I think Le Poete Mourant, if my translation has done any justice to its merits, may safely be left without comment to speak for itself. I cannot, however, refrain from pointing out the 4th, 8th, and 10th stanzas: the indignant transition in the last has a noble effect. My limits compel me to abstain from many references to the original; I prefer therefore confining my extract to the following-not consecutive--stanzas, which I have omitted to translate.

Ah! donnez a la mort un espoir moins frivole.
Eh quoi! le souvenir de ce son qui s'enrole
Autour d'un vain tombean retentivoit toujours ?
Ce souffle d'un mourant, quoi! c'est là de la gloire ?
Mais vous qui promettez les temps a sa memoire,
Mortels, possedez-vous deux jours!

J'en atteste les dieux! depuis que je respire,
Mes levres n'ont jamais prononcé sans sourire
Ce grand nom, inventé par le delire humain :
Plus j'ai pressé ce mot, plus j'ai trouvé vide,
Et je l'ai rejeté comme une ecorce aride

Que nos levres pressent en vain.

I conclude for the present with the following passage from an Epic fragment-the Angel. The Almighty is described as summoning to his presence one of the Guardian Spirits of man, and despatching it with the Divine command to the tent of Clovis. Lamartine touches with much beauty upon the offices of these angelic watchers of mortality.

O guardian Angel! round each lonely hearth
Thine influence dwelleth-in the hour of dearth,
When no dear voice the mourner's heart doth cheer,
And friends are vanished-thou art ever near!
Then not alone the paths of life we tread,
Unseen, unheard, thou standest by our bed,
When our young tree of life is rich with bloom-
Companion of the cradle and the tomb!
And at the judgment-seat, O blessed guide,
In the heart's grief we find thee at our side.

Upon a lion's skin, whose rich folds swept
Over an ivory couch, the warrior slept.
A moment's time the angel bent to trace
The bloom, the light that shone upon his face :
As the young mother, full of anxious fears,
At the first sound that strikes her watchful ears,
Leaps from her bed amid the silent night,
Her footsteps oft suspended in affright;
With her pale lamp unto the room she creeps,
Where in its dreamless rest her firstborn sleeps,
And stooping o'er it though she sees no ill,
She looks, and looks, and looketh on it still!
VOL. III.-May, 1833.

3 Y

So with the summons of the Lord on high
The messenger of Death in peace drew nigh,
And while his outspread plumes the couch did shade,
His hand upon the sleeper's brow he laid,
Gently unbinding without noise or strife—
That mystic harmony-the bonds of life:
The immortal soul was risen and gone,
And the hero's body seemed to slumber on.

(To be continued.)

SACRED POETRY.

THOUGHTS FOR TROUBLOUS TIMES.

I.

THERE is a path of peace-mid tangled grove,
A moonlit way of sweet security,

Bright holydays that form a galaxy

To make a road to heaven-streams from above,
Whereon the spheres of duty kindlier move,
Drinking pure light and heaven-born harmony.
It is the path of thy calm Liturgy,

Ancient of Mothers, in parental love

Daily unwinding from thine annual maze

Treasures that grow not old,-whence still may grow

Fresh adoration! On thy face (of thee

Praying to be more worthy) as we gaze,

Thy soul comes forth in beauty, and thy brow
So calm, is full of holiest Deity!

II.

And let me, loving still of thee to learn,

Thy weekly collect on my spirit wear,
That so my steps may turn to practice clear,
And 'scape the ways where feverish fancies burn.
So may thy Sunday thoughts at every turn
Meet us, like healthful founts in Elim green,
Casting a freshness o'er the week. This scene
Of outward things, as still the wheels return,
Leads sternly to decay. Thou, ever true,
As on the grave and withering age we gain,
Thy tale of better things dost still renew;

Like strain which pleased our childhood's pensive ear,
Still as we older grow is doubly clear,

And sweetness new unwinds from out its olden chain.

III.

No! I have guilt enough-I wash me clear
From all the press, reckless of sacred truth,
Daily pours forth, as from Avernian mouth,
To load the poison'd air. Henceforth whate'er
Of evil falls on my unwilling ear

In public things or men, shall urge me on,
A voice which calls to something left undone,

A spur in sides of duty; for I fear

From earth, sick with our varied crimes, ascend

Those vapours, which now throng heaven's lowering roof
And hang in thunder. Still, meek Mercy still
Pleads-and the uplifted vial is aloof.—

Dread pause! and now he is his country's friend,
Who cleanses his own heart from secret ill.

THE CHURCH.

WHAT though winds and waves assail thee,
What though foes in scorn bewail thee,
Heaven-bound Ark of Liberty;

'Mid the sheeted lightning's glare,
'Mid the thunder's cloudy lair,
Where dark waves meet lurid air,

Shalt thou breast the stormy sea!

Thy true course shall ne'er deceive thee,
Thy tried Helmsman never leave thee,-
Onward while the world shall last.
Star within the tempest's shroud,
Bow to bind the thunder-cloud,

Music soft when winds are loud,

His sure word is on the blast.

Where Monsoon his wing is folding, Where the moon her court is holding 'Mid stern winter's palaces;

Where Ohio rolls his pride,

There thy faithful dove hath hied,

And hath sought thy sheltering side,
With th' immortal branch of peace.

By his dying promise given,

By thy harbour in the heaven,

Let the wild winds tell their tale;

By the hearts in his command,
By the gales hid in his hand,
Onward! to that silent strand,
Lift aloft the solemn sail!

W.

TO MY SISTER, ON HER TWENTIETH BIRTH-DAY.

My gentle Mary, twenty years

To-day have flitted by

Since first thou cam'st, a helpless thing,
Among our hearts to lie.

We welcom'd thee, as best we might,

With mingled smiles and tears,

And poured-we could no more our prayers
For blessings on thy years.

And, sister sweet, our prayers were heard;
God's blessed one thou art :
Not with the rich, or proud, or gay,

But with the pure in heart.

His gifts to thee in gentleness

And piety are given;

The treasures that endure on earth,

And never fail in heaven.

My gentle Mary, thou hast been

E'en as a child to me,

Since first thy new-born helplessness
Was tended on my knee;

And stretched upon some shady bank,
Whole summer days I lay,

And watch'd as with a father's joy

Thy happy infant play.

And still the holy bond endures,

And still a father's care

Makes tenderer, deeper, more intense,

It

The love for thee I bear.

grows with years, with cares it grows,
Unchanged with change of lot;

In joy and sorrow, hope and fear,
Still failing, faltering not.

My gentle Mary, may the years

That yet remain to thee

Be spent, as all the past have been,

In tranquil piety!

May Heaven, in mercy, spare thee long,

To all who share thy love;

And faith and peace prepare thee here

For endless joy above!

G. W. D.

NOTICES OF THE OLDEN TIME.

PRONUNCIATION AND RHYME.*

THE changes of a literary language, or that used by the refined and educated, are in continual progress, and that progress is often so imperceptible that we never become fully aware that it has taken place. We are, indeed, aware when different words are employed; but differences of pronunciation, being submitted only to the living ear, and not to the eyes of posterity, and being difficult to describe in words, are apt to be much underrated.

It rarely happens that accidental circumstances call into notice the varying modes of pronunciation at various periods; but some such instances will shew that, within no distant period, there has arisen a remarkable difference in that respect. The Rev. J. Walters published his Welsh Dictionary a little after the middle of the eighteenth century; and he mentions that the Welsh y is pronounced as u in burn, or i in bird, except in the last syllable of a word, and then it is pronounced as i in birth, girth, mirth, sin, &c. From hence it appears that bird and birth were by him, and in his time, pronounced in two different ways; that the latter was pronounced like sin, and that the i in birth, girth, and mirth, was very similar to the Italian i in mirto or virtù. I am not aware whether the traces of such a pronunciation remain, but it has certainly ceased to prevail. Sir William Jones, in his Dissertation on Asiatic Orthography, suggested a new mode of spelling English which he tried upon some verses of Addison. The only inference I will draw from the following couplet is that he pronounced perform and storm quite differently, and regarded them as faulty rhymes:

"And pliz'd dh' almaitiz ārders tu perfórm,

Raids in dhi hwerlwind and dairects the starm."

He seems to have expressed the or in perform like ore, and not as in storm. The whole is such an indifferent specimen of philology, that it may be doubtful how far his new symbols are real or conventional. But such a notation as raid, almaiti, and "bai divain camand," leads one to conjecture that he so expressed himself, instead of saying as we do, reid, meiti, bei, &c., and that he said cam instead of cum in command. If he did, and was in the habit of hearing the like from others, we can more easily understand what is told us of the similar pronunciation of the infamous Dr. Titus Oates. Either he indulged himself in an affectation which was only beginning to come into vogue in his time, and only beginning to decline sixty years ago; or he exaggerated a little the mode of pronouncing which was usual. But he was not that solitary instance of a puerile and unaccountably ridiculous con

Though the following paper is not strictly antiquarian, every reader will thank the Editor for inserting it.