THE POETICAL GARLAND OF JULIA. HUET has given a charming description of a present made by a lover to his mistress—a gift which romance has seldom equalled for its gallantry, ingenuity, and novelty;—it was called "The Garland of Julia." To understand the nature of this gift, it will be necessary to give the history of the parties. The beautiful Julia d'Argennes was in the flower of her youth and fame, when Gustavus, King of Sweden, was making war in Germany with the most splendid success. Julia expressed her warm admiration of this hero: she had his portrait placed on her toilette, and took a pleasure in declaring that she had no other lover than Gustavus. The Duc de Montansier was, however, her avowed and ardent admirer. A short time after the death of Gustavus, he sent her, as a new-year's gift, the Poetical Garland, of which the following is a description. The most beautiful flowers were painted in miniature by an eminent artist, on pieces of vellum, all of an equal size: under every flower, a sufficient space was left open for a madrigal on the flower there painted. He solicited the VOL. II. I wits of the time, with most of whom he was well acquainted, to assist in the composition of these little poems, reserving a considerable number for the effusions of his own amorous muse. Under every flower, he had its madrigal written by a penman who was celebrated for beautiful writing. They were magnificently bound, and then enclosed in a bag of rich Spanish leather. One of the prettiest of these several inscriptions, is the following, ON THE VIOLET. "Modeste en ma couleur, modeste en mon séjour, Modest my colour, modest is my place, Pleas'd in the grass my lowly form to hide ; 66 THE WORLD." “THERE was a club held at the King's Head, in Pall Mall, that arrogantly called itself The World.' Lord Chesterfield, Lord Herbert, &c. &c., were members. Epigrams were proposed to be written on the glasses, by each member, after dinner. Once when Dr. Young was invited thither, the Doctor would have declined writing, because he had no diamond. Lord Chesterfield lent him his, and he immediately wrote: Accept a miracle instead of wit: See two dull lines with Stanhope's pencil writ.'" SPENCE. SIR JOHN SUCKLING. “SIR JOHN SUCKLING was a man of great vivacity and spirit. He died about the beginning of the Civil War; and his death was occasioned by a very uncommon accident. He entered warmly into the King's interests; and was sent over to the Continent by him, with some letters of great consequence, to the Queen.* He arrived late at Calais; and in the night, his servant ran away with his portmanteau, in which was his money and papers. When he was told of this in the morning, he immediately inquired which way his servant had taken, ordered his *Henrietta Maria went to Holland about the end of February, 1642, and returned in February, 1643 horses to be got ready instantly, and in pulling on his boots, found one of them extremely uneasy to him; but, as the horses were at the door, he leaped into the saddle, and forgot his pain. He pursued his servant so eagerly, that he overtook him two or three posts off; recovered his portmanteau; and, soon after, complained of avast pain in one of his feet, and fainted away with it. When they came to pull off his boots, to fling him into bed, they found one of them full of blood. It seems his servant, (who knew his master's temper well, and was sure he would pursue him as soon as his villainy was discovered,) had driven a nail up into one of his boots, in hopes of disabling him from pursuing him. "Sir John's impetuosity made him regard the pain only just at first; and his ardour in pursuit turned him from the thoughts of it for some time after: however, the wound was so bad, and so much inflamed, that it flung him into a violent fever, which ended his life in a very few days. This incident, strange as it may seem, might be proved from some original letters in Lord Oxford's Collection." SPENCE. GERMAN BALLADS. THE ballad has nowhere been so completely naturalized as in Germany. The German ballads are not mere imitations of the rude songs and traditions of antiquity. They combine, in a wonderful degree, the polish and refinement peculiar to an advanced state of civilization, with the simplicity and nature of the older fragments of popular tradition. Almost all the great poets of Germany have occasionally descended from the severer labours of more elaborate composition, to the delassement of ballad-writing; and the consequence is, that Germany is, at this moment, richer in this species of literature, than all the rest of Europe (Spain excepted) put together. Goethe, who has attained excellence in almost every department of literature, has displayed the same pre-eminence in the light and gay strains of the ballad, as in the magnificent creations of “Faust," &c. Some of his ballads are distinguished by a solemn supernatural effect; others, by an exquisite archness and naiveté, and all of them by a captivating simplicity of language, which, while it increases 1 |