l'Ain, another year in that of the Moselle, a third in another province, and 30 on-and thus, let an attempt at least be made, to isolate the children from their real parents, and to prevent it from being thought and felt by the mothers and fathers of those legitimate, but deserted children, that they have found in the nurses of the hospital nursing-mothers, anxious about their fate, and even attached to their persons."

But there is too much of cold-heartedness, too much of refinement of torture, in this system, to be adopted or approved by any society, even merely calling itself Christian. And, after all, though it would tend to render anxious the really poor, really helpless, really unfortunate, and really miserable parents of legitimate children, whose wants compelled them, rather than whose want of feeling led them, to resort to an act of desertion; and though it would cause many a pang to the poor helpless widow, whose husband, perhaps dying prematurely, had left her without the means of support; -yet, nearly all the evils resulting from such a state of things would fall on the unconscious and deserted child. Change of food, of air, of habitation, would pain and weary its little body, and its restless eye would be agitated instead of relieved, when it beheld new faces, new forms, and to it new sources of irritation and misery-and sought in vain for the face of its former nurse to which it had become habituated.

We say, then, without hesitation, that there is no effectual, permanent cure for this increasing and frightful evil of foundlings and deserted children--with infanticide on the one hand, or death, by too long exposure to cold and starvation at the doors of the asylums, on the other hand, but the moral and religious education of the lower orders. And we say this. with the more confidence, because the statistics of these subjects have shown us, 1st, That the most ignorant and vicious portion of the French population desert their children most frequently; 2d, That it is not always poverty, but more frequently vice, and want of natural affection, and of a sense of moral duty, which lead to the desertion of these children; and, 3d, That in the cases of deserted legitimate children, there are more deserted who are the offspring of bad than of needy parents. We then repeat,

that the only radical cure for this admitted and growing evil, is the moral and religious education of the lower orders.

The voyage of De Lamartine in the East, has rendered him in France a sort of authority on all questions of a political character relating to that portion of the globe. Whenever the affairs of Turkey and Egypt are, therefore, brought under discussion, his voice is heard; and the following eloquent description of the present state of what is called the Turkish Empire, we extract from a speech delivered by him, on 8th January, 1834. De Lamartine is of opinion that the epoch is not far distant when that empire will perishand when its once united and powerful, but now enfeebled and divided territory must be appropriated by Europe, either pacifically, or as the result of war, among the other various nations of the continent. Still, he exclaimed

"Let me explain myself, gentlemen. I do not desire that Turkey should perishthat a vast empire should be reduced to nothingness, or be driven back to the deserts of Asia. I do not desire that a new

crusade, that a civilizing fanaticism should give place to civilisation by the sword.

I es

God forbid that we should so act! We should indeed then be barbarians. teem and I love the Turks. This sentiment is felt by all those who have lived amongst that generous and hospitable people. But if I owe it to truth and to gratitude to render justice to this race of men as individuals, as members of the human family, I also owe it to mankind to declare, that, as a government, and above all as an administration, it is the most absolute negation of all possible sociabilityit is barbarism in all its brutal sincerityit is the permanent and organized suicide of the human race.

"And here, gentlemen, as we are discussing situations and reporting facts, permit me to state some of importance for your consideration. When you hear me speak of a nation, of an empire, of an immense state, which covers, by its name at least, the two finest portions of Europe and of Asia, and which embraces more than half of the coast of the Mediterranean, these words nation and empire give you naturally the idea of something analogous to that which we define by these words when we make use of them among ourselves. You at once imagine to yourselves a country, families, property, land cultivated and embellished by the hand of man: you at once

is composed of deserts! Yet it is there that the Mahometan population is still to be found in the greatest masses. But if Broussa, Smyrna, Koniah, and Kutaya be excepted, the four great cities where the Turkish population predominates, the rest is in the power of the Turkomans, a savage and wandering race, which covers the sides of Mount Taurus, there shelters itself against the tyranny of the pachas, and descends to conduct its troops into the plains, or to ravage those plains if they should be opposed. You will be able to form an idea, gentlemen, of the degree of force of the national bond which attaches these countries and these cities to the capital, when you know that, in the last war, two officers sent from fifty leagues off to Smyrna by Ibrahim Pacha, caused this city of one hundred thousand souls to recognise his authority, and that all the people of Caramania would not supply one soldier to march against him.

"Syria, this garden of the world, is still the finest and the most fertile country of the east The wandering Arabs-the agricultural Arabs-the Druses-the Maronites-and the Mussulmen-and the Syrian Greeks, divided amongst themselves, compose its population. The Turks are scarcely the twentieth portion. The towns and cities on the coast-Alexandretta, Latakia, Tripoli, Beyruth, Jaffa, and Gaza contain a great number of Christians.

"Nearly the whole of Lebanon is in the power of the Maronites, an Arab and a Catholic nation of two millions of men, which has conquered, by its courage and its virtues, a bona fide independence, which possesses land and property, which cultivates it, which loves commerce and civilization, and which, I believe, will form the germ of a race of meu who will dominate in that portion of the world. It recognises the authority of the Grand Emir of the Druses, the Emir Beschir, a politic and warlike old man, whom both the Turks and Egyptians have equally feared; who can, by an order, at once raise 40,000 fighting men; who causes Aleppo, Damascus, Jerusalem, and their coasts, turn by turn, to tremble; and who then returns to his palace of Ptédin or Dabel-el-Kamar, seated in the very heart of his dominions-an inaccessible fortress of a hundred leagues of circumference! He only obeys the Turks, as the all-powerful vassals of the middle ages obeyed their Suzerain. Damascus rises, vast and isolated, in the midst of a desert. Its population is Turkish, but it contains within its walls 30,000 Armenians, Christians, and many Jews. The remainder of the territory is rather a prey

to, than possessed by, the Arab tribes, independent families in the midst of the great Mussulman family, who pass over, according to their rapacity or caprice, from one dominion to another.

"Jerusalem rises on the confines of Syria, between Arabia Petrea and the deserts of Egypt-a city which is neutral, poor, helpless, accustomed to all yokes, the common centre of all religious beliefs, and the Holy City not only of the Christian, but even of the Mussulmen, who have placed the Mosque of Osman on the foundations of the Temple of Solomon. Then comes Egypt. There is being performed at this moment one of the most marvellous scenes of these fugitive dramas of the East. You know the revolt of Mehemet Ali, and the glory of his son Ibrahim, both great men, the father for his political knowledge, the son for his sword. I was present at his triumphs. I saw him overthrow the walls of Jaffa, which Napoleon himself was unable to shake-traversing as a conqueror Damascus and Aleppotwice disperse, by dint of his audacity, the two last armies of the Sultan, I saw him take the Grand Vizier, and only stop within a few marches from Constantinople before the letter of an European ambassador! He would have entered, gentlemen, without obstacle-he would even have triumphed in the capital of the empire-he would have founded a new dy, nasty, though reprobated by the laws and manners of the people; all the East was silent before him, as it was before Alexander the Great-but a word from the West stopped him-he drew back-he left his work of power and of glory incomplete.

"This trait alone, gentlemen, shows you the empire of civilisation over barbarism. Barbarism, when even triumphant, has the consciousness of its weakness. This will show you what Europe can do, if she has the intelligence to comprehend and the sentiment to feel the importanee of her mission. Ibrahim does not civilize -he conquers he gains victories-he submits to his genius, and before his audacity, the trembling population, who are wholly indifferent as to the name of their oppressor, He only occupies soldiershe only administrates for his army; all the rest, in Egypt and in Syria, is in the same situation as before he rose into importance. He is a meteor which burns brightly, but which passes away. He ravages, but he does not found; and at his death he will leave nothing behind him but the parting noise and glittering glare of a meteor. These conquests of his, will explain to you those of Alexander the Great. those countries where there is neither nationality, property, nor country, the con

In

queror only finds slaves, and victory is always hailed with rapture.

"You see, gentlemen, by this rapid picture, that what is called the Ottoman Empire, is not an empire, but it is a conglomeration of various races without cohesion, without common interest, without language, without laws, without religion, without uniform manners, and without either unity or fixedness of power, You see nothing but the vastest constituted anarchy of which political phenomena have ever presented the model. You see that the breath of life which animated it-re

ligious fanaticism-is extinct. You see

that his sad and blind administration has devoured even the race of conquerors, and that Turkey perishes for want of Turks.

"In the centre of this vast anarchy the capital of Islamism rises-a foot on Europe --and a foot on Asia. The Sultan Mahmoud—a prince raised by misfortune-a prince who feels that the empire is crumbling beneath him, but who cannot prevent it appears at last to have despaired of his throne and of his people, and now only asks of that Russian power, which he vainly attempted to combat, to allow him to reign to the end of his life. Russia, alone, gentlemen, has prevented the fall of this throne-the final dismemberment

of this shade of sovereignty. A few days more, and the Sultan would have existed no longer the Arabs would have entered

Constantinople. Let Russia withdraw her interested, but yet protecting, hand, and the empire would again fall.

And yet, beneath this humiliating protection of his enemy, the Porte trembles, and the Sultan cannot sleep in tranquillity. He was a great man one day-the day when he destroyed, by means of dissimulation, of personal courage, and of audacity of mind, the hereditary empire of the Janissaries. But there are states, the vital principle of whose existence consists even in their vices -and who would be slain by reform, instead of being regenerated. Such was the Ottoman empire! The military spirit of the people, which was only popular fanaticism, disappeared with the Janissaries. There is no longer an army. National manners have refused to bend themselves to reforms, which were sustained with blindness and want of energy. There is no longer an Ottoman spirit!"

And right joyously would we go on with the pleasurable work of translat. ing from this charming and enticing oration of our author, did we not feel that we would be thus extending the sketch we have proposed to a large and very detailed picture.

In the works of De Lamartine, whe

ther poetical or prose, we find the reflection of his own mind and character. There is justice in all he says, in all he pleads for, in all he wishes to feel himself, or to make others feel with him. If, then, he pleads for Poland, he pleads for outraged treaties-for violated European arrangements, and for a people who have the right to be esteemed and protected. If he pleads for Greece, he does not nauseate you with the cant of the descendants of the heroes of Thermopylæ, nor does he represent them as the models of virtue and patriotism; but he advocates their cause as a weak, helpless, and oppressed people, seeking to live independent, and yet scarcely able to understand or feel the value of the inde, dendence for which they sigh. If he pleads for the non-conversion of the French five per cents, it is because he thinks that such conversion would be an unjust violation of the original fundamental pact between the state and the public creditor. If he pleads against the laws of September, it is because he considers that there is not in them that principle of justice, with out which laws may be binding on men, but are not acquiesced in by the majority. If he pleads for the abolition of slavery, it is for gradual abolition, just abolition, for an abolition which shall be compensated for to those who would necessarily suffer from it. If he pleads for the abolition of capital punishments, it is because he thinks, that in all cases except that of murder, it is not just that a man should die for an offence which is not equal in its enormity to the amount of the punishment. If he pleads for political associations, or rather, we should say, for less of rigour against them, it is because he thinks it only an act of justice to recognise, that in free states and under constitutional monarchies, such associations are necessary to the liberties and happiness of the people, and have on various important occasions been productive of immense good. he pleads for the liberty of the press, it is because, whilst he admits that its licentiousness is a vast evil, yet its power and influence are of incalculable value; and that, even the press itself, notwithstanding all its defects, corrects the errors of the press. he pleads, with such captivating eloquence the cause of the poor found. lings, it is because he thinks it just to

If

If

be humane, and that humanity and justice require that the state should protect those who are wholly unable to protect themselves. If he pleads for the growers of home sugar, it is because he thinks it unjust to have encouraged French agriculturists to cultivate the beet-root for that purpose, and then to leave them without protection. If he pleads against military tribunals being applied to civil of fenders, even though the latter should conspire in concert with soldiers, it is because he thinks it unjust that a man should not be tried by his equals, and his equals, his fellows, are not military judges, but a jury of civilians. If he pleads for an amnesty, for its extensive application, and for its freedom from all restraints, it is because he thinks it just, that after a great political revolution, in which all deserve blame, at least that portion of the people should be pardoned for their errors who are the least instructed, and the most under the influence of their passions. We might continue our examples to a much greater length-but these are sufficient to establish the accuracy of our observation.

The same principles of justness, and love of justice, which is in him the source or foundation of his actions, is also the cause of his moderation of language, purity of diction, and of that proportion which exists between that which he means to say or to write; that which he ought to say and to write, and that which he does say and write. So the thoughts of his poetry are symmetrical. There is nothing bombastic in his mind-and, therefore, his writings, whilst eloquent, sometimes impassioned, and often didactic, are always just. Even his descriptions of nature and even the creations of his fancy-are all so just, whilst they are so brilliant, that it is the romance of real life which he makes you interested in, and feel about, and you are never ashamed of your emotions. We certainly think this great praise-but it is deserved on the part of De Lamartine, and why then should we hesitate to accord it?

But we must close. The life of De Lamartine is a double one. He is a poet and a politician-a Christian moralist and an enlightened statesman. His mind is large-his activity great his exertions indefatigable. His labours

are political, philosophical, and literary. His existence is, however, calm and dignified. It is spent at Paris, or at Saint Point, the old family residence of his father. During winter he is at the Tribune. He takes a deep and lively interest in all the passing events, examines them, and prepares to act as one should do, who believes himself capable of operating on the minds and convictions of large masses of beings. His poetry is then forgotten-and his prose alone remains. At Paris, he never writes poetry: it is at Saint Point that he gives himself up to the muse and the lyre. In Paris, he receives his friends at his residence at the Rue de l' Université twice aweek, and there he listens to all the plans which are brought before him for the amelioration of the condition of our poor humanity.

When the month of June arrives, the Chambers break up--the political life of De Lamartine is at an endand another existence commences. He quits the capital for Macon - reaches his old chateau of Saint Point, with its old elms, its Arab coursers, its devoted farmers, its repose, and its sanctity, sacred as it is to him for its holy inspirations and its souvenirs of the dead; and there, some miles from Macon, he passes his days, till summoned by his parliamentary duties to a Parisian life. At the chateau of Saint Point, in a small study, facing a chapel, behind which repose, in the cemetry, the ashes of his mother and his children, De Lamartine writes his beautiful poems. It will one day be the object of a literary and political, social and moral pilgrimage. May that day be far distant!

De Lamartine is yet in the prime of life-possessing true patriotism, and true genius, being at once a Christian Conservative, and a magnificent poet; having a heart large as the world he loves, and a judgment matured by experience, and regulated by observation and reading-with a fancy and imagination unsurpassed by any living beingand all brought under subjection to religious influences and religious objects

he may render great service to his country, to his age, and to the world. That he will do so, we cannot doubt, and with him we have but one regret that he is not a Protestant.