situation that I now fill. I myself longed for this kind of exertion; I loved mankind, I felt a sincere desire to effect some good for the community which had expelled me; I wished to let my present be a testimony of the innocence of my past life before the eyes of my fellow-men, in case the dark accusations should again rise up against me; or I wished even in the hour of death to collect round me the congregation for whom I lived, and say I am Edward D.Friends, judge if I am guilty!' "I had raised myself above the judgment of men, as it must be unjust; but it was dear to me to deserve their right approbation! The quiet instructor and settler in this corner of the land could be little known in a wider sphere. Withdrawn from the rest of the world, known and useful only in this circle, my position here appeared to me the most desirable, as long as the mystery that hung over me remained unravelled. The inquiries on which I had placed much hope were unsuccessful, and he who was suspected of the crime was not found; but I myself might live safe from all suspicion and all pursuit. I became calmer and calmer, more and more hopeful, happier and happier. Many times have I during my enlivening labours, during my intercourse with the good men around me, felt the full brightness of my youth again revive; I had forgotten the past, and free from care, looked forward to the future." Years passed. widely distended eyes looked searchingly into "Have you been always so called?" "Why this question?" said Edward; who in his turn contemplated the sick man attentively. "Do you know me?" "You are he whose child fell into the river at Tärna "And whom you rescued at the peril of your own life; but you have seen me earlier, earlier.” Edward surveyed him long. "It appears so to me," said he; "but I cannot remember when and where." "Mr. Edward D.! I was secretary at Count R.'s at the same time that you were there. My name is Christian Malm." Edward made a hasty movement; but the sick man beckoned with his hand, and said: "Wait! you shall hear! Read, sir; read aloud!" The Advocate read with a loud voice:-"On my death-bed, and on the point of standing before the judgment-seat of the Almighty, I affirm and declare before God the Most High, and before men, that Mr. Edward D. is innocent of the crime that he has been accused of perpetrating against the life of Count R.; and that I alone am the guilty person. It was I who on that evening shot the Count whilst standing on the shore; it was I who robbed him of his money. It was at my instigation also that Edward Hervey fell under the suspicion of this crime, because I spread all kinds of false reports of him; not from hatred to him, but to turn the thoughts of It contained the following lines written by a all from myself. With regard to Fräulein Eltrembling hand :--"If you would soften the frida's elopement, I am convinced that Edward remorse of a dying man, and see a mighty Hervey acted here with a good view, and only, mystery brought to light, set out immediately as an honourable man, wished to release the for W- In the hotel there inquire for a daughter from the base and cunning plots of man named Erik B.: he will lead you to him her father. All that I myself saw and heard who writes these words. But travel day and causes me to believe this; and let it be rememnight, for I am weak, and my hours are numbered that these are the words and the assurances bered." A letter was delivered to Hervey, which he quickly broke open. Hervey reached the boundary of his journey. A neat little dwelling on the banks of Lake Wever, surrounded by trees, presented itself to his view. It looked cheerful, as if virtue and contentment dwelt within it. Edward's guide led him into a small room, the closed blinds of which permitted but little light to enter. A man with a pen in his hand sat at a table covered with papers; a clergyman stood near him. 66 Now, is it ready?" asked a hollow voice, that issued from a bed with drawn curtains. "It is ready," said the writer, with stern seriousness; "the signature alone is now wanting." "Has no one yet come?" asked the voice, with uneasiness and impatience. At this moment Edward Hervey stepped forward. A convulsive movement was perceptible in the bed. A face-pale yellow, and exciting horror-distorted more by passions than by suffering-stared from out the curtains, and the of a dying man. Farther certainty hereupon can probably be obtained from Mr. D.'s own letter to Count R., which I found scaled on his table after his flight, and which I kept myself. It lies here unopened. That this is the truth, and has been acknowledged by me with my full powers of recollection and my free will, I declare by God, before whose judgment-seat I sha shortly stand; and I will sign it with my own hand." 66 It is well!" said the sick man, in a weak voice. "Give it me." The paper and a pen were handed to him, and with an evident effort he signed his name, and then fell back on his bed exhausted. Edward stepped nearer. On his fine manly face deep emotion could be traced. "Christian Malm!" said he, "what had I done to thee that thou couldst act thus towards me?" I "Nothing! nothing in the world! But see! grew afraid of death, and the devil whispered in my ear to cast all the guilt upon you, as it these are no faithless words " And when the could be so easily done." stern, worldly Advocate saw him who had so long "And what induced you to attempt the mur-been defamed, ardently praying by the side of der of Count R.?” his enemy-praying for him-he raised his hand to his eyes and chased away-a rare visitor there-a tear. "Revenge, sir; revenge! He had ill-treated me, trampled me under his feet; had called me a knave, and in the presence of his servants too! and I became what he accused me of being-a villain! became this because he had disgraced me-because I must be revenged. But I concealed myself under a mask of humility; I grew as smooth and soft as a serpent until the tunity came when I could sting. It arrived! Favoured by the darkness and confusion, I was able, without danger of being discovered, to fire on him and then rob him. I repent not of that! he deserved it, the cruel, the base oppor "Silence!" interrupted Hervey with severity; "unhappy one! think of thyself, and what awaits thee. Think of pardon for that, and not of cursing!" "The period of hypocrisy is past, sir!" answered the dying man, in a weak and quivering voice. "I have lied much; now I will be truthful. What I committed against Count R. I cannot repent of. God forgive me for this-if He can. But what I have committed against you, that I have repented of, so that I could have no enjoyment of my unlawful gains-so that I am withered in body and soul. Since you saved my child at the peril of your life-since that time hell has dwelt in my breast, and I resolved yet to show you justice before my death. I have repented much, and suffered much from this repentance; may this soften you. If you can, grant me your pardon! it would make my death less bitter. Ah, you look kind, sir; kind and earnest as an angel of the Lord forgive me!" "I forgive thee!" said Hervey, and laid his hand on the head of the dying man. "Thanks! thanks!" said he in a failing voice. "Pray for me! My child lives in your neighbourhood. . . . look after my child! Preserver of my child! pray. . . . for me." He drew Hervey's hand to his lips; his sight was broken. Edward bent his knees in prayer beside the couch of the dying; the clergyman who was present followed his example. The chamber seemed to grow dark; the shades of death moved there. A fourth stood near, who contemplated the scene attentively. He looked on the awful face of the dying; he perceived on Hervey's the strong, deep expression of inward devotion; he listened to his inspired, half-loudly uttered prayers, and he thought within himself:"No! this is no empty form of words-no mere ceremony. Something beautiful, something important is really going forward here. And why -when the struggling, unhappy soul quits its tabernacle, and all within and without is dark, why should not the intercessions of the good have influence at this hour? Yes, like good angels they surround the struggler; they find the way to his heart, and prepare it for reconciliation; they follow him on his way to the unknown land; they bend the knee with him before the throne of the King and help him to pray! No, NIGHT. BY CAMILLA TOULMIN. [Concluded from page 266, volume 15, New Series.] "God is a Spirit-by Spirit HE works-- Of the erring who wrought before; What the Past Ages the Earth has rolled! In the swathing clothes of error and fear From within-from within the strength must rise, Wills Truth alone be Strength! The Stars from their thrones on high look down To mark how the Human Mind has grown, And they look in the homes of the great and good, And they see where True Wisdom loves to brood, And wherever she sojourns she casteth seeds And they read the signs of the thoughtful Now, Are that Science and Peace are on its brow, 102 THE QUEEN OF DENM A R K. EDITED BY MRS. GORE.* and at that moment felt most clearly, that in every period of life there is a charm, which, from a different point of view, we are apt to overlook. I felt that gentleness and affection are doubly fascinating when adorned with a wreath of silvery locks. There was something almost celestial in the kindly smile of the old man. It is but natural after all; for scarcely anything earthly is left in age, which exhibits only purified love and a source of noble feelings in endless succession, that have outlived time and conquered the destroying power. Storms have battered the perishable tabernacle, and at length made it crazy and infirm; their cold breath has spread itself around the heart; but it has proved itself stronger than the storm, for that spark which God enkindled, the world cannot extinguish. Among the female novelists, those ephemerida | him the tranquillity which age had imparted, of literature, none holds a higher place in the public estimation than Mrs. Gore. She may not possess the racy nationality of Miss Ferrier, the logical good sense of Miss Edgeworth, or the Teniers-like fidelity and minuteness of Miss Austen; she may not even rival the Edinburgh authoress, Mrs. Johnstone, in portraiture of character and sly humour; but she has a brilliancy and a pathos of her own, which make every novel she writes a favourite with the reader. And then her marvellous fecundity! the rapidity with which she pours forth novel after novel, tale, biography, and light sketch (all at once, as if she had indeed a hundred hands as well as fifty minds in her employ), reminds us of nothing less than the conjuror who flings roses after roses, lilies and violets out of an old hat, until the stage is a garden of sweets, and the spectators are lost in admiration and astonishment. We remembered with such pleasure the sparkling story of "A Royal Favourite," that we sat down to this "Queen of Denmark" in the best possible mood for criticism; and although the preface informed us that to another pen we must ascribe the tale, it also added words of such commendation as quickened our impatience. There is much to wade through that is ennuyant; but as it is a royal court that is depicted, we suppose that its dulness had infected even the words and the paper which bear its records; and every now and then you come upon a piece of national sentiment-not the sentimentality of affectation, but the genuine meditativeness of a reflective mind. Such, for example, is the fine passage on old age : "It is peculiar to age to dwell without pain on the recollections of youth, and even to take pleasure, though they may be of a serious nature already, to make them still more distressing. And I will tell you why. We see the picture without being able to recall the impressions which then harrowed our feelings; on the contrary, we regard the past with the tranquillity which now pervades us, and all that had then darkened the 'prospect time has since cleared away. There are advantages you see, mon cher, attached to being old." "Summer and autumn are long past; the winter of life is come. The bleaching hair and slowly circulating blood follow the eternal laws of nature; but in the heart the same warm fount of love gushes forth unchanged. Autumn has not dried it up; winter has not been able to chain it with its frosts; for the heart has an everlasting spring." A picture of exquisite beauty, but only par tially true. Age has not always this pure moonlight brightness; it has very often the foggy twilight of a London December, and is only lighted by artificial lamps. Old age is sometimes a singularly sad picture of apathy and impotent passion, mistrustful suspicion and misused confidence, succeeding each other by turns. Experience sometimes brings contempt of our fellows, and the memories of a long and perhaps selfish life irritate instead of soothe the decaying spirit. The everlasting spring of the heart is, alas! rather apocryphal; those Geysers of affection, which pour their warm streams from the Icelandic snows of old age, are too few to count upon. We must expect to see the old apathetic; and most of them are so, unless the few remaining pleasures of their dull decline are attacked, and that rouses them to a certainty. Keep an old man waiting for his dinner, and see if he be apathetic; or trample upon the tail of an old lady's pet cat or spaniel, and you will behold a burst of youthful vivacity. And I, who have such an especial dislike to get old, and lament daily over departing time as The book we have been quoting is a transover a lost friend, threw myself back on the win-lation from the Danish, and gives that vivid dow-seat and contemplated the kind old man painting of foreign manners to which an English who sat before me by his solitary hearth, sur- writer cannot, of necessity, attain. The northern veying with a smile his past life, till I envied countries have of late taken a strong hold upon the English imagination. Norway and Sweden have made their daily routine of domes ic life * 3 vols. 8vo. Colburn. 7 familiar to our eyes; and Denmark has also its revelations. Translations from writers of these countries have shown us far more insight into the character of the people than all the travellers' tales from the days of Japhet, who was the first traveller on record. There is something peculiarly interesting in hearing of a people from the mouth of one of themselves. In this story we have both court life and lowly life; and these are contrasted, and then blended very skilfully. The visits of the young page to the goldsmith's daughter, and her subsequent appointment in the royal household, are the prettiest scenes in the book. Sophus, the page, is a good humoured, gentlemanly, vain, but kindhearted boy; Lisette, the goldsmith's daughter, is a sweet personation of artlessness, vehement feeling, and purity of heart. She loves the page, to whose good offices her father's prosperity is owing; but this love is so tender and so modest, yet breaks out so naturally into broad daylight, that our only surprise is how the writer could help making Sophus love her. But he is a page, a courtier, one of the nobility, and his boyish fancy for the pretty plebeian fades away into a passion for a talented and amiable maiden of his own rank; a very rational maiden too, with a silly papa, blustering yet cowardly, self-complacent, vain, and impenetrable to the shafts of ridicule. Elizabeth, his daughter, has been educated by a wise aunt, and though not beautiful, wins and keeps affection by her placid gentleness and quiet sense. But we do not feel for her the interest excited by the more energetic and impassioned Lisette, and the few obstacles to the union of the lovers raise but little anxiety in our minds for the results. The political scenes are rather confused, and want breadth and clearness. Struensee, the minister, it is darkly hinted, is attached to the Queen; but she seems to feel for him nothing but indifference. There is a riot among the sailors, who attack the royal palace; a great deal of screaming, weeping, irresolution, and fear is betrayed; but for a long time nothing is done to arrest the danger, till at last a sensible man goes and says a few sensible words, and the mob disperse quietly-a winding up which casts an air of ridicule over the whole insurrection. Struensee, the author of this calamity, proves a dastard in the test of danger, and indeed their majesties of Denmark seem to have fallen among cowards. Struensee is a parvenu who despises the rank which nature denied him in his birth, and wishes to fling down the barriers of pride, of ancestry, and to level everything; thus he offends the nobility. He is also a regenerator, a puller down of old institutions, a setter up of new; thus he offends the commonalty. He makes changes in haste, without consulting the time and the temper of the people; he sees some limb of the constitution is diseased, and he cuts it off; but by its loss he endangers the very power by which he A powerful nobleman comes to expostulate with him: the foolhardy minister rebuts all advice, and even taunts the peer stands. with his youthful sins in days gone by. The incensed Count leaves him, and drives at once to the presence of Struensee's powerful enemies. Such an innovator was sure to have made enemies great and many, and the defection of this last noblenan turns the scale against him, and the unhappy Queen who cooperated in his political measures. The King. poor fellow! is represented as a sickly, nervous invalid, a mere cypher in the kingdom. That same evening there is a grand masquerade in the opera-house. The Queen is at first overwhelmed by a mysterious presentiment of evil. Lisette, who is present by virtue of her office, overhears the father of Elizabeth and a Countess Reiffenstein (a known enemy of the Queen) laying plans for the disposal of Elizabeth in marriage. Lisette, who knows the secret love of Sophus for the lady, appeals in his favour to the Queen. She, incensed at any of the opposite clique daring to interfere in what she considers her royal prerogative, resolves to disappoint the Countess Reiffenstein, and sending for the young couple, proclaimed the betrothal of Sophus and Elizabeth to her assembled court. She is elated at thus evincing her authority, but knows not that this last act of defiance will probably accelerate the vengeance of the enemy. In the dead of night the King is roused from sleep, alarmed by false and foul slanders of a plot against his life, and prevailed on, in his stupefaction and anger, to sign a warrant for the Queen's disgrace and removal. She is dragged away with the faithful Lisette, who follows her with the infant princess. This is very darkly related: we can hardly imagine how such a warrant could be wrung from the King, how he could at such an hour sanction such a lawless and unjustifiable outrage; but as this incident is matter of history, we can only express wonder and thankfulness that we have nothing to do with courts. Sophus, who might have interfered and been slain in the defence of his ill-treated mistress, is opportunely disabled by a private duel with an old rival, whom he finds lurking in the corridors of the palace, and who is in reality one of the conspirators. The swoon consequent on a wound received by Sophus prevents him from seeing more than the spectrelike apparition of the departure of the unfortunate Queen in a carriage, guarded by dragoons. But the whirlwind which hurls royalty from its throne, and flings the heads of ministers on the scaffold, hurts not the harmless gentleman of the bed-chamber. He recovers from his wound, and weds Elizabeth, with whom he lives happily for some years; but small-pox seizes the child whom she has borne to him, and carries off both infant and mother. About the same time death removes the exiled Queen from her cheerless banishment at Zell; and Lisette, the high hearted and generous souled, dies also of the same fever as her royal mistress and friend. thus we are brought back by a gentle sadness into the mood in which we first found the old man, whom we saw so beautifully described in the beginning; for it is the life of Sophus, the And boy-page, the aged ex-chamberlain, told by himself to a youth as full of hope and freshness as he had once been. This looking back on the feverish excitement of boyhood, on the tracasseries and political heartburnings of court-life, from the serene hill-top of a kindly old age, is inexpressibly touching to us. There is no remorse, for there was no crime to darken memory; there is no vanity, for the beauty and the warm blood of youth have retreated from the aged form and chastened spirit; all is calm, tender recollection, sadness so refined as almost to be sweet; and we close the eyes of the venerable chamberlain with a sentiment of profound respect. Caroline Matilda, the Danish Queen, a Briton by birth and by spirit, is a peculiar and wellexecuted character: its very contradictions make its consistency. We are interested in her, we feel for her; but we blame her, and foresee, long before the catastrophe, that she is too vehement and high spirited for the land over which she reigns, or the puerile monarch whose throne she shares. In England political changes do not necessarily involve chopped heads and imprisoned sovereigns. If, whenever a prime minister's power was lost, his head followed it, garde à vous Sir Robert Peel! Great questions are agitated here freely, and no one trembles for life or property now and then the disaffected among the manufacturing or agricultural classes make their murmurings audible above the vast hum of the nation's voice; but though ricks may be burned and cottonmills stopped, the evil extends no farther. The Queen of Denmark was too English for the Danes: she had been accustomed in her grandfather's court to much political intrigue; but it was harmless gossiping and bloodless. One lord was up, or another down; but the Whigs and the Tories had so long squabbled, their fights were like Scotch wooings; and so they are to this day. But it was a very different thing in the court she had entered: rancour and jealousy worked there with poisoned weapons; slander might be whispered, but it could not be rebutted, for the open fairness of English manners was unknown. And this young girl, at the age of twenty-one, by a mixture of heedlessness, youthful levity, and unguarded temper, was thrust from her high station and her husband's trust, and condemned, unaccused (at least publicly) and unjustified, to a disgraceful imprisonment and a cheerless exile. She died young, and it was well; for what had life to give her when husband, children, power, and even good name, were gone? There is a beautiful passage on love-that hackneyed theme, which yet admits of so much new colouring; and never has it been more delicately handled than here. It is given as the reflections of another old courtier, who warns Sophus against its errors; and we should adore any old man whom we heard uttering such pure and spiritual sentiments as the following: paradise. We are of a coarse nature; love is too delicate for the materialism into which we are plunged; our own love does not content us. It is only in the love of the object of our affections for us that we find a heaven; but, like Titans, we storm that heaven in our impetuosity, and then weep over the ruins in our own susceptibility. "The love of a young man does not contain near so much poetry as that of a young female, to the gradual progress of which, through all its delicate shades, we are strangers. There is, for instance, an epoch in the love of a young female which is inexpressibly charming when her love is yet, if I may so say, in its cradle, and derives its nourishment from such ethereal sources that we have no suspicion of its existence. It is sufficient for her to see her lover at a great distance; to hear the sound of his voice, to catch a fugitive glance, are pleasures which we rate at less than nothing, but on which the love of a young maiden lives for months. She knows how to enjoy a moment which leaves behind it no trace of the languor produced by the crisis of passion. "There is an innocence diffused over this period of her love which gives it a divine stamp; and I pity the man who is too blind to discern it; or, to speak more correctly, I pity his mistress; for it is only his own person that he loves. The love of the man is, upon the whole, far more selfish than that of the female; and this period, when every moment affords her delight, when the powder is still fresh on the delicate wings of Psyche, when she rules with absolute sway from a throne borne by invisible angels and wreathed with visible flowers, we ought to prolong, or else at least should not shorten. We ought to rejoice at its sanctity, and not profane it by a sanctimonious submission, the hypocritical selfishness of which she does not suspect. We ought to worship her in spirit and in truth, for it is a true divinity that speaks to us by the revelation, and not tear asunder the flowers for the purpose of weaving a garland with them for our own image. But alas! it is so easy to pull them to pieces: we take no heed of the pain which the thorns give her; we are above all sympathy for the pain of others; we press the wreath of victory on our own brow, and presume not that the roses are withered; but the palm of victory becomes a crown of thorns. Like the king, in the tale, we snatch the winding-sheet instead of the coronation robe; the supposed sovereign is a poor devil; the illusion is at an end, and remorse the appropriate punishment. Such is the true picture of the course of love when it is not based on that chivalrous self-denial in which lies the guarantee for its existence; such being the form it must assume if it desires to live." With these eloquent words we close our remarks; they are sad, but they are true: such has ever been the history of love, and such will ever be; the earthly part of our nature will ever stain "It is a transitory happiness," said he ; " and the heavenly, and the corruptible must expire why is it so? Because we ourselves are inces-ere the incorruptible can be perfected. santly labouring to destroy the flowers of our P. P. C ། 7 |