Foreign Fashions .......33, 70, 104, 136, 173, 238 Foreign Novelties.-The Drama of Chatterton, 36.-Duc de Broglie, 36.-Steam Carriage at Brussels, 36.-Ame- rican Temperance Societies, 36.-The Paris Winter, 36 – Talleyrand's Birth-day, 72.-Musical Genius in Paris, 72. The Opera Comique, 72.-Extract from a Paris Letter, 107.-English Fashions in Paris, 139.-A Sister of Cha- rity, 139.-Dancing Mania in Paris, 141.-Police Regu- THE SONG OF STATIRA, QUEEN OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT. "Where are ye fled, dear shades, where are ye fled?" L. 35. 1. Alexander the Great. Pleasant thoughts, pleasant thoughts, Whither are ye fled ? Will ye ne'er come back again? Are ye with the dead? Pleasant thoughts, pleasant thoughts, Ye were wont to come uncall'd; Pleasant thoughts, pleasant thoughts, For a cloud is o'er my heart, R. C. E. THE YOUTH OF MARY STUART. There probably is not a name in all history which awakens an interest at once so deep and so universal as that of Mary Stuart. The history of many sovereigns serves only to render the triumphs of oblivion more complete; for not only their deeds and their existence are forgotten, but likewise the very records which were written to perpetuate them. Others have filled the world with their renown, and left a glorious name behind them, but their history is written for the politician and the scholar; it speaks to the intellect and not to the heart; the reason pauses to wonder, perhaps to admire; yet no trait of personal character calls forth the gentle sympathies and affections of our nature. Not so the melancholy history of Mary Stuart. The lapse of a century and a half has not effaced a single line; every page still awakens those deep mysterious sympathies which form the silent language of the soul, and, as it were, unite the present with the past, the living with the dead, and earth with the spirit land. This mournful history searches the very soul. With those of gentle natures, the sigh and the unbidden tear bear their indignant testimony to the unmerited sufferings of the lovely and the innocent; and even in the sterner hearts of those who sit in judgment and condemn the accused, emotions of compassionate tenderness arise and plead within them, "the unheard advocates for the conduct of the misguided." To the traveller who journies along the valley of the Loire, almost every object of note will recall the memory of the beautiful and unfortunate queen. Amid those very scenes, some of the brighest and happiest days of her youth glided away, as swiftly and silently as the waters of the Loire, upon whose borders they were passed. Every valley and woodland awakens some pleasant, though melancholy, association; for it is one of the gentle ministries of nature to call. up the memory of the dead to the thoughts of the living; and thus, the kind almoner of her children, she asks the simple charity of a tear, or a passing recollection, for those whom she has gathered to her maternal bosom. Every old chateau likewise recalls her image. From yonder tower she looked forth upon groves, and vineyards, and the sheeted Loire ; beneath this crumbling gateway she passed with her courtly train, in all the pride of youth and beauty; through the woodlands of this now forsaken and solitary park she hunted the deer with hound and horn. Mary Stuart was born at Linlithgow Castle, in 1542. Her mother was Marie de Lorraine-Guise; and at the time of her birth, her father, the gallant and noble hearted James the Fifth, the king of the poor, the "gude man o' Ballangeish," was lying upon his death bed at the palace of Falkland, in Fife. When he heard that a daughter was to inherit the sceptre of the Stuarts, he exclaimed with a mournful voice, "Then farewell, it cam with ane lass, and it will pass with ane lass;" shortly afterwards he expired. In the language of an old historian," he turned him upon his back and looked and beheld all his nobles and lords about him, and giving a little smile of laughter, kissed his hand and offered it to them, and when they had pressed it to their lips for the last time, he tossed up his arm and yielded his spirit to God." The last words of the dying monarch were prophetic, they but too truly foretold the mournful fate of his child. V The first two years of Mary's life were passed at Linlithgow, and a greater part of the three succeeding years at Stirling castle and at Inchmahome, an island in the lake of Montieth. In her fifth year she was sent into France, and placed with the king's daughters at a convent, to complete her elementary education. It is said that she left this retreat of her childhood for the splendors of a gay and facinating court with tears of regret. Some historians have stated, that the calm and peaceful life of the cloister had exercised so strong an influence upon her lively imagination,that she wished to take the veil, and thus leave the world for ever. If this be indeed true, it would almost seem that some invisible hand |