We give some extracts from the poetry of each.

“Veneziana

MIDNIGHT.

Hark! what rich music! seems it not to rise

From the blue sea?

Some ocean nymph has left

Her crystal cave, to breathe the dewy air,

And chaunt her dulcet strains, and braid her locks.
Now gentle moon I pray thee,

When yon dark cloud its envious veil withdraws,

To cast upon the wave one silver beam,

That I may view this creature of the deep,

And so may worship her.

The cloud is past. From yonder Gondola

The song is wafted.

See the minstrel there,

As graceful bending at his lady's knee,

He wakes his lute's romantic strings, and breathes
A mingled strain of hope, and fear and love
Charming the ear of night; while his fair saint
Shadows, with floating veil her timid

THE GRAVE OF KORNER.

By Mrs. HEMANS.

eyes.

E."

Forget Me Not.

Charles Theodore Korner, the celebrated young German poet and soldier, was killed in a skirmish with a detachment of French troops on the 26th of August, 1813, a few hours after the composition of his popular piece, The Sword Song.'

6

"Green wave the oak for ever o'er thy rest,

Thou that beneath its crowning foliage sleepest,
And in the stillness of thy country's breast,
The place of memory as an altar keepest!
Brightly thy spirit o'er her hills was pour'd
Thou of the lyre and sword!

"Rest bard! rest soldier! by the father's hand
Here shall the child of after years he led,
With his wreath-offering silently to stand
In the hushed presence of the glorious dead,
Soldier and bard! for thou thy path hast trod
With freedom and with God.

"The oak waved proudly o'er thy burial rite,

On thy crowned bier to slumber warriors bore thee
And with true hearts; thy brethren of the fight
Wept as they vailed their drooping banners o'er thee.
And the deep guns with rolling peals gave token
That lyre and sword were broken.

"Thou hast a hero's tomb. A lowlier bed

Is hers, the gentle girl, beside thee lying,
The gentle girl, that bowed her fair young head,
When thou wert gone, in silent sorrow dying.
Brother, true friend! the tender and the brave!
She pined to share thy grave!"

Literary Souvenir.

"THE THIRTY-FIRST OF DECEMBER.

"As if an angel spoke,

I hear the solemn sound.'-YOUNG.

"Hark! to the deep-toned chime of that bell,
As it breaks on the midnight ear,
Seems it not tolling a funeral knell,

"Tis the knell of the parting year!
Before that bell shall have ceased to chime,
The year shall have sunk in the ocean of Time.

"Oh! many an eye that was beaming bright
As this year from its slumber arose,
Was dimmed by anguish or sealed in night,
Ere it reached its dreary close;

And hearts that in gladness were blooming then,
Have withered never to bloom again.

"Yet the wind will grow calm, and the billow will sleep,
And sorrow bring joy by its side;

And hours of delight o'er young spirits will sweep,
And the lover be blest in his bride:

And blue eyes of beauty, unstain'd by a tear,
Will yet beam at thy memory, thou happy old year.

"To me, faded year, thou hast not been unkind,
Though my glimpses of sunshine were few,
I welcomed thee kindly, part from thee resign'd,
Nor breathe one reproach with adieu :
No thanks to thy speed that my pilgrimage here
By so much is shortened, then fare thee well, year."

E.

Forget Me Not.

We are obliged to postpone our "Notices" of English

books, for want of room.

457

FOREIGN LITERATURE.

La Biographie des Hommes vivans des frères Michaud. Paris.
La Biographie nouvelle des Contemporains. Paris.

La Dictionnaire Biographique et Historique, &c. Paris.

THE French press has lately abounded in biographies, some

of which have been written to favour the ambition or the interest of parties able, by the corruption of a degraded and venal press, to pollute the stream of truth. This kind of public delusion appears to have grown into a system. The prospectus of the Biographie Barthelemy, in 10 vols. 8vo., of which fifty thousand are said to have been distributed, has recorded circumstances respecting book-makers and book-speculators, by which it would appear that they have entered into a kind of copartnership, to enrich themselves at the expence of truth, honour, and the public interest.

La Biographie des Hommes vivans, des freres Michaud. This biography is written generally in the spirit of absolute power. The editors have suffered themselves to be led into decisions dictated by party spirit, but the work is impartial when it treats of the arts and sciences.

These biographers make every one guilty that was engaged in the French revolution. It is to be regretted that they have sometimes drawn their information from suspicious sources, and have recorded in their volumes statements notoriously incorrect.

ap

La Biographie nouvelle des Contemporains. This work pears to be directed by a spirit diametrically opposite to that of the preceding; one would think, after reading it, that there was not to be found, in the French revolution, a single criminal!

The writers, whose names are prefixed to this undertaking, have produced some able articles, but these are but thinly scattered throughout the work; panegyrics on this performance have appeared in some of the French journals, and principally in those which are under the direction of its editors; considerable errors have been committed in some of the French

articles, and in the very small number of Spanish in these volumes. The editors appear to be ignorant of the state of Spain. They lavish panegyrics on those men who have shewn themselves to be double traitors to royalty and to liberty. This same biography says that the generals of the war of Spanish independence (1808-1813) were only chiefs of a party, whose bands delivered themselves to royalty!

The Dictionnaire Biographique et Historique, &c., says of Dumourier, vol. i. p. 472. Being unable to occupy the world longer with his exploits, he takes up his pen, and writes a history of his life, a work remarkable for the excessive vanity which prevails in it, a true political Proteus."—" There is no faction for which he has not, at some time or another, declared himself a partizan. One part of his writings refutes another; he is a violent man, who considers obscurity a punishment, and who is desirous of becoming notorious, cost what it may.'

La Biographie Barthelemy, édition completée sur celle de la Belgique augmentée de 2000 Articles, en 10 vols. 8vo. Chez M. Barthelemy, Boulevard du Temple, à Paris.

THE Editors of this work assert, that they are advocates for national glory, independence, constitutional liberty, and truth; that they are not republicans, Napoleonists, Orleanists, nor ultra-royalists. They assure the public that they have been offered large sums of money to induce them to treat several subjects in words diametrically opposite to truth, and that a proposition has been made to them to buy up the volumes already published, but that they have declined such offers.

"Madame de Stael has written for and against despotism and liberty, for and against democracy and aristocracy. She is the author of the following phrase. The legitimacy of the people is more ancient still than that of kings.' Such a sentence is sufficient to provoke and to excuse all kinds of revolutions. In the work published by this lady, in 1818, are to be found proofs in favour of all opinions, and arms in favour of all parties; this work is the dictionary of political factions and passions, and l'histoire des dix ans d'exile, proves from the beginning to the end, that Madame de Stael was of the Reformed Religion."Vide STAEL.)

"If Napoleon had condescended to encourage the intriguing pride of this illustrious Genevese, she would have negociated for her return

to France, with a panegyric in her hand, full of flattery and imperial adulations!".

Maugre Madame de Stael," the Editor says, "Napoleon is, in in our opinion, the greatest captain of modern times, and he is, notwithstanding what the liberals may say, the greatest despot that ever existed."—" We shall speak with all truth respecting this extraordinary man, who reigned fourteen years over France, and over the French revolution; of that giant of revolution, who beheld emperors and kings humble themselves before him; of that soldier, whose alliance was solicited by all the monarchs, from the Emperor of Russia to the Duke of Baden; whom all the potentates of Europe flattered, admired, and saluted with the epithet of the great, and with the name of brother, and whose favourable regards were sought by all the kings on the continent of Europe.

The Editors of this work announce that they will record whatever Napoleon has done, whether it be great, handsome, prodigious, or useful; that they will also mention his faults, his crimes, his ambition, his despotism; that despotism which tended to complete his ruin! a general, whom it was impossible to praise too much, a monarch whom no success or reverse of fortune could correct, &c.

The Editors proceed thus:

"We consider a Vendean a great man, when he demonstrates in the fury of civil war, the humanity and virtue of Bonchamp, of LarocheJacquelain, &c. (see these names.) We think a man is estimable, when he is just; political opinions do not prevent us from praising the integrity of Bellart, the virtue of Marcellus, or the moderation of Lainé, &c."

"We consider, that a man who, from 1789 till 1800, has preached in favour of despotism and aristocracy, who from 1800 till the 31st March, 1814, preached passive obedience to the imperial institutions; who from 31st March, 1814, until the year 1822, has preached for the ancient regime, whilst he flattered himself that he would become the minister; and for liberal ideas, so soon as he lost all hope of becoming such; a man who has said, during the last fifteen years of our revolutionary history, the reverse of what he maintained during the twelve years preceding, who, piqued at being nothing in the govern→ ment, and at not being able to become a member of the chamber of deputies, has taken up the trade of a soothsayer, who predicts revolutions after they have happened, and who has sometimes guessed events, in giving, as his own, the opinions of the Abbé Raynal, Mallet du Pain, Burke, &c., according to us, such a man as this is not a royalist, nor a liberal, but a political-juggler." (See DE PRADT.)

66

According to our mode of thinking, a priest, a bishop, who has taken the oath to all systems, and served all governments engen