born in Geneva, and is but too much admired by his countrymen. He was a man of unquestioned genius, fine taste, and deep sensibility. His style is extremely graphic and beautiful. But alas! his heart was corrupted by false principles and licentious tendencies. His New Heloise is a bewitching romance, but ensnaring and corrupting to the youthful mind; while his political writings, though they contain many sound maxims, and great principles, are yet superficial and false. His Confessions are a singular mixture of sincerity and hypocrisy, of virtue and vice. They furnish incontestible evidence of his licentiousness and heartlessness, his credulity and his scepticism, his puerility and his pride. While he was a sceptic by profession, he could not help believing the Gospel, and while railing at superstition, was himself the victim of the grossest credulity. For he decided that there was no hell, simply because he threw a stone at a tree, and missed it, having previously settled it in his mind that, if he hit the tree there was a hell, if he missed it, there was none. His criminal connection with Madame Warren, and the exposure of his children to the cold charities of a foundling hospital, will ever remain dark spots upon his memory.

We had an uncommonly pleasant walk to Ferney, passing by fields and meadows rich with the produce of agriculture, fine old villas embosomed amid shady trees, vineyards and gardens filled with foliage and flowers. Every now and then we stopped to look round us, and especially toward the lake and the mountains, the varying aspects of which filled us with increasing delight. Vol. taire's house is near the village, on a gentle elevation, surrounded by forest trees, whence fair views are enjoyed over a vast expanse of wild and cultivated scenery. The edifice itself is plain, and stands very much as Voltaire left it. The little chapel which he erected near the house is going to decay; indeed every thing in and about the house wears a worn and melancholy air. We examined his bed-room and saloon, which are shown to visitors by a female who seems to have charge of the establishment. There are several portraits in his bed-room; one of Frederick, King of Prussia, but poorly done, another of Catherine of Russia, in embroidery; one of the Marquise de Chatelet; one of his sempstress, and one of his little Savoyard boy. There are two of him. self, one of which is quite spirited. It must have been taken

when he was a young man, but it is quite characteristic. The countenance is full of vivacity and apparent self-idolatry, with an expression of sneering wit and cunning. And yet there is a brightness and elevation about it, quite peculiar, giving indication of fine thought and poetic fancy. On one side of the room are small engravings, the family of Calas, De Lille, Diderot, Sir Isaac Newton, Franklin, Racine, Milton, Corneille, Antoine Thomas, Leibnitz, Helvetius, Washington, D'Alembert, and Marmontel. Among the portraits there is one of Clement XIV., better known as Ganganelli, an intimate friend of Voltaire's. A good anecdote is told of the wit of this pontiff. "The Baron of Gluchen on his way to Italy, stopped at Ferney, and inquired of Voltaire what he should say from him to the Pope. "His Holiness," replied Voltaire, favors me with presents of medals and of indulgences, and even sends me his blessing. but I would rather Ganganelli would send me the ears of the GRAND INQUISITOR." The Baron delivered the message :"Tell him," replied Ganganelli, with admirable good sense and wit, "that as long as Ganganelli is Pope, the Grand Inquisitor shall have neither eyes nor ears." There is a marble urn in the bed-room, which once contained Voltaire's heart, but that has been removed to Paris. It contained the following inscription :Son Esprit est partout, et son cœur est, ici. The saloon, or principal room, is more handsomely furnished, and is adorned with a number of pretty good paintings, but all of them are of an immodest character, consisting chiefly of naked female sand Cupids.

Voltaire was a brilliant writer; but he had more wit than genius. His historical statements are associated with the greatest blunders. His knowledge was evidently superficial; and his enmity to the Christian religion was due rather to the wickedness of his heart than to the clearness of his intellect. He had no grand conceptions, no lofty and comprehensive thoughts. His whole moral and intellectual character was a good deal like his face, which was said to be a combination of the monkey and the eagle. And hence, with much propriety has one remarked, “If the soaring wing and piercing eye of the eagle opened to him all the regions of knowledge, it was only to collect materials for the gratification of that apish disposition, which seems to have delighted him in grinning, with a malicious spirit of mockery, at the

man may

detected weakness and infirmities of human nature. Though a often rise the wiser, yet I believe none ever rose the better from the perusal of Voltaire. The short but admirable epitaph on him may well conclude his character.

"Ci-git l'enfant gåte du monde qu'il gâta."

Voltaire died in Paris, in awful dread and torment, where also he was buried. His works, with those of Rousseau, Diderot, and D'Alembert, contributed greatly to the French Revolution, much, I have no doubt, to its spirit of hate, infidelity, and murder; a little perhaps to its spirit of liberty and renovation. R. T.

READY TO DIE.

BY W M. J. ANNABLE.

I found a young creature of fairy-like grace;
Joy danced in her bosom and smiled on her face,
And the song of her spirit rose free on the air,
While she gathered wild roses to braid with her hair;
And her marvellous beauty so ravished my sight,

I deemed her the "angel of flowers" in white.

As she passed me I caught the bright glance of her eye,
And whispered, "my child, are you ready to die?"

1 questioned a maiden, whose step was as free
As the breeze on the mountain, the waves of the sea;
And the hopes of her life were as fresh and as green,
As the banks where a river rolls calmly between:
And fragrant and pure as the dew drop that flows
From the heart of a rose-bud, her feelings arose :
Yet I asked as she came, "are you ready to die?"
"O, this world is so fair," was her pensive reply ;-
"There is so much to love, and so dear to my heart
Are the friends of my youth, it were sad to depart ;

Yet if it seem good to my Father on high
To call me from earth, I am ready to die."

I questioned a mother: she folded the child

Of her heart to her bosom in fondness, and smiled;
Like the pure shining stars in their blue homes on high,
Beamed the rapture of love in her eloquent eye;
There was life in her motions, unchilled by life's woes,
And her cheek wore the tints of the lily and rose.
"O, deem you," she cried, "that a mother could give
Her breath to the spoiler, and yearn not to live?
Yet though she were not, are her babes left forlorn?
God tempers the wind to the lamb that is shorn :
And the hour of my death, be it distant or nigh,
I would not defer: 1 am ready to die.”

I asked one midway to the goal of his life;

Whose courage and zeal had waxed warm in the strife;
Whose glorious brow and truth-speaking eye
Revealed a soul's purpose both holy and high:

Man's weal was his mission-man crushed and enslaved,
His reason o'erclouded, his nature depraved.
"Man's weal is my mission!" he cried, as he passed;
"For Freedom, Truth, Right, will I stand to the last:
The battle's deep thunder shakes earth and the sea,
And I burn for the conflict, though fierce it may be.
My life I commend to my Master on high-
If I fall, 'tis His will-I am ready to die."

Are you ready to die? then I murmured to one
Who sank by Life's wayside, faint, weary and lone;
Long since had age whitened his head with its snows,
And furrowed his brow by its ills and its woes;
His loved ones all slept 'neath the cypress and yew;
And deeply he yearned for the rest which they knew;
But he answered me not-and I asked for a sign,
And while his eye shone with a brightness divine,
He stretched forth his hands as if praying the while,
Then clasped them with fervor and died with a smile.

I knew that his spirit had passed to the sky,
And I felt it was well to be ready to die.
Hebron, 1848.

WALENAH.

Calmly the river St. Lawrence slept in the passionless starlight. There was not a sound to break upon the hush of the holy Night, except the murmurs of the wind through the forest of pines that stretched along the Northern shores, and the low dreamy chime of the rippling waters of the majestic river which, reflecting a cluster of stars on every wavelet, seemed like a sea of gems. The island of Orleans lay peacefully on the river's bosom, as if no sound of warlike preparation had ever echoed through its green bowers, or the tread of martial feet crushed down the dewy flowers, which exhaled their sweetness on the night air; and serenely looked down the bright stars from the "infinite depths of Heaven," on the river and the island, as if earth were yet an Eden, as in the primeval days of old, ere sin and sorrow had visited it. A profound stillness reigned along the shore, where the frowning rocks, that overhung the waters, cast their picturesque shadows beneath, when suddenly a slight canoe shot out from the darkness of a projecting ledge of rock, into the clear and rapid current of the river. As sudden and as noiseless as the flight of a bird, aroused at night, was the progress of the light bark across the waters, and though an indistinct light hung over the landscape, the slight outline of a female form, guiding the canoe up the stream by a few but vigorous stroaks of the oar, was clearly visible. It was only when the waters which divided the island from the stern old fortresses of Quebec had been fairly crossed, that she relaxed her efforts, and laying the oar by her side, she looked eagerly up to the grim and frowning battlements of rock, which overhung the river, while the canoe lay motionless upon the water. A stream of red light flashed down from the fortress above, bringing out for a brief moment, in bold relief, the slight but exquisite proportions of a yun g Indian maiden, who with her arms folded calmly upon her bosom, looked eagerly and anxiously up to the height, where the sentinel was passing to and fro. Very beautiful was the young face upturned to the rich glare of the