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highest-but every village has " its set," round which is drawn a magic circle; and dear and seductive are the secret and undefinable, and frequently unattainable, charms of those within the circle to those without it. You never heard in England of a clergyman's daughter seduced by a baker's son-of a baker's daughter seduced by a chimney sweeper's boy.

The gay attorney seduces the baker's daughter; the clergyman's only child runs away with the Honourable Augustus - who is heir, or younger brother to the heir, of the great house where the races are given to the neighbourhood. When the Italian woman takes a lover, she indulges a desperate passion; when the Englishwoman takes a lover, it is frequently to gratify a restlesss longing after rank; when a Frenchwoman takes a lover, it is most commonly to get an agreeable and interesting companion. As Italy is the land of turbulent emotion -as England is the land of aristocratic pretension-so France is, par excellence, the land of conversation; and an assiduous courtship is very frequently a series of bonmots.

It is very possibly the kind of gentle elegance which pervades these relations, that makes the French so peculiarly indulgent to them; you hear of none of the fatal effects of jealous indignation-of the husband or the lover poignarded in the dim-lit street; you hear of no damages and no elopements; the honour of the marriagebed is never brought before your eyes in the clear, and comprehensive, and unmistakeable shape of £20,000. You see a very well-dressed gentleman particularly civil and attentive to a very well-dressed lady. If you call of a morning, you find him sitting by her work-table; if she stay at home of an evening for the " migraine," you find him seated by her sofa; if you meet her in the world you find him talking with her husband; a stranger, or a provincial, says, "Pray, what relation is Monsieur to Madame

?" He is told quietly, "Monsieur is Madame -'s lover." This gallantry, which is nothing more or less than a great sociability, a great love of company and conversation, pervades every class of persons, and produces consequences, no doubt, which a love of conversation can hardly justify,

It is not easy to perceive in what this tie differs from that recognised in Italy; and we cannot, therefore, help suspecting that, in this, as in other instances, Mr. Bulwer has sometimes formed his opinion rather from the exception than the rule. It is, moreover, at complete variance with his subsequent sections on the domestic condition of the women, and on female influences. What follows,-if Mr. Bulwer really means to represent it a fair picture of one portion of French society,-is yet more extraordinary and appalling. From a very different estimate of the importance and necessity of great wealth to well-being to that made in Britain, marriage is more general among the better orders of Paris, than of London. There are, in short, fewer genteel old maids,-yet we are informed that,

A vast variety of single ladies, without fortune, still remain, who are usually guilty of the indiscretion of a lover, even though they have no husband to deceive. Many of these cannot be called s-mp-s in our sense of

things, and are honest women in their own. They take unto themselves an affection, to which they remain tolerably faithful, as long as it is understood that the liaison continues. The quiet young banker, the quiet young stockbroker, the quiet young lawyer, live until they are rich enough to marry in some connexion of this description. Sanctioned by custom, these left-handed marriages are to be found, with a certain respectability appertaining to them, in all walks of life. The working classes have their somewhat famous "mariages de St. Jacques," which among themselves are highly respectable. The working man, and the lady who takes in washing, or who makes linen, find it cheaper and more comfortable (for the French have their idea of comfort) to take a

room together. They take a room, put in their joint furniture; (one bed answers for both ;) the lady cooks; a common menage and a common purse are established, and the couple's affection usually endures at least as long as their lease. People so living, though the one calls himself Mr. Thomas, and the other Mademoiselle Clare, are married à la St. Jacques, and their union is considered in every way reputable by their friends and neighbours during the time of its continuance.

The proportion of illegitimate to legitimate children in the department of the Seine, as given by M. Chabrol, would be one to two: add to this proportion the children born in marriage and illegitimately begotten!

The hospitals of the "Enfans trouvés," which under their present regulations, are nothing less than a human sacrifice to sensual indulgence, remove the only check that in a country without religion can exist to illicit intercourse. There is, then, far more libertinage in France than in any other civilized country in Europe; but it leads less than in other countries to further depravity. Not being considered a crime, incontinence does not bring down the mind to the level of crime. It is looked upon, in fact, as merely a matter of taste; and very few people, in forming their opinion of the character of a woman, would even take her virtue into consideration. Great, indeed, are the evils of this-but it also has its advantages: in England, where honour, probity, and charity are nothing to the woman in whom chastity is not found, to her who has committed one error there is no hope, and six months frequently separate the honest girl of respectable parents and good prospects from the abandoned prostitute, associated with thieves, and whipped in Bridewell for her disorders.

The truth of this last allegation, is strikingly confirmed by the recent discussions in Parlia ment upon the poor law. We have of late years had volume upon volume, committee upon committee, on the subject of the classification of offenders, prison discipline, and secondary punishments; yet, strange to tell, in this humane and Christian country, in debating on the bastardy clause of the Poor's Bill, it never once seems to have occurred to any one of our enlightened Senators, our upright and righteous Judges, or our pious and reverend Prelates, (the Bishop of London included,) that there should be the slightest distinction made between the unfortu nate and really modest girl, seduced into a first offence, and the abandoned mother of half-a-dozen bastards, by as many different fathers, who, like Sergeant Kite's heroine, "Marry! is resolved to have her teeming-time, if there be a man left in the parish." And this is equal law!

The marriages of St. Jacques common among the lower orders, or gallantry, in what Mr. Bulwer calls its sober, modern, republican forms, without having any distinct name among us, bears, we fear, a larger proportion in London to similar unions in Paris than he has calculated. In the police reports of our metropolis we are continually meeting with the man or the woman with whom the delinquent "cohabited," which is our vague insular term for such alliances. And these temporary unions are even more disreputable than the hand-fastings of Paris, as one or both of the parties is generally married, with this moral difference, however, in our own favour, that the English parties may conceive themselves forced to submit to painful and degrading circumstances, which, to the French, are

matter of convenience, choice, and preference or, at all events, of very slight concernment.

Mr. Bulwer falls into the ancient and vulgar error of denying the existence or possibility of the "true-love," the heart-in-heart serious love of Old England-being found in France. We admit that he might have looked in vain for the passion always so beautifully depicted by the English poets, though not always found in connexion with English marriages, under the influence of "Sacron's old widow," Pompadour, or de Barry, or even in the court of Napoleon; but so might he in that of Charles II., or George IV., and in the aristocratic society of London, as in that of Paris. We apprehend, then, that Mr. Bulwer has, in this instance, fallen into the common mistake of judging of a nation from the worst specimens of its privileged orders. Cupid, he may depend on it, is a citizen of the world— your only true cosmopolitan; and, whatever garb he may be forced to trick himself out in, he is essentially the same character on the Boulevards, as in Kensington Gardens, or the the Regent's Park.

The chapter on FRENCH VANITY, gives our author scope for numerous illustrative anecdotes. But French vanity has its fair side. In its exhibition in the following extract, Mr. Bulwer has surely misnamed vanity, what in an American, a Swiss, or a Pole, would be termed national spirit, love of glory-nay, patriotism itself.

French vanity, Mr. Bulwer alleges, contains a power which many more lofty and serious qualities would fail to supply. With that vanity is combined a capability for great things; a magnificence of design and a daringness of execution, rare amongst the pale and frigid nations of the north. In that vanity is security to France; for in that vanity is union. That vanity it is which concentrates and connects a people different in their manners, different in their origin, different in their climate, different even in their language. That vanity it is which gives to thirty-three millions of individuals— one heart and one pulse. Go into any part of France, some districts of Brittany perhaps excepted, and let any body of persons be assembled! Address them to sooth or to excite! Say "Vive la liberte!" there are times when you will not be listened to-"Vive le roi !-vive la charte!-vive la republique !" these are all rallying cries which will now be hissed, and now applauded but cry "Vive la France"-" Vive la belle, France, songez que vous etes Français !" and almost before the words are out of your mouth, your voice will be drowned with cheers, and a circulating and sympathetic thrill will have rushed through the breast, and brought tears into the eyes of every one of your audience. If you were to say to an Englishman, "Give me up your property, and give me up your liberty, and give me up your life, for the sake of England;" he would say, "Stop a little! what is England to me without my property, and my liberty, and my life?-my liberty, my property, and my life, are England to me all the world over."-Not so the Frenchman: talk to him of France; tell him what you wish is for the interest and the glory of France, and he will let you erect scaffolds, and send his children to the guillotine and the battle-he will stop in the highest fever of freedom to bow to the most terrible dictatorship, and stick the red cap of democratism on the triumvirate tyranny of Robespierre, Couthon, and St. Just. There is nothing you may not do with him under the charm of those irresistible words" Francais, soyex Francais !"

Our author need not have travelled to France to find the admiration of titles united with

| speculative republicanism. The Whig aristocracy of England are proverbially the haughtiest of their order. If the profession of an admiration for equal rights and equal laws, united with the desire of titled distinctions, are incompatible in the same mind, save in the vain man, then are there many Englishmen found quite as vain as the men of France.

We acquit the French, then, of monopolizing this contemptible peculiarity of vanity; but confess to something in what follows, though it is the heavier charge.

A successful prince, then, may always, in France, be a despotic one; but wo to the unfortunate prince who would imitate his example! In England there is usually a sympathy with the sinking cause-and after it has reached a certain mark there is almost sure to be an ebb in our displeasure. In France it is quite the reversethe 'grand homme'-if you succeed:-you are a 'scelerat,' a' 'coquin,' a 'parjure,' every thing that is atrocious, if you are guilty of--misfortune. It is not that the French are in private an ill-natured or an ungrateful people, but their vanity cannot endure being on the losing side, and they take all pains to convince themselves that they are called upon to quit it.

Even this unmanly, odious, and cur-like quality is not peculiar to the French. It belongs, in some degree, to the timid and selfish of the middle order in every state; but those Englishmen alone,-the People,-whom their poverty, and capacity for manual labour, render independent and fearless, claim the proud distinction of becoming keener in their generous sympathies, and more steadfast in their adherence to a good cause sinking, and to an inno cent individual overwhelmed with misfortune. How many instances of this does our recent history afford. The feelings of the people are always right.

Vanity leads the old gentlemen of France to make serious love to the ancient ladies of their acquaintance, and to amuse themselves with a flirtation, exactly as our ancientry do with a pool at commerce, or a rubber at whist; and Mr. Bulwer relates an illustrative anecdote of such old beaux, which, we apprehend, bears rather upon the individual than the class.

I

"Just see that old man with a bald head, one' dark tooth, and a light limp from the gout! That old gentleman said to a lady of my acquaintance the other day, I am very unhappy, madam, what is to be done in society, I am sure I do not know! I am a man of honour. I see those young creatures,' (pointing out two or three of the prettiest women in the room,) see those young creatures, the tears in their eyes, pierced to the heart by a gentle glance→→→→ I say to myself, si je me lance, the mischief is done; but I retire; I can't help pitying those beautiful flowers which a soft indiscretion might for ever tarnish; I can't help feeling pity for them, madam; I am a man of honour; but what distresses me is to find that everybody has not the same pity that I have.' The old gentleman spoke with perfect sincerity."

If the greybeard hero was perfectly sincere, this only proves that he was a doting idiot, a character not confined to France, though sexa

genarian lady-killers may be of more frequent occurrence in that gallant region than in England. In short, we must hint, that Mr. Bulwer draws many of his sweeping conclusions from narrow and very insufficient premises. A Frenchman who should assert that it was common for rich individuals in England to make their testaments from any whim or vagary, might cite the instance of the man who resolved to choose for his heir the first person that crossed London Bridge-but this would surely be a very unfair representation of the manner in which wills are usually made in this country. We also apprehend that the system of having fine houses, horses, and equipages, and of giving fine dinners and wines, merely as " Advertisements," is, with every other means employed in commercial competition, fully as well understood in London as in Paris. What is it that covers the cabins of our steamers with gilding and looking-glasses; makes show-booths of coffee-houses, and dandies of post-boys, and palaces of gin-shops, but this principle of " Advertising," which he attributes solely to the French.

We have no space for "Gaiety" and "Frivolity," nor yet for" Wit," sections which, with the great fund of materials that French literature affords, might easily have been made more rich and sparkling; nor shall we follow our author through the recent political changes of France though his notices of the First Revolution, of the Directory, and the Consular Government, present great temptation, after all that has been said upon these memorable epochs. The remarkable change which took place in France between the period of the Restoration and the Revolution of the Barricades, Mr. Bulwer acutely pronounces to be the true Revolution— it was one of manners, opinions, men. not refrain from this extract:

We can

In three years (from 1817 to 1820,) the elementary schools from 856,212, advanced to have 1,063,919 scholars; and the number of persons receiving instruction at these institutions within the period contained between 1816 and 1826, has been computed at five millions and a half. Schools of arts, agriculture, and the sciences, were formed throughout the kingdom; and, borne along on this mighty rush of new opinions, came a new and more noble philosophy-a new, a more rich, a more glowing, a more masculine, a more stirring, and energetic literature. The spirit and intellect of the country received a fresh birth, and at the same time a fresh race was born; a race that had neither the ideas, the wants, nor the history of its predecessors.

This was the real revolution. Within the last thirteen years a population of twelve millions and a half had been added to "Young France," a population of ten millions belonging to "Old France" had gone down to the tomb. In 1828 the electors belonging to the new "regime" were 25,089, to the ancient regime 15,021. Thus the two generations were in presence; the one published the ordonnances, and the other raised the barricades.

The present political state of France, on which Mr. Bulwer dwells at considerable length, gives us no definite idea even of his own notions regarding it; though for the evolvement of future events, he prepares us by that part of the work which treats of the "Predominating Influences" in operation upon French society. And, first,

the influence of the women, ever powerful in France, and not less so, we imagine, now that it is transferred from the boudoirs of court intrigantes and royal mistresses, and diffused around to the fire-side of every elector and Nątional Guardsman in the kingdom.

Monsieur de Talleyrand comes from America, in want of employment; he finds it in the salon of Madame de Stael. Bonaparte, born for a military career, commenced it under the gentle auspices of Madame de Beauharnais. Even Louis the Eighteenth himself, that fat, and aged, and clever monarch, bestowed more pains on writing his pretty little billets-doux, than he had ever given to the dictation of the Charta.

"In 1815, after the return of the King," says a late author," the drawing-rooms of Paris had all the life and brilliancy which distinguished them in the old regime. It is hardly possible to conceive the ridiculous, and oftentimes cruel sayings which were circulated in these pure and elegant saloons. The Princesse de la Tremouille, Mesdames d'Escars, de Rohan, and De Duras were the principal ladies at this time, who ruled in the Faubourg St. Germain. With them you found the noble youth of the old families in France; the Generals of the allied armies; the young women exalted in their ideas of loyalty and loyal devotion; the more elderly ladies, celebrated in that witty and courtly clique for the quickness of their repartees, and the graces of their conversa tion; the higher functionaries of the Tuileries; the prelates and peers of France-and it was amidst the business of whist, and the amorous whisperings of intrigue, that these personages discussed the means to bring back the olden monarchy, and to restore the reign of religion.

The women of the Revolution, Madame Roland, its heroine, and Madame de Stael, its philosopher, were equally, and far more nobly distinguished.

Who was the enemy most dreaded by the Mountain ? Who was the rival that disputed empire with Napoleon ? Madame Roland and Madame de Staël. These two women-alone, without fortune, without protection, save that of their own talent-boldly vindicated the power of the mind, before its two most terrible adversaries, and have triumphed with posterity even over the guillotine and the sword. There is an energy, a desire for action, a taste and capacity for business, among the females of France, the more remarkable-from the elegance, the grace, the taste for pleasure and amusement with which this sterner nature is combined.

Observe!-from the very moment that women were admitted into society in France, they have claimed their share in public affairs.

The

We rather think, however, that Mr. Bulwer over-rates or, more correctly, misunderstands the true influence of the women in France. real power of European women in public affairs, will soon be exactly commensurate with that communicated to the men. Give John a certain direct control in affairs, and it will go hard if Joan does not enjoy her share, and the ballot be found no protection against her. French women have, also, since the time of the Revolution, formed, if not a constituent part, yet always interested witnesses of the business done in the National Assemblies.

Most ungallantly does Mr. Bulwer contrast his fair country women with the ladies of France. But the gentlemen of Glasgow, Edinburgh, and Birmingham, have been erecting galleries to accommodate the ladies at their political dinners ; their political education is fairly begun; nor should we be surprised if the gallantry of Lord Althorp, Mr. Hume consenting, betrayed him

into a ladies' gallery in the new House of Commons. Meanwhile, Mr. Bulwer is thus severe :

How is it possible that an Englishwoman, such as we ordinarily find the Englishwomen of London societyhow is it possible that such a woman should possess the slightest influence over a man three degrees removed from dandyism and the Guards? What are her objects of interest, but the most trumpery and insignificant? What are her topics of conversation, but the most ridiculous and insipid? Not only does she lower down her mind to the level of the emptiest-pated of the male creatures that she meets, but she actually persuades herself, and is actually persuaded, that it is charming and feminine, &c. to do so. She will talk to you about hunting and shooting-that is not unfeminine-oh no! But politics, the higher path cf literature, the stir and action of life, in which all men worth anything, and from whom she could borrow any real influence, are plunged-of these she knows nothing, thinks nothing-in these she is not interested at all; and only wonders that an intellectual being can have any other ambition than to get what she calls good invitations to the stupidest, and hottest, and dullest of the stupid, hot, and dull drawing-rooms of London.

There

are of course reasons for all this; and I agree with a late work in asserting one of these reasons to be the practice which all England insists upon, as so innocent, so virtuous, so modest, so disinterested, viz.-" bringing out,"as it is called a young woman at sixteen, who is ushered into a vast variety of crowded rooms, with this injunction:" There, go; hunt about and get a good," which means a rich "husband."

This command, for Miss is greatly bored with Papa and Mamma, and the country-house, and the country par son, is very readily obeyed. Away she starts-dances with this man, sighs to that; and, as her education has not been neglected, she ventures, perhaps, at the first onset, to give vent to a few of those ideas which her governess, or her reading, or the solitude of her early life, has given birth to. Wo upon her! The rich young man who has such a fine property in — -shire, and who is really so very good-looking, and so very well dressed, opens his eyes, shrugs up his shoulders, turns pale, turns red, and looks very stupid and very confused, and at the first opportunity glides away, muttering to an acquaintance, "I say, what a d-d blue that girl is." Never mind, my good young lady! In a second season, you will be as simple and as silly as your chaperon can desire. Do but go on a constant succession of balls, and parties, and listless conversations, will soon make you all the most plotting mother can desire-and all I regret is, that when you have at last succeeded in the wearisome aim of your youth, when you have fixed the fate of some wealthy, and perhaps titled booby, a constant habit of dulness will have been generated from the stupidity that was necessary to secure him.

Of late years this misfortune has been increasing; because, of late years, fortune and rank have been more entirely separated from talent and education; to such a degree, indeed, has it increased, that no man, after his reason has burst its leading-strings, ever now exposes himself to the insufferable ennui of general society.

In England, then, the persons who are engaged in those pursuits which give public influence, fly, as from a pestilence, what is called a life of pleasure, and which, instead of being a relaxation to a set of thinking and active human creatures, has become a business to a class of persons who have neither thought nor capability for action.

When a woman comes into the world in France, she comes into the world with no pursuit that distracts her from its general objects. Her own position is fixed. She is married, not sold, as the English people believe-not sold in any degree more than an English young lady is sold though she has not been seen panting from party to party in quest of a buyer.

Young women, then, come into society in France with a fixed position there, and are generally interested in the subjects of general interest to the world.

The persons

and the pursuits that they find most distinguished are

the persons and the pursuits that most attract their attention. Educated, besides, not with the idea that they are to catch a husband, but that they are to have a husband, as a matter of course, caught for them -a husband whom they are not obliged to seduce by any forced and false expressions of affection-but to take quietly from their friends, as a friend,—they occupy themselves at once with this husband's interests, with this husband's occupations, and never imagine that they are to share his confidence, but on the ground that they understand his pursuits-whoever be their lover, their husband is their companion.

I was talking one evening with the master of the house where I had been dining, on some subject of trade and politics, which I engaged in unwillingly, in the idea that it was not very likely to interest the lady. I was soon rather astonished, I confess, to find her enter into the conversation, with a knowledge of detail and a right perception of general principles, which I did not expect. "How do you think," said she to me, when I afterwards expressed my surprise, "that I could meet my husband every evening at dinner, if I were not able to talk on the topics on which he has been employed in the morning ?" An English fine lady would have settled the question very differently, by affirming as an undeniable proposition, that politics and such stuff were great bores, and that a man, to be agreeable, must talk of balls, and operas, and

dress.

But it is not only in high society, and in good society, in the "salon" and in the boudoir," that you find the female in France take an important position. It is the same in the comptoir, in the café, and at the shop. She is there also the great personage, keeps the accounts, keeps the money, regulates and superintends the business.

Such are the women of France! The laws and habits of a constitutional government will in a certain degree affect their character-will in a certain degree diminish their influence; but that character is too long confirmed, that influence is too widely spread for the legislation which affects them on the one hand, not to be affected by them on the other; and it would take a revolution more terrible than any we have yet seen, to keep the Deputy at the Chamber after six o'clock in the evening, and to bring his wife to the conviction that she was not a fit companion for him after dinner. Still, undoubtedly, there has been a change, not as much in the habits of domestic as in the habits of political life; and though the husband and the lover are still under feminine sway, the state is at all events comparatively free from female caprice.

In connexion with the condition of women in France, we must notice another singular statement, on which we presume to give no opinion, however unhesitating our judgment may be of the cruelty and absurdity so lately sanctioned by the British Legislature, when, in the face of reason, humanity, and religion, it confounded every degree of female guilt in a common shame and punishment-from the first transgression of a young, deluded girl, to the hardened prostitution of the most abandoned female. In France there is, it appears, room for repentance, and an encouragement to regain the right path, which is probably carried too far, since it is more we fear the result of indifference to the offence, than kindness for the offender.

There is a remarkable female phenomonon in France, which contrasts itself with what occurs in almost every other country. In England, it is a melancholy fact, that many of the miserable creatures who at midnight parade the streets, and whose only joy is purchased for a penny at Mr. Thomson's gin-shop, have fallen, perchance, but a few months since, from situations of comfort, honesty, and respectability. In France, the woman who begins with the most disgusting occupation on the Boulevards, usually contrives, year after year, to ascend one step after another into a more creditable position. The hope and the desire to rise never forsake her; not

withstanding her vanity, and her desire for dress, and her passion for pleasure, she husbands her unhappy earnings. There is a kind of virtue and order mingling with her extravagance and vice which form part of her profession. The aged mother, or the little sister, is never forgotten. She has not that first horror of depravity which is found amongst our chaster females; but she falls not at once, nor does she ever fall lower than necessity obliges her. Without education, she contrives to pick up a certain train of thought, a finesse, and a justness of ideas,-a thorough knowledge of life and of character,—and, what perhaps is most surprising of all, a tact, a delicacy, and elegance of manners, which it is perfectly marvellous that she should have preserved,-much more that she should have collected from the wretchedness and filth which her life has been dragged through. In the lowest state of infamy and misery, she cherishes and displays feelings you would have thought incompatible with such a state; and as one has wept over the virtues and the frailties of the dear, and the beautiful, and imaginary Manon l'Escaut, so there are real heroines in Vidocq, whom our sympathy and our affection accompany to the galleys.

Our last extract shall be the following truly admirable observations upon female education.

The

It is not so much the female mind that wants cultivating, it is the female character that wants exalting. doctrine may be unpopular; but what you have to do cannot be done merely by the elegancies of literature or the speculations of science. The education which you must give, to be useful, must be moral: must be an education that will give a chivalric love-such love as women are prone to feel-not for the romantic depravities of life-not for the mawkish devilry and romance of a

bourgeois Byron; but for what is great and noble in life for the noble heroism of a Farcy, for the political integ rity of a Beranger.

The sex most capable of rewarding public virtue, should be taught to honour and admire public virtue— should be taught to admire public virtue as it was formerly taught to admire accomplished vice; should be taught to feel for the patriot what it feels for the soldier, and what too often it feels for the roué. The female mind should be hardened and strengthened by logical notions of right, as well as filled with the fanciful theories which a smattering of letters and philosophy inspires.

I fear this can hardly be done by laws; much towards it, however, might be done by a Court patronizing merit, and honouring principle; much towards it might be done by a Government, which, extending by its nature into every position and relation of society, has an opportunity in every village of distinguishing merit and rewarding virtue.

We conclude this article with the feeling that we may be supposed to have done Mr. Bulwer some injustice, or at least to have given him scanty approbation. Yet the blame does not rest with us, but upon the title he has assumed for his labours. He has certainly not written FRANCE, Social, Literary, and Political, nor anything approaching so stupendous an undertaking; but he has produced a lively, agreeable book, upon that great kingdom, which we have perused with much pleasure, and heartily commend to our readers.

THE PAST,-THE PRESENT,-THE FUTURE.
Respice! Aspice! Prospice!

THE Past, the Present, and the Future :-these
Are Time's three portions; and Eternity's
Can be no greater. Strange is, their division:
Each with each making union and collision.
They were, or are, or will be, each the same;
And each the other, in their order, name,
And being. Yet two of these are infinite :-
The Past, still refluent on the deepening night
Of pre-eternity, whose unborn source
Receives, absorbs, accelerates, its course:
The Future, from its post-eternal store
Forth issuing, and extending more and more:
The Present,-how shall we its state define?
What hand shall mete its nice and narrow line?
Gone, even in its coming,-subtle shade,
Whose advent by no art of man is stayed,
Nor its departure speeded; that small space,
Whose point the Future and the Past efface
In the same instant. It will be the Past,
And it hath been the Future; yet doth last,
The unchanged, always changing, Present; still
Blending the boundaries of was and will.
The Isthmian Now of each Eternity,
Trining the has-been, being, and to-be;
The bridge of either EVER, single-arched,

O'er whose short span the ceaseless Past hath marched
From the quick Future, which its track pursues,
O'ertakes, impels, effaces, and renews.

The far Past fades behind Oblivion's veil;

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The nearer gleams through Memory's reflex pale ;-
Dark is the distant Future; while the near
Takes the prismatic tints of hope and fear.
Our sires possessed the Past-its state was theirs ;
Our children are the Future's destined heirs :
While between either range ourselves are thrown,
The waste forgotten, and the waste unknown :-
So are the twain, a lifeless void to us-
The ante-natal, and the posthumous;
Shedding alike their deep impervious gloom,
Before the cradle and behind the tomb.

But the immediate Present-which doth dwell
On its own instant indivisible—

The speck of time, incapable of pause—

It was what will be, and will be what was,
Yet ever is, a filling, emptying, sea;
Through which the river of Futurity
Exhaustless rolls into the broad and deep
Gulf of the Past, with never-tiring sweep.

How strange, that what is nothing should be all—
Continual time, a timeless interval—

A viewless atom, slipping from the sense,

An orb of undescribed circumference.
Forbear the enlarging thought,-nor urge a theme,
Which He alone can reach-the Power Supreme,—

Within the glance of whose all-seeing eye,

The Past, the Present, and the Future lie,—
A tri-une point in one eternity.

Yet hence a seasonable lesson may

Well be extended νυξ γας ερχεται

Be then our net with present wisdom cast,

To catch the Future, ere it be the Past!

COWLEY,

E. L. L. S.

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