ried her, ran in secret and in terror from Heidelberg away. He must have been somewhat of a coward, for Elizabeth Charlotte was remarkable for the smallness of her size, so that she could not have menaced or assailed him with any more for midable weapon than her tongue. She had been educated a Protestant, but on her marriage with the Duke of Orleans she entered into external communion with the Catholic Church. That her heart had any share in this compliance with a supposed political necessity does not seem probable. Her enlightened views and the liberality of her sentiments no doubt helped to plant and nourish the tolerance to which her celebrated son, the Regent Orleans, was always inclined from something better than indifference. Her husband was fond of childish amusements, and his frivolity formed a marked contrast with her stronger and sterner nature. Surrounded by a corrupt court she maintained an unspotted reputation. She scourged with her bitter wit the hypocrites no less than the debauchees with whom the court abounded. Louis the Fourteenth liked her for her liveliness and her crushing sarcasm, though perhaps she was too cautious ever to make him, the proudest of men, the subject of her satire. On dogs, on horses, on hunting, she bestowed the passionate attachment which she was not in a region to find many human objects to deserve. At the chase she usually appeared in male attire. Her hatred for Madame de Maintenon was deep, implacable, ferocious, and that Pharisee of the Pharisees richly returned it. The duchess clung so warmly to every thing German that she seldom spoke any other than her native language during her long residence in France. That Louis XIV. persisted in marrying one of his natural daughters to her son filled her with indignation and disgust; but she did not take the wisest or noblest way of showing her resentment. She sought every means and embraced every opportunity of injuring and giving pain to her daughter-in-law. She went so far in this as even to overlook and rather to encourage that licentious and disorderly conduct in her son to which he was by nature only too prone. The learned men of Germany, including Leibnitz, were among her correspondents. Though her affection for her native land was so ardent, yet by urging the claims on the palatinate which came to her through the death of her brother, she afforded Louis XIV. a pretext for changing as far as he could that part of Germany into a desert. When her husband died, her friend, Madame de Maintenon, anxious for the condition and fate of her soul, wished her to be shut up in a convent. She was not, however, sufficiently grateful for her dear friend's attentions and intentions, and preferred the free air of heaven to the gloom of the cloister. The latter years of her life were devoted to the writing of her Memoirs, which were afterwards published and have gone through several editions. Louis XIV. was not merely a despot in public but a despot in private, and from this cause, as well as from others, the duchess had little control over the education of her children. It was unfortunate for France and for the Regent Orleans that in this great matter she was allowed such limited interference. Her son's love and esteem, however, she always and to the utmost enjoyed. Her daughter Elizabeth Charlotte, Mademoiselle de Chartres, inherited her energy and talent. She was born on the 13th September, 1676, married in 1698 Leopold Joseph Charles, Duke of Lorraine, and died on the 24th December, 1744. After her husband's death, in 1729, she took a share in the affairs of government. Of her thirteen children, one was Francis Stephen, known under the name of Francis the First. By his marriage with Maria Theresa in 1736 Bourbon and Stuart blended with Hapsburg. This Francis Stephen was so fond of making money, that Frederick the Great called him the Court Banker, and states that in the Seven Years' War he often supplied the provisions and forage, without regard to the injury he was thereby doing to the Austrian cause. It was a curious case of royal huckstering. His son Joseph the Second, his daughter Marie Antoinette, his grandson, the Archduke Charles, and his great grandson Napoleon the Second, all demand a glance. a Joseph was an accomplished and benevolent man, and a sincere patriot; but he tried to govern his country by dogmas and formulas, and he failed, as he could not help failing. The Germans are nation of pedants, and they can stand a good deal of pedantry in their government, but they could not stand quite so large a dose as Joseph gave them. Much as there was of the pedagogue in his char acter, he was yet so thoroughly in earnest, and had so many noble qualities, that we are driven to deplore the melancholy and the disappointment which marked his career. United at nineteen to a woman to whom he was most tenderly attached, he lost after a few years her and a daughter she brought him, and thus vanished his last gleam of earthly happiness. From the throne he shot forth crotchets only to have them stormed by contrarieties, while a strong and bold Frederick the Great stood mocking by. Through his mania for meddling in every thing, he left his States in some essential respects in a worse condition than he found them. Whether he conferred on them any abiding benefit at all may be doubted. But in a land peopled in the main by mummies, what could even a mightier than he do! As king of living men he would himself have grown a more living man, and his beautiful aspirations would have resulted in something better than wasted efforts and a broken heart. He was our James I., with gifts that made him far more estimable than James, but only unhappy in the same degree. Marie Antoinette was, like her ancestress Mary Stuart, lovely; like her she was assailed by calumnies that darkened and blasted the career without crushing the spirit; and like her she had to surrender to the blow of the executioner a fair head fashioned by nature to gleam in perpetual sunshine, yet fated to flash defiance at the fiendish howlings of the mob. Burke's wild declamations have done this woman irreparable injury. He has surrounded her with the atmosphere of his own bad passions and party hatreds, and it is through that atmosphere that the English are content to view her. But truly we must take her to our heart without regard to the right or the wrong of the French Revolution, even as we would take Madame Roland or Charlotte Corday. Noble women, true saints on this side and on that, what do we care for their politics? The Archduke Charles conducted war like a master, and wrote on it like a masIn combating Napoleon he almost rose to Napoleonic daring, Napoleonic promptitude, Napoleonic fertility of resources. The Austrian armies, however, were composed of such heterogeneous elements that it was impossible to inspire them with that unity of purpose which, next to Napoleon's own genius, hurled ter. the French on so grandly to victory. It is doubtful whether the Germans will ever be a match for the French in war; but if ever a match it will only be when the Germans are what the French are-a nation. The marvel is not that the archduke achieved so little, but that he achieved so much in a wrestle with a demigod. Napoleon's marriage with a princess of the house of Austria was perhaps the most monstrous blunder he ever committed. It gained him no political advantage, and it lost him the affection of those who had continued to admire his genius in his most varying fortunes, notwithstanding his sins against freedom. Yet through that blunder his history received one of its few touches of tenderness in the birth and in the early death of Napoleon II. The mother of this interesting youth was one of those poor, vulgar, common-place creatures from whom we shrink the more the nearer to the throne they are born. But perhaps that by contrast only draws her son the nearer to our sympathies. Who had ever a more remarkable ancestry-Bourbon and Stuart, and Hapsburg and Bonaparte, all blending in his veins? If he had succeeded his father, even a Duke de Fitz james might have bowed the knee in homage to him, as to one who was at once a Stuart like himself and a Bourbon like those for whom he had gone into exile. But it was well that an early grave should be his, and that his fragile, delicate nature should not be summoned to grapple with French revolutionary passions. Thus was the most tremendous tragedy the world had ever witnessed the more complete, and infinitely the more touching. We mourn for him as David mourned for Jonathan, yet we would not trouble his last slumbers. The universe would have been less beautiful if he had not died. About the time that Napoleon II. vanished in his sweetness away, another descendant of Mary Stuart grasped the sceptre to which the babe Bonaparte had been born amid the thunder of his father's victories. Louis Philippe was the third memorable Duke of Orleans. He was by no means the worst king that ever ruled France, but he attempted more than any other of its kings to drive France in a direction contrary to its national and natural character. This folly not even the most stupid and bigoted of the elder Bourbons had been guilty of. To force France to mould itself to a meagre and narrow util itarianism was the long error of Louis | rulers, by the marriage of Leopold with Philippe's reign. He fell therefore more Louis Philippe's daughter, will be descendunregretted than if he had committed the ants of Mary Stuart; and if they follow most flagrant crimes. Perhaps as his, the example of sagacious statesmanship father Egalite had been ostentatiously which Leopold has offered them, they may reckless, and had paid the price of his reck- raise Belgium to a political importance lessness to the guillotine, Louis Philippe equal to its manufacturing and commercial thought that he could not cultivate too energy. exclusively the prudential virtues; but if he had considered his father's path as a path to be shunned, he might have learned something of adaptation to French peculiarities from his ancestor the regent, who, however corrupt, was not more corrupt than his times, and who had exalted qualities flashing through his vices, to which neither Louis XIV., the unrivalled egotist, nor Louis XV., the unrivalled sensualist, could pretend. If Belgium is destined to remain an independent kingdom, and not to be, as is more probable, absorbed by France, its The Duke d'Enghien's mother was sister to the Duke of Orleans, citizen Egalité. That poor murdered prince thus swells our long and illustrious list. With him let it for the present close. These memoranda have been drawn up from most imperfect_materials, and those more learned than I in royal and other genealogies may be able to detect both omissions and inaccuracies. But where I, from no skill in workmanship, but merely from the fullness of my heart, have raised a cairn of rude stones, may others build a temple. MORE than thirty years ago, The Quarterly Review and Sir Walter Scott excited a new interest in these works, by their strong recommendations. At that time they were reprinted in the United States, and we had our first copies, which were worn out, borrowed, vanished. Then another copy in octavo, containing all in one volume, came into our possession. This was too heavy, and from fong use is now in tatters. Then a set, in pretty little volumes, came from England-but this has nearly disappeared. We have often thought of publishing a good edition, each volume to contain one of the novels, and are very glad that Messrs. Bunce & Brother, of New-York, (as appears by their advertisement in No. 568), have begun to do so, by issuing Pride and Prejudice. To the delightful society created by this author, we shall be glad to introduce all our readers. How many hours of weariness, sickness and anxiety have been soothed for us by these people. Elizabeth Bennet is a dear friend-and for her sake as well as his own we respect Mr. Darcy, after she has corrected and improved him. His aunt, Mr. and Mrs. Bennet, and the Rev. Mr. Collins have other kinds of interest. We have read the whole series twenty times, and should like to read it again now. But we must wait for some half sickness which needs recreation; and then, unable to read the new novels, we turn to these or to the Waverlys. And perhaps we like these better than even Sir Walter's. We copy a Biographical notice, 198 JANE AUSTEN. which originally appeared in a posthumous | performances of her previous life. For work, probably Northanger Abbey. BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE OF MISS JANE AUSTEN, Originally issued, we think, with Northanger Abbey, after her death, THE following pages are the production of a pen which has already contributed in no small degree to the entertainment of the public. And when the public, which has not been insensible to the merits of "Sense and Sensibility," "Pride and Prejudice," "Mansfield Park," and "Emma," shall be informed that the hand which guided that pen is now mouldering in the grave, perhaps a brief account of Jane Austen will be read with a kindlier sentiment than simple curiosity. Short and easy will be the task of the mere biographer. A life of usefulness, literature, and religion, was not by any means a life of events. To those who lament their irreparable loss, it is consolatory to think that, as she never deserved disapprobation, so, in the circle of her family and friends, she never met reproof; that her wishes were not only reasonable, but gratified; and that to the little disappointments incidental to human life was never added, even for a moment, an abatement of good will from any who knew her. Jane Austen was born on the 16th of December, 1775, at Steventon, in the county of Hants. Her father was rector of that parish upwards of forty years. There he resided in the conscientious and unassisted discharge of his ministerial duties, until he was turned of seventy years. Then, he retired with his wife, our authoress, and her sister, to Bath for the remainder of his life, a period of about four years. Being not only a profound scholar, but possessing a most exquisite taste in every species of literature, it is not wonderful that his daughter Jane should, at a very early age, have become sensible to the charms of style, and enthusiastic in the cultivation of her own language. On the death of her father, she removed, with her mother and sister, for a short time, to Southampton, and finally, in 1809, to the pleasant village of Chawton, in the same county. From this place, she sent into the world those novels, which, by many, have been placed on the same shelf as the works of a D'Arblay and an Edgeworth. Some of these novels had been the gradual though in composition she was equally She expired shortly after, on Friday, the 18th of July, 1817, in the arms of her sister, who, as well as the relater of these events, feels too surely that they shall never look upon her like again. Jane Austen was buried on the 24th of July, 1817, in the cathedral church of Winchester, which, in the whole catalogue of its mighty dead, does not contain the ashes of a brighter genius or a sincerer Christian. Of personal attractions she possessed a considerable share. Her stature was that of true elegance. It could not have been | without feeling a strong desire of obtainincreased without exceeding the middle ing her friendship, and cherishing a hope height. Her carriage and deportment of having obtained it. She was tranquil were quiet, yet graceful. Her features were separately good. Their assemblage produced an unrivalled expression of that cheerfulness, sensibility, and benevolence, which were her real characteristics. Her complexion was of the finest texture. It might with truth be said, that her eloquent blood spoke through her modest cheek. Her voice was extremely sweet. She delivered herself with fluency and precision. Indeed, she was formed for elegant and rational society, excelling in conversation as much as in composition. In the present age, it is hazardous to mention accomplishments. Our authoress would probably have been inferior to few in such acquirements, had she not been so superior to most in higher things. She had not only an excellent taste for drawing, but, in her earlier days, evinced great power of hand in the management of the pencil. Her own musical attainments she held very cheap. Twenty years ago, they would have been thought more of, and twenty years hence, many a parent will expect her daughter to be applauded for meaner performances. She was fond of dancing, and excelled in it. It remains now to add a few observations on that which her friends deemed more important; on those endowments which sweetened every hour of their lives. If there be an opinion current in the world, that perfect placidity of temper is not reconcilable to the most lively imagination and the keenest relish for wit, such an opinion will be rejected for ever by those who have had the happiness of knowing the authoress of the following work. Though the frailties, foibles, and follies of others could not escape her immediate detection, yet even on their vices did she never trust herself to comment with unkindness. The affectation of candor is not uncommon: but she had no affectation. Faultless herself, as nearly as human nature can be, she always sought in the faults of others, something to excuse, to forgive or forget. Where extenuation was impossible she had a sure refuge in silence. She never uttered either a hasty, a silly, or a severe expression. In short, her temper was as polished as her wit. Nor were her manners inferior to temper. They were of the happiest kind. No one could be often in her company without reserve or stiffness; and commu- Her Her reading was very extensive in his |