For if I thought with heedless tread
My step profaned their lowly bed,
My breath came gaspingly and thick,
And my crush'd heart fell blind and sick.

XII.

I made a footing in the wall,

It was not therefrom to escape,

For I had buried one and all,

Who loved me in a human shape;

And the whole earth would henceforth be

A wider prison unto me:

No child-no sire-no kin had I,

No partner in my misery;

I thought of this, and I was glad,

For thought of them had made me mad;
But I was curious to ascend

To my barr'd windows, and to bend
Once more, upon the mountains high,
The quiet of a loving eye.

XIII.

I saw them--and they were the same,
They were not changed like me in frame;
I saw their thousand years of snow
On high-their wide long lake below,
And the blue Rhone in fullest flow;
I heard the torrents leap and gush
O'er channell'd rock and broken bush;
I saw the white-wall'd distant town,
And whiter sails go skimming down;
And then there was a little isle, 4
Which in my very face did smile,

The only one in view;

A small green isle, it seem'd no more,
Scarce broader than my dungeon floor,
But in it there were three tall trees,
And o'er it blew the mountain breeze,
And by it there were waters flowing,
And on it there were young flowers growing
Of gentle breath and hue.

The fish swam by the castle wall,
And they seem'd joyous each and all;

The eagle rode the rising blast,
Methought he never flew so fast
As then to me he seem'd to fly,
And then new tears came in my eye,
And I felt troubled-and would fain
I had not left my recent chain,
And when I did descend again,
The darkness of my dim abode
Fell on me as a heavy load;
It was as is a new-dug grave,
Closing o'er one we sought to save,
And yet my glance, too much opprest,
Had almost need of such a rest.

XIV.

It might be months, or years, or days,
I kept no count-I took no note,

I had no hope my eyes to raise,

And clear them of their dreary mote;
At last men came to set me free,

I ask'd not why, and reck'd not where,
It was at length the same to me,
Fetter'd or fetterless to be,

I learn'd to love despair.
And thus when they appear'd at last,
And all my bonds aside were cast,
These heavy walls to me had grown
A hermitage and all my own!
And half I felt as they were come
To tear me from a second home:
With spiders I had friendship made,
And watch'd them in their sullen trade,
Had seen the mice by moonlight play,
And why should I feel less than they?
We were all inmates of one place,
And I, the monarch of each race,
Had power to kill-yet, strange to tell!
In quiet we had learn'd to dwell-
My very chains and I grew friends,
So much a long communion tends
To make us what we are:-even I
Regain'd my freedom with a sigh.

NOTES TO THE PRISONER OF CHILLON.

Note 1, page 145, line 13.

tions, il se sentit entraîné par son goût pour les Repub liques, dont il épousa toujours les intérêts: c'est ce goût pour la liberté que lui fit sans doute adopter Genève pour sa patrie.

Bonnivard, encore jeune, s'annonça hautement comme le défenseur de Genève contre le Duc de Savoye et

By Bonnivard!-may none those marks efface! François de Bonnivard, fils de Louis de Bonnivard, originaire de Seyssel et Seigneur de Lunes, naquit en 1496; il fit ses études à Turin: en 1510 Jean Aimé de Bonnivard, son oncle, lui résigna le Prieuré de St. Vic-l'Evêque. tor, qui aboutissoit aux murs de Genève, et qui formoit En 1519, Bonnivard devient le martyr de sa patrie. un bénéfice considérable.

Le Duc de Savoye étant entré dans Genève avec cing Ce grand homme (Bonnivard mérite ce titre par la cent hommes, Bonnivard craint le ressentiment du Duc force de son âme, la droiture de son cœur, la noblesse il voulut se retirer à Fribourg pour en éviter les suites de ses intentions, la sagesse de ses conseils, le courage mais il fut trahi par deux hommes qui l'accompagnoient, de ses démarches, l'étendue de ses connaissances et la et conduit par ordre du Prince à Grolée où il resta vivacité de son esprit,) ce graud homme, qui excitera prisonnier pendant deux ans. Bonnivard étoit malheul'admiration de tous ceux qu'une vertu héroïque peut reux dans ses voyages: comme ses malheurs n'avoient encore émouvoir, inspirera encore la plus vive recon-point ralenti son zèle pour Genève, il étoit toujours un naissance dans les cours des Genevois qui aiment Genève. Bonnivard en fut toujours un des plus fermes appuis pour assurer la liberté de notre République, il ne craignit pas de perdre souvent la sienne; il oublia son repos; il méprisa ses richesses; il ne négligea rien pour affermir le bonheur d'une patrie qu'il honora de son choix: dès ce moment il la chérit comme le plus zélé de ses citovens: i la servit avec l'intrépidité d'un héros, et il écrivit son Histoire avec la naïveté d'un philosophe et la chaleur d'un patriote.

ennemi redoutable pour ceux qui la menaçoient, et par conséquent il devoit être exposé à leurs coups. Il fut rencontré en 1530 sur le Jura par des voleurs, qui le dépouillèrent, et qui le mirent encore entre les mains du Duc de Savoye: ce Prince le fit enfermer dans le Château de Chillon, où il resta sans être interrogé jusques en 1536; il fut alors delivré par les Bernois, qui s'emparèrent du Pays de Vaud.

Bonnivard, en sortant de sa captivité, eut le plaisir de trouver Genève libre et réformée; la République s'emIl dit dans le commencement de son histoire de Ge-pressa de lui témoigner sa reconnaissance et de le dégèvo, que, des qu'u eut commencé de lire l'histoire des na- dommager des maux qu'il avoit soufferts; elle le recut

Bourgeois de la ville au mois de Juin 1536; elle lui donna la maison habitee autrefois par le Vicaire-Général, et elle lui assigna une pension de 200 écus d'or tant qu'il séjourneroit à Genève. Il fut admis dans le Conseil de Deux-Cent en 1537.

Bonnivard n'a pas fini d'etre utile: appres avoir travaillé à rendre Genève libre, il réussit à la rendre tolerante. Bonnivard engagea le Conseil à accorder aux Ecclésiastiques et aux paysans un tems suffisant pour examiner les propositions qu'on leur faisoit; il reussit par sa douceur: on préche toujours le Christianisme avec succès quand on le prêche avec charité.

and Villeneuve, which last is at one extremity of the Lake of Geneva. On its left are the entrances of the Rhone, and opposite are the heights of Meillerie and the range of Alps above Boveret and St. Gingo.

Near it, on a hill behind, is a torrent; below it, washing its walls, the lake has been fatho ned to the depth. of 800 feet, (French measure ;) within it are a range of dungeons, in which the early reformers, and subsequent ly prisoners of state, were confined. Across one of the vaults is a beam black with age, on which we were informed that the condemned were formerly executed. In the cells are seven pillars, or, rather, eight, one being half merged in the wall; in some of these are rings for the fetters and the fettered: in the pavement the steps of Bonnivard have left their traces-he was confined here several years.

Bonnivard fut savant; ses manuscrits, qui sont dans la Bibliothéque publique, prouvent qu'il avoit bien lu les auteurs classiques latins, et qu'il avoit approfondi la théologie et l'histoire. Ce grand homme aimoit les sciences, et il croyoit qu'elles pouvoient faire la gloire It is by this castle that Rousseau has fixed the catasde Genève aussi il ne négligea rien pour les fixer trophe of his Heloise, in the rescue of one of her childans cette ville naissante; en 1551 il donna sa biblio-dren by Julie from the water; the shock of which, and théque au public; elle fut le commencement de notre the illness produced by the immersion, is the cause of Lbliotheque publique; et ces livres sont en partie les her death. rares et belles éditions du quinzième siècle qu'on voit dans notre collection. Enfin, pendant ia même année, ce bon patriote institua la République son héritière, à condition qu'elle employeroit ses biens à entretenir le collége dont on projettoit la fondation.

Il paroit que Bonnivard mourut en 1570; mais on ne peut l'assurer, parce qu'il y a une lacune dans le Nécrologe depuis le mois de Juillet 1570 jusques en 1571.

Note 2, page 145, line 17.

In a single night.

Ludovico Sforza, and others.-The same is asserted of Marie Antoinette's, the wife of Louis XVI. though not in quite so short a period. Grief is said to have the same effect: to such, and not to fear, this change in hers was to be attributed.

Note 3, page 146, line 85.
From Chillon's snow-white battlement.
The Chateau de Chillon is situated between Clarens

The chateau is large, and seen along the lake for a great distance. The walls are white.

Note 4, page 148, line 28.
And then there was a little isle

Between the entrances of the Rhone and Villeneuve not far from Chillon, is a very small island; the only one I could perceive, in my voyage round and over the lake, within its circumference. It contains a few trees. (I think not above three,) and from its sin eness and diminutive size has a peculiar effect upon 1 ⚫ view.

When the foregoing poem was composed I was not sufficiently aware of the history of Bonnivard, or I should have endeavoured to dignify the subject by an attempt to celebrate his courage and his virtues. Some account of his life will be found in a note appended to the "Sounet on Chillon," with which I have been furnished by the kindness of a citizen of that Republic, which is still proud of the memory of a man worthy of the best age of ancient freedom.

BEPPO,

A VENETIAN STORY.

Rosalind. Farewell, Monsieur Traveller: Look, you lisp, and wear strange suits: disable all the benefits of your own
country; be out of love with your Nativity, and almost chide God for making you that countenance you are; or I will
scarce think that you have swam in a Gondola.
As You Like It, Act IV. 86. I.

Annotation of the Commentators.

That is, been at Venice, which was much visited by the young English gentlemen of those times, and was then what
Paris is now-the seat of all dissoluteness.-S. À.

But with all Heaven t' himself; that day will break as How quickly would I print (the world delighting