Since trifles make the sum of human things, And half our misery from trifles springs, Since life’s best joys consist in peace and ease, And few can serve, or save, but all may please, Oh! let the ungentle spirit learn from hence, A small unkindness is a great offence! Large bounties to bestow, we wish in vain, But all may shun the guilt of giving pain. To bless mankind with tides of flowing wealth, With power to give them, or to crown with health, Our little lot denies.--But Heaven decrees To all the gift of minist’ring to ease! The gentle offerings of patient love, Beyond all flattery, and all praise above; The mild forbearance of another’s fault, The taunting word suppress’d as soon as thought; On these Heaven made the bliss of man depend, And crush’d misfortune, when it made a _friend_. A solitary blessing few can find: Our joys, with those we love, are intertwined. And he whose helpful tenderness removes Th’ obstructing thorn that wounds the breast he loves, Smooths not another’s rugged path alone, But scatters roses to adorn his own! ❦ So little resemblance in character was there between Margaret of Anjou, wife of Henry VI. and her father Renè, King of Sicily and Jerusalem, that it is related of him, that when the news of the loss of one of his kingdoms was brought to him, while he was engaged in painting a partridge from nature, he paid no attention to the communication, nor would he see the messenger till he had given the finishing strokes to his design. Renè’s compositions in music, are at this very time the delight of his native country, and indeed of Europe. He was the inventor of the Opera ballet; and the drama of _La Tentation_, lately revived with so much splendour at Paris in 1832, was originally composed by this Prince. The wild story is his own, and the delightful melodies his composition, which have been merely tamed and regulated by modern art. This Prince, adored for his beneficence by his people, who named him the “_Good_,” was scorned by the destructive nobles of his era as _fainéant_ and feeble-minded. After the death of his first wife, Isabella of Lorraine, he married Jeanne de Lovel. She was of so grave a character, that she was never known to laugh but once, at a pageant devised by her royal husband--namely, a boat filled with water-pipes, which played on every side, and completely drenched the spectators that did not use some agility in getting out of the way. Margaret’s elder sister, Yolente, survived her two years; she had a beautiful daughter called Margaret of Anjou the younger. Maria Louisa, Napoleon’s Empress, possessed the breviary of this Princess, in which there is one sentence supposed to have been written by the once beautiful, powerful, and admired Margaret, Queen of England, her aunt: “Vanité des vanités, tout est vanité.” ❦ _To Julia._