eye beneath it beaming love, and the lips that would tempt an anchorite to press them, were it not for the latent fire in that eye, and the firmness of purpose indicated by that chin, at the same time that the curve of beauty is preserved, forbids even the passionless kiss of an anchorite. This I should judge to be the work of some enthusiastic painter, who, in a delirium of love, delineated the mistress of his imagination, rather than the being that nature had created." The withered cheek of the old man glowed at my praise, and he replied; "That is the swan of the house of Ruthven, who was reared in the raven's nest when her own flock was scattered. She was the child of the last of the name; still an infant at the time of her father's murder; and when the storm tore up, root and branch, the noble tree that had withstood the rage of warring elements for centuries, this last frail scion was transplanted to a foreign land, where it grew in beauty worthy of its parent stem. Rightly have you judged in pronouncing that picture the work of an enthusiastic lover: it is by the celebrated Vandyck, to whom nature not only lent her colouring, but watched every touch and carefully guided his hand. Charles, the martyr, at whose court the orphan of the fallen house of Ruthven was a maid of honour, bestowed her in marriage on the impassioned painter, and never did the skilful artist exercise his brush with greater success, than when delineating the lovely features of the object of his adoration." I left the gallery with my mind filled with widely different reflections from those which occupied it on entering. The mute canvass on which I had been gazing, name. had read to me a striking lesson on the vicissitudes of human life, and the futility of the attempt to perpetuate a Here I beheld a long line of ancestry, who had kept monarchs in awe and been linked with royalty, extinguished by a breath-a single word—and the last remaining drop of their haughty blood, the very essence of their race, a thousand times distilled, indebted for its preservation to charity, and finally bestowed on one whose progenitors had passed as obscurely through the world as the purling stream through the untrodden wilderness: and yet to the talents of this man is she more indebted for the duration of her name, than to the daring deeds of her turbulent ancestors. I here also learnt that he who was the monarch's terror, the monarch himself, and she for whose charms the monarch might proudly have sighed, can obtain no more substantial fame than an outline of their features on perishable canvass, or a page in history seldom opened. Most glorious guerdon, after a feverish existence, when we reflect that There's not that work Of careful nature or of cunning art, How strong, how beauteous, or how rich it be, STANZAS. It is not meet that tears should flow for such a death as thine, Since selfishness alone could prompt the mourner to repine; And now, like winds that shed around the fragrant breath of flowers, Those thoughts shall visit me that bear an impress of thine hours. We mourn not when the shadow'd eve steals softly on the west, And brings to every wearied thing forgetfulness and rest, When flocks regain the welcome fold, and birds the sheltering tree, And even thus, oh deeply tried! my tears flow not for thee. To see the enchanted wreath of life for ever fall apart, To strive when all the springs of hope were wasted in the heart, In loneliness of soul to tread a dim and thorny way, And watch the friends of happier years drop, one by one, away; This was for thee, and I rejoice that all thy toil is o'er, The billow on a stormy sea will gain at last the shore, The wreck, when driving tempests cease, will sink beneath the wave, And thou, though worn and wearied long, art sleeping in the grave. FREDERICK S. ECKARD. A NEW YEAR'S OFFERING. "A happy new year," thou lovely one, On thy smooth cheek health's mantling glow And may it not! I would that thou, Yet would I not the flatt'ring throng "A happy new year," thou lovely one, L. M. FRANCIS. |