قراءة كتاب The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction Volume 20, No. 566, September 15, 1832

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The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction
Volume 20, No. 566, September 15, 1832

The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction Volume 20, No. 566, September 15, 1832

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دار النشر: Project Gutenberg
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o'clock the two heroes mutually felicitated each other at the small auberge of Genappe. But it was not till three o'clock in the morning that the word "Victory!" was proclaimed by an affiche on the walls to the terrified population of Bruxelles!

The Prince of Orange had been wounded early in that evening, after having in the morning disputed every inch of ground against the superior force of the enemy, and continued to fight like a valourous chevalier each succeeding day for his kingdom: he has fairly won it. May his future subjects record the fact in ineffaceable characters on their memory! The British army had faught thirteen successive hours; they halted, and to the fresh troops of the Prussians the task of pursuing the fugitive enemy was assigned: they gladly forgot all fatigue, in vengeful feeling and relentless retaliation against their former merciless and insulting invaders. The British moved forward this day, and will enter France to-morrow. Eight hundred lion-mettled and noble sons of Britain have fallen by the side of thirty thousand of their own brave soldiers! It has been a dear-earned victory to England; a dread tragedy, in the small circumference of three miles! The veterans of the Peninsular campaign assert that those scenes of carnage were less cruel. This city, where pleasure so lately reigned, now presents only the images of death. Vraiment nous respirons la mort dans les rues! L'Hôtel-de-Ville, the hospitals, and some of the churches, are already occupied by the wounded; wagons full remaining in the streets, and many sitting on the steps of the houses, looking round in vain for immediate succour!

Our escape has been mavellous, for Napoleon's plan was to penetrate to Bruxelles, and to surprise the Duke and his staff at the ball, when surrounded by the British belles; for he had his spies to report even the hour of our pastimes, and he reckoned upon a rise of the Belgians in his favour. For three days and nights we expected the enemy to enter; treachery reigned around us, and false reports augmented our alarms, as we knew the terrible numbers of the French forces. It was Bulow and his corps that protected us from that calamity. On the Saturday we took refuge within the city, from the scenes of horror before our villa. Baggage-wagons of the different regiments advancing—the rough chariots of agriculture, with the dead and the dying, disputing for the road—officers on horseback wounded! I spoke to one: 'twas Colonel C——, of the Scotch brigade; he replied with his wonted urbanity to my inquiries—gave me his hand—"I am shot through the body—adieu for ever!" He left me petrified with horror, and I saw him no more! One hour afterwards I sent to his apartment—the gallant veteran had expired as they lifted him from his horse!

I could not abandon the Baroness and her children in such an hour; but I must ever gratefully recollect the kind offers of asylum made to me by my Belgian acquaintance, and for months, they said, had the battle been lost. It is truly pitiable to see the wounded arriving on foot; a musket reversed, or the ramrod, serving for a staff of support to the mutilated frame, the unhappy soldier trailing along his wearied limbs, and perhaps leading a more severely-wounded comrade, whose discoloured visages declare their extreme suffering;—their uniforms either hanging in shreds, or totally despoiled of them by those marauders who ravage a field of battle in merciless avidity of plunder and murder. These brave fellows, these steady warriors, so redoubtable a few hours since, are now sunk into the helplessness of infancy, the feebleness of woman, over whom man arrogates a power that may not be disputed, but whose solacing influence in the hour of tribulation and sickness they are willing to claim.

The Belgian females are in full activity, acting with noble benevolence. They are running from door to door begging linen, and entreating that it may be scraped for lint; others beg matrasses.


TRIBUTES TO GENIUS.

The Cuts represent unostentatious yet affectionate tributes to three of the most illustrious names in literature and art: DANTE, and PETRARCH, the celebrated Italian poets; and CANOVA, whose labours have all the freshness and finish of yesterday's chisel. Lord Byron, whose enthusiasm breathes and lives in words that "can never die," has enshrined these memorials in the masterpiece of his genius. Associating Dante and Petrarch with Boccaccio, he asks:

But where repose the all Etruscan three—

Dante and Petrarch, and scarce less than they,

The Bard of Prose, creative spirit! he

Of the Hundred Tales of Love—where did they lay

Their tones, distinguish'd from our common clay

In death as life? Are they resolved to dust,

And have their country's marbles naught to say?

Could not their quarries furnish forth one bust?

Did they not to her breast their filial earth entrust?10

(Dante's Tomb.)
(DANTE'S TOMB.)

Dante was born at Florence in the year 1261. He fought in two battles, and was fourteen times ambassador, and once prior of the republic. Through one fatal error, he fell a victim to party persecution, which ended in irrevocable banishment. His last resting-place was Ravenna, where the persecution of his only patron is said to have caused the poet's death. What an affecting record of gratitude! His last days at Ravenna are thus referred to by an accomplished tourist:11

"Under the kind protection of Guido Novello da Polenta, here Dante found an asylum from the malevolence of his enemies, and here he ended a life embittered with many sorrows, as he has pathetically told to posterity, 'after having gone about like a mendicant; wandering over almost every part to which our language extends; showing against my will the wound with which fortune has smitten me, and which is so often imputed to his ill-deserving, on whom it is inflicted.' The precise time of his death is not accurately ascertained; but, it was either in July or September of the year 1321. His friend in adversity, Guido da Polenta, mourned his loss, and testified his sorrow and respect by a sumptuous funeral, and, it is said, intended to have erected a monument to his memory; but, the following year, contending factions deprived him of the sovereignty which he had held for more than half a century; and he, in his turn, like the great poet whom he had protected, died in exile. I believe, however, that the tomb, with an inscription purporting to have been written by Dante himself, of which I have here given an outline, was erected at the time of his decease: and, that his portrait, in bas-relief, was afterwards added by Bernardo Bembo, in the year 1483, who, at that time was a Senator and Podestà of the Venetian republic."

Byron truly sings:

Ungrateful Florence! Dante sleeps afar,

Like Scipio, buried by the upbraiding shore;

Thy factions, in their worse than civil war,

Proscribed the bard whose name for evermore

Their children's children would in vain adore

With the remorse of ages.

There is a tomb in Arquà; rear'd in air,

Pillar'd in

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