And, if I dare to drink a tiny sup Of those sweet waves, it need create no fears Therefore once more I'll wake my slumb'ring lyre, Whose strings so long have lain untouched and still; But when I search for themes, I feel the fire Within me quenched,―the poet's fervour chill ; I cannot sound as erst the echoing wire, The ice must melt that gyves the frozen will, Ere its pent waters gush in freedom o'er The channels where they brightly leaped before. The theme? Shall it be-LOVE? No, that's a dream Shall it be FRIENDSHIP?—in that word wild woe To hail the foot unwary; the crude sheaves Of an unfruitful harvest; and the blow Of flowers that bear no seed!-The spider weaves Oh! I have felt (and therefore I may tell) Not so! not so !—I pardon thee!—It was Hath left the peaceful path, to climb on high Yet, in my loneliness, at times will gleam The prophet's flash across my quickened sight, And then I see thee, waking from thy dream, To meet the world, its falsehood and its spite; Those summer friends, that now so tender seem, Shall leave thee, in thy fashion's sudden blight, And then thy heart- oh! it will backwards turn To former friendship's sad neglected urn. RECOLLECTIONS OF A ROYALIST OFFICER.' BY COLONEL DE R AN EARLY COMRADE OF NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. A FEW extracts from the opening of the Viscount Walsh's work, will perhaps be the help to others that they were to me, to feel with those who in Corsica were listening for the distant murmur of the on coming tempest, before which every crowned head in Europe was to bow, save his "Whose eyes were dim and his mind was dark," ere it had ebbed away, "And he sate in his Age's lateness, Like a vision thron'd, a solemn mark The reminiscences of the viscount's childhood, with which it commences, while they are a pleasant picture of a time past away for long from France, and which could have existed only in the vie de château, show at the same time how blind it was possible to be to the gathering storm-clouds. Was the tumult which broke from the swelling heart of the artisan a thing so sudden ? "Great political overthrows," he observes, indeed, “do not break out without having been preceded by vague rumours of trouble and disorder;" and he adds, what surely was truer then than ever, "a kind of vertigo and delirium seems to come at the same time to those who govern;-men who labour to earn their bread, fold their arms and begin to reason as if they were charged with the administration of the affairs of the public; the mania of counselling takes possession of all,— the habit of obeying is lost. "For me, my children, I was born in a time that bordered upon storms, but I remember still the beautiful blue sky, le beau ciel bleu, of my childhood. Then, no care, no inquietude, darkened my father's forehead. Numerous and respectful, my eldest brothers rose around him; and the smaller ones among us climbed his knees, to hear him speak of our mother, whom God had taken. "It is in vain now that you busy yourselves in your studies or run to your amusements; your noisy games cannot so drown the politics your relatives are talking, but that you hear the words, sedition, conspiracy, machination, and outrage, the rumour of fears incessantly awakened and general uneasiness, mingling with the sound of your sports: in the days of my childhood, no such whispers reached our ears. I remember the tranquillity of my native town; its mall so animated with children during the week, and so covered with gay company on Sundays; and its 1 Continued from p. 204. churches, which were so numerous and beautiful;-(in Anjou, the trace where many a fine church stood, is, I believe, lost utterly ;)I remember the fêtes and the family parties we used to enjoy; but I remember none of the words full of trouble that you hear now. In those days politics did not enter into household life; and on the table of the salon there were no newspapers seen lying, except the French Mercury, which I remember occupied my father a good deal, on account of the enigmas and logogriphes it contained. "When my brothers, on their return from their regiment, spoke of the king and queen, whom they had seen at Versailles, it was always with respect and enthusiasm; and when on Sundays we were at high mass, under the charge of our sister, who took our mother's place to us, she always made us rise from our seats at the Domine salvum fac regem!'-thus while we were yet little, what we honoured most after God was the king. And what passed in our house, passed elsewhere; to love God, honour the king, serve one's country, was what was inculcated then in every family. "Louis XVI. was then reigning; he had just abolished the torture and the statute labour, and from all sides the people blessed him. (When the crown of France was placed on his brow,' says the Edinburgh Review, 'Louis unconsciously said, on the day of his coronation, 'Cela me gêne!' and so indeed it did. King at three-and-twenty, he had the honest desire to govern, without the courage to rule. Unlike Charles I., his word was truthful, but he had not the constancy steadily to adhere to it. Men seldom do much harm without having much good in them; it is the ill-assortment of the parts that upsets, and so it was essentially with Louis XVI.') Among the young officers who came to visit my brothers, I recollect that there were many who spoke with exultation of what the king had thought it right to do in declaring for the independence of America; and I remember, too, that an old colonel, who had heard them relating with enthusiasm all that there was of generous and chivalrous in this war, said to them, 'Gentlemen, it does not belong to me to blame what the king has done; but God grant that he may never repent of having lent his support to revolt!' "Notwithstanding all the years that have passed over my head since then, all the changes and overthrows that followed those days, I still seem to hear at my father's table that conversation between the young soldiers and the old commander. It was the first political discussion that I ever remember: and very often since, the old man's words have come back upon my mind. It is not to found republics that a king should draw the sword!' said the Emperor Joseph to the royal husband of Marie-Antoinette. "At the time I am trying to describe to you, God had placed the crown upon the brow of the Just. Louis XVI. was the most virtuous man in his kingdom; the Frenchman who had most at heart the good of his country. Marie-Antoinette, the daughter of the great MariaTheresa, was, by the loftiness of her mind, the strength of her character, worthier perhaps than any other woman, to bind round her beautiful young forehead the noblest diadem that glittered beneath the sun. Among our fathers, the thought of the sovereign was a fixed idea; every one lifted his head at the name of the monarch. In France, and on the hearts of Frenchmen, that word had a magic in its sound; it woke up the worn pulses of many a gray heart-broken wanderer on foreign shores in the days of trouble, and I have seen, in our years of exile, the stranger stand astonished at this fond worship we had borne with us into the land of our banishment. "But Louis XVI. had more enthusiasm than wisdom; carried away by his desire to do good, he often repeated to himself, A deep happiness has been reserved for me, that of rendering better the fate of those placed beneath my sceptre!' but giving himself up to the delight of these thoughts, he did not reflect that in the pleasure of ameliorating, there lies the immense danger of innovating. "Like all timid characters, Louis would not undertake alone the reforms he saw necessary; he was willing, too, to share the honour of the work with the most enlightened spirits of his age and people. Often had he read and heard that a king ought to be the father of his subjects, ought to study their tastes and their necessities; and therefore, in order to know well what it was that France would have, he called around him the élite of the French. "It was on the 22nd of February, 1787, that the opening of the Assembly of Notables took place at Versailles; it was the first link in the long chain of events I have to recount to you. I was then but quite a child; but I remember the sudden change which took place in my father's parlour. Words, which till then we had never heard, were repeatedly occurring in the earnest conversations which had all at once superseded the quiet chat of the family fireside. Society, till then so peaceful, saw its surface suddenly troubled by the breath of change. It was yet light as the gale of spring; the mind yielded itself to its influence, and thought not of the hurricane. "However, there were men who were not satisfied with the discourse the king had delivered before the Notables; they thought that Louis XVI. had not shown in it sufficient nerve: and the old colonel, of whom I have already spoken to you, said of the speech-‘ I am sorry his majesty did not make an harangue à la Henri quatre ! When a king speaks, I like to see him do it leaning upon his sword.' To put you in a position to judge, my children, how different were the addresses of these two monarchs,-to paint you Louis and Henry by means of their own words, I will transcribe them for you. 66 We will here refer for a moment to Professor Smyth, who says of the subject under discussion-" Previous to the assembling of the States-General, Calonne, who for a time replaced Necker, came forward with what he considered as a grand measure; he called together the Notables. The Notables were a kind of privy council, assembled on great emergencies, consisting of the chief persons of France, the haute noblesse. They numbered one hundred and forty-four. When Louis XVI. ascended the throne, he found himself at once embarrassed to such a degree by the alarming deficit in the revenue, that some measures must be instantly adopted." The professor has been showing that this deficit was brought on by the enormous and reckless extravagance of his predecessors; the sons of St. Louis having forgotten the dying charge of him who lay expiring on the plains of Africa, "Lay not upon thy people too great taxes and subsidies, unless it be from heavy necessity for the defence of thy kingdom. And labour thou then that the expense of thy house be within reason and not beyond measure !"—" Louis XVI. was young; but, as all parties allow, he loved France, and was prepared to make any sacrifice for her welfare. Had his generosity only met with a response in the privileged classes, all might have been well." "Calonne," says Mr. Swinburne, in his Visits to the Courts of Europe,'" of all the candidates to be chosen !-unfit!—mischievous ! When dismissed, he actually assisted the infamous Lamotte in her calumnious libel on poor Marie-Antoinette in the diamond necklace affair. The queen showed Madame Campan, Lamotte's manuscript with Calonne's interlined corrections. The Count d'Artois," continues the Edinburgh, in which we met with the review of Swinburne just as we were pausing in Viscount Walsh, "wasted immense sums in gambling, and was supplied by Calonne with public money, unknown to the king, to pay his debts." And this was Louis's minister of finance! To return to the Viscount "Louis XVI. said to the Notables, Gentlemen, I have gathered you round me to acquaint you with my projects, as have formerly done many of my predecessors, and more particularly the chief of that branch of our house to which I belong,-him whose name is dear to every Frenchman, and whose example I shall always make it my glory to follow. "The projects which will be communicated to you on my part are great and important. On the one hand, their object is to ameliorate the revenues of the state, and insure their entire disembarrassment, by a more equal partition of impositions; on the other, to liberate commerce from the different fetters which impede its circulation; and at the same time to unburden, in every possible way that circumstances will permit me, the more indigent part of my subjects. Such are, gentlemen, the views with which I am occupied, and which I have decided upon after the most mature examination. As they all tend to the public weal, and as I know the zeal for my service with which you are all animated, I have not feared to consult you upon the mode of carrying them into execution; and I shall hear and examine in turn, the observations you may make with respect to them. I depend upon your counsels to be all tending towards the same end, and all in accordance with each other; and upon no private interest raising itself against the general welfare.' "If Louis XVI. had abandoned himself more fully to the inspirations of his heart, he would have been more eloquent. How fine a position for a king With less circumspection, Louis XVI. would have been more strong. My children, I tell you, and I shall tell it to you often, there is an immense power, there is even an art, in openness. Listen to Henry IV. at the Assembly of Notables at Rouen ! "If I wished to acquire the title of orator, I should have learnt some fine harangue, and I should pronounce it with fitting gravity ; but, sirs, my desire tends to titles more glorious, which are, to be called the liberator and restorer of this state! to attain to which I |