The sad circumstances of life seem usually the [tions; the calm, unbroken routine of sacred duties, favorite themes of the loftiest order of intellect, would scarcely have satisfied a temperament of arand it appears as if genius, in its restless struggles dent poetic enthusiasm, and a fancy filled with the and yearnings, claims affinity with those overwhelm- gorgeous deceptions and impassioned romances of ing emotions, which make actual occurrences the a theatrical employment. Not for him, with his saddest of tragedies, and truth more full of grief exacting nature, his yearning expectations, were than the most vivid of fictions. the mysterious noiselessness of the desert, the unwitnessed penance of the monastery; his lot was cast in the busy toil of the moving world, amid the ceaseless hum of many voices, and in the presence of ambition's radiant hopes. The transient, though sincere desire for an ecclesiastical profession was at length dissipated by the influence of gayer anticipations, and Racine sought in domestic life, the happiness he never could have found in that loneliness which for aspiring minds like his, mocks with the promise of peace, but giveth none.

If the assertion be correct, that variableness of conception is a characteristic of the highest minds, Racine was wholy deserving of that name of "genius," so frequently taken in vain, and his faculty of presenting events and individuals so totally dissimilar, is among his most prominent traits, and one which developed its strength even in youth, when the imagination of an author is prone to be exclusive in its delineations. The young composer draws his favorite ideal, rather than reality, and it is ordinarily, when time, and wordly experience have left their imprints, that he acquires the power of many sidedness and learns to paint the changing hues in the prism of life.

One of the most beautiful of Racine's brief productions, is his éloge of Corneille, composed soon after that Dramatist's death. His thorough appreciation of the poet's endowments, heightened Racine's disposition was strangely susceptible, his eloquence, which was made more impressive by and easily acted on by external impressions. His the blending of warm personal admiration and afthoughts and purposes were constantly liable to al- fection for one, who though long his rival, had teration by the influence of the various circles with never ceased to be his friend. Racine attached whom he mingled. The greatest proof of this was less value to the honors awarded him, than is usuafforded by his singular desire to forsake society, ally felt by those who mingle industrious exertion with all its dazzling and generously-proffered allure- with the impulses of genius; but his religious conments, for the permanent seclusion of a monastic victions were opposed to public distinctions, and destiny. The religious intercourse, in which he tended to restrain that pining for celebrity, frewas plunged for awhile, gave rise to this sudden quently so difficult to control. Never, even in his inclination, and in his zeal he looked on his former most gratifying and rapturous moments, did the pursuits as idle and reprehensible, and endeavored author act in opposition to the dictates of his conwith fanatical fervor to banish every throb of ima- science, nor forfeit his self-approval, to obtain popuginative impulse, to stay the rapid tide of inspira-lar applause. His piety was a sentiment, a faith tion, and finally, to shroud with the cowl, the brow of the feelings, rather than a reflection of the inwhere the laurel was already twining. Potent in- tellect. "La raison," remarks Boileau of his asdeed must have been the faculty of self-sacrifice, sociate, "la raison conduit ordinairement les autres that could have rendered such a determination for à la foi; c'est la foi qui a conduit Racine à la an instant endurable to a heart which had beat raison."

and the Abbe D'Olivet, a critic not easily satisfied; deemed them calculated to win for their writer the same enviable position on the list of prose authors, which he had gained among Dramatists. Racine's own judgment of these compositions, appears to

quickly at the sound of popular approbation, and Racine's Essays in historical composition, were grown proud with the speedy gratification of a wri- favorably regarded by his contemporaries, and ter's roblest aspirations. For him there could have considered sufficiently graphic and correct to entibeen no contentment in an existence of strict retire-tle him to rank among the ablest French historians, ment; the settled religious conviction of its utility, the confirmed distaste for active enjoyments, or the enduring presence of some severe disappointment, motives which often prompt the votaries of pious retreat, were all wanting in his experience. Truly they must have been singular, the poet's dreams of have been less flattering, and he evidently preferred a lonely cell and its quiet meditations, of a sojourn afar from the voice of mortal vanities, of days interrupted in their monotony only by prayer, and of nights, silent and solitary; when around him, were the stirring realities of the brightest age of France, the glittering pageantry of Europe's most brilliant court, days of bewildering variety, nights all too The tragedy of La Thebaïde, for which the combrief, for his exciting triumphs. The tempting poser solicits the reader's leniency, and pleads his stillness of Chartreuse would have strikingly con- youth when it was written, though certainly not trasted with the tumult of his accustomed occupa- lacking censurable points, abounds in melancholy

to exercise his powers in a style more imaginative. He soon grew weary of tracking the perplexing mazes of human motive along the by-ways of political intrigue, and he loved better to ramble with the silent companionship of his pleasant fancies, amid the sweet haunts of the flowery land of song.

beauty, and is remarkable as the production of a instance of that perfect comprehension and sympamind far from having attained the maturity of its thy, we all dream of in our youth, but none of us perceptions. The sorrowful tone of the subject find in our experience. We look on others through harmonized well with a fancy, fraught with poetic the deceiving medium of our own different tastes and sadness, and delighting to throw its own rich co-personal prejudices and these, sometimes unconloring, on scenes so full of passionate resistance, of sciously veil our judgment. eloquent utterance, and the proud heart's worst de- Who has not known the pain of being misconspair. He avoids in this drama, Corneille's usual strued? who has not felt the heart shrink dejected defect, for love is only vaguely and incidentally de- within itself, before the dread of misinterpretation, picted, and there is no sentimental weakness to mar or depart chilled and saddened, from those who the mysterious horror of one of the deepest trage- may love, but cannot sympathise? There are few dies recorded in history. This frightful picture of whose daily existence has not been fraught with fraternal hatred, was a singular selection for one these griefs, and such miscomprehension is espeafterwards named 'Le Peintre de l'amour,' to make cially the portion of minds above the common level, the foundation of his early effort; and the play is whose conceptions and anticipations are not of the doubly interesting to the critic, as it displays the earth, earthly. It must have been one of the securrent of the writer's youthful genius, and shadows verest trials which the poet's genius was heir to, forth that promise of greater excellence, which this conviction of indifference where he should have the Poet's subsequent labors, so nobly and faithfully obtained fondest congeniality; this depressing, irredeemed. Perrault in his lives of illustrious men, remediable isolation of spirit. The man of transcompared Racine's drama of Andromaque, com-cendant intellect must often endure in silence, for posed at a later period, to the most highly finished his regrets are sometimes too visionary to be unworks of his predecessor, and declared it fully derstood even by watchful friendship. Only love, equal to Lecid. Its first reception, however, was the pure and perfect love whose angel-light shines far from favorable, and the author on its publication, but once on the human heart, can penetrate these was obliged to contend with that ridicule, which is mysteries of our being, and when that blessing is the most unendurable of criticisms. A parody in denied his life, the poet has one hope the more, the form of a comedy was composed and performed, added to his dreams of heaven. which rendered completely ludicrous, many of the Dramatist's finest sentiments and imaginings, and it was long before the various original beauties of the piece were properly appreciated, and the author awarded the approbation he justly merited. Racine appears to have borne with philosophic equanimity, the ordeal inflicted by popular caprice, and it was probably beneficial in its results; for, he afterwards wrote more guardedly, and in some respects, more correctly.

Racine's domestic life was tranquil, but could scarcely have been happy, for his wife was wholly destitute of sympathy with his favorite occupations, and felt so little interest in his success that she was often ignorant even of the titles of tragedies, which were winning loudest approval, and crowning their composer with fame's unwithering garland. What a sad detail of private sorrow, does that single cireumstance hold forth, and how frequently and painfully must the dreamer have turned disappointed from a soul, thus at variance with his own, and yearned, mournfully and vainly, for that better love, the fair visions of his spirit had painted! It were a pleasant thing, could we separate the double existence of those who have carried the cross of intellect and won the martyrdom of celebrity, could we take from their worldly pilgrimage, the shadowing memory of its ordinary trials, and view their mental endowments apart from the darkening clouds of humanity. The moral attributes and mental peculiarities of a single character, were the study of years; for, we believe there never yet has been an

Washington City.

JANE TAYLOE LOMAX.

TO MY MOTHER.

BY LEWIS J. CIST.

"Mother! dear Mother! the feelings nurst,

As I hung at thy bosom, clung round thee first:
'Twas the earliest link in love's warm chain,
'Tis the only one that will long remain;
And, as year by year, and day by day,
Some friend still trusted, drops away,
Mother! dear Mother! Oh! dost thou see

How the shortened chain brings me nearer thee!"
MOTHER! they say to me, that thou

Beginnest to grow old;

That time, in furrows on thy brow

Hath placed his impress cold :-
'Tis so!-yet still dost thou appear
As young and fair to me,
As when an infant, Mother dear,

I played upon thy knee!

They tell me, Mother! that thy cheek
Hath lost its ruddy glow,

Of which so oft I've heard those speak
Who knew thee long ago:

It may be so!-yet will I press

That cheek with love as strong,
As when in childhood's fond embrace,
Upon thy neck I hung.

They tell me many a charm, once fair,
Beginneth to decay,-

That thy once glossy, raven hair,
Is turning fast to gray;

Yet I each hoary tress revere-
Each charm by thee possess'd,
Doth still to me as fair appear,
As first my sight it bless'd!
And yet I know, 'tis even so,

For Time is hurrying on;

And those who live to bless us now,
Alas! will soon be gone:

And, Mother dear, it grieves my soul
To think that, day by day,
Thour't reaching nearer to thy goal,
And soon must pass away!
Mother! in sooth it filleth me

With sorrow, sharp and keen,
When I look back and think, to thee
How wayward I have been.

Oh! could I but live o'er again

My life from infancy,

I think, how much of care and pain,
Mother! I'd spare to thee!

Ah! vain the wish!-for Time, once gone,
Can never more return;
And, as it still is hurrying on,

Still onward are we borne ;

And deeds once done, are done for aye,
Whate'er they may betoken;

And we may utter words to-day,
Can never be unspoken!
But, Mother! though I cannot now

Call back the years are past,-
Remove the shadows from thy brow,

That Time hath on it cast;-
Yet may it be my sweetest care

Each care of thine t'assuage; And soothe thine every future year Of earthly pilgrimage!

JEWISH ANECDOTES. (TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH.) [The following anecdotes are translated from an interesting work published this year at Paris, entitled Les Matitineés du Samedi (The Saturday Mornings,) written by G.

Ben Levi, for the use of the Israelitish youth of France.]

A young woman succeeded him. She came to bring a dish of victuals as an offering to the idols of Terah. "They do not eat alone, (said Abraham to her,) try to make them take this food from your hands," and the young woman, having made the attempt without success, went away undeceived. Then Abraham broke all his father's idols, except one only, the largest, in whose hand he placed a hammer. When Terah, on returning, saw this havock, he flew into a violent rage; but his son said to him, "It is the large idol that has done this; a good woman having come to bring your divinities something to eat, they fell greedily upon this offering, without asking leave of the largest, and oldest of them. He was angry and has avenged himself by treating them in this manner."

"You wish to deceive your father," replied Terah, full of wrath, "do you not know that these images can neither, speak nor eat, nor move in the least ?"

"If it be so," cried Abraham, "why do you consider them as gods, and why do you compel me to worship them?"

DAVID IN THE WILDERNESS.

A LEGEND.

When King David was flying across the desert of Ziph, pursued by Saul, he grew impatient at the quantity of spiders' webs which he had to break, and one day, when he was pricked by a worm, he cried out in his passion, "Great God! why hast thou created flies and spiders which are of no use, and only serve to hurt men?" "I will make you understand," answered a prophetic voice.

Some time afterwards, he descended Mount Achild, and ventured, by night, into the camp of Saul, to deprive him, whilst asleep, of his arms and his cap. After having succeeded in this project, he was about to retire, when his foot became entangled in the legs of the faithful Abner, who slept beside Saul. Great was the embarrassment of David, how he should disengage his foot from the At the period, when the first of our holy patri- hold of Abner, without awakening this valiant serarchs lived, worship was offered to the images of vant, and to find himself surprised thus alone in the men, of animals, of plants, and fantastical beings, camp of the enemy! David's anxiety was at its carved of wood, sculptured of stone, or cast in me-height, when a fly bit Abner on the leg, and the tal, to which divine power was ascribed by ignorance and superstition.

ABRAHAM AND THE IDOLS.

One

pain which the warrior felt, made him make a movement of which David availed himself, to withdraw his foot; he then fled quickly, thanking God for having created flies.

Terah, the father of Abraham, was himself a maker of Idols, and nevertheless adored them, which was repugnant to the good sense of his son. Saul, however, pursued him into the desert, and day, when Abraham was at home alone, an old to escape him, David had slipped into a cavern, man presented himself in the idol-warehouse of Terah, to buy one of them. "How old are you?" asked Abraham, of the old man. "Eighty years." "How! what! you, who are so old, do you wish to worship an image that my father's workmen made yesterday?" The old man understood him, and retired ashamed.

when God sent a spider which wove its webb across the narrow entrance of this rock. Saul and Abner were quickly in the footsteps of the fugitive, and Abner having said "He is doubtless concealed in the hollow of this rock; let us go seek him there."

"It is useless," answered Saul, "do you not see that the entrance of this cavern is covered

with a spider's web, and that no one could have en-have entrusted to me." tered without breaking this delicate tissue?"

How," exclaimed the

Jew, "in spite of your misery, have you kept it for me untouched?"

"You are right," answered Abner, and they retired to continue their search in another part of the This money was not mine," answered the desert. old merchant, calmly." God be praised, you Then David cast himself on the ground, and have come back! I have been so unhappy, cried "Lord! pardon me for having doubted thy that thoughts of suicide have beset me a hunwisdom; henceforth, my feeble understanding shall dred times, but I have been preserved by the not cease to humble itself before the sublime har-idea that I have given you my word, and I was monies of thy creations. Lord! the smallest of afraid that I could find no person who would be thy creatures is of use to man; the spiders and the willing to take charge of this deposite, under the flies themselves, have a part to perform in nature. Lord! what thou sayest is well; what thou doest is just."

THE ALTAR.

A Pagan came one day to seek the sage Nathaniel, and said to him, "The God of Israel, who is thine, is a powerful God. I wish to worship him, and to offer him a sacrifice; but tell me, where should I raise him an altar"?" In thy heart," answered the sage.

THE DEPOSITORY.

obligation of keeping my promise." "You have done well not to kill yourself," answered the delighted Jew," for your troubles are ended, the half of my fortune belongs to you." From that day, the Jew and the Christian lived together as brothers.

A MERCHANT'S BANQUET.

A Jew of Anvers, giving a dinner one day to Charles the Fifth, had, served up for him at the desert, pies cooked upon a bond for two millions, which the Emperor had given him for that sum which he owed him; and as the Company were inextacies at so rich a hospitality, Daniels said that When the ordinance of the year 1311 appeared, he did not pay too dearly at the price of two milby which King Philip, the Handsome, expelled lions for the honor which the Emperor had done from France, all the Jews, without exception, no him, a simple merchant, in dining with him. “You time was allowed these unfortunate exiles for real-esteem yourself too little," interrupted Charles the izing their possessions. One of them, a merchant Fifth; "for, whilst the nobility ruin me, the men of of the quarter of the city, fearing to expose the learning instruct me, and the merchants enrich me." gold and jewels of which he was possessed, to the dangers and accidents of a long voyage, went to seek one of his neighbors-a citizen of Paris, a good Christian, living in the court of Notre Dame, and enjoying a great reputation for honesty. "I have a deposite to entrust to you," said he to him, "give me your word to restore it to me faithfully." The merchant gave his word, and the Jew entrusted to him his gold and his jewels, and then departed for the South, where the laws against the children of Israel were less severe.

THE FAIR MAID OF FLANDERS.

BY ROBERT L. WADE.

"Oh who can measure woman's love,
Or probe its depth and length?
With all the meekness of a dove,
It hath a lion's strength."

'Twas a night of festivity in Flanders. The anFour years afterwards, Louis having permitted cestral old country seat of the puissant and farthe Israelites to reënter France, our Jew returned famed Count Baldwin, ruler of the province, was to Paris, and his first visit was to the court of No- illumed with thousands of brilliant lights and tatre Dame; but what were his feelings, when he pers, displayed at every loop, and window, and learnt that the merchant to whom he had entrusted outlet of the time-worn pile. The strains of rich, his fortune, had been ruined by unfortunate specu- joyous music, that filled the air with melody most lations, and that he had fallen into the deepest dis- sweet, told in language too impressive to be mistress. The Jew, in despair, did not doubt that his taken, that naught but gayety for the moment fortune had been swallowed up in the shipwreck reigned within. Over turret, battlement and towof the merchant; however, he could not resist the er, bright banners, and gay festoons, waved their desire to heap on him deserved reproaches: he silken folds to the light evening breeze; within the discovered his address, and in a miserable garret, spacious halls, resounded the rapturous strains of without furniture, he found his man shivering with soul-inspiring music-the light, gay laughter of mercold, starving with hunger, and devoured with cha- ry-hearted damsels, the measured tread of the dangrin, sitting on a chest, before a fireplace, without cers' steps, the lay of the welcomed troubadour blendfire. At this sight, reproaches died away on the ing the sweet inflections of his voice with the harmoJew's lips; but the merchant had scarcely recog-ny of his instrument, the shouts of health and wasuised him, before he rose, opened his chest, and sail, the carousal of the banquet, and the busy said to him, "Hold, here is the deposite which you hum of human voices, mingling their many tones,

VOL. IX-11

and sending heavenward, a strange and confusing, ing required for use, a small dirk in a curiously caryet far from unpleasing, medley of sound and ved and ornamented sheath. Close unto his comnoise, din and riot.

panion, a damsel-aye, and young and lovely tooWithout, 'twas a scene of splendor and sereni- He had stationed himself, with one hand closely ty. Down upon one of the richest garden spots of clasping hers, and pouring into her ear, if impassion'd nature that earth can boast of, poured the soft light gestures, and an earnest eloquent expression of his of the bright moon in the full flood of glory and countenance, may be construed into such a meanmagnificence; and as the trees and shrubbery wa-ing, a tale of ardent, uncontrolable, and enthusiasved their young limbs and branches with the influ- tical love, of deep and pure devotion, unwavering ence of the breeze, the luxuriant glades and spread- and sincere. And, well, indeed, might he find ing lawns, were chequered with changing spots of room in his warm and youthful heart, to enshrine light and shade, most beautiful to look upon. And the image of that sweet being, for never, since the there were those there, who deemed that nature day, when for a misdemeanor-to call it by no was gifted with attractions quite equal to those harsher name-mother Eve was expelled from cedisplayed within; for, as the hours moved on, and lestial Eden, had there dawned upon the earth a higher, yet higher, rode the sovereign of the night, brighter creature, or one better modelled by naone by one, and in couples, aye, and even in par- ture's hands, to turn the hearts of all the world, ties of three and four, had members of that vast and set them quarrelling for love of her rich beaucompany there assembled, stolen from the hot dis- ty. Twenty summers had not flushed upon her sipation and excitement of the ball-room, to the rosy cheeks; but, although thus young, the fame of battlements and tower-walls; until there had now her unmatched and peerless presence, had resoundcollected upon the outworks and platforms of the ed through all the courts of christendom, and kings castle, at least a third of those who had there met had not disdained to enter the field in competition for the occasion, to receive entertainment, and en- for her hand and heart. But as yet, that stubborn joy the hospitality of the mighty Lord of Flanders. thing, the latter, had not felt the influence of love. But there was one couple upon the platform All went as they had come, unsuccessful in their leading to the tower-gate, that kept aloof, and suits, and even he who was now suffered to whisper seemed to have no communion with the rest.- unchecked of his fond hopes of winning, where When the chivalric and courteous Count Baldwin many had failed, was listened to with apathy and had been informed that a portion of his company coldness, and more out of respect and friendship had left the dance, to enjoy the coolness of the for the speaker, than for any sympathy that might night in the open, unpolluted air, with that kind- be lurking in her bosom with the burden of his ness and urbanity which he ever evinced for the words. Thus tarried they upon that spot, while comfort and gratification of his guests, he had or- time flew by with wonderful rapidity, until the dered a display of fire-balloons, and the attendance moon had attained that height in the heavens, which of a band of music upon the lawn, to the right of betokened midnight; yet, neither had manifested the eastern wing of the house; and now, when any disposition to retire, until, in reply to a pasthose for whose pleasure these matters had been sionate exclamation, and a torrent of burning proarranged, had flocked toward that side from whence testations, which burst from the lips of the youththey could most readily witness the performance, ful suiter, for the hundreth time within the hour, and listen to the music, this solitary couple moved not from the spot which they had, from the first, occupied, but remained gazing in silence over the massy parapet, toward the far-off precipitous heights of the rocky Jura, which were visible from where they stood, marking the boundary of fair France.

the maiden answered irrevocably, but with such winning grace and loveliness, that it but caused him to love her yet more madly than before:

"Urge me no more, I pray you. I grieve much, and have often heretofore, that you and I, my brave cousin, can never be to each other, more than we are now. Ask me not why. I cannot tell you. Desist, therefore, I beseech you, in thus pressing me on, for it will but serve to raise greater obstacles. My respect, esteem, friendship, nay, more, my love, is yours; but your wife, I can never be. Seek out some one more worthy to be your bride, and in her caresses, forget one who is not worthy

The elder of the two, was a young man, in the prime and flower of youth, a graceful, and apparently gentle chevalier, of stately mein, and pleasing countenance, and arrayed in rich robes of fur and cloth, adorned with jewels. He wore a small velvet cap, from which rose a single long heron's feather; a baldrick of satin, worked with golden of your passing thoughts. Come, let us in-the flowers, crossed his silken tunic from his shoulder to his side, where hung a long, narrow, Italian blade, in a golden scabbard, with its hilt of mother-of-pearl, garnished with many costly jewels, and in the girdle that circled his waist, was thrust, more for or- She extended her hand toward the statue-like nament, than any fears of the necessity of its be- youth, who, immediately accepting it, pressed it

night grows chilly, and see, the platform is deserted, and we are left alone. Perchance we may be missed, and scandal will then be in circulation. Come."