book, which this martyred philosopher and statesman then repeated. We add another instance, in the death of that delightful Poet, Metastasio. After having received the sacrament a very short time before his last moments, he broke out, with all the enthusiasm of poetry and religion, into the following stanzas: "T" offro il tuo proprio Figlio A lui rivolgi il ciglio Guarda chi t'offro, e poi (TRANSLATED.) "I offer to thee, O Lord! thy own Son, who already has given the pledge of love, enclosed in this thin emblem. Turn on him thine eyes: ah! behold whom I offer to thee, and then desist, O Lord! if thou can'st desist from mercy." "The Muse that has attended my course (says the dying Gleim, in a letter to Klopstock) still hovers round my steps to the very verge of the grave." A collection of lyrical Poems, entitled, "Last Hours," composed by Gleim on his death-bed, was intended to be published. The death of Klopstock was one of the most poetical. In this Poet's "Messiah," he had made the death of Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus, a picture of the death of the just; and on his own death-bed he was heard repeating, with an expiring voice, his own verses on Mary. He was exhorting himself to die, by the accents of his own harp,-the sublimities of his own Muse. The same Song of Mary (observes Madame de Stäel) was read at the public funeral of Klopstock. Chatellar, a French gentleman, beheaded in Scotland, for having loved the Queen, and even for having attempted her honour, Brantome says, would not have any other viaticum than a Poem of Ronsard's. When he ascended the scaffold, he took the hymns of this Poet, and, for his consolation, read that on death, which, he says, is well adapted to conquer its fears. The Marquis of Montrose, when he was condemned by his judges to have his limbs nailed to the gates of four cities, the brave soldier said, that "he was sorry he had not limbs sufficient to be nailed to all the gates of the cities in Europe, as monuments of his loyalty." As he proceeded to his execution, he put this thought into beautiful verse. Philip Strozzi, when imprisoned by Cosmo, the first Great Duke of Tuscany, was apprehensive of the danger to which he might expose his friends, who had joined in his conspiracy against the Duke, from the confessions which the rack might extort from him. Having attempted every exertion for the liberty of his country, he considered it as no crime to die. He resolved on suicide. With the point of the sword with which he killed himself, he cut out on the mantle-piece of the chimney, this line of Virgil: "Exoriare aliquis nostris ex ossibus ultor." "Rise some avenger from our blood!" The following stanzas were begun by André Chenier in the dreadful period of the French Revolution. He was waiting for his turn to be dragged to the guillotine, when he commenced this Poem. "Comme un dernier rayon, comme un dernier Zephyre Anime la fin d'un beau jour, Au pied de l'echafaud j'essaie encore ma lyre; Peut-être est-ce bientot mon tour. Peut-être avant que l'heure en cercle promenée Dans les soixante pas ou sa route est bornée Son pied sonore et vigilant, Le sommeil du tombeau pressera ma paupiere." At this pathetic line was André Chenier summoned to the guillotine! Never was a more beautiful effusion of grief interrupted by a more affecting incident. CORYAT'S POETRY. CORYAT, SO celebrated by his " Crudities,' does not appear to have been much of a versifier, though he is said to have written a song, in the Somersetshire dialect, upon the excellency of the Bath waters. According to his own account, however, he had a rare extempore talent, which he employed on a very ludicrous occasion. He journeyed with a friend to the Ruins of Troy, and was there, by that friend, (as Coryat very seriously relates, in a letter inserted in of Troy." Purchas's "Pilgrims") dubbed the first "Knight Our traveller received the honour with these words, with which his Muse favored him for occasion. "Lo, here, with prostrate knee, I do embrace In Priam's Court, which time shall ne'er deface, This noble knighthood shall fame's trump resound, * In Odcombe's honour, maugre envie fell, O'er famous Albion throughout that island round, SCHILLER. THIS celebrated German Poet had a patent of nobility conferred upon him by the Emperor of Turning over : Germany, which he never used. a mass of papers one day, in the presence of a friend, he came to his patent, and shewed it carelessly to his friend, with this observation :“I suppose, you did not know I was a Noble ;" and then hastily and contemptuously buried it again in the mass of miscellaneous papers, amidst which it had long lain undisturbed. * His residence. |