solitary fisherman, through whom Phrosine became acquainted with his destiny.

The knowledge of her lover's existence was a sufficient stimulus to prevent her dying of sorrow. One night, having wept herself to sleep, she dreamed. She thought the god of love invited her to cross the strait between Messina and the hermit's island, as Leander had crossed the Hellespont. Phrosine had too much confidence in dreams to forget or neglect the intimation. It haunted her imagination the next day, and recurred with peculiar force when she bathed in the cool evening. Her bath was a natural excavation in the rock, on whose summit the Faventine palace was erected. Here she could enjoy, with safety, and unnoticed, the sea-breezes and the sea-waters. On the evening which succeeded her dream, she looked over the "dark-blue" strait with uncontrolable longing, and determined to venture on the deeper water in the precincts of her bath. Her first advances in the act of swimming are beautifully told in the following elegant verses.

"C'est toi, dit-elle, ô fatal élément,

Qui de mes bras éloignes mon amant !
A l'intérêt si tes vagues dociles

Pour les mortels ont des routes faciles,
De ton pouvoir fais un plus digne emploi ;
Sers mon amour, élève, emporte-moi,
Unis Phrosine à son cher Mélidore.
En agitant les ondes qu'elle implore,
Soudain le sable échappe sous ses pas;
Son corps s'étend, balancé sur ses bras;
Ses pieds de l'onde atteignent la surface:
Un fol espoir animoit son audace.
Aly trembloit: Phrosine s'égarant
Nageoit encor; mais son cœur expirant,
Trop foible, hélas! la rappelle au rivage.
'Aly, dit-elle, as-tu vu? quel présage!
L'Amour, sans doute, écoute mes désirs;
Il soumet l'onde, et commande aux zéphyrs.
J'irai plus loin.' Elle dit, et s'élance,
Bat, fend la mer, nage à plus de distance;
Revient, retourne, et, jouant sur les eaux,
S'exerce encore à des périls nouveaux.”

The third canto opens with some general reflexions upon the condition of women in society, which are no less striking for their truth, than for the elegant and polished verse in which they are delivered. We cannot interrupt the story for the pur

pose of dilating on the subject so completely sketched in the following lines.

"Reines des cœurs, mais esclaves des lois,
L'orgueil de l'homme usurpe tous leurs droits.
Il asservit l'idole qu'il encense;

Il rend le culte, et ravit la puissance;
En adorant il règne, et, dans ses dieux,
Voile un éclat qui blesseroit ses yeux."

An occasion soon occurred, on which Phrosine was compelled to exercise her newly-developed faculty. The passion of her unnatural brother, while it protected her from the importunities of Aymar, and allowed her to repine in quiet over her early widowhood, had ceased to show itself of late in a more open form. But this interval of peace was of short duration. She was sailing on the strait one evening with Julius, who had apparently resumed the manners of an affectionate brother, but only for the purpose of more securely accomplishing his aim. While they were at a great distance from land, she was compelled to trust her person to the waves, to avoid his odious solicitations. The sea was a less implacable enemy, and bore her safely to the beach. This accident gave her an opportunity of visiting the hermit's island. The pretence was gratitude to its patron saint for her escape from the ocean; the motive, to examine the cliffs and discover a secure landing-place. On her visit to the cell of her hermit-lover, she left a letter on the altar to apprize him of her purpose. He prepared the beacon which was to guide her to the haven, and awaited with impatience and dread the approaching hour of evening.

"Déjà dans l'onde, achevant sa carrière,
L'astre brillant éteignoit sa lumière,
Quand sur ces mers Phrosine ouvre les
Pour voir un astre encor plus radieux.
L'air étoit calme, et la vague tranquille
Aplanissoit sa surface mobile;

Sur l'horizon la lune en renaissant

yeux

Bornoit son orbe aux feux de son croissant:
D'autres clartés ne brilloient pas encore.
Déjà Phrosine accusoit Mélidore,
Lorsqu'un rayon de l'amoureux fanal
De son bonheur lui montra le signal.
Sa main dépouille aussitôt sa parure,
Et l'art banni rend tout à la nature.

*

Partez, Phrosine; on peut tout en aimant:
Vénus ainsi parut au sein de l'onde.
Aplanis-toi, vague altière et profonde;
Régnez, zéphyrs; vents, soyez retenus;
Conspirez tous pour cette autre Vénus."

With this description the third canto is concluded. In the mean time, the impatient lover keeps watch upon the beach, in a fever of anxious expectation.

"De son rocher l'amoureux Mélidore

N'entend, ne voit, n'entrevoit rien encore:
Il marche, écoute, appelle à tout moment,
De son fanal excite l'aliment,

Monte au rocher, redescend au rivage,
Bénit le calme, et conjure l'orage.
Il voit enfin naître un sillon léger:
Un bruit s'élève, aux vagues étranger:
L'objet paroît sur un flot qui bouillonne.
Il meurt de joie, et de crainte il frissonne ;
D'un flot à l'autre il mesure la mer,

Son œil avide a le feu d'un éclair;

Tout son sang brûle, et tout son cœur palpite.
L'objet s'approche; et lui se précipite,
L'atteint, l'enlève au fatal élément.

Ah! quel fardeau pour les bras d'un amant!"

The lady, however, returns to life and love; and hereupon ensues a scene, which reminds us of Haidee's marriage in Don Juan. Phrosine addresses her lover thus:

"Je t'ai gardé cet amour immortel
Que je te jure ici sur ton autel.

Amant, époux, prêtre, et témoin ensemble,
Forme et bénis le nœud qui nous rassemble.
Le ciel nous voit, il entend nos serments:
La loi d'hymen, c'est la foi des amants.'
Et telle fut la foi qu'ils se promirent;
Pour l'assurer, leurs deux bouches s'unirent:
L'Amour couvrit leur antre ténébreux,
Et l'univers s'anéantit pour eux."

Such is the substance of the story. The catastrophe is wrought up with considerable skill, and far exceeds the original, both in spirit and pathos. The intrigue is unfortunately discovered through the intermediation of an ancient Sybil.-— The beautiful swimmer, cleaving the waves of the strait-the

anxious lover, awaiting her arrival on the shore-the scene of the hermit's hut, and the flaming beacon, are exhibited in an enchanted mirror to the infuriated brothers. The circumstances suggest the revenge. They anticipate the hour at which Mélidore displayed his beacon on the hermit's rockthey exhibit a false light, and delude the unhappy Phrosine into the sea. When her career is half performed, they embark with the flaming lanthorn; and putting their boat to sea, exhaust the strength of the swimmer, who still keeps her eyes upon the delusive beacon, and wonders at the length of the passage. In the middle of the strait, the flame is suddenly extinguished; and Phrosine, exhausted by fatigue and overwhelmed with despair, sinks beneath the waters, the victim of adventurous love and unmanly revenge. She is washed by the current upon the hermit's beach, and the death of Mélidore, who plunged into the ocean unable to survive his mistress, concludes the poem.

The principal defect in the conduct of this tale, is the passion of Julius. It was quite unnecessary to the developement and conclusion of the plot, and cannot fail to shock the feelings of the reader. The versification is remarkable for that correctness and polish, which characterize the productions of this author. But the fault, which has been objected to Pope, may be alleged against Bernard. The rhythm is too monotonous and uniform. Every verse is harmoniously turned, and correctly finished; but the repetition of the same cadence in every line (we do not allude to the cæsura) is too apt to fatigue the ear, and betrays the painful industry expended on the versification. The traces of labour are not sufficiently obliterated; and the attention is sometimes withdrawn from the beauty of the poem, to the exquisite art with which the prosodial mechanism is adjusted. Pope and Voltaire, the models of this school, have completely succeeded in concealing the artificial scansion by the melody of the verse-a triumph reserved for great poets, and purchased by them only at the expense of patient diligence.

This article has already grown upon our hands to an extent, which prevents our noticing the minor poems of this minor poet. A sketch of his life will be more interesting, and we shall make room for it by omitting any further extractswith the exception of the two following, which are written with the true vivacity and terseness of the French madrigal:

"Par un baiser, Corinne, éteins mes feux!

-Le voilà; prends.-Dieux! mon ame embrasée
Brûle encor plus-Encore un.-Sois heureux,

Tiens.... Mon ardeur n'en peut être apaisée;
Corinne, encore-Ah! la douce rosée!

-En voilà cent pour combler tous tes vœux:
Es-tu bien? dis.-Cent fois plus amoureux.
-En voilà mille, est-ce assez ?-Pas encore,
Un feu plus grand m'agite et me dévore...
Corinne?-Eh bien? dis donc ce que tu veux.
Le dieu d'amour a déserté Cythère,

Et dans mon cœur le transfuge s'est mis:
De par Vénus, trois baisers sont promis
A qui rendra son fils à sa colére.

Le livrerai-je ? en ferai-je mystère?

Vénus m'attend; ses baisers sont bien doux !

O vous, Daphné, qu'il prendroit pour sa mère,
Au même prix, dites, le voulez-vous?"

The life of Bernard is almost without incident. His father was a sculptor at Grenoble, where the poet was born in 1710. He commenced his literary career at Paris, under those unfavourable auspices which have usually overcast the first struggles of indigent genius, and but too frequently attend it through its progress, and mark its latest efforts with disaster. It were well for the mass of those, who have mistaken an early love of letters for native talent, and who, in their vague aspirations after literary eminence, have always been too apt to believe themselves endowed with the requisite mental qualities, of which the absence is at last discovered too surely when too late;-it were well for all such-men of exaggerated but barren imaginations-could they candidly and coolly estimate the chances of success, and weigh them against the odds of failure. To this, however, the complacent regard which every man entertains for his own intellect and especially those who have most reason to set them at a modest value-has opposed an insurmountable bar. If that cool discrimination could be exercised in every case, how many of those who infest the outskirts and bye-paths of literature, and grow old in contempt and poverty, might be spared for more useful labours for the practice of unpretending sciences, and the humbler offices of mechanical art. Bernard, it is true, had talents which might justify his lofty aspirations; but even he had been more fortunate as a clerk in an attorney's office, than a pensioned poet-he would at least have escaped a life of degrading subserviency, and an old age of idiotic dotage. He was destined to a more brilliant, and a far less enviable career. His talents attracted the attention of Helvétius, whose warm heart, and enthusiastic zeal for letters, could never resist the