and Gravelines, 1558. "These battles," says Schiller, "made him the hero of his age."

Egmont was married to the Duchess Sabina of Bavaria, and by this brilliant connexion greatly increased the immense influence he already possessed. After the return of Philip to Spain, and while the Netherlands were under the regency of Margaret of Parma, an illegitimate daughter of Charles the Fifth, the troubles broke out in that country, which cost the Count his life. The beautiful and noble qualities of his character made him the object of the ardent love of his countrymen. He was generous, open-hearted, unsuspecting, and magnificent. He possessed in the highest degree the sense of honor, the courtesy, and the noble bearing of knighthood in its most brilliant days; and his martial fame was a spell upon the hearts of all. "Every public appearance of Egmont was a triumph; at the chivalrous pastimes, mothers pointed him out to their children. His religion was gentle and humane, but little enlightened, because it received its light from his heart and not from his understanding. He looked upon men as either good or bad; in his morality, there was no reconciliation between virtue and vice." William, Prince of Orange, was the only man who rivalled Count Egmont in the hearts of his countrymen; and when the violent encroachments of the gloomy tyranny of Spain upon their constitutional rights, and hereditary liberties, awakened the passions of the Netherlanders, all eyes were turned to these two illustrious persons. William saw deeper than his friend into the real state of affairs. He was a man of calmer temperament, and divined at once the peril that threatened when the ferocious Duke of Alva was sent by the Spanish despot to quell the restless spirit of the nobility of the Netherlands. He escaped the snare, but nothing could alarm the too confident spirit of Egmont. He, and Philip of Montmorency, Count von Hoorn, were treacherously seized by the Duke of Alva, brought to trial before a tribunal constituted of creatures of his own, and, notwithstanding the great influence of their family connexions, and their privileges as Knights of the Golden Fleece, were sentenced to be beheaded. The sentence was carried into execution at Brussels on the 5th of June, 1563, when Egmont was in the forty-sixth year of his age. All the details of this most tragical event are narrated by Schiller, in his usual interesting style, in the appendix to the "Geschichte des Abfalls der vereinigten Niederlande von der Spanischen Regierung." (pp. 509 et seq. ed. 1818.)

Here are materials for a noble historical tragedy, without drawing largely upon the poet's invention. We have strongly contrasted characters, generous and mighty passions, honor, patriotism, and the charities of home, with a fearful tragical

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termination, dreadful in itself and dreadful in all its accessories. What a drama would the genius of Shakspeare have wrought out of such events, such passions, such characters, and such

woes.

It must be admitted, that Goethe has happily conceived and represented the spirit of popular discontent; that the inferior personages in his drama are brought before us with a lively reality. The lower and more showy qualities of Egmont's character, too, are painted not without some truth of coloring. The bloody Alva is also well drawn, and the effects of his terrible presence among the Netherlanders are represented with all the vigor of Goethe's better genius. we say of the moral sense or intellectual perceptions of the But what shall poet or of his regard for historic truth, who represents Egmont,

as the licen

the husband of an illustrious wife, and (like John Rogers) the father of nine children; the patriot, the hero, and statesman, the admired and beloved of a whole nation, tious lover of a low-born girl, whom he has himself educed; and who thinks to heighten the tragic effect of a great and bloody historical catastrophe by adding to it the self-poisoning of a fictitious paramour? It was bad enough for poor Egmont to have his head cut off by Alva; but it is far worse to have his character murdered by Goethe. What a conception of the romantic poetry must Goethe have formed, if he thought it necessary to intermingle lust and suicide with the shedding of patriotic blood, to give his drama the romantic stamp. The true romantic spirit, made up of honor, courtesy, chastity, and the Christian. virtues, appears to have been lightly esteemed by Goethe, either as a source of poetical effect, or as the controlling principle of life. A romantic hero, in his estimation, was a man who showed his lofty spirit by seduction and licentiousness. A rake and his mistress and his mistress's mother were to him a highly 66 æsthetic group poetry. and the very incarnation of romantic We think, then, this drama has moral faults which are fatal to its claims as a work of lofty excellence; and that these faults imply a failure in intellectual perception and artistic skill. It is by no means a favorable specimen of the genius of Goethe. The translator has performed his task with spirit and general fidelity. We notice occasionally an erroneous translation of an idiomatic phrase; but this is not surprising in a drama so abounding in popular phraseology and racy idiomatic terms. The translation represents the original with uncommon accuracy, on the whole; but we hope the modest translator will next turn his hand to some work free from the objections, in point of morals and of art, which are justly chargeable upon Egmont."

A Discourse delivered before the Georgia Historical Society, Savannah, on Friday, February 12th, 1841. By WILLIAM BACON STEVENS. Boston Freeman &

Bolles. 8vo. pp. 40.

THE Georgia Historical Society was founded about three years ago, and incorporated by an act of the legislature of the State. Since that time it has been in active operation. A volume of its " Collections "has been published, containing a series of valuable papers, among which is a reprint of four rare tracts, relating to the first settlement and early history of Georgia.

Dr. Stevens's "Discourse" was delivered before this Society, and, in selecting a subject, he has chosen the period in the history of Georgia between the passing of the celebrated Stamp Act and the Declaration of Independence. This ground is almost wholly untrodden by former writers; but the facts here brought to light by Dr. Stevens show, that the transactions in Georgia during that time claim an important place among the events of the Revolution. If the spirit, which animated the other colonies, was less awake and less prompt in Georgia during the first stages of the contest, there were good reasons for it, reasons in no degree impeaching the patriotism and sound principles of the people; and, as soon as the Georgians felt their rights to be in danger, they took their stand boldly, and maintained it resolutely, to the last, with a zeal and perseverance that never flagged.

On the 1st of November, 1765, when the Stamp Act was to go into effect, the stamped papers had not arrived in Georgia, but they were daily expected, and the "Liberty Boys" had entered into a combination, as in the other colonies, to prevent their distribution, and to compel the distributing officer to resign. At length, however, the stamps arrived, in his Majesty's ship of war Speedwell, and were deposited for safe keeping in Fort Halifax. This disposition of them did not satisfy the "Liberty Boys." They held secret meetings, and laid a plan for breaking open the Fort and destroying the papers. News came, on the 2d of January, 1766, that nearly two hundred had assembled for this purpose.

"The Governor, arming himself, immediately ordered the two companies of Rangers, numbering fifty-four men, to attend him, marched with them to the Fort, took out the stamps, placed them in a cart, and, escorted by the military, conveyed them to his mansion. The people looked on in sullen silence, but it was a silence that gave the Governor so much alarm, that for many days he kept a guard of forty men over

his house, and for four nights was in such anxiety and fear that he never removed his clothes. The next day, about 1 o'clock, the Governor, by preconcerted signals, was made acquainted with the arrival of Mr. Agnus, the stamp distributor, at Tybee, and fearing the rage of the citizens, immediately despatched an armed scout-boat, with two or three friends of the government, who, with much secrecy, and a charge to allow him to speak to no one, brought him to the city on the 4th, where he was received by the Governor at his house, and that afternoon took the required oaths. But a few days' residence at the Governor's, even with a guard mounted night and day, convinced him of his insecurity, and in a fortnight he left the city.

*

"Towards the close of January, a body of six hundred men assembled within a few miles of the city, and intimated to the Governor, that unless the papers were removed from the place, they would march thither, raze his dwelling to the ground, attack the Fort, and destroy the stamps. The Governor immediately sent the papers down to Fort George, at Cockspur, and placed them in charge of a Captain, two subalterns, and fifty privates of the Rangers. But even this was not deemed a sufficient security, and on the 3d of February, they were once more removed, and finally deposited on board the man-of-war which had brought them to the colony.”—pp. 12, 13.

The events of several succeeding years, the struggles between the Governor and the people, the one strenuous for his prerogative in favor of the royal cause, and the other for their rights, are well described by Dr. Stevens. He draws the following sketch of the state of things in Georgia at the beginning of the war, after having mentioned the resolute spirit shown by the Parish of St. John in sending a deputy to the Congress, which convened in May, 1775.

"The hesitation on the part of the other parishes in Georgia to adopt all the measures of Congress, was the theme of violent and unjustifiable denunciation. A momentary glance at the condition of Georgia, will remove these unfounded aspersions. According to the returns of Governor Wright to the Lords of Trade, the population of Georgia in 1774, was but seventeen thousand whites, and fifteen thousand blacks; and the entire militia, between the ages of sixteen and sixty, numbered only two thousand eight hundred and twenty-eight, scattered from Augusta to St Mary's. Within her borders, and along her frontier, were the Creeks, with four thousand gun-men, the Chickasaws with four hundred and fifty gun-men, the Cherokees with three thousand gun-men, and the Choctaws with two thousand five hundred gun-men, comprising all together, over forty thousand Indians, ten thousand of whom were warriors, and all, by means of presents and the influence of Captain Stuart and Mr. Cameron, were firm in their alliance with the royal party, and could be brought in any numbers against the colony. On the south, lay the garrisoned province of Florida with a large military force under Governor Tonyn, and hordes of Tory bandits waiting for the signal of the spoiler. On the east was a long line of seaboard, with many fine harbours, sheltered

bays, large rivers, well-stocked islands, and every thing inviting for a naval depredation. And the Earl of Dartmouth had directed General Gage and Admiral Graves, to furnish Governor Wright with any force, military and naval, which he might require. Besides these motives, which addressed themselves to the fears of the colonists, there were others, which partook of a moral character. Since its settlement, Georgia had received, by grant of Parliament, nearly a million of dollars, in addition to the bounties which had been lavished on the silk culture, indigo, and other agricultural products. This consideration weighed with much force on many minds, and on such the Governor took every occasion to impress the baseness of ingratitude towards a sovereign whose paternal care had been so largely exerted in their behalf. Each of the other colonies also had a charter upon which to base some right, or claim of redress, but Georgia had none. When the trustees' patent expired in 1752, all her chartered privileges became extinct. On its erection into a royal province, the commission of the Governor was her only constitution, she had no fixed and fundamental basis, but lived upon the will of the monarch, the mere creature of his volition. At the head of the government was Sir James Wright, Bart., who, for fourteen years, had presided over it with singular ability and acceptance. When he arrived, in 1760, the colony was languishing under the accumulated mismanagement of the former trustees and more recent Governors. But his zeal and efforts soon changed its aspect to health and vigor. He guided it into the avenues of wealth, he sought out the means of its advancement; his prudence secured the amity of the Indians; and his negotiations added millions of acres to its territory. Diligent in his office, firın in his resolves, loyal in his opinions, courteous in his manners, and possessed of a vigorous and well-balanced mind, he ruled the province more by suasion and argument than by menace and force. Instead of being, like many of the royal Governnors, obnoxious, he was beloved by his people; and, though he differed from the majority of them as to the cause of their distresses, and the means for their removal, he never allowed himself to be betrayed into one act of violence, or into any course of outrage and revenge. The few years of his administration were the only happy ones Georgia ever enjoyed until after the Revolution; and to his energy and devotedness, mainly, is to be attributed her civil and commercial prosperity. With these obstacles within and around her, is it to be wondered that Georgia hesitated and wavered? that she feared to assume a responsibility which threatened inevitably to crush her? Her little phalanx of patriots, but little outnumbering the band of Leonidas, were men of Spartan hearts; but Spartan hearts, even at Thermopylæ, could not resist the hosts of the Persians; and what had they to hope, in her feeble state, her inhabitants rent with discord, her metropolis filled with placemen and officers, her seaboard guarded by a fleet, and her frontier for two hundred and fifty miles, gleaming with the tomahawk of the scalper, and the fires of the warrior's wigwam? If there ever was a time for Georgia to falter, it was then; and falter she did, but only for a moment; for, soon summoning her energies, she cast aside all fear, and, commending her cause to the God of battles, joined in the sacred league of Independence." - pp. 28-30.