MONODY ON THE DEATH OF LAFAYETTE. Hope, for a season, bade the world farewell, FAREWELL, immortal patriot! whose course And honour was thy guide through glory's way. Another star hath set-the world grows dark !— While France was deluged in her children's blood, Long was thy virtue the sole, saving Ark, That bore her hopes above the sanguine flood. That decks the brow of a despotic Czar. To be the crimeless WASHINGTON of France! Unlike Napoleon-in his high renown, And barter'd fame and freedom for a crown: CAMPBELL. Shrined in thy country's bosom, thou wert blest,— The good will long lament thee,-and the base, When Kings, and Czars, and Emperors depart, But the pure patriot can never die, Remembrance of his fame shall fire the brave To fight, and guard the shrine of Liberty: Hope, like a spirit, springs from Glory's grave! Friend, husband, father, warrior-farewell! O! full of fadeless honours and of years, Like a mild autumn sun, thy life hath set,Blest shade! accept the tribute of these tears, While France and freedom mourn thee-Lafayette ! T. BRINGING HOME. BY WILLIAM HOWITT. To every true Englishman, HOME is a magic sound; every true English author stamps upon his page an intense feeling of its sacred and affectionate power. The thousand incidents, interests, and relationships that spring thence, and wrap our mortal life in all its varieties of peace, or happiness, or misery, have been depicted by the strongest and the feeblest pens, with an equal feeling of pleasure, but with far different degrees of vigour. To my mind, no circumstances connected with home are more attractive or affecting than the bringing thither individuals in the various stages of existence, under the various aspects of fortune. I have seen the infant, who, to use a Hibernicism, was born from home, brought thither. I have seen the eager groups of servants, of brothers and sisters, springing forth from the domestic door as the sound of the carriage approached, in which the little stranger and its parents were coming. I have heard the exclamations of delight, of loving welcome,— seen the earnest looks and gestures of curious joy, the crowding round to gaze on the little, unknown face,-the snatching up of the long-desired prize, the hurrying altogether of the happy family into that abode which, henceforth, is the home of all. Again, I have seen the boy come bounding in from his half-year's absence at school, all life, and health, and pleasure,-seen the glad embraces and shaking of hands,--heard the cries of surprise at his growth, his change, his improvement. I have seen, too, the gentle, timid girl return under the same circumstances-seen the mother's kisses, her tears, her proud smiles ;— seen the former playmate waiting to welcome her; and beheld what a change a little time had made even in those young creatures;-how the gay familiarity of the days ere they parted, were gone, how they looked at each other, and felt strange, and evidently wondered in their own minds, at the alteration in each other, so grown, so different, so unlike the beings of each other's memory, till they became shy and silent. I have seen the tall youth coming from abroad, from his first field perhaps,- -a boy when he went, now a man, with a lofty, dashing figure, a manly face, a manly voice; and so grown out of his former self that it required some time and intercourse to discover, in the depths of his heart and nature, the beloved being that he went away. I have seen such a youth come home, not to the joy and triumph of his family,—but to die. I have stood by the graves of the companions of my youth who have dispersed themselves in the world, and have not come back even to die, but have been borne to their native scenes on the bier, that their ashes might mingle with the ashes of their kindred. Melancholy home-bringings are these! but they show the mighty power that resides in that sacred spot. The prodigal in his misery-the conqueror in his bed of victory-the poet in the glorious sunset of his mortal course, all cry, "Take me home that I may die! or, if that may not be, take me home that I may sleep with my fathers!" Though they should have traversed the world-though they should have sojourned long and contentedly in many nations, so that in other people, other manners, other loves, they may have forgotten for years their fatherland; yet when the last hour comes, the soul arises in its agony, and stretches itself towards the home of its youth, and, in the last gushing passion of love, would fain, fain fly thither, ere it quits the earth for ever. It is but a few years ago that I stood by the grave of one of the greatest poets, and one of the most extraordinary men of this or any age. It was in a little, miserable village: and he had gone and dwelt in the lands of old renown-in the lands of present and perpetual beauty; he had walked with the mightiest, the wisest, and most illustrious of the earth; and not only the multitude but they had looked upon him with wonder and admiration; he had desired pleasure, and reaped it, down to the coarse and jagged stubble of pain and barrenness; he had panted for renown, and had won it in its fulness; he had rejoiced to sail on wide seas; had sate amid the eternal and most magnificent mountains, and gathered up thoughts of everlasting grandeur; all that was lovely in nature and in man he had seen and partaken without scruple, and without measure; he had even turned in scorn from his native land, and sworn that his bones should never lie in its bosom; but death stood before him, and his heart melted, and acknowledged its allegiance to the mighty power of nature-to the irresistible force of early ties,—and here from all his wanderings, all his speculations, and all his glory, to this little, obscure, and unattractive nook of earth, he was brought! Not a spot of all those distant and beautiful ones might defraud this of its rightful due ;-nature was more powerful than time, or space, or passion, or fame; dust must mingle with its kindred dust. These things I have seen;-these every one sees, and almost every day,--but it was my lot lately to notice one or two incidents arising out of this strong law of nature that deserve a more particular attention. I was paying a rather long visit in one of the midland counties, and was in the habit of strolling far in the mornings from the habitation of my friend into the neighbouring fields, forests, and hamlets. As I entered a village one day, I found all its inhabitants unoccupied with their ordinary labours-dressed in their best, and old and young collected in groups in the street. I | immediately imagined that it was the wake but observing no stalls of toys or sweetmeats, no shows or signs of wake amusements, I was at a loss to account for the cause of this holidayaspect of things. The first human creatures that I approached were some boys; and I asked them what particular cause of holiday-making they had. "Oh!" said they, "don't you know? -the General is coming!" "The General !" I replied" what general?" "What general !” said the lad who had before answered me, with an air of wonder-" what general! The General, to be sure! Why, Tom," said he, turning, with a laugh, to the boy who stood next him-" he does not know the General!" A woman, leaving her company, came up and relieved both the boys and myself from our dilemma. "General R -," she said, “is coming to-day, after a twenty years' absence. Do you see that old cottage, about which so many people are collected? There live his father and mother." "His father and mother?" I replied," a General's father and mother live in that poor cottage! You surprise me as much as my question surprised the boy." "Yes, sir," said the woman, "it is not every day that such things happen; but this is General R's native village. In that house he was born as poor a boy as any in the place; but he was a clever, active lad, and the clergyman took notice of him; took him into his service, and gave him as much learning as if he had been his own son. When he was grown up, he went as servant to the clergyman's son, who was an officer, to the Indies. There the young gentleman died; but, before he died, knowing that he could not live, and being very fond of R- —, who had served him very diligently, and waited on him in his illness, and read to him, he made over his commission to him. He continued many years in the Indies, and distinguished himself greatly in the wars. He was reckoned one of the cleverest and boldest men in the army; and though at first his brother officers looked very shy on him, and some even insulted him on account of his birth, yet, spite of all, he rose by degrees to the rank of Major. Many presents, and much money, he sent to his parents, from time to time; but at the moment that he returned to England, the army was going to Spain, and he was ordered to accompany it,-and there he went, almost without having set foot on his native shores. There he fought under Wellington, and followed him in all his victories in Spain, and thence into France, and was in the great battle of Waterloo. When the war was over, he was sent into Canada; and never till this day has he been able to set his face towards his native place ;-and now he is coming. He has sent many times, and wanted his parents to go into a better house, but they never would. They said in that they had lived almost all their lives, and there they would die. He himself has bought the hall,—and a gentleman from London has been here and had it repaired, and the grounds newly laid out, and all, both inside and ut, made very grand; and to-day there is to be a great dinner on the lawn, and the General, and his father and mother, and the old clergyman, who is still alive, and everybody in the village are to be there." As the woman told her story, a crowd of her neighbours had got round us; and as she ceased began eagerly to tell so many excellent things of this General, without one trace of that envy which such unusual elevations commonly produce, that I declared I must stay and see the arrival of this extraordinary man. I walked down the village, and drew near the cottage of his parents. There I beheld an old man, in the dress of a rustic, and propped on two sticks, eagerly looking down the lane up which the General was to come; while the old woman, in a state of iidgety excitement, continually appeared at the door, looked out, and disappeared again. | I took my seat under a large sycamore tree on the green, and waited the event. Presently I saw the heads of all stretched forward, and their eyes fixed on an eminence at some distance opposite. Presently there was a cry, "He is coming!" and all ran with one accord down the lane. I followed them with my eyes, and soon discerned a dense crowd hurrying up towards the village, a cloud of dust hovering above them as they came. As they drew near, repeated hurras announced their triumphal procession, and I soon discerned a carriage moving along, amidst the waving of hats, and the broad grins of hot, merry faces. In a few seconds they poured into the village green, a tumultuous company of rejoicers. The men covered with dust,-the horses and carriage with dust, and laurel, and | oaken-boughs; they drove rapidly up to the old cottage ;-hats flew into the air;-the whole village rang with one tremendous hurra: and amid the bustle I could just see the gallant officer spring from his carriage, and disappear in the cottage in a moment. What a moment was that! What a moment to the old people! Here was there son-after twenty anxious years-after all their hopes and fears, and longings, and triumphs, here was the crowning triumph! Here was their son covered with honours, and still their son! Not one whit forgetful of his poor old parents!-not a whit ashamed of his native lowly hut! In a few seconds he came out. caught a glance of his tall, noble figure,-of his manly, sun-scorched features! I saw that tears had been rolling down those deeply-tanned cheeks: he would have spoke, but his words had fled before his emotion-the language of excited nature; but he put forth his hand towards the playmates of his boyhood, and in a moment it was seized with avidity by a dozen eager claimants of recognition; and again a loud hurra proclaimed the triumph of the assembled multitude. I sate and wept in silence. I All that were present were invited to dine with the General on the lawn,-it was too interesting a scene to be left. I went, and never beheld a sight fuller of the nobility of human nature, and the blessedness of human life. I had time to scan the features of the fortunate warrior: and had not the most convincing evidence to the contrary been before me, I should have said that his whole mien and bearing proclaimed him of aristocratic birth, so noble was the expression of his countenance, so gentlemanly, so free from the coarseness or restraint of the plebeian was his deportment. So much is the internal strength and grace of a great nature superior to the effects of birth or circumstance. I saw the profound happiness with which he gazed round on all the friends of his early days, or their children; his eyes perpetually returning and fixing themselves on those two old people-perfect rustics in person, dress, and manners, who sate and looked again upon him, as in a dream of strange wonder. I saw him clasp to his heart that aged priest, who, supported on the one hand by a servant, and on the other by his staff, a feeble, silver-headed old man, came slowly to the table; and I heard him thank God that he had made his happiness perfect by permitting his parents and his benefactor to witness it. A beautiful place was that where the table was spread. A light canopy was erected over it; our feet were on the turf, and around us a thousand green shrubs whispered in the breeze, a thousand sweet flowers breathed their odours upon us. Many a joyful day I have witnessed,—a happier than this never! But I cannot describe it-I must go on. "Now," said my friend Pendock Pattel, "if you were a clergyman I could give you a good thing. "What is that?" said I. 66 Why," he replied, "a rectory of six hundred a year. Our old minister is dead, and I have the living to dispose of. I have already a dozen offers for its purchase; but if I sell anything it shall be something of my own-this I shall give." "That is right," I replied. "And pray give it to some worthy man who has nothing besides." "Let me see," he added, "who that can be? I will-I think I know the man." He sate down to write, and rising up with a smile, said,-" You shall see the effect of this,"-and went out. I attempted, on his return, to renew the subject; but he took down his gun, and said "Come, let us have a turn into the fields." In the fields I again returned to the topic; he again turned it off. I was silent. As we sate at dinner two days afterwards, the Rev. Charles N— was announced. Pendock rose up, with a sudden flush, and said, "Show him in ;"-and in the same instant entered a clergyman of about his own age, of a most interesting appearance. He made a most respectful yet dignified obeisance to Pendock; who, on his part, sprung towards him, seized him by the hand,cried, "Ten times welcome, my old friend Charles," and turning to me said, "Behold our new Rector!" If I was pleased with the appearance of the clergyman, I was much more when the excitement and surprise of the moment were gone by, and we sate in the midst of general discourse. I felt him at once to be a man of high talent, genuine piety, and with a heart warm even to poetry. I looked repeatedly at Pendock, with the design of saying, You have made an excellent choice; but I saw in his gratified eye and manner, that he was so conscious of it that my words were needless. When I knew the history of Charles N, I thanked Pendock, honoured his judgment, and loved him from my soul. Charles was the son of a poor widow, who had spent the bulk of her income, and lived herself in the narrowest style to educate him for the church. Scarcely had he taken orders when she died; her income died with her, and he had no resource but a small curacy which he obtained in an obscure village. He had, however, passed through the University with high honours,-his talents were of the first order; he was of an ardent temperament, and felt confident of pushing his way to a competence in the Church. In those days of youthful fancy and soaring hope, he saw, and loved, and married. His wife had but little property. Charles never connected the ideas of love and money in his mind, he found her everything he wished and he looked for fortune from another source. But years went on, and on, and still he was only a poor curate, while every year added regularly to his family. As he did not succeed to his wish in his profession, he determined to try the effects of his pen. He wrote poems and essays for periodicals,―he wrote a volume of sermons, he wrote "Tales of the Parish," illustrating scenes and characters which he had witnessed in the course of his pastoral duties; but he found the path of literature as fully pre-occupied as that of church preferment; and those buoyant dreams of youth dispersing at once, he saw before him a prospect of poverty, labour, and obscurity,-a prospect of toil, and degradation for his wife,- -a prospect for his children, which wrung his fine and sensitive spirit with inexpressible agony. He sunk into a stupor of despondency, that threatened to terminate in aberration of intellect. This, at length, passed away. The unwearied condolence and affection of his wife, the sense of his duty to her and to his children, the power of religion, roused him again to pursue his gloomy track, though it was in tears and sadness of heart. Years still went on, and brought no change, but continued increase of family; his vicar regularly paid his annual visit, pocketed his eight hundred, paid him his eighty pounds, and departed to his distant abode. All his early hopes were dead; but they had left behind them a morbid fondness for eastle-building, in which his wife would often join him. They would frequently sit in their little room, or as they went their quiet walk through the fields, beyond the village, while their children ran and gathered flowers, or pursued insects around them, they would please themselves with supposing that some distant relation, they could not tell who, should die, and leave them an unexpected property; or they would suppose some particular circumstance should throw a ge nerous patron in their way, and they should, at once, rise to happiness and usefulness; but these dreams gilded only a few moments, and left their horizon darker than before. As they sate one autumn morning at their breakfast-table, and saw the sun shining on the dark leaves of their little garden, and looking out beyond, saw its gleam lying on the silent fields, now cleared of harvest, Charles said, "Oh ! how blessed are they that can ride far away in such a sun as this, and with a heart free from the vulture-beak of care, ascend heathy mountains, and look forth on the living sea, and breathe its vigorous gales. Such a life seems half-way to heaven; but for us, heaven must be reached at one stage, and that through the avenue of death." As he uttered these melancholy words, the servant entered, and laid a letter on the table, He took it up, opened it, and as he read, his wife who watched him earnestly, saw his colour at once vanish, the letter fell, and he sate looking on the opposite wall, as stricken with some sense-destroying calamity. She sprang up, and seized the letter; and, at the same instant, Charles sprung up, and clasping her in a convulsive embrace, burst into a torrent of passionate tears; and then snatching up his children, one after another, and embraced them with the vehemence and gestures of a man deranged. During this time his trembling wife read the letter. It ran thus: "Aldacre, Sept. 9, 18 “Old Friend,—What are you doing? Are you settled down to a plentiful portion, or will you accept one? Our old raven, who has croaked, rather than preached these last ten years, has fallen off the perch-Will you succeed him? I want a man that will be a friend for myself, and a father for my parish-Are you the man? There are six hundreds a-year, so it merits your attention. Pray, come and see.-Yours, very truly, "PENDOCK PATTEL.' Charles well remembered Pendock. At college they had been great companions, but he had never heard of him since; and in all his daydreams, Pendock had never presented himself as a patron. There was a levity in the letter which would have made the speculation, so far as it regarded friendship, rather dubious, had he not known the man. But he knew that, with a fondness for a little license of speech, he had a generous soul, unless much altered, and had, too, in his general mood, a sterling love of whatever was noble, intellectual, and pure in taste. Charles was speedily at Aldacre, as we have seen; and a little time sufficed to convince both patron and rector, that the event which made the fortune of one, would eminently augment the happiness of both. I sate that evening a delighted listener, hearing the two friends recount the histories of college days, and hearing Charles lay open the detail of his after-life, up to this moment,- -a detail which at once saddened us with the deepest commiseration, and made us again rejoice that Providence had put it into the heart of Pendock to write to his old associate, "And now," said Pendock, " you must be off in the morning for your family. You must pack up in haste, and be back in a week." would come in and fill the place with a pleasant glory. Its garden was large and old-fashioned, with its bowery walks and hazle clumps; its fish-pond at the bottom, and its mighty planetree spreading its branches over the rustic seat, -over the smooth, mossy turf,-over the still waters themselves. But I cannot tell all the delights of the parsonage-its crofts and outhouses, and horse, and cow; nor the joy of the people, who instinctively discovered in a moment that a good friend was come amongst them. That evening was one of the most blessed of my life. We spent it with the Rector and his fa In the morning he was gone with a light heart; and immediately Pendock and myself set to work. We explored the rectory. The last incumbent left no family; there was not a moment's need of delay; we had immediate possession; and partly with the purchase of the best of the furniture, partly with new from the neigh- | bouring town, we soon had the picturesque old place put into most comfortable, and even elegant array. By the day that the new rector and his family were to come, all was in order: every-mily, dining with him for the first time that he thing looked clean, bright, and habitable. Fires were burning within; the garden grass-plots and walks were all trimmed and cleaned; and the villagers were looking, ever and anon, out of their doors, to get the first glimpse of their new minister. Pendock and myself posted ourselves under a large old mulberry tree, in an elevated part of his pleasure-grounds, to watch their approach; and the moment we saw the yellow panels of the chaise flash between the trees in the lane, down we ran to meet them. Never shall I forget this joyful Bringing Home! There was the happy father, all flushed with smiles, and tears, and happiness; there we handed out his wife-a gentle, delicate, creature, with a lovely face, that long care and sadness had stamped their melancholy upon, and which, with the expression of present joy, was pale as death. We handed her out, but she trembled so with emotion, that she could not walk, and we bore her in our arms, and laid her upon her own sofa, in her own parlour. There, too, were seven children, all, except the youngest, who was too young to be conscious of the great change which had taken place in their destiny-full of eager joy and curiosity. And what a delight was it to see Pendock's exultation, and to see the happy father and mother, when Mrs. Nhad a little recovered herself, kneel down, with all their children about them, and with us, too, and pour out their souls to God in thanksgiving, for His great, great goodness, and call upon Him for strength and wisdom, to execute those plans of usefulness, so often vowed in the days of darkness. What a delight was it, too, to go with the glad family, and to witness their satisfaction, as they beheld the extent, and comfort, and various conveniences of that ample, old house, and to hear them appropriate each room to its particular destination. This shall be our breakfastroom, this our drawing-room; this is Charles's study-oh! how well already supplied with books. Kind, kind friend! This our bed-room,-this for our guests, there for the children, this for the nursery, and so on. It was a beautiful old place somewhat low, and somewhat sombre, and its various projections and gables, overhung with vines, and ivy, and other creeping plants, but then, it had large bay-windows opening into the garden, through which summer would send the odours if numberless flowers; and the sunshine dined in the home of his whole future life. It was a day like a day in heaven; and Pendock writes me, that every day is to him a day of thankfulness over this transaction. Let us witness a different scene. I was sitting on a rocky eminence, in the north of England, looking down into a deep, long vale, when the sound of a single bell from the lone, grey church, in the bottom of the valley, caught my ear. I arose and descended to the village. As I drew near I could perceive that the bell tolled for a funeral, and every face wore that depth of gloom which announces some more than ordinary sorrow. When I had learned the cause my heart was touched also with a sadness, such as it has seldom experienced. In this village had, for many generations, dwelt one great family. A gentleman of fortune, in a distant county, had married the sole heiress of this house; and to gratify her fondness for her native place, had built an elegant abode here, and here chiefly lived. They had been married some years, and had three children; when, during a winter spent in London, the lady had been seduced, and had fled to the Continent with her seducer. This, as might have been expected, upon a mind particularly sensitive, and upon a heart devotedly attached to her, and up to the fatal moment of the elopement totally unsuspi cious, had nearly destroyed her husband. He retired with his children to his own ancestral seat, and lived in a deep and melancholy seclusion. The lady's father, a man of a stern and passionate character, at first exhibited the madness of passion, and then settled down into the sullen silence of unappeasable hatred. Years went over; when, at length, the father and husband, at the same instant, received each a letter from the lost one-at the point of death-in penitence, and in destitution. It was written with that harrowing sense of her crime, of all she had lost, and lost for ever, that would touch the most resentful spirit, if it possessed any portion of human feeling. She prayed for pardon-pardon ere she died ;—and she asked for nothing more except a grave,— ‚—a grave in her native ground. With the approach of death, not all her sense of her crime and her ignominy could quench the spirit of her youth;-it returned ;—and she yearned to lie in the spot where she had been born,— where alone she had been innocent and happy. |