Part 13 (2/2)

Away with those fictions of flimsy romance!

Those tissues of falsehood which folly has wove!

Give me the mild beam of the soul-breathing glance, Or the rapture which dwells on the first kiss of love.

Ye rhymers, whose bosoms with phantasy glow, Whose pastoral pa.s.sions are made for the grove, From what blest inspiration your sonnets would flow, Could you ever have tasted the first kiss of love!

I hate you, ye cold compositions of art; Though prudes may condemn me, and bigots reprove, I court the effusions that spring from the heart Which throbs with delight to the first kiss of love.

Oh! cease to affirm that man, since his birth, From Adam till now, has with wretchedness strove; Some portion of paradise still is on earth, And Eden revives in the first kiss of love.

When age chills the blood, when our pleasures are past-- For years fleet away with the wings of the dove-- The dearest remembrance will still be the last, Our sweetest memorial the first kiss of love.

THE DEATH OF CLEOPATRA.

_See Frontispiece._

The Princess of antiquity, most renowned for her personal charms, was in her unrivalled beauty, her mental perfections, her weaknesses, and the unhappy conclusion of an amorous existence the counterpart of the most beautiful queen of later times, the unfortunate Mary of Scotland.

Cleopatra was the daughter of Ptolemy Auletes, king of Egypt. She was early given to wife to her own brother, Ptolemy Dionysius, and ascended the throne conjointly with him, on the death of their father. It was doubtless the policy of the kingdom thus to preserve all the royal honors in one family--the daughter being the queen, as well as the son king of the country. But her ambitious and intriguing spirit, restrained by no ties of reciprocal love to her husband, who was also her brother, sought for means to burst a union at once unnatural and galling: and the opportunity at length arrived. Julius Caesar, the conqueror of the world, having pursued the defeated Pompey into Egypt, there beheld Cleopatra in the zenith of her beauty; and he before whose power the whole world was kneeling, prostrated himself before a pretty woman. The following is the account of her first introduction to Caesar, as given by the historian.

It shows that she had no maidenly scruples as to the mode of attaining her ends.

Her intrigues to become sole monarch, had made her husband-brother banish her from the capital. Hearing of the arrival of Caesar, she got into a small boat, with only one male friend, and in the dusk of the evening made for the palace where Caesar as well as her husband lodged.

As she saw it difficult to enter it undiscovered by her husband's friends, she rolled herself up in a carpet. Her companion tied her up at full length like a bale of goods, and carried her in at the gates to Caesar's apartments. This stratagem of hers, which was a strong proof of her wit and ingenuity, is said to have first opened her way to Caesar's heart, and her conquest advanced rapidly by the charms of her speech and person. The genius of Shakspeare has well depicted the power of her beauty at this time. He makes her to say, at a later period of life, when chagrined at the expected desertion of another lover,--

”Broad-fronted Caesar!

When thou wast here above the ground, I was A morsel for a monarch: And great Pompey Would stand, and make his eyes grow in my brow; There would he fix his longing gaze, and die With looking on his life.”

But Cleopatra, who was not less remarkable for her cunning than for her beauty, knowing that Caesar was resolved to be gratified at whatever cost, determined that the price should be a round one: the terms of his admission to her arms, were that Caesar should expel her brother from the kingdom, and give the crown to her; which Caesar complied with. Cleopatra had a son by Caesar called Caesarion.

In the civil wars which distracted the Roman empire after the death of Caesar, Cleopatra supported Brutus, against Antony and Octavius. Antony, in his expedition to Parthia, summoned her to appear before him. She arrayed herself in the most magnificent apparel, and appeared before her judge in the most captivating attire. Though somewhat older than when she drew Caesar to her arms, her charms were still conspicuous;

”Age could not wither her, nor custom stale Her infinite variety. Other women cloy The appet.i.te they feed. But she made hungry Where most she satisfied.”

Her artifice on this occasion succeeded; Antony became enamoured of her, and publicly married her, although his wife the sister of Octavius was living. He gave Cleopatra the greater part of the eastern provinces of the Roman empire. This behaviour was the cause of a rupture between Octavius and Antony; and these two celebrated generals met in battle at Actium, where Cleopatra, by flying with sixty sail of vessels, ruined the interest of Antony, and he was defeated. Cleopatra had retired to Egypt, where soon after Antony followed her. Antony stabbed himself upon the false information that Cleopatra was dead; and as his wound was not mortal, he was carried to the queen, who drew him up by a cord from one of the windows of the monument, where she had retired and concealed herself.

Antony soon after died of his wounds, and Cleopatra, after she had received pressing invitations from Octavius, and even pretended declarations of love, destroyed herself by the bite of an asp, not to fall into the conqueror's hands. She had previously attempted to stab herself, and had once made a resolution to starve herself. But the means by which she destroyed herself, is said to produce the easiest of deaths: the Asp is a small serpent found near the river Nile, so delicate that it may be concealed in a fig; and when presented to the vitals of the body, its bite is so deadly as to render medical skill useless, while at the same time it is so painless, that the victim fancies herself dropping into a sweet slumber, instead of the arms of death. So Cleopatra, while she is applying the venomous reptile to her bosom, (as represented in the Frontispiece,) is supposed to use language like the following,--

”Dost thou not see my baby at my breast, That sucks the nurse asleep?”

Thus, after having chained in her embrace the two greatest generals that the Roman empire had produced, Julius Caesar and Mark Antony, at the periods when they were respectively arbiters of the world's fate, perished Cleopatra by her own hand.

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