Ingratitude! thou marble-hearted fiend,

More hideous when thou shew'st thee in a child,
Than the soa monster-

Is it not as this mouth should tear this hand

A striking contrast has been drawn be- "Blow, blow, thou wintry wind: thou tween Cordelia and her sisters. They have art not so unkind as man's ingratitude!"? been commanded to declare the measure of How could they act thus to the poor old their love, and the one is silent and reserv-man, so noble in his nature, so good and ed, answering the demand with apparent kind a father, so "every inch a king?" coldness; the others pour forth a stream of protestations of the fervor of their attach-" ment, endeavoring by boundless expressions. to describe a boundless love. The continuance of this contrast is the means employed to give us a true insight into the extreme beauty and delicate tracery of her being. For lifting food to't?" And this negative mode of unveiling her loveliness is peculiarly charming and apHow different a termination this to their propriate to one who was not wont to make former vows, from what we could have herself known, in whose gentle heart the looked for! and the immensity of woe that deep spirit of love lay hid, but whose pre-overwhelms the noble Lear, and overthrows sence alone was known by the thousand his very reason, tends further to impress on genial acts which it inspired. Goneril and us the hellish spirit of these daughters, and Regan could breathe forth words like the causes an irresistible revulsion of feeling water-springs; but they were mere empty towards the silent but deep feeling Cordesounds, indicating by their very glibness lia. The mask is torn from those who late that they came but from the lips, and not had worn so fair a guise, and whose deceit the heart, although they did vainly mimic had triumphed over her truth and innocence. that voice whose music lends a sweetness We feel how vain and unsubstantial are and significance to every little syllable. those professions which arise, at the first A very short period elapses from the call, to publish their own existence; and time they made their ardent demonstra- we therefore turn with tenfold love and adtions of love and tenderness, till we find miration to her who, though she spake not, how ill their practice accords with those yet performed. professions.

We shall now see the effect of this conThe doting father had endowed them trast on the mind of Lear himself. Alwith his lands and sovereignty; he had though he had banished his daughter from given them all but the small train he had his court, reft her of his favor, of his gifts, reserved to wait upon himself; but regardless of the claims of love, of common gratitude, these false and hollow-hearted daughters were not yet content: they had an ell, and yet they coveted the little inch that still remained. They soon began to scant their duty towards him, to slight his wishes, and to disregard his comfort. At first "a faint neglect," "a falling off in that ceremonious affection wherewith he was wont to be entertained;" then a great abatement of kindness both in his daughters and their attendants; till at length, upon the merest pretence, they sought to diminish his train, refusing to receive him till he had dismissed them. Step by step did they advance, ever with increasing boldness and insolence, with more open and unblushing cruelty, till, with the curses of the broken-hearted father on their heads, they closed their doors against him, and left him to the mercy of the pitiless storm, upon a night when

"The wrathful skies Gallow'd the very wanderers of the dark, And made them keep their caves."

and "pierced" her with his open displeasure, he could not banish her from his thoughts, he could not pluck his darling from the heart round which she had entwined for many a year, ever closer and closer, till they had almost become one, one in feeling, one in love. Ah no! his was too good a spirit, too kind, too sensible of affection, to be able to root out so deep-seated an emotion; and though the object of his love was gone from before his eyes, he turned to everything which brought even a remembrance of her, and loved it for her sake, though, in his deep heart-sickness, he scarce knew or would confess this cause. His regard for the Fool, one of the most affecting and beautiful exhibitions of the supremacy of nature amid all those griefs which would fain steel the heart, and nip its kindred sympathies for ever, sprung thence. We find him asking for his fool again and again, as if impatient of each moment's absence, and he complains, "I have not seen him these two days." One of his knights replies,

"Since my young lady's going into France, Sir, the Fool hath much pined away.

Lear. No more of that; I have noted it well."

Here is the key, then, to his affection for his follower; here the cause of a fondness which manifests itself even when the rain and wind of heaven are beating on his head, when the thunder and the lightning rage above him, and in his bosom knaws the canker-worm of grief, and the sharp sting of heartless ingratitude,-filial ingratitude, -is piercing him to the quick: even then, when sorrow might well have extinguished every other sentiment but one of self, he folds his mantle round him saying,

"How dost, my boy? art cold? Poor fool and knave, I have one part in my heart That's sorry yet for thee."

When Goneril first shows her evil disposition, and begins to exercise her cruelty and arrogance towards her father, in the affliction of the moment, he looks back regretfully at the past, and, referring to the disinheritance of Cordelia, and the partition of his kingdom between her sisters, he exclaims,―

"Woe that too late repents!"

"I did her wrong."

Yes, innocence has triumphed! It is beautiful to remark how, after this conclusion is arrived at, he adopts the words with which Cordelia had once told her love, as though doubtful of other expressions of attachment and duty; and addressing Regan, whom he would, though almost against hope, deem true, he says,—,

"Thou better know'st The offices of nature, bond of childhood, Effects of courtesy, dues of gratitude.”

But she was not one with whom the gentle bond had influence; she was not one to recognize in the love of a parent, and the thousand kind and affectionate acts by which it still displayed itself, the links of a chain which ought to have bound the heart of the child ever in closer and more endearing union. No! "she tied sharptoothed unkindness, like a vulture," on him, and was more cruel than the winds of heaven. All Lear's abjurations amid the storm, and his denunciations of his children, are levelled against Goneril and Regan; and Cordelia is not once included, for he emphatically appeals against his “two pernicious daughters."

His conduct on arriving at the French camp, near Dover, more than all testifies the state of his heart towards Cordelia. Although he was in the same place with her, he will not consent to see her, and the reason, we are informed by Kent, is that—

"A sovereign shame so elbows him. His own un-
kindness,

That stripped her from his benediction, turned her
To foreign casualties, gave her dear rights
To his dog-hearted daughters: these things sting
His mind so venomously, that burning shame
Detains him from Cordelia."

We see now the progress of the heart back to its former love, and the gradual dissolution of those hard and unjust thoughts which had blinded him once to her truth and goodness, but which were soon too bit- How deep must be the sense of wrong in terly expiated by sufferings such as might a father towards his child, when he is thus melt the coldest soul to tears. A short ashamed to see her! And with one like time after this, we have another more ad- Lear, whose sensibilities were so finely vanced and decided manifestation of this strung, the more clearly her purity arose revulsion of feeling. The fool, who has in reproach against his injustice, the been hinting very broadly that the two sis-stronger would this feeling of humiliation ters Goneril and Regan are of one spirit in exist. It is a fine testimony to her goodtheir rapacity and cruelty, recalls to Lear's ness. remembrance the partition of his kingdom. This leads him to review the comparative conduct of Cordelia and her sisters; and, feeling the difference of their natures, and the trifling and unjust reason for which he had condemned her, he cries in the bitterness of his soul,

Thus progressed the establishment of her innocence in the mind of Lear; and the contrast betwixt her and the wretched sisters being brought to a climax, the time has arrived for her reappearance, when we can sympathize with her still and noiseless motions, nor impute her outward calmness

to frigidity of soul. But ere she comes again, another tint is added to her portrait, charming as well by its own beauty, as its exquisite harmony with all that we have conceived of her disposition. A gentleman who brings letters from her to Kent is describing the effect that the intelligence of her father's state had on her; he says

"Now and then an ample tear trilled down
Her delicate cheek. It seemed she was a queen
Over her passion; who, most rebel-like,
Sought to be king o'er her.

Patience and sorrow strove

Who should express her goodliest. You have seen
Sunshine and rain at once: her smiles and tears
Were like a better day. Those happy smilets,
That played on her ripe lip, seemed not to know
What guests were in her eyes; which parted thence,
As pearls from diamonds dropped. In brief, sorrow
Would be a rarity most beloved, if all
Could so become it.

Once or twice she heaved the name of 'father'
Pantingly forth, as if it pressed her heart;
Cried, Sisters! sisters! shame of ladies! sisters!
Kent! father! sisters! What? i' the storm? i' the
night?

Let pity not be believed!' There she shook
The holy water from her heavenly eyes,
And clamor moistened: then away she started,
To deal with grief alone."

After such an account, it is a most natural transition to the bedside of the sick and broken-hearted monarch, to be introduced again to our long-lost Cordelia, there, smoothing his pillow, and raising to his parched and fevered lips the cooling draught, as she perchance had ofttimes done of yore, to see her exercising the "kind nursery," beneath whose tenderness he had once hoped "to set his rest," fulfilling the expectations he had formed in the days of his happiness, and rendered now more af fecting by being so unlooked-for, so unconsciously experienced. The circumstances under which she reappears are well worthy of her, and tend further to enhance our ad'miration for her noble and estimable character. Hear the words she murmurs over the

sleeping Lear

"O my dear father! Restoration hang
Thy medicine on my lips; and let this kiss
Repair those violent harms, that my two sisters
Have in thy reverence made!

Had you not been their father, these white flakes
Had challenged pity of them. Was this a face
To be exposed against the jarring winds?
To stand against the deep dread-bolted thunder;
In the most terrible and nimble stroke

Of quick, cross-lightning? to watch (poor perdu!)

With this thin helm ? Mine enemy's dog,
Though he had bit me, should have stood that night

Against my fire. And wast thou fain, poor father,
In short and musty straw? Alack, Alack!"
To hovel thee with swine and rogues forlorn,

Well may we exclaim, with Kent, " Kind and dear princess!" O woman! whatever may be the failings of some of thy sex, whatever their error and weakness, be they such as may appal us with their guiltiness and make us blush for human nature, they cannot stain thy loveliness, for whilst thou art woman, whilst thy true character is displayed, thou art all grace and beauty! Goneril and Regan had nothing feminine in their characters, and could acts have cast a lasting stigma upon woman, theirs might well have done so, for they were indeed to the sweet Cordelia, and feel that "she reworthy the foul fiend himself; but we turn deems nature from the general curse which twain have brought her to."

The awakening Lear recognizes her, and remembering the wrongs he has done her, most pathetically addresses her amid her tears,

"If you have poison for me, I will drink it.
I know you do not love me; for your sisters
Have, as I do remember, done me wrong:
You have some cause, they have not."

Very beautiful and comprehensive is her heartfelt deprecation, "No cause, no cause. Ah! did she not love him " ac

cording to her bond?”

The joy of the poor old king, even in the his reunion with his beloved, speaks volumes midst of misfortune and imprisonment, at for her. It is still a pursuance of the necessary course of delineation, that her praise should come from others, not from her own lips. He shrinks from meeting the cruelfallen, but forgetful of all suffering whilst hearted daughters into whose power he has she is by his side, he exclaims,

"Come, let's away to prison:
We two alone will sing like birds i' the cage:
When thou dost ask me blessing, I'll kneel down
And ask of thee forgiveness-so we'll live.
And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh
At gilded butterflies,

He that parts us shall bring a brand from heaven,
And fire us hence, like foxes."

Poor Cordelia! how sadly did she die! But o'er her death she had a mourner whose sighs were meet to rise to heaven with her pure spirit,-an old and grey-haired father, the monument of filial cruelty and ingratitude, was yet the monument of her true goodness, the herald of her gentle and guileless being. She died, the victim to

her filial piety, and "upon such sacrifices, observed, or deemed unnecessary to the the gods themselves throw incense." And completeness of the picture. was it not an end the most appropriate, thus to seal by her silent fate, the holy truths that were her guides through life! How exquisite is the description of Lear,

"Her voice was ever soft, Gentle and low; an excellent thing in woman.”

And now, have we said too much, in styling Cordelia one of the most glorious of the Bard's creations? In conception it is so beautiful, so redolent of gentleness and purity, and encircled with that indescribable charm which makes the very name of

woman come to us

"Like the sweet south, That breathes upon a bank of violets, Stealing and giving odor,-"

It is such a perfect realization of the Cordelia of our imagination! But in all things does Shakspeare preserve the harmony of his characters; not even amid the grandest design does he neglect the minute details, and in execution so refined and delicate, which a less expansive mind had either not that we feel assured all must agree with us.

From Bentley's Miscellany.

THE DECISIVE BATTLES OF THE WORLD.

BY PROFESSOR CREASY.

Those few battles of which a contrary event would have essentially varied the drama of the world in all its subsequent scenes.-HALLAM.

[It will be seen that from the title of these spirited | tion, the Directory, the Consulate, and the sketches, the designating "Six" has been removed-an Empire. He survived those wars, and the intimation, probably, that, unable to review all the decisive Empire itself, dying in extreme old age in battles of the world in six articles, the Professor concludes 1820. The last wish of the veteran on his to go on indefinitely.-ED.] death-bed was, that his heart should be deposited in the battle-field of Valmy, there to repose among the remains of his old companions in arms, who had fallen at his side on that spot twenty-eight years before, on the memorable day when they won the primal victory of Revolutionary France, and prevented the armies of Brunswick and the emigrant bands of Condé from marching The elder Kellerman (father of the dis-on defenceless Paris, and destroying the imtinguished officer of that name, whose ca- mature democracy in its cradle. valry-charge decided the battle of Ma- The Duke of Valmy (for Kellerman, rengo), held high commands in the French when made one of Napoleon's military armies throughout the wars of the Conven-peers in 1802, took his title from this same

A FEW miles distant from the little town of St. Menehould, in the north-east of France, are the village and hill of Valmy; and near the crest of that hill a simple monument points out the burial-place of the heart of a general of the French republic, and a marshal of the French empire.

battle-field) had participated during his day, breathe the very spirit of the old bullong and active career, in the gaining of letins; however temporizing and pacific many a victory far more immediately daz- may be the tone of the statesmen who mainzling than the one, the remembrance of tain a precarious ascendency at Paris. which he thus cherished. He had been With two European wars actually raging present at many a scene of carnage where before them, with the elements of insurrecblood flowed in deluges, compared with tion and strife in full activity throughout the which, the libations of slaughter poured out continent (and, alas, not on the continent at Valmy would have seemed scant and in- only), who can doubt but that thousands significant. But he rightly estimated the of the fiery youth of France are watching paramount importance of the battle with eagerly for the first pretext of provocation, which he thus wished his appellation while that may justify them in coming forward as living, and his memory after his death, to protectors or avengers, and in once more be identified. The successful resistance advancing the tricolor over Lombardy, to which the raw Carmagnole levies, and the Rome and Naples, or to the Danube, the disorganized relies of the old monarchy's Vistula, and the Baltic? Look, too, at the army then opposed to the combined hosts risk of fatal dissension that exists on every and chosen leaders of Prussia, Austria, sea where English and French sailors or and the French refugee noblesse, determined settlers come into contact. Any hot-headed at once and for ever the belligerent character captain, any petulant commandant, any inof the Revolution. The raw artizans and triguing missionary, may at once create real tradesmen, the clumsy burghers, the base or supposed cause of offence between the two mechanics and low peasant-churls, as it proud and jealous nations, such as only had been the fashion to term the middle blood will wash out. There will be no and lower classes in France, found that more proffers of apology, and votes of comthey could face cannon-balls, pull triggers, pensation in such cases, at least not on and cross bayonets, without having been the part of France. No statesman in that drilled into military machines, and without republic would dare risk the odium which being officered by scions of noble houses. the Pritchard indemnity brought on Guizot. They awoke to the consciousness of their Any French government might at once rise own instinctive soldiership. They at once ac- to the zenith of mob and military popularity quired confidence in themselves and in each by declaring war with this country. Good other; and that confidence soon grew into management and good fortune may, for a a spirit of unbounded audacity and ambi- time, prevent such collisions, but they seem tion. "From the cannonade of Valmy ultimately inevitable. And whenever, and may be dated the commencement of that with whomsoever revolutionary France decareer of victory which carried their armies clares war, that war will speedily become to Vienna and the Kremlin." * European and general. France is too clearly We can now, from what is passing before on the eve of a fresh cycle of invasions, our eyes, discern even more clearly the im- conquests, military despotisms, and stern portance of the conflict of Valmy, than reactions, which must shake the old world could Kellerman in 1820, or than could to its foundations.

the historian of Europe, from whom the last One of the gravest reflexions that arises sentence was quoted, when he composed from the contemplation of the civil resthis great work only a few years ago. The lessness and military enthusiasm, which the impetus which that triumph gave to the close of the last century saw nationalized French spirit, was not exhausted in a single in France, is the consideration that these career of victory, and was inextinguishable disturbing influences have become perby the alternation of defeat. The restless petual. This volcanic people seems desenergy inspired by it was never more fear- tined neither to know nor to suffer permafully manifest than it is at the present nent rest. No settled system of government, hour. The French Republic is again mus- that shall endure from generation to genetering her armed myriads from among her ration, that shall be proof against corruprural and civic population. Her troops, tion and popular violence, seems capable of under the old banner, and with the old taking root among them. And while we war-cry of '96, are again collecting near cannot hope to see France calmed and the foot of the Alps and the bank of the softened down by healing processes from Rhine. Her generals, in their orders of the within, there is still less prospect of seeing *Alison. her effectively curbed, and thoroughly