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TO GENOA.

Nobil città, che delle Liguri onde

Liede a specchio, in sembiante altera tanto,
E, torregiando al ciel da curve sponde,

Fai scorno ai monti, onde hai da tergo ammanto;
A tue moli superbe, a cui seconde

Null' altre Italia d'innalzare ha il vanto,

Dei cittadini tuoi chè non risponde

L'aspetto, il cor, l'alma, o l'ingegno alquanto?

L'oro sudato, che adunasti e aduni,
Puoi seppellir con minor costo in grotte
Ove ascondon se stessi e i lor digiuni.
Tue richezze non spese, eppur corrotte,
Fan dignoranza un denso velo agli uni;
Superstizion tien gli altri; a tutti è notte.

Proud city, that by the Ligurian sea
Sittest as at a mirror, lofty and fair;
And towering from thy curving banks in air,
Scornest the mountains that attend on thee;
Why, with such structures, to which Italy
Has nothing else, though glorious, to compare,
Hast thou not souls, with something like a share,
Of look, heart, spirit, and ingenuity?

Better to bury at once ('twould cost thee less)
Thy golden-sweating heaps, where cramp'd from light,
They and their pinch'd fasts ply their old distress.
Thy rotting wealth, unspent, like a thick blight,
Clouds the close eyes of these:-dark hands oppress
With superstition those :—and all is night.

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MADAME D'HOUTETOT.

HUMAN nature is in general fond of riddles. We delight to unravel a knotty point, and we study with the greatest pleasure those characters, whose ruling feeling we do not entirely comprehend. They oblige us to disentangle our ideas with delicate precision, and to make subtle differences, at once exercising our talents and our patience. It is for this reason, in a great measure, that so many books have been written about Rousseau. His sensibility, his genius, his pride, his alleged ingratitude and subsequent madness, have made him one of the most interesting personages of modern times: the misrepresentations of his enemies have given a spur to our researches and we may safely assert that we know more of his character and actions than his contemporaries just as we are better acquainted with the course of a river, looking down on it from a distant eminence, than sitting on its banks, listening to the murmur of its waters. From the character of Rousseau, our attention has been turned to that of his friends; we have become familiar with them also, and the merits of Diderot, Grimm, Madame d'Epinay, and Therese, have undergone a severe scrutiny, and their falsehood or truth have received their merited judgment.

Among these last, no one more excites our sympathy than Madame d'Houtetôt, the object of his passionate love and the cause of so many of his misfortunes. Madame d'Hou

tetôt was a woman of talent, and of the gentlest and most affectionate disposition. But unpretending and unnoticed, we should probably never have heard of her existence but for the passionate remembrance of Rousseau. It is the attribute of genius to gift with immortality all the objects it deigns to hallow by its touch. The memory of the feelings of the heart, however amiable and prized, expires with that heart which was their shrine. But genius cannot die. The present moment passes with the sun that hastens to its repose in the deep; and oblivion, like night, descends upon its world of suffering, enjoyment, or thought, did not genius prolong it to an eternity. The wisest hand down to us the actions of the best. When the chain of such spirits is snapt we emphatically call those times the "Dark Ages:" we turn shuddering from a time when men acted, but were unable to record their acts, and we seek with fresh avidity those remains of our fellow creatures which are more lasting than regal mausoleums, and more akin to our nature than the very body, preserved in a thousand folds of the embalmer's. cloth.

It is on Rousseau's account therefore that we feel curious concerning the character of Madame d'Houtetôt. But while satisfying that curiosity we become interested on her own account, and although she has left little behind her by which we may trace her life, yet we are touched and pleased, and finish by declaring her worthy for her own sake of that attention, which we at first bestowed on her for another's. Elizabeth-Sophie-Françoise de la Live de Bellegarde was the daughter of M. de Bellegarde, Farmer-General, and the father of M. d'Epinay. Madame d'Epinay and she were therefore sisters-in-law, and lived together under the same roof until the marriage of the latter. Mademoiselle de la Live was born in the year 1730; she was five years younger

than her sister-in-law; and from her earliest years was distinguished by her sensibility, her gaiety, and her talent. Loving every one, she was much beloved; and this extraordinary tenderness of disposition which characterised her infancy, continued to adorn her to the end of her life. She was married in the year 1747 to the Count d'Houtetôt. The preliminaries of this marriage are a curious specimen of the manners of the age. Madame d'Epinay describes Count d'Houtetôt as "a young nobleman without fortune; twentytwo years of age; a gamester by profession; as ugly as the devil, and of low rank in the army; in a word, ignorant, and apparently formed by nature to continue so." She says further, that when she first heard of the proposal she could not have restrained her laughter, had she not feared that the consequences of this ridiculous affair would render her sisterin-law unhappy. In addition to this, it is affirmed that at the moment of his marriage Count d'Houtetôt was passionately attached to another woman, to whom he was unable to unite himself.

Such circumstances offend and even disgust those who are accustomed to look upon any disposal of the person of woman, however legalized, as disgraceful, unless it be sanctioned by the feelings of the heart. The individual character of Sophie is the redeeming ore amidst this loam; her acknowledged excellence attaches us to her, and we desire to follow her through her path of life, to read a new page in the volume of human nature, and to see how this amiable and gifted creature conducted herself in circumstances the most unfavourable to the developement of the nobler virtues of our nature. The passions of Sophie were in repose; she therefore permitted herself to be disposed of according to the customs of her country, though her unsophisticated nature shuddered at the formation of a tie, intended to be the dearest link among

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