IMMORTALITY.

ARE they looking down upon us,
Loved ones who have gone before?
In a world of light and glory

Do they love us as of yore?
Are the bright eyes closed in slumber
Oped and gazing from on high,
Beaming with a clearer vision,

Watching o'er us, yea, for aye?

Do they know our thoughts and feelings,

Know our inmost hearts to read?
Do they mourn when we are tempted?
When we fail to sow good seed?
Are they watching, are they waiting
For the coming of our feet?

Will the same fond hearts receive us?
Will the same sweet voices greet?

WHEN the fair world from chaos rose complete,

And seas and rivers flashed 'neath affluent light,

And wild birds carolled their first praises sweet,

And trees and flowers awoke to beauty bright; To four great angels came the Lord's commands,

"Make four great peoples for the silent lands."

First good St. George the master's mandate heard,

And shaped, of the pure gold and lead he chose,

A being readier in the deed than word,
Firm to its friends, and stubborn to its foes;
And, on the strong winds' pinions sweeping
forth,

He planted England, steadfast in the north.

A glittering bladder St. Iago took,
A fox's heart, a fell wolf's fang within,
And so together craft and venom shook,
Flung o'er their ugliness a tiger's skin,
Fixed his creation on an olive plain,
And, turning from his labor, named it Spain.

St. Denis laughed, and caught a sunbeam fly-
ing;

Bound it in silken knots, and watched it glance
In rosy clouds its airy streamers dyeing,
And called the valleys where it lighted, France;
But he forgot to weight the ray, 'tis said,
Nor heeded that he stained the ribbons red.

And great St. Michael took a sister beam,
A kiss, a rose, a grape, a silver lyre,
A velvet mask, a poniard's evil gleam,
A thrilling echo from the angelic choir,
And blent them with the glorious gift of art,
A poet's fancy, and a pure child's heart :
Italy! Italy! and with a smile,

He placed his work 'mid sun and flowers to
glow,

But Lucifer had watched him all the while,
Fitting a poisoned arrow to his bow,
Lest Michael had his evil work defied,
And Eden lived again on Tiber side.

The arrow quivered in the rose's heart,
And jarred the music on the silver string;
And still it rankles deep, the Devil's dart,
While age on age fresh names the deadly
thing;

"Priestcraft," or "Cruelty," or "Supersti

tion,'

So bearing witness to the old tradition.

SONG.

SAID the wind, "I know she is fair,
For I toyed with her golden hair,
And the ringlets' unheeded flow
Rested light on a breast of snow."

And the rosebud whispered, "She's sweet,
For in kisses her lips I meet,

And my fragrance the deeper grows
From the rose on her lips that glows."

And the sky said, "I know she is true,
For I gaze in her eyes so blue,
When she lifts them to me in prayer,
And all heaven is mirrored there."

And my heart-my heart said to me,
"All that wind, sky and rosebud see,
Fairness, fragrance and truth are thine,"
For I love her, and she is mine.

Transcript.

E. G.

olutions of the rest. It may be taken for so to speak, of a solidified tide of invagranted that, in rude times, rough and sion? *

ready measures were employed to produce The partition of Poland was contemunanimity. There is a tradition of a soli-plated in 1658, more than a hundred years tary dissentient rising from behind a stove to pronounce the privileged veto, when a sabre-flash was seen, and before the word had well left his lips, his head was rolling on the floor. But the ordinary tactics of a minority appear to have resembled those of the Irish Home Rulers. They created obstructions and delayed the course of legislation till the sitting, limited to six weeks, came regularly to an end. Caussidière, the prefect of Paris during the most turbulent months of 1848, boasted of having restored order by disorder. This was the Polish method of righting matters. The majority formed themselves into a confederation, and either usurped temporarily the conduct of affairs or supported the reigning monarch in providing for the safety of the State. Quoting Voltaire, who compared this régime to the government of the Goths and Franks in their migratory state, the Duc de Broglie ex

claims:

before it actually took place; and to the she was thenceforth the "sick man " whose greater powers in her immediate vicinity inheritance they had determined to appropriate. France, not being conterminous, was less immediately concerned in Polish affairs, but Poland was too important a piece on the European chess-board to be neglected by any State engaged in the animated game of the balance of power; and French kings were found little less anxious to be royally represented at Warsaw, than to regulate the Spanish succession and practically efface the Pyrenees. Signally failing in Spain, where they had many chances in their favor, it is no matter of surprise that they failed in the far-off country, on which they had no means of operating except by corruption and intrigue. The Duke of Anjou (afterwards Henri III.) was hardly allowed time for his coronation before he became perforce a fugitive from his realm. The Prince de Conti, the brother of the great Condé, although commissioned to try the adventure by the grand monarque and the elect of a

It was really so, and never was definition more exact. Let us picture to ourselves one hundred and fifty thousand gentlemen holding in servitude an entire population attached to the soil; all the members of this noble democ-party, did not wait to be proclaimed and is racy legally equal among themselves; all with lance in rest or sword in hand; all equally entitled to compete with, or to pretend to, the government of the commonwealth, no decree being valid except by their unanimous consent, the majority, however, possessing the right of organizing its resistance in private confederation, whereby civil war was admitted among the number of allowable customs, if not of legal institutions. Let us picture a king borne upon shields in a plenary assembly to which each noble came armed on horseback; the power emerging from these stormy waves not only elective, but conditional, and enjoy ing no other prerogatives than those with which a special convention, renewed at the commencement of each reign, was pleased to have it invested; no police, the mere phantom of a standing army, but a cloud of undisciplined cavaliers always ready at the first call; justice itself administered by the elect of a victorious faction, presiding at their tribunals with their swords by their side: was not this the political régime of a conquering emigration, or,

not enumerated amongst the kings. The
expulsion of Stanislaus, the victim of Pul-
towa, was yet more humiliating to France,
for she had engaged to support him by
arms, and he was the father-in law of her
king. The natural result of this succes-
sion of failures was the indifference of
which we have already spoken as explana-
tory of Voltaire's; an indifference which
was far from being shared by Louis XV.
His family pride, his sense of honor, had
been deeply wounded; and the Duc de
Broglie gives him credit for seeing farther
than his ministers-
fate of Poland if abandoned to the tender
- for anticipating the
mercies of her neighbors by almost the
only power that could not profit by her fall.

His Majesty was in this mood of mind,

translation that we were obliged to retranslate most of Vol. i., p. 43. This passage is so altered in the it.

The sense and meaning of the work are given with tolerable accuracy by the translator, but he commonly contents himself with a paraphrase.

when some Polish emissaries arrived in Paris to propose to the Prince de Conti, the grandson of the former candidate, the renewal of what in some sort resembled an

most degrading compliances. As for domestic policy, they had none.

Imagine the smallest inheritance left for years without master or management; all would fall into ruin; and one of the greatest kingdoms of Europe remained thirty years without any sort of administration. There existed no lawful power to demand an account either of the levying of imposts or the condition of the troops. The grand treasurers were enriched with the public treasure, whilst the State was poor and encumbered with debt. The generals in chief were potent, and the republic

defenceless.

The grand marshals were re

doubtable, although no police was maintained. No minister was despatched to any foreign power.*

istration. Their local customs and their

hereditary claim. They came deputed by the families in the French interest, which, although faintly and irregularly sustained of late, had never been permitted to die out, and the time (1742) was deemed especially opportune for reviving it. The declining health of Augustus (elector of Saxony), the reigning or titular king, promised a speedy vacancy, and the low place to which he had fallen in public esteem was thought fatal to his hopes of transmitting the elective throne to a son. · His entire reign had been devoted to self-indulgence, and we might add indolence, Strange to say, the Poles got on better so far as mental exertion was concerned, when left to themselves in this fashion His only passion was the chase. "En- than when they were subjected to regular gaged in this unique and perpetual occupa- authority or a centralized system of admintion," says Rulhière, "he pretended to govern in his own proper person his two States of Saxony and Poland; but in effect all the cares of government were abandoned to a favorite, Count Brühl, adroit enough to make this vain and sensitive, although nonchalant prince, believe that they were discharged by himself." It would appear, from their common mode of life, that there were neither cares nor duties to discharge. Like master, like man: the secret of the minister's influence was not aptitude, efficiency, or versatility, but assiduity: "Out of sight out of mind," was his motto: always close to his royal patron in the forest, or passing whole mornings in his presence without uttering a word, except when the frequently recurring enquiry was addressed to him, “ Brühl, have I money?" "Yes, Sire," was the unfailing response; and to make good his words he deluged Saxony with paper money, and put up to auction every place or employment of which he could dispose in Poland. His own expenditure was on the most extravagant scale, and Augustus, attached from indolence to a simple mode of life, took pride in being served by a sumptuous minSuch an existence was little calculated ister: "Were it not for my profusion," said to foster the spirit of adventure; but the Brühl, "he would leave me in downright

66

habits of self-government saved them from
lapsing into lawlessness or confusion, and
it was care for the future rather than im-
patience under the present, that induced
some of the more thoughtful of them to
prepare for the expected vacancy of the
throne. The Prince of Conti, to whom the
deputation, strictly secret, was addressed,
is described by the Duc de Broglie as fully
From early youth
justifying their choice.
he had given proof of a brilliant capacity
for war.
The victory of Coni, won in his
twenty-seventh year, had caused him to be
compared to the hero of Sens and Rocroi.
Like his uncle, he was endowed with the
gift of speech : —

His ready eloquence, his aptitude for affairs, had often been the surprise and charm of the Parliament. He had a correct judgment in public business; he was agreeable and reliable in intercourse, and kept an open house highly relished by people of the world as well as by the men of letters, over which presided a whom the easy morality of the time was not charming friend, the Comtesse de Boufflers, shocked to find constantly at his side.

* Révolutions de Pologne. Par Claude Carloman

want of necessaries." The foreign policy de Rulhière. Quatrième Edition. Revue sur le texte of this precious pair consisted exclusively et complété par Christian Ostrowski. Paris, 1862. in securing the support of Russia by the | Vol. i., p. 135.

prince was like Mr. Tennyson's highborn | useful in forwarding it. He got sure beauty, Lady Clara Vere de Vere

In glowing health, with boundless wealth,
But sickening of a vague disease.

He thought himself born for better things. He was haunted by visions of lost opportunities. He longed for a more exalted sphere of action than that of a far niente prince of the blood. His military career had been cut short by his refusal to serve as an aide-de-camp under Marshal Saxe; and a man of his rank could indulge no hope of distinction as a statesman under such a régime as then prevailed in France. No wonder therefore that he was irresistibly tempted by the dazzling pros pect opened to him by the Poles; but before closing with them he was under the imperative necessity of securing the willing assent, if not the cordial operation of the king. His Majesty lent a favorable ear to the proposal to the extent of author izing the prince to temporize with it, but as for submitting it to his ministers or making it the starting-point of an avowed course of policy, this was more than could be hoped or expected under the circumstances. In the first place, he would have been required to bestir himself, to take part in the execution of the project, to choose and guide the instruments, to undergo the trouble of thinking and acting, two things which were equally repugnant to his habits. In the next place he would have to encounter a formidable opposition in the bosom of his family, in which the House of Saxony had warm supporters, beginning with the dauphiness, the daughter of Augustus. Then, again, his minister for foreign affairs, the Marquis d'Argenson, was strongly prejudiced against the Poles, and would have turned restive at the bare suggestion of a renewed interference with their affairs. All that the prince could obtain was a promise of some support in money from the privy purse and a secret order, under the royal sign man ual, to M. Castéra, the French resident at Warsaw, to act as the medium of commu

nication.

"Such was the origin of the affaire secrète, and this obscure agent was the first confidant of the private thought of the king." Things, however, could not rest here; and Conti, watching his opportunities, soon found means to engage the king deeper and deeper, on the ground that success would be materially facilitated by having representatives in the states bordering on Poland, who, without being entrusted with the scheme, might be indirectly

friends of his own appointed to the embassies of Berlin, Sweden, and Constantinople. These corresponded with him as well as with the Foreign Office; he carried their letters as well as those of the secret agent to the king, with whom he was so often closeted as to awaken the suspicions of the ministers and the favorite, Madame de Pompadour, who left no stone unturned to get at the bottom of the mystery.

Four years passed away without this strange description of intrigue becoming known beyond the limited circle of the initiated, or any material advance being made towards the ultimate object, when (in 1752) the Polish-Saxon ambassador, the Marquis des Essarts, was transferred from Dresden to Turin, and the Prince de Conti plausibly urged that, if the covert scheme was to be pursued in right earnest, he should be replaced by one acquainted with it and specially charged to carry it out. The expediency of such a course was made more manifest by the importance attached to the adhesion of Poland in the contemplated renewal of hostilities. The war, if it broke out anew, would be waged by Russia and Austria, backed by England, against Prussia, in alliance with France; and certain intelligence had reached the French court that a league, offensive and defensive, between the two empresses, Elizabeth and Maria Theresa, and Augustus as elector of Saxony, was already signed at St. Petersburg, and was about to be laid before the Polish Diet, in which a powerful faction was actively at work to pave the way for its adoption. The design imputed to the English was to subsidize a hundred thousand Russians, and get them to traverse the Polish territory to engage in the wars of the south.

The danger was too evident and too serious to be overlooked by even the most prejudiced eyes. Willingly or unwillingly, the French would be well to secure, if not an effective ministers were obliged to acknowledge that it alliance with Poland, at least her neutrality, and it was agreed that the new ambassador should be instructed to oppose in every way the accession of Poland to the Treaty of St. Petersburg. There was, however, only one means of acting on the Diet-the old expedient of creating, or, at least, of reviving, a party favorable to France among the ranks of the nobility who composed that assembly. Now, from that to preparing the way for the election of a French candidate to the throne on a future day, there was only one step.

The moment was therefore most opportune for revealing the secret to an ambassador; but a confidant had to be selected; and Prince de