"Surely," I said, we shall be most happy. We had intended," I added, to proceed towards Vienna about the 20th; but we shall not now think of moving, however well you may be, before the 30th." "Ah!" she sighed, "that will be long enough. Many days before that time arrives, you will, I trust, have laid me quietly in my grave; and I shall be joined again to those beings for whom alone I wished to live, and for whose sakes I am so anxious to die." From that time forward she never spoke more on the subject. To all appearance also, she went on steadily improving in health, or rather not falling into greater illness. The only striking difference in her was that she could not read her letters; but she listened with much interest to their being read by us; and she insisted upon our resuming our daily readings with her as before her late violent attack. She conversed, too, nearly as formerly, and related anecdotes with all her wonted animation. So complete, indeed, appeared to be her re-establishment, that, on the 20th of March, I wrote to her friends to state that I fully believed all immediate danger was past. 'But all this was no more than the flaring up of the taper just about to be extinguished! The equinox came, and found the Countess all but dead. On the 23d, and less than twenty-four hours after the time she had herself specified, the fatal blow was struck, and our poor friend was no more!'-pp. 298-301. Thus ended, under extraordinary circumstances, an extraordinary life and an extraordinary visit. Our extracts give, we fear, a very imperfect idea of this romance of real life, which is really conducted and finally wound up as if it were an artful and elaborate fiction, rather than a narrative of contemporaneous events. We have not space for the accounts of the details of the death, the lying in state, the funeral, or the burial, though all are marked with the same strange yet natural characteristics; but there is one subject on which we must say a word, chiefly because Captain Hall is altogether silent on it. It is remarkable that during the protracted illness of the Countess, no mention is made of her having sought the consolations of religion; and during her last days, of which Captain Hall gives copious and minute details, there seems to have been no intimation on her part of any concern about, or even belief in, a future state. No expression of affection, no mark of beneficence, no tenderness, no charity,-nothing that has even the appearance of a sentiment is recorded to have fallen from her lips, in those supreme moments, but her gratitude to Captain Hall, to his servants, and even to his infants, for their care of her. Her last recorded words were 'I die contented, however, when I have you about me to see me laid in my grave, and know that, in spite of all the fears which have haunted me for so long a time, I shall not be left forlorn and desolate to die amongst strangers. You may well be happy to think of the good you have done and are doing me.'-pp. 303-304. This is the kind of lip-gratitude in which selfishness cloaks itself, but not a word escapes which shows any-the smallest feeling of Christianity or even of natural religion. Nor can this be supposed to be a mere omission on the part of such an 'honest chronicler' as Captain Hall, who, we are well aware, from his own right feeling on this point, would have been happy to have been able to add, that which would have at once softened, exalted, and purified the harsh and egotistical character of his herione : the following passage, in his account of the funeral, proves that the subject had presented itself to Captain Hall's mind : 'Lastly came the parish priest, for although the Countess was a strict Protestant, she had always lived on friendly terms with the Roman Catholic clergy of the neighbourhood. This gentleman, in particular, she had always esteemed; and Joseph, knowing how much it would gratify him, as well as how satisfactory it would prove to the people on the estate, very judiciously suggested his being invited. With corresponding delicacy and good taste, the priest did not attempt to interfere with what was going on, but sat at a little distance, as a deeply interested spectator, but no more. 'Old Joseph, however, who was a good Catholic, thinking, I suppose, it might do no harm to give his mistress's soul a chance, took advantage of my back being turned, and stuck a lighted candle into the old lady's hand, a few minutes before she breathed her last. I was startled by this proceeding, and would have removed the candle; but Joseph, down whose cheeks the tears were flowing abundantly, beseeched me to let it remain. The effect was not a little picturesque, as it lighted up the dying woman's face, and showed every change of countenance with the utmost distinctness. The lights and shades which is cast on the surrounding anxious groups-for every one now closed round the bed-were in the highest degree striking, and the moment of our poor friend's death might have furnished admirable materials for a picture.'-pp. 307-308. What Captain Hall can mean by saying that she was a strict Protestant, from whom, living or dying, no expression of Christian faith, or hope, escaped, and of whose death-bed the best he can say is that it was picturesque, we cannot understand; and knowing, as we have said, Captain Hall's right sense and feeling in these matters, we cannot but express some degree of surprise, not only at his general silence as to the Countess's religion, but at the light mode in which the subject is treated in the last extract. We are not quite sure whether the surviving friends of the Countess may not consider themselves entitled to regret the exposure of such details of her life and death. Captain Hall has long been so very frank in his way of publishing about himself, that he may not perhaps be aware how averse many people are to see anything in print about their domestic affairs and connexions ; -however this may be,-if the Captain's volume were to reach Lower Lower Styria in an intelligible tongue, there certainly are one or two ladies who might, reasonably enough, complain at finding little foibles and follies of their own, which they naturally thought were buried in the obscurity of Schloss Hainfeld, making the i tour of Europe with no very complimentary guide. On the other hand, it must be admitted that, under the singular responsibility in which Captain Hall became involved, he might naturally consider it to be his right, if not his duty, to explain, as widely as he might think proper, the very peculiar circumstances of the case in which he was left to be the only counsellor and protector of a desolate and dying woman; and it really appears to us, that, except perhaps the two fair Styrians before mentioned, and who, we hope, are far beyond the reach of Captain Hall's criticism, there is no living person of whom he has said anything that can offend any reasonable delicacy. Though our extracts have been very copious, they give an inadequate idea of the amusement to be derived from this little volume. Anxious rather to exhibit the main points of the story, we have been obliged to omit the perhaps most amusing partsthe episodes descriptive of local manners and scenery, as seen by Captain Hall in the occasional visits made to the Countess by her neighbours, or in his own excursions in the adjacent countries: but we must find room for a letter addressed to the Countess by Sir Walter Scott in the year 1820,-at a time when that great and good man was at the height of his prosperity in all things: 6.66 My Dear and much-valued Friend,-You cannot imagine how much I was interested and affected by receiving your token of your kind recollection, after the interval of so many years. Your brother Henry breakfasted with me yesterday, and gave me the letter and the book,* which served me as a matter of much melancholy reflection for many hours. 6.66 Hardly anything makes the mind recoil so much upon itself, as the being suddenly and strongly recalled to times long passed, and that by the voice of one whom we have so much loved and respected. Do not think I have ever forgotten you, or the many happy days I passed in Frederick Street, in society which fate has separated so far, and for so many years. "The little volume was particularly acceptable to me, as it acquainted me with many circumstances, of which distance and imperfect communication had left me either entirely ignorant, or had transmitted only inaccurate information. "Alas! my dear friend, what can the utmost efforts of friendship offer you, beyond the sympathy which, however sincere, must sound like an empty compliment in, the ear of affliction? God knows with what willingness I would undertake anything which might afford you * Probably the Denkmahl, before mentioned. the the melancholy consolation of knowing how much your old and early friend interests himself in the sad event which has so deeply wounded your peace of mind. The verses, therefore, which conclude this letter,* must not be weighed according to their intrinsic value, for the more inadequate they are to express the feelings they would fain convey, the more they show the author's anxious wish to do what may be grateful to you. "In truth, I have long given up poetry. I have had my day with the public; and being no great believer in poetical immortality, I was very well pleased to rise a winner, without continuing the game, till I was beggared of any credit I had acquired. Besides, I felt the prudence of giving way before the more forcible and powerful genius of Byron. If I were either greedy, or jealous of poetical fame-and both are strangers to my nature-I might comfort myself with the thought, that I would hesitate to strip myself to the contest so fearlessly as Byron does; or to command the wonder and terror of the public, by exhibiting, in my own person, the sublime attitude of the dying gladiator. But with the old frankness of twenty years since, I will fairly own, that this same delicacy of mine may arise more from conscious want of vigour and inferiority, than from a delicate dislike to the nature of the conflict. At any rate, there is a time for everything, and without swearing oaths to it, I think my time for poetry has gone by. "My health suffered horridly last year, I think from over labour and excitation; and though it is now apparently restored to its usual tone, yet during the long and painful disorder (spasms in the stomach) and the frightful process of cure, by a prolonged use of calomel, I learned that my frame was made of flesh, and not of iron, a conviction which I will long keep in remembrance, and avoid any occupation so laborious and agitating, as poetry must be, to be worth anything. "In this humour, I often think of passing a few weeks on the continent a summer vacation if I can-and of course my attraction to Gratz would be very strong. I fear this is the only chance of our meeting in this world, we, who once saw each other daily! For I understand from George and Henry, that there is little chance of your coming here. And when I look around me, and consider how many changes you will see in feature, form, and fashion, amongst all you knew and loved; and how much, no sudden squall, or violent tempest, but the slow and gradual progress of life's long voyage, has severed all the gallant fellowships whom you left spreading their sails to the morning breeze, I really am not sure that you would have much pleasure. "The gay and wild romance of life is over with all of us. The real, dull, and stern history of humanity has made a far greater progress over our heads; and age, dark and unlovely, has laid his crutch over the stoutest fellow's shoulders. One thing your old society may boast, that they have all run their course with honour, and almost all with distinction; and the brother suppers of Frederick Street have certainly made a very considerable figure in the world, as was to be expected, from her talents under whose auspices they were assembled. "One of the most pleasant sights which you would see in Scotland, They have not been found. * as it now stands, would be your brother George in possession of the most beautiful and romantic place in Clydesdale-Corehouse. I have promised often to go out with him, and assist him with my deep experience as a planter and landscape gardener. I promise you my oaks will outlast my laurels; and I pique myself more upon my compositions for manure than on any other compositions whatsoever to which I was ever accessary. But so much does business of one sort or other engage us both, that we never have been able to fix a time which suited us both; and with the utmost wish to make out the party, perhaps we never may. ""This is a melancholy letter, but it is chiefly so from the sad tone of yours-who have had such real disasters to lament-while mine is only the humorous sadness, which a retrospect on human life is sure to produce on the most prosperous. For my own course of life, I have only to be ashamed of its prosperity, and afraid of its termination; for I have little reason, arguing on the doctrine of chances, to hope that the same good fortune will attend me for ever. I have had an affectionate and promising family, many friends, few unfriends, and I think, no enemiesand more of fame and fortune than mere literature ever procured for a man before. ""I dwell among my own people, and have many whose happiness is dependent on me, and which I study to the best of my power. I trust my temper, which, you know, is by nature good and easy, has not been spoiled by flattery or prosperity; and, therefore, I have escaped entirely that irritability of disposition which I think is planted, like the slave in the poet's chariot, to prevent his enjoying his triumph. ""Should things, therefore, change with me-and in these times, or indeed in any times, such change is to be apprehended-I trust I shall be able to surrender these adventitious advantages, as I would my upper dress, as something extremely comfortable, but which I can make shift to do without."-pp. 342-347. This beautiful letter will shed a tender interest round the memory of the Countess of Purgstall, when the eccentricities of her unfortunate old age shall be forgotten. ART. VI. De la Démocratie en Amérique. Par Alexis de London. THE researches of Huber, Bonnar, and others, have made us pretty familiar with the internal economy of the bee-hivethat is to say, with its mechanical economy-for of the real workings of the system we know nothing, and our knowledge is necessarily limited to the results. So far as that goes, our curiosity is gratified; but how much more would be our satisfaction if, by any contrivance of human ingenuity, methods could be devised for learning |