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May bear the brooding spirit of the storm,
His beauteous bride, alas! a soul betrayed
Unworthy of its radiant tenement ;-
And poor insulted MAGDALINE returned
To the lone Cottage by the mountain stream.
That home was like her heart, almost a ruin,

And desolate as her doom. Dark moss had grown

O'er the discolored walls, and all around

Was rank luxuriance or drear decay.

In a forlorn monotony severe

The dull days passed. At length her younger boy, BERTHOLD returned; a formal visit paid

And proffered gold, but not the filial love

More dear than precious gems. "Alas!" she cried,
"The bitter mockery of a mother's name,
But not one bliss maternal, now is mine;
My sole fair hope seems fading like a cloud
Above the setting sun. My darkened heart
Forbodes that HENRIC on the field of fame

Hath proudly breathed his last!" A dream confirmed

This mournful fear; a warrior on the ground

Lay bathed in blood and gazing on his face,

She saw her son! "Farewell! farewell!" she said, Awaking wild, "at least thou hast not scorned

The grey hairs of thy parent."

Sorrow now

Wasted her aged form. At last e'er Fate

Had quenched life's tremulous flame, her HENRIC dear, To make her dark dreams fade like morning mist,

-an honored soldier, one whose fame

Returned,

Had raised his soul, but hardened not his heart.

With filial reverence he kissed her brow,

And when upon the broad light of his joy

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Dim memories cast their shadow, sudden tears
Fell from his azure eyes like the big rain
That sometimes from the fairest summer skies
A transient cloud may shed.

A few moons passed

When from a distant comrade HENRIC heard
Rumours of war, and, with fresh ardour fired,
Spoke of his quick return to that far clime

Where all his laurels grew.

Sad MAGDALINE exclaimed.

"Oh! bitterest trial!"

"My only Son,

(For what to me are thy false brethren now?)
Wilt thou desert thy mother, when the goal
Of life's long, weary pilgrimage is nigh,
Nor soothe her at the gloomy gates of death?
Oh! leave her not to wither in despair;
Unwept and unattended thus to die!"

There was a struggle in that warrior's soul

Severe though brief; 'tis hard when glory's smile
Thrills the young heart, its witchery to defy ;-
But filial virtue triumphed! The fond tears
A mother sheds are potent as the drops
That the hard marble print, and HENRIC's heart

By the hearth gentle, as in battle brave,

Was touched;-he paused amid his proud career

To sweeten a lorn parent's solitude
With looks of love ;-And as an aged tree
Propped and protected flourishes anew,
Poor MAGDALINE's autumnal hopes put forth

A few pale blossoms more ;-her closing day
Grew calm and fair;-Affection's ever-green
Twined round her heart; and star-like pleasures cheered
The tranquil twilight of her evening hours!

ANNA SEWARD AND DOCTOR DARWIN.

DOCTOR DARWIN's transplantation of the poetical flowers of Anna Seward into his "Botanic Garden," is one of the most curious incidents in literary history. That a man like Doctor Darwin, who had a moral and literary character to support, and who had such original resources in his own imagination, should have appropriated to his own use, and without any kind of acknowledgment, the production of a contemporary poet whose vanity was so little likely to forgive the fraud or preserve a self-denying silence, is indeed. surprising, and would not be credited on ordinary evidence. The fact, however, is perfectly well known. Thomas Campbell in the notice of Doctor Darwin, in his "Specimens of the British Poets," very unjustly treats Miss Seward's claim with incredulity and contempt. There is something even spiteful in his allusion to her. "Miss Anna Seward," he says, " in her Life of Darwin, declares herself the authoress of the opening lines of the poem, (the Botanic Garden,) but as she never had the courage to make this pretension during Doctor Darwin's life, her veracity on the subject is exposed to suspicion." Towards the conclusion of his notice of Darwin he has another fling at the poetess. Darwin's Botanic Garden," says, "once pleased many better judges than his affected biographer." Thomas Campbell is, undoubtedly, a true poet, and when he has no personal prejudices to blind his judgment, he is as true a critic. We cannot help thinking, however, that in this instance he is any thing but impartial. There is a passage in one of Anna's letters which was not calculated to secure the favourable judgment of the author of the Pleasures of Hope. "You ask me," she writes to one of her correspondents, "my opinion of the new

he

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poem, The Pleasures of Hope, and observe, that it is thought an ingenious counterpart to The Pleasures of Memory. It was lent me for a short time, and my perusal was single and hurried. I rose from it without any impression of having found on its pages much of the strength of original genius." This is not a very just criticism, but it is a hasty one; and, we are to remember, that Miss Seward had not seen Campbell's maturer and more energetic productions-his inimitable lyrics. At the time these letters were published Miss Seward's fame stood pretty high, and as they were edited by his friend Scott, it is more than probable, that Campbell had either read or heard of this off-hand condemnation. Campbell is, we believe, the only writer who has insinuated against Miss Seward herself a still severer charge than that which she brought against Darwin. A daring misappropriation like that of Darwin's is a far less disgusting crime than a felonious attack upon the character and property of the defenceless dead. But, we are convinced, that in the present case Mr. Campbell is either a less cautious or less candid judge than he ought to be in a matter so seriously affecting the moral reputation of a female, who was always greatly respected in private life. We admit, that there is no direct evidence that Miss Seward had spoken personally to Doctor Darwin upon the subject of his plagiarism; and this circumstance is undoubtedly remarkable, as she occasionally corresponded with her spoliator even subsequent to his literary theft, and continued to speak of his poetry to all her correspondents with most enthusiastic commendation. That she was not likely to refrain from speaking on such a subject from any delicacy or tenderness to Darwin, or any want of boldness and candour, we may gather from the tone of some of her letters to Hayley, to Mrs. Piozzi and to Henry Hardinge. Nothing can be more frank and fearless than these. But if there is no evidence that she complained to Doctor Darwin on this subject, neither is there any strong reason to believe the contrary. At all events, some of Mr. Campbell's statements are

undoubtedly inaccurate. He tells us, for instance, that Darwin published the first part of his Botanic Garden (the exordium of which is Miss Seward's) in the year 1781. He is evidently not aware of the fact, that the second part of the poem was published before the first; and that the first part did not appear till 1792. This is an important error. Miss Seward gave the lines to Doctor Darwin in the year 1779. A friend of Doctor Darwin's, (Mr. Stevens) sent them to the Gentleman's Magazine in 1783, in the May number of which year they were published with her name, and were copied, also with her name, into the Annual Register of the next year. They were also inserted with her signature in Shaw's History of Staffordshire in 1798, four years before the death of Doctor Darwin.

They were thus claimed by her signature (and the claim remained undisputed) in two of the most popular periodicals of that day, eight or nine years before Doctor Darwin transferred them to his Botanic Garden! Then again, if we have no direct information of her having addressed Darwin on the subject orally, or by letter, we know that Miss Seward made no secret of the matter even in the Doctor's life-time. In a letter to Mr. Repton, dated July, 1789, she observes, " One of the notes to the part which Doctor Darwin has just published, induces me to believe he retains his design of opening his first part with my sketch of the valley. Surely he judges wrong; so great a work ought not to contain lines, especially in the exordium, which are known to have been written by another." From this paragraph we gather two conclusions-the one is, that Miss Seward was aware that Doctor Darwin had some intention to use her lines, though she might naturally have expected that he would compliment her with an acknowledgment; and the other is, that she looked upon her parentage of them as too well known, at least to her correspondent, to make it necessary for her to enter into any argument or explanation to support her claim. In the same let

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