Apothecary's verse! and where's the treason? He had a patient lying at Death's door, Some three miles from the town, it might be four; He wrote this verse, Which one would think was clear enough, And terse: When taken, To be well shaken. Next morning early, Bolus rose, And to the patient's house he goes Upon his pad, Who a vile trick of stumbling had ; It was, indeed, a very sorry hack; For what's expected from a horse With an apothecary on his back? Bolus arrived, and gave a doubtful tap, Between a single and a double rap. Knocks of this kind Are given by gentlemen who teach to dance; By fiddlers, and by opera-singers; One loud, and then a little one behind, As if the knocker fell by chance Out of their fingers. The servant lets him in with dismal face, Portending some disaster; "Well, how's the patient?" Bolus said. John shook his head. "Indeed-hum!-ha!-that's very odd! He took the draught?" John gave a nod. "Well, how? what then? Speak out, you dunce !" "Why, then," says John, "we shook him once." "Shook him?-how?" Bolus stammered out. "We jolted him about." "Zounds! shake a patient, man!—a shake won't do. "No, sir, and so we gave him two." "Two shakes! od's curse! 'T would make the patient worse." "It did so, sir; and so a third we tried." "Well, and what then?" "Then, sir, my master died." CORINNE AT THE CAPITOL. [ANNE LOUISE GERMAINE DE STAEL HOLSTEIN (Madame de Staël) was born at Paris, April 22, 1766. She was a daughter of Jacques Neckar, the celebrated Minister of Finance. In 1786 she married the Baron de Staël Holstein, Swedish Ambassador at Paris; and after his death, she married secretly a French officer, De Rocca. Owing to her beauty, wit and eloquence the Salon of Mme. de Staël was the centre around which gathered all the most prominent talent of France, and during the first stages of the Revolution she was a political power. Her reputation was widened and perpetuated by her writings, which include: Literature in its Relations to Social Institutions (1796); on the Influence of Passions on the Happiness of Individuals and of Nations (1796); Ten Years of Exile (1812); and Corinne (1807). From the latter work our extract is taken. She died July 14, 1817.] Oswald awoke in Rome. The dazzling sun of Italy met his first gaze and his soul CORINNE AT THE CAPITOL. was penetrated with sensations of love and gratitude for that heaven which seemed to smile on him in these glorious beams. He heard the bells of numerous churches ringing, discharges of cannon from various distances, as if announcing some high solemnity. He inquired the cause, and was informed that the most celebrated female was that morning to be crowned at the Capitol Corinne, the poet and improvisatrice, one of the loveliest women of Rome. He asked some questions respecting the ceremony, hallowed by the names of Petrarch and of Tasso; every reply he received warmly excited his curiosity.. Oswald walked the streets of Rome, awaiting the arrival of Corinne; he heard her name every instant; every one relating some new trait, proving that she united all the talents most captivating to the fancy. One asserted that her voice was the most touching in Italy; another, that in tragic acting she had no peer; a third, that she danced like a nymph, and drew with equal grace and invention-all said that no one had ever written or extemporized verses so sweet, and that in daily conversation, she displayed alternately an ease and an eloquence which fascinated all who heard her. A burst of exquisite melody preceded the approach of the triumphal procession. How thrilling is each event that is heralded by music! A great number of Roman nobles, and not a few foreigners, came first. "Behold her retinue of admirers !" said one. "Yes," replied another, "she receives the whole world's homage, but accords her preference to none." . . . At last four spotless steeds appeared in the midst of the crowd, drawing an antiquely shaped car, beside which walked a maiden band in snowy vestments. Wherever Corinne passed, perfumes were thrown upon the air; the windows, decked with flowers and scar let hangings, were peopled by gazers, who shouted, "Long live Corinne! glory to beauty and to genius!" 91 and modest; it might, indeed, be perceived that she was content to be admired; yet a timid air blended with her joy, and seemed to ask pardon for her triumph. The expres sion of her features, her eyes, her smile, created a solicitude in her favor, and made Lord Nevil [Oswald] her friend even before any ardent sentiment subdued him. Her arms were transcendently beautiful; her figure tall, and, as we frequently see among the Grecian statues, rather robust-energe tically characteristic of youth and happiness. There was something inspired in her air; yet the very manner in which she bowed her thanks for the applause she received, betray. ed a natural disposition sweetly contrasting the pomp of her extraordinary situation. She gave you at the same instant the idea of a priestess of Apollo advancing towards his temple, and of a woman born to fulfil the usual duties of life with perfect simplicity-in truth, her every gesture elicited not more wondering conjecture than it conciliated sympathy and affection. At the foot of the steps leading to the Capitol, the car stopped, and all her friends rushed to offer their hands; she took that of Prince Castel Forte, the nobleman most esteemed in Rome for his talents ard character. Every one approved her choice. She ascended to the Capitol, whose imposing majesty seemed graciously to welcome the light footsteps of woman. The instruments sounded with fresh vigor, the cannon shook the air, and the all-conquering Sybil entered the palace prepared for her reception. In the centre of the hall stood the senator who was to crown Corinne, surrounded by his brothers in office; on one side all the Cardinals and most distinguished ladies of Rome; on the other the members of the Academy; whilst the opposite extremity was filled by some portion of the multitude who had followed Corinne. The chair destined for her was placed a step lower than that of the senator. Ere seating herself in presence of that august assembly, she complied This emotion was general; but, to par- with the custom of bending one knee to the take it, one must lay aside English reserve earth. The gentle dignity of this action and French raillery. Nevil could not yield filled Oswald's eyes with tears, to his own to the spirit of the scene, till he beheld surprise. But in the midst of all this sucCorinne attired like Domenichino's Sibyl; cess, it seemed as if the looks of Corinne an Indian shawl was twined among her lus- implored the protection of a friend, with trous black curls, a blue drapery fell over which no woman, however superior, can her robe of virgin white, and her whole cos- dispense; and he thought how delicious it tume was picturesque, without sufficiently were to be the stay of her whose sensitivevarying from modern usage to appear taint-ness alone could render such a prop neces ed by affectation. Her attitude was noble sary. As soon as Corinne was seated, the 92 THE FOREHEAD IN GREEK ART. Roman poets recited the odes and sonnets composed for this occasion; all praised her to the highest; but in styles that described her no more than they would have done any other woman of genius. The same mythological images and allusions must have been addressed to such beings from the days of Sappho to our own. Already Nevil disliked this kind of incense for her; he fancied that he could that moment have drawn a truer, a more finished portrait; such, indeed as could have belonged to no one but Corinne. ... DEATH OF THE NIGHTINGALE. [LUDWIG HEINRICH CHRISTOPH HOLTY. Born Dec. 21, 1748, at Mariensee, Hanover; died Sept. 1, 1776. He obtained considerable popularity by his odes, songs and idyls.] She is no more, who bade the May-month hail; Alas! no more! The songstress who enlivened all the vale, Her songs are o'er; She, whose sweet tones, in golden evening hours, When, by the brook that murmured 'mong the flowers How richly gurgled from her deep, full throat The silvery lay, Till in her caves sweet Echo caught the note, Far, far away! Then was the hour when village pipe and song And dancing maidens lightly tripped along A youth lay listening on the green hill-side, While on his rapt face hung a youthful bride Their hands were locked oft as thy silvery strain They heeded not the merry dancing train, They listened thee till village bells from far And, like a golden fleece, the evening star Then, in the cool and fanning breeze of May, Homeward they stole, Full of sweet thoughts, breathed by thy tender lay, Through the deep soul. THE FOREHEAD IN GREEK ART. [JOHANN JOACHIM WINCKELMANN, the illustrious archælogist and art critic, was born at Stendhal, Prussia, December 9, 1717. His numerous works on antique painting, sculpture and engraved gems exerted a marked influence, and still are standards. He was killed at Trieste, June 8, 1768, by a thief who attempted to rob him of some rare gold coins.] A low forehead is so peculiar to the ideas which the ancient artists had of a beautiful head, that it is a characteristic by which an antique can frequently be distinguished from a modern work. Many heads which I could not approach sufficiently near to examine, I have either recognized to be modern, solely by the high forehead, or else this con formation first excited doubts as to their age, which were afterwards verified by further investigation. To complete the beauty of a youthful head, the frontal hair should grow in a curve down over the temples, in order to give the face an oval shape. Such a forehead is to be found in all beautiful women; and this form of it is so peculiar to all ideal and other youthful heads of the ancients, that we do not see on any figures, not even those of mature manhood, the receding, bare corners of the temples, which usually enlarge as life advances beyond that age when the forehead is naturally high. Few modern sculptors have noticed this peculiarity; and wherever new youthful male heads are placed upon antique statues, the hair is carried obliquely over the forehead, and strikingly displays the faulty concep tion of modern days in regard to the natural beauty of its disposition. Some of our own artists have made portrait figures of young persons of both sexes, with whom I am acquainted, and who have low foreheads; yet they have given so little attention to tho beauty of which I now speak, that they have added to the height of their foreheads, and made the growth of hair commence farther back, with the presumed intention of forming an open forehead. Bernini be longs to this class; but in this particular, as in many others, he has mistaken the reverse of beauty for beauty's self. MARCO BOZZARIS.1 At midnight, in his guarded tent, MARCO BOZZARIS. The Turk was dreaming of the hour When Greece, her knee in suppliance bent, Should tremble at his power; In dreams, through camp and court, he bore The trophies of a conqueror; In dreams his song of triumph heard. Then wore his monarch's signet ring, Then pressed that monarch's throne-a King; As wild his thoughts, and gay of wing, As Eden's garden bird. At midnight, in the forest shades, There had the Persian's thousands stood, And now there breathed that haunted air An hour passed on-the Turk awoke; He woke to hear his sentries shriek, They fought, like brave men, long and well, They piled that ground with Moslem slain, They conquered-but Bozzaris fell, Bleeding at every vein. His few surviving comrades saw His smile when rang their proud hurrah, Then saw in death his eyelids close Like flowers at set of sun. 1 The Epaminondas of Modern Greece. He fell in a night attack upon the Turkish camp at Laspi, the site of the ancient Platæa, August 20, 1823, and expired in the moment of victory. His last words were, "To die for liberty is a pleasure, and not a pain." Come to the bridal chamber, Death! Come to the mother's, when she feels For the first time her first-born's breath; Come when the blessed seals Which close the pestilence are broke And crowded cities wail its stroke; Come in consumption's ghastly form, The earthquake's shock, the ocean storm; Come when the heart beats high and warm, With banquet-song, and dance, and wine; And thou art terrible; the tear, The groan, the knell, the pall, the bier, But to the hero, when his sword Has won the battle for the free, The thanks of millions yet to be. Of sky and stars to prison'd men; To the world-seeking Genoese, Bozzaris! with the storied brave Greece nurtured in her glory's time, Rest thee: there is no prouder grave, Even in her own proud clime, She wore no funeral weeds for thee, Nor bade the dark hearse wave its plume, Like torn branch from death's leafless tree, In sorrow's pomp, and pageantry, The heartless luxury of the tomb; But she remembers thee as one Long loved, and for a season gone. For thee her poet's lyre is wreathed, Her marble wrought, her music breathed; For thee she rings the birth-day bells; Of thee her babe's first lisping tells; For thine her evening prayer is said At palace couch and cottage bed. Her soldier, closing with the foe, Gives for thy sake a deadlier blow; His plighted maiden, when she fears For him, the joy of her young years, Thinks of thy fate, and checks her tears; And she, the mother of thy boys, Though in her eye and faded cheek Is read the grief she will not speak, The memory of her buried joys; 93 And even she who gave thee birth FITZ-GREENE HALLECK. A FORGOTTEN HERO.1 [James Anthony Froude, M.A., born at Dartington, Devonshire, 23d April, 1818; educated at Westminster and Oxford. He obtained the chancellor's prize for the "English Essay" in 1842, and was elected fellow of Exeter College. In 1856 appeared the first two volumes of his History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Defeat of the Spanish Armada. The work, completed in twelve volumes, distinguishes its author as one of the best of England's historians. In 1871-74 he published The English in Ireland in the Eighteenth Century, 3 vols.; in 1879, a life of Julius Cæsar. He is also widely known by his miscellaneous contributions to literature, a valuable collection of which has been issued under the title of Short Studies on Great Subjects.] Some two miles above the port of Dartmouth, once among the most important harbours in England, on a projecting angle of land which runs out into the river at the head of one of its most beautiful reaches, there has stood for some centuries the manor-house of Greenaway. The water runs deep all the way to it from the sea, and the largest vessels may ride with safety within a stone's throw of the windows. In the latter half of the sixteenth century there must have met, in the hall of this mansion, a party as remarkable as could have been found anywhere in England. Humfrey and Adrian Gilbert, with their half-brother Walter Raleigh, here, when little boys, played at sailors in the reaches of Long Stream; in the summer evenings doubtless rowing down with the tide to the port, and wondering at the quaint figure-heads and carved prows of the ships which thronged it; or climbing on board, and listening, with hearts beating, to the mariners' tales of the new earth beyond the sunset. And here, in later life, matured men, whose boyish dreams had become heroic action, they used again to meet in the intervals of quiet, and the rock is shown underneath the house where Raleigh smoked the first tobacco. Another remarkable man could not fail to have made a fourth at these meetings. A sailor boy of Sandwich, the adjoining parish, John Davis, 1 From Short Studies on Great Subjects, by James A. Froude, M.A, London: Longmans. showed early a genius which could not have escaped the eye of such neighbours, and in the atmosphere of Greenaway he learned to be as noble as the Gilberts, and as tender and delicate as Raleigh. Of this party, for the present, we confine ourselves to the host and owner, Humfrey Gilbert, knighted afterwards by Elizabeth. Led by the scenes of his childhood to the sea and to sea adventures, and afterwards, as his mind unfolded, to study his profession scientifically, we find him, as soon as he was old enough to think for himself, or make others listen to him, "amending the great errors of naval sea-cards, whose common fault is to make the degree of longitude in every latitude of one common bigness;" inventing instruments for taking observations, studying the form of the earth, and convincing himself that there was a north-west passage, and studying the necessities of his country, and discovering the remedies for them in colonization and extended markets for home manufactures. Gilbert was examined before the queen's majesty and amination he has himself left to us in a paper the privy-council, and the record of his exwhich he afterwards drew up, and strange enough reading it is. The most admirable conclusions stand side by side with the wildest conjectures. Homer and Aristotle are pressed into service to prove that the ocean runs round the three old continents, and that America therefore is necessarily an island. The Gulf-stream, which he had carefully observed, eked out by a theory of the primum mobile, is made to demonstrate a channel to the north, corresponding to Magellan's Straits in the south, Gilbert believing, in common with almost everyone of his day, that these straits were the only opening into the Pacific, and the land to the south was unbroken to the pole. He prophesies a market in the East for our manufactured linen and calicoes: "The Easterns greatly prizing the same, as appeareth in Hester, where the pomp is expressed of the great King of India, Ahasuerus, who matched the coloured clothes wherewith his houses and tents were apparelled, with gold and silver, as part of his greatest treasure." These and other such arguments were the best analysis which Sir Humfrey had to offer of the spirit which he felt to be working in him. We may think what we please of them; but we can have but one thought of the great grand words with which the memorial concludes, and they alone would explain the love which Elizabeth bore him: |