Then, turn where we may, on our young faces center'd

The fond looks of friends and of parents we meet.

To stretch out for aid when our weak arms have ventur'd,

A kiss is our guerdon, so pure and so sweet.

Thus move we on, pleas'd with what earth seems to give;

To live we're content since we feel that we live.

When we view from our cradle the world as it seemeth,

No thorn meets our eye 'mid its flow'rets' gay sheen;

Its oceans are calm, and its moon silvery gleameth,

Its fountains are crystal, its meadows are green;

Its fortune is steadfast, its sun ever beameth,

And Fairyland's phantoms inhabit the

scene;

And bright starry canopy sparkling on high, Lends a thin floating veil to embellish its sky.

Conducted by Peace, on our calm childhood waiting,

We advance o'er a cheerful and smooth beaten way;

And as we speed onwards, our pupils dilating

Are eager for light, though half shaded its ray;

But soon for our ripening age Pleasure creating

False joys, to an idol-shrine lures us, her prey ;

Where with hands ever full, she still lavishes all

That men in their weakness "the life of love" call.

In his magic home there ardent Youth dwells, admiring

The light joyous phantoms he revels among;

Fair forms to his visions he gives; and desiring

To rule as a Monarch that world and its throng,

He feels, to accomplish an aim so aspiring, He needs all that's beautiful, valiant, and strong.

Thus his region's false splendour, and all its vain rays,

To our senses o'erdazzled, he featly displays.

Ah! there are the mirrors of phantasy glowing

With figures illusive, deceiving the sight; And there a mock sun on the dimm'd glasses throwing

Youth! thy easy Balance swaying,
See how doth Life's weight prevail !
Life, alas! light hope outweighing,
Sinks with fast-descending scale.
Ah! how soon do Forms Elysian

Vanish, and for ever, hence;
Forms that once in joyous vision

Pleas'd our childhood's innocence. Youth, thou glids't away while weaving Spells for hearts thou art deceiving, Only dust and ashes leaving

Where we look'd thy gold to see. Youth! that flowers from spring dost borrow, All thy lights are shades the morrow, All thy pleasure is but sorrow,

All thy grace is vanity.

Youth! thou giv'st us eyes that see not,
Thoughts that ne'er inform the brain;
We believe in things that be not-
We idealise in vain.
We existence enter dreaming;

And our every day of life
In thy sphere of specious seeming,
More and more with dreams is rife.
Deem we, by fond Hope affected,
Eden in thy glass reflected?
Reason rends the veil-detected.

Then thy emptiness is shown; Then the torch of Truth discloses, 'Stead of all thy blushing roses, 'Stead of flowers where Love reposes, Wilderness of thorns alone

III.

Glory and Fame, achievements we
Exult to claim in youthful day;

Alas! the thorns of memory

The canker-worms of Hope are they.

Those sweet, false names whose magic soothes, Friendship, and Love, and Trust, are thorns; And thorns alike are human Truths,

Rude spines that not a flower adorns.

Thorns are the Hopes of early years,

And thorns are Science, Wisdom's power: Tell me, dark Fate, amid thy tears,

Of all these thorns where is the flower?

Youth! season of fantastic shades,

That vanish where Truth's light has shone, Lives not one flower amid thy glades?— One, though unheeded and alone?

Though false thy wreaths of bliss and love, True thorns of grief are felt each hour; Ah! where lies hid in Heaven above

Of all these thorns the guerdon flower!*

Zorrilla had been struggling on towards literary distinction, chiefly as a writer in periodicals; while Larra, a man of brilliant but eccentric talents, engrossed the attention of Madrid. But Larra, whose temper was hot and uncontrollable, excited beyond sanity by some unexpected vexation, committed suicide by shooting himself through the head, in February, 1837. Zorrilla rose suddenly to fame by an epicedium on the unfortunate Larra, which he recited beside his grave at the time of his interment. We do not give the poem, because it is generally allowed to be inferior to Zorrilla's powers; though, from the circumstances of the time and place, and the state of public feeling when recited, it was received with enthusiastic applause. But there is another poem of his, of which the memory of Larra was the inspiring cause, which we much prefer to the epicedium. A lady having requested Zorrilla to inscribe some lines in her album, among the contributions of other poets, he found that the page on which he was about to write was immediately preceded by one filled with a beautiful and pathetic romance, from the pen of the departed Larra. His feelings on this occasion he has recorded in the effusion which he left in the album, and which he entitled

THE DOUBT.†

"Quando al escribir en ellas," &c.

Ere on these fair leaves writing,
I gaze in silence long;
Lady! I doubt me whether

To pour forth tear or song.
Such mem'ries here are treasur'd,

My mournful heart they wound; The more, that 'mid sweet blossoms These lurking thorns are found. The lay of tearful lover

Invites (with feeling deep), Less in his strains to mingle Than with his tears to weep. So plaintive are the numbers

Of him, our honour'd dead, That in my eyelids tremble

The drops they fain would shed. Since thus while others chaunted, One hath been weeping here; Lady! I doubt me whether

To pour forth song or tear. Would from my pen that roses Instead of words would spring! Their fragrant forms entwining, A votive wreath I'd bring. But here must flow'rets wither Beneath the cypress tree: Here, where the dead hath spoken, Mute should the living be. The dead!-to this his record

Be reverence duly paid; Perhaps around us hovers

E'en now his watchful shade.
I know my indecision

Hath well deserv'd thy blame;
My conscious fault is dyeing
My cheek with flush of shame.
Yet, O forgive that gazing

On these fair leaves so long,
Lady! I doubt me whether

To pour forth tear or song.

That thou sweet song dost merit,
So fully all agree,
That e'en a doubt implying

Would be but flattery.
Nor less we feel remembrance
To him is justly due,
Whom as an ardent lover

And child of grief we knew.
My mind, by both divided,

Decision strives to gain;
Be his sad mem'ry's homage-
Be thine the poet's strain.
All that of honour claimeth,
Thy gentle sex's bloom,

So much in tribute asketh,
His mournful shade, his tomb.

We have abridged this division of the poem.

VOL. XLIV.-NO. CCLIX.

H

THOUGH We thought ourselves pretty well acquainted with the subject this work treats of, we had no idea it was so full of striking, interesting, and important facts. M. Weiss has opened a rich mine of history, which, though familiar in name, and generally to every one, has been hitherto, as a whole, and in the multitude of its most instructive details, not only unexplored but almost neglected. Just at this time of a revival of Popery and ultramontanism in France, and in some degree in England, too, his work cannot fail to have the effect of a most powerful reply to all the renewed pretensions of Rome. And this the more effectually, as it is neither controversial, polemical, nor theological; but a plain and pre-eminently impartial statement of a long and connected series of facts, so graphically put together, that they speak, as it were, to the very eye of the reader, without involving him in any puzzling questions at all. We have met with no book that so strongly, without advocacy, recommends Protestantism, as seen in its social and political results; or, that so strongly, without ire, condemns Popery from the same point of view. It is refreshing in these days of fantastic literature and romantic philosophy, to read so sound a production -sound in style, sound in thoughta great and conscientious labour, directed to a great and beneficial end. For this publication cannot fail greatly to promote the cause of the Reformation in France just at this critical juncture, when there are so many Frenchmen of the highest class of intellect and character in that country, seeking anxiously for some safe medium of mind (which Protestantism affords), that, nationally or widely prevailing among them, may at once gurantee progress, and bar out revolution.

Undertaking to make good these

assertions as we proceed, we will come now to close quarters with the work before us; and the remark that first strikes us as singular and important is, that that which makes its excellence was the cause itself of the downfall of French Protestantism, and is likely to bring Protestantism, paradoxical as this opinion may appear, again into favour with the French people; we mean the well-nigh exclusively social and political, that is, mundane, temper and tendency, both of M. Weiss's history of the refugees, and of the first establishment of the reformed creed in France. Leaving one branch of this argument for consideration, should space permit, towards the close of this paper, we will now show how the secular character stamped from the beginning on the reformation by Frenchmen, whilst it produced its momentary success among them, led speedily to its total discomfiture.

The special causes of this discomfiture of Protestantism in France have always struck us to be principally the following:-1st, the want of devotional piety among the chief of the French Reformers; 2nd, the too early adoption of the Protestant doctrine by the nobility; and 3rd, the establishment of Protestantism as a separate temporal power within the State.

With respect to the first of these causes, we have only to muster before our mind's eye the great leaders of the Reform party, to be convinced that they were much more emphatically warriors, statesmen, and courtiers than religionists. High men though they were, and among the first heroes of the French nation, Coligni, D'Andelot, La None, &c. with the exception, perhaps, of Duplessis Mornay-speak to us much more of chivalry than of Christianity. Sully and De Thou were, the one a statesman, and the other a philosopher. Henry IV. was a