celestial form it was thine. My mind, my heart, nature herself, all cried out to me, “come, here she is ! (viens ! la voici !) It was no longer in my power not to love you! Not to love me, can it be in thine ? No ;-in vain the icy hand of fate would tear me from you ; in spite of man, of law, of the world, of heaven itself, Arthur must and will be loved.".

Happening, in the ecstacy of his passion, to call her 'spot• less,' she bursts out with great vehemence into the following ejaculations. Spotless !' she repeats while she hides her face with her hands, Spotless ! unhappy Arthur, you know me not.' She extorts from hini a solemn vow to obey ber injunction. * Voici ma loi suprème ! dit-elle d'une voix imposante et ferine, Arthur! Epousez Izolette !

Izolette is an ill-fated, but stedfast lover. She hangs with unremitted anxiety over the couch of Arthur, who is languishing under a dangerous malady. After making a few wry faces, Ravenstal determines to execute the injunction of Alaïs, to which he had sworn submission, and to espouse Izolette, upon condition that Alaïs should be present at the nuptial ceremony. She consents, but she is to be veiled, at some distance off, and 80 disguised, as to be known only to Arthur. In the mean

. while, Agnés de Méranie, the exiled spouse of Philip Augustus, was about to be recalled to the throne of France from tbe dreary fortress of Karency, and the castle of Montolin again echoes to festivity and joy. In the midst of these rejoicings, the hero learns that Alaïs is preparing her departure from the valley for ever. William, Count of Barres, the seneschal of France, is struck with the charms of Izolette, and confides the secret of his passion to Arthur some days before his marriage with the heiress of Montolin. At last, that day arrives, and a more dismal bridegroom never advanced to the altar.

· The Count Ravenstal and his companion at length enter the abbey. The hymeneal lamps are already lighted in the chapel....... In vain is all the opulence of art unfolded to Arthur; nothing delights him; every thing wears the sombre colour of his thoughts, and his destiny, linked for ever with Izolette's, is soon to separate him from Alaïs. His breath is quick ; his knees scarce support him; an icy coldness runs in his veins, which is succeeded by a burning heat.... Izolette affects an air of happiness; she endeavours to attract the general attention, that it may not be directed towards Arthur....... Arthur turns his eyes from the moving scene of the valley to the far. off mountains and the forest, where all is calm and silent; but nothing can soothe or divert him. When the soul is dejected, the repose

of nature is at variance and discordant with it. The earth, as it were indifferent to the sufferings of her unhappy children, seems scornfully to say to them, “suffer or die—it is the same to me :" she does not repeal her laws;-no pity, no sympathy. The hearts of

mankind in general are often insensible as rocks to each other; the soil of every country is after all but a tomb! Alas, to him whom adversity pursues, every place is a desert and a waste.......A groupe of monks are seen at the extremity. The Count approaches the spot. A mysterious figure is standing behind the priests, and leans against a statue. A hood veils her features; it has the long black tunic of the monks of St. Irenæus. Arthur inspects it attentively, and his heart beats. No more doubt but that it is Alaïs: the elegance of her form could not be wholly concealed beneath her sombre disguise. It is Hebe clad in the mantle of the queen of Night; it is the most timid of the Graces veiling herself in the presence of Love; it is a blushing morn veiled in a cloud....... The door of the church is opened. The couple are summoned to the altar. Every thing is ready.......The Prior standing near Arthur, reminds him of his oath. "Izolette," replies the Count, presenting his hand to her, "I am thine." He speaks, but looks at Alaïs. Thinking that he did not see her, she leans her head upon a pillar. Her stifled breath, the painful heavings of her bosom prove the suppressed sighs with which she laboured At this spectacle Arthur is overwhelmed with all the thoughts which assail both his intellect and his heart. He lets go the hand of Izolette-he sinks upon a chair senseless, uttering these words, " Izolette, pardon me.""

But we are fatigued with translating the fade and mawkish nonsense of this popular romance. It is only to convey some faint idea of the skill and tact with which the Vicompte weaves his plots, the verisimilitude of his incidents, and the strict approximation of both to truth and nature, that we rapidly trace the remaining portion of the story.

It may be readily imagined with what feelings Izolette contemplated the strange and cruel conduct of the sentimental young gentleman to whom she was betrothed. After a pretty fair allowance of fainting, falling down with exhaustion, &c. &c., she relinquishes her title to his hand, and proposes that he should only love her as a sister. The old Prior, as may be supposed, falls a scolding, tells them that the vow cannot be retracted, and reminds them of the scandal which the breaking of the nuptials would bring down upon the Church. 1nis has no effect upon Izolette, who pulls off her veil, tears away all her bridal ornaments, and her marriage fillet, and protests that she will seek a retreat in the Benedictine convent, and renounce all the pomps and pleasures of the world. At this moment, in rushes the Stranger, seizes Izolette, and replaces on her head her flowers, her diamonds, her crown and veil ;—insisting that she must be the wife of Arthur, and conducting both of them to the altar. At length, the fatal yes is pronounced, when Alaïs falls down nearly speechless with horror. The hero had indeed uttered the word, but lost his reason as it fell from his

lips ; he knocks down the priest, protests against his marriage, curses and blasphemes at an extraordinary rate, and in a paroxysm of sentimental madness, runs towards the Stranger, drags her along the corridors and galleries of the monastery, into a narrow cell which communicates with no other apartment. • Idole de ma vie, nous sommes seuls, nous sommes libres*m'aimes-tu ?" We cannot transcribe the blasphemous and licentious ravings which M. D'Arlincourt is now pleased to put into the mouth of his hero. One specimen will suffice,

• Etrangére, je te crois pure...... il faut que l'ange soit au démon, dût la création tout entiére en frèmir dans l'éternité. Meurtre ! sacrilége! adulterè! eclairez de vos noirs flambeaux l'hymen du crime et du malheur ! soyez tous ici les temoins des suprêmes felicités de l'amour et du desespoir !'

This is admirable. The supreme felicities of love and despair! She is rescued by the Count des Barres.

But the secret now comes out. Who is Alaïs ? Why-the queen of Philip-Augustus, La Reine. Agnes de Méranie is recognized by the count. At this moment, the Vicompte very judiciously makes Arthur cut his throat, but, to our great annoyance, he appears again before the conclusion of the story.

But we must confine ourselves to the explication of the mystery. And here the Vicompte has, with a few exquisite strokes of art, contrived so to jumble and to confound history and romance, and so to make them change sides with each other, as to destroy the distinctive attributes of both. We have no doubt that, in the main, the story of Agnes de Méranie, the second wife of Philip-Augustus, is authentic ; but our Au

c thor has so disfigured and disguised it in the gipsey attire of his tawdry but thread-bare diction, that it is next to impossible to distinguish it from fiction. Agnes, so it should seem from M. D'Arlincourt, though it no where appears in history, had cherished a romantic attachment to Philip-Augustus for the daring and heroic achievements of that valorous prince. Her singular beauty had attracted many regal and illustrious admirers, but she rejected the most splendid offers. On his return from Palestine, the king espoused Isamberg of Denmark. Agnes still sighed in secret. A person of the name of Vanaubry, of whom nothing was known but that he had inexhaustible wealth at his command, in fact, one of the adepts in the cabalistical art, promised her that she should become the spouse of Philip: We conjecture that M. D'Arlincourt took his sketch of his character from Dr. Campbell's Hermippus Redivivus, in which several of these lucky personages, who had the art of indefinitely prolonging their lives,

and of acquiring unlimited riches, are commemorated, The Comte de Saint Germain, of whom Madame Campan speaks as residing at Paris, is a mere wandering fiction, successively revived in every country of Europe, but in fact derived from the extraordinary pretensions of the Hermetic or Rosicrucian philosophy, which attained their greatest height during the early and middle parts of the eighteenth century. This de Vanaubry, however, undertakes to accomplish the wishes of her love and her ambition, on the conditions only of her solemn ratification, a lock of her hair, and her portrait. To these requisitions, Agnes in an evil hour assented; but an instinctive remorse seized her when she communed with herself. She feared that she had sold herself to the powers of evil, and wished to retract her covenant. In vain, for Vanaubry was gone, and the most diligent inquiries could not ascertain whither. Her brother Leopold (Valdebourg), the prince of Méranie, was the companion and friend of the king. He announces to her the divorce of Philip-Augustus from Isamberg, the annulment of the marriage by an ecclesiastical synod, and the offer of his hand and throne to Agnes. A deputy from the French monarch arrives at her father's court, who endeavours to overcome his daughter's superstitious repugnance to the honour to which she had been destined. The marriage is solemnized, but, from that hour, the beautiful princess of Méranie bade adieu to happiness. She is coldly received by the French people, who predicted from this unholy marriage the worst of evils. She feels that she is regarded as the precursor of inauspicious and calamitous events, and her heart, amidst all the splendours of the Louvre, dies away within her. Her court is deserted by the high nobility of the realm, and she is received every where with hate or disaffection. The..

fulminated anathemas and excommunication against Philip-Augustus and his kingdom. A famine and drought overspread the land, and these disasters are attributed to the ill-fated marriage. At last, Agnes herself implores the monarch to abandon her, and thus to avert the visitations of offended heaven, and conciliate the affections of his people. The generous and warm-hearted monarch remains heroically stedfast. He has to combat with foreign and domestic warfare; his provinces are desolate. The fatal defeat of Gisors crowns his disasters. He listens to the supplications of Agnes, and yields to the voice of his people. Agnes retires into exile to the castle of Karency, where every thing requisite to her rank and her comfort is provided for her. Isamberg is restored to the throne. In the mean while, one project seemed to occupy her soul ; it was to retire into some sequestèred solitude without the privity of the king, who, she feared, would oppose it. But how was this to be effected?- Let us observe the admirable ingenuity with which the unhappy queen, or rather M. D'Arlincourt has contrived it. Among those who followed her waning fortunes was the Countess de Réthél, who, in person, figure, voice, &c., happened to be the very counterpart of Agnes. This lady undertakes to act the part of the queen, in order to enable her royal mistress to execute her favourite scheme of retirement into some quiet spot, where she may indulge her sorrows freely. Agnes quits the castle of Karency, with enough money to be above the apprehension of want, and assuming

the vame of Alaïs, fixes herself in a white cottage on the banks of the lake of Montolin. These are strokes which the Vicompte frequently exhibits in his romances. In " Le Renegat," Agobar, a chief of banditti, turns out to be Clodomir, the king of France, in disguise. Nothing delights us so much as these sudden transitions of character. The famous discovery of a knight-templar in the person of a waiter, seems to have been in the eye of their Author when he framed each incident; but M. D'Arlincourt has excelled the Antijacobin dramatist, by investing his heroine with a much higher dignity, and consequently has proportionally increased its interest.

We rapidly dismiss the rest. Arthur dies, but a furious quarrel unaccountably takes place between Agnes and Izolette at his death-bed. The queen claims him as her lover,-the young lady as her husband. This dispute is as unaccountably made up, by their entering into a mutual agreement to weep at his tomb.

To some of our readers we may owe an apology for devoting so long an article to the exposure of this extravagant and absurd composition. But our primary duty is to keep watch and ward in the literary commonwealtń, ne quid detrimenti capiat. M. D'Arlincourt's works, it is true, are, if we are not mistaken, doomed to an early grave. Born with every symptom of premature debility, their earliest infancy bears the facies Hippocratica of an unsound and decayed constitution. In the meantime, however, they may do much mischief. There is such a thing as contagion, at least, in morals, and we have no quarantine laws to protect us against the dangers of French literature. There are many unreflecting or youthful readers, whose judgements may not be proof against the seductive fallacies of what goes by the name of sentiment, but which consists in nothing more than arning the passions with splendid and imposing sophisms. M. D'Arlincourt, as a sentimental writer, has no slight tincture of the manner and the thinking of Diderot. Through all his romances, there may be traced something that

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