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capering fits gave with his great charger such a broadside to my nag, that she was almost capsized. After returning again along the line, the Emperor [proceeded?] to his station with his suite on one side of the chaussée, and made all the regiments defile before him, which finished the whole."

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But the time had arrived for Mr. Tytler to leave Paris,where, notwithstanding the many objects of paramount interest which he had beheld, the Apollo Belvedere and the Venus de Medici seem to have most captivated his taste, and laid the strongest hold on his imagination. Space can hardly be afforded for his rapturous expressions concerning those two splendid triumphs of ancient genius; but a passion for what is most beautiful in Art formed so striking an element in my friend's character, that this slight allusion to the subject is even necessary in this place. "Seriously," (such are the last words of his last letter from Paris,)-" you can have no idea of the inimitable beauty of these two statues. cannot describe them; and as to drawing them, it would be sacrilege to attempt it."-On the 5th of June, the three friends left the French capital, travelling by way of Soissons, Laon, (the scene of Bonaparte's first great defeat in France by the army of Blucher,) St. Quentin, Cambray, Valenciennes, and Mons, to Brussels. On every side they beheld awful traces of the iron storm which had so lately swept over the country villages in ruins,-cottages burnt or destroyed, the straw and litter of bivouacks,-carcases of sheep and oxen which the Cossacks had pillaged. Little can they have anticipated the hurricane which, at the end of another twelvemonth, was to burst close to the capital where they now rested for four days!

Leaving Brussels on the 15th, they proceeded to Antwerp, Rotterdam, and Amsterdam. They found that here, (indeed throughout Holland,) the system of police, had been “ as perfect and as intolerable as in France. Every servant was a

1814.]

BONAPARTE'S POLICY.

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police spy, and could not be permitted to be a servant until he had got his licence from the French police-office. Of course, all confidence in domestic matters was at an end. The first thing, the great principle of the Police, was to destroy all mutual confidence. You were afraid even of your own relations. Every Superintendent of Police was chosen from among the shrewdest and most unprincipled of the French; and the word of these rascals became at last almost omnipotent. Now and then, there was always some unfortunate individual disappearing.—In Amsterdam, the distress occasioned by the measures of Napoleon in putting an end to all commerce was dreadful. It was in an instant annihilating the vital principle of this city,-which is Commerce. Out of a population of 200,000 inhabitants, 100,000 were entirely supported by public charity."-From Amsterdam, by way of Haarlem, the travellers proceeded to Leyden, and the Hague: whence my friend and Mr. Anderson took ship, I believe to Leith,—and reached their respective homes, after an absence from Scotland of a little more than seven weeks.— Reviewing the events of the year, in his diary, and gratefully calling to mind, at the close of 1814, the mercies which had been lately experienced by himself and his family, he writes: -"During these last two years, but more particularly towards their conclusion, I have certainly been mingling in scenes, and sometimes exposed to temptations, which were in no common degree to be dreaded. I have been living abroad for some time in one of the most profligate and vicious capitals in the world: surrounded by a set of men who deride all that is virtuous, and despise everything that is innocent. I have seen daily passing before my eyes scenes which although when analysed they were utterly profligate, yet from the gloss of refinement and voluptuousness which was thrown over them, and the false sanction which constant usage and recurrence had given them, were too likely to ap

pear less dangerous than they actually were. If the constant sight of all this has in any degree removed or lessened that deep horror for vice, which I shall ever earnestly strive to preserve,-if this knowledge of the World, as it is called, has in any degree impaired my ardent love for what is pure and excellent in human nature,-I do most deeply entreat the pardon of that God who is all purity; and I trust that now, when once again under that roof in which I was born, I may recover what I have lost. But I have also to thank GOD that I have been preserved from falling into those sins, and have never been led astray by the effects of that vicious example which has been passing before me; and I ascribe it not to my own strength, but to His abundant goodness."*

* From one of my friend's Common-place books.

1815.]

"THE CYPRESS WREATH.'

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CHAPTER VI.

(1815-1818.)

Reminiscences of boyhood-Tytler is appointed Junior Crown Counsel-Letter to Rev. Archibald Alison-Tytler at Mount Esk-His progress at the BarPrivate portraiture-Studies-Early literary efforts-Voyage to NorwayBergen-Norwegian scenery, travelling, manners-Drontheim-Entry of King Bernadotte and Prince Oscar-Tytler is presented-Return to Scotland.

THE general tenor of Mr. Tytler's pursuits during the ensuing year (1815) may be divined with tolerable accuracy, though only one document relating to this period has come to my hands. I allude to a very beautiful didactic poem, (already alluded to at the foot of p. 23,) entitled THE CYPRESS WREATH; the concluding portion of which bears date 'June 1815.' It is written somewhat in the manner of Cowper's Task, and shows a great advance in poetical power since 1810, when my friend wrote The Woodhouselee Masque,' already noticed. The scene is laid partly at his beloved Woodhouselee,

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'where each footstep falls

Upon the grave of some departed joy;'

partly on the heights above Edinburgh. It draws a picture of his own grief, and its consolation; and contains descriptive passages of great power and beauty: but I will not detain the reader with them. I pass on to a letter which he wrote in 1816 to his old tutor, Mr. Black; and which is interesting on many accounts. It contains the record of his beloved brother Alexander's death at the early age of twenty-seven; * and conveys a most agreeable retrospect of his own boyhood.

* Alex. Fraser Tytler (concerning whom, see above pp. 16, 51, 61–3, 96,) married Miss Colvin, niece to Alexander Colvin, Esq., of Calcutta. While yet a very young man, he was appointed assistant Judge of the 24 Pergunnahs;

"May 8th, 1816.

"Yesterday, I received accounts from India. They brought that blow for which we had all prepared our

and how assiduously he devoted himself to his profession, may be inferred even from the allusions which his brother makes to his successes. By over exertion in speaking in Court, he broke a blood-vessel; and was forced to return to England in 1814, for his health, with his wife and eldest boy,his little girl having been already sent home and confided to the care of his sisters. He was ordered to spend the ensuing winter in Provence, where he partially recovered; but a fatiguing and harassing journey across the country at the moment Bonaparte bad landed from Elba, (March 1st, 1815,) with a little boy of a month old and his wife in very delicate health, completely undid the benefit he had received. Being anxious to try the effect of a sea-voyage, he sailed again for India, soon after his return to Scotland; and died on the voyage from Madeira, on the 12th February, 1816.-"In the year 1815," writes Mill, in his History of British India, (vol. i. p. 321.) was published a work in two volumes, entitled 'Considerations on the present political state of India, embracing observations on the characters of the natives; on the Civil and Criminal Courts, the administration of Justice, the state of Land-tenure, the condition of the peasantry, and the internal Police of our Eastern Dominions: intended chiefly as a manual of instruction in their duties, for the younger servants of the Company. By Alex. Fraser Tytler, late Assistant Judge in the 24 Pergunnahs, Bengal Establishment.' From no individual, perhaps, have the British people as yet received a mass of information respecting their interest in India equal in value to that which has been communicated to them by this young and public-spirited Judge; in whom, if an opinion may be formed from this specimen, not only his country but human kind has sustained a loss." Such is the testimony of an impartial witness. The work exhibits a striking picture of Indian morals.

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A few words more complete the melancholy story. His widow, after being obliged to proceed to Calcutta, returned home; and with her three children for some years resided with the Tytlers at Edinburgh. In all her sorrows, and she has had many, for she has had the misfortune to survive all her children, Patrick was her greatest support,-her constant tender friend and comforter to the last hour of his existence: while towards her children he supplied the place of a Father, as well on their death-beds, as throughout their little lives.

It was, at one time, more than an intention with him to compile a Memoir of this beloved Brother. He had even made considerable progress with his task; but I cannot find that he ever completed it. On the 22nd July 1816, he writes, “I have been for the last week employing myself in drawing up a memoir of the life and short public career of my dear brother Alexander: and when I consider his constant activity, his great acquirements, his inde

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