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Bell's

COURT AND FASHIONABLE

MAGAZINE,

For NOVEMBER, 1807.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES

OF

ILLUSTRIOUS LADIES.

The Twenty-fourth Number.

HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN OF ETRURIA.

MARIA LOUISA JOSEPHINA, the Queen Dowager, Regent of the kingdom of Etruria, was born at Madrid on the 17th of July, 1752, and is the daughter of Charles IV. King of Spain, and of his Queen Louisa Maria Theresa, born a Princess of Parma. She was married to her first cousin, the late King of Etruria, on the 25th of August, 1795. They were both descendants of Philip V. the grandson of Louis XIV. and made by him a King of Spain, and acknowledged as such by England and all other countries by the treaty of Utrecht in 1713. After the series of victories won over the Germans in 1800, the French Government resolved to change the grand duchy of Tuscany into a kingdom, and reward the promptitude with which Spain had made peace by granting the crown of Etruria to a Spanish prince. The treaty of Luneville sanctioned the ascension of the Infant of Spain to the Etrurian throne, and the silence of all the sovereigns of Europe acknowledges the legitimacy of the new monarch's title.

entertaining; and in a short time peace and content reigned through the whole kingdom.

In 1803 this Princess mourned the loss of her husband. He was a man of a weak mind and constitution, ambitious and timid, superstitious and irresolute, but the mildness of his temper and his untimely death, at the age of thirty-two, caused him to be sincerely regretted. He left a son, Charles Louis II. born on the 22d of December, 1799, and a daughter, born some months after his death. The son succeeded him, and the Queen Dowager was proclaimed Queen Regent during his minority.

When Bonaparte had ascended the imperial throne, it is reported that he sent Eugenius de Beauharnais to ask the hand of the royal widow; who returned a polite refusal.

Secured from the fear of foreign enemies by the same hand that has overturned and created kingdoms, this Princess dedicates all the blooming hours of her youth to a strict performance of the duties of her station, and all her cares to the prosperity of her subjects and the education of her

The virtue and mildness of the royal couple, vanquished the prejudices which their new subjects could not refrain from || children.

ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS.

PAULINA; OR, THE RUSSIAN DAUGHTER.

ANOTHER HISTORY OF THE RUSSIAN LADY WHICH WAS INSERTED IN OUR LAST MAGAZINE, AS VERSIFIED BY MR. MERRY.

SINCE the foregoing story was written we have discovered a poem on the same subject, by the late Mr. Robert Merry, who published it in in 1787; of which we shall give a copious account, as it has become extremely scarce.

It is entitled, "Paulina; or, the Russian Daughter;" and is comprised in a thousand and ten lines, divided into two parts. The motto we have taken as selected by the poet.

In the Preface he says:" As the affecting and extraordinary combination of circumstances that overwhelmed the unfortunate Paulina, appeared to me, upon first hearing, not unworthy of the generous sympathy of a British public, 1 caused a simple relation of the same to be printed in a London newspaper, in the month of September, 1783. What impression that account made I know not, but I hope it was not such as to render improper this attempt of treating the subject in verse. And I trust the ensuing pages may in some degree serve to show, that unremitting parental severity tends to excite in youthful minds a fatal terror, which the weakness of nature is unable to encounter, and which oftentimes the maturity of reason and reflection is insufficient to overcome. From this story also we may be taught to consider, that confidence and security are not for mortals; that the most pure of heart, the most noble of sentiment, and the most innocent of intention, are hourly liable to be involved in all the horrors of guilt, infamy, and despair, from the mere operation of human imbecility, and a hapless train of unforeseen events. Several persons of character and distinction in Russia have given testimony to the reality of the transactions which I have endeavoured to describe, and which happened in a remote part of that extensive empire."

The story in the poem varies from that already given. We shall tell part of it in the Poet's own words, with a few lines in prose necessary to connect the selections, which also include the variations.

"For twice nine summers had the matron's care
To ev'ry virtue train'd the pliant fair;
Alas! twelve moons had sadly waned away,
Since in the tomb that friend, that mother lay."

One moonlight evening, whilst walking on the terrace, she heard a plaintive love-song addressed to her in a manly voice.

"The youth advanc'd before th' astonish'd maid;
Around his limbs no wint'ry robe was cast
T'oppose the fury of the searching blast,
But in despite of cold, his bosom bare
Betray'd a careless desolation there."

This she perceived more distinctly as he ap proached the terrace, by means of the light in her chamber. She finds him to be her lover, Mar. kof. Whilst she was conversing with him a storm arises.

"The argent moon retires, And in a cloud collects her mimic fires; Confusion reigns, and Terror's monster form Stalks in the uproar of the coming storm, His arrowy sleet the genius of the pole Shoots furious forth, and mutt'ring thunders roll, While with red glance his eye-balls flash around, And the broad lustre glows upon the ground; The forest groans, and every beast of prey Hies to his wonted covert far away; The startled peasant shudd'ring in his bed Doubts the weak structure of th' uncertain shed."

She invites him in :

"Seek, if thou canst, a welcome shelter here,
Nor shall to-night my father's steps invade
The sacred transport of a faithful maid.
Tir'd with a sportsman's toil amid the snows,
He early sought refreshment from repose,
And far, his chamber on the southern side
From mine long passages and halls divide;
Nor is the terrace high, and love has wings,
O'er ev'ry human boundary he springs."

He climbs a spreading fir-tree, and from its

branches

"Springs to Paulina's arms, and clasps her round, Sooths with a fond respect her wak'ning fears, And on her white hand melts in rapt'rous tears, Tells of the long-felt pangs that tore his breast, Days mark'd with woe, and nights unknown to

rest.

His eyes o'er all her timid beauties rove In sweet delirium of extatic love;

His plighted faith with solemn oaths he gives
As solemn she his plighted faith receives.
In whisp'ring joy the rapid moments glide,
He looks the husband, and she smiles the bride;
To happier scenes their active fancies stray
The hop'd Elysium of a future day."

This concludes the first part; the second begins
with recounting her conversation with Markof.
"But oh! what horror seiz'd her quiv'ring heart,
What unprov'd anguish of distressful smart,
When on the steps that to her chamber lead
She starting listens to her father's tread;
With out-stretch'd arm, and terror-ralling eye,
Perceives his steady pace still winding nigh,
And destitute of ev'ry wish'd relief,
She stands a marble monument of grief;
Meantime Alexis' more attentive care
Observ'd a chest that time was mould'ring there.
Within the stifling void his limbs he threw,
And ere it clos'd sigh'd forth one deep adieu."
Her father enters, harshly exclaiming,

"Thou torment of my life,

Thou living semblance of my hated wife,
Why, thus disturb'd at midnight's peaceful hour,
Shun'st thou oblivious sleep's consoling pow'r?”
But thou, when all the living mock the dead,
Measur'st thy chamber with unquiet tread.
Perhaps some lawless flame usurps thy breast,
Some youth, tho' absent, still disturbs thy rest;
Nay, such are female arts, this chest may hold
Some base seducer, some advent'rer bold."

He continues to scold and threaten the young lady ull he is tired, and then leaves her.-The poet now invokes his Muse:

"Come now, distracted Muse

Inspire my sorr'wing yerse, which strives to show
The start of anguish, and the shriek of woe,
The pray'r half-utter'd, and the tear half-shed,
When first Paulina found her lover dead."
"Nor would she think it true, but ask'd him why
So cold his hand, and so unmov'd his eye?
Said that the bitter tempest now was o'er,
Her father gone, and he need sleep no more.
But soon returning reason bade her know
The wide-embracing agony of woe;
Her bosom rose convulsive, the thick sigh
Stuck in her throat with passion'd ecstacy;
'And is,' she cried, that noble spirit fled?
O let me also join the sacred dead!'
Then sudden sunk to momentary rest,
Cold on her dear Alexis' colder breast.
Alas! reviving sense awak'd her care
To deeper horrors of sublime despair;
To dire perfection of excessive pain,
To weep, to pray, to think, to feel in vain.
One while she melts, then stiffens into stone,
Now mingles laughter with her maniac moan;
No. XXIV. Vol. III.

Now on her terrace wildly rushing forth
To court the icy fury of the north,
Her fev'rish bosom only seems to find
A burning torrent in each passing wind:
Oft to Alexis, with imagin'd bliss,

She madly kneels, and gives th' unanswer'd kiss;
A while unsettled, and awhile serene,

She doubts, she loves, she hopes, and faints be-
tween."

At dawn of day she goes to seek the porter, who is thus described :

"Dark was his brow, and not one gleam of grace
Play'd on the surly features of his face;
His pallid eye-balls shot a villain's gaze,
Mingled with abject cunning's hateful rays;
Nor o'er his brows wero Time's white honours
shed,

But half-form'd gray usurp'd a sallow red;
No pleasing accents glided from his tongue,
Like age he seem'd that never had been young;
Yet oft his eye would send unholy fires,
That low lasciviousness alone inspires;
For when he saw Paulina's form appear,
He turn'd away, yet as he turn'd would leer;
And by the fiery glance too plainly show'd
That brutal passion in his bosom glow'd.
But most cold avarice his thoughts confin'd
And stiff'd ev'ry virtue in his mind."

She implores relief, and tries to engage him to bear the body away and inter it. He, far from being moved by her supplications and her distress, threatens to acquaint her father immedi⚫ ately with the terrible event, and conclude

"Unless thou willing com'st my bed to share, Unless thou yield'st the treasure of thy charms To the warm transport of these longing arms."

The shuddering maid faints, and the villain. bears the hapless victim to his bed. He afterwards

"Bore Alexis to a neighb'ring wood, Stabb'd his cold heart, and stain'd the wound with blood;

There, welt'ring in the wind, the youth he laid,
To meet some casual traveller's fun'ral aid.
The inhuman porter, now a tyrant grown,
Smile's at Paulina's rage, and mocks her moan;
Whene'er he calls, the unassisted fair
Is doom'd his execrable bed to share,
Meet the lewd terrors of his dire embrace,
And yield th' insulting spoiler ev'ry grace,
Till oft repeated pleasures pall his sense;
And interest sought for other recompense.
Soon as dull night a murky mantle spread
O'er the dim plain, and mountain's misty head,
Some sordid lovers to her couch repair
And press the beauties of th' abhorrent fair;

Gg

The young, the vain, the hideous, and the old,
Bought the reluctant ecstacy with gold,
Poor luckless girl!"-

At last she is dragged by the inhuman slave to a dwelling,

Then on her knees in agony of sighs,
Thus to th' Pow'r Supreme her accents rise:
'O thou first cause! who rul'st this world below,
Dread scene of complicated vice and woe,
If to thine all-embracing spirit seem
Or good or bad this life's mysterious dream,

"Where twelve mean wretches drain'd the frantic If thou canst pity those who suffer here

bowl,

Of manners rude, and infamous of soul,

Barren of sentiment and feeling too,
Sons of severe debauch, a baleful crew;

The settled sorrow of the daily tear,
If ev'ry action of this world combin'd
Still float before thine inexhausted mind,
My injuries shall with my faults be known,
And plead for pardon at thine awful throne.
Now too in deep contrition will I swear

To pass my life in penitence and pray'r,
To pour the pious hymn at early morn ;
Quit ev'ry rose, and dwell upon the thorn.
Far from my heav'n-fix'd thoughts shall now be

To such as these the meek Paulina borne,
With eyes that stream'd like April's humid morn,
Sustain'd the savage wrongs of brutal fire,
Their mingled insults, and their causeless ire."
Here the poet has the consideration to insert
the following note:-" It has been objected by
friends whose opinion I much respect, that the
continuation of Paulina's submission to her The joys of youth and pleasures of the world;
wrongs, takes from the propriety of pity; but if || In humble solitude my days shall flow,
it be considered that the same cause existed which || And hallow'd hope be all the bliss I know.
overcame her in the first instance, I hope I shall Grim suicide, to ease my lab'ring heart,
be justified in adhering to the fact." These || Shall vainly lift his sadly-tempting dart;
wretches all get intoxicated,

"And drunkenness, than death more dire to view,
Wraps in oblivious veil the inhuman crew."
"Meantime Paulina who with folded arms
Sate silent by, and brooded o'er her harms,
Observ'd th' occasion, while within her breast
Revenge awoke for modesty opprest;
She saw weak hope expand a twilight ray,
That offer'd rest to calm her future day.”"

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For I will suffer what just fate may give,
And all my sins to expiate, dare to live."

Ten lines more conclude the poem; and at the end is the following note:-" It may perhaps not be uninteresting to the curious to know, that the whole of the above related transaction was discovered by means of the wife of Paulina's Confessor; * and that in consequence the magnanimous Catharine II. took the unfortunate

Now comes the catastrophe, ushered in by the girl under her protection, and procured her the

following reflection:

"Ah! who among the best can ever know
What coming guilt can lay his virtue low?
Strange chance, or injury, or love, or rage,
To sudden acts of infamy engage;
And the most happy may to-morrow try
The arduous weight of life's calamity."

Paulina seizes a dagger from the porter's belt,

“And with unerring stroke around, In every heart fix'd deep the vengeful wound; Death triumph'd there, while from each villain's

side

The ebbing purple pour'd a smoky tide.
Now from the horrid scene she turn'd her view,
And with quick-palpitating anguish flew.
But first in haste the mansion key she tore,
That her late tyrant at his girdle bore;
Then home return'd across the silent lawn,
With all the fleetness of the bounding fawn.
Soon as she reached her solitary room,
Which yet no streaks of early light illume,
On the hard floor her lovely limbs she throws,
While many a tear its timely aid bestows;

necessary retirement in a convent which she ardently desired."

conse.

We know not from what sources the poet has taken his story. The improbability of Paulina's living with a brutal slave, without the knowledge of her father, is striking; and the narrative of such a young girl's assassinating thirteen drunken Russian peasants with impunity, borders so nearly on impossibility, that it is incredible; quently the pity excited by the former part of the narrative is greatly enfeebled, if not lost in dis gust. The murder of her tyrant alone, would have been as effectual for her deliverance, and it may perhaps be allowed that the poet had not the least occasion for a dozen more barbarians, and that the chaste story as we have given it in prose, would have been far preferable for the subject of the poem. Of the poetry the reader will be able to judge, as our extracts amount to onefifth of the whole work.

* Confessors have no wives, and it is death to reveal a confession, or rather was so at that time, NOTE OF THE EDITOR.

ADDITIONS TO THE NATURAL HISTORY OF CERTAIN ANIMALS. [Concluded from Page 181.]

BEARS.

A FRENCH literary gentleman, a member of the legislature, a few years ago spent some months in travelling among the Pyrenean moun

tains.

He gives the following account of the information he received from one of the mountaineers, whose habitation was near the Spanish frontiers:

"I was seated near our host. His ingenousness, his good sense, his natural strength of mind, superior to all rules of art, charmed us greatly, and we contracted our circle that we might lose none of his tales; for we love them at all ages, so much that we even tell them to ourselves, and we frequently indulge in waking dreams.

Oinne

Humanum genus est avidum nimis auricularum.
LUCRET. LIB. iv. v. 598.

It

Our attention animated him, especially when he was giving us the history of sorcerers. may be permitted to believe in them, in an abode where every thing appears to be supernatural; where Spanish superstition, descended from the neighbouring mountains, never ceases to renew its fatal impressions.

From sorcerers he turned to bears, his terrible countrymen, as he called them, but a good sort of people enough when they are not molested.

46 Look," says he, "it was in the middle of that peak, as strait as a taper, and which you may perceive above the church. Well, it will soon be forty years that I went thither as usual, completely armed. I was at that time gay, contented, and above all very resolute. Not a yzard,* no wolf, no bear; in a word, nothing. Says I to myself this must be another time. I had better go home; when, on turning a corner I suddenly found myself nose to nose opposite to an enormous bear, much larger than myself. The fellow, how he looked! And his fine skin! I still regret it. Notwithstanding my surprise and my position, for we were on a cornice (this is a ledge four or five feet broad, cut out of the slope of a mountain; so that on one side is an almost per

* A species of chamois; it avoids the sunshine, and only delights in the midst of snow and ice. When young it is fond of man, caresses him, and follows him like a dog.

pendicular rock, and on the other an unfathomable abyss.) I should have come off well if he had been alone. He was followed by his female, and two young ones, who trotted already very prettily. I prayed to our Lady for succour! and then, hiding my gun in order not to scare them, I stood still with my back flat against the rock, to give them room to pass. The great bear, who was eating me up with his eyes, whilst I durst not even look at him, instead of turning back, came and planted himself on my right, and his female clapt herself on my left, and a fine pair of guardians I had! In the mean time the two little ones passed by, and the two bears followed them; but looking sullenly behind them till they lost sight of me. It is enough for me to say I escaped with the fright. Past evil is only a dream." This tacit pact between man and brute, in such a situation, appeared very singular and remarkable to us all. One of the company asserted that the sudden apprehension of any calamity, is the greatest mediator which nature has granted us to terminate our dissentions. I maintain, added he, that fear and misfortune always soften the most ferocious beings, and that on the contrary, happy people who are too much so, are not to be approached nearer than we should Mount Vesuvius or Mount Etna in flames.

The old man then resumed his discourse, as follows: "You are to know how those who hunt bears manage the matter; for a gun shot is of very little consequence. The champion who ventures to undertake this sort of combat, is provided with a long poniard, and covers his breast and back with three sheepskins, one over the other, and the thick woolly sides outwards. When he has found the bear, and is struggling with it, whilst it squeeses him with its fore paws, tries to smother him, and to tear him to pieces with its claws; he, with his left arm begins with fixing its head close to his shoulders, to avoid being devoured; then, with his other hand he plunges his poniard into the loins of the beast, which vainly howls and roars, not being able to bite, and stabs it, till it falls at his feet through loss of blood, or conquered by pain.

"Now, hearken, I shall tell you about the Hercules of the Pyrenées, whom I shall call Michael. He had a son who began to beat about these mountains, and who had already killed wolves, and brought home yzards. He longed to bring home a bear, but he durst not attempt it alone.

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