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Save the chance greetings of some parting ships,
And elemental utterances confused.

Oh! never in high Roman basilic, Prime dome of Art, or elder Lateran, Mother of churches! never at the shrine That sprang the freshest from pure martyr-blood, Or held within its clasp a nation's heart By San Iago or Saint Denys blest,Never in that least earthly place of earth, The Tomb where Death himself lay down and died, The Temple of Man's new JerusalemDescended effluence more indeed divine, More total energy of Faith and Hope, And Charity for wrongs unspeakable, Than on that humble scantling of the flock, That midnight congregation of the Sea.

Rise not, good Sun! hold back unwelcome Light
That shall but veil the nations in new crime!
Or hide thy coming; yet some little while
Prolong the stupor of exhausted sin,
Nor with thy tainted rays disturb this peace,
These hard-won fragmentary hours of peace,
That soon must sink before the warring world!

He hears them not; beneath his splendour fades
That darkness luminous of Love and Joy;
Quickly its aspect of base daily life
The little fleet recovering, plied in haste
Its usual labour, lest suspicious foes
Might catch suspicion in those empty nets;
But every one there toiling, in his heart
Was liken'd to those other Fishermen,
Who on their inland waters saw the form
Of Jesus, toward them walking firm and free.

One moment yet, ere the religious Muse
Fold up these earnest memories in her breast,
Nor leave unutter'd that one Breton name
Which is itself a History - Quiberon!
Was it not heinous? was it not a shame
Which goes beyond its actors, that those men,
Simply adventuring to redeem their own-
Their ravish'd homes, and shrines, and fathers' graves
Meeting that rampant and adulterous power
On its own level of brute force, that they,
Crush'd by sheer numbers, should be made exempt
From each humane and generous privilege,
With which the civil use of later times
Has smooth'd the bristling fierceness of old war,
And perish armless-one by one laid low
By the cold sanction'd executioner!

Nor this alone; for fervid love may say,
That death to them, beneath the foulest hood,
Would wear an aureole crown; and martyr palms
Have grown as freely from dry felon dust,
As e'er from field enrich'd with fame and song.
But when they ask'd the only boon brave men
Could from inclement conquerors humbly pray-
To die as men, and not fall blankly down
Into steep death like butcher'd animals,
But to receive from consecrated hands

Those seals and sureties which the Christian soul
Demands as covenants of eternal bliss-
They were encounter'd by contemptuous hate,
And mockery, bitter as the crown of thorns.
Thus pass'd that night, their farewell night to earth,
Grave, even sad, that should have been so full
Of faith nigh realized, of young and old,
Met hand in hand, indifferent of all time,
On the bright shores of immortality!
Till 'mid the throng about their prison-door,
In the grey dawn, a rustic voice convey'd
Some broken message to a captive's ear,
Low, and by cruel gaolers unperceived ;
Which whisper, flitting fast from man to man,
Was like a current of electric joy,
Awakening smiles, and radiant upward looks,
And interchange of symbols spiritual,
Leaving unearthly peace.

So when soon came

The hour of doom, and through the palsied crowd
Pass'd the long file without a word or sound,
The image, gait, and bearing of each man,
In those his bonds, in that his sorry dress,
Defiled with dust and blood, perchance his own,
A squalid shape of famine and unrest,
Was that of some full-sail'd, magnificent ship,
That takes the whole expanse of sea and air
For its own service, dignifying both
As accessories of its single pride.

To read the sense and secret of this change,
Look where beside the winding path that leads
These noble warriors to ignoble death,
Rises a knoll of white, grass-tufted sand,
Upon whose top, against the brightening sky,
Stands a mean peasant, tending with one hand
A heifer browsing on that scanty food.
To the slow-moving line below he turns
An indistinct, almost incurious gaze,
While with a long right arm upraised in air
He makes strange gestures, source of ribald mirth
To some, but unregarded by the most.
Yet could a mortal vision penetrate
Each motion of that scene, it might perceive
How every prisoner, filing by that spot,
Bows his bold head, and walks with lighter steps
Onward to rest but once and move no more:
For in that peasant stands the yearned-for Priest,
Periling life by this last act of love,

And in those gestures are the absolving signs
Which send the heroes to their morning graves
Happy as parents' kisses duly speed
Day-weary children to their careless beds.

Such are memorials, and a hundred more,
Which by the pious traveller haply caught,
Falling from lowly lips and lofty hearts,
Regenerate outward nature, and adorn
With blossoms brighter than the Orient rose,
And verdure fresher than an English spring,
The dull sand-hillocks of the Morbihan.

R. M. MILNES. GOETHE'S LIFE AND WORKS.

No. III.

FROM MY LIFE. - POETRY AND TRUTH.

Воок III.

At that time, New-Year's-Day greatly enlivened the city by the general interchange of personal felicita. tions. He who otherwise hardly left the house, now hurried on his best clothes, that for a moment he might be friendly and courteous to his wellwishers and friends. For us children, the solemnity in our grandfather's house, on this day, was a much-desired pleasure. At early dawn the grandchildren were already collected there, to hear the drums, eboes, and clarionets, the trumpets and cornets, played by the soldiers, the city musicians, and others. The new-year's gifts, sealed and superscribed, were divided by us children among the inferior congratulants; and as the day advanced, the numbers of the more distinguished increased. First appeared the intimates and the relatives, then the lower officials; the gentlemen of the Council themselves did not fail to wait on their chief magistrate; and a select party were entertained in the evening in rooms which, except now, were hardly opened through the whole year. The tarts, biscuits, march pane, and sweet wine, had the greatest charm for the children. And besides this, the chief magistrate and the two burgomasters received annually, from certain foundations, some articles of silver ware, which were then bestowed in due gradation among the grand and godchildren. This festival, in fine, hadin small whatever usually dignifies the greatest.

The New-Year's-Day of 1759 approached-desired and delightful for us children, like those before it; but full for older persons of anxiety and foreboding. The passage of French troops had indeed become a matter of custom, and happened often, but yet oftenest in the last days of the bygone year. According to the ancient usage of the imperial city, the watchman on the chief tower blew his trumpet whenever troops approached; and on this New Year's

Day he blew incessantly, which was a sign that large bodies were in movement on different sides; and in fact, they passed on this day in greater masses through the city. The crowd ran to look on. In general, people had been used to see them enter only in small parties. These, however, gradually swelled, and there was neither power nor inclination to stop the increase. In fine, on the 2d January, after a column had come through Sachsenhausen, over the Bridge, through the Fahrgasse as far as the gunner's guard, they halted, overpowered the small party which accompanied them, took possession of that guard, and then marched down the Zeile, till after a slight resistance the main guard was also obliged to yield. Instantly tly the peaceful streets were changed into a place of arms, where the troops established themselves, and bivouacked until their quarters were provided by regular billeting.

This unexpected, for many years unheard-of, burden pressed severely on the comfortable citizens. It could be more annoying to no one than to my father, who had to receive strange military inhabitants into his hardly finished house, to open for them his well adorned and neatly closed receptionrooms, and to abandon to the wantonness of others all that he had been used to arrange and preserve so accurately. He, moreover, who took the Prussian side, had now to see himself besieged by the French even in his own chambers. It was the greatest grief which, with his mode of thinking, could possibly have befallen him. Yet had it been possible for him to take the thing more easily, as he spoke French well, and could in the intercourse of life comport himself with dignity and grace, he might have saved us and himself from many unpleasant hours. For it was the King's lieutenant who was quartered on us, and he, although a military person, yet had only to arrange the civil occurrences, the disputes between soldiers and citizens, and questions of debts and of quarrels. He was the Count Thorane, a native of Grasse in Provence, not far from Antibes, a long,thin, grave figure, with a face much disfigured by small pox, black fiery eyes, and a dignified, composed demearour. His very first entrance was favourable for the family. There was some talk of the different rooms, which were, some of them to be given up to him, some to remain for our use; and, as the Count heard a picture-room spoken of, he immediately proposed, that although it was already night, he should at least hastily look at the pictures by candlelight. He took extreme pleasure in these things, behaved most obligingly to my father, who accompanied him; and when he heard that most of the artists were still living, and in Frankfort or its neighbourhood, he said that he wished for nothing more eagerly than to see them as soon as possible, and give them employ

ment.

But even this sympathy as to art could not change my father's feelings, nor bend his character. He let happen what he could not prevent, but kept himself in inactivity at a distance; and the extraordinary state of things about him was, even in the smallest trifle, intolerable to him.

Meanwhile the conduct of Count Thorane was exemplary. He would not even have his maps nailed on the walls, for fear of spoiling the new room-papers. His people were dexterous, quiet, and orderly; but, in truth, as all day long, and part of the night, there was no quiet near him-one complainant following another, accused persons brought in and led out, and all officers and adjutants admitted; and as, morover, the Count had every day an open dinner-table-thus in the moderate-sized house, planned only for a family, and having but one open staircase running from top to bottomthere was a perpetual movement and buzz as if in a beehive, though all was temperately, gravely, and severely managed.

As mediator between a master of the house, dail daily more and more a prey to melancholy self-torment, and a friendly but very grave and precise military guest, there happily a smooth interpreter, a handsome, corpulent, cheerful man, who was

was

a citizen of Frankfort, and spoke good French, could adapt himself to every thing, and only made a jest of many small annoyances. Through him my mother had sent a representation to the Count, of the situation she was placed in owing to her husband's temper. He had so judiciously explained the matter, laying before him the new house, not even completely arranged, the natural reserve of the owner, his employment in the education of his children, and whatever else could be thought of to the same purport, that the Count, who in his official post took the highest pride in the utmost justice, disinterestedness, and honourable conduct, resolved also to play an exemplary part with reference to those on whom he was quartered; and in fact did so without failure, during the varying circumstances of the years in which he remained with us.

My mother had some knowledge of Italian, a language not altogether strange to any of the family. She therefore determined to learn French also, as soon as possible, for which purpose she employed the interpreter. She had lately, in the midst of these stormy events, stood godmother for a child of his, and this connexion doubled his regard for us; so that he willingly devoted to his child's godmother every leisure moment-for he lived just oppositeand, above all, he taught her those phrases which she would herself have to use to the Count. This answered perfectly. The Count was flattered by the pains which, at her years, the mistress of the house took; and as he had a vein of cheerful pleasantry in his character, and even liked to display a certain dry gallantry, there arose the most friendly relation between the two and the godmother and father who had contrived it, could gain whatever they wanted from our guest.

Had it been possible, as I said before, to conciliate my father, this altered state of things would have had little inconvenience. The Count practised theseverest disinterestedness. He even refused presents which belonged properly to his situation. Any thing, however trifling, that could have borne the appearance of a bribe was rejected. with anger, even with punishment. His people were most severely for bidden

to put the landlord of the house to the smallest expense. On the other hand, we children were sumptuously supplied from the dessert. On this opportunity, I may give a notion of the simplicity of those times, by mentioning that my mother one day distressed us extremely, by throwing away the ices which had been sent us from the table, because she fancied it impossible that the stomach should bear a real ice however sweetened.

Besides these dainties, which we gradually learned to enjoy and digest extremely well, it also seemed to us children a great pleasure to be in a measure released from fixed hours of lessons, and from severe discipline. My father's ill-humour increased; he could not resign himself to the inevitable. How did he torment himself, my mother, and her friend the interpreter, the counsellors, and all his friends, only to get rid of the Count! In vain was it represented to him that the presence of such a man in the house, under the actual circumstances, was a real benefit; that a perpetual succession either of officers or privates would follow on the removal of the Count. None of these arguments would hit him. The present seemed to him so intolerable, that his vexation prevented him conceiving any thing worse which might follow.

In this way was his activity restrained which he had been used to employ on us. The tasks which he set us he now no longer required with his former exactness, and we tried in all possible ways to gratify our curiosity for military and other public proceedings, not only at home but also in the streets, which was easily accomplished, as the house-door, open day and night, was guarded by sentries who did not trouble themselves about the running in and out of restless children.

The many affairs which were settled before the tribunal of the King's lieutenant, gained a special charm from his peculiar care to accompany his decisions with some witty, sharp, and pleasant turn. What he decreed was severely just; his mode of expressing it was whimsical and poignant. He seemed to have taken the Duke of Ossuna as his model. There passed

*

hardly a day in which the interpreter did not relate some anecdote or other of the kind to entertain us and my mother. This lively man had made for himself a little collection of such Solomonian decisions. But I remember only the general impression, and cannot recall any one case in particular.

Time made the strange character of the Count more and more intelligible. This man had the clearest consciousness of himself and his own peculiarities; and as there were certain times when a kind of ill-humour, hypochon. dria, or whatever may be the name of the evil demon, seized him, therefore at such hours, which often prolonged themselves to days, he retired into his chamber, saw no one but his servant, and even in urgent cases could not be prevailed on to receive any one. But as soon as the evil spirit had left him, he appeared, as before, mild, cheerful, and active. From the talk of his servant, Saint Jean, a small, lean man, of lively good-nature, it might be inferred that, in earlier years, when overpowered by this temper, he had caused some great misfortune; and that, therefore, in so important a post as his, and exposed to the eyes of all the world, he was rigidly determined in avoiding the like errors.

In the very first days of the Count's residence, all the Frankfort artists, as Hirt, Schütz, Trautmann, Nothnagel, Junker, were sent for to him. They showed him the pictures they had ready, and the Count purchased what was for sale.

an

My pretty light end-room in the attic was given up to him, and was immediately turned into a cabinet and painting-room; for he designed to employ, for a considerable time, all the artists, but especially Seekaz of Darmstadt, whose pencil highly delighted him by its natural and simple representations. He therefore had account sent from Grasse, where his elder brother had a handsome house, of the dimensions of all the rooms and cabinets, considered with the artists the proper divisions of the walls, and determined accordingly the sizes of the large oil-pictures, which were not to be placed in frames, but to be fixed on the walls, like the pieces of room

* See St Réal-Conspiration de Venise. Tr.

NO, CCXCI, VOL, XLVII,

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