140 Stephensiuna, No. XI, 
ON THE FALLING LEAP. 
How dubious hangs the tender leaf, 
When Autumn shakes the sceptre near, 
It seems to sigh, it seems to weep, 
‘And pray her yet awhile to spare, 
Its little form, so near undone 
Before it feels the dreaded blow ; 
So man, whose course is almost run, 
Moves tottering o’er the grave below, 
STEPHENSIANA. 
No. XI. 
[Sept. 1, 
When life is scarcely worth a breath, 
Whose nerves are tremlous and decay’d, 
Doth supplicate the monster Death 
Longer to spare his scythe’s red blade. 
The Leaf falls down, is seenno more, 
By winds far driven to its lot ; 
Man sinks within th’ appointed shore, 
To all but greedy worms forgot. 
The late ALEXANDER STEPHENS, Esq. of Park House, Chelsea, devoted an uclive and 
well-spent life in the collection of Anecdotes of his contemporaries, and generally entered in a 
book the collections of the passing day ;—these collections we hare purchased, and propose to 
present a selection from them to our readers. As Editor of the Annual Obituary, and many 
other biographical works, the Author may probably have incorporated many of these scraps ; 
but the greater part are unpublished, and all stand alone as cabinet pictures of men and 
manners, worthy of a place in a literary miscellany. 
= 
MARSHAL GROUCHY. 
HEN I was at Paris I was in- 
troduced to Count Volney, 
whom I found to be a most amiable 
and respectable man, but, like all the 
republicans, strongly opposed to Na- 
poleon. Through him I became ac- 
quainted with Colonel Corbet, of an 
Irish family, and aide-de-camp to 
Marshal Marmont, the very person 
who was employed by that Marshal to 
negociate with Alexander, when the 
Allies made their forced march on Pa- 
ris in 1814. Marmont could have de- 
fended the capital, but an opportunity 
seemed to present itself, through 
Alexander, of getting rid of Napoleon, 
and establishing a free government. 
The specious assurances of Alexander 
on this head satisfied the parties, and 
Paris was surrendered; for no one 
then thought of a Bourbon party. In 
this connexion I met with Arthur 
O’Connor, who, though receiving a 
general’s pay from Napoleon, was full 
of discontent. He had married Ma- 
dame Condorcet’s daughter, and the 
' niece of Grouchy. ‘The family feel- 
ing, and that of their connexions, 
seemed to be in unison about Napo- 
leon; and I could not but consider it 
extraordinary that he so implicitly 
confided his last stake to the good 
faith of Grouchy. Perhaps the latter 
was not bribed, like others, with part 
of the thirty millions spent on a few 
weeks’ campaign ; but the coy spirit of 
republicanism was at the moment as 
fatal to France as the influence of 
money itself. 
No person who has been on the 
ground at Waterloo, whicb almost 
commands the view of the intervening 
; 2 
country to Wavres, can doubt that 
the right wing of Napoleon’s army, 
posted there, was treacherously para- 
lyzed by some parties, or by some in- 
fluence or other; while itis palpable 
that his manoeuvres and his attack on 
Wellington were founded on expected 
co-operation. It was weakly ima- 
gined by the republican party in 
France, that the Allies would not per- 
sist in forcing the Bourbons upon 
them, and that they might be left to 
establish a republic in the heart of 
Europe. The Bourbons rode, how- 
ever, into Paris in the rear of the Allied 
Army, assured of Youché, and other 
members of the Provisional Govern- 
ment; and the republicans fell into 
their own snare. 
CLIVE. 
Gord Clive was a man of great 
powers and gigantic ambition. After 
the battle of Plassy, as if nothing 
remained in India worth his grasp, he 
projected a new field of conquest in 
the remotest regions of Asia, and 
turned his eyes towards China, as one 
worthy of the British arms! 
QUEEN ELIZABETH. 
The late Duke of Chandos told Sir 
Robert ,a master in Chancery, that 
an ancestor of his was sub-governor 
of the Tower in Queen Mary’s reign ; 
and, during the time of the Princess 
(afterwards Queen) Elizabeth’s con- 
finement there, an order came to him, 
in all appearance signed by the Queen, 
for taking the Princess into the inner 
apartment of the Tower, and cutting 
off her head. On this Mr. Bridges 
disguised the messenger, and went di- 
rectly to court, desiring to speak with 
the Qucen; to whom he shewed the 
order, 
