She threw me but one careless sunny glance,
  Like summer lightning from the brow of Night
Flashing upon the watcher's countenance;
  Only a stranger's glance, but full of light;
She flung it freely, as the laughing brook
  Flings its spray on the grateful flowers that twine
Their arms round its green banks, and, in that look,
  Some precious sunlight flashed from her soul into mine.

I thought that, of the gallants standing by,
  Who ministered to her most faint desire,
There was not one who loved her more than I,
  Or in whose breast her glance would kindle fire
More glowing than in mine: yet they could stand
  Around her form, and laugh with merry glee;
Whilst I might never touch that snowy hand,
  Nor hear that gentle voice but once addressed to me.

Of me the world may say, "His mind is weak;
  He wasted his love on one he will not know,
And stands apart, and never dares to speak,
  And then in verses vents his idle woe."
I tell you that to hope to write a line
  Which might exalt to love one breast beside,
Or gain one thought from nobler heart than mine,
  Were more than if I wooed, and won her for a bride.

And not for her alone am I content
  With earnest zeal to set myself apart,
For love's requital, ere my youth be spent,
  Subduing all the longings of my heart;
But for all beauty which has won my love,
  For some who only think of me with scorn,
And some who now are angel-forms above,
  I choose this lonely path the world may deem forlorn.

Content unknown to love a noble band
  Of radiant forms, scattered I know not where,
Who still, by night, illume sleep's shadowy land
  With glances full of light through golden hair;
And, like the spider, who demands no leave
  In palace chambers its fine net to frame,
The web of my affections thus to weave
  About some gentle hearts who never knew my name.

ROYAL TREASURES.

THE word Treasury had, during the Middle
Ages, a very different significance from that
which it conveys at present. The place was
not then, as now, a mere office for the
transaction of business, but one of actual deposit
for the most precious objects belonging to
royalty. Whatever coined money the
monarch possessed was, of course, bestowed
in safety there ; but it also contained his
regal ornaments, his wardrobe, the jewels
with which he decked his person, the rich
tapestry that adorned his palaces, the vessels
of gold and silver that glittered at his
banquets, —everything, in short, that had a real,
tangible value. Being without public securities,
wherein to invest the wealth of the
State (or, we had better say, his own), the
Sovereign laid out all the money not wanted
for war or pleasure, in the costliest things
that could be found, as much because such
purchases were his best mode of investment,
as because he liked to have the things
themselves. Nothing came amiss in these royal
collections, there being scarcely an article in
them that, apart from the fashion in which it
was designed, or the uses to which it was
destined, was not of some intrinsic value, — a
value upon which, in case of necessity, money
might be immediately raised.

Although deficient, for its extent, in one
important feature, and not comparable for
the magnificence of its jewels and plate to
the treasures contained in the Green Vault
of the royal palace at Dresden, or in the
imperial jewel-office (Schatz-kammer) at
Vienna, few public collections give so
complete an idea of what constituted the wealth
of a royal treasury as the cabinets in the
galleries of the Louvre at Paris ; those cabinets
which are, for the most part, passed over
with little more than the cursory glance
that people in general bestow upon a shop
full of bric-â-brac ; yet there is a great deal
at once curious and interesting to be learnt
from them, and by the aid of a very useful
work published in Paris about three years
since, by M. de Laborde, the Keeper of the
Middle Age collections in the great French
museum (Notice des Emaux, Bijoux, et Objets
divers, exposés dans les galeries du Musée
du Louvre), we may acquire, even without a
visit, a very good notion of their contents.

The deficiency to which I have alluded,
consists in the absence of any large quantity
of the enamelled work and jewellery for
which the Paris goldsmiths of the thirteenth
and fourteenth centuries were celebrated.
The greater part of their elaborate handiwork
has disappeared in the crucible, and,
with the exception of a small number of rare
objects, the Louvre collection may be said to
consist only — but then in a most beautiful
and complete manner — of ornaments not
anterior to the sixteenth century. Wanting
the identical objects which gave so much
character to the luxury of the most artistical
period of the Middle Ages, M. de Laborde
consoles himself by reproducing the Inventory
of the jewels of Louis of France, Duke
of Anjou, which was drawn up by the hand
of that prince about the year thirteen
hundred and sixty-six, and enumerates nearly a
thousand different articles, in gold, silver,
and enamel, — diamonds, emeralds, sapphires,
rubies, crystals, fashioned and set in every
variety of form, and of almost inappreciable
value. A great deal of plunder must have
fallen in the way of Louis of Anjou, besides
the goods and chattels which he legitimately
acquired, during a career which did not
extend beyond five and forty years ; but, with
opportunity a prince "that way inclined"
could do much, and there are some points about
his character which lead one to believe that
he was not an over scrupulous person.

The Duke of Anjou was the second son of
John the Good, King of France, by Bonne of
Luxembourg, the daughter of that brave, blind