ther, to trace their ramifications. The human frame was laid open and published. He was sorry the execution of the plan had been so long delayed. Doctor, your plates form a magnificent work; I wish them to be dedicated to me,-to appear under my auspices; I am anxious to render this last service to science. I will supply you with the money, and you shall return to Europe and publish them: I feel ambitious to contribute to raise this monument.' The Emperor often returned to this subject, and spoke each time with renewed satisfaction of THE UNDERTAKING!"

One more bit to conclude with-it is indeed a morceau.

"17th.-Same state of health. Same prescription.

"THE EMPEROR WAS PRE-OCCUPIED AND THOUGHTFUL, AND I WAS ENDEAVOURING TO DIVINE THE CAUSE OF HIS

ANXIETY, WHEN I SAW MY ANATOMICAL WORK HALF OPEN BEFORE HIM!!! THIS CIRCUMSTANCE WAS DECISIVE!!! I HAD GUESSED RIG HTLY!!!"

Ohe, jam satis! Good night, Mr Colburn.

Few works of art in our time have attracted or deserved a greater share of admiration, than the illustrations of the Faust, by a German artist of the name of Retsch. These engravings were copied and published again in England; but we are constrained to say that the English copies did scanty justice to the originals, which had, no doubt, been executed under the immediate superintendence of Retsch himself. Still they were well received; and those who had not seen the German prints, were abundantly pleased with what they had got.

Mr Retsch is now, it appears, occupied in illustrating Schiller's ballads-many of which compositions, for pathos, for sublimity, for interest of conception, and for simple grace of versification, rank in the highest class of poetical excellence. He has already published his illustrations of one of these ballads-one of the most charming of them all, in our opinion -Fridolin. These have been copied by Mr Moses in London, and published with the accompaniment of a translation of the ballad itself, by Mr Collier, author of a work which we have never happened to see" the Poetical Decameron."

This translation is very unequally executed. In the attempt to be very close and literal, the meaning has often been missed-nay, in the very first line, a blunder, which has not even that excuse, stares us in the face. By rendering knecht "youth," instead of 66 page," the outset of the story loses VOL. XVII.

clearness, and gains no melody. Some of the verses are well; but, on the whole, the translation is feeble. Not so the engravings-we have not seen the originals to be sure, but it appears to us that Mr Moses has done his part extremely well.

The subjects do not admit of the display of the whole of those great powers which were called forth by the Faustus. But what the story demands the artist gives, and gives with much freedom and boldness, and at the same time with much of the same high and pathetic grace which we had recognized in his former efforts. A great mass of illustrations of the popular poems and romances of our own literature, have recently been given to the public; and no one can question the merit of many of them: But we are free to acknowledge, that we have produced nothing in this way at all equal to this accomplished German artist. There is a depth and purity of feeling about him-a variety and breadth of power-and a noble simplicity of effect in his sketches-which we would fain see studied by our own artists. We have heard a report that Mr Retsch is coming to this country; and certainly, if he undertakes to make designs for our Macbeths-our Tempests-our Othellos-our Ivanhoesand our Childe Harolds-we shall see things immeasurably beyond what we have as yet been accustomed to bind up with the works of our English classics.

2 U

THIS cruel king had conceived for Blanche of Bourbon, his wife, such a mortal aversion, that he put all things in practice to touch her life. The poison of which he made use to rid himself of her, had no effect; for, knowing the design they had to make her die, she took the precautions necessary to preserve herself from being killed by poison. Maria de Padilla, mistress of Pedro, upon this, put it into the King's mind to remove her altogether from the court, and to give her an establishment in some province, in order that people might no longer see her, and that an absence, without hope of return, might produce the same effects which might have been looked for from her death. Pedro, much enamoured of that concubine, followed her counsel; he confined the Queen in a very distant province; and gave her withal a certain appanage to support a queenly estate, not daring to irritate his people against him, by reducing her all at once to a private condition.

This domain which Blanche received for her portion, procured for her the homage of the vassals who held of that signiory. A rich Jew, it so fell, had lands comprized within the Queen's territory; and he came to her court to acquit himself of his duty as her vassal; and-as at that time it was the custom in Spain that the vassal, in doing his homage, kissed respectfully the cheek of the lord, to shew forth the zeal and affection, which he promised, while life endured, to bear for his service; so this Jew drew near to the Queen Blanche, to salute her as. his lady and his mistress. She could not avoid receiving from him this mark of his vassalage; but no sooner had he quitted her chamber than she expressed the horror she had for that absurd ceremonial, bitterly reproach ing her servants for their little care, in that they had suffered that vile creature to approach her. She then commanded them to bring her hot water, and washed her mouth and her face diligently, as if to efface the stain which the kiss of the Jew had left upon her. But her indignation stopped not so; for, being sovereign in the place, she wished to inflict the last punishment for that temerity which the Jew had exhibited; and in the first

moment of wrath, she designed to have him hanged. The Jew being informed of that to which the Queen had condemned him, and that they were in search for him, to put him on the gibbet, according to her command, immediately took to flight, and went to make his complaint to the King Pedro concerning the design which Queen Blanche harboured of making him suffer the punishment of a capital offence for a mere duty of ceremony, whereof he had taken the freedom to acquit himself. The King received him under his protection, desiring him to fear nothing, and saying withal, that he saw well the Queen had such hatred for all whom he favoured, that it would be no matter of scruple for her to attempt something against his own life, if she found a fit occasion; that for this cause he must needs get rid of her; but that it would be best to save appearances, and furnish her with no handle against himself.

The Jew, who burned with the desire of revenge, assured the King it would be an easy matter to slay her, without leaving on her body any mark of violence. Peter rejoiced when he heard this said, and declared that great would be his obligation to the man, whosoever he might be, that should pull that thorn out of his foot. He, in fine, permitted the Jew to execute the affair he had projected, without any noise or alarm. And this wretch, who thirsted to be avenged on that Princess, was delighted when he had received the barbarous orders of Peter. He assembled a number of men of his nation, and, marching all the night, came to the apartment of the Queen suddenly with his associates. He pe-. netrated even to her chamber; and knocking at the door, one of the Queen's damsels refused to open it to him, saying, through the key-hole, that this was no hour for talking with her mistress, and asking on what business he had come thither. The Jew, that they might open to him, made answer, that he came with pleasant intelligence for the Queen, since her husband, to show how entirely he was reconciled to her, designed to come immediately and sleep with her in her chamber. The damsel ran in hastily to tell this good news to the Queen;

but she, perceiving surely the peril in which she was, began to weep, know ing that she had but few hours more to live; for she understood well that the Jews, whose whole race hated her, would not have come thither in so great number, and at an hour so unusual, without having some bloody order which they were zealous to execute. The lady of her chamber, upon this entering into the distresses of her mistress, cried out and wept, and said she would never open, unless the Queen herself absolutely commanded her. But the Queen made a sign to her that she must no longer dispute the entrance of the chamber against the Jews, and at the same instant she lifted her eyes up to heaven, to recommend her soul to God for salvation, calling out that it was no pain for her to die in her innocence, and praying God to bless abundantly the Duke of Bourbon her brother, the Queen of France her sister, King Charles the Wise, and all the royal family. She had no sooner made an end of these words, than the Jews entered in a troop. They found that blessed princess lying on her bed, holding in one of her hands a Psalter, and in the other a lighted taper to read her prayers; and turning her eyes on those that entered, she asked what was their business, and who had sent them so late to speak with her. They answered her, that with great sorrow did they find themselves there, to announce to her the order of the King, and that forthwith she must prepare herself, since her last hour was come.

This discourse was interrupted by the cries of her damsels, who tore their hair, and sobbed aloud, saying one to the other, that an unjust death was come on the best lady in the world, and calling on Heaven for vengeance on the authors of this cruelty. The poor Queen commanded them to set bounds to their lamentations, and said, there was no need for so much grief, since she was about to die innocent, and that their sorrow and pity should rather be for Pedro her husband, who committed such barbarity by the malicious counsels of his concubine, who had for a long space thirsted after her blood.

The Jews, fearing lest the cries and tumult of these damsels of the Queen might interrupt the execution of their mistress, and moreover, that they might reveal afterwards the murder, which they so much desired to keep in darkness, took them all by the hand, and dragging them out of the chamber, conveyed them into a cellar, where they strangled them, that so they might the more easily and secretly kill the Queen Blanche. These wretches delayed not the fulfilment of their purpose, for they dispatched her by letting a great beam tumble down upon her belly, that she might be deprived of breath, without any drop of blood appearing on her countenance or her body. When they had finished that accursed undertaking, they withdrew themselves speedily into a castle, situated on a high rock, which the king had pointed out to them as an asylum. -Memoires de DU GUESCLIN, Collection Universelle, &c. vol. IV. p. 96.

MY DEAR S.,

I ENDEAVOURED to give you some idea of the student duels in the German universities; and when I was doing so, I little thought I should have to exemplify one of those fatal results which take place every now and then, in the person of my poor friend L. You have often found his name in my letters. How could it be otherwise? He had been my constant companion in shower and in sunshine, on foot and on horseback, by water and by land, nearly for 12 months. I was at his side, when, with our knapsacks on our

backs, we toiled through the sands of Mecklenbourg and Prussia; when we wound our way over the rocks, and through the valleys of Switzerland. I was with him when we danced merrily to the sound of " tabor and lute," at the gathering of the vintage, and sung "blessings on the Rhine," as its blue waves were rapidly fulfilling their course beneath our feet-and I was with him when he was laid in his grave.

The first time I saw Lwas at Heidelberg. I had just returned from a ten days' excursion to Cologne, and

was sitting at the window of the inn, when my attention was aroused by a strange-looking figure, coming up the street. He seemed to be in the prime of youth, probably not twenty years of age. His form was singularly well proportioned, so much so, that though as he approached I saw he was six feet in height, he scarcely looked much above the middling size. His costume was ultra-student; his long dark hair had been carefully combed off his forehead, and hung in full curls down his back, so that there was nothing to relieve the palest countenance, and the most regular features I ever saw, except the black mustache which curled upon his upper lip. He wore a velvet cap, after the fashion of the sixteenth century, at the front of which was affixed a small silver crucifix. His neck was bare, and a large Vandyke frill lay on his shoulders. A Polish jacket, loose trowsers, and a sword so fastened as to be brought forward, and placed nearly perpendicularly on his left breast, completed the rest of his outline. I had already seen a little of these students, but was not prepared to meet with anything so strange as this figure. I soon learned, however, that he was from the university of Jena; and this, I was given to understand, was a sufficient cause for all this singularity of appearance. He touched his bonnet slightly as he passed us, according to the courtesy of the country, and I saw nothing more of him till we met, six months after, at Berlin. I then found him much changed. He had shorn his long locks, and had modified his extraordinary costume, to a more citizen-like fashion. His mind, however, had been too deeply embued with the extravagancies of the Burschin-libsu of Jena, to throw off all those habits of thought which had been acquired at the very outset of his career. He had quitted one of the Gymnasia of Germany at the age of fifteen, and had been placed at this University. He found himself in a world, a world, too, in which unfortunately the imagination was called more into play than the judgment. He was surrounded by youths of his own age, the greater portion, if not the whole of whom, at this particular University, sprung from the middling orders, and therefore hated all that savoured of aristocracy. Picture to yourself a set of boys, placed in one of the most

secluded spots on the face of the earth, mingling in no society, because in Jena there is none; filled with heated notions about liberty and patriotism; always in a state of excitement, eternally duelling or studying; and I think you will not easily find a chain of circumstances more fit for building up a mind such as that of Sandt, or of destroying one like L's.

Lwas an only child. His circumstances and his rank of life (for he was not a noble) obliged him to devote himself to the study of theology. His temper was mild and conciliating -he was an expert swordsman and an experienced duellist, because he was a student; but almost all of his duels arose from the quarrels of others. The impulse of his own nature was to be in charity with all men. You probably will smile at the idea of a duellist being of such a disposition; but consider for a moment how exceedingly artificial the society is which brings forth such seeming incongruities, and your wonder will cease. At an age when our feelings are freshest, and most easily moulded, a student is thrown into a world where his conduct is tried by the wildest and most romantic tests. He is taught to consider himself perfectly free, because he is not bound to acknowledge any law, except those of the Senatus Academicus, not even those of his country. He is therefore touchy, and impatient of restraint. He comes prepared to form romantic attachments, and his anticipations are realized. Clans are formed among themselves, each member of which swears to support his brother at all risks. Each clan has its particular days of meeting, and all the clans meet together four times in the year, for no other purpose than to foster these highwrought feelings. Hence you will easily see that duelling among them is nothing but a necessary result of the "esprit du corps," and that a mild man and a regular duellist are not incompatible.

As a man, then, L― possessed all those kindly affections which endeared him to his friends, but, as a student, these feelings had been diverted from a wholesome growth, and had become rank, from their very luxu riancy. I am content to be charged with prolixity in the description of his character, because this description will apply to a whole class of students, and

to a class, too, by no means scant among them. L-had modelled his character upon an ideal of what he conceived to be the Alt-Deutsch. To live freely to be true to his friend, his mistress, and, above all, to his country, was the very soul of such a model. To be sincere in his manner, nay, even to be blunt, to be strictly chaste, to avoid all that resembled French, was to be a man. In short, I cannot give you a better idea of what the greater portion of the German students strive to be, than to refer you to the character of Götz von Berlichingen, in Goethe's tragedy of that name. It was one of the German poet's earliest productions, and I suspect that Götz himself is not so much an original conception as the concrete of what was conceived to be a perfect AltDeutscher by the students. L, though a thorough wanderer over the face of the earth, yet had contrived to obtain a profound acquaintance with the ancient tongues, both classical and the eastern. The study of these was necessary for his theological pursuits. There was a motive, however, for his ardour for acquirement, which arose from a more sacred source than the mere pleasure of study, a sense of duty, which he owed to an aged mother. His feelings were acute on all subjects, but on this they amounted to devotion. "She has been all to me," I have often heard him say; "she has garnered up all her heart in her son. God grant that one day he may be enabled to shew his gratitude!" So mysterious, however, are the ways of Providence, that it was through that son that her grey hairs were bowed with sorrow to the grave.

We had travelled from Berlin to Heidelberg. You know, I was in the habit of making short excursions to the several capitals in the south of Germany. I had been absent a week on one of these, and had returned very late one night,-when, as I drove through the street in which he lodged, I looked for the light which I expect ed to find at his window, for his burschen habits obliged him to devote his nights to those studies to which he could not attend during the day, but I found that the shutters were closed. I know not how to account for it, but I had a presentiment that he was dead. It was in vain I reasoned on the improbability of the case. In vain I thought

on a thousand causes which might have induced him to have retired earlier than usual,-nothing appeared satisfactory, and I was oppressed with the deepest melancholy. The next day, I went to the leader of the corps to which he belonged, and learned, alas! that my suspicions were but too true: poor L had been shot the very evening of my arrival. The affair had arisen from a quarrel which occurred in the great Commerz. A drunken Courlander had insulted L-; hard words were exchanged, and a duel was to be the consequence. The following morning, L-'s friends were surprised to hear that his antagonist insisted on choosing the pistol and the barrier. The reason assigned was, that he had struck the Courlander. It did not appear, however, that any blow had been given or taken by either party, but as this mode of fighting was strongly insisted upon, there remained no other alternative but to adopt it. The spot chosen for this scene of action was a field just out of the town. They met, and at the very first fire his adversary's ball passed through L-'s heart-he sprung into the air, and fell dead without a single groan. The ball had driven in a portion of the little silver crucifix, the gift of his mother, which, since he had changed his mode of dress, he wore in his bosom. The Courlander was obliged to leave the territories of Baden, and this he could accomplish in an hour. The punishment against duelling is nominally severe, but really nothing. You may be sentenced to twenty years' confinement at Spandau, or at any other fortress, and you reckon upon being set free in twenty weeks. It is a custom prevalent throughout Germany, in cases of duels, to bury the person on the spot in which he has fallen. A grave was made near two large elms, in the corner of the field in which the duel took place, and here they buried the body of poor L, and with it all that remained of joy or comfort to his aged and widowed mother. This was the brief outline of the events which had transpired during my absence. The several members of the Landsmanschaft to which he belonged were highly incensed. It was not a fair duel, said one. It was not according to the customary student-laws, said a second. The Courlanders have been renowning of late. We shall see if this can