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Yes, thou art Beauty's friend and guide;
Conducted by thy beams so sweet,

She wanders forth at even-tide,

The chosen of her heart to meet.

All
grace
she moves-with steps as light
As Rapture's bliss or Fancy's dream ;-
More soft her thoughts than dews of night,
More pure than that unwaving stream.

Thy beams disclose the haunt of love,
Conspicuous 'mid the twilight scene;

For Spring its leafy texture wove,
And wedded roses to its green.

Fair wand'rer of the sunset hour,
Approaching to the ruddy west,
Where fairy forms prepare thy bow'r
With blooms from heavenly gardens drest---

Behold the light that fills her eye,

The Alushes o'er her cheeks that move; Can earth a sight more sweet supply, Than loveliness improved by Love?

"Yes far more sweet!" methinks the while
I hear thy accents whisper low;
""Tis Beauty, with her angel smile,

16

Inclining o'er the couch of woe.”

ACCOUNT OF THE CELEBRATED BARON TRENCK.

"He had seen no man, no moon in all that time--nor had the voice of friend or kinsman breathed through his lattice."

STERNE.

BARON DE TRENCK, at the time of the first war between the king of Prussia and the house of Austria, being young and enterprising, offered himself, with a small band of determined men, to carry off the king of Prussia, when he went out from his camp to reconnoitre the position of the Austrians. In fact, he did attempt the enterprise; but succeeded so ill, that he was taken prisoner himself, and condemned to perpetual confinement in the castle of Magdeburgh. The treatment he received was equally singular and cruel. He was chained, standing against the wall; so that, for several years, he could neither sit nor lie down. His guards had orders not to let him sleep more than a certain time; very short, but long enough to prevent his strength from being entirely exhausted. He remained four or five years in this dreadful situation; after which, there being reason to fear that he could not live long in that state, he was chained in such a manner that he might sit down, which appeared to him to be a great alleviation of his sufferings. He told me himself, that after having suffered severe illness during the first years of his imprisonment, his constitution, which was

strong and robust, was so unbroken, that he recovered his health; and though he received no other sustenance than bread and water, yet he was remarkably well, and resumed his former gaiety. In this state of mind he found means to sooth the tedium of so long an imprisonment, by making verses; which he set to music as well as he could, and sung for half the day. As he had nothing worse to dread, the king of Prussia was frequently the subject of his songs, and was not spared in them. He also had recourse to the power of imagination, to sooth the horrors of his situation; and the whole time that he did not spend in singing, was passed in turning his ideas to all the agreeable conditions which it was possible for him to conceive. He was almost brought to consider these wanderings of his imagination as rea ties, and to regard his misfortunes as mere dreams. At last the Empress Queen, who for a long time had believed that he was dead, being informed of his miserable existence, solicited his liberty from the king of Prussia with so much earnestness, that she obtained his release. I saw him at Aix-la-Chapelle, enjoying very good health; having married a handsome woman, the daughter of one of the principal inhabitants of that imperial city, to which he had retired that he might not be exposed to the power of an arbitrary government. He has published several German works, some of which are the fruits of the reflections he made during the time of his imprisonment; some poetry against the king of Prussia; and some details relative to the manner

in which he passed his time at Magdeburgh. He gave them to me himself; and though his works had no great merit in the style, yet the singularity of his thoughts, and the extraordinary fate of the author, rendered them interesting, What astonished me most in him was, the force of mind, the courage and the constancy, which had supported him in a situation in which there was no hope of his seeing better days. He appeared now to have forgotton the whole, or to recall the remembrance of his past sufferings, only that he might the better enjoy the happiness of his present condition. He was very gay; and there were moments when one might have supposed, without doing him great injustice, that his reason had been in some degree affected by his long confinement; but it was only surprising that this did not appear in a more eminent degree*.

ON THE SUMMER SOLSTICE.

FRESH from the genial lap of earth,

Behold yon lily rise!

Its buds how tender at its birth

'Till foster'd by the skies!

* Poor Trenck, wishing to take a part in the French Revolution, went to Paris in the year 1793, and was guillotined on the 25th of July, 1794, two days before the execution of Robespiere,

By vernal breezes gently fann'd,
It sips the morning dew;
And wider as its leaves expand,
Th' ascending stalk we view.

The silken blossoms next appear,
Which scarce the stem supports;
Its matchless charms then crown the year,
And mock the pride of courts*.

But ah! how short is beauty's reign!
Tho' blooming thus to day,
To-morrow sees it in its wane,
Droop, wither, and decay.

Thus in his annual course, the Sun,
From Spring to Summer's height,

Rejoices still each stage to run,
In all his splendour bright!

But, like the lustre of the flower,
(So swift the months go round)
The solstice hardly keeps an hour
Its stationary ground.

Tho' Autumn for a while may cheer,

Soon Winter takes its room,
And spreads o'er all our atmosphere
An universal gloom.

* Vide St. Matthew.

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