The palace is shaken by subterranean kiss of her lover had brought, not death, thunder. Anthemion and Rhododaphne, but magic sleep. Peace and happiness who even in death clings round him with once more bless the home of Anthemion. unutterable and luxurious fondness, are The sad fate of the fair Thessalian involved in sudden clouds: awakens the generous regret and commiseration of himself and Calliröe; and the whole is wound up in the following sweet and graceful verses: "Then Rhododaphne closer prest The quivering earth beneath them stirred, The poem concludes with the union of Anthemion and Calliröe, upon whom the "Callirõe wept Sweet tears for Rhododaphne's doom; 'Twas for Anthemion's love she erred!'-- G. ART. 3. Zuma, or the Tree of Health; to which are added, the Fair Pauline, Zencida, Sc. By MADAME DE GENLIS. ▼HESE little tales, the last production of that untired and unspent genius, which has been contributing for nearly half a century to the instruction and delight of the reading world, have been republished here about four months. They have met no public praise or censure; yet they are not without claims to consideration, on account of their intrinsic merit, as well as the relative interest created by the fact, that they are from the pen of Madame De Genlis-from that fresh and inexhaustible source of pure feeling and elevated thought, which has so lately feasted the public with the beautiful fiction of the Battuccas, and which has so long and happily made the truths of history, the system of nature, and the diversities of many grades and states of society, the subjects of entertainment and improvement. The finest faculty of observation and discrimination has been assisted in this distinguished woman by the most extraordinary opportunities, yet no talents are less artificial than hers; her advantages only serve to illustrate the natural fertility of her fancy, the amplitude of her understanding, and the warmth of her heart. Powers and feelings so devoted, so cherished, so protracted, during the vicissitudes of a period remarkable in history, and of a life so intimately involved in those vicissitudes, must inspire the most lively admiration in all lovers of human excellence. How differently, in such circumstances, might such talents have been employed. Living under the old and the new regime in France, in the former of which, particularly, the successes and the practices of aspiring genius, awakened the love of personal influence and the spirit of intrigue, we find Madame De Genlis taking only the place which her rank and abilities made perfectly suitable and useful, seeking no other influence than that of doing good; and artful only to insinuate knowledge and to recommend virtue. What constitutes the beauty of her character is, that the artificial manners of her country and her station, have not corrupted the simplicity of her sentiments; that the fallacious theories, which have assailed the cultivated reason of France, have not perverted her moral judgment; that the crimes she has witnessed have not narrowed her benevolence, and the losses she has sustained have neither weakened nor saddened her understanding; and that the resources of invention and knowledge, of industry and taste, give peace and pleasure to her last days, and energy to her last efforts. Nothing can be more encouraging than this eminent instance of prolonged talent, usefulness, and felicity. It appears from literary history, that to grow old is not to be superannuated. Common thinkers call old age decay, infirmity, affliction, but this, for the most part, is the state of those alone who have not laboured for the perfection of their nature. Professor Stewart, in his admirable popular work, adducing the proof of constant intellectual progress, suggests the bright examples of Turgot and Franklin; men, to whom business and books, science and taste, friendship and society, had furnished all that invigorates and refines the intellect, that renovates and expands the sympathies of the heart, and whose old age exhibited no diminution of talent or happiness; who, when they ceased to be statesmen, did not the less love mankind, the less exult in human virtue and happiness, nor the less enjoy their own distinguished participation of it. These are not solitary individuals, nor are such characters principally found among men. To call a dull, prejudiced, fretful man, an "old woman," is very common, and thought to be very expressive of imbecility; but it may be reasonably doubted if Madame De Maintenon, Elizabeth Carter, Hannah More, and a multitude of others, who have passed threescore and ten, with no "natural force abated," VOL. IV.-No. I. 4 would have wished to exchange the sweet repose, the elegant occupations, and the comprehensive views still in their possession, for the ability of the ordinary race of the other sex. It is a characteristic virtue of the French, that they cherish curiosity and vivacity to the final period of life; that no individual is excluded or separates him self from the society of the gay, the agreeable, or the enlightened, because he is old. Too many in our country seem to think and to act as if there was a law of the mind, that limits its powers and its pleasures, like that of the state, which makes men eligible for certain offices only to a certain age, and that the time subsequent to this, is to be spent in weakness and weariness, in indolence and indifference. Gloomy religionists break the chain that connects the present and the future life; they admonish us that we may live here too long for our affections and our senses, that we must become at last, detached and contemplative, and would make us sad, severe, and frigid, that we may be devout. They make us feel with the northern poet, that age is "dark and unlovely"-that our strength is wasted that our fine perceptions are bluntedthat the props on which we rested are broken-that the hopes, which have allured and enlivened us through our better years, are retreating and vanishing shadows. It is true that our physical power diminishes when its labours are accomplished-that our age may be our rest, and that thought may succeed undisturbed to action. Our senses are impaired, but the impressions which they have communicated are ever vivid, the treasures they have collected are not the prey of moth and rust, nor does time steal them away. The objects of our first attachment may die sooner than we; but if they were innocent, wise, virtuous human beings, if they were not the things of vulgar pursuit, the idols of avarice and false pleasure, they are gone to our ultimate home, and have left us recollec 26 tions that become dearer, and hopes that grow brighter and brighter with every short winter day of old age. Our virtues, our attainments, our human affections, and our devotion, are eternal, like the giver of every good gift, and they must be multiplied, exalted, and cultivated, to obey his will, to advance towards perfection, and to accomplish our own happiness. They may be suspended by the dissolution of mortal life, but they belong to a series of cause and effect, to the very existence of a nature which we feel, if we cannot demonstrate, to be immortal; and there is no portion of this existence in which we may not make new acquisitions, may not diffuse intelligence and pleasure, may not be rational, cheerful, and pious. The scene of the first story in the little volume before us, is laid in Spanish America, and is interesting from its details and its exhibition of character. At the period when avarice and cruelty had extorted almost all the treasure, and exterminated a great portion of the population of Peru; when hatred and dread had succeeded, in the breasts of the survivors, to the admiration and confidence with which they had at first regarded their conquerors, a new viceroy, governed by different motives from his predecessors, and willing to rule according to the just and true policy of his station, was sent to the province. He was accompanied by a young and beautiful wife, who at tended him" that she might watch over his safety with all the precautions of fear, and all the vigilance of love." They carried with them to the province some Spanish ladies, who formed a little court at Liina, and among these was an intimate friend of the vice-queen, named Beatrice, who regarded her mistress with uncommon strength of attachment. The Spaniards had various causes of terror in the American colonies. The reprisals they had provoked, the effect of the climate, and the noxious animals and vegetables that abounded, were alike fatal to the security of their lives. The diseases and the poisons peculiar to the country, were counteracted, indeed, by that law of reparation which Providence opposes to what are called natural evils; but the experience of the Indians had alone discovered and appropriated the antidotes which nature had furnished, and they resolved to conceal this knowledge from their oppressors. The Peruvians, long after their subjugation, retained a secret and internal government among themselves, which held its councils during the night, and in retreats inaccessible to the Europeans. Two chiefs, Ximeo and Azan, possessed the greatest ascendancy among them. Ximeo was a man of generous and lofty nature, which injuries had rendered vindictive; his co-adjutor was destitute of his virtues, and animated by desperate and determined revenge. "A few days after the arrival of the new viceroy, Ximeo convoked for the following night, a nocturnal meeting on the hill of the Tree of Health, thus they designated the tree from which is obtained the Quinquina, or Peruvian Bark. 66 6 My friends,' said he, when they had all collected, a new tyrant is about to reign over us, let us repeat our oaths of just revenge. Alas! we dare utter them only when we are surrounded by darkness! Unhappy children of the Sun, we are reduced to conceal ourselves amidst the shades of night. Let us renew, around the Tree of Health, the awful contract which binds us for ever to conceal our secrets.' Ximeo, then, in a firm and elevated voice, pronounced the following words: We swear never to discover to the children of Europe the divine virtues of this sacred tree, the only treasure that remains to us! Wo to the faithless and perjured Indian, who, being seduced by false virtue, or fear, or weakness, shall reveal this secret to the destroyers of his gods, his sovereigns, and his country! Wo to the coward who shall make a gift of this treasure of health to the barbarians who have enslaved us, and whose ancestors burned our temples and cities, invaded our plains, and bathed their hands in the blood of our fathers, after having inflicted upon them unheard of torments! Let them keep the gold which they have wrested from us, and of which they are insatiable; that gold which has cost them so many crimes: but we will, at least, reserve to ourselves this gift of heaven! Should a traitor ever arise amongst us, we swear, should he be engaged in the bonds of marriage, to pursue him in his wife and children, if they have not been his accusers; and if his children are in the cradle, to sacrifice them, so that his guilty race may be for ever extinct. My friends, pronounce from your inmost souls these terrible oaths, the formula of which was bequeathed to you by your ancestors, and which you have already so many times repeated!' "Yes, yes,' the Indians exclaimed with one voice, we pronounce all these imprecations against him who shall betray this secret; we swear to keep it with inviolable fidelity, to endure the most dreadful torments, and even death itself, rather than reveal it.' "Look back,' said the furious Azan, on the early days of our subjection; on that terrible period when millions of Indians were put to the torture, not one would save his life by the disclosure of this secret, which our countrymen have kept locked within their bosoms for more than two hundred years! Judge, then, whether we can invent a punishment sufficiently severe for him who may betray it! For my own part, I once more swear, that if there be an Indian among us capable of such a crime, that he shall perish only by my hand; and shall he have a wife, and children sucking at the mother's breast, I again swear to plunge my poignard in their hearts!' This ferocious speech of Azan was instigated by a double motive. Ximeo had a son, a young man of great merit, whose name was Mirvan. Mirvan had married Zuma, a beautiful Indian woman, and they were the parents of a lovely child. Azan not only hated the Spaniards, but he envied the young Mirvan. He had a vague apprehension that Mirvan might violate the oath, and he enforced it, that he might accomplish the purpose of a deadly passion. The Indians were forced to pay an external homage to the Spaniards, and among the women who received the vicequeen with testimonies of respect, was Zuma. Her grace and beauty were too conspicuous to pass unnoticed, and she was soon chosen for the domestic services of the palace, and was particularly attached to the person of the vice-queen. Beatrice was alarmed at the preference which her friend showed this new attendant; she was so prepossessed against the fidelity of Indians, that she never regarded any individual of them with confidence, and the companions of Zuma, jealous of her advancement, represented her as insinuating and false, and deeply engaged in the interest of her countrymen. The countess had not long resided at Lima before her health was affected by the climate, and she became the prey of a rapid and wasting fever. Her physician vainly tried the remedies of his art, and at last intimated, that some mysterious cause must have produced this incu rable illness. Beatrice believed her friend to be dying by a slow poison, and believed that Zuma only could have administered it ; she checked, but did not abandon her suspicions, and set a vigilant watch over the unfortunate slave. 'The gentle, grateful Zuma, was agitated by the strongest conflict of feelings. She was acquainted with an infallible remedy-she idolized her mistress-she beheld her suffering and dying-she would have sacrificed her own life without a moment's hesitation, but her oath involved that of her husband and child, and that child was placed, as a pledge of her discretion, in the hands of the implacable Azan. In this agonizing state, she heard the sentence of certain death pronounced upon the vice-queen-she saw the anguish of her husband and her friends, and the dismay of all her attendants-she saw, too, the piety, the courage, and the sensibility which the lovely victim exhibited, and the combined effort of all this, so afflicted this devoted creature, that she was herself attacked with the disease which threatened the life of her benefactress. The well-known remedy was secretly conveyed by the hands of Mirvan, but in quantities sufficient for the relief of Zuma only. Zuma rejoiced that she might now preserve her generous benefactress, her husband, and her child. She resolved to die herself, and to give the precious drug to the vice-queen. She hoped that her own death might be imputed to the disease, and the restoration of the countess, to the skill and the care which had been employed upon her. There is an uncommon elevation of soul, in the manner in which Zuma divests herself of all self-love, and in which she regards the comparative value of her own life and that of her exalted friend; nor can it fail to infuse into us a regard for that unfortunate part of our species, which has been so villified, abused, and destroyed by civilized, Christian, white men. It reminds us of that eloquent, liberal passage of Mr. Addison,-"I am delighted," says this fine moralist, "with reading the accounts of savage nations; and of contemplating those virtues that are wild and uncultivated: to see courage exerting itself in fierceness, resolution in obstinacy, wisdom in cunning, patience in sullenness and despair. When one hears of negroes, who, upon the death of their masters, or upon changing their service, hang themselves upon the next tree, as it sometimes happens in the American colonies, who can forbear admiring their fidelity, though it expresses itself in so dreadful a manner? What might not that savage greatness of soul, which appears in these poor wretches on many occasions, be raised to, were it rightly cultivated? And what colour of excuse can there be for the contempt with which we treat this part of our species ?" To return to Zuma. The spies who were ordered to observe her conduct did not fail to report, that she was seen examining every avenue to the vice-queen's apartment-that her husband had been to visit her, and that they had parted in mutual agitation. Zuma started, threw herself into a chair, and fainted. Her supposed crime was soon proclaimed; she was delivered to justice, and committed to prison. Zuma was unable to deny the fact which Beatrice and the viceroy had witnessed. She was asked from whom she had obtained the powder?" She received it from me," exclaimed Mirvan. Zuma denied this. The judges inquired if she meant to administer a salutary remedy. Her eyes, at that moment, encountered the cruel Azan; she fancied she beheld him strangling her child,-she was silent. Ximeo, comprehending her secret, threw himself between Mirvan and Zuma, and intreated to die with them; but he was removed, and the unfortunate pair reconducted to prison. The countess' physician was examined, and his testimony confirmed the presumptive guilt of Zuma. The judges condemned her and her husband to perish amidst the flames of a pile that very day. The hard heart of Azan was melted, and, addressing Mirvan, he said, "be not concerned for the fate of your son, he shall be as dear to me as if he were my own." The pile was prepared. The vicequeen was dying. The viceroy could entertain no thoughts of mercy to Zuma, but he offered a free pardon to Mirvan if he would confess his crime. The wretched husband refused to comply, and all was prepared for the execution. The countess was informed of what had happened; she Beatrice communicated all her suspi- resolved in spite of her weakness to go to cions, thus confirmed in her mind, to the the scene of death; and, placed upon a viceroy, and they both agreed to conceal litter, and covered by a long white veil, themselves in a convenient place, to ob- she departed. Mirvan and Zuma quitted serve the proceedings of Zuma.. At their prison, embraced their child, and were conveyed to the burning pile. Unconquerable terror seized the unhappy Zuma, which the exhortations of her courageous husband could not mitigate. At the last moment," a noise was heard at some distance,-a horseman at full gallop appeared within view, exclaiming, night they observed her entering her mistress' chamber with an air of mystery and fear, saw her approach the table, draw a paper from her bosom and shake it into the draught already prepared for the countess. The viceroy, seized with horror, rushed from his concealment, exclaiming,"Wretched woman! What have you put into the medicine ?" At this unexpected sight, and at this terrible question, |