I saw an infant, with a ruddy brow, and a form like polished ivory. Its motions were graceful, and its merry laughter made other hearts glad. Sometimes it wept,- and again it rejoiced,when none knew why. But whether its cheek dimpled with smiles, or its blue eyes shone more brilliant through tears, it was beautiful. It was beautiful because it was innocent. worn and sinful men admired, when they beheld it. It was like the first blossom which some cherished plant has put forth, whose cup sparkles with a dewdrop, and whose head reclines upon the parent stem. And care Again I looked. It had become a child. The lamp of reason had beamed into its mind. It was simple, and single-hearted, and a follower of the truth. It loved every little bird that sang in the trees, and every fresh blossom. Its heart danced with joy as it looked around on this good and pleasant world. It stood like a lamb before its teachers-it bowed its ear to instruction — it walked in the way of knowledge. It was not proud, nor stubborn, nor envious, and it had never heard of the vices and vanities of the world. And when I looked upon it, I remembered our Savior's words, "Except ye become as little children, ye cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven." I saw a man, whom the world calls honorable. Many waited for his smile. They pointed to the fields that were his, and talked of the silver and gold which he had gathered. They praised the stateliness of his domes, and extolled the honor of his family. But the secret language of his heart was, "By my wisdom have I gotten all this." So he returned no thanks to God, neither did he fear or serve him. As I passed along, I heard the complaints of the laborers, who had reaped his fields— and the cries of the poor, whose covering he had taken away. The sound of feasting and revelry was in his mansion, and the unfed beggar came tottering from his door. But he considered not that the cries of the oppressed were continually entering into the ears of the Most High. And when I knew that this man was the docile child whom I had loved, the beautiful infant on whom I had gazed with delight, I said in my bitterness, "Now have I seen an end of all perfection!" And I laid my mouth. in the dust. Complete. JEAN CHARLES LEONARD DE SISMONDI (1773-1842) ISMONDI, the celebrated historian of Italy and of Italian literature, was born at Geneva, Switzerland, May 9th, 1773. His father, a village pastor, was named "Simonde," a patronymic which the son for literary and other purposes altered to the more aristocratic one of "de Sismondi." The Simonde family emigrated from Geneva during the French Revolution, and after spending a short time in England, settled at Pescia, near Lucca, in Italy, where Sismondi received the bent which resulted in his most celebrated works. His "History of the Italian Republics" appeared between 1807 and 1818, and his "Literature of the South of Europe » between 1813 and 1829. He wrote, besides, a «< History of France," a number of works on Political Economy and "Julia Severa," a historical novel, which appeared in 1829. He died at Geneva, June 25th, 1842. NEVE ROMANTIC LOVE AND PETRARCH'S POETRY EVER did passion burn more purely than in the love of Petrarch for Laura. Of all the erotic poets, he alone never expresses a single hope offensive to the purity of a heart. which had been pledged to another. When Petrarch first beheld her, on the sixth of April, 1327, Laura was in the church of Avignon. She was the daughter of Audibert de Noves, and wife of Hugues de Sade, both of Avignon. When she died of the plague, on the sixth of April, 1348, she had been the mother of eleven children. Petrarch has celebrated, in upwards of three hundred sonnets, all the little circumstances of this attachment; those precious favors which, after an acquaintance of fifteen or twenty years, consisted at most of a kind word, a glance not altogether severe, a momentary expression of regret or tenderness at his departure, or a deeper paleness at the idea of losing her beloved and constant friend. Yet even these marks of an attachment so pure and unobstrusive, and which he had so often struggled to subdue, were repressed by the coldness of Laura, who, to preserve her lover, cautiously abstained from giving the least encouragement to his love. She avoided his presence, except at church, in the brilliant levees of the papal court, or in the country, where, surrounded by her friends, she is described. by Petrarch as exhibiting the semblance of a queen, pre-eminent amongst them all in the grace of her figure, and the brilliancy of her beauty. It does not appear that, in the whole course of these twenty years, the poet ever addressed her, unless in the presence of witnesses. An interview with her alone would surely have been celebrated in a thousand verses; and, as he has left us four sonnets on the good fortune he enjoyed in having an opportunity of picking up her glove, we may fairly presume that he would not have passed over in silence so happy a circumstance as a private interview. There is no poet, in any language, so perfectly pure as Petrarch, so completely above all reproach of levity and immorality; and this merit, which is due equally to the poet and to his Laura, is still more remarkable, when we consider that the models which he followed were by no means entitled to the same praise. The verses of the Troubadours and of the Trouveres were very licentious. The court of Avignon, at which Laura lived, the Babylon of the West, as the poet himself often terms it, was filled with the most shameful corruption; and even the Popes, more especially Clement V. and Clement VI. had afforded examples of great depravity. Indeed, Petrarch himself, in his intercourse with other ladies, was by no means so reserved. For Laura he had conceived a sort of religious and enthusiastic passion; such as mystics imagine they feel towards the Deity, and such as Plato supposes to be the bond of union between elevated minds. The poets who have succeeded Petrarch have amused themselves with giving representations of a similar passion, of which, in fact, they had little or no experience. In order to appreciate the full beauty of Petrarch's sonnets, it would be necessary to write the history of his attachment, as M. Ginguené has so ably done; and thus to assign to every sonnet the place to which its particular sentiment destines it. But it would be even more necessary that I should myself be sensible of the excellence of these poems, and that I should feel that charm which has enchanted every nation and every age. Το this I must acknowledge that I am a stranger. I could have wished, in order to comprehend and to become interested in the passion of Petrarch, that there should have been a somewhat better understanding between the lovers; that they should have had a more intimate knowledge of each other; and that, by this means, we might ourselves have been better acquainted with both. I could have wished to have seen some impression made upon the sensibility of this loving and long-loved lady; to have seen her heart, as well as her mind, enlarging itself and yielding to the constancy and the purity of true friendship, since virtue denied a more tender return. It is tiresome to find the same veil, always shading not only the figure, but the intellect and the heart of the woman who is celebrated in these monotonous verses. If the poet had allowed us a fairer view of her, he would have been less likely to fall into exaggerations, into which my imagination, at least, is unable to follow him. How desirable would it be that he should have recalled her to our minds by thought, by feeling, and by passion, rather than by a perpetual play upon the words Laura (the laurel), and l'aura (the air). The first of these conceits, more especially, is incessantly repeated, nor merely in the poems alone. Throughout Petrarch's whole life, we are in doubt whether it is of Laura or of the laurel that he is enamored; so great is the emotion which he expresses, whenever he beholds the latter; so passionately does he mention it; and so frequently has he celebrated it in his verses. Nor is that personified heart, to which Petrarch perpetually addresses himself, less fatiguing. It speaks, it answers, it argues, it is ever upon his lips, in his eyes, and yet ever at a distance. He is always absent, and we cannot avoid wishing that during his banishment, he would for once cease to speak of it. Judging from these conceits, and from the continual personification of beings which have no personal attributes, it has always appeared to me that Petrarch is by no means so great a poet as Dante, because he is less of a painter. There is scarcely one of his sonnets, in which the leading idea is not completely at variance with the principles of painting, and which does not, therefore, escape from the imagination. Poetry may be called a happy union of two of the fine arts. It has borrowed its harmonies from music, and its images from painting. But to confound the two objects which poetry has thus in view is to be equally in error; whether we attempt, by an image, to represent a coincidence in sound, as when the laurel is put for Laura; or whether we wish to call up an image by sounds, as when, neglecting the rules of harmony, we produce a discordance suited to the object we design to paint, and make the serpents of which we are speaking hiss in our verses. From "Literature of the South of Europe.» 3439 SAMUEL SMILES (1812-) AMUEL SMILES was born at Haddington, Scotland, in 1812. He began life as a physician, practicing at Haddington and in Leeds. Becoming editor of the Leeds Times, he gave up medicine for journalism and essay writing, and in such books as "Character," "Thrift," and "Self-Help," he has almost created a school of his own. His essays are characterized by a wealth of incident and anecdote which makes them interesting and entertaining even when they are most didactic. Besides his essays Smiles wrote a "History of Ireland," a "Life of George Stephenson," "Brief Biographies," and "The Huguenots in France.» From 1845 to 1866 he was an officer of various English railway companies. The whole tendency of his writings is to establish a more efficient faith in honesty and persistent industry as the basis of success in life and business. MEN WHO CANNOT BE BOUGHT Thou must be brave thyself, If thou the truth would teach; 'Tis a very good world we live in, But to beg, or to borrow, or to get a man's own Good name in man or woman, dear my lord, Is the immediate jewel of their souls: Who steals my purse, steals trash: 'tis something, nothing, But he that filches from me my good name, Robs me of that which not enriches him, And makes me poor indeed. -Shakespeare. L'honneur vaut mieux que l'argent. - French Proverb. |