Extract of a Letter relative to the Death of Voltaire, and that M. de Voltaire has just terminated his long career amid the honours paid to him by Parisian enthusiasm. He was crowned at the Theatre Français, at the close of the representation of his Irene, a tragedy which savours strongly of the chilled age when he wrote it. On quitting the theatre, he was surrounded by the minor poets, who demanded, on their knees, the honour of kissing his hands. This excess of enthusiasm, which was very ridiculous, became still more absurd on his reaching the house of Mr Franklin, who fell on his knees, and asked a blessing of him for his young nephew. The excruciating pains felt by M. de Voltaire led him to ask a remedy of his friend M. D. Richelieu, who laboured under the same complaint. The latter sent him opium, the remedy to which he had himself had recourse; and by its abuse he was poisoned. In his latest moments, he expressed a wish to consult M. Tronchin, of whom, however, he did not entertain the most favourable opinion, and treated him as a quack, his art as imposture, &c. Exasperated at these insults, M. Tronchin told him, with much gravity, that, at the most, he had not more than two hours to live, and that therefore it behoved him to see to his affairs. On this observation he was desired to withdraw. M. de Voltaire now raised himself on his bed, with the help of his nurse and of his notary. The latter having handled him somewhat roughly, received a cuff, the force of which led him to enter his protest against the prognostic of the doctor. As soon as he was recovered from the disorder into which the awkwardness of the notary had thrown him, he said to himself, "At length I am to die. Be it so; but let my end be conformable to my life. It is more than probable that my body will be deposited in the Chantier (timber-yard) of Maurapas, where the ashes of La Couvreur repose. Forty years ago she would not permit me to sleep with her, but she will now be constrained to endure me at her side." He was Adicu, mes amis, I have not heard that he has as yet had an epitaph bestowed on him, unless the ines which have been handed about, and which are quite in the epigrammatic style, are to be considered as such. De Voltaire admirez la bizarre planette: The latter is a young Swiss lady, of whom he was greatly enamoured, and whom he had married to M. de Villette." Jean Jacques Rousseau has rendered his end singularly interesting by the memoirs of his life, in which he has made an exact avowal of all his actions. These memoirs are comprised in an octavo volume, which sells at a most extravagant price. It is even said that copies have been purchased at as high a rate as eighty livres, (more than three guineas,) and from that to twenty-five. The dearness of the book arises from the vigilance of the police, and from its interest-for M. Rousseau has developed in it the intrigue of his novel. It is as follows: His Julie is Mademoiselle de Montmorency, married to a French nobleman, whose name I have not been able to learn, and whom he styles Madame Wolmar. This unfortunate female has been long dead; and it is said by several persons who were acquainted with Rousseau, that from that time he became unsocial and mis * A celebrated actress, denied, with all those of her profession in the Catholic states, Christian burial. These details were given by M. Mercier, who was present when M. de Voltaire breathed his last. THE SNOW STORM. ""Tis only from the belief of the goodness and wisdom of a Supreme Being, that our calamities can be borne in that manner which becomes a man.”—HENRY MACKENZIE. that modify or constitute the existence of the poor. IN Summer there is beauty in the wildest moors of Scotland, and the wayfaring man who sits down for an hour's rest beside some little spring that flows unheard through the brightened moss and water-cresses, feels his weary heart revived by the silent, serene, and solitary prospect. On every side sweet sunny spots of verdure smile towards him from among the melancholy heather-unexpectedly in the solitude a stray sheep, it may be with its lambs, starts halfalarmed at his motionless figure-insects large, bright, and beautiful come careering by him through the desert air-nor does the Wild want its own songsters, the grey linnet, fond of the blooming furze, and now and then the lark mounting up to heaven above the summits of the green pastoral hills. During such a sunshiny hour, the lonely cottage on the waste seems to stand in a paradise; and as he rises to pursue his journey, the traveller looks back and blesses it with a mingled emotion of delight and envy. There, thinks he, abide the children of Innocence and Contentment, the two most benign spirits that watch over human life. But other thoughts arise in the mind of him who may chance to journey through the same scene in the desolation of Winter. The cold bleak sky girdles the moor as with a belt of ice-life is frozen in air and on earth. The silence is not of repose but extinction—and should a solitary human dwelling catch his eye half-buried in the snow, he is sad for the sake of them whose destiny it is to abide far from the cheerful haunts of men, shrouded up in melancholy, by poverty held in thrall, or pining away in unvisited and untended disease. But, in good truth, the heart of human life is but imperfectly discovered from its countenance; and before we can know what the summer, or what the winter yields for enjoyment or trial to our country's peasantry, we must have conversed with them in their fields and by their firesides; and made ourselves acquainted with the powerful ministry of the Seasons, not over those objects alone that feed the eye and the imagination, but over all the incidents, occupations, and events I have a short and simple story to tell of the winter-life of the moorland cottager-a story but of one evening with few events and no signal catastrophe-but which may haply please those hearts whose delight it is to think on the humble under-plots that are carrying on in the great Drama of Life. Two cottagers, husband and wife, were sitting by their cheerful peatfire one winter evening, in a small lonely hut on the edge of a wide moor, at some miles distance from any other habitation. There had been, at one time, several huts of the same kind erected close together, and inhabited by families of the poorest class of daylabourers who found work among the distant farms, and at night returned to dwellings which were rent-free, with their little gardens won from the waste. But one family after another had dwindled away, and the turf-built huts had all fallen into ruins, except one that had always stood in the centre of this little solitary village, with its summer-walls covered with the richest honeysuckles, and in the midst of the brightest of all the gardens. It alone now sent up its smoke into the clear winter sky-and its little endwindow, now lighted up, was the only ground star that shone towards the belated traveller, if any such ventured to cross, on a winter night, a scene so dreary and desolate. The affairs of the small household were all arranged for the night. The little rough poney that had drawn in a sledge, from the heart of the Black-Moss, the fuel by whose blaze the cotters were now sitting cheerily, and the little Highland cow, whose milk enabled them to live, were standing amicably together, under cover of a rude shed, of which one side was formed by the peat-stack, and which was at once byre, and stable, and hen-roost. Within, the clock ticked cheerfully as the fire-light reached its old oak-wood case across the yellow-sanded floor-and a small round table stood between, covered with a snow-white cloth, on which were milk and oat-cakes, the morning, mid-day, and evening meal of these frugal and contented cotters. The spades and the mattocks of the labourer were collected into one corner, and showed that the succeeding day was the blessed Sabbath-while on the wooden chimney-piece was seen lying an open Bible ready for family worship. The father and the mother were sitting together without opening their lips, but with their hearts overflowing with happiness, for on this Saturday-night they were, every minute, expecting to hear at the latch the hand of their only daughter, a maiden of about fifteen years, who was at service with a farmer over the hills. This dutiful child was, as they knew, to bring home to them "her sair worn penny fee," a pittance which, in the beauty of her girl-hood, she earned singing at her work, and which, in the benignity of that sinless time, she would pour with tears into the bosoms she so dearly loved. Forty shillings a-year were all the wages of sweet Hannah Lee-but though she wore at her labour a tortoise-shell comb in her auburn hair, and though in the kirk none were more becomingly arrayed than she, one half, at least, of her earnings were to be reserved for the holiest of all purposes, and her kind innocent heart was gladdened when she looked on the little purse that was, on the long-expected Saturday-night, to be taken from her bosom, and put, with a blessing, into the hand of her father, now growing old at his daily toils. Of such a child the happy cotters were thinking in their silence. And well indeed might they be called happy. It is at that sweet season that filial piety is most beautiful. Their own Hannah had just outgrown the mere unthinking gladness of childhood, but had not yet reached that time, when inevitable selfishness mixes with the pure current of love. She had begun to think on what her af fectionate heart had felt so long; and when she looked on the pale face and bending frame of her mother, on the deepening wrinkles and whitening hairs of her father, often would she lie weeping for their sakes on her midnight bed-and wish that she were beside them as they slept, that she might kneel down and kiss them, and mention their names over and over again in her prayer. The parents whom before she had only loved, her expanding heart now also venerated. With gushing tenderness was now mingled a holy fear and an awful reverence. She had discerned the relation in which she an only child stood to her poor parents now that they were getting old, and there was not a passage in Scripture that spake of parents or of children, from Joseph sold into slavery, to Mary weeping below the Cross, that was not written, never to be obliterated, on her uncorrupted heart. The father rose from his seat, and went to the door to look out into the night. The stars were in thousands -and the full moon was risen. It was almost light as day, and the snow, that seemed encrusted with diamonds, was so hardened by the frost, that his daughter's homeward feet would leave no mark on its surface. He had been toiling all day among the distant Castle-woods, and, stiff and wearied as he now was, he was almost tempted to go to meet his child—but his wife's kind voice dissuaded him, and returning to the fireside, they began to talk of her whose image had been so long passing before them in their silence. Aye, "She is growing up to be a bonny lassie," said the mother, "her long and weary attendance on me during my fever last spring kept her down awhile-but now she is sprouting fast and fair as a lily, and may the blessing of God be as dew and as sunshine to our sweet flower all the days she bloometh upon this earth." Agnes," replied the father, we are not very old yet-though we are getting older-and a few years will bring her to woman's estate, and what thing on this earth, think ye, human or brute, would ever think of injuring her Why, I was speaking about her yesterday to the minister as he was riding by, and he told me that none answered at the Examination in the Kirk so well as Hannah. Poor thingI well think she has all the bible by heart-indeed, she has read but little else only some stories, too true ones, of the blessed martyrs, and some o the auld sangs o' Scotland, in which there is nothing but what is good, and which, to be sure, she sings, God bless her, sweeter than any laverock." "Aye -were we both to die this very night she would be happy. Not that she would forget us, all the days of her life. But have you not seen, husband, that God always makes the orphan happy? None so little lonesome as they! They come to make friends o' all the bonny and sweet things in the world around them, and all the kind hearts in the world make friends o' them. They come to know that God is more especially the father o' them on earth whose parents he has taken up to heaven and therefore it is that they for whom so many have fears, fear not at all for themselves, but go dancing and singing along like children whose parents are both alive! Would it not be so with our dear Hannah? So douce and thoughtful a child-but never sad nor miserable -ready it is true to shed tears for little, but as ready to dry them up and break out into smiles! I know not why it is, husband, but this night my heart warms toward her beyond usual. The moon and stars are at this moment looking down upon her, and she looking up to them, as she is glinting homewards over the snow. I wish she were but here, and taking the comb out of her bonny hair and letting it all fall down in clusters before the fire, to melt away the cranreuch!" While the parents were thus speaking of their daughter, a loud sugh of wind came suddenly over the cottage, and the leafless ash-tree under whose shelter it stood, creaked and groaned dismally as it passed by. The father started up, and going again to the door, saw that a sudden change had come over the face of the night. The moon had nearly disappeared, and was just visible in a dim, yellow, glimmering den in the sky. All the remote stars were obscured, and only one or two faintly seemed in a sky that half-anhour before was perfectly cloudless, but that was now driving with rack, and mist, and sleet, the whole atmosphere being in commotion. He stood for a single moment to observe the direction of this unforeseen storm, and then hastily asked for his staff. "I thought I had been more weatherwise-A storm is coming down from the Cairnbrae-hawse, and we shall have nothing but a wild night." He then whistled on his dog-an old sheepdog, too old for its former laboursand set off to meet his daughter, who might then, for ought he knew, be crossing the Black-moss. The mother accompanied her husband to the door, and took a long frightened look at the angry sky. As she kept gazing, it became still more terrible. The last shred of blue was extinguished-the wind went whirling in roaring eddies, and great flakes of snow circled about in the middle air, whether drifted up from the ground, or driven down from the clouds, the fear-stricken mother knew not, but she at least knew, that it seemed a night of danger, despair, and death. "Lord have mercy on us, James, what will become of our poor bairn!" But her husband heard not her words, for he was already out of sight in the snow-storm, and she was left to the terror of her own soul in that lonesome cottage. Little Hannah Lee had left her master's house, soon as the rim of the great moon was seen by her eyes, that had been long anxiously watching it from the window, rising, like a joyful dream, over the gloomy mountain-tops; and all by herself she tripped along beneath the beauty of the silent heaven. Still as she kept ascending and descending the knolls that lay in the bosom of the glen, she sung to herself a song, a hymn, or a psalm, without the accompaniment of the streams, now all silent in the frost; and ever and anon she stopped to try to count the stars that lay in some more beautiful part of the sky, or gazed on the constellations that she knew, and called them, in her joy, by the names they bore among the shepherds. There were none to hear her voice, or see her smiles, but the ear and eye of providence. As on she glided, and took her looks from heaven, she saw her own little fireside-her parents waiting for her arrival-the bible opened for worship-her own little room kept so neatly for her, with its mirror hanging by the window, in which to braid her hair by the morning light-her bed prepared for her by her mother's hand-the primroses in her garden peeping through the snow-old Tray, who ever welcomed her home with his dim white eyesthe poney and the cow;-friends all, and inmates of that happy household. So stepped she along, while the snowdiamonds glittered around her feet, and the frost wove a wreath of lucid pearls around her forehead. She had now reached the edge of the Black-moss, which lay half way between her master's and her father's dwelling, when she heard a loud noise coming down Glen-Scrae, and in a few in some quiet nook among the pastoral hills. But now there was to be an end of all this, she was to be frozen to death-and lie there till the thaw might come; and then her father would find her body, and carry it away to be buried in the kirk-yard. seconds she felt on her face some flakes of snow. She looked up the glen, and saw the snow-storm coming down, fast as a flood. She felt no fears; but she ceased her song; and had there been a human eye to look upon her there, it might have seen a shadow on her face. She continued her course, and felt bolder and bolder every step that brought her nearer to her parents' house. But the snow storm had now reached the Black-moss, and the broad line of light that had lain in the direc tion of her home, was soon swallowed up, and the child was in utter darkness. She saw nothing but the flakes of snow, interminably intermingled, and furiously wafted in the air, close" I will repeat the Lord's Prayer." to her head; she heard nothing but one wild, fierce, fitful howl. The cold became intense, and her little feet and hands were fast being benumbed into insensibility. a "It is a fearful change," muttered the child to herself, but still she did not fear, for she had been born in moorland cottage, and lived all her days among the hardships of the hills. "What will become of the poor sheep," thought she,-but still she scarcely thought of her own danger, for innocence, and youth, and joy, are slow to think of aught evil befalling themselves, and thinking benignly of all living things, forget their own fear in their pity of others' sorrow. At last, she could no longer discern a single mark on the snow, either of human steps, or of sheep-track, or the footprint of a wild-fowl. Suddenly, too, she felt out of breath and exhausted,and shedding tears for herself at last, sank down in the snow. It was now that her heart began to quake with fear. She remembered stories of shepherds lost in the snow,of a mother and child frozen to death on that very moor,-and, in a moment, she knew that she was to die. Bitterly did the poor child weep, for death was terrible to her, who, though poor, enjoyed the bright little world of youth and innocence. The skies of heaven were dearer than she knew to her, so were the flowers of earth. She had been happy at her work, happy in her sleep,-happy in the kirk on Sabbath. A thousand thoughts had the solitary child, and in her own heart was a spring of happiness, pure and undisturbed as any fount that sparkles unseen all the year through The tears were frozen on her cheeks as soon as shed, and scarcely had her little hands strength to clasp themselves together, as the thought of an over-ruling and merciful Lord came across her heart. Then, indeed, the fears of this religious child were calmed, and she heard without terror the plover's wailing cry, and the deep boom of the bittern sounding in the moss. And drawing her plaid more closely around her, she whispered, beneath its ineffectual cover; "Our father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, -thy kingdom come,-thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." Had human aid been within fifty yards, it could have been of no avail-eye could not see her-ear could not hear her in that howling darkness. But that low prayer was heard in the centre of eternity,-and that little sinless child was lying in the snow, beneath the all-seeing eye of God. The maiden having prayed to her Father in Heaven-then thought of her father on earth. Alas! they were not far separated! The father was lying but a short distance from his child;-he too had sunk down in the drifting snow, after having, in less than an hour, exhausted all the. strength of fear, pity, hope, despair, and resignation, that could rise in a father's heart blindly seeking to rescue his only child from death, thinking that one desperate exertion might enable them to perish in each other's arms. There they lay, within a stone's throw of each other, while a huge snow-drift was every moment piling itself up into a more insurmountable barrier between the dying parent and his dying child. There was all this while a blazing fire in the cottage-a white spread table-and beds prepared for the fa'mily to lie down in peace. Yet was she who sat therein more to be pitied than the old man and the child stretched upon the snow. "I will not go to seek them-that would be tempting providence and wilfully putting out the lamp of life. No! I will abide |