Scarcely a month had elapsed after the storming of Dalem, when a terrible rumour went forth in the camp of Bouge, (where Don John had intrenched his division of the royalist army,) that the governor of the Netherlands was attacked by fatal indisposition! For some weeks past, indeed, his strength and spirit had been declining. When at the village of Rymenam on the Dyle, near Mechlin, (not far from the ferry of the wood,) he suffered himself to be surprised by the English troops under Horn, and the Scotch under Robert Stuart, the unusual circumstance of the defeat of so able a general was universally attributed to prostration of bodily strength. When it was soon afterwards intimated to the army that he had ceded the command to his nephew, Prince Alexander Farnese, regret for the origin of his secession superseded every other consideration. For the word had gone forth that he was to die!--In the full vigour of his manhood and energy of his soul, a fatal blow had reached Don John of Austria! A vague but horrible accusation of poison was generally prevalent!--For his leniency towards the Protestants had engendered a suspicion of heresy, and the orthodoxy of Philip II. was known to be remorseless; and the agency of Ottavio Gonzaga at hand!- But the kinsman who loved and attended him knew better. From the moment Prince Alexander beheld the ring of Ulrica glittering on his wasted hand, he entertained no hope of his recovery; and every time he issued from the tent of Don John, and noted the groups of veterans praying on their knees for the restoration of the son of their emperor, and heard the younger soldiers calling aloud in loyal affection upon the name of the hero of Lepanto, tears came into his eyes as he passed on to the discharge of his duties. For he knew that their intercessions were in vain that the hours of the sufferer were numbered. In a moment of respite from his sufferings, the sacraments of the church were administered to the dying prince; having received which with becoming humility, he summoned around him the captains of the camp, and exhorted them to zeal in the service of Spain, and fidelity to his noble successor in command. It was the 1st of October, the anniversary of the action of Lepanto, and on a glorious autumnal day of golden sunshine, that, towards evening, he ordered the curtains of his tent to be drawn aside, that he might contemplate for the last time the creation of God!— Raising his head proudly from a soldier's pillow, he uttered in hoarse but distinct accents his last request, that his body might be borne to Spain, and buried at the feet of his father. For his eyes were fixed upon the glories of the orb of day, and his mind upon the glories of the memory of one of the greatest of kings. But that pious wish reflected the last flash of human reason in his troubled mind. His eyes became suddenly inflamed with fever, his words incoherent, his looks haggard. Having caused them to sound the trumpets at the entrance of his tent, as for an onset, he ranged his battalions for an imaginary field of battle, and disposed his manœuvres, and gave the word to charge against the enemy. Then, sinking back upon his pillow, he breathed in subdued accents, "Let me at least avenge her innocent blood. Why, why could I not save thee, my Ulrica !"— It was thus he died. When Nignio de Zuniga (cursing in his heart with a fourfold curse the heretics whom he chose to consider the murderers of his master) stooped down to lay his callous hand on the heart of the hero, the pulses of life were still!— There was but one cry throughout the camp--there was but one thought among his captains:-"Let the bravest knight of Christendom be laid nobly in the grave!" Attired in the suit of mail in which he had fought at Lepanto, the body was placed on a bier, and borne forth from his tent on the shoulders of the officers of his household. Then, having been saluted by the respect of the whole army, it was *The foregoing details are strictly historical. transmitted from post to post, through the camp, on those of the colonels of the regiments of all nations constituting the forces of Spain. And which of them was to surmise, that upon the heart of the dead lay the love-token of a heretic?-A double line of troops, infantry and cavalry in alternation, formed a road of honour from the camp of Bouge to the gates of the city of Namur. And when the people saw, borne upon his bier amid the deferential silence of those iron soldiers, bareheaded and with their looks towards the earth, the gallant soldier so untimely stricken, arrayed in his armour of glory and with a crown upon his head, after the manner of the princes of Burgundy, and on his finger the ruby ring of the Doge of Venice, they thought upon his knightly qualities-his courtesy, generosity, and valour-till all memory of his illustrious parentage became effaced. They forgot the prince in the man, -" and behold all Israel mourned for Jonathan!" A regiment of infantry, trailing their halberts, led the march, till they reached Namur, where the precious deposit was remitted by the royalist generals, Mansfeldt, Villefranche, and La Cros, to the hands of the chief magistrates of Namur. By these it was borne in state to the cathedral of St Alban; and during the celebration of a solemn mass, deposited at the foot of the high altar till the pleasure of Philip II. should be known concerning the fulfilment of the last request of Don John. It was by Ottavio Gonzaga the tidings of his death were conveyed to Spain. It was by Ottavio Gonzaga the king intimated, in return, his permission that the conqueror of Lepanto should share the sepulture of Charles V., and all that now remains to Namur in memory of one of the last of Christian knights, the Maccabeus of the Turkish hosts, who expired in its service and at its gates, is an inscription placed on its high altar by the piety of Alexander Farnese, intimating that it afforded a temporary resting place to the remains of DON JOHN of AUSTRIA.* Thus far the courtesies of fiction. But for those who prefer historical fact, it may be interesting to learn the authentic details of the interment of one whose posthumous destinies seemed to share the incompleteness of his baffled life. In order to avoid the contestations arising from the transit of a corpse through a foreign state, Nignio di Zuniga (who was charged by Philip with the duty of conveying it to Spain, under sanction of a passport from Henri III.) caused it to be dismembered, and the parts packed in three budgets, (bougettes,) and laid upon packhorses!-On arriving in Spain, the parts were readjusted with wires!—“ On remplit le corps de bourre," says the old chronicler from which these details are derived, "et ainsi la structure en aiant été comme rétablie, on le revêtit de ses armes, et le fit voir au roi, tout debout apuyé sur son bâton de général, de sorte qu'il semblait encore vivant. L'aspect d'un mort si illustre ayant excité quelques larmes, on le porta à l'Escurial dans l'Eglise de St Laurens auprez de son père.” Such is the account given in a curious old history (supplementary to those of D'Avila and Strada) of the wars of the Prince of Parma, published at Amsterdam early in the succeeding century. But a still greater insult has been offered to the memory of one of the last of Christian knights, in Casimir Delavigne's fine play of "Don Juan d'Autriche," where he is represented as affianced to a Jewess! POEMS AND BALLADS OF GOETHE. No. I. Ir may be as well to state at the outset, that we have not the most distant intention of laying before the public the whole mass of poetry that flowed from the prolific pen of Goethe, betwixt the days of his student life at Leipsic and those of his final courtly residence at Weimar. It is of no use preserving the whole wardrobe of the dead; we do enough if we possess ourselves of his valuables-articles of sterling bullion that will at any time command their price in the market-as to worn-out and threadbare personalities, the sooner they are got rid of the better. Far be it from us, however, to depreciate or detract from the merit of any of Goethe's productions. Few men have written so voluminously, and still fewer have written so well. But the curse of a most fluent pen, and of a numerous auditory, to whom his words were oracles, was upon him; and seventy volumes, more or less, which Cotta issued from his wareroom, are for the library of the Germans now, and for the selection of judicious editors hereafter. A long time must elapse after an author's death, before we can pronounce with perfect certainty what belongs to the trunk. maker, and what pertains to posterity. Happy the man-if not in his own generation, yet most assuredly in the time to come-whose natural hesitation or fastidiousness has prompted him to weigh his words maturely, before launching them forth into the great ocean of literature, in the midst of which is a Maelstrom of tenfold absorbing power! From the minor poems, therefore, of Goethe, we propose, in the present series, to select such as are most esteemed by competent judges, including, of course, ourselves. We shall not follow the example of dear old Eckermann, nor preface our specimens by any critical remarks upon the scope and tendency of the great German's genius; neither shall we divide his works, as characteristic of his intellectual progress, into eras or into epochs; still less shall we attempt to institute a regular comparison between his merits and those of Schiller, whose finest productions (most worthily translated) have already enriched the pages of this Magazine. We are doubtless ready at all times to back our favourite against the field, and to maintain his intellectual superiority even against his greatest and most formidable rival. We know that he is the showiest, and we feel convinced that he is the better horse of the two; but talking is worse than useless when the course is cleared, and the start about to commence. Come forward, then, before the British public, O many-sided, ambidextrous Goethe, as thine own Thomas Carlyle might, or could, or would, or should have termed thee, and let us hear how the mellifluous Teutonic verse will sound when adapted to another tongue. And, first of all-for we yearn to know it-tell us how thy inspiration came? A plain answer, of course, we cannot expect that were impossible from a German; but such explanation as we can draw from metaphor and oracular response, seems to be conveyed in that favourite and elaborate preface to the poems, which accordingly we may term the INTRODUCTION. The morning came. Its footsteps scared away I left my quiet cot to greet the day, And gaily climb'd the mountain-side before me. The sweet young flowers! how fresh were they and tender, The young day open'd in exulting splendour, And, as I mounted, o'er the meadow ground At once, as though the sun were struggling through, There on the peak and upland forest parted. A moment, and I felt enforced to look, By some strange impulse of the heart's emotion; But more than one quick glance I scarce could brook, For all was burning like a molten ocean. There, in the glorious clouds that seem'd to bear her, A form angelic hover'd in the air; Ne'er did my eyes behold a vision fairer, And still she gazed upon me, floating there. "Do'st thou not know me?" and her voice was soft As truthful love, and holy calm it sounded. "Know'st thou not me, who many a time and oft, Pour'd balsam in thy hurts when sorest wounded? Ah, well thou knowest her, to whom for ever Thy heart in union pants to be allied! Have I not seen the tears-the wild endeavour "Yes! I have felt thy influence oft," I cried, And sank on earth before her, half-adoring; "Thou brought'st me rest when Passion's lava tide Through my young veins like liquid fire was pouring. And thou hast fann'd, as with celestial pinions, In summer's heat my parch'd and fever'd brow; Gav'st me the choicest gifts of earth's dominions, And, save through thee, I seek no fortune now. "I name thee not, but I have heard thee named, Though thine effulgence is too great for any. Smiling, she said-" Thou see'st 'twas wise from thee That thou hast won the right to scorn them! Cease. Who made the yawning gulf 'twixt thee and others? "Forgive me!" I exclaim'd, "I meant no ill, I know the worth of all that thou hast granted. And as I spoke, upon her radiant face Pass'd a sweet smile, like breath across a mirror; What I had answer'd well and what in error. Straightway she stretch'd her hand among the thin And lo! the landscape lay once more uncover'd— That undulated round her in the light. "I know thee!-all thy weakness, all that yet 66 Accept the gift that long for thee was treasured. "Wave but this veil on high, whene'er beneath The noonday fervour thou and thine are glowing, The days be lovely fair, the nights serene." Come then, my friends, and whether 'neath the load Your better destiny shall strew the road With flowers, and golden fruits that cannot wither, So while we live shall joy our days illume, Shall gladden them, when we are in the tomb. This is a noble metaphysical and metaphorical poem, but purely German of its kind. It has been imitated, not to say travestied, at least fifty times, by crazy students and purblind professors-each of whom, in turn, has had an |