she must have had disturbed dreams. Two or three days later, however, she received a most polite and respectful note from Cartouche, enclosing a safe conduct for herself and family, with permission to extend it to her intimate friends. The letter was accompanied by a small box containing a magnificent diamond; and the stone being valued by Madame Lempereur at 2,000 crowns, the Marquis de Bauffremont deposited that sum in the hands of the treasurer of Notre Dame, for the invalids of the Hôtel-Dieu. So the matter terminated satisfactorily for all parties. One more anecdote of Cartouche, and I have done. After his capture and condemnation in 1721, he underwent the torture, both ordinary and extraordinary, with unflinching fortitude, and no pressure of agony could wring from him the names of his accomplices; but a religious scruple accomplished that which the severest sufferings could not achieve. The curate of St. Sulpice, whose visits he had earnestly solicited, having convinced him that one of the first duties of a Christian was to tell the whole truth when it was required by a lawfully constituted judge, the unhappy man, with torrents of tears, revealed the names of his accomplices; but he seemed almost overwhelmed by the mighty effort it required to abandon, even in subservience to religious duty, that principle of fidelity to his comrades which had so long been the ruling instinct of his better nature. Thus strangely blended are the tendencies to good and evil, even among the very outcasts of humanity! Reviews. MISS STRICKLAND'S LIVES OF THE QUEENS THE eight years which intervened between the death of Mary of Orange, and that of her husband and successor, present to the observer of human nature a field as bleak and as barren as those which immediately preceded them. The character of Anne is only less repulsive than that of Mary, because it is more weak. She was emphatically and intensely commonplace. In private life she might have passed muster under the world's standard as "a good sort of person." All her faults were mixed with feebleness; all her virtues were small, tame, and inoffensive; she would not have been likely to violate a propriety, or to forget a conventionality either in the cause of right or of wrong. She had affections, though they lacked that strength and steadfastness which alone could make them really valuable; and she was not ungenerous, though her very nature was ignoble; in the garb of a decent and comfortable selfishness she might have slipped past us without notice, and sundry shallow amiabilities, too scanty to impoverish in any measure the fountain from which they were derived, might have duly qualified her for an epitaph as lengthy and as turgid as that which Bishop Burnet bestowed upon her sister. Of such materials much of the current and untested goodness of society is made up; but the first breath of the furnace melts it like wax. How does the broad sunlight put to shame the mean proportions and unseemly outline of that poorly-draped lay-figure which we mistook for man made in the image of God! No inconvenient sincerity of nature prevented the show of a reconciliation between Anne and William of Nassau, as soon as such a proceeding became necessary to their interests. They did not in the least mind making their words sweeter than honey, while there was war in their hearts. William had the more difficult part to play in this domestic union, because of what Miss Strickland calls "the natural venom of his temper;" nevertheless he was capable of suppressing even this, so soon as he found it likely to take effect upon himself. He felt that the talents, the popularity, and the voluntary submission of his wife, had invested him with a claim on the reverence of the English nation which his personal qualities never could have achieved in the first instance, and which they were exceedingly unlikely to retain unassisted. His right to the throne was, as Dr. Miller sagaciously observes in his philosophical history, "a parliamentary right;" it looked a little bare and unsatisfactory when closely examined, and he was glad to give it an extraneous dignity by covering it with the tattered and soiled garment of hereditary prestige. As for Anne, although in many of the transactions of her life it is impossible to acquit her of that species of hypocrisy into the composition of which self-deception and want of self-discipline very largely enter, we are disposed to give her the full benefit of the doubt which arises out of her natural tendency to vacillation. From time to time we find her writing repentant letters to her father, and even assurances of her determination to join him instantly, if he should land in England. Nor is it probable that these were deliberate and wilful falsehoods, though most assuredly he who should have trusted to such declarations would have found himself leaning upon a broken reed. The state of mind is not always purely evil though the outward development may be so. This seems to be the point on which error is so often made in our judgment of others. see the sin; it is broad, clear, unmistakeable; we immediately decide that the cause by which it was produced was as simple and definite We Lord pied with high and awful thoughts. In truth, she was compunction at any previous period." This last assertion we are, as we have said, disposed to doubt; because, in fact, it seems to be simply impossible. But, practically, the view is accurate enough; for her contrition, supposing her to have felt it at all, certainly never went beyond a very shallow and transient sentiment. as itself. But, for the most part, this is not the case. The cause was probably compound, as the nature in which it was to work was compounded of many parts, though the visible effect, the action, was single and separate. The next time we do wrong ourselves, we, being sensitively alive to the mixture of motives by which we were impelled, and strongly disposed to make all conceivable allowances in a case so delicate, may, perhaps, congratulate ourselves on the absence of that naked and unmitigated guilt, which we have charitably presupposed in the instance of our neighbour. In both matters we were mistaken; and we should do well to remember, that there never was a sin yet for which a multitude of plausible excuses might not be found in the mind of the sinner. However, this is not a sermon; the special practical illustration of the remarks just made (if they be true,) is to be found in the character of Queen Anne. It seems not unlikely, that she believed herself in earnest when she indulged in all those little penitential outbreaks which appear so ludicrous to posterity, because posterity has the means of knowing their unreality. She probably persuaded herself that disgust with the unpleasant consequences of her offence was genuine penitence, and, as she was not wholly heartless, the warmth of expression in which this transitory reformation clothed itself was far from unnatural. She was therefore not so guilty as she would have been, had she been deliberately, consciously, and intentionally a hypocrite; but she was quite as guilty as the generality of those who appear to be deliberate, conscious, and intentional hypocrites really are. The interest of these pages is exclusively contained in the history of the little Duke of Gloucester, for eleven years the heir on whom the hopes of the new dynasty were all centred. Mary of Orange was childless; but the retributive justice which afflicted her where she would be likely to feel it most tenderly, did not fail to visit the softer-hearted Anne in a manner equally impressive, and which, once at least, as we shall presently see, produced its due effect. After many bitter disappointments and much suffering, she was permitted to rear one sickly, fragile, but most intelligent child," Pegasus in the yoke" the winged creature whose existence must have been a prolonged terror to his mother, and who was taken from her at an age when she might reasonably begin to hope that he had outgrown the dangers of his infancy, in the midst too of her rejoicings on the festive occasion of his birthday. The words in which Miss Strickland describes the demeanour of Anne under this sore trial are so forcible, that we shall give them without alteration. "The unfortunate princess attended on her dying child, tenderly, but with a resigned and grave compo. sure which astonished every one. She gave way to no violent bursts of agony, never wept, but seemed occu The history of this poor little prince's life is full of a strange kind of pathos; the "stiffbodied coats," which restricted the growth and impeded the play of his young limbs, symbolizing very expressively the strait-waistcoat which it was the labour of those around him to fix upon his tender mind. Alas, for the freshness and freedom of beautiful childhood! Surely it is not possible to behold a more melancholy spectacle than this-human hands busied in distorting and deforming God's excellent creation, while the divine life that is in it, too vigorous to be readily suppressed, ever and anon breaks forth, and manifests itself in some new development which is stifled as soon as perceived. There is a poem of Schiller's, embodied by Retsch in a series of his wonderful outlines, representing the struggles and sufferings of genius, compelled to satisfy its cravings with the husks and sherds of the Actual-to dwarf its noble proportions that they may fit the Procrustes-bed of conventional tyranny can, when compelled, do the work of a cart- In of his natural life. But in the other case it is not so. While the mind is opening, it is possible not merely to afflict, but even to change and corrupt it so, that, humanly speaking, it never shall be able to attain to its development. The mischief is boundless and irreparable. As usual in such systems of training, intellectual precocity seems to have been the object of this unfortunate child's teachers, while the subjection of the will was comparatively neglected. We see not in him that perfect truth and implicit obedience to the production of which the whole discipline of education should be directed, and which, if so directed, it cannot fail to produce; premature discretion, ready artifice (springing generally from an amiable motive)-these are the salient characteristics. His uncle, the king, invests him with the order of the garter, and the six-years old courtier on being asked whether he did not enjoy the festival, replies cautiously, "I am gladder of the king's favour." So again his faithful and devoted servant, Lewis Jenkins, thus writes of him. "He now, though he had but completed his seventh year, began to be more wary in what he said, and would not talk and chatter just what came into his head, but now and then would utter shrewd expressions with some archness." On completing his ninth year, the poor little victim was committed to the tender mercies of Bishop Burnet, "after which," says Miss Strickland, no more of his lively sallies are reported. Two years' attention to the studies prescribed by his right reverend preceptor would have been sufficient to subdue the petulance and break the health of a stronger individual than the little heir of Great Britain." A few pages after, we find ample demonstration of the truth of this assertion, when at the quarterly examination, to which the young prince was subjected in order that his intellectual progress might be tested, it is affirmed that his answers on jurisprudence, the Gothic laws, and the feudal system, perfectly astonished his questioners!! They might well be astonished, though rather at the preceptor than at the pupil. Even Pinnock's Catechisms would have been better spiritual nourishment than this. The bodily training of the hapless boy was not less defective. He suffered, like many children of precocious intellect, from water on the brain, causing much giddiness and physical distress, and requiring complete freedom from mental exertion. How injuriously Bishop Burnet's absurd system of instruction must have affected such a tendency, it is scarcely necessary to say. The history of the manner in which the mistaken parents used to force activity of movement upon the helpless invalid, on one occasion even enforcing an unnatural vivacity by actual blows, is really too painful for insertion. Neither can we reconcile it to Miss Strickland's description of Anne's maternal fondness; it is inconceivable that a really affectionate mother could be at once so blind and so cruel. We have no doubt, however, that she loved her child as well as she was capable of loving anything; which is not saying much. Scattered throughout the earlier portion of these pages, are many anecdotes of childish wit and mirth, spirit and sense, showing the original goodness of the materials which were thus laboriously spoiled. Most emphatically was it an Angel of Death, whose kind hands withdrew the young soul from misery and misgovernment, ere they had the power utterly to mar its beauty. That eleventh birthday was, for him, a birthday indeed. This child-torturer, Bishop Burnet, of unenviable notoriety, has yet another claim to the remembrance of posterity, which, in these days, seems curious enough. He was the originator of those high and hideous pens. commonly called pews, whereby many of our churches are still disfigured. The motive was worthy of the act, and is recorded for the benefit of all those who uphold such monstrosities. He did not think that the Princess Anne's ladies looked enough at him while he was preaching; and as he felt pretty sure that the only means of inducing them to do what he desired would be to deprive them of the power of looking at anybody else, he obtained permission to raise all the partitions of the seats in St. James's Chapel so high, that their occupants could see nothing but the pulpit ! The same precaution seems to have been found necessary elsewhere, as the example was very speedily and generally followed. We venture to recommend that in the present day the existence or non-existence of these barricades should be esteemed a test of the popularity of the preacher. We will conclude with one exquisite trait of William of Orange, which, perhaps, more than any other expresses the character of his mind, as it is, in fact, the legitimate development of such principles as those by which he was actuated. The best mode which the friends of the little Duke of Gloucester could discover, to recommend him to the affections and favourable opinion of his uncle, was to persuade the latter that the boy showed an inherent and incurable disgust to-MUSIC, POETRY, and PAINTING! Comment would be superfluous. THE PRINCESS.' SOME five or six years since, Mr. Tennyson published a volume of poems, among which were "Locksby Hall," and the "Gardener's (1) The Princess; a Medley, by Alfred Tennyson. E. Moxon, Dover Street, &c. Daughter," and hushed for ever the snarling and merciless criticisms which had assailed his earlier rhymes. Since that time he has kept silence. His admirers have fondly hoped that this period has been spent in securing immortality-it has been occupied in the composition of a "Medley." Listening for the diapason of the oracle, the votaries have assembled round their sacred oak of Dodona, and have heard but the wind musically murmuring among its leaves. and one of the party is sentenced to tell a story. He chooses Lilia's fancy as his theme; premising that: "One that really suited time and place, Were such a medley, we should have him back, childhood to the prince of a neighbouring Like every poem bearing the stamp of originality, "The Princess" has been violently abused, and as violently praised; now crowned with a crown of surpassing glory, now discrowned, unqueened, and driven from her crowned, unqueened, and driven from her golden seat. Truth, as usual, lies between the two extremes. The full measure of Mr. Tennyson's fame has yet to be made up; but "The Princess," is not the less a charming and most and imaginative poem. The story is not a very probable one, nor is that of the "Tempest;" nor are those of all enchantments. You have to suppose, to accept, something in either case; there, the power of the magician; here, the idiosyncracy of the principal character. It is, after all, the completeness with which the idea is worked out, rather than any absurdity in itself, which inclines you to carp both at the story and at its author. Α college of savantes is not a more unlikely social phase than a commonwealth of Amazons; and yet few of us would give up Theseus and Hippolyta. The story is soon told. A knot of college friends, including the narrator, are staying together in a country house. On a summer's day, while the park is thrown open to the Mechanics' Institute of a neighbouring town, the guests themselves assemble at luncheon within the walls of an old abbey there. They talk of college life; presently one of the party reads a page or two from a family chronicle about a certain Sir Ralph and some old ancestress, "Who drove her foes with slaughter from the wall." And, "Where," Asked Walter, "lives there such a woman now?” Lilia, the daughter of the host, "A rosebud, set with little wilful thorns," "The mignonette of Vivian-place, The little hearth-flower, Lilia," she is "All wild to found an university obtains from her easy father, "A little dry old man, without a star, a summer palace in which to carry out her The prince, however, who has the evil hap to love her, or rather, at this stage of the affair, her miniature, would follow her. He shrinks from the declared resolve of his father, an admirable specimen of testy royalty, to levy an army, and and, "Crush these pretty maiden fancies dead, "Ere the silver sickle of the month starts from the court with Cyril and Florian, takes up the cudgels in defence of her sex, and arranged, the trumpets sound, the prince is at says pettishly, "You men have done it, how I hate you all! And I would teach them all things-you should see." "Prudes for proctors, dowagers for deans, length borne down by the gigantic Arac, his party is discomfited, and the princess, for once breaking through her rules, descends with her fair train of pupils to tend her wounded brothers. Ida has now, in spite of herself, resumed the chief prerogatives of her sex. Her womanly instinct has forced upon her tenderness, pity, loving-kindness; all bearing Heaven's mark as plainly as the proudest attributes of her tyrant, man. The sequel is clear :-the triumph of nature, after some struggles, is complete. The college becomes an hospital. Not her brother only, but all the knights who have suffered in the tournament, are admitted within its walls; and Ida takes the prince, whom she can now remember as the preserver of her life, under her own especial charge. Love follows hard upon pity, and the Ladies' College we may presume to have been closed upon the marriage of its principal. The style of the poem progresses gradually from lively to severe. As the interest of the story deepens, the half-burlesque tone of the commencement disappears; and the gems which were before dropped carelessly at our feet, are now presented each in its proper place. That they are not polished and repolished, we think no matter of regret. Mr. Tennyson disdains for his blank verse the elaboration which is necessary in some of his smaller pieces; and while his ear prevents it from degenerating into the chopped-up prose of Byron, he never sacrifices either sense or strength to mere harmony. His verse resembles rather some old barbaric diadem, set in red gold, with jewels of every shape, regular and irregular, than one of our modern coronets, with its gems cut into exact and many-sided beauty. The errors which do disfigure "The Princess," specks of dust upon a fair face, we fear he will never remove. Mr. Tennyson has very great mastery of language, and, like an absolute monarch, sometimes mistakes the source of his authority. There is no right divine in grammar. He is exceeding the bounds of legitimate authority when he deposes slid," and erects "slided into the perfect of slide. It is pure tyranny to put a sentence or two to the torture, in order to show his power, and throw upon the world such maimed truncated objects as "too dark for legible." These are slight faults. We are the more anxious to see them disappear. We are afraid to begin quoting where so many beauties throng upon us. Nothing can be more beautiful than the sweet, sad, mournful song (p. 66),— "Tears, mournful tears." Here are a couple of pictures, which we recommend as subjects to our artists, instead of "the Death of Harold," or, for the future, anything connected with the Black Prince, or the Conversion of Saxon Kings. "There, Among piled arms and rough accoutrements, Pitiful sight, wrapped in a soldier's cloak, Like some sweet sculpture draped from head to foot, And pushed by rude hands from its pedestal, All her fair length upon the ground she lay; And at her head, a follower of the camp, A charred and wrinkled piece of womanhood Sat watching, like a watcher by the dead." Then, whether moved by this, or was it chance, These extracts, which are taken almost at random, will show of what materials the poem is composed. We only regret that so much wealth has been lavished upon a subject which we cannot but think was hardly worthy of it. Mr. Tennyson has not now to convince the world that he has a poet's appreciation of nature. His imagination is great, his power of description unrivalled. Like one of Lessing's pictures, it unites energy with detail, the greatest breadth with the minutest finish. Unlike Wordsworth, he can express the passionate utterances of love in all its varied moods. His former poems have been fragments, each displaying one of these excellences. We hope some day to welcome from his pen a work which shall combine them all, with yet higher reach than he has attempted. THE EMIGRANTS OF AHADARRA. PERHAPS there is no feature more striking in the age we live in than the universality of its investigation and research. Not fifty years have passed away since men with quiet habits and Cambridge educations buried themselves in remote districts, heard of, indeed, occasionally by dear friends as having increasing families and rheumatic twinges, but coming as little forward as the water ouzels which built their nests in the sedgy banks of the trout stream below their well kept gardens. Now, however, a change has come over the quietude of such existence. The country curate has been three times in London in the course of a single year, because the "Direct Destruction" Company have determined on making a viaduct over his church steeple, and a tunnel underneath the graves; and as for the water ouzel, her habitat is as well known as though she had taken a house for the season in Park Lane, or May Fair. The meanest animal which has left the impress of its footsteps on the shores of some primæval sea, has found a biographer to narrate the history of its alliances with all the enthusiasm of Lodge himself, while philosophers, more |