He now mus'd thus,-" When in the woods I dwell,
Following, like all around me, Adam's trade,
Some blithe high-mettled lass who just can spell,
Some bright-ey'd, loving-hearted miller's maid,
May prize my faith, and grace my wigwam well.
Yon dainty toys, so nurtur'd, so array'd
Fit helpmates they to cook a bison's hump,
And dish it on a rough-hewn maple-stump!

Hark! his own name, and coupled with a sneer!
A great hall pillar chanc'd to intervene
Between him and the speakers, but his ear,
Train'd prematurely, was awake and keen
As the wild Indian's which a leaf can hear
Rustling far off amid the forest green.
"You heard him, Isolde ? know him then by sight?
-An enfant perdu-a tète montée, quite."

"I heard him-heard the noble castigation

He gave that wretch, of whom Giles Overreach Were a faint type !-Dear Coz, discard a fashion Which, trust me, best were honour'd in the breach. I loathe the French court-cant; high English passion They travestie, because they cannot reach. His project's wild, but speaks no common man : Cromwell himself was bent on the same plan."

"They say he's here; comes he, as it should seem, Some Berkshire damsel-errant's faith to try, And lure to join him on his wild-goose scheme?" -"Kate, if I knew and lov'd him, that would I." -"How! this from Isolde Kenrick? sure I dreamYou whom our gallants call so cold and shy?" -"Let them; my heart is deeper than my locket, Which any simpleton might steal and pocket.

Kate, I don't know or like you, love, to-night; You're not yourself."-" Well then, the truth to say,

'Twas condradiction, with a spice of spite.

Poyntz, whose high nose turns up at vulgar clay, Made quite a speech on this his favour'd knight. Think of him warm'd, and carried quite away,

His dry, laconic Spanish courtship! he

Who ne'er vouchsafes a compliment to me !"

"Oh, Kate !"-Well, well, he loves me, I believe," (Here Walter's conscience half advis'd a move) "His friend, on whose affairs allow me leave

To say, you 're strangely curious grown, my love, Must be like you-(Isolde, I won't deceive,) A highflyer, with his head in clouds above, Just one of your own world-defying school; In fact, a noble creature,--and a fool.

Heavens, what a look! why all the Cynric blood Mounts to your cheek,—do I pronounce it right? Strange, that three centuries of our air and food

Should not have damp'd the wild Welsh spirit quite. Now, be a good girl-(nay, you're always good,) And I will sift that dear old Forde to-night,

The only one who knows his history here, 'Tis whisper'd, he was a known Cavalier."

"Nay, dearest, kindest, you mistake my drift." -"No; we all call you a confirm'd old maid Of three-and-twenty."-" Well, but don't say 'sift;' What can he be to me? yet sure some aidOur cousin Blundell-Ingoldsby-a shift

By their high interest surely might be made:
Then Poyntz, so much look'd up to, so sincere-
But he's too proud to stir a step, I fear.

"Kate do you understand me now, or not?"
-"Isolde,-I know you mean whate'er you say."
-"Oh, when we aim at good, no matter what,
Our sex's awkwardness stands in our way.
Smile if you please: but think, the hopeless lot
Of worth and talent crush'd by this foul play,
And doom'd to wither in those savage climes !
One's mad enough already with the times.

"No more; here come my torments." Walter now
Made a flank movement from his former place;
He thought at last to realize, somehow,

His favourite Shakspeare models of all grace; To match with high-soul'd Beatrice's brow,

And Rosalind's fine form and speaking face, The clear, deep music of that voice, revealing, (So fancy augur'd) deeper thought and feeling.

"I see her now; she listens to young Scrope,

Th' High Sheriff's heir, an Euphuist fantastic; How the fop fumbles with his plum'd hat's loop! He reddens; he divines her smile sarcasticBows himself off. Now others swell the group, And bait her with their compliments bombastic ; Her calm, fix'd look of patience says, ' I pray, Proceed, fair gentles, and say out your say.'

"Ha! Forde limps up to her. Ay, wit and worth Dwell in my poor friend's form uncouth and lame.— She answers-what a look of cordial mirth

Is there! the calm, still statue's not the same; Sure nought so nymph-like treads on this dull earth. Her eyes--I ne'er admir'd them, soft and tameHave all the soul and fire of the gay South. And what a beautifully well-cut mouth!

"Forde catches now my eye-my name again!
I know his kindness; but for my own peace
I've heard and seen too much, which must remain
Link'd with all future thought till life shall cease.
Could she-but penury and hopeless pain

Are in this land my portion.-Why increase
My ills past cure? To-morrow, then I go;
Hold fast, Resolve! St. George! and westward, ho!"

He turn'd abruptly, seeking some excuse

To shun all that he fear'd and long'd for most.
Wyld, keep the book I lent, 'twill prove of use ;-
Don't scan me, my dear fellow like a ghost."
Pale as the dead, in truth, he glided loose
From his astounded friend; the Stoic boast

Of proud indifference, which sustain'd our hero
Not half an hour ago, was down at zero.

"Alice, is't thou? plague on't! my good old dame,
I grieve to think I kept thee up awake."-
"Lord bless ye! 'tis my custom all the same;

Now, dear young man, what will ye please to take?
The flask you left is fresh; there's chine and game."
Nothing, dear Alice."-" Not a slice of cake?"
-"No, nothing, thank ye, nothing; never mind it-
Nothing but rest; (would I knew how to find it !")

He threw him-no, 't was his habitual use
To do things rationally-went to bed,

And thought o'er his lov'd Shakspeare, to induce
Some train of thought to calm his feverish head.
The very words betrayed him.-"Idiot! Goose!
Seeking some bright particular star to wed,'
My reason's like 'bells jangled out of tune,'
And I a baby, crying for the moon."

Then Beatrice, and Rosalind, and she,

Gentler, but with like singleness of heart,
Devoted Imogen, too pointedly

Brought to his mind their fancied counterpart.
He turn'd to childhood's home, the chestnut-tree,
The fields where once he strayed; but like a dar^
At once the searching question smote him, "How
Was 't I ne'er reck'd of loss of lands till now?

"Well, fifty years hence, and 't will all be past:
This fever'd frame will rest a tranquil clod
In cooling Delaware's savannahs vast,

By the lone hunter's kindred footsteps trod."
He stretch'd him as in death; the thought at last
Of flowing streams, and his long home's green sod,
Brought a good hour of sleep's unrivall'd balm.
The early morning found him risen, and calm.

END OF CANTO II.

A PLAIN CASE.

ON HEARING THAT THE VAIN AND UGLY LADY

INTENDED GOING TO

THE CALEDONIAN BALL AS MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS!"

WHAT! Scotland's beauty, frail as fair?
She cannot countenance that character!
Sure modesty must make her rue it ;

544

FICTIONS OF THE MIDDLE AGES.

THE PROFESSOR OF TOLEDO.

UPON the sides of a steep acclivity, surrounded by lofty mountains, stands the renowned Toledo; in days of yore as much celebrated for its school of magic, as it has since become for its manufactory of swordblades. At one angle of the city, built upon the point of an abrupt and rocky summit, commanding an extensive prospect, is the Alcazar, five hundred feet below which the river Tagus angrily dashes along between rugged precipices, and then rolls away through neighbouring valleys, fertilizing and fructifying the green meadows on its banks. In the Alcazar is a grand public square, called the Plaza Mayor, or Socodover, where the inhabitants of the town used to rendezvous and promenade, under stately colonnades and fanciful balconies. There the proud high-blooded noble and the lusty merry-hearted muleteer unconcernedly elbowed each other, and the young and lovely wife, attended by her constant and jealous Cortejo, gazed with the greatest froideur at her superannuated husband; but, when evening yielded the world to night, then began the scene of bustle and romance then the gay and amorous cavaliero, imbibing maddening draughts of love from his gentle senora, poured out his soul of song to the tinkling of his light guitar.

On the night of the 1st of April, 1208, the moon then shining in brilliant splendour upon the lofty towers of the Alcazar, two cavalieros, concealed in the ample folds of their cloaks, were in earnest conversation in one of the most retired walks of the Socodover.

"Would you have me break my oath, Hermano, and, by offending my uncle, lose his estates and wealth? Know you not that he has sworn at the shrine of the Holy Virgin, if I ever entered the Professor's Tower he would disinherit me?"

"I would be the last man in Toledo," answered Hermano, "to counsel Don Alberto to act against his conscience; but if he have received a shaft from the frailest and softest thing in nature-woman's eye, it behoves him to get the wound speedily cured, or it will fester into frenzy."

"It has done that already," replied Alberto; " yet must I bear it; for he that wars, hunts, and loves, is subject to a thousand sorrows for every pleasure."

"Nay, nay," interrupted Hermano, "those are fearful odds. My experience says, one sorrow to a thousand pleasures, and that, I think, is ample payment,-at least it fully satisfies me; but those who conjure up evils, and play the lover, poet, or lunatic, for they are ail one,―must suffer the penalty of their absurdity and temerity. I have generally observed that a love-shaft pierces through nine hundred and ninety-nine hearts at once, and, being spent, lodges harmless in the thousandth, in the position of which I always contrive, if possible, to place my own. But, to be serious, and recur again to this self-same professor, who is not one of your upstart adventurers, no needy fortune-teller and threadbare juggler, but one who, by his intercourse with spirits of the invisible world, can control the eternal order of the planets, and extort from reluctant demons the secrets of futurity-he can extinguish and recall life, blast

creation's fairest works, and either inflame or subdue the strongest passion."

"I doubt not that he is a wonderful and fearful man; but I hate," said Alberto, interrupting him, "your philtres and amorous potions, and such like baits and tricks, to force affection, turn men's brains, and pervert their judgments. Besides, have I not told you that the girl herself is not insensible to my passion, but returns it? 'Tis her cursed father and religion that stand in my way."

"Well-what of that? Go to the professor," said Hermano, "and if he do not devise some mode of fulfilling, ay, and exceeding too, your utmost desires, call me dotard, or any other name you please. Besides, what harm can listening to his project do you? Depend upon it, Alberto, Dame Nature had some wise end in view in framing ears without those coverts she has placed upon the eyes and tongue. After all, you need not follow his advice; for, by Santiago, that is an article oftener required than adopted."

"Then you sincerely advise me to go, notwithstanding my uncle's vow, whatever be the consequence?"

"I was never more sincere in my life," answered Hermano. "I will go, then," said Alberto, "be the result what it may." "And your curses rest upon my head," returned Hermano, "if you repent your resolution."

The friends embraced,-Hermano hastened to his three-deep assigna. tions, and Alberto slowly and sadly passed through the courts and echo. ing galleries that led to the tower in which the Professor practised his mysterious powers of spells and incantations. Little did Alberto dream that the man whom he was going to consult was no less a person than Roderic Ximenes, archbishop of Toledo, his reputed maternal uncle, (popes, and other dignitaries of the Romish Church, never acknowledg. ing children,) who, by his subtle learning in the occult sciences, had raised himself from comparative indigence to the high office he then enjoyed. He had been educated, under the name of Alfonso Raposo, in the celebrated school of magic in Toledo, where he became such a proficient in the mystic rolls of fate, that he never failed to predict correctly the earthly chances that would befall those who consulted him. So great was his fame, that his sovereign, Alonzo the Eighth, found it his interest to avail himself of Alfonso's advice, and gave the magician apartments in the Alcazar, where he wielded his wand over the diadems of the kings of neighbouring states, and employed his system of unhallowed machinations to hold in complete subjugation the subjects of his master and patron. The sovereign and the magician being thus leagued together in a dark conspiracy to deceive and enslave their species,—as a reward for his valuable services rendered to the former, Alfonso was by his influence elevated to the highest ecclesiastical dignity in Spain; but, in order that the Christian world should not be scandalized by the Professor Alfonso Raposo being enthroned, he changed his name to Roderic de Ximenes. It was, however, one of the conditions of his appointment, that he should still hold the tower in the Alcazar, and once a-week during the reign of Alonzo, or whenever there was occasion, exercise his supernatural influence over the people; for well did both pontiff and sovereign know that a magician in those days had the means of penetrating into more of public and private intrigue than the most dexterous and insidious system of espionage, and that many things would be revealed in a magician's cabinet that would be concealed