FOOTNOTES:

Love is not love,That alters where it alteration finds.

One would think that the sight of a woman, whom he had last seen in the full bloom of youth and glow of happiness,—who had endured, since they parted, such extremity of affliction, as far more than avenged his wounded vanity, might have awakened some tender thoughts, and called forth a gentler reply. When some one expressed surprise to Petrarch, that Laura, no longer young, had still power to charm and inspire him, he answered, "Piaga per allentar d'arco non sana,"—"The wound is not healed though the bow be unbent." This was in a finer spirit.

Something in the same character, as his reply to Lady Sunderland, was Waller's famous repartee, when Charles the Second told him that his lines on Oliver Cromwell were better than those written on his royal self. "Please your Majesty, we poets succeed better in fiction thanin truth." Nothing could be more admirablyapropos, more witty, more courtier-like: it was onlyfalse, and in a poor, time-serving spirit. It showed as much meanness of soul as presence of mind. What true poet, who felt as a poet, would have said this?

FOOTNOTES:[3]Alluding to the two heroines of Sir Philip Sydney's Arcadia; Sacharissa was the grandniece of thatpreux chevalier, and hence the frequent allusions to his name and fame.[4]Alluding to Sir Philip Sydney.[5]Lines on her picture.[6]Sacharissa, the poetical name Waller himself gave her, signifiessweetness.[7]His infant daughter, then about two years old, afterwards Marchioness of Halifax.[8]The Countess's mother, Lady Leicester, who was then with her at Althorpe.[9]Sydney's Memorials, vol. ii. p. 271.[10]See State Poems, vol. iii. p. 396.

[3]Alluding to the two heroines of Sir Philip Sydney's Arcadia; Sacharissa was the grandniece of thatpreux chevalier, and hence the frequent allusions to his name and fame.

[4]Alluding to Sir Philip Sydney.

[5]Lines on her picture.

[6]Sacharissa, the poetical name Waller himself gave her, signifiessweetness.

[7]His infant daughter, then about two years old, afterwards Marchioness of Halifax.

[8]The Countess's mother, Lady Leicester, who was then with her at Althorpe.

[9]Sydney's Memorials, vol. ii. p. 271.

[10]See State Poems, vol. iii. p. 396.

Nearly contemporary with Waller's Sacharissa lived several women of high rank, distinguished as munificent patronesses of poetry, and favourite themes of poets, for the time being. There was the Countess of Pembroke, celebrated by Ben Jonson,

The subject of all verse,Sydney's sister, Pembroke's mother.

There was the famous Lucy Percy, Countess of Carlisle, very clever, and very fantastic, who aspired to be the Aspasia, the De Rambouillet of her day, and did not quite succeed. She was celebrated by almost all the contemporary poets,and even in French, by Voiture. There was Lucy Harrington, Countess of Bedford, who, notwithstanding the accusation of vanity and extravagance which has been brought against her, was an amiable woman, and munificently rewarded, in presents and pensions, the incense of the poets around her. I know not what her Ladyship may have paid for the following exquisite lines by Ben Jonson; but the reader will agree with me, that it could not have beentoomuch.

This morning, timely rapt with holy fire,I thought to form unto my zealous museWhat kind of creature I could most desireTo honour, serve, and love; as poets use:I meant to make her fair, and free, and wise,Of greatest blood, and yet more good than great.I meant the day-star should not brighter rise,Nor lend like influence from his ancient seat.I meant she should be courteous, facile, sweet,Hating that solemn vice of greatness,pride;I meant each softest virtue there should meet,Fit in that softer bosom to reside.Only a learned, and a manly soulI purpos'd her; that should, with even powers,The rock, the spindle, and the sheers controulOf destiny, and spin her own free hours.Such when I meant to feign, and wished to see,My muse bade Bedford write,—and that was she.

There was also the "beautiful and every way excellent" Lady Anne Rich,[11]the daughter-in-law of her who was so loved by Sir Philip Sydney; and the memorable and magnificent—but somewhat masculine—Anne Clifford, Countess of Cumberland, Pembroke, and Dorset, who erected monuments to Spenser, Drayton, and Daniel; and above them all, though living a little later, the Queen herself, Henrietta Maria, whose femininecaprices, French graces, and brilliant eyes, rendered her a very splendid and fruitful theme for the poets of the time.[12]

There was at this time a kind of traffic between rich beauties and poor poets. The ladies who, in earlier ages, were proud in proportion to the quantity of blood spilt in honour of their charms, were now seized with a passion for being berhymed. Surrey, and his Geraldine, began this taste in England by introducing the school of Petrarch: and Sir Philip Sydney had entreated women to listen to those poets who promised them immortality,—"For thus doing, ye shall be most fair, most wise, most rich, most every thing!—ye shall dwell upon superlatives:"[13]and women believed accordingly. In spite of the satirist, I do maintain, that the love of praise and the love of pleasing are paramount in our sex,both to the love of pleasure and the love of sway.

This connection between the high-born beauties and the poets was at first delightful, and honourable to both: but, in time, it became degraded and abused. The fees paid for dedications, odes, and sonnets, were any thing but sentimental:—can we wonder if, under such circumstances, the profession of a poet "was connected with personal abasement, which made it disreputable?"[14]or, that women, while they required the tribute, despised those who paid it,—and were paid for it?—not in sweet looks, soft smiles, and kind wishes, but with silver and gold, a cover at her ladyship's table "below the salt," or a bottle of sack from my lord's cellar. It followed, as a thing of course, that our amatory and lyric poetry declined, and instead of the genuine rapture of tenderness, the glow of imagination, and all "the purple light of love," we have too often only a heap of glitteringand empty compliment and metaphysical conceits.—It was a miserable state of things.

It must be confessed that the aspiring loves of some of our poets have not proved auspicious even when successful. Dryden married Lady Elizabeth Howard, the daughter of the Earl of Berkshire: but not "all the blood of all the Howards" could make her either wise or amiable: he had better have married a milkmaid. She was weak in intellect, and violent in temper. Sir Walter Scott observes, very feelingly, that "The wife of one who is to gain his livelihood by poetry, or by any labour (if any there be,) equally exhausting, must either have taste enough to relish her husband's performances, or good nature sufficient to pardon his infirmities." It was Dryden's misfortune, that Lady Elizabeth had neither one nor the other.

Of all our really great poets, Dryden is the one least indebted to woman, and to whom, in return, women are least indebted: he is almost devoid ofsentimentin the true meaning of the word.—"Hisidea of the female character was low;" his homage to beauty was not of that kind which beauty should be proud to receive.[15]When he attempted the praise of women, it was in a strain of fulsome, far-fetched, laboured adulation, which betrayed his insincerity; but his genius was at home when we were the subject of licentious tales and coarse satire.

It was through this inherent want of refinement and true respect for our sex, that he deformed Boccaccio's lovely tale of Gismunda; and as the Italian novelist has sins enough of his own to answer for, Dryden might have left him the beauties of this tender story, unsullied by the profane coarseness of his own taste. In his tragedies, his heroines on stilts, and his drawcansir heroes, whine, rant, strut and rage, and tear passion to tatters—to very rags; but love, such as it exists in gentle, pure, unselfish bosoms—love, such as it glows inthe pages of Shakspeare and Spenser, Petrarch and Tasso,—such love

As doth become mortalityGlancing at heaven,

he could not imagine or appreciate, far less express or describe. He could pourtray a Cleopatra; but he could not conceive a Juliet. His ideas of our sex seem to have been formed from a profligate actress,[16]and a silly, wayward, provoking wife; and we have avenged ourselves,—for Dryden is not the poet of women; and, of all our English classics, is the least honoured in a lady's library.

Dryden was the original of the famous repartee to be found, I believe, in every jest book: shortly after his marriage, Lady Elizabeth, being rather annoyed at her husband's very studious habits, wished herselfa book, that she might have a little more of his attention.—"Yes, my dear," replied Dryden, "an almanack."—"Why an almanack?" asked the wife innocently.—"Because then, mydear, I should change you once a year." The laugh, of course, is on the side of the wit; but Lady Elizabeth was a young spoiled beauty of rank, married to a man she loved; and her wish, methinks, was very feminine and natural: if it was spoken with petulance and bitterness, it deserved the repartee; if with tenderness and playfulness, the wit of the reply can scarcely excuse its ill-nature.

Addison married the Countess of Warwick. Poor man! I believe his patrician bride did every thing but beat him. His courtship had been long, timid, and anxious; and at length, the lady was persuaded to marry him, on terms much like those on which a Turkish Princess is espoused, to whom the Sultan is reported to pronounce, "Daughter, I give thee this man to be thy slave."[17]They were only three years married, and those were years of bitterness.

Young, the author of the Night Thoughts, married Lady Elizabeth Lee, the daughter of the Earlof Litchfield, and grand-daughter of the too famous, or more properly, infamous Duchess of Cleveland:—the marriage was not a happy one. I think, however, in the two last instances, the ladies were not entirely to blame.

But these, it will be said, are the wives of poets, not the loves of the poets; and the phrases are not synonymus,—au contraire. This is a question to be asked and examined; and I proceed to examine it accordingly. But as I am about to take the field on new ground, it will require a new chapter.

FOOTNOTES:[11]Daughter of the first Earl of Devonshire, of the Cavendish family. She was celebrated by Sidney Godolphin in some very sweet lines, which contain a lovely female portrait. Waller's verses on her sudden death are remarkable for a signal instance of the Bathos,That horrid word, at once like lightning spread,Struck all our ears,—the Lady Rich is dead![12]See Waller, Carew, D'Avenant: the latter has paid her some exquisite compliments.[13]Sir Philip Sydney's Works, "Defence of Poesie."[14]Scott's Life of Dryden, p. 89.[15]With the exception of the dedication of his Palamon and Arcite to the young and beautiful Duchess of Ormonde (Lady Anne Somerset, daughter of the Duke of Beaufort.)[16]Mrs. Reeves, his mistress: she afterwards became a nun.[17]Johnson's Life of Addison.

[11]Daughter of the first Earl of Devonshire, of the Cavendish family. She was celebrated by Sidney Godolphin in some very sweet lines, which contain a lovely female portrait. Waller's verses on her sudden death are remarkable for a signal instance of the Bathos,That horrid word, at once like lightning spread,Struck all our ears,—the Lady Rich is dead!

That horrid word, at once like lightning spread,Struck all our ears,—the Lady Rich is dead!

[12]See Waller, Carew, D'Avenant: the latter has paid her some exquisite compliments.

[13]Sir Philip Sydney's Works, "Defence of Poesie."

[14]Scott's Life of Dryden, p. 89.

[15]With the exception of the dedication of his Palamon and Arcite to the young and beautiful Duchess of Ormonde (Lady Anne Somerset, daughter of the Duke of Beaufort.)

[16]Mrs. Reeves, his mistress: she afterwards became a nun.

[17]Johnson's Life of Addison.

If it be generally true, that Love, to be poetical, must be wreathed with the willow and the cypress, as well as the laurel and the myrtle,—still it is notalwaystrue. It is not, happily, a necessary condition, that a passion, to be constant, must be unfortunate; that faithful lovers must needs be wretched; that conjugal tenderness and "domestic doings" are ever dull and invariably prosaic. The witty invectives of some of our poets, whose domestic misery stung them into satirists, and blasphemers of a happiness denied to them, are familiar in the memory—ready onthe lips of common-place scoffers. But of matrimonial poetics, in a far different style, we have instances sufficient to put to shame such heartless raillery; that there are not more, is owing to the reason which Klopstock has given, when writing of his angelic Meta. "A man," said he, "should speak of his wife as seldom and with as much modesty as of himself."

A woman is not under the same restraint in speaking of her husband; and this distinction arises from the relative position of the two sexes. It is a species of vain-glory to boast of a possession; but we may exult, unreproved, in the virtues of him who disposes of our fate. Our inferiority has here given to us, as women, so high and dear a privilege, that it is a pity we have been so seldom called on to exert it.

The first instance of conjugal poetry which occurs to me, will perhaps startle the female reader, for it is no other than the gallant Ovid himself. One of the epistles, written during his banishment to Pontus, is addressed to his wife Perilla, and very tenderly alludes to their mutualaffection, and to the grief she must have suffered during his absence.

And thou, whom young I left when leaving Rome,Thou, by my woes art haply old become:Grant, heaven! that such I may behold thy face,And thy changed cheek, with dear loved kisses trace;Fold thy diminished person, and exclaim,Regret for me has thinned this beauteous frame.

Here then we have the most abandoned libertine of his profligate times reduced at last in his old age, in disgrace and exile, to throw himself, for sympathy and consolation, into the arms of a tender and amiable wife; and this, after spending his life and talents in deluding the tenderness, corrupting the virtue, and reviling the characters of women. In truth, half a dozen volumes in praise of our sex could scarce say more than this.

Every one, I believe, recollects the striking story of Paulina, the wife of Seneca. When the order was brought from Nero that he should die, she insisted upon dying with him, and by the same operation. She accordingly prepared to be bled to death; but fainting away in the midst of hersufferings, Seneca commanded her wounds to be bound up, and conjured her to live. She lived therefore; but excessive weakness and loss of blood gave her, during the short remainder of her life, that spectral appearance which has caused her conjugal fidelity and her pallid hue to pass into a proverb,—"As pale as Seneca's Paulina;" and be it remembered, that Paulina was at this time young in comparison of her husband, who was old, and singularly ugly.

This picturesque story of Paulina affects us in our younger years; but at a later period we are more likely to sympathise with the wife of Lucan, Polla Argentaria, who beheld her husband perish by the same death as his uncle Seneca, and, through love for his fame, consented to survive him. She appears to have been the original after whom he drew his beautiful portrait of Cornelia, the wife of Pompey. Lucan had left the manuscript of the Pharsalia in an imperfect state; and his wife, who had been in its progress his amanuensis, his counsellor and confidant, and thereforebest knew his wishes and intentions, undertook to revise and copy it with her own hand. During the rest of her life, which was devoted to this dear and pious task, she had the bust of Lucan always placed beside her couch, and his works lying before her: and in the form in which Polla Argentaria left it, his great poem has descended to our times.

I have read also, though I confess my acquaintance with the classics is but limited, of a certain Latin poetess Sulpicia, who celebrated her husband Calenas: and the poet Ausonius composed many fine verses in praise of a beautiful and virtuous wife, whose name I forget.[18]

But I feel I am treading unsafe ground, rendered so both by my ignorance, and by my prejudices as a woman. Generally speaking, the heroines of classical poetry and history are not much to my taste; in their best virtues they were a little masculine, and in their vices, so completelyunsexed, that one would rather not think of them—speak of them—far less write of them.

The earliest instance I can recollect of modern conjugal poetry, is taken from a country, and a class, and a time where one would scarce look for high poetic excellence inspired by conjugal tenderness. It is that of a Frenchwoman of high rank, in the fifteenth century, when France was barbarised by the prevalence of misery, profligacy, and bloodshed, in every revolting form.

Marguèrite-Eléonore-Clotilde de Surville, of the noble family of Vallon Chalys, was the wife of Bérenger de Surville, and lived in those disastrous times which immediately succeeded the battle of Agincourt. She was born in 1405, and educated in the court of the Count de Foix, where she gave an early proof of literary and poetical talent, by translating, when eleven years old, one of Petrarch's Canzoni, with a harmony of style wonderful, not only for her age, but for the times in which she lived. At the age of sixteen she married the Chevalier de Surville, then, like herself, in thebloom of youth, and to whom she was passionately attached. In those days, no man of noble blood, who had a feeling for the misery of his country, or a hearth and home to defend, could avoid taking an active part in the scenes of barbarous strife around him; and De Surville, shortly after his marriage, followed his heroic sovereign, Charles the Seventh, to the field. During his absence, his wife addressed to him the most beautiful effusions of conjugal tenderness to be found, I think, in the compass of poetry. In the time of Clotilde, French verse was not bound down by those severe laws and artificial restraints by which it has since been shackled: we have none of the prettinesses, the epigrammatic turns, the sparkling points, and elaborate graces, which were the fashion in the days of Louis Quatorze. Boileau would have shrugged up his shoulders, and elevated his eyebrows, at the rudeness of the style; but Molière, who preferred

J'aime mieux ma mie, oh gai!

to all thefades galanteriesof his contemporarybels esprits, would have been enchanted with the naïve tenderness, the freshness and flow of youthful feeling which breathe through the poetry of Clotilde. The antique simplicity of the old French lends it such an additional charm, that though in making a few extracts, I have ventured to modernize the spelling, I have not attempted to alter a word of the original.

Clotilde has entitled her first epistle "Heroïde à mon époux Bérenger;" and as it is dated in 1422, she could not have been more than seventeen when it was written. The commencement recalls the superscription of the first letter of Heloïse to Abelard.

Clotilde, au sien ami, douce mande accolade!A son époux, salut, respect, amour!Ah, tandis qu'eplorée et de cœur si malade,Te quier[19]la nuit, te redemande au jour—Que deviens? où cours tu? Loin de ta bien-aimée,Où les destins, entrainent donc tes pas?'Faut que le dise, hèlas! s'en crois la renomméeDe bien long temps ne te reverrai pas?

She then describes her lonely state, her grief for his absence, her pining for his return. She laments the horrors of war which have torn him from her; but in a strain of eloquent poetry, and in the spirit of a high-souled woman, to whom her husband's honour was dear as his life, she calls on him to perform all that his duty as a brave knight, and his loyalty to his sovereign require. She reminds him, with enthusiasm, of the motto of French chivalry, "mourir plutôt que trahir son devoir;" then suddenly breaking off, with a graceful and wife-like modesty, she wonders at her own presumption thus to address her lord, her husband, the son of a race of heroes,—

Mais que dis! ah d'où vient qu'orgueilleuse t'advise!Toi, escolier! toi, l'enfant des herosPardonne maintes soucis à celle qui t'adore—A tant d'amour, est permis quelque effroi.

She describes herself looking out from the tower of her castle to watch the return of his banner; she tells him how she again and again visits the scenes endeared by the remembrance of their mutual happiness. The most beautifultouches of description are here mingled with the fond expressions of feminine tenderness.

Là, me dis-je, ai reçu sa dernière caresse,Et jusqu'aux os, soudain, me sens bruler.Ici les ung ormeil, cerclé par aubespineQue doux printemps jà[20]courronnait de fleurs,Me dit adieu—Sanglots suffoquent ma poctrine,Et dans mes yeux roulent torrents de pleurs.....*....*....*....*D'autresfois, écartant ces cruelles images,Crois m'enfonçant au plus dense des bois,Mêler des rossignols aux amoureuse ramages,Entre tes bras, mon amoureux voix:Me semble ouïr, échappant de ta bouche rosée,Ces mots gentils, qui me font tressaillir,Ainz[21]vois au mème instant que me suis abuséeEt soupirant, suis prête à défailler!

....*....*....*....*

D'autresfois, écartant ces cruelles images,Crois m'enfonçant au plus dense des bois,Mêler des rossignols aux amoureuse ramages,Entre tes bras, mon amoureux voix:Me semble ouïr, échappant de ta bouche rosée,Ces mots gentils, qui me font tressaillir,Ainz[21]vois au mème instant que me suis abuséeEt soupirant, suis prête à défailler!

After indulging in other regrets, expressed with rather more naïveté than suits the present taste, she bursts into an eloquent invective against the English invaders[22]and the factious nobles ofFrance, whose crimes and violence detained her husband from her arms.

Quand reverrai, dis-moi, ton si duisant[23]visage?Quand te pourrai face à face mirer?T'enlacer tellement à mon frément[24]corsage,Que toi, ni moi, n'en puissions respirer?

and she concludes with this tenderenvoi:

Où que suives ton roi, ne mets ta douce amieEn tel oubli, qu'ignore où git ce lieu:Jusqu'alors en souci, de calme n'aura mie,—Plus ne t'en dis—que t'en souvienne! adieu!

Clotilde became a mother before the return of her husband; and the delicious moment in which she first placed her infant in his father's arms, suggested the verses she has entitled "Ballade à mon époux, lors, quand tournait après un an d'absence, mis en ses bras notre fils enfançon."

The pretty burthen of this little ballad has often been quoted.

Faut être deux pour avoir du plaisir,Plaisir ne l'est qu'autant qu'on le partage!

But, says the mother,

Un tierssi doux ne fait tort à plaisir?

and should her husband be again torn from her, she will console herself in his absence, by teaching her boy to lisp his father's name.

Gentil époux! si Mars et ton couragePlus contraignaient ta Clotilde à gémir,De lui montrer en son petit langage,A t'appeller ferai tout mon plaisir—Plaisir ne l'est qu'autant qu'on le partage!

Among some other little poems, which place the conjugal and maternal character of Clotilde in a most charming light, I must notice one more for its tender and heartfelt beauty. It is entitled "Ballade à mon premier né," and is addressed to her child, apparently in the absence of its father.

O chèr enfantelet, vrai portrait de ton père!Dors sur le sein que ta bouche a pressé!Dors petit!—clos, ami, sur le sein de ta mère,Tien doux œillet, par le somme oppressé.Bel ami—chèr petit! que ta pupille tendre,Goute un sommeil que plus n'est fait pour moi:Je veille pour te voir, te nourir, te defendre,Ainz qu'il est doux ne veiller que pour toi!

O chèr enfantelet, vrai portrait de ton père!Dors sur le sein que ta bouche a pressé!Dors petit!—clos, ami, sur le sein de ta mère,Tien doux œillet, par le somme oppressé.

Bel ami—chèr petit! que ta pupille tendre,Goute un sommeil que plus n'est fait pour moi:Je veille pour te voir, te nourir, te defendre,Ainz qu'il est doux ne veiller que pour toi!

Contemplating him asleep, she says,

N'était ce teint fleuri des couleurs de la pomme,Ne le diriez vous dans les bras de la mort?

Then, shuddering at the idea she had conjured up, she breaks forth into a passionate apostrophe to her sleeping child,

Arrête, cher enfant! j'en frémis toute entière—Reveille toi! chasse un fatal propos!Mon fils .... pour un moment—ah revois la lumière!Au prix du tien, rends-moi tout mon répos!Douce erreur! il dormait .... c'est assez, je respire.Songes lègers, flattez son doux sommeil;Ah! quand verrai celui pour qui mon cœur soupire,Au miens cotés jouir de son réveil?....*....*....*....*Quand reverrai celui dont as reçu la vie?Mon jeune époux, le plus beau des humainsOui—déja crois voir ta mère, aux cieux ravie,Que tends vers lui tes innocentes mains.Comme ira se duisant à ta première caresse!Au miens baisers com' t'ira disputant!Ainz ne compte, à toi seul, d'épuiser sa tendresse,—A sa Clotilde en garde bien autant!

....*....*....*....*

Quand reverrai celui dont as reçu la vie?Mon jeune époux, le plus beau des humainsOui—déja crois voir ta mère, aux cieux ravie,Que tends vers lui tes innocentes mains.Comme ira se duisant à ta première caresse!Au miens baisers com' t'ira disputant!Ainz ne compte, à toi seul, d'épuiser sa tendresse,—A sa Clotilde en garde bien autant!

Along the margin of the original MS. of this poem, was written an additional stanza, in the same hand, and quite worthy of the rest.

Voilà ses traits ... son air ... voilà tout ce que j'aime!Feu de son œil, et roses de son teint....D'où vient m'en ébahir?autre qu'en tout lui même,Pût-il jamais éclore de mon sein?

This is beautiful and true; beautiful, because it is true. There is nothing of fancy nor of art, the intense feeling gushes, warm and strong, from the heart of the writer, and it comes home to the heart of the reader, filling it with sweetness.—Am I wrong in supposing that the occasional obscurity of the old French will not disguise the beauty of the sentiment from the young wife or mother, whose eye may glance over this page?

It is painful, it is pitiful, to draw the veil of death and sorrow over this sweet picture.

What is this world? what asken men to have?Now with his love—now in his cold grave,Alone, withouten any companie![25]

De Surville closed his brief career of happiness and glory (and what more than these could he have asked of heaven?) at the seige of Orleans, where he fought under the banner of Joan of Arc.[26]He was a gallant and a loyal knight; so were hundreds of others who then strewed the desolated fields of France: and De Surville had fallen undistinguished amid the general havoc of all that was noble and brave, if the love and genius of his wife had not immortalised him.

Clotilde, after her loss, resided in the château of her husband, in the Lyonnois, devoting herself to literature and the education of her son: and it is very remarkable, considering the times in which she lived, that she neither married again, nor entereda religious house. The fame of her poetical talents, which she continued to cultivate in her retirement, rendered her, at length, an object of celebrity and interest. The Duke of Orleans happened one day to repeat some of her verses to Margaret of Scotland, the first wife of Louis the Eleventh; and that accomplished patroness of poetry and poets wrote her an invitation to attend her at court, which Clotilde modestly declined. The Queen then sent her, as a token of her admiration and friendship, a wreath of laurel, surmounted with a bouquet of daisies, (Marguèrites, in allusion to the name of both,) the leaves of which were wrought in silver and the flowers in gold, with this inscription: "Marguèrite d'Ecosse à Marguèrite d'Helicon." We are told that Alain Chartier, envious perhaps of these distinctions, wrote a satiricalquatrain, in which he accused Clotilde of being deficient inl'air de cour, and that she replied to him, and defended herself in a very spiritedrondeau. Nothing more is known of the life of this interesting woman, but that she had the misfortune to survive her son as well asher husband; and dying at the advanced age of ninety, in 1495, she was buried with them in the same tomb.[27]

FOOTNOTES:[18]Elton's Specimens.[19]Querir.[20]Jà—jadis (the old Frenchjais the Italiangià).[21]Ainz:—cependant (the Italiananzi).[22]She calls them "the Vultures of Albion."[23]Duisant,séduisant.[24]Frémissant.[25]Chaucer.[26]He perished in 1429, leaving his widow in her twenty-fourth year.[27]Les Poëtes Français jusqu'à Malherbes, par Augin. A good edition of the works of Clotilde de Surville was published at Paris in 1802, and another in 1804. I believe both have become scarce. HerPoësiesconsist of pastorals, ballads, songs, epistles, and the fragment of an epic poem, of which the MS. is lost. Of her merit there is but one opinion. She is confessedly the greatest poetical genius which France could boast in a period of two hundred years; that is, from the decline of the Provençal poetry, till about 1500.

[18]Elton's Specimens.

[19]Querir.

[20]Jà—jadis (the old Frenchjais the Italiangià).

[21]Ainz:—cependant (the Italiananzi).

[22]She calls them "the Vultures of Albion."

[23]Duisant,séduisant.

[24]Frémissant.

[25]Chaucer.

[26]He perished in 1429, leaving his widow in her twenty-fourth year.

[27]Les Poëtes Français jusqu'à Malherbes, par Augin. A good edition of the works of Clotilde de Surville was published at Paris in 1802, and another in 1804. I believe both have become scarce. HerPoësiesconsist of pastorals, ballads, songs, epistles, and the fragment of an epic poem, of which the MS. is lost. Of her merit there is but one opinion. She is confessedly the greatest poetical genius which France could boast in a period of two hundred years; that is, from the decline of the Provençal poetry, till about 1500.

Half a century later, we find the name of an Italian poetess, as interesting as our Clotilde de Surville, and far more illustrious. Vittoria Colonna was not thrown, with all her eminent gifts and captivating graces, among a rude people in a rude age; but all favourable influences, of time and circumstances, and fortune, conspired, with native talent, to make her as celebrated as she was truly admirable. She was the wife of that Marquis of Pescara, who has earned himself a name in the busiest and bloodiest page of history:—of that Pescara who commanded the armies of Charlesthe Fifth in Italy, and won the battle of Pavia, where Francis the First was taken prisoner. But great as was Pescara as a statesman and a military commander, he is far more interesting as the husband of Vittoria Colonna, and the laurels he reaped in the battle-field, are perishable and worthless, compared to those which his admirable wife wreathed around his brow. So thought Ariosto; who tell us, that if Alexander envied Achilles the fame he had acquired in the songs of Homer, how much more had he envied Pescara those strains in which his gifted consort had exalted his fame above that of all contemporary heroes? and not only rendered herself immortal;

Col dolce stil, di che il miglior non odo,Ma può qualunque, di cui parli o scrivaTrar dal sepolcro, e fa ch'eterno viva.

He prefers her to Artemisia, for a reason rather quaintly expressed,—

——AnziTanto maggior, quanto è più assai beli' opra,Che por sotterra un uom, trarlo di sopra.

"So much more praise it is, to raise a man above the earth, than to bury him under it." He compares her successively to all the famed heroines of Greece and Rome,—to Laodamia, to Portia, to Arria, to Argia, to Evadne,—who died with or for their husbands; and concludes,

Quanto onore a Vittoria è più dovutoChe di Lete, e del Rio che nove volteL'ombre circonda, ha tratto il suo consorte,Malgrado delle parche, e della morte.[28]

In fact, at a period when Italy could boast of a constellation of female talent, such as never before or since adorned any one country at the same time, and besides a number of women accomplished in languages, philosophy, and the abstruser branches of learning, reckoned sixty poetesses, nearly contemporary, there was not one to be compared with Vittoria Colonna,—herself the theme of song; and upon whom her enthusiastic countrymen have lavished all the high-sounding superlatives of a language, so rich inexpressive and sonorous epithets, that it seems to multiply fame and magnify praise. We find Vittoria designated in Italian biography, asDiva, divina, maravigliosa, elettissima, illustrissima, virtuosissima, dottissima, castissima, gloriosissima, &c.

But immortality on earth, as in heaven, must be purchased at a certain price; and Vittoria, rich in all the gifts which heaven, and nature, and fortune combined, ever lavished on one of her sex, paid for her celebrity with her happiness: for thus it has ever been, and must ever be, in this world of ours, "où les plus belles choses ont le pire destin."

Her descent was illustrious on both sides. She was the daughter of the Grand Constable Fabrizio Colonna, and of Anna di Montefeltro, daughter of the Duke of Urbino, and was born about 1490. At four years old she was destined to seal the friendship which existed between her own family and that of d'Avalo, by a union with the young Count d'Avalo, afterwards Marquisof Pescara, who was exactly her own age. Such infant marriages are contracted at a fearful risk; yet, if auspicious, the habit of loving from an early age, and the feeling of settled appropriation, prevents the affections from wandering, and plant a mutual happiness upon a foundation much surer than that of fancy or impulse. It was so in this instance,

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