son, who, in his own person, unites the blood of Napoleon and St. Louis, to that of Maria Theresa.

In 1806, when the emperor of France deemed it necessary, for his defence, to occupy Poland, he invited Kosciusko to join him at Berlin: but, as his health would not permit him to remove from the vicinity of the French capital, he declined to repair thither.

But Bonaparte was content, on this memorable occasion, with expelling the Russians, and occupying their portion of Poland with his troops: this measure had become absolutely necessary for his ultimate designs, for he now converted it into a place of arms; and it afterwards became a place of retreat, when forsaken by fortune, and abandoned by his allies, he here sought refuge, with the.remnant of an army, from the flames of Moscow, and the vengeance of the Cossacks. His treaties and connexions with the court of Vienna precluded the possibility of becoming the restorer of Poland; for he had yielded to the vulgar ambition of having an emperor for a father-in-law, and did not find, until too late, that the house of Austria was wholly regardless of such ties, which were, indeed, considered as a humiliation;-security and aggrandizement alone have ever been the leading features of the policy of that family. The events that succeeded are too well known to all Europe to be enumerated here; certain it is, that after the fall of Kosciusko, the Poles despaired of their freedom; and their unhappy country, finally united to Russia, is now governed by an archduke, the brother of the present emperor.

Meantime, the gallant and unfortunate Pole, steadfast to his purpose remained amid the happy solitude of a country-life, and never more revisited his beloved country. Such was the veneration paid to his character, however, that when the allies entered France, his little habitation remained sacred and inviolable: even the Russians had been now taught to respect so gallant and so noble an enemy.

The emperor Alexander, like his father Paul, seemed anxious to salute the Pole; he commiserated his misfortunes, he admired his intrepidity, and he could not but respect his patriotism: he even expressed a wish to restore him to his former rank and consequence in the country that had given him birth; but, with a consistency worthy of his character, he is said to have sternly rejected the proffered boon. 'If your majesty means by Poland,' continued he, that Poland, such as it was in 1794, I am both ready and willing to return to my native land; but I cannot condescend to serve under a foreign prince who wears its crown. Therefore, unless Poland be governed by a native sovereign, or a republican form of government is established there, I must decline your majesty's most gracious offer.' The emperor is reported to have replied, with his usual policy and circumspection, 'All you have uttered, general, is praiseworthy, and merits my esteem; but I can say nothing at present about the government of Poland, for all these matters are to be finally discussed and settled at a congress about to be held at Vienna.'

The private life of Kosciusko was, to the full, as romantic as the public one. With the high-born dame, alluded to in a former part of this narrative, he was afterwards united, and became her third husband. By this lady he had a daughter, who is since married, and resides in Poland; so that he may have grand-children to glory in his name; and, if occasion should offer, to vindicate his honor and his cause.

When forsaken, and nearly forgotten by all the world, one faithful friend still remained to the gallant Pole. This was M. Ziltner, with whom he resided during the last few years of his life, in the vicinity of Fontainbleau. This gentleman had been formerly minister from the Swiss cantons to the court of the Tuilleries; and his friend, in return, contrived that the imperial bounty of which he himself disdained to partake, should insure independence to the old age of his kind and beneficent host.

During the autumn of 1817, they took a long journey together, for the purpose of visiting Switzerland; and paying homage to the cradle of so many patriots and heroes. It was at Soleure that Kosciusko resigned his breath, in the sixty-fifth year of his age, happy to escape from a land of tyranny and priestcraft, and to draw his last sigh within sight of the canton that gave birth to William Tell, the liberator of Switzerland.

The brave, disinterested, and virtuous Kosciusko is now no more. He is gone where the voice of flattery cannot reach, followed by the praises of the good in every clime where liberty is prized or understood. He loved America, fought, and bled in her defence. In all his intercourse with the citizens of this country he evinced the utmost desire to serve their cause and promote their interests. In his days of power, at the head of armies that adored his name, no false glory dazzled him, nor corrupt ambition could betray him. He nobly resisted the foreign potentates who had laid waste his country, not because they were kings and emperors, but because they were invaders and oppressors. He combated with no rebellious sword-for no ambiguous object. When Poland lost her independence, Kosciusko lost his home: as she sunk he rose; but not upon her ruins. The court of Russia would have allured this illustrious defender of the people whom she had subjugated, by temptations irresistible to vulgar minds; Bonaparte would have made him the flattered instrument of a spurious and hollow liberty to his countrymen; but Kosciusko saw that their lot was irretrievable, and his own he refused to change. As a soldier and a patriot, in public life and in retirement, his principles were untainted, and his name unsullied; the monarchs whom he opposed respected him; the factions who failed to seduce, forbore to slander him; and he would have been a Washington, had he not been a Wallace.

SATIETY.

Oh that my days might close!

Oh that the hour were come for me to die;
That low in dust my weary limbs might lie,
And moulder in repose.

I covet nought of earth!

No more it tempts me with its glittering toys,
And all its solemn trifles bring no joys

That fade not in their birth.

Friendship and love I know!

And harp no longer on a broken string,
Whose jarring notes did once my bosom wring,
Not happiness bestow.

Ambition lures no more!

With fleeting youth have fled my dreams of fame;
I would not give a choice between a name
To worship, or deplore.

Dark is the future-dark

May be the doom my erring soul assigned,
For vain has been its weary search to find
Or resting place, or ark.

I strive not, nor believe,

But float, a bubble, on the mighty wave
Which bears me to the universal grave,
That opens to receive.

W. R. M.

TO A WILD PIGEON.

WRITTEN NEAR SUNSET IN NOVEMBER.

Lone bird! the light is departing fast,

And the winds are uplifting their voices chill;
And the robe of the coming night is cast
On the lonely head of yon distant hill.

No comrade is with thee, where high in air
Thou sit'st on the rocking and leafless tree;

And if a heart that is worn and bare,

Were in search of a type, it might fix on thee.

For like it, at the close of its weary way,

When the sunny hour of return is past, Art thou who hast travelled the livelong day To find such a desolate rest at last.

W. R. M.

JOSEPHINE AND NAPOLEON.

CHAPTER I.

In the bright island of Martinique, beneath the fervid rays of a West India sun, was born on the 24th of June 1763, a female child; destined in after years, to pass through all the high stations of life, calculated to fill up the measure of woman's ambition; and after being crowned the queen of the greatest empire of the earth, to be degraded without a crime, from her lofty eminence at the bidding of proud ambition, and tyrant power.

While yet a child she was lovely beyond her sex, and the bud gave promise, that the full blown flower would be of surpassing beauty. Among the swarthy dwellers of the isles of her own Carribean sea, she shone like a brilliant ripple upon its wave. She looked around her and saw no equals. None upon whom her heart could fix as worthy to share her fortunes. Lofty thoughts and aspirations high, early took possession of her youthful mind. Visions of future splendor and greatness in the far off land of her ancestors, danced before her eyes in her waking moments; and in the hours of sleep, she saw before her, and within her grasp, luxury, honor, and empire. Still all this was but an uncertain dream; yet she believed it to be true, although there was no apparent probability of its realization. Like most of her age and country, she was superstitious, and a believer in destiny-that our future life, is fixed by fate before our birth, and written indelibly in the stars; and she longed to read the page whereon her own was recorded. With full faith in her knowledge, she one day approached one of those beings who pretend to the power of solving the occult mysteries of the future, and demanded to know what would be the after events of her life, in the far off vista of years to come. The sybil took into hers, the small white hand of the anxious inquirer, and gazed long and intently upon the line of life. Then, with well feigned astonishment like one "wrapped, inspired," she hailed the lovely Josephine by the title of Empress, in tones so earnest and impassioned, that they seemed to the confiding child the oracles of truth; she assured her that she should leave the land of her birth, for that of her fathers, and there ultimately share the throne of the greatest monarch of the earth. The time when or the manner in which this great event was to be brought about, the seer left unexplained. But the prediction went with full force to the bosom of the maiden, and from thenceforth, she made of her heart a shrine, not to be approached by the common order of mankind, but to be held sacred for the suit of that high and unknown wooer, who was to lift her to the pinnacle of human greatness.

Years passed on and the child had become a woman. Young she was, it is true, but in that clime of the sun, the change from childhood to womanhood is sudden and rapid. She was not yet sixteen, when her father awakened her from her dream of splendor and empire, and caused to vanish all the bright creations of her

imagination, like fairy frost-work before the meridian sun: Without consulting her, (for in despotic governments, among the higher orders of society, the consent of the daughter is not considered essential to the contract,) her father had long since arranged a marriage for her, and now announced it to her for the first time; and bade her prepare to visit France, for the purpose of becoming the wife of the Viscount Beauharnois. She had no plausible plea to urge against the proposed marriage, and therefore, not without a sigh at the demolition of her hopes of higher station, agreed to second the arrangements made for her without murmuring. Her heart was as yet untouched by love, and if in the coming union, there should be no ties but those of duty to bind, there were none of previous affection to break. Her afhanced was not, it is true, an emperor, but yet he was one of the nobles of the land, and stood high in the favor of royalty, and as his wife she would be privileged to enter the society, even of royalty itself. She began to view the prediction of the old sybil as a mere mockery, and became fully satisfied with the condition to which she had now attained.

At the old and tottering, but still brilliant court of Louis the sixteenth, Madame de Beauharnois moved in the first circle of the favored nobility, and none could compare with her in youthful loveliness, and the galaxy of court beauty was not thought complete where she made not her appearance. But events which we must now detail, soon crumbled the throne into dust and destroyed in France, that proud nobility, whose luxury and pride had roused the whirlwind of popular fury, to bury in its course, in one undistinguishing ruin, the good as well as the bad.

CHAPTER II.

Having wrongs of no small magnitude to complain of, and stimulated by the recent example of the successful struggle for freedom in America, the wild democracy of France rose in one tumultuous assembly, and swept like a torrent in its course, all that was venerable from antiquity, or dear from long usage. They demanded perfect liberty and equality for all the people, and swore never to cease in their course until their demands were complied with. At their head was seen those sanguinary wretches, Marat, Danton, Mirabeau and Robespierre, upon whom the shedding of blood had no more effect than the flowing of water. To their direction the mob committed all their affairs; and under their auspices, an arbitrary body, called the national assembly was convoked, before whose decrees, as if aided by omnipotent power, fell at once the altar and the throne. They seized for the public usc, the property of individuals, and of the church; and when the clergy complained, and cried aloud that their property was inviolable, and their rights sacred from long and well established usage, their complaints and remonstrances were treated with derision, and their power of excommunication laughed to scorn. With insulting gravity, they