very costly illuminated works of match- Tyas' beautiful edition of the great the classic Greek from which to paint poet of nature take a similar if not the ideal, but prefers to portray the superior rank, as also the almost unri- imagery of monkish pageantry during valled "Abbotsford edition of the Wa- the days of the ascendancy of the Latin verley Novels:" but perhaps no speci- church. And is not this equally true men can be adduced that may com- of our architectural standard, in the prepete with the exquisitely beautiful vailing preference for the florid gothic embellishments, being portraits from of our religious edifices? To resume, nature, of Selby's British Forest Trees, there are already published several and the other volumes comprising Van Voorst's series on Natural History. The "Etching Club" of London, consisting of a dozen distinguished artists, have also devoted themselves to the illustrating some of the English classics in a novel style worthy of the highest school of art,-the Vicar of Wakefield, Cowper's Poetical Works being among the series. A little bijou entitled "A Guide to Westminster Abbey" is also very delightfully embellished in this style; and what does not detract from its interest, is the fact of its illustrations being the handicraft of of ladies of rank and fortune. Among the artists of our own country scarcely inferior attainments have been effected both on steel and wood, Durand, Sartain, Cheney and Halpin, rank high among the former, and Adams and Lossing the latter. The forthcoming Illustrated Bible of Adams, most of the embellishments of which we have seen, give promise of the highest excellence to which the graver's skill has yet ministered this side the Atlantic. In the absence of the patronage of a wealthy aristocracy, such proficiency in the fine arts among a people so professedly utilitarian is no mean achievement. Hall's Ancient Ballads is another rich and luxurious specimen of the art. Print ing in colors is another auxiliary in modern book embellishment, an instance of the kind is to be seen in the sumptuous edition of Lockhart's Spanish Ballads published a year ago by Murray. It is not a little remarkable to note the tendency of the literary taste of the present day; as if, having exhausted the stores of all cotemporary skill and ingenuity, it now reverts back to the semi-barbarous age of gothic bookembellishment. The same remark is no less applicable to the sister arts of poetry, painting, sculpture, architecture, &c. The poet no longer seeks Having thus regaled our mental vision with a brief and furtive glance at the exuberant riches of ancient and modern bibliography, we pause not to moralize on this mighty mausoleum of departed genius and skill; but simply to advertise the reader of the fact, that amidst all the magnificent display spread out before our delighted sense, one delectable tome of all the rest, which would most irresistibly tempt us to infringe a certain canon of the decalogue-nay, two of them-is Smith's "Historical and Literary Curiosities:" consisting of an immense collection of most valuable autograph letters of noble, royal and literary characters of the past and present ages, illustrated with rare and most interesting plates. But it is time to close our "Loose Leaves" for the present, for we already begin to experience the incipient symptoms of the malady of the veritable bibliomaniac himself. So dark a change, so dread a gloom, VI. Yet still thou smil'st!-and can thy art Each nobler feeling at thy heart, If still that heart be true! If not to all its nature dead, It still may bleed, as those have bled, And, 'spite the smiles upon thy cheek, VII. Self-reckoning hours, methinks, must rise, VIII. And thou wilt shroud that pallid look, They jointly murmur, shall appal; The last thou would'st recall,- IX. And thus in Vice's wild abode, Her thousand vultures at thy breast, Remorse, with unrelenting goad, Unresting, ne'er to let thee rest,— What hope, what angel hope, may rise, X. Ah, me! could I, ev'n now, restore, The perished bloom that graced the flow'r, And make thee what thou wert of yore, The bud of love that bless'd the bow'r,Arouse once more those purest lays As often heard, in happier days, Throughout the evening hour,— Thou still should'st smile, with gentle reign, Though I might never smile again. XI. Oh! could I win thee now to weep Thy child-heart's madness, woman's shame, Except its young and cherish'd flame; And thousand memories come to press, XII. Farewell! Oh! still beloved, farewell! The glories of the earth, When in thy form its richest fell, To me are little worth; Thou stand'st alone on memory's waste, And, at my door, the wither'd vine, THE LAST DAYS OF SIMON KONARSKI.* Translated from the Polish of Lucian Siemienski. BY A COMPATRIOT. Jesli wytkniesz sobie Droge a prosta-to cho by do stonca Ziemia przeminie! i gwiazdy przemina!-J. SLOWACKI. [If you choose for yourself a straight path, you may reach even the sun, though through sufferings and death. Onward then forever, and thou wilt be clothed in an angel's robe, as a defender of thy country and faith: and the earth and stars will sooner pass away than thy merits in heaven be forgotten.] In the fall of the year 1836 extensive preparations were made on the bleak and uninhabited steppes of Woznesensk for a grand review by the Czar. Foreign journals were clamorous about the enormous mass of cavalry that was gathering to that point, as if to threaten Europe; and, in their grandiloquent language, saw another camp of Xerxes, or of the hordes of Tamerlane. To which kind of diplomatic menace this great display belonged, it is not our purpose to inquire. It is enough for us to know that with the clang of arms were also to mingle all the luxuries of Muscovite orientalism. As at the time of that famous journey which Catharine made on the Dnieper by order of Potemkin, sham cities and villages of wood and paint, peopled by the inhabitants driven in from other provinces, arose on its solitary shores, so now were built palaces, parks, theatres, riding schools and dairies; and *If to contemplate the better side of human nature be a real pleasure and benefit, we may flatter ourselves we are putting our readers under some obligation to us for presenting them with an opportunity of doing so now. Although we can never contemplate the noble qualities of human nature without perceiving the strong back to give more life to the picture and gratify imperial majesty, the handsomest youths and maidens taken from the confiscated estates of the Ukraine and Podolia, were sent hither to be joined in wedlock and inhabit the steppes. All that was wanting to this autocratic fête champêtre, was that the Czar should himself don a straw hat and grasp a shepherd's crook. An It is a singular feature of our times that with all the royal shows and parades got up to impress the people, there always mingles the foreboding echo of some conspiracy, like the fiery hand at the feast of Belshazzar. active police frequently discovers, and still more frequently invents, secret plots with which to poison the most innocent pleasures of a monarch. Some time before the review at Woznesensk, the heads of the police of the neighboring districts of Luck and Wlodzimierz, suddenly received orders to track an emissary conspirator from France, who, under the assumed name of Moszynski, had crossed the frontier from Austria and taken the post from Wlodzimierz to Dubno; thence hired for a few miles the conveyance of a Jew, and finally started on foot and disappeared. The efforts of the police must at that time have been entirely fruitless, since for more than a year and a half they found no pretexts for harrassing the citizens with their investigations and extortions,-nor indeed until the Czar passed through Wilna on his way to the review. When the Governor General, Prince Dolhoruki, assured the Emperor of the loyal spirit of his province, and that his Majesty's bounties had obliterated the memory of the misfortunes of the last revolution, Nicholas tapped the Prince on the shoulder, and smiling said: "I believe you, my Prince, but notwithstanding watch narrowly; for while you are speaking this, Konarski perhaps is waylaying me. "Konarski !" inquired the astonished Governor. "Yes! Konarski," said the Emperor an emissary conspirator from France. Foreign police serves me better than my own. Here is a report from the embassy." In that report, as it was said, proofs were to be found of Konarski's sojourn in Lithuania, some details in regard to his correspondence with Paris, and some friendly confessions relative to the progress and movements of the secret society called "Propaganda;" all in general terms and without specification of persons or places. This was enough to set the imperial blood-hounds keenly on the scent. During all this period (from the first information of his sojourn until April, ground of deep shades that make us shudder at the very glance at them; yet when we look at the lights of the picture, their effulgence effaces the horror, and we feel once more a delightful calm of the soul. It is in such moments that we feel baptized anew in God's holy grace, and that we are his children, born heirs to a different land than the one around us. It is then when our soul expands to drink more and more of that heavenly influence, that we feel our faith in a beneficent Creator, and our love for man, wax stronger; and then are we indeed true believers. Such feelings, we have no doubt, will be reproduced in the bosoms of not a few of our readers on the perusal of this passage in the life of Konarski, which we here present to them in an English dress. But we expect to gain our readers' good will for more than this. We bring before them a specimen from the ore that, save to the Poles themselves, is scarcely known to the world. Indeed, to all foreigners, Polish literature is a terra incognita; and it is especially so to the merely English student. We know only by hearsay as it were, that the Poles have their history written in the blood of their innocent children; that much is buried under their ruins; but we know nothing farther. We can assure our readers that the mine is rich; rich enough to pay the workman generously. If circumstances would allow it, we should be glad to pioneer in this exploration, albeit we mistrust our own adequacy to the undertaking. There they would find many a thrilling story whose truth would look out of countenance fiction itself. Indeed we may safely say, that the heroism displayed in their last revolution alone, if collected, would outweigh that of all the Greek and Roman history combined. But we will - not dilate upon this theme. We may, perhaps, some other time, be tempted to exhibit to them some other fragments from our mining; but now, we will take leave of them with the request that they may bless the Almighty for the freedom they enjoy, and that they would make a solemn vow never to cast, as far as in them lies, the least weight into the scale of despotism.-W. |