is scarcely necessary to speak after an impartial history of his actions. Enough has been said to prove that he was led on, not by the love of distinction, but of truth and mankind. In youth, violence and restlessness of will had been his characteristics, but they were "dashed and brewed" with other elements,— and his maturer years of longer experience and more extended views, saw him distinguished chiefly for a dignity and power of thought. "Your apprehensions," said Hampden on one occasion to his illustrious friend, "ascend a region above those clouds which shadow us,-and are fit to pierce a height that far transcends our pitch. Be it mine to receive such notions as descend from thence, which, while you are pleased to impart, you make the demonstrations of your favour, to become my rich possessions." Such was the private testimony of the immortal Hampden to the intellect of the man whose friendship he esteemed his "best and noblest purchase."* Of his oratory I have sufficiently spoken: he was esteemed the most vehement and gorgeous declaimer of that day. In the senate, galled by the wrongs of his country, and inflamed with a pardonable resentment of his own, his eloquence generally burst forth into a quickness and strength of passion overpowering and tremendous. When accused by Sir Dudley Carleton of too much" vigour and strength of speech," he replied that "he could not excuse his natural defects, but he ever endeavoured in that house to avoid passion, and only desired to do his duty." At other times his manner of addressing parliament we are told was exceedingly pleasing, and the fine adaptations of classic and poetic phrases with which his speeches abound, drew down applause from his political opponents. His energetic feeling however, spared not friend or foe if their public conduct offended him; and we find that it was Eliot who first pointed in scorn to Wentworth as a patriot, who "rather looked to be won, than cared to be obdurate." Hackett thus, with his usual elegance, describes their quarrel: "Sir John Eliot of the west, and Sir Thomas Wentworth of the north, both in the prime of their age and wits, both conspicuous for able speakers, clashed so often in the house, and cudgelled one another with such strong contradictions, that it grew from an emulation between them to an enmity." Nothing was more natural than this, for the martyr Eliot, and the apostate Strafford, were cast in different moulds. Both were tempted by Charles-one fell-but I learn from Rapin, that when "Sir John Eliot was tampered with, he was found proof against all temptations." To his eternal honour be it ever remembered, that he continued true to the end; and that the last words uttered by him in the house of commons, were "I protest as I am a gentleman, if my fortune be ever again to meet in this honourable assembly, which I now leave, I will oppose the court again!"

"When the curled lashes rise
From those dark and laughing eyes,
Stealthily, as if to show

All the light that lurks before;
Like the sun from greenwood breaking
When the forest leaves are shaking—
Turn not then to gaze again,

Rise, and burst th' unholy chain!

"When her cheek to thine is prest,
And those taper fingers rest
Lightly on thy arm, to know
Why such anger clouds thy brow;
When that voice whose simplest word
Thrills thy fond heart's inmost chord,
Tempts thee with a prayer to stay-
Rise and fling that hand away!

"Man doth fear the coiled snake
Glitt'ring in the leafy brake;
Yet in woman's serpent eyes,
More of death and danger lies;
More of poison and disgrace
In the coil of her embrace.
Master dear! the choice is thine
Rise and burst the serpent twine.

"Rise ere yet thy honoured name

Is breathed with scorn, and heard with shame! Rise, already in the fight

They have missed thee, laggard knight!"

Vainly loud the minstrel sang

Vainly loud his wild harp rang

Rosy lips were whispering near

Which almost touched the listener's ear.

And the battle day was past,

When the knight awoke at last.

Where's the voice shall cheer him now

Or bid him raise his humbled brow,

While the past doth only seem
Like a wild and fevered dream?
Hath he given his all on earth
But to share a wanton's mirth?
Hath he bartered honour, fame,
For a hope without a name?

From the topmost battlement
His eagle glance is downward sent,
Where his fellow warriors come,
Marching gladly to their home,
While their pennons all unfurled
By the welcome breeze are curled.
The fosse is deep-the wall is high—
He gazes, and resolves to die!

To the hill and to the dell

He hath groaned a last farewell;
To the standard which may wave
O'er the conquering soldier's grave,
But o'er that of recreant knight
Flings no shadow thwart the light:
To all, with feeble voice and low,
He faulters a farewell of woe!

"Thou! whose bright blade never failed
When the foeman's hand prevailed—
Thou whose foot, tho' fleet it be,
Never yet hath learned to flee-
Thou whose mute and faithful eye
Watched when I slept wearily—
Hound, and steed, and trusty sword,
Ye must seek another Lord!"

From the battlement he sprang
And the winds his requiem sang.
Words of pity, or of scorn,

Trampling march, and warder's horn,
Rouse not from that dreamless sleep,
For his rest is long and deep!

And brave he was, though done to die,
By a wanton woman's eye!

AN AUDIENCE OF THE GRAND DUKE CESAROWITCH CONSTANTINE, BEFORE THE POLISH REVOLUTION.

BY A DISTINGUISHED FOREIGNER.

I HAD Scarcely fallen asleep, when I was suddenly awakened by a loud knocking at the chamber door, and instantly a man entered, dressed in the uniform of a chasseur. He came to inform me that I was to follow him to the hotel of the Russian governor of Warsaw, where all the travellers were obliged to make their appearance, who had arrived at the capital, during the absence of the Grand Duke. Thence they were to be conducted to the palace, in order to be presented to his Imperial Highness, who had returned from a tour the preceding evening. In obedience to this untimely summons, I dressed myself hastily, and in a costume half civil, half military, followed my guide. The clock at the hotel of Wilna just struck five, as I paced, in the darkness of a November morning, through the sombre streets, to the audiencechamber of the Cesarowitch. When I arrived at the governor's hotel, I found the vestibule and the ante-chamber filled with a multitude of persons, whose dresses offered so bizarre and varied a sight, that at first I fancied myself in the midst of a masquerade. In one corner was a group of Jews, huddled together; in another, a dozen of general officers; a third nook was occupied by strangers of rank; a fourth, by

deserters in chains. The governor had already started for the palace; but he had left two of his aide-de-camps to conduct us there with the customary ceremonial. These gentlemen arranged us together in pairs, without any regard to character or condition; and our procession, composed of fifty or sixty persons, advanced slowly between two files of mounted Cossacks, who, grasping their long lances, guarded us with as much precaution as if we were on the road to Siberia.

"Can you tell me what this means ?" I said to my neighbour, an honest merchant from Hamburgh.

"No, Sir," he replied. "I was awakened this morning at four o'clock, by a police officer, who ordered me to accompany him forthwith to the governor general, as the Grand Duke had recently arrived, and was desirous of seeing me. Accordingly I arose, and put myself on a march through the midst of ice and snow. This nocturnal visit is not very inviting; but it appears that his Imperial Highness sometimes takes it into his head to appoint very singular hours for his audiences." We soon arrived at the palace. We found the garrison of Warsaw marshalled on the place before the Belvedere, ready to be reviewed at day-break. At the gate of the palace our escort quitted us; and, for some minutes, we were allowed to promenade, amidst a vast number of Poles and strangers, of every rank and description. I was then placed between a Sicilian general and a soldier who had deserted. Our position was scarcely adjusted, when a confused noise indicated the arrival of the Grand Duke. A door opened, through which several officers passed; and, in a second, Constantine appeared. He wore the uniform of the Russian Imperial Guards. His portraits have made his Tartar visage sufficiently known in Europe, and it is, therefore, superfluous for me to paint him in words.

He commenced his compliments with an air of severity, fully calculated to give those a chill, who were not already half frozen to death. Approaching an Englishman, he asked him a few questions respecting his country, but in language so harsh and cutting, that the Briton proudly replied, "I have the honour to inform your Imperial Highness that I have a letter of credit for several thousand pounds on a banker, in St. Petersburgh. I intended to spend that sum in the Russian capital; but after this prelude, I suppose I shall not be tempted to push my curiosity further."

"Just as you please," said his Imperial Highness, turning on his heel. The presentations were for a moment delayed by a lady in mourning, who threw herself on her knees before the Cesarowitch, soliciting permission to go to Zamosk, in which fortress her husband, a Polish colonel, was confined. After rudely dismissing the fair supplicant, the Grand Duke addressed himself to my neighbour, the deserter, in a tone equivalent to a sentence of death. He did not leave the poor wretch long in suspense, but doomed him to receive three hundred lashes with the knout, a punishment, which, had he been master of twenty lives, would have abridged them all. No sooner was the condemned man removed, than his Imperial Highness came towards me, and demanded my name. I gave it.

"Where do you come from?"

"From Paris."

"Where are you going to?"

"Into the Ukraine, on a visit to the Countess Potocki." "Good bye."

Then turning to the Sicilian general, who stood near me, and who was decorated with the grand cordon of the order of St. Januarius, he allowed him twenty-four hours to quit Warsaw, and eight days to withdraw from the kingdom of Poland.

Such were the courtesies of the deceased despot. I felt as if I were treading on bristling bayonets, until I had turned my back upon his hateful presence.-How long will men continue to uphold the sovereignty of scorpions ?

THE DRAMA.

WE detest the epithet, blue-stocking; we are ashamed of it as originating in the impertinence and self-conceit of our own sex; we entertain an utter contempt for it, as casting a slight upon woman for exercising and improving those faculties, the excellence of which is our highest warrant for the idolatry which we are not ashamed to pay to her. Whenever we hear it, it fills us with all that indignation and impatience which we feel at the thought of Turkish selfishness and barbarism; and we admire the monstrous inconsistency which quarrels with the disciple of Mahomet, for denying a female a soul, and at the same time ridicules her for laying claim to a mind.

Of all the impudent dogmas which male self-sufficiency has advanced, the most audacious is that which disparages the mental capabilities of woman, or questions the perfect propriety of cultivating them. That those attributes, which, in the species, are allowed to constitute the standard of highest worth, should be deemed less excellent in the fairer portion of that species, is monstrous! If the sensibilities of women are, as we allow, a thousand times finer than ours, is not the inference rational that their intellect is also of a higher order? What do we know of the talents of women? What trial has been made to ascertain their quality? Here and there a female mind subjected to a course of thorough cultivation! Why the very accomplishments of their sex are superficially taught them! How many of them are made mistresses of the science of music? Not one in a thousand. And yet observe out of a few, whose minds have been expanded by a liberal education, what samples we have of illustrious intellect! Are women herein unequal to what men can achieve? It is a bare-faced libel to assert it. Is it not so? Witness de Stael! Witness it our own fair countrywomen! Edgeworth, Opie, Porter, More, Norton, Morgan, Landon, Hemanswe name them as they occur to us-and many others. As to the drama-in every department are bright memorials of feminine genius. Has Scott done any thing in the way of Joanna Bailie's dramas that is at all to be compared to those productions? Certainly not. And look at Miss Mitford's Rienzi. What play of Byron's will rank dramatically with it? Not one-not Sardanapalus, his best. And in the histrionic department-Siddons had more genius and power than all the male actors of her time could boast of, could they have clubbed their intellects!

With pleasure we hail, in the authoress of The School for Coquettes, a lady of decided dramatic talent. Mrs. Gore has presented the public with a