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SOMERSET NOTIONS OF A POET.-Mr. Wordsworth | THE NEW REGENT OF GERMANY.-While John of had taken the Allfoxden House, near Stowey, for one year (during the minority of the heir): and the reason why he was refused a continuance by the ignorant man who had the letting of it, arose, as Mr. Coleridge informed me, from a whimsical cause, or rather a series of causes. The wiseacres of the village had, it seemed, made Mr. W. the subject of their serious conversation. One said that "he had seen him wander about by night, and look rather strangely at the moon! and then he roamed over the hills like a partridge." Another said, "He had heard him mutter, as he walked, in some outlandish brogue, that nobody could understand!" Another said, "It's useless to talk, Thomas, I think he is what people call a wise man'" (a conjuror). Another said, " You are every one of you wrong. I know what he is. We have all seen him tramping away towards the sea. Would any man in his senses take all that trouble to look at a parcel of Notwithstanding his youth, he was the object of water? I think he carries on a snug business in the smuggling line, and in these journeys he is on the look-out for some wet cargo!" Another very significantly said, "I know that he has got a private still in his cellar, for I once passed his house at a little better than a hundred yards distance, and I could smell the spirits, as plain as an ashen faggot at Christmas!" Another said, "However that was, he is surely a despered French Jacobin, for he is so silent and dark, that nobody ever heard him say one word about politics!" And thus these ignoramuses drove from their village a greater ornament than will ever again be found amongst them.-Cottle's Reminiscences of Coleridge and Southey.

Austria is the centre of so much political interest, a
brief sketch of his career may be interesting to
many, for it belongs more to the past generation
than the present. He is the brother of the late and
uncle of the reigning Emperor; he was born in
1782, and has therefore reached his 66th year.
was educated and thrown into active life during the
stormy times of the first French revolution; as
early as 1800 he was placed in command of an
Austrian army--but he was not fortunate; the battle
of Hohenlinden tried him in the fire of misfor-
tune, and the utmost he could effect was by his per-
sonal courage and example to keep the spirit of the
Austrian forces from being quite crushed by the de-
feats they sustained from the French armies, led by
the ablest of its generals. After the peace of Lune-
ville he was appointed Director of the Corps of En-
gineers and of the Military Academy of Vienna.
many bright expectations in that gloomy period;
he became excessively popular, especially in the
Austrian provinces. He originated the measure of
arming a Landwehr, or militia, and served through
the campaign of 1805. The next few years were
most disastrous in the annals of Austria, except per-
haps the present one. In 1811, he founded the Jo-
hanneum in Gratz. He was always attached to the
study of natural history, and when released from
military duties he lived the life of a mountaineer,
preferring the Styrian hills as a residence to the cap-
ital. He knew the whole of this district thoroughly,
and was on the best terms with its inhabitants, to
whom he was known as a bold and successful ex-
plorer of the most inaccessible points. He served
again in the campaigns of 1813 and 1815. With
and the policy of opposition to all progress, which
peace began the long Ministry of Metternich,
he maintained for more than thirty years; the Arch-
erful Chancellor, and never concealed his dislike of
duke always condemned the system of the all-pow-

the

DIPLOMATIC ANECDOTES.-Sir Gordon remark d, that in this quality of coolness and imperturbability he never sa v any one surpass his friend, Sir Robert Darcy. One evening when playing at whist, at Potzdam, with the late King of Prussia, his Majesty in a fit of inadvertence appropriated to himself several gold pieces belonging to Sir Robert. The King at last it; the consequence was, that not being able to opperceived and apologized for his mistake, adding, Puse it by positive action, he withdrew himself from "Why did you not inform me of it?"-" Because political lite altogether, and almost separated himI knew your Majesty always makes restitution self from his family by marrying the daughter of the when you have obtained time for reflection." Ha- Postmaster of Ausee; he was exiled from Vienna, nover was then on the topis, and the King felt the and all but socially proscribed; the gulf between allusion. I must not forget a trait of that peculiar him, the Court, and the old nobility, however, was sarcastic humor for which Sir Robert was famous, never closed. He lived in his retirement at Gratz, When an honorable and learned gentleman, in the farming, botanizing, and hunting, but never for a course of a Continental tour, happened to pass day released from the espionage that Metternich through the city where Sir Robert lived as ambassa-kept upon his movements. His popularity was aldor, he received a card of invitation to dinner, far ways feared as much as his opinions. After a long more on account of a certain missive from the Fo. absence he revisited the Tyrol in 1835, and was rereign Office, than from any personal claims he was ceived with such enthusiasm that the Vienna jourpossessed of Sir Robert, whose taste for good liv-nals were not permitted to publish the accounts of ing was indisputable, no sooner read the note acced- his reception. In 1812, at a public dinner, he is ing to his request than he called his attaches together, said to have given as a toast, "No Austria, no Prusand said, "Gentlemen, you will have a very bad din sia, but a united Germany." This incident has sener to-day; but I request you will all dine here, as I cured him much of his present popularity. The have a particular object in expressing the wish." statement ran through all the journals, but there are Dinner-hour came and after the usual ceremony, dote. In person the Archduke is of middle height, considerable doubts of the authenticity of the anecthe party were seated at table, when a single soup appeared: this was followed by a dish of fish, and thin, and bald; his countenance expresses great then without entree or hors l'œuvre, came a boiled benevolence and good humor. Though of so adleg of mutton, Sir Robert premi-ing this guest vanced an age, he has preserved much of the enthu that it was to have no successor : adding, "You see, siasm of youth. When the revolution occurred in sir, what a poor entertainment I have provided for Vienna he entered at once into public life, and it you; but to this have the miserable economists in was principally by his influence that Metternich Parliament brought us-next session may carry it was compelled to resign. The events since the further, and leave us without even so much." revolution are too well known to require repetition; Joseph was sold, and never forgot it since.-Diary he is now Regent of Austria, and chief of the Ger of a Secretary of Legislation. man Empire, and Metternich is an exile.-Times.

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Memoirs of Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, Bart., with Selections from his Correspondence. Edited by his Son, Charles Buxton, Esq. London. Svo. 1848.

THIS book will have its vogue among those his county in 1792-leaving a widow and whose opinions are not ours: but it should five young children. The lady was one of by no means be confined within a party or the family of Hanbury-wealthy Quakers sectarian circulation. It has raised our es- long known in the City of London, and contimate of Sir Fowell Buxton's talents, and nected in blood and in business with the introduced us to an acquaintance with graces Gurneys-a family belonging to the most of character which we might not have been ancient gentry of Norfolk, but enriched likely to infer from the main circumstances through commercial enterprise, both proof his public life. It affords some very cu- vincial and metropolitan, and distinguished rious pictures of manners-and, let us add, during several generations for liberal charian example of discretion and good taste in ties; the branch of it allied to the Hanone of the most difficult of literary tasks. burys being also of the Society of Friends. The Editor has been contented to rely, as The Buxtons themselves had always been far as possible, on the correspondence and of the Church of England, and Fowell and diaries in his possession, and the anecdotes his brothers were baptized accordinglyfurnished by a few elder friends:-but both while the sisters were to be trained in the classes of material well deserved in this case the advantage of a neat setting, and have received it. When we consider how lately the Baronet died (February 1845), and how many of the questions with which his name was connected are still fraught with anxiety, it is highly creditable for his son to have produced thus early a biography generally clear, yet seldom profuse-and though showing entire sympathy with the course portrayed, hardly ever using language that will offend any candid reader.

He was born in 1786-the eldest son of a gentleman of easy fortune, who lived chiefly in Essex, and died high sheriff of VOL. XV. No. II.

10

mother's persuasion. She appears to have been left sole guardian-and she never made any attempt to withdraw her sons from the pale of the Church; but, with evidently considerable eccentricities, she was a woman of strong faculties and strong affections; and her opinions and sentiments could not but influence powerfully the young people committed to her care. Her nearest and dearest connexions were Quakers: such members of our Church as she had any intimacy with were of the extreme "Evangelical" section: and her heir was so brought up that he never had attached the slightest importance to Churchmanship.

The Church was with him, first and last, | over sisters, brothers, dogs, horses, and one of the various divisions of the Christian gamekeepers-he seems to have grown up community, among which no one has any to a stature of six feet four, without exintrinsic claim to superior respect over citing any conjecture that he was to afford others. He never abandoned her formally, the pedigree more than another jolly masbut he frankly acknowledges that he never ter of fox-bounds. regarded her organization as apostolicalher teaching as entitled to submission because it was hers. Such are frequent consequences of a mixed marriage among Protestants less lamentable indeed, than those usually resulting from an alliance between Protestants and Romanists-yet still fruitful of evil, even when, as in the case before us, a fervid sense of religion grows up by the side of total indifference to ecclesi- | astical authority.

After the father's death, it was discovered that he had not been so rich as was supposed by others or probably by himself but the widow believed that her eldest son must eventually succeed to large estates in Ireland; so that his education was conducted without any view to a profession. He was considered by those about him as the heir of an opulent fortune, and from them all, as is common in this world, or at least in this country, he received a treatment of marked deference. To this the mother was no exception-he was the first, and in every sense the flower of her race, and perhaps her connexion with flourishing mercantile families might have imbued her with even a peculiar feeling of respect for wealth. While yet a mere boy he was encouraged and accustomed to look on himself as master at home-to order and be obeyed as if he had been a man. He confesses that he was "haughty, fierce, and tyrannical" (pp. 276, 277); but there were in him the seeds of many most amiable qualities. He far surpassed others of his years in physical strength, and (with all his spurts of imperiousness) had the constitutional good-nature that very often accompanies such advantages, not only among mankind, but in the lower animals also. His school-fellows called him Elephant Buxton; but the early friend who tells this (Mr. Horace Twiss) candidly adds that the compliment was paid merely to his bulk and his temper, for that certainly no idea of uncommon sagacity was then associated with him. His nerves were as well strung as his muscular fabric was formidable-he probably had as little notion of fear as young Nelson. Seldom thwarted-carrying all before him in schoolboy games and exercises-at home ruling without dispute

He had never been at any of the great public schools: that misfortune (for such we hold it to be for any man of his condition) belongs no doubt to the effects of sectarian prejudice; nor does it appear that his guardian ever thought of an English university for him. She at one time wished to send him to St. Andrew's, which, as she had no Scotch connexions, could hardly have had any special recommendation, except that it was not Anglican. But he disliked the notion of that northern banishment; and a suggestion that, considering his prosp cts, it might be well to enter him at Trinity College, Dublin, and so provide him with Irish friends for future life, was received favorably by himself, and therefore by his worshipful mother. It would, however, as respects the matter of learning, have been of little consequence to what university he went, or whether he went to any, but for a visit at Mr. Gurney's, of Earlham Hall in Norfolk, whose son had been at the same school with him in the neighborhood of London. Here the youth, now in his eighteenth year was received with the heartiest kindness-and we may invoke Dryden (though we dare say his Fables were taboo'd at Earlham) to carry on the old story that will never be out of date:

"What not his parent's care nor tutor's art
Could plant with pains in his unpolished heart,
The best instructor. Love, at once inspired,
As barren grounds to fruitfulness are fired.

Love taught him shame, and shame with love at
Soon taught the sweet civilities of life."

strife,

He had found his Iphigenia. After a stay of some weeks he repaired to Dublin, with a fixed determination to cultivate his mind, that he might one day be authorized in aspiring to ask the companionship for life of Miss Hannah Gurney, whose fair form enshrined that of which he painfully-but not hopelessly-felt the superiority. An elder daughter of his house was the Elizabeth Gurney afterwards known and honored as Mrs. Fry. Another, Priscilla, who died in her early prime, cut off by the disease which so often selects the loveliest for its victims, appears to have been more highly endowed by nature than even Elizabeth. They were all distinguished for their proficiency in

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