66 fessed that with the same views of social evil, he had been no self-indulgent Morn, but an unwearied benefactor of his kind. Yet they were unwilling to give up the cause, but defended Morn, as Rosseau has beed defended, on the score of the excessive susceptibility of his temper. To speak more plainly, he was a vain man, or, as the phrenologists would say, his approbativeness was strongly developed", said Von Krachen smiling. "Hence he was easily deceived, and the often deceived man is inevitably a mistrustful man. With less judgment than imagination, he was often as much mistaken in himself as in others, adopted opinions upon insufficient grounds, and drew general inferences from particular cases.” Engelbert had both head and heart in the right place, and did not abandon a general principle because of a trifling failure in peculiar instances. Many lament and complain of the perversity and corruption of the world. Engelbert hated the corruption, but he did not whine over it, He attacked it boldly within his own little world, and reformed it. He made war on the error, but not on the erring. Pity that there are not a few more Engelberts in the world! But the greater part of our world reformers like the theory far better than the practice. They can eulogise virtue freely, but have no courage for the practice of it. They are themselves fettered by the very follies and prejudices against which they cry out so lustily. They are weaklings without heart for that truth and nature they so loudly commend, and hug the chain while they contemn the slavery. Or, if they make a sacrifice, they will have counter sacrifices; praise, honour, popular applause. How many would like to put themselves in Engelbert's place, act the reformer's part, instead of declaiming it; bear all that was repulsive in it, bear to be misconstrued and misrepresented, and never once ask will the world applaud the action? And till people are found willing to do this, take my word for it, though the preachers may be many, the converts will be few. WELL, sorrow is a simple word, To him who hears the famish'd cry, It scares lean Labour from its seat; Now, Misery waits so biddingly, Handmaiden to despair. "Save well at noon," the wise one says, Well, Mary saved! Oh, many an hour To sew and save the o'erworn weeds She saved the morsel from her lip The Kirk seat-rent, the beadle's fees, She sought, and saved ilk kindly thought And held it, hoarded in her heart, She croon'd the cradle lullaby 'Tween sob and sang, "He'll come ere lang, Ob, bairnies, dinna greet!" He never came. Yon dowie law! If lawfu' deeds they be, Whan mongers fatten at their will, "An' maun I leave them helpless now, When maist my help they need? And muun I dree a felon's doom, Wha ne'er did felons deed? "I dinna grudge to leave a land But, oh, I mourn yon drearie hame, ""Twas there, in timorons infancy, "Although I held auther's plew, I gied a benison as leal As if they'd been my ain. "I watch'd and blest the infant briard, In morning glory spread, And blest the bonnie dew that set, "We saw it wave in stately ranks, "I saw it pass our breadless door, Well, patience is a silly word, So meaningless and dead, To him who hears the sickening cry, 66 Oh, father, give us bread!". WILLIAM THOM. A FRAGMENT. THE room is darkened; not a sound is heard The thoughts which lay within, and part concealing. We thought of death, but deemed the Reaper's hand * Come near, come silently the room may tell O'er which, in summer hours, she loved to pore; And proofs of fond affection, too, are there, That care to which the higher task was given, Come near, come silently-ere yet the grave J. D. JAMES V. OF SCOTLAND, RECEIVING THE NEWS OF THE BIRTH OF HIS DAUGHTER, MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS, ON HIS DEATH, He lay upon his dying bed, Broad Scotland's luckless lordWho rode that morning to the fray With many a mountain horde : BED, AFTER HIS DEFEAT IN BATTLE. With Highland chief, and steel-clad knight, And yeoman stout and proud, 'Mid clangour of ten thousand swords, And trump and pibroch loud. He lay within a clay-built hut, And moaned around his head The night wind from the Battle Field Then loudly sounded up the glen An awful mockery it seemed When death and blood lay round; Yet 'mid jest and caroling, On came the joyous sound. "Cheer thee, my sire!" a chieftain cried, Defaced with dust and foam "A child was born to thee this day! A child smiles on thy home! A Hope hath dawned upon our land, Be reconciled again to life! BY MRS. ACTON TINDAL. "Stand back, stand back!" the dying king, In thrilling accents, said; "Talk not of joy to one who feels The heart within him dead! Stand back! for thou hast crushed my hope, The secrets of the time unborn "My only pleasure was, to think That, like this mournful wind, I passed from this rough, troublous world, Nought loved, nought born of me, "Would I could wrap within my shroud This scarcely living thing, And look upon God's face, and cry, My child with me I bring!" The early dead are early blest- Is she whose birth thou tell'st me of, "Much tempted, sorely punished, thou I see thy danger, nor can warn; "I've not a prayer for thee, my child! He laid his face against the wall— A lifeless corpse was there! RUSSIA'S INTERNAL LIFE. MYSTERY is, according to the constitution of the human even be the complete annihilation of the Circassians, a the very moment when unusually large levies would lead less believing nations to suspect a conquered people could not require a reinforced army to receive their submission! Under such circumstances, foreigners must rejoice, when, like Parnell's hermit, either "books or swains" come in their way, from whom they may learn something of this "world from which they are shut out;" and as the latter are, generally speaking, anything rather than communicative, (as those who could tell, will not, and those who are willing, cannot,) books prove, after all, the surest as well as most abundant source whereat to slake our thirst for Russian information. Of those, modern times have been tolerably prolific. "Russia, in 1839," by le Marquis de Custine, has excited too much discussion, and been too widely circulated, both in the original and translations, to be more than adverted to here; and, despite the furious attacks which have been made on his statements, and the mistakes or exaggerations which have been occasionally proved against him, the impartial critic must still allow that successive attempts to explore the dark secrets of the chambers" of Russian "imagery" have shown "greater," rather than less, “abominations" than he reveals. Among the latest writers on Russia, none has assumed a more dignified and credible—because moderate, and yet nobly fearless and decisive-style than the author of a deeply-interesting publication, which appeared in 1816, under the title of "Russia's Internal Life, or the Thirty-Three Years' Experience of a German in Russia; 3 vols.; Brunswick, 1846.” No one can read the book without acknowledging it as one of the most remarkable productions on the subject. The author has striven, and not unsuccessfully, to redeem for the result of his personal observation the defect of anonymous authorship, (the motives for which are neither difficult to divine nor to appreciate,) by the production of documentary and other collateral evidence in support of his assertions. In the preface, he addresses himself to his countrymen in the following terms :-"The kindliness of my greeting would flow freer and fuller, were it not troubled by the thought that the holiest sentiments and feelings, which fain would throw themselves warm and glowing into the arms of our common fatherland, cannot reach you, except tamed and despoiled of their native fire. Yet, let me simply remind you of the fact that, even so early as 1752, a Russian remonstrance was able to give its death-blow to a Frankfort journal! Learn, then, to know the principles as well as power of the land, whose rustling pine, and whispering birch forests, are forbidden to speak of what occurs under their shade!-whose orators laud absolution and serfship, and exalt the monster fanaticism, until it can hide its horns in the clouds, and fasten its talons in the earth. Be on your guard, dear fellow-countrymen Man travels by day, but destiny rolls onward in darkness! Russian blasts breathe destruction to every bud and blossom of German growth !I speak the truth! Let the warm affection which dietates this address assure to me your believing reception of my statements." The author proceeds to depict the Northern Colossus under three distinct aspects. Vol. I. commences with laying in a bold priming, in which the main colours of the future portrait are pretty distinctly discoverable, and in which he calls upon all Europe, but specially adjures his countrymen, to note his warning voice, as being more than any other free nation, bound by self-interest to watch the approaches of so formidable ya neighbour, and build up, betimes, a rampart against his encroachments. He then enters on a pretty extensive discussion of the various authors who have written respecting Russia, whether natives of the Empire or foreigners, and takes decided part with the Marquis de Custine, whose portraiture he identifies as correct in all the main features; and after strong animadversions on Gretsch, Grimm, Tolstoi, & Co.," (the opponents of the Marquis,) enters into a lengthened critique on the censure of a later German Reviewer, who had pronounced the credibility of the Marquis as shaken, if not annihilated, by the counter publications of Gretsch, whose sweeping denials of some facts, and attempted, though seldom successful, sarcastic irony respecting others, the author of **Russia's Internal Life," finds as contrary to sound argument as to good taste. One quotation may serve to show the author's sentiments on this head:-" Once more him. And assuredly no acknowledged defective finish ever suggested the thought to Alexander's successor, to banish those true and speaking likenesses from his palace! The Marquis de Custine's work produced, as might naturally have been foreseen, a great sensation, and the German-Russian, as well as native Russian, sparrows fluttered and chirped with loquacious astonishment, as if some horned owl had suddenly emerged from his nest, and sitting down, in full day-light, on a lofty oak, had related all that his piercing eyes had detected in the darkness; while in St. Petersburg itself, alarmed whisperings floated about, as if he were re-risen from the dead whom Russians fear no less than writing described as,"Na pole, on perwoi," ("First and chief in the battle field.") "The general interest with which Custine's book was received, and the avidity with which it was read, both in France and Germany, induced a translation into the latter German edition as to be had in all circulating libraries, language, and the newspapers had already announced the when a report was circulated that the Russian counsellor, D'etat Gretsch, was appointed to travel through France and Germany, in order to disprove its statements. The (says he at page 16,) our German valleys are resounding journey took place, but not the disproof, at least not in with the old distich:→→→→ The Pope, the Devil, and the Russ, Ought I not, then, to lift my voice too in aid of truth? Paris, where it would have been most in place; and that for the alleged reason that the Marquis de Custine's book was already forgotten in the French capital when the Russian counsellor reached it! The appearance of a second edition relieved the French author from the onus of rebutting this disparaging report, and the deeply-mortified Gretsch left the intractable Parisians to bestow the valuable gift of his contradictions on the more teachablo Germans. It must, therefore, have been peculiarly disagreeable to the honest defender of Russia's maligned honour, to find Germans quite as difficult to convince as Parisians." As criterion of the probable fairness of the contending testimonies, our author states, (at page 35,) "We need but to reflect, that, even under the mild sway of the Emperor Alexander, Gretsch received a strong personal lesson on the danger incurred by uttering one single word which runs counter to the sentiments held by government; that he was, moreover, aware of the ex the tongue, as well as of Counsellor C- 's imprisonment in a fortress, for having (whilst holding the office of Censor) admitted one single number of Brockhan's Conversation Lexicon into the Empire, in order to judge of the conscience with which this same Gretsch can trumpet forth in the ears of Germany, that freedom of thought and speech is as great in St. Petersburg as in Berlin or London!" Let him put it to the proof! Let him avow openly -as Gans once did from his Professor's Chair in Berlin, "Gentlemen, the French Revolution was an unavoidable necessity !"—and where would we find the Russian Counsellor of State before the year was out? In his present post, or hunting the sables? Can he complain of injustice, then, when a German journalist exclaims, "May Russia never boast a better advocatus diaboli than he'!" But Europe has not long since received a portrait of Russia from the pencil of a Frenchman. The artist is the Marquis de Custine, and all, even superficially, ac-pulsion of his intimate friend Bulgarion for an offence of quainted with Russian physiognomy, must acknowledge a striking resemblance to the gigantic original. I, at least, recognised the likeness at a glance; and had the wellknown features been sketched with charcoal 'on a mud wall, I must have exclaimed, that is Russia! What though closer examination may compel the observation, the complexion is rather high or rather pale; what though the colours used to pourtray the social landscape may now be too thick, now too thinly laid on, still it is a strikingly like portrait, and that not of what Russia might or ought to be, but, as it gives out, of what Russia is. The true merit of a portrait does not depend on its gilded frame, the sumptuousness of the costume, nor even the scientific adjustment of its colouring, but on the accuracy of its likeness to the original. The portrait gallery of Russian Generals, painted at the Emperor Alexander's desire, by the English artist, Dawe, betrays, when closely examined, much coarseness of execution, and many an inequality of surface; yet when viewed in the properl ight, and from the due distance, each spectator is tempted to imagine the Generals as they lived and moved, drawn up before VOL. XIV.NO, CLXI, The coup de grace having been thus bestowed on the Russian antagonist of the French Marquis, our author enters on a lively episode, entitled "Reminiscences of East Prussia," where evil impressions of Russia assailed * Napoleon. Ꮓ him even before crossing its sinister border; and he ex- | stood a non-commissioned officer in a stooping posture, a patiates with brotherly affection on the loyal and patriotic carbine placed horizontally on each shoulder, across sentiments which he everywhere met, among the German- | which a number of others were piled before and behind, hearted inhabitants of that frontier land. Proceeding while a corporal stood by, and occasionally shoved the onward towards Russia, by way of Poland, he, as might instruments of torture backward or forward, to restore be expected, pauses a moment to express a kindly sym- the equilibrium. I was directed to a door at the expathy for the subjection and present hopeless prostration tremity of the stable. I entered, and perceived four of that ill-fated country. Chapter iii. describes his jour-officers engaged at cards. I proceeded into an inner ney to St. Petersburg, and the motives which led to his final establishment in Russia. His first initiation into Russian manners might, indeed, we should think, have well rendered very powerful arguments needful to produce such a resolve. It is thus described, (p. 105.) “Where am I? Oh, the reply is sufficiently furnished by the appearance of a posse of Cossacks round my carriage, who conduct it, sabre in hand, as if escorting a dangerous criminal to the Douane. At a short distance from the dwelling of the Inspector of Customs stood two young Russian officers, apparently occupied with some very amusing subject of conversation, for they were laughing immoderately. Full in their view, a couple of soldiers were belabouring a motionless object before them with platted thongs of leather. The strokes followed each other with the rapidity and regularity of clock-work, and I, in my simplicity, conjectured the object of this tanning process to be a grey goatskin, which the soldiers were thus trying to limber, and which they had, or it seemed, spread for that purpose on a block of wood. How long they might have been so occupied before my arrival, I cannot say, but about ten minutes after the clock-work ceased playing, and I was amazed to perceive the supposed block of wood set itself in motion, and creep towards one of the laughers, who received it with a vigorous kick! I now learned from a byestander that this was a Dentschnick, or soldier, in the service of an officer, who had been guilty of the unpardonable offence of forgetting to carry his master's smoking pipe to a neighbouring house; in consequence of which, the officer had been necessitated to fetch it himself! What I had taken for a goatskin was the shirt of the poor wretch, which was now red with blood; and yet not a cry of pain, not even a convulsive tremor, no attempt to obtain mitigation or cessation of punishment. Was this, then, a man, or an automaton? It was one of those indomitable beings, a slave! The sluggish ox will be roused to rage and resistance by the first blow of the mallet on its brow, but this bleeding wretch crawled to utter his thanks for a merciful punishment at the feet of his termentor! What a docile animal is man! "I was then bona fide within the boundaries of Russia! I could no longer doubt it! and my not wholly iron nerves responded somewhat painfully to the conviction. I had been hungry, but appetite was banished by the scene I had just witnessed, and as a German recommended to me an inn some six miles in advance, kept by a native of Courland, I resolved to proceed. My trunk was not opened. My effects remained unexamined. The custom-officer felt more pleasure in gazing on the countenance of William III., impressed on a shining Prussian dollar, for which he held out his hand with the most complacent naiveté. Having reached the inn to which I had been directed, I descended from my carriage, and leaning with all my weight against a door, it opened with a loud jar, and I found myself in a stable large as the Augean, but filled with hussars instead of oxen. In the midst room, where my dinner was served. When it was discussed, I prepared to return to my lumbering vehicle, but found the tortured soldier lying at full length on the steps which led from the stable to the sitting apartments, with all the carbines scattered around him. He was unable to stand. His shoulders were so swollen that it was perceptible through his uniform, and he fell over at every attempt to bring himself to an upright position. He has been already two hours under this martyrdom,' whispered the German innkeeper to me. 'He must sink under it, and his Captain has most likely forgotten him in his game.' Some of the hussars spoke to the host; I asked what they said, and learned they were urging him to apply to their officer in favour of their comrade. But it is no business of mine,' observed the innkeeper; besides, the Captain is very passionate.' Were he Belzebub himself, we must try,' cried I, returning to the sitting rooms; and with mine host for interpreter, I related what I had just seen, and implored a termination of the punishment. Who are you? demanded the Captain. I gave my name and rank. Since you are a foreigner, then, what right have you to meddle? Corporal, bind the brute to a tree if he will not stand" Indignant at this brutal disregard of my request, I muttered in French, regardless whether I were understood or not, ‘Il 'est affreux que ce n'est que le Russe qui ait le droit de solliciter pour un malheureux! • Comment osez vous parler d'affreux,' shouted he with vchemenee. When I was in Köningsberg, Count de X. had given me a paper with these words, Should you chance upon any difficulties in your journey, shew this; in our country protection is never superflous! I now, therefore, quietly drew this sheet of paper from my pocketbook, and handed it to the captain. No sooner had he glanced his eye over it, when he started up, exclaiming, Why did you not tell me at once to whom you were going? I am delighted to make your acquaintance! Corporal, let the fellow at liberty; he can go to the village! And then turning to me with the blandest of smiles, he continued: You will surely spend the day with us? The weather is uninviting, and to-morrow my own horses shall convey you to the next post-horse station. You will not? Well, then, at all events, you cannot refuse a glass of Madeira to your safe journey? I declined all with thanks, which, in my secret soul, were all devoted to the provident kindness of the Count de X. "From the Prussian frontier to St. Petersburg, neither hill nor valley greet the eye. On one monotonous level, 120 German (600 English) miles hold on their weary course; and throughout its whole extent, one does not encounter above four places which deserve the name of cities, viz., Mittau, Riga, Darpat, and Narwa. No wonder if strange feelings arise in the bosom of the traveller from civilized regions! "Thirty Germau miles of soil, subject to Russian dominion, had been passed through, and no city or even |