CHAPTER VI. And then he gave prodigious fêtes- And dames, and chiefs, of princely port. BYRON. AUGUSTUS I., Elector of Saxony, and King of Poland, was, at the time of which I write, in the flower of his age, and at the climax of his fortune and reputation. His early successes had not yet been tarnished and eclipsed by his reverses before the dominant star of Charles XII. Young, ardent, licentious-gifted with quick and bright talents by nature, and polished by education, his tastes and qualities alike con duced to his surrounding himself with a court brilliant, gay, and voluptuous. Accordingly, in the scandalous chronicles of the day, (always excepting the Court of France,) no one figures so often and so prominently as Augustus. His taste for women was indulged to an excess which, in later life, laid him open to the odious reproach which attached so notoriously to his contemporary, the Regent Duke of Orleans, -a prince, by the way, to whom, equally in his talents, his good qualities, and his vices, the King of Poland bore considerable resemblance. His love of wine has become matter of history, by its having been the cause of his death-and that a death which gave rise to a general war in Europe *. But, at the period of which I speak, he was still young-and fully entitled to the reputation he enjoyed, of being one of the handsomest men of his time. It was to a court thus corrupt, and ruled over by a prince such as I have described Augustus to be, that Oberfeldt now brought Mabel. I say to the court-for Oberfeldt's rank, not to speak of the other circumstances of his life, naturally make his coming to Dresden, and his joining the Court of the Elector, identical. * His death was occasioned by a debauch with the Prussian minister, Grumkow, who was sent to negotiate with him. Each tried to make the other drunk, that he might worm his secrets from him. Augustus died in consequence, and Grumkow never thoroughly recovered. At that period, the gulf between the nobility and the bourgeoisie, which even yet exists more in Germany than in any other country of Europe, was vast and impassable; and a person of Oberfeldt's figure and importance could not, by possibility, remain in seclusion. He appeared, therefore, at the court of Augustus, and his reception was, in the highest degree, flattering. A man, who had completed his education at Versailles could not but be most acceptable; and the brilliant qualities and acquirements of the Count were exactly such as were calculated to shine and have success in that hemisphere. But, surrounded as he was with admirationflattered and courted by beauty, and wit, and accomplishment, and rank united-his heart remained true to his obscure Bohemian. He contrasted the ladies of the court with her :-beauty he found in plenty-but it was aided, and, therefore, spoiled, by art-or blemished by affectation or neutralized by folly—or faded from dissipation. Talent he likewise, though more rarely, met-but it was stained by malice, or it was corrupt, or, it was heartless. This it was, indeed, which, as opposed to the ardent, overflowing feelings of Mabel, revolted him the most. The cold and callous tone and temperament of the society in which he moved eager only when under the excitation of some new object of vice-ardent only in seeking the gratification of self-chilled and disgusted his mind, as he reflected on the noble, warm, generous spirit of Mabel. The constant recurrence, also, of the comparison, tended to confirm those better and more natural feelings which his residence at Oberfeldt had called forth. Sated as he had been with factitious and conventional gallantries, his heart had known a second spring in beholding and experiencing the workings of unadulterated nature. A second spring, alas ! is all that the heart can know ;-it is, as in the physical world, but a feeble shadow of the first, and wants, and must ever want, its vigour, freshness, and reality. The blossoms which bear fruit expand with the earlier bloom-the later ones may be beautiful to the eye, but they are less rich, and but little fragrant, and pass into nothingness when they fade. Still, the Count's heart had been touched by Mabel-and it remained so and, what was more, she felt, by those numberless and nameless indications which never deceive, that his affection continued as warm, as delicate, and as unremitting as ever. She felt this, and her soul was satisfied. One evening Oberfeldt was about to attend a great fête that was to be given at court; and, after he was dressed, he remained loitering with Mabel, before he went. She gazed on him in silence with that deep, soft, sensation of admiration which suffuses the whole soul as we look upon a loved object in the hour of the pride of beauty. And such it was now with Oberfeldt. He had all the advantages of dress-his fine form was displayed-his cheek was bright with the glow of full manhood-and his dark eyes beamed with the radiant expression of unchecked and overflowing fondness. It is indeed at such moments as these that love seems to possess some power like that of the fabled cestus;when the features mantle with affection, they do exhibit a degree of beauty superadded to |