Immortal, bright, beneficent, Faith, used to victories, on thy roll That would insult the dead: Translated by F. C. GRAY. TO SOLITUDE. [Luigi V. Savioli, Italian poet, historian and statesman, was born 1729, died 1804. The poems of Savioli were published in his youth, under the title of Amori. They had an immense success and placed him among the first Anacreontic writers of the age. His style was gay and elegant. He also wrote a translation of Tacitus and began a historical work entitled Annali Bolognesi, which was interrupted by his death.] Away with fabled names that shine I tune my lyre to sing the deeds Old Sparta, sternly virtuous, made The pure and spotless maiden No crimson hues along the cheek Nor word, nor look, betrays the fire But Beauty yielded not the palm How boldly fought the Spartan host, When Love the victor cherished, And tears of secret grief were shed O'er the brave men who perished! O, wherefore have ye fled, ye days Pure, holy, ever glorious; While avarice, luxury and fraud Now reign o'er all victorious? Then haste away, O dearest one, To scenes where peace abideth; Far from the haunts of haughty men, The day in calmness glideth. Lo! there, 'mid lovely verdant slopes, On high the mountain towers; Penelope, in all her pride, Dwelt in less regal bowers. The cypress there, pale Hecate's tree, Dark shade to shade opposes. There, too, the tree, which, as it sighed To hear on Phrygia's mountain. Erst a lone grot, with native marks 'Twas found by Art, who emulous With Nature joined her treasure; And Thetis drew from all her stores To deck the abode of pleasure. In tranquil grace, beside the cave, Translated in Quarterly Review. HUMAN REASON, PAGANISM AND RELIGION. [Emilio Castelar, an eminent Spanish statesman and brilliant orator, was born in 1832. The son of a broker, and in early life left in poverty by his father's death, he devoted himself zealously to study, and began his career by writing romances and poems. Soon after attaining his majority, Castelar began to distinguish himself in the political agitations of Spain as an advanced liberal. In the insurrection of 1854, he contributed powerful republican articles to the journals. In 1856 Castelar was chosen professor of history in the University of Madrid, but in 1864 he was deprived of his chair, because of his having established a radical journal entitled, La Democracia. This paper was suppressed in 1866, and Castelar was sentenced to death for his share in the political disturbances of that year. He escaped to Switzerland, whence he went to France for a year or two. Returning to Madrid at the Revolution of 1868, Castelar became one of the most ardent chiefs of the Republican movement. He organized popular assemblies to demand the immediate proclamation of the republic, and swayed the multitude by his marvellous eloquence. Elected to the National Assembly, Castelar advocated a general amnesty and opposed all the attempts to re-establish the monarchy. In 1873 Castelar became Minister of Foreign Affairs on the ablication of King Amadeo, and the same year was elected president of the new-fledged Spanish Republic. In 1874 he resigned, being unable to command a ma jority in the Cortes, and the assembly was dissolved by a military usurpation. Castelar now travelled in Spain and France, received everywhere with the warmest ac clamation as the champion of the rights of man. On the accession of Alphonso XII. he was again elected to the Cortes, where he became the most eloquent defender of universal suffrage and religious liberty. heaven to earth, by the telescope, to solve its secrets; it is human reason that has written marvellous codes of law, that has crushed out slavery, and that has established liberty among men. They who would blot out human reason would obscure and darken the soul of man, and then destroy liberty, the fountain of all morality, the basis of all society. They would utter a horrible blasphemy in the face of the Eternal, who has created the reason of man in his likeness, that there might exist upon earth some trace of his divine image. The primitive Paganism, which had been a worship of external objects, in their concrete individuality, from that point advanced to the adoration of all nature, and converted itself into a pantheisin which embraced in its immensity the creation, man, and God. For the systems and the books of the priesthood, it substituted the systems and the books of cosmogony. But very soon the reason of man protested against the ancient theogonies and the ancient theocracies. It encountered indeed in man himself a standard superior to the standards of the writer, and orator are equalled by the virtues of his priests, a moral more pure than the morprivate character, and his amiable nature has preserved ality of Paganism, a thought more lofty to him faithful friendships among those most opposed and sublime than all the thoughts locked to him politically. As a scholar, Castelar stands in the up in the old theogonies,-namely, that foremost rank as a man of lofty ideas, thorough equip- the gods were not the reflection of nature, ment of learning, and broad humanity. Professor of but the reflection of conscience; not rephistory at the University of Madrid, his eloquent and resenting the forces of the globe, but repinstructive lectures on civilization marked a new era in resenting the ideas of human reason. the intellectual life of Spain, and extended his reputa- Then appeared Homer who denied the old tion over Europe. The characteristics of Castelar's religion and established a new religion. eloquence are clearness of style, wealth of historical Hesiod is the great theologian of this reillustration, fervor of imagination and lofty enthusiasm.ligious age, as Orpheus is the theologian His utterances are instinct with life and sympathy, and The rare qualities of Emilio Castelar as a statesman, are animated with a high moral purpose. There is room only for one brief illustration of Castelarʼs style, translated by the editor from his discourses on Greek Philosophy and Paganism, pronounced at the Athenæum, in Madrid, in 1857.] It was human reason which first studied and comprehended nature; it was human reason that forged the sceptre which makes man the sovereign of creation; it was human reason that wrote the poems of Homer and the epic of Dante, that erected the Parthenon and the dome of St. Peter's, that created the Apollo Belvedere and the paintings of Raphael; it was human reason that has captured the winds, subjected the seas, and drawn the stars from of the age preceding. Paganism exerted a decided social, political, and artistic influence, as well in Greece as in Rome. But in Greece and Rome the philosophers, who personified human reason, with the weapons of dialectics decomposed and destroyed Paganism. Then the priests conceived the idea of imparting a great splendor to the mysteries by constraining with the terrors and the hopes of another life, the souls that sought to flee from their dominion in this. But there was no remedy. Paganism arrived at the end of deifying the monsters which had tyrannized over men, and bowed down before these foul and dying idols, in order to fulfil the eternal plan of Providence in history. Paganism, then, died without remedy. The thunderbolt of Jupiter was extinguished in his hand; the stars which served as the crown of Juno were turned to dust; the cincture of Venus, once so luminous, lost all its lustre; the goddess of love, unfruitful and sterile, was extinguished in nothingness; Apollo dropped his lyre, lost in the starry void; the corn and the flowers that composed the diadem of Ceres were swept away by the winds; the waters drowned Neptune; the fire consumed Pluto; the god Pan, once so radiant and joyous, threw himself into the waves of the Mediterranean in pursuit of death; the genii who wandered among the stars found in the stars their graves; the waters of the rivers swept towards the sea the bodies of the Nereids who had perished; the shady groves lost their mysteries, nature its voice and its poetry; the marbles of Paros no longer shone with the light of artistic inspiration, and the unquenchable life of Paganism was extinguished. And, then, upon the ruins of that religion of art arose the divine religion, the celestial religion, which came to exalt the lowly, the unfortunate and the unhappy; which came to restrain the swords of the barbarians wielded in the destruction of the marble forms of the gods; which came to destroy the gods born of nature, and to replace them by the eternal God of truth and of science; which came to proclaim the liberty of man, the equality of all races, the sacred fraternity of all peoples; the religion which forever consecrates the triumph of the soul over nature, of liberty over privilege, of God over all the dark shadows of history. Translated by A. R. SPOFFORD. we cannot make any lengthened extract for the family circle, so we content ourselves with a brief story.] Said the king, "Pray tell me the story of your Chaplain Poussatin.' 66 Sir," said the Chevalier de Grammont, the Prince de Condé besieged Lerida: the place in itself was nothing; but Don Gregorio Brice, who defended it, was something. He was one of those Spaniards of the old stamp, as valiant as the Cid, as proud as all the Guzmans put together, and more gallant than all the Abencerrages of Grenada: he suffered us to make our first approaches to the place without the least molestation. The Marshal de Grammont, whose maxim it was, that a governor who at first makes a great blustering, and burns his suburbs in order to make a noble defence, generally makes a very bad one, looked upon Gregorio de Brice's politeness as no good omen for us; but the prince, covered with glory, and elated with the campaigns of Rocroy, Nordlingen and Fribourg, to insult both the place and the governor, ordered the trenches to be mounted at noon-day by his own regiment, at the head of which marched four and twenty fiddlers, as if it had been to a wedding. "Night approaching we were all in high spirits: our violins were playing soft airs, and we were comfortably regaling ourselves; God knows how we were joking about the poor governor and his fortifications, both of which we promised ourselves to take in less than twenty-four hours. This was going on in the trenches, when we heard an ominous cry from the ramparts, repeated two or three times, of Alerte on the walls!' This cry was followed by a discharge of cannon and musketry, and this discharge by a vigorous sally, which, after having filled up the trenches, pursued us as far as our grande guard. "The next day Gregorio Brice sent by THE STORY OF CHAPLAIN POUS- a trumpet a present of ice and fruit to the SATIN. [Count Anthony Hamilton (born about 1646, died 1720) wrote the Memoirs de Grammont, and translated Pope's Essay on Criticism into French. His com plete works appeared in 1813. These celebrated memoirs are generally acknowledged to be one of the wittiest productions in any language, and are valuable as presenting an exact picture of the court and times of Charles the Second, of England; but unfortunately Prince de Condé, humbly beseeching his highness to excuse his not returning the serenade with which he was pleased to favor him, as unfortunately he had no violins; but that if the music of last night was not disagreeable to him, he would endeavor to continue it as long as he did him the honor to remain before the place. The Spaniard was as good as his word; and as soon as we heard, 'Alerte on the walls,' we were sure of a sally, that cleared our trenches, destroyed our works, and killed the best of our officers and soldiers. The prince was so piqued at it, that, contrary to the opinion of the general officers, he obstinately persisted in carrying on a siege, which was likely to ruin his army, and which he was at last forced to quit in a hurry. "As our troops were retiring, Don Gregorio, far from giving himself those airs which governors generally do on such occasions, made no other sally than sending a respectful compliment to the prince. Signor Brice set out not long after for Madrid, to give an account of his conduct, and to receive the recompense he had merited. Your majesty perhaps will be desirous to know what reception poor Brice met with, after having performed the most brilliant action the Spaniards could boast of in all the war-he was confined by the inquisition. How! said the Queen Dowager, confined by the inquisition for his services! Not altogether for his services, said the Chevalier; but without any regard to his services, he was treated in the manner I have mentioned, for a little affair of gallantry, which I shall relate to the King presently. The campaign of Catalonia being thus ended, we were returning home, not overloaded with laurels; but as the Prince de Condé had laid up a great store on former occasions, and as he had still great projects in his head, he soon forgot this trifling misfortune. We did nothing but joke with one another during the march, and the prince was the first to ridicule the siege. We made some of those rhymes on Lerida, which were sung all over France, in order to prevent others more severe; however, we gained nothing by it, for notwithstanding we treated ourselves freely in our own ballads, others were composed in Paris, in which we were ten times more severely handled. At last we arrived at Perpignan upon a holiday: a company of Catalans, who were dancing in the middle of the street, out of respect to the prince came to dance under his windows. Monsieur Poussatin, in a little black jacket, danced in the middle of this company as if he was really mad. I immediately recognized him for my countryman, from his manner of skipping and frisking about: the prince was charmed with his humor and activity. After the dance, I sent for him, and inquired who he was: a poor priest, at your service, my lord, said he: my name is Poussatin and Bearn is my native country: I was going into Catalonia to serve in the infantry, for, God be praised, I can march very well on foot; but, since the war is happily concluded, if your lordship pleases to take me into your service, I would follow you everywhere, and serve you faithfully. Monsieur Poussatin, said I, my lordship has no great occasion for a chaplain; but since you are so well disposed towards me, I will take you into my service. "The Prince de Condé, who was present at this conversation, was overjoyed at my having a chaplain. As poor Poussatin was in a very tattered condition, I had no time to provide him with a proper habit at Perpignan; but giving him a spare livery of one of the Marshal de Grammont's servants, I made him get up behind the prince's coach, who was likely to die with laughing every time he looked at poor Poussatin's uncanonical mien in a yellow livery. 66 As soon as we arrived at Paris, the story was told to the Queen, who at first expressed some surprise at it; this, however, did not prevent her from wishing to see my chaplain dance; for in Spain it is not altogether so strange to see ecclesiastics dance, as to see them in livery. 64 Poussatin performed wonders before the Queen; but as he danced with great sprightliness, she could not bear the odor which his violent motions diffused around her room; the ladies likewise began to pray for relief; for he had almost entirely got the better of all the perfumes and essences with which they were fortified. Poussatin, nevertheless, retired with a great deal of applause, and some louis d'or. 66 Some time afterwards I procured a small benefice in the country for my chaplain, and I have since been informed that Poussatin preached with the same ease in his village, as he danced at the wedding of his parishioners.' The King was exceedingly diverted at Poussatin's history; and the Queen was not much hurt at his having been put in livery. |