32 EULOGIUM ON MARIE ANTOINETTE, QUEEN OF FRANCE.

In the meantime Marienburgh was taken by the Russians; and such was the fury of the assailants, that not only the garrison, but almost all the inhabitants, men, women, and children were put to the sword: at length, when the carnage was pretty well over, Catharine was found hid in an oven.

She had been hitherto poor, but still was free; she was now to learn what it was to be a slave; in this situation, however, she behaved with piety and humility; and though misfortunes abated her vivacity, yet she was cheerful. The fame of her merit and resignation reached Prince Menzikoff, the Russian General; he desired to see her, was struck with her beauty, bought her of the soldier her master, and placed her under the direction of his own sister. Here she was treated with all the respect which her merit deserved, while her beauty every day improved with her good fortune. She had not been long in this situation, when Peter the Great, paying the Prince a visit, Catharine happened to come in with some dry fruits, which she served round with peculiar modesty. The mighty monarch returned the next day, called for the beautiful slave, asked her several questions, and found her understanding even more perfect than her person.

He had been forced, when young, to marry from motives of interest; he was now resolved to marry pursuantly to his own inclinations. He immediately inquired the history of the fair Livonian, who was not yet eighteen. He traced her through all the vicissitudes of her fortune, and found her truly great in them all. The meanness of her birth was no obstruction to his design: their nuptials were solemnized in private; the Prince assuring his courtiers, that virtue alone was the most proper ladder to a throne.

Goldsmith.

EULOGIUM ON MARIE ANTOINETTE, QUEEN OF FRANCE.

It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then the dauphiness, at Versailles;

and surely never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she just began to move in,-glittering like the morning star; full of life, and splendour, and joy. O! what a revolution!-and what a heart must I have, to contemplate, without emotion, that elevation and that fall!

Little did I dream that, when she added titles of veneration to those of enthusiastic, distant, respectful love, she should ever be obliged to carry the sharp antidote against disgrace concealed in that bosom;-little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fallen upon her in a nation of gallant men,-in a nation of men of honour and of cavaliers. I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards to avenge even a look that threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists, and calculators, has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is extinguished for ever.

Never, never more, shall we behold that generous loyalty to rank and sex, that proud submission, that dignified obedience, that subordination of the heart, which kept alive, even in servitude itself, the spirit of an exalted freedom. The unbought grace of life, the cheap defence of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise, is gone. It is gone, that sensibility of principle, that chastity of honour, which felt a stain like a wound, which inspired courage whilst it mitigated ferocity, which ennobled whatever it touched, and under which vice itself lost half its evil by losing all its grossness.

Burke.

LOUIS XI.

Brave enough for every useful and political purpose, Louis had not a spark of that romantic valour, or of the pride generally associated with it, which fought on for the point of honour when the point of utility had

long been gained. Calm, crafty, and profoundly attentive to his own interest, he made every sacrifice, both of pride and passion, which could interfere with it. He was careful in disguising his real sentiments and purposes from all who approached him, and frequently used the expressions, "that the king knew not how to reign who knew not how to dissemble, and that, for himself, if he thought his very cap knew his secrets, he would throw it into the fire." No man of his own or of any other time better understood how to avail himself of the frailties of others, and when to avoid giving any advantage by the untimely indulgence of his own.

He was by nature vindictive and cruel, even to the extent of finding pleasure in the frequent executions which he commanded. But as no touch of mercy ever induced him to spare when he could with safety condemn, so no sentiment of vengeance ever stimulated him to a premature violence. He seldom sprang on his prey till it was fairly within his grasp, and till all hope of rescue was vain; and his movements were so studiously disguised that his success was generally what first announced to the world the object he had been endeavouring to attain.

In like manner the avarice of Louis gave way to apparent profusion, when it was necessary to bribe the favourite or minister of a rival prince for averting any impending attack, or to break up any alliance confederated against him. He was fond of license and pleasure, but not even his ruling passions ever withdrew him from the most regular attendance to public business and the affairs of his kingdom. His knowledge of mankind was profound, and he had sought it in the private walks of life; in which he often personally mingled; and, though naturally proud and haughty, he hesitated not, with an inattention to the arbitrary divisions of society which was then thought something portentously unnatural, to raise from the lowest rank men whom he employed on the most important duties, and knew so well how to

choose them that he was rarely disappointed in their qualities.

Yet there were contradictions in the character of this artful and able monarch; for human nature is never uniform. Himself the most false and insincere of mankind, some of the greatest errors of his life arose from too rash a confidence in the honour and

integrity of others. When these errors took place, they seem to have arisen from an over-refined system of policy, which induced Louis to assume the appearance of undoubting confidence in those whom it was his object to over-reach; for, in his general conduct, he was as jealous and suspicious as any tyrant who ever breathed.

Two other points may be noticed to complete the sketch of this formidable character, by which he rose among the rude chivalrous sovereigns of the period to the rank of a keeper among wild beasts, who, by superior wisdom and policy, by distribution of food, and some discipline by blows, comes finally to predominate over those who, if unsubjected by his arts, would by main strength have torn him to pieces.

The first of these attributes was Louis's excessive superstition, a plague with which Heaven often afflicts those who refuse to listen to the dictates of religion. The remorse arising from his evil actions Louis never endeavoured to appease by any relaxation in his Macchiavelian stratagems, but laboured in vain to soothe and silence that painful feeling by superstitious observances, severe penance, and profuse gifts to the ecclesiastics. The second property, with which the first is sometimes found strangely united, was a disposition to low pleasures and obscure debauchery. The wisest, or at least the most crafty, sovereign of his time, was fond of ordinary life, and, being himself a man of wit, enjoyed the jests and repartees of social conversation more than could have been expected from other points of his character.

W. Scott.

SALATHIEL'S ACCOUNT OF THE FALL OF JERUSALEM.

The fall of our illustrious and happy city was supernatural. The destruction of the conquered was against the first principles of the Roman policy; and, to the last hour of our national existence, Rome held out offers of peace, and lamented our frantic disposition to be undone. But the decree was gone forth from a mightier throne. During the latter days of the siege, a hostility, to which that of man was a grain of sand to the tempest that drives it on, overpowered our strength and senses; fearful shapes and voices in the air-visions starting us from our short and troublesome sleep-lunacy in its hideous forms-sudden death in the midst of vigour the fury of the elements let loose upon our heads. We had every terror and evil that could beset human nature, but pestilence; the most probable of all, in a city crowded with the famishing, the diseased, the wounded, and the dead. Yet, though the streets were covered with unburied, though every well and trench was teeming, though six hundred thousand corpses were flung over the ramparts, and lay naked to the sun, pestilence came not; for if it had come, the enemy would have been scared away. But "the abomination of desolation," the Pagan standard, was fixed where it was to remain until the plough had passed over the ruins of Jerusalem.

On this fatal night no man laid his head upon the pillow. Heaven and earth were in conflict. Meteors burned over us - the ground shook under our feet-the volcanoes blazed-the wind burst forth in irresistible blasts, and swept the living and the dead in whirlwinds far into the desert. We heard the bellowing of the distant Mediterranean, as if its waters were at our sides, swelled by the deluge. The lakes and rivers roared and inundated the land. The fiery sword shot out tenfold fire-showers of blood fell-thunder pealed from every quarter of the heavens-lightning, in immense sheets, of an intensity and duration that turned the darkness into more than day, withering eye and