THE BELLE OF THE VILLAGE.

37

living, has sued in vain. The folks in the village do not know what to make of it. Short-sighted people that they are, because they never see any strangers at Mrs. Ramsay's they cannot imagine that Ellen is engaged-the good people seem to take it for granted, that because they themselves have lived at Welsdon all their lives, nothing can have happened elsewhere.

It is now five years ago that Ellen and her cousin, George Templeton, were engaged to each other, but their parents agreed that they should not be married till Ellen was twenty-one. The ladies may think this was a long time to wait, but perhaps the parents thought, with the good vicar of Wakefield, that courtship is the happiest period of our lives. Be that as it may, the young folks had been engaged above a year, when, by a freak of fortune, a rich old relative of Ellen's father, dying childless, left him the heir to his very considerable property, although, during his life-time, he had never condescended to take any notice of him or his family. With increase of wealth Mr. Ramsay's pride rose ; he thought he had been foolish in giving his daughter to young Templeton, whose parents only possessed a decent competency. "Out of the fulness of the heart the mouth speaketh :"-the Templetons naturally felt indignant at the arrogance of the parvenu, and showed this in their behaviour to him, which Mr. Ramsay thought it as natural that he should resent, by forbidding his daughter to have any intercourse with George Templeton and his family; a proceeding which called forth a similar retaliation on the part of Mr. Templeton. Poor George and Ellen, although dutiful children, could not muster up resolution enough to agree in the parental views upon this subject, and, as the truth must be told, they had kept up a correspondence with each other, which Mrs. Ramsay, who was not so much the slave of gold as her husband, and who brought a woman's feelings to the consideration of this important topic, which so intimately involved her daughter's happiness, could not approve, yet would not altogether forbid. Such was the unsatisfactory state of affairs: the affections of the young people were but the more strongly cemented by the efforts made to disturb their union, while the hard-hearted ambition of Mr. Ramsay took every day firmer possession of his mind: but he was not destined to enjoy for a long period the prosperity which had dazzled him.

In his desire to augment his newly-acquired riches he entered into enormous speculations; the commercial crisis that ensued soon after reduced him to the verge of ruin. He did not long survive the shock, and at his death he left his widow barely sufficient to maintain herself and her daughter in a decent retirement in a country village. They chose Welsdon for their place of abode. George Templeton now hoped, that as Mr. Ramsay, the only offending party, was no more, his father would relent, and that the course of true love might at last run smooth. He had to learn that offended pride strikes deep roots, and perceiving the irritation of

VOL. II.

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his father's mind he wisely resolved to trust to the soothing influence of time. The event proved that he had acted wisely. The death of Mr. Ramsay, the misfortunes. and the comparative poverty to which Mrs. Ramsay and her daughter were now reduced, gradually exercised their influence upon Mr. Templeton's mind; his love for his son came in aid of his better feelings, and he was exalted in his own opinion by the idea that he was acting with no little generosity in consenting to the marriage of the young people on the original conditions; so that, as Ellen now wants but three months of being of age, I am afraid that we shall soon lose the Belle of the Village.

GOETHE'S MONUMENT,

IN FRANKFURT ON THE MAINE.

ALREADY, in the life-time of Goethe, his admirers had formed the design of erecting a monument in honour of him, in his native city; but this plan was abandoned in consequence of the objections raised against it by the poet himself. After his death the project was resumed. The famous sculptor, Schwanthaler, lent his willing aid, and the statue, modelled by him, was successfully cast, in a manner worthy of the subject, in the royal foundry of Munich, by Stiglmayer and Miller, and now forms one of the principal monuments of the city of Frankfurt.

The monument, which is worthy of the high fame of the artist, is of colossal dimensions, and consists of three principal parts, viz. the statue itself, which is fifteen feet high; the pedestal, with four bas-reliefs, (illustrative of the varied productions of Goethe's genius,) twelve feet high, and two steps of granite from the Oldenwald, two feet high; so that the height of the whole is twenty-nine feet. The statue and the pedestal are both of beautiful bronze, cast from Turkish cannon, which were sunk in the sea at the battle of Navarino, but now destined to convey to later times the features of a peaceful poet. All the models for this great work were made by Schwanthaler within the space of three years; and the last hours of Stiglmayer, the meritorious director of the Royal Foundry of Munich, were cheered by the news of the successful operation of the casting, under the superintendance of his relative and scholar, Miller. The whole weight of the bronze is about fifty hundred weight. The expences of the monument (including the honorary reward of five thousand gulders, which were offered to Schwanthaler; but which, we believe, the sculptor declined, are to be appropriated to a foundation bearing his name,)

amount to thirty-six thousand gulders, a very small sum, when we consider the magnitude and excellence of the work, and which could by no means have sufficed, but for the liberality of the artists employed, and the moderation of the charges incurred at the Royal Establishment of Munich, in prosecution of the patriotic undertaking.

At length the ponderous car, loaded with this noble work of art, and gaily adorned with flags and flowers, left the capital of Bavaria, and was met at the gates of Frankfurt by the committee, for the erection of the monuments, and a procession of artists, who accompanied it into the town with banners and music. The period was auspicious, just as the first cannon was fired in honour of the eve of the battle of Leipzig, (October 17, 1844,) the procession proceeded to the place where the monument was to be erected, and where, thirty years before, the poet had recited his poem on that great event, amidst the applauses of his fellow-citizens.

On the 22nd of October the good people of the city of Frankfurt moved in long and joyous procession to the inauguration of the monument. As the lengthened trains passed the house where the Tran Rath had lived, a flourish of trumpets and the hurrahs of the multitude proclaimed their homage to the distinguished mother of Frankfurt's most illustrious son. In the evening the monument and the house where the family of Goethe lived were illuminated.

The artist has fully succeeded in giving a true and living representation of the majestic form and noble bearing which distinguished the great poet. Goethe, in the full vigour of life, leans against the trunk of a German oak, round which the Rhenish vine is entwined; his fine head, with a proud expression, raised, as if surveying with his characteristic clearness the most profound relations of nature and life; the laurel wreath hangs negligently in his left hand.

The artist has, with great judgment, placed the statue on an elevation three feet above the pedestal, thereby giving still higher effect to the colossal dimensions. The cloak in which the figure is enveloped folds gracefully, and relieves the bareness which the mere statue exhibits when placed in the open air.

The reliefs on the four sides of the pedestal pourtray the varying productions of the poet. What a state of unwearied intellectual activity do they recall to the spectator, as he rapidly reverts to that brilliant development of German literature, of which Goethe was, for so long a period, the brightest ornament. In few but characteristic touches the sculptor reveals the creative fulness of his manifold productions in the most opposite walks of poetry. Nor are his scientific investigations and discoveries forgotten. These latter are represented by the allegorical figure of Science in an oak grove; Isis rising from the water, alludes to his Neptunian theory of the formation of the earth; the flower-leaf and the blossom indicate his Metamorphosis of the Plants, a discovery which will for ever secure to his name a distinguished place among botanists; the prism alludes to his labours in optics, and to his theory