The poet's fine phrenzy to feel is not mine, Till from table I rise with my skin full of wine; When my brain owns the influence of Bacchus divine, Then-then comes the glow--then Apollo! I'm thine! LITERARY NOTICES. MEMOIRS OF THE PRIVATE LIFE OF MARIE ANTOINETTE, QUEEN OF FRANCE. BY MADAM CAMPAN.—Colburn and Co. In commencing a series of Literary Notices, it is not our intention to enter into elaborate dissertations upon the merits of the author before us :-our limits and our inclinations equally relieve us from the task. Were we, however, presumptuous enough to aspire to the critical ermine, the bench is already so occupied, that we should despair of finding a vacant place upon it. We shall, therefore, content ourselves with making selections from such works as we shall consider worthy of perusal, leaving it entirely to the good taste of our readers, whether they shall become further acquainted with the volume or not. We do not, however, altogether debar ourselves from an occasional remark-but we do from speculative discussion, wherein the author and his works are laid aside for the reviewer and his arrogance. Madame Campan, the biographer of her unfortunate mistress was first introduced to the court of Louis the Fifteenth, as reader to his daughters. She became subsequently femme de chamber to the Dauphiness. After the downfal of her royal mistress, she opened a seminary for young ladies at St. Germain, where her success was so complete as to attract the attention of Napoleon, who was then Consul, by whom she was appointed to preside over the National Female Assylum, established for the education of the daughters of those who should fall in battle. The restoration of the house of Bourbon abolished this institution, and drove Madam Campan into retirement, where she died in a few years afterwards. FOREBODINGS OF THE FATE OF MARIE ANTOINETTE. "There was at that time (the time of marriage of the Archduchess with Louis the Sixteenth, then Dauphin of France) at Vienna, a doctor named Gassner, who had fled thither to seek an asylum against the persecutions of his sovereign, one of the ecclesiastical electors. Gassner, gifted with an extraordinary warmth of imagination, imagined that he received inspirations. The Empress (Maria Theresa) protected him; saw him occasionally; rallied him upon his visions, and nevertheless heard them with a sort of interest. "Tell me," said she to him, one day, "whether my Antoinette will be happy." Gassner turned pale, and remained silent. Being still pressed by the Empress, and wishing to give Napoleon used to inspect this establishment himself, and always expressed the highest satisfaction at the mode in which, it was conducted. On one occasion the internal regulations were submitted to him-one rule proposing that the children should hear mass on Sundays and Thursdays, Napoleon altered to every day. a general kind of expression to the idea with which he seemed deeply occupied," Madame," he replied, "There are crosses for all shoulders." Goethe, who was then young, was completing his studies at Strasburg. In an isle in the middle of the Rhine a pavilion had been erected, intended to receive Marie Antoinette and her suite. "I was admitted into it," says Goethe, in his Memoirs. "On my entrance I was struck with the subject depicted in the tapestry with which the principal pavilion was hung, in which were seen Jason, Creusa, and Medea, that is to say, a representation of the most fatal union commemorated in history. On the left of the throne, the bride, surrounded by her friends and distracted attendants, was struggling with a dreadful death. Jason, on the other side, was starting back, struck with horror at the sight of his murdered children; and the Fury was soaring into the air in her chariot drawn by dragons." Superstition apart, this strange coincidence was really striking. The husband, the bride, and the chil. dren, were victims in both cases; the fatal omen seemed accomplished in every point. Maria Theresa might have repeated the fine verses which the father of Creusa addresses to his expiring daughter, in the Medea of Corneille : This, then, my child, the hymeneal day, The royal union anxiously expected! Stern fate extinguishes the bridal torch, And for thy marriage bed the tomb awaits thee. "But if we seek fatal omens, those which attended the marriage festivities at Paris, may well suffice. The occurrences at the Place Louis XV. are generally known, and it is unnecessary to state how the conflagration of the scaffolds intended for the fireworks, the magistrates' want of foresight, the avidity of robbers, &c. &c. &c. "Having been led to notice this calamitous event, I will briefly notice one of the scenes it presented. Amidst this distrated multitude, pressed on every side, trampled under the horses' feet, precipitated into the ditches of the Rue Royale and the square, was a young man with a girl with whom he was in love. She was beautiful; their attachment had lasted several years; pecuniary causes had delayed their union; but the following day they were to be married. For a long time the lover, protecting his mistress, keeping her behind him, covering her with his own person, sustained her strength and courage. But the tumult, the cries, the terror, and peril, every moment increased. "I am sinking," she said, "my strength fails-I can go no farther." "There is yet a way," cried the lover in despair; "get on my shoulders." He feels that his advice has been followed, and the hope of saving her whom he loves redoubles his ardour and strength. He resists the most violent concussions; with his arms firmly extended before his breast, he with diffiulty forces his way through the crowd; at length he clears it. Arrived at one of the extremities of the place, having set down his precious burthen, faltering, exhausted, fatigued to death, but intoxicated with joy, he turns round; it was a different person! Another, more active, had taken advantage of his recommendation; his beloved was no more! THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK. During the first few months of his reign, Louis the 16th had dwelt at La Muette, Marly, and Compigne. When he was settled at Versailles, he occupied himself with a general revision of his grandfather's papers. He had promised the queen to communicate to her the history of the man with the iron all that he might discover, relative to heard on the subject, that this iron mask mask; he thought, after what he had had become so inexhaustible a source of conjecture, only in consequence of the interest which the pen of a celebrited writer had raised, respecting the detention of a prisoner of state, who was merely a man of whimsical tastes and habits. I was with the queen when the king, having finished his researches, informed her that he had not found any thing among the secret papers,elucidating the existence of this prisoner; that he had conversed on the matter with M. de Maurepas, whose age shewed him a cotemporary with the epoch during which the anecdote in question must have been known to the ministers; and that M. de Maurepas had assured him he was merely a prisoner of a very dangerous character, in consequence of his disposition for intrigue; and was a subject of the Duke de Mantua. He was enticed to the frontier, arrested there, and kept prisoner; first at Pig PARKER. BY LORD BYRON. norol, and afterwards in the Bastile. ON THE DEATH OF SIR PETER Such was in fact the real truth about There is a tear for all that die, A mourner o'er the humblest grave; For them is sorrow's purest sigh All earth becomes their monument! A tomb is their's on every page, An epitaph on every tongue : For them bewail, to them belong. For them the voice of festive mirth While deep Remembrance pours to Th egoblet's tributary round. A theme to crowds that knew them not, Who would not share their glorious Who would not die the death they chose? And, gallant Parker! thus enshrined A model in thy memory. But there are breasts that bleed with In woe, that glory cannot quell; Where one so dear, so dauntless, fell. SATURDAY NIGHT. BACHELORS' BUTTONS. A gentleman lately received an ano- TO THE UNKNOWN LADY. Madam,-Although it may imply an egregious vanity to regard the present I received, other than as a quiz, yet female attentions of any sort are so seldom bestowed upon me, that I am resolved to shut my eyes to its obvious bearing, and to believe (like a good Catholic-against my better judgment) that it was intended as a serious compliment. And a serious one it is so SERIOUS, that I am induced, upon further reflection, to wish I could find refuge in my vanity from the imputation which its properties, name, and inscription, seem so clearly to indicate. You are, doubtless, aware that an impartial trial is considered as a matter of common right in our country; and so great is the benignity of the laws, that the accused in our Courts of Justice is presumed to be innocent until he is proved to be guilty. Imagine then the pungency of my regret when I found myself condemned without evidence, and debarred even the felon's privilege of a hearing, and that too by a tribunal from which there is no appeal. My despair would have been complete, but for the conviction that the fair are usually merciful; and, although infliction is not always more easily endured because it is imposed by the hand of beauty, yet I am induced to lay my case before you, not indeed with a hope of redress, but with the faint expectation of exciting your pity. Thus stands the charge against me:-Two emblematic flowers are presentedprickly, rough, destitute of fragrance, and inscribed "TO NIHIL"-plainly intimating that I am nothing, worse than nothing-positively bad-bad, even as a bachelor-bad as Two bachelors! How intolerable! the very climax of denunciation! Were I conscious that my case is as indefensible as that of a bachelor, I would not presume to offer a palliation of the charge. But mine, I contend, is a venial offence, or rather an involuntary and remediless misfortune; and it is to relieve myself from an accusation derogatory to its nature, and so blasting in its effects, that I must be per mitted to state (and I have a witness to prove the truth of my statement) that I have once worn, and not unwillingly, the silken chains of Hymen. Or what excuse will be accepted for Yet what can a poor widower do? not thrusting his neck a second time into the matrimonial noose? Reasons Falstaff; but how cruel the dilemma, he may have-as plenty as Sir John either to admit the disparaging imputation implied by the present, or to As the least of two evils, the latter alterdisclose the mortifying secret native is preferred; nor shall I forbear, when thus brought to the stool of penitence, to confess, not only my individual calamities, but those of the brotherhood. addresses some blithsome maiden, and If, in due time, the hapless widower attempts to breathe soft rapture in her ear, after a prolonged period of suspense (let me not for the world say coquetry,) of a first love, and sneeringly advised to he is told of the exhausting properties seek a mate among the widows. If he has children, still more unpropitious is his suit-for who could endure to be a mother-in-law? To the widows, then, in solemn form, and with longitude of phiz, the dejected suitor applies. And what is his reception there? He is not only reminded of his first love, but of his late rejection. third in the range of his affections-not on. upon the same interminable pilgrimage. hazard the mortification of refusal, is really too much for human nature to sustain. Yet such is our melancholy lot! After having endured perhaps a dozen refusals, and as many rejections and refusals, (for thrice happy is the widower whose experience has not enabled him to distinguish very accurately between these heart-cutting terms) and retired in absolute and hopeless despondence from the field, he has not even the melancholy credit allowed him of his connubial state, nor of his thousand subsequent efforts to resume it, but by a fatal present (more fatal than the poisoned tunic of Nessus,) he is degraded to nothing in society. Instead of the star and garter, as a reward for his zeal and perseverance, he is decorated with two ungenial, inodorus plants, whose very name carries frost to the heart. Such, alas! are trophies of female gratitude! The fair, relentless tyrants, like the Holy Alliance, are willing enough to enslave, and bring a subjugated world to their feet; but, worse than the Despots of Verona, they are not satisfied with submission, and the surrender of liberty, but break his proffered fetters over the head of the suppliant! Would that these were ideal woes! Woes and indignities that none but a widower can feel, or justly appreciate If Sparta decreed public honours to the matron who sent forth numerous sons to bleed and fall in defence of their country, what wreath of glory should not be awarded to the intrepid widower, who many a sad time and oft," has bared his heart to the fair archers aim? Yet, such is the proof of this world's justice! All his tilts,tournaments,and perilous adventures, are requited by being driven, not merely from society, but from existence-turned into absolute nihility; and that too, by the magic influence of a pair of changeless flowers that have not sensibility enough to fade -whose tints no culture can improve, and no neglect can blanch! Although the writer ventures to cherish no hope of recal for himself to the regions of light and life, yet he begs, in the name, and for the sake of justice, that a similar decree may not again go forth, without previous examination, against any of his brethren in adversity. Allow them a patient hearing and a fair trial. If they prove themselves to have been (during their widowerhood) nine times repulsed, rejected, refused, or dismissed, let a favourable decree be awarded, accompanied by a certificate that they have done their duty. But, on the other hand, if no such proofs can be adduced, and they are found to be guilty of the sin of wilful bachelorism-then, indeed, they will be entitled to no sympathy nor favour;-like the fatal emblem they resemble, they must sink back upon the stalk on which they grew, unpitied and unforgotten. NIHIL. TRINITY HOUSE. The Corporation commonly known by the name of the Trinity House, is of so remote an origin, and is invested with such extraordinary powers, and performs such very important duties on behalf of the commerce of Great Britain, that no apology is requisite for giving the following sketch: The early records of the Trinity House were destroyed by a fire in 1714; but its history, since the year 1514, can be distinctly traced through a series of official documents. In the year last mentioned, this Company was incorporated by a charter of Henry VIII. as a measure auxiliary to the erection of a permanent navy. It was originally a company of pilots for the royal marine. Queen Elizabeth multiplied its offices and powers, and bestowed upon it the profits arising from "buoyage, beaconage, and ballastage." James II. increased the number of brethren from 13 to 31, and more exactly specified their duties. In rank they are as follows:-a master, deputy-master, 4 wardens, 8 assistants, and 17 brethren-11 of the 31 are usually men of high station, and 20 experienced commanders of merchant ships. The master and deputy are annually chosen. Their task is principally to preside at boards, courts, &c. With the wardens begin the more laborious duties of the corporation. These four officers have each the superintendence of one of the principal departments. The rental-warden has the revenue and expenditure, the accounts of which it is his business to examine and audit. The buoy-warden has the charge of buoyage and beaconagedepartments whose names explain their character. The third and fourth wardens have what is called the "foreign department" in their keep ing. On this point it may be worth |