miration excited, when we read the delightful delineations of pastoral manners, as they are drawn in several dramas of that grand creator of words, and delineator of passion, Shakspeare. That a master, so skilled in the minute anatomy of the heart, should be capable of divesting himself of all those metropolitan associations, and sound "wood-notes wild," worthy of the reed of Tasso, is, of itself, a singular phenomenon. Who can read the following song without fancying himself surrounded by a group of pastoral innocents, with Perdita singing in the midst of them?

"Come, come, my good shepherds, our flocks we must shear;

In your holiday suits, with your lasses appear:
The happiest of folks are the guileless and free,
And who are so guileless, and happy, as we?

That giant Ambition we never can dread;
Our roofs are too low for so lofty a head;
Content and sweet cheerfulness open our door,
They smile with the simple, and feed with the poor.

When love has possess❜d us, that love we reveal;
Like the flocks that we feed, or the passions we feel;
So harmless, so simple, we sport and we play,
And leave to fine folks, to deceive and betray."

BOILEAU'S VILLA AT AUTEUIL.

ONE of the most celebrated villages in the environs of Paris is Auteuil, situated at the entrance of the Bois de Boulogne: owing to the pleasant situation of this place and its vicinity to the capital, to the Bois de Boulogne, and to the high road from Paris to Versailles and St. Cloud, many villages have, from time to time, been erected there. Some of these houses have been inhabited by celebrated persons, such as Boileau, Molière, La Chapelle, Franklin, Condorcet, Helvetius, and Rousseau.

The most remarkable of these villas is that where Boileau resided, which is still to be seen near the church in the road to St. Cloud. Here the legislator of the French Parnassus commonly passed the summer, and took delight in assembling under his roof the most celebrated geniuses of his age-especially La Chapelle, Racine, Molière, and La Fontaine. When he invited these writers to dine with him, literature furnished the chief topic of conversation. Chapellain's "Pucelle" commonly lay upon the table, and whoever made a grammatical error in speaking, was obliged, by way of punishment, to read a passage from that work. Racine the

younger gives the following account of a droll circumstance, which occurred at a supper at Auteuil, with the above-mentioned literati : ~" At this supper, at which my father was not present, the sage Boileau was no more master of himself than any of his guests. After the wine had led them into the gravest train of moralizing, they agreed that life was but a state of misery; that the greatest happiness consisted in having never been born, and the next greatest in an early death; and finally, they formed the romantic resolution of throwing themselves, without loss of time, into the river. Accordingly, the river not being far distant, they actually went thither. Molière, however, remarked that such a noble and heroic action ought not to be buried in the obscurity of night; but was worthy to be performed in the open day. This observation produced a pause; they looked on each other, and said he is right.''Gentlemen,' said Chapelle, we had better wait till the morning to throw ourselves into the water, and, meanwhile, we will return home to finish our wine.' This anecdote has been brought upon the stage, by Andrieux, in a piece entitled • Molière and his friends at the supper at Auteuil.'"

One of Boileau's favourite amusements at "This game,"

Auteuil was, playing at skittles.

says the younger Racine," he plays with an extraordinary skill. I have repeatedly seen him knock down all the nine pins at a single throw." "It cannot be denied," said Boileau, (speaking of himself,) " that I possess two distinguished talents, both equally useful to mankind-the one, that I can play well at skittles; the other, that I can write good verses."

Boileau was advanced in years when he found himself necessitated to sell his villa at Auteuil, a circumstance which not a little tended to embitter the remaining part of his life. "You shall be as much at home as ever in your own villa," said Monsieur Le Verier, who purchased it of him; " and I beg that you will retain an apartment, and come very often to stay in it.” Boileau, a few days after, really went to this residence, walked about the garden, and missed an arbour which had afforded the most pleasing associations. "What is become of my arbour?” exclaimed the indignant bard, to Antoine, the gardener, whom he has celebrated in his Epistles. "Mons. Le Verier ordered it to be cut down,” replied Antoine. "What have I to do here?"

continued Boileau,-" here! where I am no longer master?" He mounted into his carriage, and quickly returned to Paris, and never afterwards beheld his Tivoli.

Gendron, the celebrated physician, in the sequel became the proprietor of Boileau's villa. Voltaire, when he paid him his first visit there, complimented him in the following clever impromptu :

"C'est ici le vrai Parnasse

Des vrais enfans d'Apollon;

Sous le nom de BOILEAU Ces lieux virent Horace,
Esculape y paroit sous celui de GENDRON."

KÖRNER.

CHARLES THEODORE KörnER, the celebrated young German Poet and Soldier, was killed in a skirmish with a detachment of French troops, on the 26th August, 1813, a few hours after the composition of his popular piece, "The Sword Song." This he composed during the halt of his regiment, in a forest not far from Rosenberg. In the glimmering dawn of the morning of the 26th, he noted it down in his pocket-book, and was reading it out to a friend, when the signal for the onset was given.

The engagement took place on the road which