the French Poets and Novelists. 6 1 3 



So that amid the visions of to-night 



No horrors break upon my mental sight. 



Wherefore anticipate the hour when you 



To him you reared must breathe a long adieu? 



Alas ! full soon, already far too near, 



Will come that hour, despite of sigh and tear ; 



And then may God support thee, then from heaven 



May resignation to your soul be given ; 



And thou shalt see me enter on the race 



That God marks for me, with a smiling face. 



Sleep ! and when morning beams on all around, 



At your bed-side shall Jocelyn be found; 



And if one tear of bitterness betray 



Our inward grief, Heaven wipe the drop away 1' " 



(Page 61.) 



And Jocelyn departed ; and as he turned away from the maternal 

 mansion, his tears fell profusely. Thus concludes the diary of the 

 first epoch. 



The date at the commencement of the second epoch, and the intro- 

 ductory lines, injjprm us that six years have passed away since the era 

 of Jocelyn's departure from the maternal dwelling. These six years 

 have been spent in a religious seminary, in solitary tranquillity and 

 sombre peace. The revolution now rages in all its fury, and the 

 fertile plains of France are covered with blood. Jocelyn's mother 

 and sister, and that fair sister's husband, quitted their disastrous 

 country at the commencement of the civil tumult ; and Jocelyn him- 

 self is obliged to fly from the persecuting hand that has thus exiled 

 his family, and seek shelter in Dauphiny. He falls in with an old 

 hermit, who kindly takes compassion upon him, and conducts him to 

 the " Eagle's Grotto," a cave situated amidst the almost impervious 

 recesses of the windings of the Alps. It is surrounded by an im- 

 mense gulf: the only communication with the main land, as it were, 

 from this island, (for such appellations are appropriate to the localities 

 M. de Lamartine beautifully describes,) is an immense arched bridge 

 of ice, which frowns over the abyss beneath, and rears its lofty curve 

 high in the air, so that none could possibly imagine its competency 

 to afford so practicable a thoroughfare. 



For some time Jocelyn lived contentedly in his forlorn retreat, 

 without ever crossing the tremendous bridge of communication. At 

 length one morning he ventured to reconnoitre the lands on the other 

 side of the gulf. This is an era marked by a circumstance which 

 formed an important feature in the life of Jocelyn, and gave him a 

 companion in his exile. 



An individual, outlawed by the government for political offences, 

 had taken refuge amongst the Alps, and was pursued by two military 

 emissaries sent in search of proscribed fugitives. The unfortunate 

 individual was accompanied by his son, a youth of fifteen or sixteen, 

 and as they ran along the edge of the gulf the soldiers prepared 

 to fire. Jocelyn, on the cavern side of the abyss, unmindful of his 

 own danger, made a sign to the fugitives, and pointed towards the 

 bridge that might lead them to security. The outlaw and his son 

 arrived at the middle of the curved mass of ice Jocelyn received 



