with many a Monk and Nun in their privations and sufferings; nor can I forbear transcribing from an interesting Book*, to which I made frequent references in my former Tour, the following passage in regard to the effects, of Monachism in the Low Countries: "Justice requires that the merits of the Religious orders in these lande should not be forgotten. Let it be remembered that the monks gave the first lessons of agriculture in this country, and that the rude wastes of Flanders were converted into fruitful fields by the labour of holy men. If too large a share of the lands has been allotted to convents and monasteries, yet let it be remembered that the wealth of the religious houses has been employed chiefly in hospitable acts, in the encouragement of elegant arts, and in the construction of edifices that have adorned the country; whilst the farmer has found in the fathers of the convent, whose lands he rented, humane and indulgent landlords. The leisure of the cloister has not always been wasted in indolence among the monks in this country have been found men that were eminent in arts or letters; and the Abbots here, as formerly in England, have stood forth the advocates of the liberty of the people. It may be added also, that the lives of the religious have been for the most part without scandal, an example of severe virtue; and that, if unwilling captives have been detained within the convent-walls, victims to the pride of families, yet sometimes the unhappy have found a suitable retreat in these mansions of prayer and meditation. This praise may be bestowed on Monachism before its final departure from these regions. : 99 Ath is the capital of a considerable Chatelleny, which, I was told, comprises not less than one hundred and twenty-two towns and villages. It carries on a pretty good internal traffick, and has a considerable manufactory of linen. No country in the world is better adapted by its situation for the combined advantages of foreign and domestic commerce, than that which formerly went by the name of the Austrian Netherlands as must be evident to every one who looks at the map of the country, and considers the situation * Shaw's "Sketches of the History of the Austrian Netherlands." of Antwerp, Ghent, Bruges, and Ostend, as well as the easy communication which its numerous rivers and canals maintain in the interior. Ath originally belonged to the House of Trezegnies, which held the title of Marquis, by whom it appears to have been sold in the twelfth century to Baldwin the IVth, Count of Hainault. This town submitted to the victorious arms of Louis the XIVth, during the rapid and successful campaign of 1667, when, with an utter disregard of every principle of justice, that ambitious Monarch attacked the Spanish Low Countries. By the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, which was concluded the year following, Ath was allowed to remain in the hands of Louis, who ordered it to be strongly fortified under the direc tion of the celebrated Vauban. By virtue of the treaty of Nimeguen, in 1678, Ath reverted to its old masters, the Spaniards, who kept possession of it until 1697, when it was invested by a French Army, under the command of the famous Marechal de Catinat, to whom it surrendered after a siege of thirteen days; but, during the course of the same year, it was restored to Spain by the peace of Ryswick. In 1706 a detachment of the Allied Army, under the command of Field-Marshal the Count of Nassau Owerkercke, sat down before Ath with a formidable train of artillery. He forced the garrison to capitulate in a few days, and to surrender prisoners of war. The Town was put into the hands of the Dutch, who kept possession of it till the year 1716, when it was given up to the Emperor conformably to the Barrier Treaty. It was again taken by the French in 1745, when the inhabitants suffered grievously from the bombardment, and at the peace following was again restored to the Emperor, since which period it remained free from the din of war until the year 1792, when it submitted to a French force under the command of General Berneron, two days after Dumourier's victory at Gemappe. They now form a part of the new kingdom of the Netherlands; in the stability and prosperity of which I feel deeply interested, and rejoice that I have lived to see the day when the Austrian Netherlands have been severed from France and incorporated with Holland. CLERICUS LEICESTRIENSIS. Mr. I Mr. URBAN, Oct. 30. HERE annex a Plate of the remains of the Palace at Dunstaple, in Bedfordshire, now called Kingsbury. (See Plate I.) The part seen in the foreground of the print, between two pinnacles, is supposed to have been the hall, but is now used as a barn. It is built with Toteruhoe stone, dug out of an antient and celebrated quarry upon the Downs in this vicinity. This Palace, in its entire state, extended over the whole of the ground now occupied by the farm-house and yard which belong to Mr. Oliver. Henry the First appears to have been the builder of it, and to have resided in it; although it is more frequently designated King John's Pa lace. The lands attached to it extended into the adjoining parish of Houghton Regis, which there can be little doubt was so denominated from having been a part of the royal domain, and in contradistinction to another Houghton, lower down in this County, for many years the property and abode of the family of the Conquests, and after them called Houghton Conquest. Yours, &c. G.O.P.T. Mr. URBAN, THE RE Oct. 31. HE famous French Poet Delille, perhaps the best moral and descriptive Poet that France has ever produced, died at Paris in June 1813. As he was for some time an emigrant in this country, and was therefore personally known to many among us, a short account of him, from good authorities, will perhaps be thought interesting. James Delille was born in 1738, in that part of the old Province of Lyons which now forins the department of Puy-de-Dome, in the town of Aigue-Perse; which had the honour of producing also the famous Chancellor de L'Hôpital. He was educated chiefly at Paris, and entered very early into the career of a Professor, first at Amieus, and soon after at Paris. He was distinguished both as a student, and as a teacher; and soon gave specimens also of a decided talent for Poetry. But his first great work, and that which for a long time formed the most solid basis of his fame, was his translation of the Georgics of Virgil. Poetical Versions GENT. MAG. November, 1816. of Classic Authors had not often been attempted in France; but this was calculated to be distinguished among any number of competitors. It justly holds the place which the English Iliad has obtained with us; and is considered, not only as a spirited translation of the original work, but as a rich accession to the native language of the translator. Like Pope's great work, it opened stores of expression till then unknown, and developed powers of language which were not suspected to exist. Even the jealous Voltaire ventured to applaud a successful translator, and recommended him to the Academy, as having enlarged the domain of French literature. In consequence of this powerful recommendation, and the undeniable merit of the work, he was nominated a Member of the French Academy in 1772, when he was only 34. His election was not confirmed by the King, on account of his youth, Voltaire himself not having been made an Academician till he was 55. two years after he was fully admitted, with all due honours, and royal confirmation. But Delille had been some years in the Academy before he completed his Poem (des Jardins) on Gardens ; which was received by the publick with rapture, and criticized only by a few obscure scribblers. A friend said to him, on this subject, “Your opponents are very idle; they are only at their seventh critique, and you are at your eleventh edition." Delille never replied to any criticism, on this or any other occasion; but modestly corrected what was really amiss, and took no further notice. Being intimately connected in friendship with M. de Choiseul-Gouffier (afterwards Author of the Voyage Pittoresque de la Grece) he attended or followed him in his embassy to Constantinople; and viewed the classical and sublime scenes of Greece and Asia, with the eye and feeling of a Poet: with these rich treasures before him he planned, and partly executed, his fine descriptive Poem on Imagination. It was his delight to breakfast in Asia, and return to dinner in Europe; employing the interval in composition, amidst the splendid scenery of the Bosphorus and its vicinity, sufficient to excite a much less less active genius. He retained the Professorships of Belles-lettres in the University of Paris, and of Poetry in the College of France; and, when he returned, resumed the functions of them, lecturing on Juvenal, Horace, and Virgil; and delighting his auditors no less by his own imitations of those Authors, than by his admirable manner of reciting their best passages. In 1794, when the revolutionary storm had left him without office or support, he retired into Lorraine, the native country of his wife; where, in a retirement, tranquil even then, he completed his translation of the Eneid, begun thirty years before. This work has not been received as equal to his version of the Georgics; but it should be considered, that Virgil himself had not so highly finished the larger Poem, as to place it in the fair line of competition with the smaller. Little hope as yet existed of any permanent tranquillity in France; and Delille, who could not live without it, fled to Bâle, in Switzerland. From Bâle, in 1796, he removed to Glairesse, a beautiful village, on the lake of Bienne. Here he met with every indulgence from the men in power, and was made a freeman of the Isle of St. Pierre, from which, some years before, Rousseau had been banished. The Poet found, in this situation, every thing which his rich imagination could require; a beautiful lake, picturesque mountains, waterfalls, and all the magnificence of nature. It was in this Paradise that he finished his fine Poem of L'homme des Champs; and that on the three Kingdoms of Nature. Never were the Muses more propitious to him. After two years passed here, he removed into Germany, and there produced bis Poem of La Pitié. He then came over to England, where he also passed two years. Here, having acquired some knowledge of the English language, he undertook the translation of the Paradise Lost. He felt inspired by the task, and proceeded in it with such assiduity, that it was completed in 15 months; and is considered, by his countrymen, as one of his most capital works. Being com So says the French Author. I am almost certain that he passed a much longer time among us. plimented upon his felicity in thi performance, he replied, that it had cost him his life. He had, in fact, exerted himself beyond his strength, and suffered, in consequence, a first attack of paralysis, which, if it did not immediately prove fatal, was at least a warning of approaching danger. He lived, however, to enjoy some years of well-deserved celebrity in his native country. When the monster Military Despotism had destroyed its parent Revolution, and produced tranquillity in the state, as it is produced in the Baltic by a frost, Delille returned to Paris: with active spirits at least, and every energy of the mind, whatever might be the failure of the body. He enjoyed his honours, he enjoyed the society of his countrymen, for which he was peculiarly formed; and even produced another Poem, on Conversation, for which his talent was, even in Paris, unrivaled. No one had so easy and so brilliant a flow of wit; no one a gaiety at once so gentle and so inexhaustible; no one talked with more ability, or listened with more indulgence. Such is the testimony of Parisians, who have every claim to be believed; in England, his conversational talents could neither be excited nor appreciated. He lived till June 1813; having seen even Envy and Malice driven to submission or to silence, by the universal acknowledgment of his genius. His funeral was public and magnifi cent. He lay in state for several days, in the then Imperial College of France, and was attended to the grave by the most distinguished Literati of Paris. An elegant Oration was pronounced at the funeral by Regnaud de Saint-Jean d'Angely, another by M. Delambre, and a third by M. Arnault, a rising Poet, who calls himself the pupil of Delille. A short time before his death, a spirited character of him was published by Madame du Molé, a literary lady of Paris, who took for a motto Pope's well-known character of Gay. "In wit a man, simplicity a child." A few striking features from this character shall conclude the present account. |