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the last time in his choicest armor, mounted for the last time his favorite war-horse, and then galloped down to where sat the Roman general, surrounded by his vengeful troops. Vercingetorix did not halt at the instant; but obeying the warrior-impulse that led him to taste once more the excitement of feeling his own good steed bound freely beneath him on his native soil, he wheeled at full speed round the tribunal, and, then, suddenly curbing his horse right before Cæsar, he sprang on the ground, laid his helm, his spear, and his sword at the victor's feet, and, bending his knee, awaited in mute majesty his doom. Even Cæsar was startled at the sudden apparition; and a thrill of admiration and pity ran through the ranks of the stern, bloody-handed soldiers of Rome, when they gazed on the stately person* and martial

Dio Cassius, xl. p. 140.

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demeanor of their foe, and thought from what dignity he had fallen. But Cæsar's emotion was only transient. After some harsh and ungenerous invectives against his brave enemy, he bade the lictors fetter him, and hale him away. For six years, while Cæsar completed the conquest of Gaul, and fought the campaigns of his civil wars, Vercingetorix languished in a Roman dungeon; and he was only taken thence to be led in triumph behind the Dictator's chariot-wheels, and to be then slaughtered in cold blood, while Cæsar, in the pride of his heart, was feasting high in the Capitol.

There is, however, a tribunal before which the decrees of Fortune are often reversed; and no one, who studies history in the right spirit, can fail in awarding the superior palm of true greatness to the victim over the oppressor, to the captive Vercingetorix over the triumphant Julius.

THE QUEEN'S OPERA.

BY THOMAS CARLYLE.

Or the Haymarket Opera my account, in fine, is this: Lustres, candelabras, painting, gilding at discretion; a hall as of the Caliph Alraschid, or him that commanded the slaves of the Lamp; a hall as if fitted up by the genies, regardless of expense. Upholstery and the outlay of human capital could do no more. Artists, too, as they are called, have been got together from the ends of the world, regardless likewise of expense, to do dancing and singing, some of them even geniuses in their craft. One singer in particular, called Coletti or some such name, seemed to me, by the cast of his face, by the tones of his voice, by his general bearing, so far as I could read it, to be a man of deep and ardent sensibilities, of delicate intuitions, just sympathies; originally an almost poetic soul, or man of genius as we term it; stamped by Nature as capable of far other work than squalling here, like a blind Samson to make the Philistines sport!

Nay, all of them had aptitudes, perhaps

| of a distinguished kind; and must, by their own and other people's labor, have got a training equal or superior in toilsomeness, earnest assiduity, and patient travail, to what breeds men to the most arduous trades. I speak not of kings' grandees, or the like show-figures; but few soldiers, judges, men of letters, can have had such pains taken with them. The very ballet girls, with their muslin saucers round them, were perhaps little short of miraculous; whirling and spinning there in strange mad vortexes, and then suddenly fixing themselves motionless, each upon her left or right great-toe, with the other leg stretched out at an angle of ninety degreesas if you had suddenly pricked into the floor, by one of their points, a pair, or rather a multitudinous cohort, of mad restlessly jumping and clipping scissors, and so bidden them rest, with opened blades, and stand still, in the Devil's name! A truly notable motion; mar vellous, almost miraculous, were not the people there so used to it. Motion peculiar to

the Opera; perhaps the ugliest, and surely one of the most difficult, ever taught a female in this world. Nature abhors it; but Art does at least admit it to border on the impossible. One little Cerito, or Taglioni the Second, that night when I was there, went bounding from the floor as if she had been made of Indian-rubber, or filled with hydrogen gas, and inclined by positive levity to bolt through the ceiling; perhaps neither Semiramis nor Catherine the Second had bred herself so carefully.

could see, were but the vehicle of a kind of service which I judged to be Paphian rather. Young beauties of both sexes used their operaglasses, you could notice, not entirely for looking at the stage. And it must be owned the light, in this explosion of all the upholsteries, and the human fine arts and coarse, was magical; and made your fair one an Armida-if you liked her better so. Nay, certain old Improper-Females, (of quality,) in their rouge and jewels, even these looked some reminiscence of enchantment; and I saw this and the other lean domestic Dandy, with icy smile on his old worn face; this and the other Marquis Singedelomme, Prince Mahogany, or the like foreign Dignitary, tripping into the boxes of said females, grinning there awhile, with dyed moustachios and macassar-oil graciosity, and then tripping out again; and, in fact, I perceived that Coletti and Cerito and the Rhythmic Arts were a mere accompaniment here.

Such talent, and such martyrdom of training, gathered from the four winds, was now here, to do its feat and be paid for it. Regardless of expense, indeed! The purse of Fortunatus seemed to have opened itself, and the divine art of Musical Sound and Rhythmic Motion was welcomed with an explosion of all the magnificences which the other arts, fine and coarse, could achieve. For you are to think of some Rossini or Bellini in the rear of it, too; to say nothing of the Stanfields, Wonderful to see; and sad, if you had and hosts of seene-painters, machinists, en- eyes! Do but think of it. Cleopatra threw gineers, enterprisers-fit to have taken Gib-pearls into her drink, in mere waste; which raltar, written the History of England, or reduced Ireland into Industrial Regiments, had they so set their minds to it!

Alas, and of all these notable or noticeable human talents and excellent perseverances and energies, backed by mountains of wealth, and led by the arts of Music and Rhythm vouchsafed by Heaven to them and us, what was to be the issue here this evening? An hour's amusement, not amusing either, but wearisome and dreary, to a high-dizened select Populace of male and female persons, who seemed to me not worth much amusing! Could any one have pealed into their hearts once, one true thought, and glimpse of Self-vision: "High-dizened, most expensive persons, Aristocracy so-called, or Best of the World, beware, beware what proofs you give of betterness and bestness!" And then the salutary pang of conscience in reply: "A select Populace, with money in its purse, and drilled a little by the posture-maker: good Heavens! if that were what, here and everywhere in God's Creation, I am? And a world all dying because I am, and show myself to be, and to have long been, even that? John, the carriage, the carriage: swift! Let me go home in silence, to reflection, perhaps to sackcloth and ashes!" This, and not amusement, would have profited those high-dizened persons.

Amusement, at any rate, they did not get from Euterpe and Melpomene. These two Muses, sent for, regardless of expense, I

was reckoned foolish of her. But here had
the Modern Aristocracy of men brought the
divinest of its Arts, heavenly Music itself;
and, piling all the upholsteries and ingenui-
ties that other human art could do, had
lighted them into a bonfire to illuminate an
hour's flirtation of Singedelomme, Mahogany,
and these improper persons! Never in Na-
ture had I seen such waste before. O Coletti,
you whose inborn melody, once of kindred as
I judged to "the Melodies eternal," might
have valiantly weeded out this and the other
false thing from the ways of men, and made
a bit of God's creation more melodious-they
have purchased you away from that; chained
you to the wheel of Prince Mahogany's cha-
riot, and here you make sport for a macassar
Singedelomme, and his improper-females past
the prime of life! Wretched spiritual Nigger,
oh, if you had some genius, and were not a
born Nigger with mere appetite for pumpkin,
should you have endured such a lot? I
lament for you beyond all other expenses.
Other expenses are light; you are the Cleo-
patra's pearl that should not have been flung
into Mahogany's claret-cup. And Rossini
too, and Mozart and Bellini-Oh, Heavens,
when I think that Music too is condemned to
be mad and to burn herself, to this end, on
such a funeral pile-your celestial Opera-
house grows dark and infernal to me.
hind its glitter stalks the shadow of Eternal
Death; through it too I look not "up into
the divine eye," as Richter has it, "but

Be

down into the bottomless eyesocket "-not | Vacuity, and the dwelling place of Everlastup towards God, Heaven, and the Throne of ing Despair.-London Keepsake for 1852. Truth, but too truly down towards Falsity,

From Sharpe's Magazine.

ANDREW MARVELL.

ANDREW MARVELL, the incorruptiblest of men and senators in an age when nearly all men and senators were corrupt, was in his lifetime a person much esteemed for his wisdom and his wit; and for his character and conduct has been since considered worthy of an honorable remembrance, being, indeed, now generally regarded as one of those true and faithful spirits that are born for the benefit and ornament of the world. As it is

presumable that the acts and qualities of such a man are still possessed of interest, it shall be our present effort to show what manner of man he was, and to represent, in so far as present limits will admit, something of his actual life and conversation. The delineation will be necessarily imperfect, but such as it is it shall be accurate, and, if possible, entertaining.

Be it known, then, to all such as do not already know it, that Andrew Marvell was born at Kingston-upon-Hull, in these days of abbreviation commonly called Hull, on the 15th of November, 1620. His father, also called Andrew, was master of the Grammar School, and lecturer at the church of the Holy Trinity in that town. Fuller mentions him as being remarkable for his facetiousness, and says further, that "he was a most excellent preacher, who never broached what he had new brewed, but preached what he had pre-studied some competent time before, inasmuch as he was wont to say, that he would cross the common proverb which called Sunday the working day, and Monday the holiday of preachers." But if his preaching was thus excellent, his life was not the less so; indeed, there seems reason to believe that he very much resembled the "Good Parson" drawn by Chaucer:

Rich he was in holy thought and work;
And thereto a right learned man. ** *

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The lore of Christ, and his apostles twelve He taught; but first he followed it himselve." Of young Andrew's early years there is nothing particular related. A bold imagination may figure him as a frank and joyous boy, with probably a tinge of pensiveness, studying the Latin grammar under his father at the Grammar School, and spending his leisure time in such youthful recreations as were common to his age and country. Having given sufficient indications of ability, and obtained "an exhibition from his native town,' he was sent, when hardly fifteen years of age, to Trinity College, Cambridge. Here he was presently ensnared by the proselytizing cunning of the Jesuits, who induced him to quit his studies and run away to London, but with what specific object is not distinctly stated. Thither, however, his father traced him, and after considerable searching and inquiry, discovered him accidentally in a bookseller's shop. He was restored to the University, and for the two succeeding years he pursued his studies with becoming diligence and success.

While yet at College, Andrew lost his father under circumstances peculiarly sudden and affecting. It appears that among his intimate acquaintances there was a lady, residing on the other side of the Humber, and who had an only, interesting daughter, endeared to all who knew her, and by her mother so idolized and passionately beloved, that she was scarcely ever permitted to pass an hour out of her presence. On one occasion, however, in compliance with the solicitations of Mr. Marvell, she was allowed to cross over to Hull to be present at the baptism of one of his children. The day after the ceremony the young lady was to return. The weather was unusually tempestuous, and on reaching the river side, accompanied by

her reverend friend, the boatmen endeavored | brilliant and stirring conversations in which to dissuade her from passing over. Afraid they no doubt frequently engaged; but as of alarming her mother by her prolonged there was no ready-writing Boswell there to absence, she unhappily persisted. Mr. Mar- do them such a service, this portion of their vell, seconding the representations of the history remains, and will remain, extremely boatmen, urged the danger of the under- indistinct. The most of what we learn of taking; but finding her resolved to go, he them is this: that both being men of intold her that as she had incurred the impend- trepidity, with a strain of the Puritan in their ing peril to oblige him, he felt "bound in constitutions, they openly argued against the honor and conscience" not to desert her; superstitions of the Romish Church, within and having at length prevailed on some of the very precincts of the Vatican; and, what the boatmen to hazard the passage, they em- was hardly to be expected, came off scathebarked. As they were putting off, he flung less. It would seem, however, that there his cane on shore, telling the bystanders that, was a certain kind of tolerance in the Popish in case he should never return, it was to be authorities of the times, and that they could given to his son, with the injunction "to re- very well afford to let a pair of hot-tempermember his father." His apprehensions ed and noble-spirited strangers speak their were very shortly realized: the boat was upset, and both were lost.

Great was the grief of the bereaved mother, but when she had a little recovered from her first impressions, she sent for young Marvell, and signified a disposition to aid him in completing his education; and at her death, some time afterwards, she left him the whole of her possessions. Meanwhile, having taken his bachelor's degree, in or about 1638, he appears to have been admitted to a scholarship. This, however, he does not seem to have retained long. A lively, and perhaps riotous temperament exposed him to a variety of temptations, into some of which he evidently fell; for we learn that he became "negligent of his studies," and absented himself from certain " exercises," which rendered him amenable to discipline. The result of these irregularities was rather serious, inasmuch as on the 24th September, 1641, he was adjudged by the masters and seniors to be unworthy of receiving "any further benefit from the college," unless he should show cause to the contrary within the space of three months; a gracious reservation, of which he does not appear to have availed himself. For that default he had, of course, to quit the University, and he accordingly girded up his loins for adventures in the open world.

minds.

It was at Rome that Marvell began to try his hand at authorship; the "heir of his invention" being a lampoon on Richard Flecknoe. It is now pretty well forgotten, or remembered mainly as having suggested Dryden's famous satire on Laureate Shadwell. Going afterwards to Paris, Marvell made another satirical effort, designing thereby to bring into contempt a certain Abbé Manibou, who, after the manner of our present "graphiologists," professed to interpret the characters and indicate the fortunes of individuals by an inspection of their handwritings. His piece was written in Latin, and in point of merit it is considered about equal to his first performance. What impression it made on the public has not been very certainly ascertained.

For some years after this, Marvell's history is in great part a blank. We find, however, that having been "four years abroad, in Holland, France, Italy, and Spain," he was some time subsequently engaged in the household of Lord Fairfax, for the purpose of giving "instructions in the languages" to the daughter of that nobleman. How long he remained in this employment is nowise clear or certain. In 1652 he offered himself as a candidate for the office of Assistant Latin Secretary to the existing government. It seemed to Andrew that perhaps the In a letter of Milton's, dated the 21st of best thing he could do was to "set out on February in that year, and addressed to John his travels." He therefore departed, proba- Bradshaw, Marvell is described as a man of bly about the beginning of 1642, and jour-"singular desert," and as being in point of neyed over a great part of Europe. On learning and ability well qualified for the apreaching Rome he fell in with his country-pointment he was then solititing. The letter man John Milton, and here, it is believed, began their well-known and life-long friendship. It would be a pleasant accession to the biography of both, could one recover out of the depths of forgetfulness some of those

concludes in these terms: "This, my lord, I write sincerely, without any other end than to perform my duty to the public in helping them to an humble servant; laying aside those jealousies and that emulation which

mine own condition might suggest to me, by | mingled with certain portions of his private bringing in such a coadjutor." Though correspondence, may serve to illustrate the thus strongly recommended, Marvell was character of Marvell's patriotism, and to unsuccessful in his application, and did not show the unsparing criticism which he apobtain the office till five years afterwards. plied to the public transactions of the times. It is matter of notoriety that the court and administration of Charles II. were extremely unscrupulous and corrupt; it may not, however, be uninteresting to some to see a little of what Marvell noted close at hand. In a letter to a friend in Persia, he says: "The King having, upon pretence of the great preparations of his neighbors, demanded 300,000l. for his navy, (though in conclusion he hath not set out any,) and that the Parliament should pay his debts, (which the ministers would never particularize to the House of Commons,) our house gave several bills. You see how far things were stretched, though beyond reason, there being no satisfaction how those debts were contracted, and all men foreseeing that what was given would not be applied to discharge the debts, which I hear are at this day risen to four millions; but diverted as formerly. Nevertheless, such was the number of the constant courtiers increased by the apostate patriots, who were bought off for that turn, some at six, others ten, one at fifteen thousand pounds in money, besides what offices, lands, and reversions to others, that it is a mercy they gave not away the whole lund and liberty of England." In the same letter he adds: "They have signed and sealed ten thousand pounds a year more to the Duchess of Cleveland, who has likewise near ten thousand pounds a year out of the new farm of the country excise of beer and ale, five thousand a year out of the Postoffice, and they say the reversion of all the King's leases, the reversion of all places in the Custom House, the green wax, and indeed what not? All promotions, spiritual and temporal, pass under her cognizance.'

The powers in high places seem nevertheless to have been well disposed to serve him; for in 1653 he was appointed tutor to Cromwell's nephew, Mr. Dutton. Marvell's mode of proceeding towards his pupil appears to have been distinguished by great sense and conscientiousness, and even by a touch of Yorkshire caution. "I have taken care," says he, in a letter to the Protector, "to examine him several times in the presence of Mr. Oxenbridge, as those who weigh and tell over money before some witness ere they take charge of it, for I thought there might be possibly some lightness in the coin, or error in the telling, which hereafter I shall be bound to make good." He adds further: "He is of gentle and waxen disposition; and God be praised, I cannot say he hath brought with him any evil impression, and I shall hope to set nothing into his spirit but what may be of good sculpture.' How Marvell succeeded in building up the inner man of Mr. Dutton, or for what length of time he was so engaged, cannot here be certified, owing to the scantiness of the materials relating to this part of his life. But there seems reason to believe that, in whatsoever way employed, he remained connected with the person and family of Cromwell for a considerable period, as on the publication of Milton's "Second Defence of the People of England," he was commissioned to present the work to the Protector, and in 1657 was promoted to the Assistant Secretaryship which he had formerly solicited.

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In 1658 Cromwell died, and we hear no more of Marvell till the opening of the Parliament in 1660. To that Parliament he was returned for his native town of Hull. He was one of the last members of the House of Commons that received wages from their constituents, and the duties which he performed were perhaps on that account more onerous than those of ordinary senators. He appears to have carried on a regular correspondence with the Hull electors, giving them full particulars of the parliamentary proceedings, and of the part which he himself took in them. A great number of his letters are still preserved, and are valuable for the proofs which they afford of the writer's diligence and fidelity, and in some respects also throwing light on certain points of parliamentary history and usage. A few passages from these letters, inter

Of the King's unconstitutional visits to the House of Peers, Marvell gives the following account:-"Being sat, he told them it was a privilege he claimed from his ancestors to be present at their deliberations. That therefore they should not, for his coming, interrupt their debates, but proceed, and be covered. They did so. It is true that this has been done long ago; but it is now so old that it is new, and so disused, that at any other but so bewitched a time as this, it would have been looked on as a high usurp ation and breach of privilege. He indeed sat still, for the most part, and interposed very little. ... After three or four days'

......

* Marvell's Letters, pp. 405, 406.

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