able and nefarious transaction. On this occasion, Catherine the Second at once developed the arcana of her manœuvres to the representative of Frederick the Great, in that short and pithy sentence :-"J'épouvanterai la Turquie ; je flatterai l'Angleterre ; chargez vous dacheter l'Autriche, pour qu'elle endorme la France." And the doom of Poland was sealed! The war with Turkey was carried on with vigour on the borders of the Pruth, of the Danube, of the Dnieper. With England a treaty was concluded favourable to British Commerce. Lord Macartney, our then Ambassador at St Petersburgh, more noted for his gallantries than his diplomacy, compromised himself by an intrigue with a lady of the court, which served well the purposes of Catherine; first, by eliciting the secrets of his trust, and afterwards, by affording her a pretext to banish him for a time from her presence. The leading principles of Catherine's ambition with regard to the Turkish Empire and Great Britain were thus so far accomplished. Turkey was made to tremble to her extremities, and, so far as the commercial treaty was concerned, England was flattered. Even Choiseul, the French Ambassador, though more profound in diplomacy than his rival, Macartney, and who boasted of being the first to detect the secret views of Catherine, was also rendered subservient to her purposes. "The only means," wrote the Duc de Choiseul to the French agent at Constantinople," to circumvent this project is to foment a war. Turkey alone can do us this service." Thus, even the wily Frenchman, who had unravelled the mystery of the diabolical designs of Russia and Prussia regarding Poland, became unwittingly an instrument to the partition of that unfortunate country. 66 As for Austria, to the misfortune of Poland, the high-minded Marie Therèse no longer ruled alone. Joseph II., her son, who was associated with her in the government, was soon won over. Chargez vous d'acheter l'Autriche," said Catherine to Prince Henry; and the iniquitous price of Austria's acquiescence was Galicia and Lodomiria, in the first infamous division of prostrate Poland. As we have sketched the past, it may not be irrelevant to conjecture the future; perhaps we may see the avenger in the perspective, retribution presenting itself to our view by those very means which brought about the crime. From Galicia to Livonia, the frontiers of Austria and Prussia are at this moment bristled with Cossack lances. Poland is no more. And the northern Colossus, no longer confined within the bounds of the Dnieper and the Vistula, even now may dream of stretching to the Rhine. ment. "L'impossible! ne me dites jamais se bete de mot," observed Mirabeau. This should be recorded in the archives of our foreign departLet not our present self-sufficient and imbecile ministers rely upon the caressing and insidious assurances of Russia. The treaty of Unskar-Skelessi ought to be an eternal warning to the people of this country of the diplomatic inefficiency of Great Britain under the Whigs. Whilst the Duke of Devonshire and the Earl of Durham were slobbered over at Czarskozelo, the only man capable of coping with the Muscovite, the only man qualified to meet the exigencies of the time, and to overmatch an Orloff or a Metternich, was employed on a service comparatively trivial. Yet even then Sir Stratford Canning, with the high sense of his country's honour, and the uncompromising rectitude of a patriot, distinguished himself at the court of the ignoble Ferdinand of VOL. I. NO. I. D Spain. "What a strange man!" remarked Zea Bermudez, "he means what he says!" Yet the intriguing Spaniard, dreading his conference with the monarch, delayed his presentation for months, until the indignant Englishman, unannounced, burst into the presence of Ferdinand-to take his leave! Such was the statesman whom we have heard it rumoured was to have been appointed Ambassador to the Russian Court, when an intimation came from St Petersburgh—" that his nomination had given dissatisfaction!" Did they fear him? If the objection was made to his rank, it may be asked of what avail is the peerage, if such a man, and for such a cause, is not ennobled for his country's advantage? The fact is, he was too straightforward for the Court of St Petersburgh. Palmerston pour rire, said Talleyrand; but as the frog in the fable said to the schoolboys, "what is sport to you is death to us." Our foreign diplomacy has been long an enigma, and will remain so till Lord Palmerston and his incapable colleagues are driven from office. A mighty trust is confided to the foreign minister of this country; yet, in the hands of Palmerston, it seems like a helpless bantling in the arms of an infirm nurse-always in danger of falling to the ground. Let us hope we may not have to exclaim, Palmerston pour pleurer. TRANSATLANTIC POETRY. WE have been favoured with the following very beautiful and hitherto unpublished pieces of two of the most gifted poetesses that America can boast; and we have much pleasure in submitting them to the perusal of our readers: WINTER'S FETE. By Mrs LYDIA H. SIGOURNEY. I woke, and every lordling of the grove Wont to furnish such a glorious shew.. The Queen, who to her coronation comes, With half a realm's exchequer on her head, Dazzleth the shouting crowd. But all the queens, Every noteless spray, Even the coarse sumach, and the bramble-bush, Blam'd, with set teeth. Lo! while I speak, its crown Of Tyrian purple, blent with emerald spark, Floats round its rugged arms :—while, here and there, Of trembling rubies, whose exquisite lay One Arctic queen, For one ice-palace, rear'd with fearful toil, Have drained their coffers for the people's gaze, Though but a single amphitheatre Compress'd the crowd. But thou, whose potent wand Its wondrous beauty to each gazing eye, Yet, certes, in these days, Look within thy heart, An answering pity, and a fervent deed Done in Christ's name, doubt not to be an heir Of that true wealth, which Winter hoardeth up, To buy the soul a mansion with the blest. Hartford, Connecticut, United States. THE TRAVELLER AT THE RED SEA. BY MISS HANNAH F. GOULD. AT last have I found thee, thou dark rolling sea! With a spirit o'erawed by the sight and the sound, And thee, mighty deep, from afar I behold, I cast my eye out, where the cohorts went down ; But quick from the light of the skies they withdraw, From Him who walked here, clothed in fire and a cloud. I stand by the pass the freed Hebrews then trod, Our Father, who then didst Thine Israel guide, Whilst Thou, day by day, wilt thy manna bestow, Newburyport, Massachusetts, United States. THE PASSAGE HOME. NAPOLEON'S GRAVE. In the month of August, 1840, the good ship Hamadryad, on board of which I was a passenger, left Bengal for England. With favouring breezes we sped merrily along, and by the beginning of October we rounded the Cape of Good Hope. Not requiring any supplies, we did not put in at Capetown; although many of those on board were anxious to go ashore, to vary the tedium of the passage; but the captain, taking advantage of the wind, would not consent to this, and we proceeded on our voyage. About two or three days' sail from the Cape, we spoke a British vessel outward bound; and from her skipper we learnt the unpleasant tidings that, when he left England, the expectation was generally entertained that hostilities would take place between Britain and France, on account of the Pacha of Egypt, and that it was very likely war had been declared by that time. So he advised us "to look out for squalls!" This, as may be supposed, gave us a bit of a start. Instead of the pleasant dreams in which we had been indulging, of soon seeing our friends again, after a long absence "from England, home, and beauty," we had now nothing before us but anticipations of being taken by some French man-of-war, and sent prisoners to France. With anxious eye we looked to the master of the ship, to know what were his intentions. Some of us, in spite of our ardent desire once more to tread the soil of England, wished in our hearts that he would 'bout ship, and go back to the Cape, but he had no notion of the kind. He pursued his onward course, keeping a good look-out, however, lest a French cruiser should pop on us at unawares. That he was prepared to give the enemy a warm reception, come when they might, was apparent from his ordering the guns which he carried for protection, six in all, to be mounted on deck, shotted, and secured for action. All the next day after we had received the alarming intelligence, the sailors were busy preparing their arms the cutlasses were put in order, ready for instant use; and I could see that most of the men were delighted with the idea of having a brush with the Frenchman. "Lor' bless you, sir," said one of them to me, we a'nt afear'd for them; only give us fair play, and plenty of sea-room, and the old Hamadryad will never flinch !" 66 On the 12th of October we arrived at St Helena, and on coming round Munden Point, what was our astonishment and dismay to perceive five or six French men-of-war lying there, with their tricolor flags flying and flaunting in the wind! All our apprehensions were verified, all our fears proved true. St Helena was in possession of the French. That we were morally sure of; and here were we caught, like mice in a trap; the wind so favourable to us hitherto, blowing us right in towards the enemy. Escape was out of the question-resistance was vain; and we resigned ourselves in despair to what appeared our inevitable fate. Every mother's son on board would infallibly become prisoners to the French. On our unhappy heads would be wreaked the vengeance which had slumbered since the bloody day of Waterloo! All the dire miseries and privations of the prisoner's lot flashed upon our imagination-all that we had read and heard of captivity came poignantly before our minds-the dungeons of the Conciergerie, damp and dismal, the Black-hole of Calcutta, the horrible Bastile itself, rose up black, bare, and terrible, in our remembrance! |