REBECCA HARDING DAVIS.

A DEAD LOVE.

  O Rose! within my bloomy croft,
    Where hidden sweets compacted dwell,
  The wanton wind with breathings soft,
    To perfect flower thy bud shall swell,
      Then steal thy rich perfume,
      Tarnish both grace and bloom,
  Until, thy pearly prime being past,
  Withered and dead thou’lt lie at last.

  O gleaming Night! whose cloudy hair
    Waves dark amid its woven light,
  Bestudded thick with jewels rare,
    Than royal diadem more bright,
      Lo! the white hands of Day
      Shall strip thy gauds away,
  And in the twilight of the morn
  Mock thy estate with cold-eyed scorn.

  My love, O Rose! hath had a day
    As fair, a fate as quick, as thine: 
  All wrapped in perfumed sleep I lay
    Till my fond fancies grew divine,
      And sweet Elysium seemed
      Around me as I dreamed. 
  The rose is dead, the dawn comes fast: 
  Joy dies, but grief awakes at last.

  F.A.  HILLARD.

GENTILHOMME AND GENTLEMAN.

“Le dernier gentilhomme de France vient de mourir!” exclaimed the Figaro a short time ago when recording the death of the Count de Cambis.  But the announcement has been made so often during the last century that we are led to hope that the race may not be extinct yet.  Every generation of Frenchmen has boasted the possession of its “first” and lamented the loss of its “last” “gentilhomme de France,” and on each occasion have hasty English journalists of the day joined both in the glorification and the lamentation over the individuals thus commemorated by their own countrymen.  The term “gentilhomme” is so liable to be confounded with “gentleman” that it needs explaining, for, despite the similarity of derivation, no two words can be more distinct.  The French gentilhomme must be of noble blood:  he must be of ancient and distinguished race, for no nouveau parvenu can ever aspire to be cited as a vrai gentilhomme, while the qualifications necessary for sustaining the character seem to be wholly confined to the one virtue of generosity.  Whenever you hear it said of a man, “Il s’est conduit en vrai gentilhomme,” be sure that it means no more than that he performed a simple act of justice in a courteous and graceful manner.  The sacred and self-imposed qualities which make up the significance of the English word “gentleman” no Frenchman, nor indeed any foreigner, can understand, and the word itself is never translated, but always left in its original English.  Bulwer defines the appellation more clearly than any other author when he says, “The word gentleman has become a title peculiar to us—­not, as in other countries, resting on pedigree and coats-of-arms, but embracing all who unite gentleness with manhood.”