'Heavy that chamber's air; the sunbeams fall
Scattered and sickly on the naked wall;

Through the time-crusted casement scarcely shown
The rafter'd roof, the floor of chilling stone,
The crazy bed, the mirror that betrays
Frameless, where vanity yet loves to gaze;
And still, the symbols of his darker trade,
The musquet, robber-pistol, sabre blade,
Hung rusting, where around the scanty fire
His squalid offspring watch its brands expire.
His glance is there;—another, statelier spot
Has full possession of his fever'd thought;
In the fierce past the fierce to-come he sees,
The day returned of plunder'd palaces,

When faction revell'd, mobs kept thrones in awe,

And the red pike at once was King and Law.'—p. 16.

We regret that our limits do not permit us to give the whole of the vivid and energetic passage in which the author describes the infamous Abbaye, and exhibits the horrors of the massacres of September, 1792. The contrast between the present appearance of the building, and the recollections which it inspires, are finely conceived and forcibly expressed.

'But pause! what pile athwart the crowded way
Frowns with such sterner aspect? The Abbaye!—
Gay in the sight, the shadow of that pile,
The meagre native plays his gambol vile.
Above, tolls out for death the prison knell,
Below, dogs, monkies, bears, the jangling swell;
The crack'd horn rings, the rival mimes engage,
Punch in imperial tatters sweeps the stage;
The jostling mob dance, laugh, sing, shout the rhyme,
And die in ecstasies the thousandth time.
And look! around, above, what ghastly row
Through bar and grating struggle for the show,
Down darting, head o'er head, the haggard eye,
Felons! the scarcely 'scaped,—the sure to die!
The dungeon'd murderer startles from his trance,
Uplistening hears the din, the monkey-dance,
Growls at the fate that fix'd his cell beneath,
And feels the solid bitterness of death.

Yes, 'twas the spot!-where yonder slow gendarme
Sweeps from his round the loitering pauper-swarm ;
Where up the mouldering wall, that starveling vine
Drags on from nail to nail its yellow twine;
For ornament! Still something for the eye;

Prisons, nay graves, have here their foppery.'-pp. 19, 20.

He then proceeds to a more detailed description of those dreadful nights;—it is all good, particularly the account of that most

awful

awful scene in which a priest ascended a kind of pulpit in the prison, and gave the last admonitions of piety and the last consolations of religion to the mixed and melancholy crowds of fellow sufferers who knelt before him :-but we must limit ourselves to such passages as may be most easily disconnected from the context. The following incident in that dreadful tragedy is not more powerfully given than the rest, but it is an insulated episode which will lose nothing by being quoted alone. After sketching, with the hand of a master, the bloody and drunken tribunal of that night, (drunk with wine as well as blood,) he goes on

And now, a prisoner stood before them, wan
With dungeon damps and woe-an aged man,
But stately; there was in his hoary hair

A reverend grace that Murder's self might spare.
Two of the mob, half naked, freshly dyed

In crimson clots, waved sabres at his side.
He told his tale,- -a brief, plain, prison tale,-
Well vouch'd by those faint limbs and features pale:
His words were strong, the manly energy

Of one not unprepared to live or die.

His judges wavered, whispered, seemed to feel
Some human touches at his firm appeal.-

He named his king!—a burst of scoff and sneer

Pour'd down, that even the slumberers sprang to hear;
Startled, to every grating round the room

Sprang visages already seal'd for doom;

Red from their work without, in rush'd a crowd,
Like wolves that heard the wonted cry of blood.
He gazed above, the torch's downward flame

Flash'd o'er his cheek ;-'twas red,-it might be shame,
Shame for his country, sorrow for her throne;-
'Twas pale,—the hectic of the heart was gone.
His guards were shaken off;—he tore his vest,
A ribbon'd cross was on his knightly breast,-
It covered scars ;-he deigned no more reply;
None, but the scorn that lighten'd from his eye.
His huddled, hurried judges dropp'd their gaze;
The villain soul's involuntary praise!

He kiss'd his cross, and turn'd him to the door

An instant, and they heard his murderers' roar!'-pp. 24, 25. The dreadful continuance of these scenes, and the long line of victims immolated, are thus beautifully described:

'The evening fell,-in bloody mists the sun

Rush'd glaring down; nor yet the work was done;
"Twas night;-and still upon the Bandit's
Came from their cavern those who came to die;

A long, weak, wavering, melancholy wave,
As from the grave, returning to the grave.

eye

*Twas

'Twas midnight;-still the gusty torches blazed
On shapes of woe, dim gestures, faces glazed ;
And still, as through the dusk the ghastly file

Moved onward, it was added to the pile !'--p. 26.

From this heart-touching subject, the poet turns to the royal procession to Notre Dame in 1815; and here again his description of the objects that move before his eyes is exquisitely tinged with the colour of the thoughts that pass through his memory, and of the feelings that arise in his heart.

When the Mousquetaires who had accompanied the king to Ghent (and who have been therefore, we believe, since disbanded) appeared in the procession, the applauses of the crowd (mob as it was) rent the air.

''Twas the heart's shout-the vilest of the vile

By instinct bow before the virtuous brave.'

The fatal night of the departure of this gallant band from Paris, and the melancholy festivity in which at Ghent they renewed the pledges of their devotion, are finely imagined, and (with the exception of the last line) forcibly expressed.

XXXII.

"It was a dreary hour; that deep midnight,

Which saw those warriors to their chargers spring,

And, sadly gathering by the torch's light,

Draw up their squadrons to receive their king:
Then, thro' the streets, long, silent, slumbering,
Move like some secret, noble funeral;
Each forced in turn to feel his bosom wring,
As in the gloom shone out his own proud hall,
His own no more ;- -no more!-he had abandon'd all!

XXXIII.

'And when, thro' many a league of chase and toil,
With panting steed, red spur, and sheathless sword,
At last they reach'd the stranger's sheltering soil;
They saw their country, where they saw its lord.
All ruin'd now, they fenc'd his couch and board,
But with still humbler head, and lower knee;
And scorn'd the tauntings of the rebel horde;
Nay, in the hour that seal'd the base decree
Of exile, pledged their faith in proud festivity.
XXXIV.

'I love not war; too oft the mere, mad game
That tyrants play to keep themselves awake.
But 'tis not war-it earns a nobler name-
When men gird on the sword for conscience' sake,
When country, king, faith, freedom are at stake.
And my eye would have left earth's gaudiest show,
To see those men at their poor banquet take

The

The sword, and, mid the song and cup's gay flow,

Swear on it, for their prince to live-or to lie low.'-p. 31. The high mass of Notre Dame is described with appropriate splendour; but in the midst of the parade of this ostentatious worship, the poet recals us, by the most touching strokes, to the humble scenes of our own purer devotion.

XLV.
'Georgeous!-but love I not such
pomp of prayer;
Ill bends the heart 'mid mortal luxury.
Rather let me the meek devotion share,
Where, in their silent glens and thickets high,
England, thy lone and lowly chapels lie.
The spotless table by the eastern wall,

The marble, rudely traced with names gone by,
The pale-eyed pastor's simple, fervent call;
Those deeper wake the heart, where heart is all in all.

XLVI.

'Vain the world's grandeur to that hallow'd roof
Where sate our fathers many a gentle year;
All round us memory; at our feet the proof,
How deep the grave holds all we treasure here:
Nay, where we bend, still trembling on our ear
The voice whose parting rent life's loveliest ties;
And who demands us all, heart, thought, tear, prayer?
Ev'n He who saith " Mercy, not sacrifice,"

Cares He for mortal pomp, whose footstool is the skies!'-p. 37. At this ceremony, the author witnessed the expression of the deep-rooted grief of the Duchess of Angouleme; and he touches upon the unparalleled sufferings of the orphan of the Temple in a tone which will go to the reader's heart, and console him, in some measure, for the pain which he may have felt at the unmanly brutality of Mr. Hobhouse, and the unwomanly brutality of Lady Mor

gan.

After a spirited apostrophe, which beautifully contrasts the promise of her fortune with the event

⚫ Daughter of France! in what empurpled bow'r

Pass'd thy young loveliness the sunny hour?'-p. 41.

the poet describes the dark and dismal scene in which she was secluded: and then adds, in a strain of poetry and pathos which we have seldom seen equalled

She had companions. Deeper misery!

All whom she loved on earth were there-to die!
And they must perish from her-one by one-
And her soul bleed with each, till all are gone.
This is the woe of woes, the sting of fate,
To see our little world grow desolate,

The

The few on whom the very soul reclin'd,
Sink from the eye, and feel we stay behind ;-
Life, to the farthest glance, a desert road,
Dark, fearful, weary-yet that must be trod.
Daughter of France! did not such pangs compress
Thy heart in its last, utter loneliness?
Didst thou not droop thy head upon thy hand,
Then, starting, think that time was at a stand,
And find its flight but by the thicker gloom,
That dimm'd thy solitary dungeon-room?
Didst thou not gaze upon thy glimpse of sky,
And long to bid the last, best hour be nigh?
Or melted even by that moment's view,
Stoop to the world again, and think, how blue,
How bright to thousands spread its canopy?
How many a joyous heart and laughing eye,
Buoyant with life and hope, and free,—oh, free!—
Bask'd in the brightness thou shouldst never see?
Her world was past; her hours, or few or more,
Left her bound, wretched-all she was before!
This, this is misery-the headsman's steel

Strikes, and we perish-but we cease to feel.'—pp. 42, 43.

The author's description of his own feelings when he visited the scene of these sorrows, is not less beautiful.

The Temple tower is fallen; yet still the grot
Lives in pale mockery of the woeful spot;
The weedy walk still borders the parterre,
A few wild shrubs chok'd in the heavy air;
And, helped by some rude tracery on the green,
The eye may image where the pile has been :
But all is past,-trench, buttress, bustling guard,-
For silence, ruin, and the pale dead sward.
Heaven! what wild weight of suffering was prest
In this close den, this grave in all but rest!—
I trod the ground with reverence, for that ground
Was holy to my tread; its dungeon-bound,
Dear as the spot where blood and ashes tell
That there the martyr closed his triumph well;

The torture's tools even hallow'd--brand and stake,

Scourge, fetter-all, all relics for his sake.'-pp. 43, 44.

Such sentiments as these will prepare our readers to believe that the captivity of the royal family is, if we may use the expression, rather wept than sung. There is in all these passages a tone of deep and real feeling which springs from a higher source than any fabled fountain of the Muses.

But we must pursue our walk-and that leads us to the Boulevards, where we think our author will be found to be as acute

and