wicked, education has a narrow scope; but such as is needed is supplied. As society advances into civilization, duties multiply and responsibilities increase; there is then a demand for higher moral and intellectual culture. Providence has foreseen and provided for this necessity, for with the advance of refinement and knowledge the family circle is drawn closer together, and the solicitude of parents for their children, and their influence over them are proportionably increased. Thus, while in a rude age children are left, almost like the untutored animals, to make their own way; when knowledge is diffused. and the light of religion spread abroad, then it is that enlightened education becomes necessary, then it is that parental education becomes vigilant, then it is that children are most completely subjected to the influence of parents.

In a state of society like ours, it involves a fearful responsibility, but we cannot shrink from the fact: parents usually decide the character of their offspring. It is so ordained by Heaven; children will obey the lessons given them at the fireside.

As the stone hurled from the sling takes its direction and finds its resting-place at the bidding of the arm that wields it, so the child goes forward, and finds its grave in peace or sorrow, according to the impulse given at the fireside.

THE POETS OF FRANCE.-II.

ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE.

WE present, this month, to our readers, our translation of Lamartine's most celebrated poem, entitled "Le Premier Regret," an elegy, written by the poet on the death of his beloved daughter.

We postpone to a future occasion-until we have furnished sufficient material for the judgment of our readers-all criticism upon the author's pretensions; or exposition of the rank he appears to occupy in the great republic of letters.

We desire to remark simply, that if, to use a musical expression, the poet is too prone to use "abrupt modulation;" if the transition from thought to thought be forced, harsh, and labored; if there be found a dreaminess in his metaphor and obscurity in his expression, the best educated of his own countrymen attribute to him these faults, and a careful perusal of the original will convince the critic, that the error lies not in the execution of the translator only.

MY FIRST SORROW. (Le Premier Regret. Elegie.)

Near that resonant shore, where the sea of Sorrente
Rolls its waves to the foot of the orange in bloom;
By the path, 'neath the hedge oppressed with perfume,
There's a stone, 'tis unknown and indifferent,

To the foot of the stranger that's thitherward bent.
The wallflower hath hidden, beneath her sere leaves,
A name that no echo hath learned to repeat,
Save perchance that a wanderer with way-weary feet,
Moves the grass from the tomb, and, aloud, gently breathes
"The age and the date."―Then, with tear-bedewed eye,
Sighs, "But sixteen-so young! 'Tis full early to die!"

But wherefore revert to those days long passed?
Murmur the hoarse waves! Sighs the deep blast!
Forbear my heart to bemoan thy lot,

I will muse

but weep not.

He repeats "But sixteen!" Aye, sixteen, and that age
Had lit up none fairer in life's pilgrimage!

Oh never, on time's changing shore, had the light
Been reflected from orbits so loving and bright!
I, alone, still behold her her image ne'er flies
From my soul, that all change as destruction defies-
Such as living she was, when her face bent on me,
Would lengthen our stay on the moon-lighted sea :
When loosed of its band, by the breeze torn away,
She resigned her dark hair to the wind and salt spray,
As the shade of the sail o'er her pale cheek would stray :
What time to the song, or the fisherman's hail,
That was borne on the wing of the fresh, balmy gale,
She would list: or surveying the pale, harvest moon,
Like the flow'ret of night-which should gladden full soon
The new dawn, as the silvery foam-then cry, "Why,
"Shines all in, and around me thus brilliantly?

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Oh, never those rich, azure fields sown with flame; "Golden sands where the wild, roaring breakers lie tame; "Those mountains, whose peaks are enveloped in cloud; "Those gulphs, which the dim, silent forest enshroud; "Those lights on the coast-those strains on the sea, "My senses have steeped in such vague extacy!

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'Why is it I never have mused as to night?

"Hath a star in my heart also poured in its light?

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Say, son of the morn! In thy radiant clime,

}

"Hast thou nights bright as this, in its moon-rise and prime? Her lips on the cheek of her mother she pressed,

And sank on her bosom exhausted to rest.

But wherefore revert to those days long passed?
Murmur the hoarse waves! Sighs the deep blast!
Forbear my heart to bemoan thy lot!

I will muse

but weep not.

How pale is her forehead; her visage how bright!
Oh how heaven her spirit beflooded with light!
Less clear is the lake in the unclouded sky;
Less transparent its bosom, and of less purity.

From the depths of her soul her thoughts might be seen;
Her eyes veiled with sorrow or shame, ne'er had been.
With innocence fraught, illumed her face,

No care on her brow had engraven its trace:

All was laughter for her: A light-hearted gladness,
Which, later, expires on the features in sadness,
On her half-opened lid would still joyously play,
Like the "bow in the cloud," on a fair summer day.
No shadow of tears had as yet left a trace,

No sickness had wrinkled, no grief marred her face.
Her step void of thought, now loitered, or bounded,
Floating on, like a wave, by the sunbeam surrounded.
In her heart was my likeness engraven the first,
As the rays of the dawn on the vision that burst:
Thence forward she sought not, desired not to rove,
She loved from that hour-and the world was all love.
She blended with mine her existence; her heart
Saw life by the light of my spirit: A part,
Made I of that world fresh unrolled to her eye
Of happiness here, and good hope from on high.
She thought not on life-its presence-its distance-
To day and its marvels absorbed her existence.
Before me, without memory life hurried on;

A night of fair days was the future alone.

In meek nature she trusted, unconscious of fears;

She prayed with a heart, full of joys-not of tears,

To that altar, o'er which she strewed th' incense of spring,
To the God of her love, a pure offering!

And her hand led me forth to the steps of that throne,
Where childlike and humble-never yet had I gone-
In my ear breathed she softly, "Pray, pray thou with me,"
"Even HEAVEN, I apprehend not without thee !"

But wherefore revert to those days long passed?
Murmur the hoarse waves! Sighs the deep blast!
Forbear my heart to bemoan thy lot!

I will muse

but weep not.

Behold in that reservoir limpid and clear,
The streamlets becalmed like a mirror appear;
Sheltered well from the wind as it hurries away,
And the parched, thirsty beams of the giant of day.
When that swan dips his neck, the calm surface is spread,
With gems which fall sparkling, as he re-rears his head:
And he sports in the lake 'midst the first stars of night :
But once to new sources, or lakes winging flight,
With wet pinions he dashes the tremulous stream,
And the dark wave obscures the reflex of light's beam,

A pinion unloosed, as he mounts from his wake,
Slanting down from mid air, falls, with noise, in the lake,
As if the lean vulture, the foe of his race,

Of his death, on the waters, had scattered a trace;
And the stream, with Heaven's ether resplendent before,
Hath become a dark flood, with thick sand covered o'er.
Even so, when I parted, her soul fled for aye,

Her first tears drowned her heart, her first cloud quenched her day.
She fought not with suffering for life; but drank up

At one draught, to the dregs, poisoned misery's cup.

And like to the bird, which at night falls asleep,

With its head 'neath its wing, till the dawn's early peep;
She wrapped herself round in dark-curtained despair,
And slept off, ere her evening of life had drawn near.

But wherefore revert to those days long passed?
Murmur the hoarse waves! Sighs the deep blast!
Forbear my heart to bemoan thy lot!
I will muse but weep not.

Fifteen years hath she lain in this motionless sleep;
On her silent abode no one now thinks to weep;
And hasty oblivion-second death to the dead—
Hath covered the path to her narrow grave bed.
None visits the stone-now half crumbled by time;

None thinks on't; none prays there-save this memory of mine.
First rose she-first sank: and the dawn of her day
Will fade in my heart-but when life ebbs away.

A thorn with white leaves, the sole monument reared,
By nature to her, who nature's altars revered :
'Tis burnt by the sun, blown by winds from the sea;
Like regret which strikes root in the heart's misery;
It lives on the rock, but it yields it no shade;
The dust of the path seems its verdure to fade :
It creeps on the ground, and its branches supine,

By the teeth of the mountain-goat cropped, droop, and pine.
A flower in the spring, like a fresh flake of snow,

Floats a day-then the wind, which besieged, lays it low :
'Tis blasted, afore it hath shed its perfume;

E'en like life ere it charms-ere the heart feels its bloom.
The songster of eve, plaintive bird! hath alighted
On the frail, pliant branches to warble its strain :
Oh say, withered flower! that life so soon blighted,
Oh knowest thou the LAND where all blossoms again.
Return, return, to those days gone by!
Your sad remembrance bids me sigh!

Go, oh my thoughts, where my soul is gone!
My heart is full I will weep alone.

In our next we hope to have space to resume our criticism on Lamartine.

CROMWELL'S LETTERS AND SPEECHES.-II.
BY THOMAS CARLYLE.

Chapman & Hall, Strand.

UPON the death of Charles, Oliver became the most prominent man in England. The eyes of all the nation were upon him,

and the tongues of all the people wagged of him. Thinking men soon came to the conclusion that the sturdy Noll had greater power of performing good or ill than any other being in the land; and his every step was thenceforth watched most warily. Upon his arrival in England from the Irish Expedition, he had hardly time to reply to the kind congratulations that poured in upon him, ere he was required for immediate active service in Scotland. The late king's eldest son, Charles, had been invited by the Scottish Parliament to head an army they had obtained to fight in his favor; and that 'godly prince' was then declared to be King of England, Scotland and Ireland, and the English Parliament were denounced as regicides and traitors. A year of hard battling had Cromwell in Scotia's barren land, but he conquered everywhere. The last desperate attempt made by Prince Charles to gain ascendancy was the invasion of England. Oliver was taking possession of Perth when he heard the news of Charles's bold enterprise, and he immediately set off for England in pursuit of the royalist army, which, however, had arrived at Worcester before he could overtake it. There, on the evening of Wednesday, the 3rd of September, 1651, did he obtain his "crowning mercy.' He scattered the Scotch soldiery to the winds; and Charles, in various disguises, escaped with difficulty from Cromwell's iron grasp; until at last he got to France in a collier. This Battle of Worcester was the last of Oliver's sword and musket fights: thenceforth, his victories were of another sort. Hampton Court was fitted up for him, and landed property worth four thousand a year was settled upon him; and he, with an honest heart, well-formed brains, and the finest army in the world at his absolute control, began to be conscious of the important truth that he was the strongest man of his time. Deep schemes were laid by his sagacious mind for the settlement of the affairs of England, which had become rather out of joint; and his compeers soon discovered that the potent soldier had work to do they knew not of. Many a sleepless night had he in reflecting

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