The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 17, No. 482, March 26, 1831

ROSEDALE ABBEY

(For the Mirror.)

"A churchyard!—'tis a homely word, yet full
Of feeling; and a sound that o'er the heart
Might shed religion."

    R. MONTGOMERY.
Ruins! so dark and lone,
The pride of other years,
On which the stars have shone,
To light the mourners' tears;
The ivy clings to ye,
And softly hums the bee
Where violets blue are blooming,
The liquid dews perfuming,
Beneath each withered tree.

Tombs! o'er your nameless stone
What gentle hearts have wept,
And there, at midnight lone,
Their silent vigils kept;
There Beauty laid her wreath,
And Love seem'd "strong as death,"
Around the pale shrines sighing,
While plaintive winds were dying
With music in their breath.

But childhood loves to stray
Whene'er the sward is green,
Round your mementos grey,
And haunts the mouldering scene;
And lovely in repose,
At sunset's gorgeous close,
Your holy walls seem blending
With purple light descending
Upon the beauteous rose.

Tombs of the past unknown!
Ye are fringed with violets blue,
And clouds have laved your stone
With sweetest tears of dew;
But when, by angels given,
The last dread peal of heaven
Shall rend ye all asunder
With its immortal thunder,
Your dead shall claim their heaven.

Deal.

G.R.C

PORTRAIT OF STERNE

(To the Editor.)

As many of the pages of your extensively-circulated little work have preserved memorials of Laurence Sterne, I hope you can spare room for the underwritten extract, from a letter of his to Mr. Garrick, dated Paris, March, 1762, and which may be seen in Vol I. of Mrs. Medalle's "Letters of the late L. Sterne."

My object in thus troubling you is, in the hope (perhaps you will say an almost forlorn, or distant one) that possibly some one of your readers, either here or abroad, maybe able to suggest where it is likely the under-mentioned whole-length portrait may now be of that once very distinguished man.

A CONSTANT READER

"I shandy it away fifty times more than I was ever wont, talk more nonsense than ever you heard me talk in your days—and to all sorts of people. Qui le diable est cet homme là … said Choiseul, t'other day. You'll think me as vain as a devil, was I to tell you the rest of the dialogue.... The Duke of Orleans has suffered my portrait to be added to the number of some odd men in his collection; and a gentleman who lives with him has taken it most expressively, at full length. I purpose to obtain an etching of it, and to send it to you."

EPITOME OF THE ANCIENT KINGDOM OF POLAND

(For the Mirror.)

Poland was once the country of the Vandals, who left it to invade the Roman Empire. The kingdom began, by favour of Otho III., Emperor of Germany, under Boleslaus, 999; Red Russia was added to it in 1059; Pomerania, that had been separated 180 years, again united with it, 1465; embraced Christianity, 965; the order of the White Eagle instituted in 1705. The peasants in Poland were serfs or slaves, and the value of an estate was not estimated from its extent, but from the number of the peasants who were transferred, like cattle, from one master to another. The first person who granted freedom to his peasants was Zamoiski, formerly grand chancellor, who in 1760 enfranchised six villages. The Jews were first introduced into Poland about the time of Casimir the Great; they were indulged with great privileges, and became so numerous that Poland was styled the Paradise of the Jews. So late as the thirteenth century, the Poles retained the custom of killing old men when past their labour, and such children as were born imperfect. "The natural strength of Poland, if properly exerted, (says a modern writer) would have formed a more certain bulwark against the ambition of her neighbours than the faith of treaties;" and it is worthy of remark, that of the three partitioning powers, Prussia was formerly in a state of vassalage to the republic; Russia once saw her capital and throne possessed by the Poles, under Sigismund III. whose troops got possession of Moscow, and whose son, Ladislaus, was chosen Great Duke of Muscovy, by a party of the Russian nobles; and Austria was indebted to John Sobieski, King of Poland, who, in 1683, compelled the Turks to raise the siege of Vienna, and delivered the house of Austria from the greatest dangers it ever experienced.

"The partition of Poland (says Mr. Coxe,) was first projected by the King of Prussia."

In 1794, Suwarof laid siege to Praga, a fortified suburb of Warsaw, and carried it by assault, with a tremendous carnage. The king was compelled to abdicate, and the whole country was incorporated in the dominion of Russia, Prussia, and Austria.

Early in 1797 Stanislaus arrived at Petersburg, and, according to the appointment of the sovereign, fixed his residence in the Marble Palace, on the banks of the Neva; but his death, which happened on the 12th of February, 1798, terminated the series of Polish sovereigns:

"Hope for a season bade the world farewell,
And Freedom shriek'd as Kosciusko fell."

Queen Elizabeth so highly prized the merit and abilities of Sir Philip Sydney, that she sent him ambassador to Vienna, and to several courts in Germany; and when the fame of his valour became so extensive that he was put in election for the crown of Poland, she refused to further his advancement, lest (says Baker) she should lose the brightest jewel of her crown. This Marcellus of the English nation was killed at the battle of Zutphen, in 1585, while he was mounting the third horse, having before had two killed under him.

P.T.W

THE HOUR OF PHANTASY

"The atmosphere that circleth gifted minds
Is from a deep intensity derived,
An element of thought, where feelings shape
Themselves to fancies,—an electric world
Too exquisitely toned for common life,
Which they of coarser metal cannot dream."

    R. MONTGOMERY.
There is an hour when Memory lends
To Thought her intellectual part,
When visions of departed friends
Restore their beauty to the heart;
And like the sunset's crimson light
To fading scenes of Nature given,