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When shall I see him who hath given thee life,
My youthful husband, noblest of his race?
Methinks I see, blest mother, and blest wife!
Thy little hands thy father's neck embrace.

How will he revel in thy first caress,

Disputing with thee for my gentle kiss! But think not to engross his tenderness, Clotilda too shall have her share of bliss.

How will he joy to see his image there,
The sweetness of his large cerulean eye!
His noble forehead, and his graceful air,
Which Love himself might view with jealousy.

For me I am not jealous of his love,

And gladly I divide it, sweet, with thee; Thou shalt, like him, a faithful husband prove, But not, like him, give this anxiety.

I speak to thee-thou understand'st me not-
Thou couldst not understand, though sleep were fled-
Poor little child! the tangles of his thought,
His infant thought, are not unravelled.

We have been happy infants, as thou art;
Sad reason will destroy the dream too soon;
Sleep in the calm repose that stills thy heart,

Ere long its very memory will be gone!"

LAST VERSES OF THE DUC DE NIVERNOIS.

THIS venerable Peer, the negociator of the peace of 1763, died at St. Ouen, near Paris, in June, 1797, at the age of eighty-two. His poetical talents, and his friendship for Barthelemi, the author of "Anacharsis," are well known. A few hours before his death, it was recommended to have a consultation of physicians; but he declined the proposal, by addressing the following note to his friend and physician, Lacaille, who regularly attended him:

"Ne consultons point d'avocats;
Hippocrates ne viendrait pas :

Je n'en ai point d'autres en ma cure
Que l'Amitié, que la Nature,

Qui font bonne guerre au trépas.

Mais peut-être dame Nature

A dejà décidé mon cas;

Moi du moins sans changer d'allure
Je veux mourir entre vos bras."

TRANSLATION.

"Now advocates shall plead in vain,

Hippocrates his aid denies;

None other counsel I'll retain,

Than Nature's power, sweet Friendship's ties,

Or Death will hear them and obey:
Or Nature has pronounc'd my doom,
In thy lov'd arms no fears dismay,

Let Friendship lead me to the tomb."

LOVE SONGS.

A LITERAL translation of the love songs of the various races of mankind, from the mere savage to the enlightened European, would. afford a curious display of similar sentiments, diversified with local costume. Not a few which have been applauded by elegant circles in both London and Paris, but are much inferior to the following effusion of a Finland peasant girl, which was given to Colonel Skioldebrand, as a literary curiosity, by one of the most esteemed poets of Sweden:

"Oh! if my beloved would come,

If my well-known would appear;
How my kisses should fly to his lips,

Though they were tinged with the blood of the wolf,

How I would lock his hands in mine,

Though a serpent were intervowen with them.

Why has not the breath of the wind a voice?

Why has it not a tongue

To bear my thoughts to my love,

And bring the looks to me;

To exchange the discourse of two fond hearts?

I would refuse the feasts of the Curate,

I would reject the dress of his daughter,
Rather than resign the dear object:

He whom I have tried to enslave in the summer,
And to subdue in the winter!"

DEATH OF ALFIERI.

WHEN Alfieri was near his end, he was persuaded to see a priest. When the priest came, he said to him with an uncommon affability, "Have the kindness to look in to-morrow; I trust that Death will wait for four-and-twenty hours." The sacred monitor again appeared next day. Upon his entrance, Alfieri was sitting in his arm-chair, and said, "At present I fancy I have but few minutes to spare." He begged that the Countess of Albany, widow of Charles Edward Stuart, the Pretender, and who was, as the inscription on his tomb records, "his only love," might be brought in; and at the instant he saw her, he exclaimed, "Clasp my hand, my dear friend, I die."

"PARADISE LOST."

THIS poem, when ready for the press, was nearly being suppressed through the ignorance or malice of the Licenser, who saw or fancied treason in the following noble simile:

"As when the sun new risen

Looks through the horizontal misty air

Shorn of his beams: or from behind the moon,
In dim eclipse, disastrous twilight sheds
On half the nations, and with fear of change
Perplexes monarchs."

This obstacle overcome, Milton sold the copyright for five pounds, ready-money; to be paid the same sum when one thousand three hundred of the books should have been disposed of, and five more pounds when a second and third edition were published. By this agreement, Milton received but fifteen pounds; and afterwards, his widow gave up every claim for eight pounds.

VOLTAIRE AND SHAKSPEARE.

AN Englishman once complained to Voltaire, that few foreigners relished the beauties of

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