There Chateaubriand forms new books of martyrs; (1) To furnish articles for the " Débats; XVII. Enough of this —a sight more mournful woos (1) Monsieur Chateaubriand, who has not forgotten the author in the minister, received a handsome compliment at Verona from a literary sovereign: " Ah! Monsieur C., are you related to that Chateaubriand who-who-who has written something?" (écrit quelque chose!) It is said that the author of Atala repented him for a moment of his legitimacy. (2) [Count Capo d'Istrias- afterwards President of Greece. The count was murdered, in September, 1831, by the brother and son of a Mainote chief whom he had imprisoned.] (3) [The Duke de Montmorenci-Laval.] (4) [From Pope's verses on Lord Peterborough: "And he, whose lightning pierced the Iberian lines, Almost as quickly as he conquer'd Spain."] (5) [Napoleon François Charles Joseph, Duke of Reichstadt, died at the palace of Schönbrunn, July 22. 1832, having just attained his twenty first year.] The still pale shadow of the loftiest queen Which swept from Moscow to the southern seas! Of all her beams—while nations gaze and mourn - (If e'er those awful ashes can grow cold;— Do more? or less?—and he in his new grave! (1) [Count Neipperg, chamberlain and second husband to Maria-Louisa, had but one eye. The count died in 1831. See antè, Vol. X. p. 11.] Her eye, her cheek, betray no inward strife, And the ex-empress grows as ex a wife! So much for human ties in royal breasts! Why spare men's feelings, when their own are jests? XVIII. But, tired of foreign follies, I turn home, And sketch the group-the picture 's yet to come. 66 Here, reader, will we pause:if there's no harm in This first you'll have, perhaps, a second "Carmen." (1) [George the Fourth is said to have been somewhat annoyed, on entering the levee-room at Holyrood (Aug. 1822.) in full Stuart tartan, to see only one figure similarly attired (and of similar bulk) that of Sir William Curtis. The city knight had every thing complete -even the knife stuck in the garter. He asked the King, if he did not think him well dressed. "Yes!" replied his Majesty, "only you have no spoon in your hose." The devourer of turtle had a fine engraving executed of himself in his Celtic attire.-E.] THE ISLAND; (') OR, CHRISTIAN AND HIS COMRADES. (2) (1) ["The Island" was written at Genoa, early in the year 1823, and published in the June following.] race. (2) [We are taught by The Book of sacred history, that the disobedience of our first parents entailed on our globe of earth a sinful and a suffering In our time there has sprung up from the most abandoned of this sinful family-from pirates, mutineers, and murderers—a little society, which, under the precepts of that sacred volume, is characterised by religion, morality, and innocence. The discovery of this happy people, as unexpected as it was accidental, and all that regards their condition and history, partake so much of the romantic, as to render the story not ill adapted for an epic poem. Lord Byron, indeed, has partially treated the subject; but, by blending two incongruous stories, and leaving both of them imperfect, and by mixing up fact with fiction, has been less felicitous than usual; for, beautiful as many passages in his "Island" are, in a region where every tree, and flower, and fountain, breathe poetry, yet, as a whole, the poem is deficient in dramatic effect. - BARROW.] |