much she had profited in the school of affliction. This interesting little work is not accompanied by any name; but it is avowed at Paris; and it is impossible to read one page of it, without being convinc ed that it is the genuine production of the illustrious personage to whom it is ascribed. The narrative commences from the 13th of August 1792, when the king and his family were committed to the Temple. They were accompanied to this melancholy abode by the Princess de Lamballe, of the house of Savoy, widow of Louis de Bourbon, Prince of Lamballe. Her attachment to the queen was enthusiastic. The preparations for the journey to Montmedy separated them for a time; and Madame de Lamballe sought refuge in England; but when she heard of the queen's recapture, no earnestness of entreaty, or fear of danger, could prevent her from rejoining her royal friend, whom she accompanied and cheered during her dreadful trials, with unequalled magnanimity and affection. The unfortunate queen was not long permitted to enjoy the soothing conversation of this generous companion, The tyrannical mandate of the Commune de Paris forced Madame de Lamballe from the Temple, to expiate the crime of her devoted attach ment to the royal sufferer, by a death attended with circumstances of atroci ty," unparalleled even in the annals of France." This barbarous event was communicated to the unhappy family in the Temple, in a manner which strongly marked the brutality of the Revolutionists. "At three o'clock, (3d of September) just after dinner, as the king was sitting down to trictrac with the queen, (which he played for the purpose of having an opportunity of saying a few words to her unheard by the keepers,) the most horrid shouts were heard. Several officers of the guard and of the municipality now arrived, the former insisted that the king should shew himself at the windows; fortunately the latter opposed it; but, on his majesty's asking what was the matter, a young officer of the guard replied: "Well, since you will know, it is the head of Madame de Lamballe that they wish to show you." At these words the queen was overcome with horror;-it was the only occasion in which her firmness abandoned her. The noise lasted till five o'clock. The prisoners learned that the people had wished to force the door, and that the municipal officers had been enabled to prevent it, only by putting across it a tricoloured scarf, and by allowing six of the murderers to march round the tower with the head of the princess, leaving at the door her body, which they would have dragged in also. When this deputation entered, Rocher (the gaoler) shouted for joy, and brutally insulted a young woman, who turned sick with horror at this spectacle." This Rocher was (to adopt again the emphatic words of the journal) "the horrible man who had broken open the door of the king on the 20th of June 1792, and who had been near assassinating him. This man never left the tower, and was indefatigable in endeavouring to torment him. One time he would sing before the whole family the Carmagnole, and a thousand other horrors; again, knowing that the queen disliked the smoke of tobacco, he would puff it in her face, as well as in that of the king, as they happened to pass him." Such were the indignities to which they were daily exposed: but the horror of the picture is relieved by the devoted affection of this amiable family for each other, which seemed to beguile them of the sense of their individual misery,-to console them for all they had lost,-to support them under all they had to suffer, and to fortify them against all they had to fear. The health and education of the dauphin was their principal care. For the sake of his health, they went every day to walk in the garden, though Louis never failed to be insulted by the guards. The king taught him geography; the queen, history, and to get verses by heart; and Madame Elizabeth gave him little lessons in arithmetic. But of the hope which mingled with these soothing employments they were soon to be deprived. On the 22d of September the republic was proclaimed; and one evening in the beginning of October, the king, after he had supped, was told to stop; that he was not to return to his former apartments; and that he was to be separated from his family. At this dreadful sentence the queen lost her usual courage; and the officers were so much alarmed by her silent and concentrated sorrow, that they allowed her and the other princesses to see the king, but at meal times only, and on condition that they should speak loud, and in good French. At length, on the 11th of December, the king was summoned to the bar of the Convention. The anxiety of his family during his absence may be easily conceived. The queen, to discover what was going on, condescended for the first time to question the officers who guarded her but they would tell her nothing. On his return in the evening, she requested to see him instantly, but received no answer. Next day she repeated her request to see the king, and to read the newspapers, that she might learn the course of the trial, or if that should be refused, that the children at least might be permitted to see his majesty. The newspapers were refused; but the children were allowed to see their father, on condition of being separated entirely from their mother. To this privation, however, the king was too generous to expose her. The circumstances immediately preeeding and attending the execution of the unhappy monarch are known to all-we cannot deny ourselves the satisfaction of transcribing the tribute paid by his daughter to the greatness of his conduct during his rigorous captivity." During his confinement, he displayed the highest piety, greatness of mind, and goodness;-mildness, fortitude, and patience, in bearing the most infamous insults, the most horrid and malignant calumnies; christian clemency, which forgave even his murderers; and the love of God, his family, and his people, of which he gave the most affecting proofs, even with his last breath, and of which he went to receive the reward in the bosom of his Almighty and all-merciful Creator." After the death of Louis, the perseeutions of his family became every day more rigorous. A decree of the Commune, that the dauphin should be separated from his mother and the princesses, gave rise to a scene of affliction, which is described with the most touching simplicity. "As soon as the young prince heard this sentence pronounced, he threw himself into the arms of his mother, and entreated, with violent cries, not to be taken from her. The unhappy queen was stricken to the earth by this cruel order. She would not part with her son; and she actually defended, against the efforts of the officers, the bed in which she had placed him. But these men would have him, and threatened to call up the guard and use violence. The queen exclaimed, that they had better kill her than tear her child from her. An hour was spent in resistance on her part, in threats and insults from the officers, in prayers and tears on the part of the two other princesses. At last they threatened even the life of the child, and the queen's maternal tenderness at length forced her to this sacrifice. Madame Elizabeth (the king's sister) and Madame Royale dressed the child, for his poor mother had no longer strength for any thing. Nevertheless, when he was dressed, she took him and delivered him into the hands of the officers, bathing him with her tears, foreseeing, possibly, that she was never to see him again." The only pleasure the queen now enjoyed was, seeing her child through a chink as he passed from his room to the tower: at this chink she used to watch for hours together. The barbarity with which the dauphin was treated has no parallel. He was committed to a man of the name of Simon, a shoemaker by trade, then one of the municipal officers. To this inhuman wretch, the boy's crying at being se◄ parated from his family, appeared an unpardonable crime-and he soon impressed him with such terror that he did not dare to weep. Simon, to insult the miseries of the unhappy suf ferers through the voice of this belov ed child, made him every day sing at the windows the Carmagnole, and other revolutionary songs; and taught him. the most horrid oaths and imprecations against God, his own family, and the aristocrats. "The queen fortunately was ignorant of these horrors. She was gone before the child had learned his infamous lesson. It was an inflic tion which the mercy of Heaven was pleased to spare her.' While this unfortunate boy remained under the care of Simon, his bed had not been stirred, for six months, and was alive with bugs and vermin still more disgusting, His linen and his person were covered with them. For more than a year he had no change of shirt or stockings: every kind of filth was allowed to ac cumulate about him, and in his room. His window, which was locked as well as grated, was never opened, and the infectious smell of this horrid room was dreadful. He never asked for any thing, so great was his dread of Sinon and his other keepers. He passed his days without any kind of occupation. They did not even allow him light in the evening. This situation affected his mind as well as his body, and it is not surprising that he should have fallen into the most frightful atrophy. But we must forbear to indulge farther in these melancholy details, earnestly recommending to our readers the perusal of the journal itself. The queen and Madaine Elizabeth, a prin |