have wished the hours that intervened between our interviews, annihilated. My heart bleeds at the remembrance of what followed. I walked in the wood, at the hour of evening twilight, to taste my customary gratification. He was this evening alone. He poured out the fullness of confession of love, as deep,' he said, as it was hopeless.' At the moment, that my heart throbbed with unutterable emotions of joy, and my head beat almost to bursting, I summoned the most impenetrable appearance of coldness and disdain. I withdrew my hand, which he had unconsciously grasped, expressing surprise, as well as regret, that a slight service, accidentally accepted, should have emboldened him to such a presumptuous indiscretion. The officer turned deadly pale-admitted his rashness, which,' he said, 'not even his despair should have authorized,' and stammering out other half articulated words, in the form of an apology, he turned, and hurried away. What, after all, can you make of the human heart? I turned to pursue him. I would have become suppliant in turn, and would have recanted every word. I had made up my mind, to consent to be his upon any terms; with my parents consent, or without it. I immediately despatched a servant to the house; but he returned, informing, that he could not obtain admittance. Imagine, if you can, the horror of that long night. I neither undressed, nor went to bed. I discovered the golden beams of morning over the hills, as the condemned convict receives a reprieve. In my eagerness I was wholly regardless of forms. My only concern was, to let the officer be informed, that I loved in turn, and wished to meet him in the wood, immediately after breakfast. The servant brought back the following reply from the mother of the officer. 'My son departed last evening, to rejoin his company. I know not, and he requested me not to enquire the cause of his sudden departure. I loved him too well, and trusted him too entirely, to ask a question. I can only suspect, that he has received some urgent order from the army. All the earthly good, that I implore of God, is to have him in his holy keeping.' I ordered my carriage. I drove to the widow's house. I told her, I loved her son. I assured her, if he would return, I would at any time give him my hand, and follow him, if it were necessary, to the camp, immediately after marriage. An express was dispatched with a note to this effect, written by the mother and myself. It did not reach the army, until the evening of the fatal battle of Waterloo, in the official account of which, his name was given among the list of the slain. I know nothing, that ensued for a month, in which I was sick with fever, that touched my brain, and produced unconscious delirium. I have not a trace on my memory of all that took place during that long sickness. I regained consciousness in a state of such weakness and exhaustion, that I suffered little, even after the memory of the past revisited me, like the confused images of a distressing dream. But as my strength returned, so also did the bitterness of my recollections. Every place, where I had seen him, was insupportably repulsive to my thoughts. Every association, connected with my beautiful native France, was gloom. I formed the hasty resolution, to abandon my parents, my country and man; and in remote solitudes, to do penance to the end of my days. Every purpose of my life had been sudden, prompt and unchangeable. This was so. I had money, more VOL. III.-No. 1. than sufficient for my purposes, on hand. Disguised as a servant, I travelled in the dilligence to Marseilles; and from that port embarked for New Orleans. From Marseilles I apprized my brother of my love, my despair, my unalterable purpose of penance. I requested that my parents would forget me. I wished him to remit me to New Orleans a sufficiency, for subsisting in the seclusion, which I contemplated, which, if granted, should procure a full release of all other future claims. 1 arrived safely in New Orleans, and remained there incognito. A confidential agent of the family arrived in a week after me. He brought the requisite money, and the most urgent request, that I would return. It was intimated at the same time, that compulsion would be used if necessary. I had so taken my measures of concealment, that no clue to it was found. The money reached me; and the agent returned after a long search, in despair of accomplishing his object. I made my way here in a government barge. I purchased this place; and these servants are my children, friends and family. I here feed upon solitude and tears; and do daily penance before God. Two nights in the year, I pray all night to the mother of God, and my guardian saint, that they will graciously condescend to show me the spirit of my beloved; and I have a presentiment, that they will.The living Lambert I desire not to see; for my thoughts have long since been wholly abstracted from terrene and corporeal objects. It is the pure and disembodied spirit of my Lambert that I long to see.' Thus far the fair recluse. The traveller had heard, that she was understood to be wild, quoad hoc, upon this particular point; the constant expectation of being indulged by her patron saint with a meeting with the shade, or spirit of her beloved Lambert, on the summit of the hill, where she performed her nightly penances. It was a tender point of discussion; but with much delicacy he insinuated an opinion, that man and woman areapt to remain so to the end of the chapter; and that, probably, she might not fully understand the nature of her own wishes, in the conviction, that she would prefer an interview with the departed spirit, rather than the 'sensible warm motion' of the living, amiable officer. On the point of this confidence she was as peremptory and vehement, as upon all other subjects; and he desisted from the discussion. It was not long afterwards, that the question was brought to the test of experiment. Lambert de Moncey, though reported among the slain, had been only severely wounded; and was subsequently carried to Prussia, as a prisoner. His recovery was extremely slow; and he was long detained a prisoner, for reasons of state. Immediately after his liberation, he flew to Grenoble. The duke and duchess de Merivanne were no more.From their son he obtained information of his sister. The officer embarked with his mother for New Orleans. With great difficulty he traced the Recluse to her solitude. In one of the nearest cabins he took up his residence with his mother, incognito. It was not difficult to obtain all the truth, and a great deal more than the truth, touching the wild ways of the Recluse. In particular, it was asserted, that, when she came with her attendant house dogs, to keep off the wolves, on her nights of penance, to the summit of the hill, and called upon her guardian saint to show her the spirit of Lambert, spirits were actually seen descending through the darkness to the summit of the hill, The officer waited, with what patience he might, until the semi annual nocturnal penance of the Recluse came round. On that night, soon after the fair penitent had mounted to the summit of the hill with her house dogs, he repaired thither also. He saw the penitent, by the glimpses of the moon, fall on her knees. He heard the well remembered voice of music, 'daignez, mon ange tutelaire, &c. the earnest and mournful invocation to her guardian saint, that he would vouchsafe an interview with the spirit of her beloved. He answered, in a voice well trained to unearthly sounds. "Thy prayer is heard. Thy request is granted. The saints do more. They grant thee an election. As a true daughter of the church, thou believest, that with them nothing is impossible. Thou canst now embrace either the departed spirit of him, who was called Lambert de Moncey; or thou canst see him in life. Thy guardian saint bides thine election." The penitent Recluse heard; and the information thrilled in her veins. She paused but a moment, and hesitatingly said, 'since I am in the flesh, and not disembodied myself, and withal have never studied metaphysics, and have vague and uncertain conceptions of the intercourse between mind and body, I will e'en see my dear Lambert in the flesh.' They were married. Lambert wears a capote in the winter, has the national shrug, sells chickens, pigs and bales of cotton, and they are neither of them very remarkable in any way, except for extreme sharpness in driving a bargain. The Gospel of St. John, in Latin, adapted to the Hamiltonian System, by an Analytical and Interlineary Translation. Executed under the immediate direction of JAMES HAMILTON. London, 1824. The Gospel of St. John, adapted to the Hamiltonian System, by an Analytical and Interlineary Translation from the Italian, with full Instructions for its Use, even by those who are wholly ignorant of the Language. For the Use of Schools. By JAMES HAMILTON, Author of the Hamiltonian System. London, 1825. [Extract from the Edinburgh Review, for June, 1826] We have nothing whatever to do with Mr. Hamilton personally. He may be the wisest or the weakest of men; most dexterous or most unsuccessful in the exhibition of his system; modest and proper, or prurient and preposterous in its commendation ;-by none of these considerations is his system itself affected. The proprietor of Ching's Lozenges must necessarily have recourse to a newspaper, to rescue from oblivion the merit of his vermifuge medicines. In the same manner, the Amboyna tooth-powder must depend upon the Herald and the Morning Post. Unfortunately, the System of Mr. Hamilton has been introduced to the world by the same means, and has exposed itself to those suspicions which hover over splendid discoveries of genius, detailed in the daily papers, and sold in sealed boxes at an infinite diversity of prices,—but with a perpetual inclusion of the stamp, and with an equitable discount for undelayed payment. It may have been necessary for Mr. Hamilton to have had recourse to these means of making known his discoveries, since he may not have had friends whose names and authority might have attracted the notice of the public; but it is a misfortune to which his system has been subjected, and a difficulty which it has still to overcome. There is also a singular and somewhat ludicrous condition of giving warranted lessons; by which is meant, we presume, that the money is to be returned, if the progress is not made. We should be curious to know, how poor Mr. Hamilton would protect himself from some swindling scholar, who, having really learnt all that the master professed to teach, should counterfeit the grossest ignorance of the Gospel of St. John, and refuse to construe a single verse, or to pay a farthing. Whether Mr. Hamilton's translations are good or bad, is not the question. The point to determine is, whether very close interlineal translations are helps in learning a language? not whether Mr. Hamilton has executed these translations faithfully and judiciously. Whether Mr. Hamilton is or is not the inventor of the System which bears his name, and what his claims to originality may be, are also questions of very second-rate importance; but they merit a few observations. That man is not the discoverer of any art who first says the thing; but he who says it so long, and so loud, and so clearly, that he compels mankind to hear him—the man who is so deeply impressed with the importance of the discovery that he will take no denial, but, at the risk of fortune and fame, pushes through all opposition, and is determined that what he thinks he has discovered shall not perish for want of a fair trial. Other persons had noticed the effect of coal-gas in producing light; but Winsor worried the town with bad English for three winters before he could attract any serious attention to his views. Many persons broke stone before Macadam, but Macadam felt the discovery more strongly, stated it more clearly, persevered in it with greater tenacity, wielded his hammer, in short, with greater force than other men, and finally succeeded in bringing his plan into general use. Literal translations are not only not used in our public schools, but are gener ally discountenanced in them. A literal translation, or any translation of a school-book, is a contraband article in English schools, which a schoolmaster would instantly seize, as a customhouse officer would a barrel of gin. Mr. Hamilton, on the other hand maintains by books and lectures, that all boys ought to be allowed to work with literal translations, and that it is by far the best method of learning a language. If Mr. Hamilton's system is just, it is sad trifling to deny his claim to originality, by stating that Mr. Locke has said the same thing, or that others have said the same thing a century earlier than Hamilton. They have all said it so fecbly, that their observations have passed sub silentio; and if Mr. Hamilton succeeds in being heard and followed, to him be the glory,—because from him have proceeded the utility and the advantage. The works upon this subject on this plan, published before the time of Mr. Hamilton, are Montanus's Edition of the Bible, with Pignini's interlineary Latin version; Lubin's New Testament, having the Greek interlined with Latin and German; Abbe L'Olivet's Pensees de Ciceron; and a French Work by the Abbe Radonvilliers, Paris 1768,-and Locke upon Education. One of the first principles of Mr. Hamilton is, to introduce very strict literal interlinear translations, as aids to lexicons and dictionaries, and to make so much use of them as that the dictionary or lexicon will be for a long time little required. We will suppose the language to be the Italian, and the book selected to be the Gospel of St. John. Of this Gospel Mr. Hamilton has published a key, of which the following is an extract. fatto di cio, che e stato fatto. made. By mean of senza di lui nulla fu without of him nothing was '4 In lui era la vita, e la vita era la luce degli uomini : In him was the life, and the life $5 E la luce splende was the light of the men: tra le among the tenebre, darknesses, е le and the nomava did name '6 Vi mandato da Dio che rendere of to render per by mezzo di lui tutti mean of him all In this way Mr. Hamilton contends (and appears to us to contend justly,) that the language may be acquired with much greater ease and despatch, than by the ancient method of beginning with grammar, and proceeding with the dictionary We will presume at present, that the only object is to read, not to write, or to speak Italian, and that the pupil instructs himself from the Key without a master, and is not taught in a class. We wish to compare the plan of finding the English word in such a literal translation, to that of finding it in dictionaries—and the method of ending with grammar, or of taking the grammar at an advanced period of knowledge in the language, rather than at the beginning. Every one will admit, that of all the disgusting labors of life, the labor of lexicon and dictionary is the most intolerable. Nor is there a greater object of compassion than a fine boy. |