66 vision. The dedication of the Paligénésie will | You will be obliged to give up your journey." explain all this to posterity. This thought is one Oh," said he, "je n'y pensais plus." The deof my joys. I believe that I am now entering on mands and perils of his own health were utterly the last stage of my life; this stage may be pro- forgotten. M. Ampère has, I am sure, totally longed for some time, but I know well what is at the end of it. I shall fall asleep in the bosom of forgotten our conversation, but I do not forget the a great hope, and full of confidence in the thought effect it produced on me. that your memory and mine will live the same life. I should gladly digress a little to quote the I have been the more desirous to enlarge on beautiful speech which M. de Tocqueville, in the this part of Mme. Récamier's life, because it il-name of the Académie, pronounced over the grave lustrates what I have so often remarked, the in-of M. Ballanche; or the eloquent address to the departed of his fellow-townsman, M. de la Prade. comparable tenderness and constancy of the French in friendship. How the vulgar notion A few words of the latter I cannot bear to omit :of the instability of French friendship arose, I There was in your mind, in its serenity, its cannot guess. Nobody can have lived among them without seeing instances of devotedness to which we can offer no parallel. If it be thought that I am exaggerating, let anybody show me here in England an example of a woman who has neither youth nor beauty, fortune, nor what is called connection, living in a most remote and inconvenient spot, and going nowhere, whose modest salon is the daily resort of five or six among the most eminent men in the country, and the frequent resort of a great number of distinguished men and women. And Mme. Récamier, however supreme, was far from being alone in this respect. I could mention other houses in Paris where a faithful band assembled, with nearly equal punctuality, around the friend of many years. Were it permitted to speak of one's self, my own experience would suffice to prove the steadiness, warmth, and devotedness of French friendship; but I shall have another example of it to cite among the friends of Mme. Récamier. a charming simplicity, its tenderness, something more than is found in the wisest and the best. Your virtue was of a divine nature; it was at once prolonged innocence and an acquired wisdom. In you, learned old age had retained the purity and the candor which in others does not outlive infancy. Serene and radiant as your soul may now be in the mansions of peace, we can hardly conceive of it as more loving and more pure than we beheld it on this earth of impurity and strife. Such was the friend who was taken from Mme. Récamier when age and infirmity had made him most necessary to her. No wonder that she never recovered from the shock. The last interview I had with her has left on my mind a picture which no length of years will efface. The servant who came to the door told me he did not think Mme. Récamier could see me; she had one of her attacks in the throat, and had completely lost her voice-but he would inquire. I said, I did not expect to be received; I wanted to know how she was. He returned, saying Mme. Récamier wished to see me. It was early-before three-and she In the month of June, 1847, M. Ballanche, whose was alone. She was sitting with her hands folded health was very infirm, was attacked with inflam- on her lap, and her feet resting on the ledge of a mation of the lungs. During the eight days his ill-low chair before her, in an attitude of utter though ness lasted, his sweetness and serenity never abandoned him for an instant, and at last he experienced tranquil memory. On that chair I seated myself, She attempted the great joy of seeing her who was the life of his and, taking her hand, kissed it. heart take her seat, suffering and blind, by his bedside, which she did not quit, till, with the calmness of a sage and the resignation of a saint, he fell asleep, as he had said, "in the bosom of a great hope to speak, but could not, and I entreated her not to try, and offered to go. She held my hand fast, and as often as I proposed to go, fearing to fatigue her, she pressed it; and so we sat; she, blind and speechless, I at her feet, hardly able to keep from tears; but saying, from time to time, something, which she answered by a pressure of the hand. I shall never forget the sort of consternation, mingled with sorrow, which this death caused. Everybody felt regret for so pure and excellent a man, but yet more of grief and pity for Mme. Récamier, whose loss was felt to be overwhelming and entirely irreparable. I had happened to hear that M. Ampère, whom I knew to have been for some time suffering from the effects of his dangerous illness in Egypt, was going to recruit his shattered health in the Pyrenees. He was to accompany M. Cousin, and the day of their departure was fixed. Two or three days after the death of M. Ballanche I went to the Abbaye aux Bois to inquire for Mme. Récamier. M. Ampère, who had instantly taken, as far as it was possible, the place of his venerable and lamented friend, came out to speak to me. After talking of her M. Ballanche died in June, 1847, M. de Chaand he unutterable loss, I said, "And you?teaubriand in July, 1848; and the sweet woman While we were sitting thus, the door was thrown open, and with the usual announcement, "M. le Vicomte," M. de Chateaubriand was brought in in his chair, and deposited by her side; and thus I left the illustrious couple, struck to the soul with this scene from the close of two of the most brilliant of lives. Here were grace and beauty, genius and fame, high birth and honors, all that men love, admire, or covet-and to what were they reduced? Of all that Heaven had so lavishly bestowed, what remained? what had the least value for them, save those humane and pious affections, which alone survive the loss of every external advantage? who had been at once the object and the bond of their friendship, on the 11th of May, 1849. The immediate cause of her death was cholera; but affliction, especially from the moment she perceived the injury done by time to the great faculties of M. de Chateaubriand, had already undermined her health, and opened the way to the destroyer. She died at the house of her beloved niece, rejoicing, in the intervals of her terrible agonies, that she was permitted to die surrounded by | her family. There can hardly be a greater proof of the preoccupation of all minds in Paris, than the small attention this event excited; an event which (as a man distinguished in politics as well as in letters, and not one of her friends, remarked to me,) would, in less stormy times, have formed the sole subject of conversation. But the memory of this gracious woman will outlive those of a hundred noisy tribunes and ambitious schemers. To be beloved, (says Madame de Hautfeuille in her affectionate lament), was the history of Madame Récamier. Beloved by all in her youth, for her astonishing beauty-beloved for her gentleness, her inexhaustible kindness, for the charm of a character which was reflected in her sweet face-beloved for the tender and sympathizing friendship which she awarded with an exquisite tact and discrimination of heart-beloved by young and old, small and great; by women; even women, so fastidious where other women are concerned-beloved always and by all from her cradle to her grave,-such was the lot, such will be the renown, of this charming woman! What other glory is so enviable? Mme. Récamier had a quality which, perhaps, more even than her winning kindness, attracted and attached men to her. "Elle étoit le génie de la confiance," said one of the noblest and most eminent of her living countrymen. All who were admitted to her intimacy hastened to her with their joys and their sorrows, their projects and ideas; certain not only of secrecy and discretion, but of the warmest and readiest sympathy. If a man had the ébauche of a book, a speech, a picture, an enterprise in his head, it was to her that he unfolded his half-formed plan, sure of an attentive and sympathizing listener. This is one of the peculiar functions of women. It is incalculable what comfort and encouragement a kind and wise woman may give to timid merit, what support to uncertain virtue, what wings to noble aspirations. which this picture was painted, have tinged it with a character which is not satisfactory to those who loved her. It was the property of Prince Augustus of Prussia. On his death in 1842, it was sent back from Berlin to Mme. Récamier. I happened to call soon after. As I was going out she took me by the hand, led me to the picture, which hung in the antechamber, and said: "Voilà comme j'étois il y quarante ans—quand j'étois en Angleterre.' I have heard very different opinions, especially among Englishmen, who had only seen her, as to Mme. Récamier's beauty. Many have told me that it was by no means consummate; and, indeed, that she was rather sweet, attractive, and graceful, than eminently beautiful. Comparing this statement with the rapturous descriptions of those who lived in intimacy with her, I am inclined to think that it was the "something than beauty dearer," that shed a bright halo around her, dazWhatzled their senses, and disarmed criticism. ever be the judgments of the indifferent on her beauty, it is certain that it was irresistibly attractive to her friends. I must not omit to mention a likeness of Mme. Récamier taken after death by M. Deveria, of which Mme. Lenormant sent me a lithograph. Death seems to have brought back part of the beauty of youth; as he did in the case of one not less beautiful than herself the late Mrs. Charles Buller. As soon as the sorrowing mother was at rest, the delicate proportions of her features and spotless purity of her skin returned, and I saw with wonder that death had gently removed the load of years; so that the last time I was ever to see her sweet face, it was the same, bating its alabaster whiteness and deep unalterable repose, as I had seen it almost twenty years ago. I cannot conclude this long outpouring of recollections without some mention of another Frenchwoman, the sublime type of a wholly different nature, with whom Mme. Récamier was brought into contact near the close of her life. It was, I think, in the summer of 1845 that Mme. Récamier visited her niece, then staying at Bellevue, where M. Guizot's family had a house. There she saw his most noble, venerable, and saintly nother, whose commanding intelligence, fervent piety, and devotion to her son and his family, ev[idently left a strong impression on her mind. She knew that I enjoyed the singular happiness (one of the greatest of my life) of frequent intercourse with a family, the least distinction of which was the station and power of it; and she never failed to ask me with peculiar interest for Madame Guizot. I never think of the meeting of these two remarkable women without intense interest. How different their youth! how widely severed their paths through life! With what feelings It is to be lamented that so much beauty should have vanished from the earth without a more perfect portraiture of it. Canova's "Beatrice" is avowedly an inspiration, not a portrait. There is, in the Louvre, an unfinished portrait by David. The head is turned to the spectator, and the attitude is extremely graceful. The celebrated wholelength portrait by Gerard, painted for Prince Augustus of Prussia, though exquisitely beautiful, is one which I always looked at with pain and regret. did the once adored beauty, the darling of society, It is not thus that a woman of pure mind and irre-contemplate the saintly and heroic widow who, at proachable life ought to be transmitted to poster-twenty-six, when the husband of her youth had ity. The low morality and (its natural offspring) | fallen on the revolutionary scaffold, cut off her the coarse and depraved taste of the period at long and beautiful hair, and put on the small close others. cap which she never laid aside, sought refuge | wards Lord) Erskine, Mr. Fox, Mr. Sheridan, Mr. with her two boys in Geneva, and, to the hour of Adair. She afterwards became aequainted with her death, lived devoted to God and her children! the Misses Berry, Miss Edgeworth, and many But the same path is not marked out for all. Mme. Récamier's was one of diffusive benevolence, and she walked in it faithfully to the end. She was not called to the exercise of maternal affections and maternal duties. The tenderness and heroism of her nature found a vent in universal kindness and devoted friendship. Few, too few, of this brilliant list are alive to attest the charm of Mme. Récamier's society; but there are many who still remember her beauty, and the sensation it created. It is true that the crowds that followed her were not attracted by admiration alone. At that time-the peace of Amiens-forIt was at the same time and place that M. de eigners were stared at with a curiosity and wonder Chateaubriand and Mme. Guizot met for the first of which the present generation has no conception; and only time in their lives. He called upon the and the dress worn in France was as monstrous to venerable lady, for whom he always afterwards the eyes of the English people as that of a South expressed the greatest admiration and reverence. Sea Islander. We have heard from an eye-witness What a singular meeting! Like that of two mar- that Mme. Récamier was "shamefully mobbed" in iners shipwrecked by the same storm, whom fate Kensington Gardens. If this be true, she certainly has led, after long wanderings, to the same rest-never betrayed that she recollected it. Hers was ing-place. a mind in which pleasant and grateful recollections were sure to survive disagreeable ones. Mme. Récamier had the fault of her kindly and sweet nature-excessive tolerance and indulgence. She suffered people to approach her who were unworthy that honor. The consequences are already painfully felt. Our readers may have seen that Mme. Lenormant has been compelled to apply for an injunction (in English phrase) to stop the publication of a part of Mme. Récamier's correspondence. What an outrage this is to her memory, may be seen from what M. Lemoine says. It was at Paris, after the Restoration, (continues Mme. Lenormant,) that Mme. Récamier became acquainted with the Duke of Wellington, and, by a singular chance, presented him to the Duchess of St. Leu (Queen Hortense.) If you were at Paris, I would lay open to you curious archives, correspondence with all the most eminent persons of this century, in literature, in the elegant world, and even among the sovereigns of Europe, for the last forty years. But you must accept the very incomplete information I send you. by the hand of friendship. One of Mme. Récamier's last wishes was, that It is a great consolation to me to think that her several manuscript volumes, containing the remibeloved memory will receive from your pen, and in niscences of her whole life, should be burnt immediately after her death. At a time when every-be presented to the English public in its true light your country, a homage I so much value, and will body thinks he has a right to expose to view every palpitation of his heart; when people love, not for the sake of loving, but to write and print about their love; when so many employ their lives in compiling memoirs, and make collections of sentiments as others do of butterflies, we bend piously and almost gratefully before this sacred reserve. In her letter to me of the first of June, Mme. Lenormant says My aunt has left me her residuary legatee, and has besides bequeathed to me all her papers, manuscripts, and correspondence, trusting, as she says, to my tenderness and discretion as to the use to be made of them. Many people have already entreated me to arrange and publish them; but this sort of profanation of the dearest and most sacred recollections, which is become the odious habit of the present day, is utterly at variance with my sentiments, and I am determined not to publish anything for a considerable time. M. de Chateaubriand has devoted a whole volume of his Memoirs to her; but, as it is one of the last, it will be sometime before it appears. Mme. Récamier (Jeanne Françoise Julie Adélaïde Bernard) was born at Lyons, Oct. 1777, and married in 1795. S. A. THE Glasgow Chronicle mentions a peculiar and apparently most valuable mode of obtaining red-hot shot for large guns, recently invented in that city by a Mr. Sculler. The invention consists in the filling the hollow shot with a highly combustible powder. Two or three fuse-holes are made in the shot, so that, when fired from the piece, ignition takes place, and the shot is made red-hot before it arrives at its destination. In the trial witnessed by the editor, the shot, which was about two inches and a half in diameter, was simply laid on the ground and the composition ignited by a light applied to the fuse-hole. Violent combustion immediately ensued-liquid fire appeared to stream from its three fuse-holes, and the metal became quite redhot in a few seconds. The inventor states, that when fired from a gun a red heat will be attained in less than 20 seconds from its leaving its mouth. The composition will burn under water, and is said to be easily made. I am the more anxious that some worthy mention should be made of Mme. Récamier, and I assure you that I shall be most grateful if you realize your kind intention of writing some account of her for A BOTTLE was washed on shore at Queensborthe English public. My aunt was received in Eng- ough, Kent, on the 21st July, which contained a land with a cordiality, an admiration, an enthusi- slip of paper, apparently hastily torn from a serial asm, which left a delightful impression on her publication, upon which was written in pencil mind. She kept up an intercourse with several mark a statement that the immediate destruction of eminent persons of your country for many years: the steamer President-on board of which ill-fated -the two Duchesses of Devonshire, Lord Bristol, vessel the statement is dated-and the loss of the Lord and Lady Holland, Lord Ponsonby, Mr. (after-passengers, was inevitable. From the Boston Daily Advertiser. THE LATE REV. HENRY COLMAN. ing information. His agricultural mission introduced him to the great land-holders, and to the most distinguished agriculturists in England; and his intelligence, independence, colloquial power, and free and easy manner, gave him a favorable reception in the highest class of society. He had no pride or vanity in making the acquaintance of the great; and his sympathy for man in his general nature, and in his social qualities, made him equally pleased and delighted with the society of those in humbler rank. He had a strong propensity for foreign travel, and his ardent curiosity, which was never satisfied, kept him in a pleasing state of ex panion. He was without envy, hatred, or malice. His great philanthropy and benevolence strongly enlisted his sympathies for the poor and miserable wherever and whenever he could find them. He was indefatigable in his endeavors to ascertain their condition, and, so far as he was able, to assist them, and to devise ways and means for their relief. He often acted from impulse, and sometimes erred in judgment, but he always meant well. He thought that religion consisted in right feeling and acting, and in doing good rather than in making professions. He did not attach much importance to creeds, but had a firm reliance on the rectitude and benignity of an overruling Providence, and that all things were ordered for the best. His heart overflowed with gratitude for the blessings which he had received in this life, and he felt the fullest assurance that they would be continued to him in a greater degree hereafter. He had no fear of death, and when his end of life was near, he longed only to die among his friends in his native land. And now that he is gone, it may be truly said that few, while living, ever possessed the esteem of a greater number of friends, or more highly enjoyed their social intercourse; and there will ever be found, in their remembrance of him, a willing tribute to his many virtues. THE sensation produced by the intelligence brought by the last steamer of the death of the Rev. Henry Colman, shows the high estimation in which he was held by his numerous friends and acquaintance. His death may, indeed, be considered as a public loss; for he has been distinguished as a minister of religion, a practical farmer, and a writer upon agriculture and various other subjects. Mr. Colman was graduated at Dartmouth College, and first settled as a minister in Hingham, in the parish which had become vacant by the removal of the Rev. Hen-citement, and made him always an agreeable comry Ware to Cambridge, who for many years filled the office of Professor of Divinity in Harvard College. He afterwards left Hingham, went to Salem, and continued as the pastor of one of the societies in that town, until ill health compelled him to relinquish the profession of his early choice. He subsequently turned his attention to agriculture, for which he has been often heard to say that he had a love from his childhood. His ability and fidelity as a preacher will be duly appreciated by those who were so fortunate as to be his hearers and parishioners, and by all who read his eloquent sermons which have been published. He labored on his farm in Essex county for several years, and brought it to a high state of cultivation; and afterwards cultivated a large farm in Deerfield, where he introduced many improvements in this useful branch of industry. So eminent had he become as a practical farmer, and from his writings upon agriculture, that under an act of the Legislature of Massachusetts creating a Commissioner of Agriculture, he was selected by the Governor for that office, which was accompanied by an annual salary. His reports while he held the office, furnish evidence of his great industry and ability in collecting facts, and his labors in this department continued until public opinion, or what was supposed at that time to be the public opinion, induced the Legislature to adopt the temporary expedient of reducing the salaries of most of the offices in the commonwealth, and of abolishing some. In the latter class was included the office of Commissioner. Mr. Colman afterwards proposed to visit England to learn the state of agriculture and the improvements which had been and were making in that country. For this purpose, in order to defray his expenses, he agreed with several agricultural societies and other individuals, to publish in numbers from time to time such information as he should be able to collect from personal observation and examination. He went to England, and continued abroad for more than five years, until he had completed his undertaking. This work has been published in two volumes, and contains a vast quantity of valuable information relating to the agriculture of England, Scotland, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany, and Switzerland. By his persevering industry, while abroad, Mr. Colman had collected materials for a volume which was nearly completed, containing his views of the manners, customs, state of society, institutions, condition of the high and low in England; and also another volume embracing similar topics on the continent. But the sudden failure of his eye-sight, so that he was unable to read and revise his manuscripts, has prevented their publication. No person from this country, who has ever visited England, had a better opportunity for observation and means of obtain EXPECTATION. FROM THE FRENCH OF DELAVIGNE. Tutto con te mi piace, METASTASIO. THE morn has chased the shades of night, Hangs o'er the rosy eastern sky. To catch the sun's awakening rays Upon the turf still wet with dew, A sweeter zephyr fills the place, Around the elm the vine doth cling. Amid these shades so calm and still All things partake of my delight- CHAPTER II. THE rain continued unabated. his stiffening limbs; nor would Jakubska sit down to the family meal till she had prepared a bed of fresh straw in the corner of the kitchen, on which the boy soon lay extended in a state little short of insensibility, but which was mistaken by those around for the wholesome repose that succeeds fatigue. Then, and not till then, did the woman think of her own creature comforts. After the evening repast was over, which chiefly consisted of gritz and bacon, Jakubska made interest for some of her favorite beverage-brandy. The weather was chill. Jakubska strode on at such a rate that it was with difficulty that Leon kept pace with her. More than once he thought of giving her the slip, but her keen eye was ever on him; until, at last, having long left the sandy ground behind, and entered upon a more fertile country, he so completely lost his bearings, and was so faint, that the thought of escape died away. But he was too proud to complain of fatigue. Once "I will not say but you want something to or twice, indeed, the woman rested a short time; comfort you after so hard a day's work," observed but the approach of night made her anxious to the host, "but everything in moderation. I have push forward; and, accustomed to all the vicis- often said behind your back, and will now say it situdes of a vagrant's life, hunger and weariness to your face, that brandy has been your bane seldom visited her, or, if felt, they were over-through life. If it had not been for that, with looked whenever she had an object in view. They the ample allowance the countess made you, you passed one or two villages; but the woman, evi- would now be one of the most comfortable women dently desirous of avoiding observation, skirted in your village. You have your serf's wood and round in preference to traversing them. At last roof-your clear rental upon the countess-your they approached a gently rising ground, forming an boys apprenticed at her expense-they get a agreeable contrast to the dull flats they had wan- present of clothes whenever they want them, and dered over throughout the day, on whose emi-yet, with all these advantages, you and your nence stood something resembling a farm, though in a very dilapidated condition. 66 "Have but a little courage," said Jakubska, turning to the boy; we are now soon over our troubles-up there we shall find rest, food and shelter." Leon's strength was completely gone; his eyes swam, his head reeled; he followed the old woman mechanically, scarce preserving consciousness. Perceiving his situation, she took his hand and assisted him up the acclivity, when, ringing at the gate of the solitary house, she succeeded in rousing the attention of those within. "You, Jakubska!—at this hour-in this weather!" exclaimed the man who appeared at the window. "Don't let us bandy words here at the gate," she said; "this child requires instant care, so let us in, will you?" They soon stood, drying their clothes by the kitchen fire. Jakubska with a solicitude hardly to have been expected from her, disencumbered the boy of his wet garments, and wrapt him up in whatever she could procure that was warm and dry; endeavoring, at the same time, to persuade him to take some refreshment. "He has had no food this day, poor child," she said, turning to the host," and has walked for hours without intermission; he must surely have overtasked his strength-but there was no help for it." "The best thing for him," said the host, "will be a little hot beer soup; we are just get ting some ready for our supper, we'll force some down his throat." So saying, he removed the lid from the steaming malt, whose surface was covered with small pieces of white, soft, spongy cheese, a very favorite dish with the peasantry, when they can afford it. They compelled Leon to swallow a large quantity of this fluid, and thereby restored some warmth and circulation to children are always dirty and in rags, and you in want of a meal, because all the money-every bit of it-goes into the publican's pocket. Why, you would drink a man out of house and home. Now, if you had but order and conduct, and did just as much work as would keep your house free from vermin, you might be thriving and respected; instead of which, you know very well, Jakubska, you are despised by the old and hooted at by the young. Surely it can't be so difficult” "Tush! nonsense!" said the woman, impatiently; "I am not come to hear preaching, but to tell you of my difficulty. I don't want counsel, but assistance. My plan is already formed; when we are alone I will tell you more about it, and let that be soon, for time presses." "It's about yon child," he whispered. "Take care, Jakubska, you are not meddling with concerns above your station, or harm will come of it." "By and by you will know all; but for God's sake get rid of your folks.” The host, snatching up a bit of candle stuck in a potato, led the way to his sleeping-room, in which a huge stove, that nearly halved the apartment, and a bed, surrounded with Catholic emblems, were the most striking objects. He locked the door carefully behind him, removed some clothes from a chair which he presented to Jakubska, took another himself, endeavored to quiet a few goslings which, having been hatched late in the season, he was, for warmth's sake, bringing up in his own room, and disposed himself to give his best attention to the old woman's revelations. He shared the secret of Leon's birth and parentage, and of his substitution for the defunct heir of Stanoiki; the old nurse who first devised the plan and carried it out being his own sister. He, at the time, warned her against encouraging such a notion in the countess, and told her of the dan |
