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A TALE OF

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.

BY AN OLD TRAVELLER.

(From the Amulet.)

WHEN the French Revolution broke out in 1789, I had just completed my 21st year, and left the academic bowers of Cambridge to travel for a few years over the Continent. Proud of being a native of the only free country in Europe, my mind full of the early deeds of Greece and Rome, and my imagination seduced by visions of ideal perfection and happiness, I hailed with transport what I then conceived the first dawn of liberty in France, and giving up all thought of travelling far. ther, immediately set off for Paris, there to study the mighty workings of a people I pictured to myself as shaking off, by one sudden and sublime effort, the rivetted chains of despotism and ignorance.

vileges which they had looked upon as theirs by divine and unalienable right. They boldly rallied round their king, and with praiseworthy, though ill-judged warmth, hurried him and his family into measures which proved their ruin. Many, on the other hand, joined the ranks of the people from a heart-felt love for liberty. Some of these it was my good fortune to know. With anxiety have I watched their brilliant, but short and stormy career; beheld them the idol, then the scorn of the mob; generously sacrificing distinctions and fortune at the altar of liberty,and then polluting it with their blood. But none excited in me so much sympathy as the young Count Eugène St. George. I met him first at the house of one of the leading members of the Constituent Assembly, where I heard him exposing, with all the force of truth and eloquence, the abuses of government, tracing despotism through all the stages, and firing every bosom with the flame which burnt in his own.

Since that time 36 years have rolled over my head, and left traces of their passage. The changes which I have seen, and the vicissitudes which have fallen to my lot, have sobered my

now by sad experience, 1 must say that never, no, not even in the days of my childhood, under the shade of the paternal roof, did I spend such a delightful year.

The visions of my

The numerous letters of introduction I was furnished with, procured me an admittance into the best society, and I had full opportunities of becoming acquainted with the feelings of the different parties which then divided the capital. The majority of the nobility and clergy I saw were panic struck.feelings; but though made much wiser The incredulous derision with which they treated the first demonstrations of public feeling, soon gave way to that abject fear and fatal irresolution which marked their conduct during all the stages of the Revolution; injudiciously making a faint resistance one day, and the next giving up every thing as lost, when a moderate and cheerful compliance in the beginning, joined to a becoming and dignified firmness, would have preserved them against farther encroachments. The minority, consisting mostly of men who, in the old "regime," would have lived out their luxurious and useless life unnoticed, now courted popularity and fame at the expense of their privileges: yet a few were sincere. Some of the "haute noblesse" felt real, not affected sorrow for the situation of their monarch, and did not cloak, under an hypocritical zeal for the throne, their regret at losing those oppressive pri

youth were about to be realized; I saw
a great nation happy and free, poss-
essed with new powers; I saw all
France, as I thought, uniting with one
soul to lay the eternal foundation of
future prosperity. In this feverish
state of existence, I forgot friends,
and country, and drank deep of the
intoxicating cup that threw a whole
people into a frantic and delirious
joy. But that happiness was short
as it was vivid. I saw my friend be-
come one of the leaders of the po-
pular party, and enjoyed his triumph
as if it had been my own.
the bright perspective we had conjured
up began to lower: division, ambition,
and party-spirit, soon undermined the
fairy fabric which was to have stood

But soon

for ages. But why repeat what I wish I could forget for ever. Three years passed away, and the next saw the king of France a prisoner, and his life at the mercy of an infuriated and misled mob. My friend made a last and noble, but unavailing, effort to save him; he pourtrayed with almost prophetic spirit, the evils which threatened his country, the days of error and blood which were to follow; but the yells of blood-thirsty monsters drowned his voice.

The king's blood was shed on the scaffold, and soon after the prisons closed upon his defenders. My friend was shut up in St. Pelasgie; there I saw him still burning for the same love for his country, but a profound sadness filled his heart, and having lost all hope of being the restorer of liberty, he only aspired to the glory of being one of her martyrs.

Around him I met the men I had once admired in the brilliant circles of Paris. With them I spent many a sadly pleasing hour, and sometimes almost forgot we were in a prison. But they dropped off one after another. Eugéne's turn came, and he was sub jected to the mockery of an ignominious trial in the very hall where his name had once been repeated with peals of applause.-He spoke, and for a moment, the manly tones of his Voice, his powerful appeal to the better feelings of the multitude around him, seemed to awe his judges and suspend his fate. But it was only for a moment. He heard his condemnation with indifference, and gathering up all his energy into one last burst of eloquence, he drew a terrific picture of the reign of anarchy and blood which had blasted all the hopes of liberty, and made his country desolate for now he became in his turn a judge,-he denounced to the sanguinary tyrants of France the signal retribution which awaited them, and vowed them to the execration of posterity, and to the vengeance of God, whose altars they had overthrown.

I went to the prison early the next morning he received me with a cheerful look. "I have now paid my debt to my country," said he, " and I die content. I now see my error.

The French were not made for liberty. May they soon repent, and return to those wise institutions and wholesome political restraints, without which anarchy will ever reign under the name of freedom, and deluge the land with blood. I have long expected my fate, and might have avoided it by seeking a refuge in England; but I could not live out of my country Go, leave this guilty, this unhappy land: return to your own country: my only regret in dying is, not to have made mine what yours is-great, glorious, and free."

It was the custom, during those unhappy times, when a victin was to be executed, for all the inmates of the prison to meet, and endeavour to forget, in the festivity of a banquet, the fate of the friend they were about to lose, and the uncertainty of their own. The gloomy walls of the prison were now decked with flowers, and a large table was covered with the few luxuries which the avarice of the jailor had been bribed to procure. Eugène was seated at the head of the table It was affecting to see those prisoners, of every age and sex and station, all striving, by delicate and affectionate attentions, to cheer the last hours of his existence. In spite ot their situation, the national vivacity burst through the clouds of sorrow, and their pale and furrowed cheeks were illuminated by transient beams of gladness. Instead of a funereal repast, it seemed as if a feast was celebrating to welcome the return of a dear and long-lost friend. Sallies of wit, songs, and music, made the hours fly quickly, in a manner inconceivable to those who have not been eye-witnesses of the recklessness of death which the victims of the Revolution unhappily almost always manifested.

Fu

The hour of separation came géne, who had till then been the life of the party, and whose vivacity had at times betrayed even me, an Englishman, into a momentary forgetfulness of his impending fate, assumed the air of meek resignation which became such a moment. He bade farewell to all with affection, gave a few commissions, distributed some money among the servants and surly turnkeys, who

forget for awhile the brutal cant of the patriots of the day, and sobbed aloud as he stepped into the condemned cart. I asked and obtained leave from the municipal officer to accompany him. I endeavoured to imitate the cheerful look of resignation of my friend, and to check my tears till be should no longer be there to witness them; but a trial severer than death awaited him. We had just left the prison, when we heard the shrieks of a female struggling in the midst of a troop of men and women, who, in their own coarse but well meaning way endeavoured to quiet and console her. But, bursting loose from their hands, and rushing to the cart, she sprung upon it, and clung to St. George. It was his sister. She had left Paris to go to England, hoping her brother would soon follow her. He had often said to me, that the thought that by this time the sole surviving relict of his house was safe, had taken away all the bitterness of death. But she heard that her brother had been arrested; she flew back to Paris, and having vainly applied at the prison for admission, she had, with the resolution of despair waited for several days, watching for her brother, near the gate, at the hour when the condemned cart usually went to the place of execution. That day she had as usual placed herself there, and recognising her brother, she had rushed towards him, and now clung convulsively to him.

So unexpected an interruption to the gloomy silence which usually reigned during these processions, softened the rugged features of the soldiers.

The

women too, who seemed to have preserved of the feelings of their sex none but a susceptibility of instinctive and sudden bursts of sensibility, often expressed to a coarse but energetic language, now took her part, saying. that though she was the sister of an enemy of the people, she was too young and too beautiful to go to the guillotine.

her off. They attempted to pull her away; but she clung to the cart with the energy of despair, and then throwing herself in the mud at the feet of the sordid wretches who composed the es cort,she embraced their knees;-"Oh! save him; save him!" she cried :" but no! his fate is fixed: then let me die with him !"

(TO BE CONTINUED.)

'A MES LUNETTES.

O vous! dont le secours me donne
- L'avantage pour moi si doux,
De mieux voir ce qui m'environne;
O mes Lunettes! c'est pour vous
Que rapidement je griffonne
Quelques tirades imparfaites,
Quelques vers un peu foibles,-mais
Un Auteur avec ses Lunettes
N'y regarde pas de si près.
Je n'adopte point la methode
Du petit-maître chevrotant,
Qui prétend lui, en vous portant,
Mettre les défauts á la mode.
Moi, je n'use point de detours:
Ma misére est assez commune,
Je m'en console chaque jour,
Puisque vous, dans mon infortune,
O Lunettes! me prétez du secours.
Mes Lunettes, je le confesse,
Vous m'étes d'un bien graud secours!
Par exemple, á vous jái recours
Pour voir,-un Avare faire des largesses!
Un homme en place sans fierté !
Un philosophe sans foiblesses!
Un pocte sans vanité!

Mais quand j'apperçois au contraire
Un Fat qui, jusqu'au Meuton
Enfoncé dans son pantalon,
Croit pouvoir tout dire et tout faire;
Des prudes á l'air affecté,
Des sexagénaires coquettes,
Qui rassemblent sur leurs toilettes
Les vieux débris de leur beauté ;
Je vous soulève, ô mes Lunettes!
Et graces au ciel, je ne vois plus,
Au lieu de cette sotte engeance,
Qu'un nuage épais et confus,
Qui m'en épargne la présence.

O mes chéres Lunettes! sans votre aide
La plus belle Dame me paroîtroit laide;
O
que de biens me seroient à la fois ravis
Pourrais-je, encore sur les Près fleuris
De Trefusis et de Pendennis,

Voir les beautes les jeux et les ris,
Et en jouir avec mes bons Amis !
Non, sans votre indulgente assistance
Je me trouverois comme dans l'enfance.

St. George gazed upon the lovely
form of his sister, who had almost
fainted in his arms; all his fortitude
forsook him, and, sobbing like a child
he entreated those around him to take Falmouth, 1st March, 1827.

A:

ON FRIENDSHIP.
For the Selector,-March 1827.

MAN is a compound of body and soul; and forms that important link in the chain of creation which connects the material with the intellectual world. Endowed with faculties which are peculiar and essential to his species, his pleasures are as diversified as the range of sense and reason is extensive. They spring from so many sources, that they always present a different aspect; varying with the nature of the origin whence they arise.

It is this peculiarity which distinguishes man from the brute; and forms the characteristic of his nature. Whilst perhaps a striking degree of similarity may be observed in both cases respecting the ordinary gratifications of passions common to all animated beings; inasmuch, as reason controuls them in man, and causes their exercise to subserve the highest purposes, we cannot but be struck with the great difference existing between him and the lower animals! when regarded in this view of the subject. It would be absurd to suppose the happiness of man could be complete, if it were derived either from sense or reason. Our reason opens to us the paths of intellectual enjoyment.-Sense animates to the pursuit of its peculiar pleasures.--Both combining their influence, they afford relief to the mind; since the objects to which they tend are of an entirely opposite description.

It is this union of opposite principles that gives to our species its social character-elevates and refines our our natures--and calls into exercise all those aimable feelings so intimately interwoven with our physical and moral constitution. No one of these virtues is more worthy our observation than that mentioned as the subject of this essay. From it rise emotions the most animating-relations the most endearing-associations the most honourable and actions at once the most noble and exalted! Excited by ingenuous esteem, existing by the exhilirating influence of disinterested devotion, it throws around the mind such a halo of excellence, as, dims the lustre

of all other virtues with the intensity of its brightness.

It is absurd however to denominate the ordinary intercourse of society by a name so dignified as friendship. Men may meet in places of public resort; at entertainments; or occasionally in retirement; acquaintance, and some degree of intimacy, may be the result of such frequent intercourse; but to dignify it by the appellation of friendship, is a libel upon the hallowed name of this heavenly virtue! Such misapplication of terms forcibly reminds one of Cowper's lines.

"The man that hails you Tom or Jack,
And proves by thumping on your back
His sense of your great merit;
Is such a friend as one had need,
Be very much his friend indeed,
To pardon or to bear it."

Few things are more talked of, and less felt, than friendship; happy, thrice happy is he who has friends. Rarely does it fall to the lot of mankind to enjoy a plurality of them. Is the passion too pure, too sublime, too unearthly? No, but the artificial distinctions of society are hostile to its exercise. The arbitrary and corruptive influence of rank and wealth, is too withering to allow its extensive cultivation Formed, as man undoubtedly is to exhibit this virtue ;by nature and education a social being; it becomes an interesting problem for the moralist to solve, how it is that pure disinterested friendship is so little known, and so rarely felt ?

Human nature, even to the most casual observer, must appear incapable of solitary enjoyments. True, there are some minds of such peculiar formation as to delight in entire abstraction from society; but this is a morbid state of the moral constitution; diseased, and unnatural is such a temper. For, were it possible to convey a man without the boundaries of our world, and to open before his expanded vision all the bright glories of the universe, their beauty would fade from before his gaze, and their lustre pall upon his solitary appetite, if no one of his species was at hand to whom he could transmit the vivid images his mind had received from contemplating so much splendour and magnificence.

Does then, the question recur how is there so little real friendship in the world? It does recur with greater force. Surely some palpable causes must exist to account for this apparent paradox. Does it originate in any incapacity for its exercise? This appears at variance with the known peculiarities and sympathies of human nature. Does it arise from incaution in forming early associations? Doubtless, may it not also spring from allowing self-interest to have too much sway over the mind? Unquestionably, knowing then the value of friendship, appreciating the undying worth of this the highest of the moral virtues; may not a few remarks on the topics now suggested, convey some useful hints, subservient to the advancement of the true interest of the reader.

But what is friendship? The tie that binds together kindred spirits! It is an affection, pure and generous; ardent and sincere. It implies a communion of thought and sentiment. Supposes the existence of unbounded confidence and identity of interest. It is established upon the basis of honour and virtue, and is nourished by the warmth of devoted attachment! Since so much of the happiness of future life depends upon early association, no one fully alive to the enjoyment of peace, and the security of internal quietude, but must feel that caution of the most severe character, is necessary to avert the evils arising from a misguided choice of a friend; the misplaced confidence of a generous heart. Too often do the young and ardent neglect this salutary precaution. The bitter lesson taught by experience, shews them the folly of indulging too un uspecting a temper. Whilst it is readily confessed that candour of expression and unreservedness of deportment become an honest mind, yet, unless they are controuled by prudence, they often involve us in unpleasant dilemmas. Where there is no congeniality of pursuit, temper, or opinion, however strong may be the ties that unite two in mutual endearment, sooner or later those ties will be broken; and coldness and reserve

assume the place of reciprocal affection and confidence.

On the other hand, where this congeniality exists, one of the qualities necessary to a lasting friendship is instantly discovered. And when it is nourished by openness of temper and manners, such friendship is more than likely to be real and permanent. But when it is not fostered by these qualifications of mind, and where jealousy finds its way, darkness begins to hover around, and friends become foes. Confidence is the soul of friendship; it is the atmosphere it breathes; for without confidence friendship expires! It is in the hour of difficulty and distress that it appears to the greatest advantage. Alas! how few of the professed friendships of man stand the severity of this test! Although, when it is genuine, and founded on proper principles, it never forsakes the bosom but hovers over the mind that is clouded by sorrow and distress, like the angel of mercy in affliction's storm, or the bright beams of the half obscured sun playing upon the dense obscurity of a cloud, and gilding it with glory and brightness; how frequently is the woe of the hour of disappointment aggravated by the perfidy of a false friend! So is it with minds that have not stability, or fixedness of purpose. Bereft of these, there is no worth, no dignity in human character. To this may we look as the fruitful source of the sorrows of a betrayed friendship. These are the spirits which, when captivated by the glittering shew of wealth, and the trumpery vanities of fashion-truckle to exterior greatness

falsify the ties of friendship-and forcibly tell us they are incapable of nurturing that hallowed and dignified emotion. Friendship delights in greatness of soul, and never exacts any compliances incompatible with the sternest integrity, or most exalted virtue.

But do we aspire to a friendship pure and lasting? To behold it we must repair to scenes where piety sheds its mildest lustre! This is the friendship that is too elevated for the sensual-too weighty for the weak-too pure for the vicious-too holy for the

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