I was introduced one day, in St. James's Park, | been painted for one of his female admirers, and to the Fielding of whom you gave me so lively when long Sir Thomas Robinson took possesan anecdote. He was then a fine old man, sion of the house, and of this portrait, he wonthough visibly shaken by time. He received dered what business a Mr. Richardson could me in a manner which had much of old courtesy have there, in company with persons of high about it; and I looked at him with great inter- degree; so the canvass was turned over to the est, for his father's sake. This must have been nearest painter, with orders to put on a blue in 1817. The year afterwards a book was sent riband and a star, and thereby convert it into a me with this title, "Eternal Punishment proved portrait of Sir Robert Walpole! You may be to be not suffering, but privation, and Immor- sure Mr. Morritt, when he restored to the pictality dependent on Spiritual Regeneration; by ture its right name, left it in possession of these a Member of the Church of England." There favors. came a letter with it, in which the author, (James Edward Romilly is expected, with his bride, Fontaine,) supposing me to be well acquainted in the immediate neighborhood. I have seen with Mr. Fielding, spoke of him as his friend, a little of him formerly, and generally meet one and as holding the opinions which were main- of his brothers at a breakfast-party, once, during tained in this book. And I heard afterwards, my rare visits to town, among a knot of Jeremy from the friend who had introduced me to him, Benthamites,-able, active, and ambitious men, that he was supposed to have fallen into some some of whom are right in their feelings, but all peculiar religious notions, and that something wrong in their opinions, and likely (most of like enthusiasm was imputed to him,-which, them) to do all that in them lies for increasing judging from the book, could only have been by the evils and dangers of this ill-fated country. persons who had bestowed no serious thought I do not recollect the Christian name of this themselves upon the most serious of all subjects; Romilly, but he is a mild, agreeable man, and for Fontaine, (though far from an able writer,) of prepossessing countenance. The friend at as a very sober and deliberate judgment, estab- whose rooms I have met him is the author of lished, upon scriptural grounds, the only doc- "Isaac Comnenus," a tragedy, which was notrine in which the heart and understanding can ticed some two years ago in the Quarterly; a fully acquiesce, and which clearly vindicates man of rare genius, and (though possessed in a the ways of God to man. Fielding, therefore, less degree by the same evil spirit) the most inappears to have avoided those errors into which timate friend I have among those who are a men so frequently fall, when they begin ear-generation younger than myself. nestly to look beyond the mortal state. Mr. Park will not have avoided them if he has got among the Evangelicals, who, as a body, bring both by their tenets and practices, a reproach upon Christianity. The volume which he sent you, and which missed its way, was probably his "Morning Thoughts and Midnight Musings." There are some very affecting pieces in it, the best he ever wrote.

I will ask Quillinan to look at the notes upon Davenant. D'Israeli has some curious particulars about Gondibert, in his "Quarrels of Authors:" but he supposes Dr. Donne to have been one of his assailants,-who was dead long before. There is a most atrocious libel upon Wither in one of Davenant's plays:-he is introduced as an assassin, and all but named, the intention being plainly denoted by an allusion to his "Abuses Stript and Whipt."

The fact which you notice of the likeness to Sir Edward Dering (of Charles's age) in his family at this day is very curious. Did you ever observe how remarkably old age brings out family likenesses,-which having been kept, as it were, in abeyance, while the passions and the business of the world engross the parties, come forth again in age (as in infancy), the features settling into their primary character before dissolution? I have seen some affecting instances of this,-brother and sister, whom no two persons in middle life could have been more unlike in countenance or in character, becoming like twins at last. I now see my father's lineaments in the looking-glass, when they never used to appear. But, of Sir Edward Dering, very few of his speeches are given in Cobbett or Howel's Parliamentary history, the worst part of which is that of those times, and this owing to some Wither's family is inosculated with a branch negligence on the part of the editor, who has of mine. My late uncle (Mr. Hill) married a not resorted to such separate publications as he sister of Mr. Bigge Wither, of Manidown, and ought to have done, nor to Rushworth, and still the children of that marriage are now my wards. less to Nalson. Dering's speeches, with his It was thought at one time by his sisters, that beautiful portrait, I found in the library at LowMr. B. Wither intended to marry Miss Austin, ther; where I found also, in the same collection whom you mention, and whose novels are more of tracts, a life of Sejanus, (levelled against true to nature, and have (for my sympathies) Buckingham,) by P. M. Some former owner passages of finer feeling than any other of this of the same age had written under these initials age. She was a person of whom I have heard-Philip Massinger. I communicated this to so well, and think so highly, that I regret not Gifford, as deserving inquiry on his part, which having seen her, nor ever having had an oppor he said he would make, but I believe never tunity of testifying to her the respect which I did. felt for her. I inquired if any papers of poor George Withers could be traced, but without

success.

There is a portrait of Richardson at Rokeby. with this odd story belonging to it, which Mr. Morritt told me when he pointed it out. It had

Sismondi is less fully informed than I expect ed to find him respecting the literature of Spain and Portugal, especially that of the latter country. I have never seen his historical works. Having a library within reach, I live upon my stores, which are, however, more ample perhaps

than were ever before possessed by one whose noticed in the second edition of that work. Few whole estate was in his inkstand.

My days among the dead are past;
Around me I behold,
Where'er these casual eyes are cast,

The mighty minds of old :
My never-failing friends are they,
With whom I converse day by day.
With them I take delight in weal,
And seek relief in woe;
And when I understand and feel

How much to them I owe,
My cheeks have often been bedew'd
With tears of thoughtful gratitude.

My thoughts are with the dead; with them
I live in long past years,
Their virtues love, their faults condemn,
Partake their hopes and fears;
And from their lessons seek and find
Instruction with a humble mind.

My hopes are with the dead; anon
My place with them will be,
And I with them shall travel on,
Through all futurity;
Yet leaving here a name, I trust,
That will not perish in the dust.

books have ever fallen in my way which contain so many golden remarks as these "Gnomica."

That portion of the "Theatrum Poetarum" which you printed at Canterbury I purchased when it was first published; and was very glad I now to receive the whole work, with more of your own remarks, and in so beautiful a form.

Your edition of "Sir P. Sydney's Life" I have been fortunate enough to borrow, by means of Longman. There is a curious passage respecting it in "Pepys's Memoirs," relating to a passage of prophetic foresight concerning the Dutch. This "Life," which is everywhere characteristic of its author, has led some writers astray concerning the age at which Sydney began his travels, owing, I have no doubt, to a mistake of figures in the manuscript, where 17 I must have been so written as to be taken for 14. You may have seen an impossible attempt of Dr. Aikin's to comprise a complete "Collection of English Poetry," in one volume. He begins with a few pages of B. Jonson, and then comes Milton. Longman put it into my hands when it was just published, and I remarked to him that Dr. Aikin had begun just where I should have ended; for every thing which that volume contained was already accessible to readers of all classes. He remembered this, and applied to me to include such works of the earlier poets as the limits would admit, in a similar volume. I could have made a most valuable book if he would have consented to let the volume be supMrs. Harriet Bowdler, at the age of seventy-plementary to Chalmers' and Anderson's Coleight, has just died of the small-pox, of the most lections; but this did not suit his views; so I virulent kind. This hear to-day from Mrs. could only reverse the proverb, and cut my cloth Hodson. formerly Margaret Holford. according to my coat. I have, however, given the volume a special value by Hawes's "Pastime of Pleasure;" and, if Longman could have been persuaded, I would have commenced it with that copy of "Piers Ploughman," which is the intermediate one between Whitaker's and the old edition; but he did not think the great service which might thus have been rendered to our literature would be beneficial to his book. Sir W. Davenant.-The "Gnomica."-Life of And I must think myself fortunate in getting in Sidney.-Pepys's Memoirs.-Collection of Eng. Old Tusser, Lord Brooke, and Chamberlain's lish Poetry." The Pastime of Pleasure.” Pharonnida," which fell in my way when I "Piers Ploughman."-Seenery near Keynsham. was a schoolboy. I did not know that any of -Lucien Buonaparte.-Sidney and Fulke Gremy Cid's blood was running in English veins ; ville.-Portrait of Sidney.-Conduct of the Earl of Leicester.

The stanzas in the last page were intended for my Colloquies, in which (following Boëthius) I thought at first of interspersing poems, but, giving up that intention, this little piece was left unfinished, and so it remains.

God bless you, Sir Egerton, and restore you! I shall look anxiously to hear of you; but with hope.

Yours, with sincere respect,
ROBERT SOUTHEY.
To Sir Egerton Bridges, &c. &c, Geneva.

MY DEAR SIR:

LETTER III.

Keswick, 16th June, 1830.

still less could I suppose, when translating the account of those proceedings at the Cortes, when he revenged the wrongs of his two daughters, (which is one of the sublimest passages of the kind,) that it was a part of your family history. No descent can be more distinctly made out, and none could possibly pass through a more illustrious channel.

I thank you for your letter,-for Oldy's notes concerning Sir W. Davenant, which your son has obligingly transcribed for me, and for some very interesting and valuable books, part the produce of the Lee Priory Press, and part the There is a path leading from Keynsham toresult of your unweariable industry on the Con- ward Bristol, through what was formerly the tinent. The "Gnomica" I have been reading park. It was very little frequented when I diswith the greatest delight, which has been not a covered it, six-and-thirty years ago, at which little enhanced by perceiving too frequently my time I was in the habit of walking between Bath thoughts have been travelling in the same direc-and Bristol, from one place to the other; and I tion with yours. Charges of plagiarism, indeed, felt very strongly the picturesque and melanhave often been made upon lighter grounds than might he found in this volume of yours for accusing me of it, in my last work. Had I known this a little sooner, it should have been

choly character of the scene,-melancholy only because its days of grandeur were gone by. A small lodge was the only building which remained; but the grounds, though disparked,

had still a park-like appearance, in the old haw- | whatever either to the miniature which you thorns which were standing here and there, and have had engraved, or to the portrait in the in the inequalities, making it look as if there Sydney papers. I am inclined to suspect, thereought to have been deer there. It was the only fore, that it is not his portrait, especially as that part of the walk in which I habitually and invo- want of resemblance leads me very much to luntarily slackened my pace. doubt whether Sydney ever could have sat to Velasquez. The countenance in the miniature is feebler than I should have looked for,-more maidenly;-and that again in the Sydney papers has a character (quite as inappropriate) of middle age, and is not without a certain degree of coarseness.

I was about to write to you, and apologize for a seeming neglect which began to weigh heavi ly upon my conscience, when your miscellaneous sheet arrived by this day's post. The characters which you have drawn in it of Romilly, Whitbread, and Lord Liverpool, I am very well able to appreciate, and admire them accordingly. Do you recollect the portrait of Sydney pre- They are beautifully and most discriminately fixed to Dr. Zooch's life of him, from a picture delineated. I did not like Romilly. He was by Velasquez, at Wentworth Castle. It is a more an antique Roman, or a modern American, good likeness of Professor Airey, the Cambridge than an Englishman in his feelings. One of the mathematician, who was a youthful prodigy in best speeches which I remember was made by his own science; but it bears no resemblance | Frankland, in 1810, in answer to a motion of his

for altering some of the criminal laws; and Romilly was disingenuous enough to speak of it with contempt as something unintelligible. Whitbread I like still less. A hint was once thrown out in the Edinburgh Review that it would be proper to call me to account for the freedom with which I had commented on some of his speeches in defence of Buonaparte: his party took the hint, and it was proposed to bring me before the House of Commons. I was informed of this, and should have been in no want of supporters there; but upon further consideration they deemed it better to let me alone, somewhat to my disappointment.

Lord Liverpool wanted nothing but courage to have been the best and wisest minister of modern times; he was always well-informed, always considerate, and always judicious when he ventured to act upon his own sense of what was right. But in compromising a great principle he virtually (not intentionally) betrayed it; and more evils are likely to follow from that compromise than broke loose from Pandora's box.

The transcript reached me safely; and I am very much obliged to you for it, and to Professor Horner. I would fain send you the "History of Brazil" (my best work), that you may judge by the labor already bestowed upon it how greatly I prize any information which may enable me to render it less imperfect; but three thick quartos are of unseemly bulk for travelling from London to Geneva. I will consign them, therefore, to Mr. Quillinan's care, that they may be deposited for you at Lee Priory.

do not suppose any thing in "Euphues" to be original, except the mannerism of its pedantry.

I hope to be in London at the meeting of Parliament: since the Long Parliament no meeting has been looked for with so much expectation, nor has expectation ever before worn such a "cast of fear." Matters are to be considered-and must be considered-which would require all the strength of the strongest government, and all the wisdom of the wisest; and ours is at present weak, miserably weak, in every sense of the word. There is a likelihood that it may derive support from some of those persons who are beginning to see the danger which threatens all our institutions; but, on the other hand, fear is just as likely to make others fly, and that has usually been the policy of feeble and timid men, and of none more than those who now compose the British cabinet-that of yielding to one demand after another, though with the certainty that every concession will bring on a more unreasonable demand. It seems as if they cared for nothing more than how to smooth their way for the session. There is a talk of giving a representative to Manchester, and other large towns: and, indeed, there is so little chance of preserving the old system, that those who most regret the impossibility of maintaining it, will be contented and thankful if they can only avert the mischief which must ensue if the elections should everywhere be placed in the power of the populace.

There are more than rumors that some measures are intended against the church property: had noticed that paper in the Quarterly men who ought not to express such fears make Review, not having the slighest suspicion that no scruple of saying that they expect to see the it was yours, as containing an unusual portion clergy placed upon the same footing as other of knowledge, and being in a strain of thought sects, that is, left to be supported by the volunand feeling with which I could wholly accord; tary contributions of their respective flocks. This and I made a note of reference to it, respecting I have more than once heard from persons in Sir Robert Dudley. Sydney's Stella cannot influential stations; and the effect is, that people have been Lady Rich, because his poems plain- begin instinctively to reconcile themselves as ly relate to a successful passion; and because well as they can to an evil which they are thus the name was applied to his widow. Is he the led to expect: for in losing hope, we lose in first person who used it as a feminine name? such cases most of the strength for resistance, I incline to think so, because it is evidently used and almost all the motives for it. While the in relation to Astrophel, for which conceit I sup- Catholic question was afloat, there was a strong pose he fixed upon it, though he must have body of feeling and principle in the country, not known that it was a man's name among the only ready to have rallied round the GovernRomans. The better to estimate Sydney's de- ment, but eager to do so. That body the Emanserts, I have been reperusing "Euphues," and cipation has broken up. And by removing that such of Greene's works as you have printed in question the ministers, instead of obtaining "The Archaica." The latter I read when you the peace for which they paid so dear a price, published them; the former ten years ago, when find that they have only unmasked batteries the book first came into my hands. The most which could never have opened while that quesremarkable thing in "Euphues" is, that it con- tion occupied the ground in front. The cry of tains some specimens of what Swift calls Polite Parliamentary Reform is raised, with the examConversation, that sort of vulgarity had under-ple of the Parisians, to encourage the Radicals gone little or no change from the days of Elizabeth to those of Q. Anne. It is strange that this book should ever have been popular, and still more so that any one should have rendered it into modern English in 1716. This modernization I should like to see. It contains, also, something upon a miniature scale of those vapid and fine-drawn conversations which were carried to the farthest point of wearisomeness and absurdity in M. Scudery's romances; but of this there are earlier examples, but in French and Italian. I

here: Brabant is held forth to the Irish as an example for dissolving the Union; and then will follow the demand for a Catholic Church establishment in Ireland; and the troubles which might have (been) averted by the imprisoning three or four agitators a few years ago, will not be settled a few years hence, without the most dangerous war that has ever shaken these kingdoms. Add to this, that infidelity and fanaticism are advancing pari passu among the middle and lower orders, and that agrarian principles are

sensibly making a progress among those who | Three little steps may measure the low mound, have nothing to lose. And not a murmur from the grave resound; The warrior may be spurned by rival's feet, Insects may buz around that lofty brow; For his imperial shade hears only now The surge unceasing beat.

Gladly would I abstract myself wholly from such subjects, were it possible, and live in the uninterrupted enjoyment of literary pursuits; but political considerations are now like the winds and waves in a tempest; there is no escape from them, no place where those who are at sea can be at rest, or cease to hear and to feel the storm.

The paper upon Bunyan in the last Quarterly Review is by Sir Walter. He has not observed; and I, when I wrote the life, had forgotten, that the complete design of a Pilgrim's Progress is to be found in Lucian's Hermotimus. Not that Bunyan ever saw it there; but that the obvious allegory had presented itself to Lucian's mind, as to many others. My only article in the number is a short one upon the Negro New Testament: as a philological curiosity that Testament is the most remarkable that has fallen in my

way.

My life of Sydney lengthens before me, and I shall not be satisfied with it till I can get at the two other collections of Hubert Languet's letters, besides those which were addressed to Sydney himself. Then, too, I shall better be able to form an opinion whether Languet has been rightly supposed to be the Junius Brutus of that age; at present, what I have gathered of his character inclines me to think otherwise. wish, and ought also, to read the letters of Mornay du Plessis, which not long ago were published. Montaigne and I differ in this respect, that he liked better to forge his mind than to furnish it; and I am much more disposed to lay in knowledge than to lay doubt. Mere inclination now would induce me always to read, and seldom-very seldom, to write. This upon me is the effect of time. I hope this may find you again restored.

Yours sincerely,

R. S.

To Sir Egerton Bridges, Bart., &c., Geneva.

(There are several clerical errors in the conclud. ing part of this letter, which appears to have been ended in some haste.)

THE DEATH OF BONAPARTE AT ST.

HELENA.

TRANSLATED FROM DE LAMARTINE.

HIGH on a rock lashed by the plaintive wave,
From far the mariner discerns a grave,

Time has not yet the narrow stone defaced;
But thorns and ivy have their tendrils bound,
Beneath the verdant covering woven round,

A broken sceptre's traced.

Here lies-without a name his relics rest,
But 'tis in characters of blood impressed,

On every conquered region of the world,
On bronze and marble, on each bosom brave,
And on the heart of every trembling slave
Beneath his chariot hurled.

Proudly disdaining what the world admired,
Dominion only his stern soul required;

All obstacles, all foes his might o'ercame,
Straight to the goal, swift as the winged dart
Flew his command, though through a friend's
warm heart,
And reached its deadly aim.
Never to cheer him was the banquet spread,
Nor wine all crimson in the goblet shed;

Streams of another purple pleased his eye;
Fixed as the soldier watching braced in arms
He had no smiles for gentle beauty's charms,
Nor for her tears a sigh.

His joys were the clang of arms, the battle peal,
The flash of morning on the polished steel;

His hand alone caressed his war-horse fleet,

Whilst like a wind the white descending mane
Furrowed the bloody dust, and all the slain
Lay crushed beneath his feet.

To be the thought and life of a whole age,
To blunt the poignard-enmity assuage-

To shake, and then establish tottering state;
And by the lightning his own cannons pour
To win the game of empires o'er and o'er,—
Proud dream!-Resplendent fate!
'Tis said that in his last long dying moan,
Before eternity subdued alone,

A troubled glance did up to heaven ascend.
That mercy's sign had touched the scornful man,
That bis proud life a holy Name began,
Began-but dared not end!

Complete the word!-pronounce the sacred Name,
Our deeds and heroes are not weighed the same.

God pardons or condemns, He crowns, He reigns; Speak without dread, He comprehends thy thought,

Tyrants or slaves each to account are brought
For sceptres, or for chains!

CANAL ACROSS SUEZ.-A private letter from Alexandria announces the intention of the Pacha of Egypt to proceed with the execution of the long proposed work of joining the Red Sea with the Mediterranean, by means of a canal to be cut from Suez to Palusium.- Court Journal.

EXCAVATIONS ON THE SITE OF NINEVEH.-By order of the French Consul at Mossoul, excavations are being made on the ground formerly covered by the city of Nineveh, which was situated on the Tigris, opposite the present town of Mossoul. The remains of a palace, the walls of which are covered with bas-reliefs and inscriptions in cuneiform characters, have recently been brought to light, a discovery the more important, as no sculptured monument of the Assyrians was supposed to be in existence. The government have desired M. Botta to prosecute his undertaking.-Ibid.