"They have Souls, these common people, In their heart of hearts they hate you; "Is this truth, or mere complaining? "Dawn of Hope is dimly breaking, "And he who speaks thus tenderly of the weak and suffering is the man the King would have me marry! Why do you think I could never love him?" THE WHITE ROSE. SENT BY A YORKSHIRE LOVER TO HIS LANCASTRIAN MISTRESS. IF this fair rose offend thy sight, Placed in thy bosom bare, "T will blush to find itself less white, And turn Lancastrian there. But if thy ruby lip it spy, As kiss it thou mayst deign, With envy pale 't will lose its dye, And Yorkshire turn again. Anonymous. ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD. BARBAULD, ANNA LETITIA (AIKIN), an English poet and essayist, was born at Kibworth-Harcourt, Leicestershire, June 20, 1743; died at Stoke-Newington, March 9, 1825. In 1774 she was married to the Rev. Rochemont Barbauld, a dissenting minister of Huguenot descent. She had already acquired a literary reputation; and she and her husband opened a school, which proved very successful. Her works are numerous, both in prose and verse. She is perhaps best known by the "Evenings at Home," written by her in conjunction with her brother John about 1794, much the larger portion being by him. In her prose writings she imitated the style of Dr. Johnson. She was well educated, and numbered among her friends many famous authors, including Sir Walter Scott and Wordsworth. Her first poems (1773) went through four editions in one year. She wrote: "Early Lessons for Children" (about 1774); "Devotional Pieces" (1775); "Hymns in Prose for Children (1776), translated in many languages; "Eighteen hundred and Eleven," her longest effort (1811); and prepared an edition of the best English novels in fifty volumes. A DIALOGUE OF THE DEAD. BETWEEN HELEN OF TROY AND MADAME DE MAINTENON. HELEN. Whence comes it, my dear Madame Maintenon, that beauty, which in the age I lived in produced such extraordinary effects, has now lost almost all its power? MAINTENON. I should wish first to be convinced of the fact, before I offer to give you a reason for it. HELEN. That will be very easy; for there is no occasion to go any further than our own histories and experience to prove what I advance. You were beautiful, accomplished, and fortunate; endowed with every talent and every grace to bend the heart of man and mould it to your wish: and your schemes were successful; for you raised yourself from obscurity and dependence to be the wife of a great monarch. But what is this to the influence my beauty had over sovereigns and nations! I occasioned a long ten years' war between the most celebrated heroes of antiquity; contending kingdoms disputed the honor of placing me on their respective thrones; my story is recorded by the father of verse; and my charms make a figure even in the annals of mankind. You were, it is true, the wife of Louis XIV., and respected in his court: but you occasioned no wars; you are not spoken of in the history of France, though you furnished materials for the memoirs of a court. Are the love and admiration that were paid you merely as an amiable woman to be compared with the enthusiasm I inspired, and the boundless empire I obtained over all that was celebrated, great, or powerful in the age I lived in? MAINTENON. All this, my dear Helen, has a splendid appearance, and sounds well in a heroic poem; but you greatly deceive yourself if you impute it all to your personal merit. Do you imagine that half the chiefs concerned in the war of Troy were at all influenced by your beauty, or troubled their heads what became of you, provided they came off with honor? Believe me, love had very little to do in the affair. Menelaus sought to revenge the affront he had received; Agamemnon was flattered with the supreme command; some came to share the glory, others the plunder; some because they had bad wives at home, some in hopes of getting Trojan mistresses abroad and Homer thought the story extremely proper for the subject of the best poem in the world. Thus you became famous; your elopement was made a national quarrel; the animosities of both nations were kindled by frequent battles: and the object was not the restoring of Helen to Menelaus, but the destruction of Troy by the Greeks. My triumphs, on the other hand, were all owing to myself and to the influence of personal merit and charms over the heart of man. My birth was obscure; my fortunes low; I had passed the bloom of youth, and was advancing to that period at which the generality of our sex lose all importance with the other. I had to do with a man of gallantry and intrigue, a monarch who had been long familiarized with beauty, and accustomed to every refinement of pleasure which the most splendid court in Europe could afford: Love and Beauty seemed to have exhausted all their powers of pleasing for him in vain. Yet this man I captivated, I fixed; and far from being content, as other beauties had been, with the honor of possessing his heart, I brought him to make |