[A solemn Song or Hymn, sung in Men preserved from storm and tide holy keeping. And whereso'er, in earth or sea, [Enter six Knights of St John of Jerusalem in procession, with their followers behind them, who don't advance upon the stage, but remain partly concealed behind the rocks. Aur. (going up eagerly to the young Knight.) Did'st thou there fight?then surely thou didst know The noble Ermingard, who from this isle With valiant Conrad went:- He now is as the dead. Aur. Is as the dead! ha! then he is not dead : He's living still. O tell me-tell me this! Say he is still alive; and though he breathe In the foul pest-house; though a wretch. ed wand rer, noble form Wounded and maim'd; yea, though his With chains and stripes and slav'ry be Aur. Speak to them, Bastiani; thou'rt a soldier; disgraced, Thy mind is more composed. I pray thee Say he is living still, and I will bless thee. Thou know'st-full well thou know'st, but wilt not speak. What means that heavy groan? Forlove of God, speak to me! If this be so, you can, perhaps, inform me Of one who in the battle fought, whose fate is still unknown. Few moments since, what would I not have sacrificed, 1st Knight. None of us all, fair Dame, so honour'd were To know that, in the lapse of many years, As in that field to be, save this young I should again behold thee?-I had knight. been Sir Bertram, wherefore in thy mantle How strongly art thou moved! -Thou lapt, Stand'st thou so far behind? Speak to him, Lady: heed'st me not. Let me conduct him to my quiet bower. Rest and retirement may compose his mind. Aur. Aye, thou art right, Terentia. Ermingard alive-Aurora is happy as an angel in heaven; but Ermingard is distracted and a little page who had overheard him-asks Garcia "Do folks groan heaviest when they are alone?" Ermingard and Aurora meet againin the apartment of Terentia; and only a woman-and that woman Joanna Baillie-or might we say Caroline Bowles Southey could have imagined in its perfect purity such a scene as this Throws such a charm of valorous sanctity O'er thy loved form: my thoughts do forward glance To deeds of such high fame by thee achieved, That even methinks the bliss of wedded love Less dear, less noble is than such strong bonds As may, without reproach, unite us still. Erm. O creature of a gen'rous constancy! Thou but the more distractest me!- Fool, fool! (Starting from his seat, and pacing to and fro distractedly.) Mean, misbelieving fool! - I thought her false, Cred'lous alone of evil: - I have lost, And have deserved to lose her. Aur. Oh! be not thus! Have I no power to sooth thee? See, good Terentia weeps, and fain would try To speak thee comfort. Ter. (coming forward.) Aye; bethink thee well, Most noble Ermingard, heaven grants thee I cannot so attend thee-noon and eve School me or chide me now: do what thou wilt: Thy near companion be; but I have heard I am resign'd and humble." That, near the sacred houses of your Order, Remember, if you can, that THE BEACON is not a Tragedy; therefore it ends not in separation of loving hearts in the cloister, or the grave. The Legate- for Joanna, like her master, Shakspeare, loves to show Christianity in any creed sincerely embraced-takes Aurora under his own guardian care, Are deem'd the humble partners of your zeal. Erm. Aye, such there are; but what availeth this? Aur. There will I dwell, a vow'd and humble sister. We shall not far be sever'd. The same winds That do o' nights through your still cloisters sigh, Our quiet cells visiting with mournful harmony, Shall lull my pillow too. Our window'd towers Shall sometimes show me on the neighbouring plains, Amidst thy brave companions, thy mail'd form Crested with glory, on thy pawing steed Returning from the wars. And when at last Thou art in sickness laid-who will forbid The dear sad pleasure?-like a holy bride I'll by thy death-bed stand, and look to heaven, Where all bless'd union is. O! at the thought, Methinks this span of life to nothing shrinks, And we are bless'd already. Thou art silent: "Blush not, sweet maid, nor check thy ardent thoughts; THAT GENEROUS ARDENT SPIRIT IS A Dost thou despise my words? POWER Erm. O no! speak to me thus: say what thou wilt: WHICH IN THE VIRTUOUS MIND DOTH ALL THINGS CONQUER; I am subdued. And yet these bursting tears! My heart is rent in twain: I fear-I fear I am rebellious still. [Kneeling, and taking both her hands between his, and kissing them with great devotion. IT BEARS THE HERO ON TO ARDUOUS DEEDS; IT LIFTS THE SAINT TO HEAVEN." Spenser-Collins-Cowper-Campbell - Joanna Baillie - for a while farewell! HASTY HINTS UPON HORSES. WHEN we told you, some few months back, O gentle reader! that, (to borrow a phrase from Brother Jonathan, about the only thing, by the way, which our occidental relative possesses worth the lending,) beyond all the beasts of the earth, a dog " went a-head" in our affections, we intimated, at the same time, that our heart had many corners for many other animals. We said we loved an elephant; but we are not going to talk about one now. He is by far too large and weighty a subject to be taken up in a hot July morning, when the sun, as somebody says, " makes the whole world Troglodytic." We said we loved a mouse; and so we do, or rather so we would, if he would let us. He might gnaw and nibble at the oldest Stilton in our dairy with impunity; for we could not find in our hearts to hurt so much as the tip of his tail; but the wee, sleekit, cowrin', timorous beastie, reciprocal sentiment of affection. He scampers to his hole at our approach, as though we were "a kitten and cried mew;" he obstinately refuses to be loved; and he deserves not that pen, ink, and paper should be thrown away upon his ingratitude. We said we loved a horse-of a horse, then, be it our "hint to speak." has no going to expatiate upon the magnifi cent steed of the Honourable Five-bar Rasper, or his Grace the Duke of Double-ditch-that we have not the remotest idea of entering into a discussion of the much vexata quæstio of the paternity of Bloomsbury, or commencing a historical and philosophical investigation into the origin and legality of the authority of the Jockey Club. All this, we say, you will readily conceive; but should it, as we trust it will not, enter into your most inquisitive noddle, to ask us what we really do mean to talk about, why, we are "free to confess," as the Parliament men say, you will thereby put us to a pretty considerable nonplus. We can only recommend you to shut your mouth-we are not particular about this first article, only it is hot weather, and the flies are strong in the land-open your eyes, (our respected grandmother, who was accused, most unjustly as we think, of spoiling us with sugar-plums, used to reverse the precept,) sit down on a cane-bottomed chair, as the best possible antidote to somnolence which we can think ofprick up your "most attent ear," and-so, you are ready?-then here goes for a plunge. There are few occupations (we like a sententious beginning) more agreeable to minds of a contemplative and philosophical cast, than to observe the numerous variations of national feeling, as exhibited under the numerous variations of climate and complexionto note the different lights in which the same object is regarded in different latitudes. The poor Arab-we are no travellers, and cannot speak from our own experience, but we have too much gallantry to dream of impugning the veracity of the Honourable Mrs Norton-the poor Arab, before he mounts his steed, after gazing upon him with a five-minute glance of unalterable affection, breaks forth into some such impassioned apostrophe as Now, the devil of it is, that, to talk about horses, one wants a world of technical knowledge, in which the pen-flourishing generation is, we fear, for the most part, lamentably deficient. We ourselves, much as we like a horse, are any thing but a "sworn horse-courser;" and, had we to go to market for ourselves, might more than probably find the knowing ones a trifle too deep for us. We are not quite convinced that we entertain very definite ideas on the subject of hocks, frogs, fetlocks, and pasterns; and as to thrushes, splints, spavins, and ring bones, we are, beyond all controversy, in a state of more than Cimmerian obscurity. Having ingenuously confessed thus much, you will scarcely feel surprised when we inform you, With thy proudly arch'd and glossy neck "My beautiful! my beautiful! that standest meekly by, thy bright and speaking eye, دو O gentle reader! that we have not at present the slightest intention of qualifying every man to act as his own veterinary surgeon-that we are not et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, for about ten minutes more, and having thus given vent to his feelings, puts his shoeless toes in the stirrup exactly as the quarter of an hour expires. The poor Englishman, a wondrous economist of time and poetry, dexterously switches his animal over the "raw, and starts at once upon his daily avocations, with no gentler salutation than a " kim aup, yez warmint! d'ye think I stole yer?" Those noble fellows, the old Greeks, (what the deuce did Byron mean by saying that we already knew too much about them, as if we could ever, by any possibility, learn enough?) entertained notions like themselves on the subject of horses-witness their magnificent sculptures-witness their magnificent poetry. The trainers of those days, when kings broke their own nags, and blushed not to be caught at it, were somewhat different people, and held in somewhat different odour, from the estimable gentry who play at fast and loose with our modern patrons of the stable. The famous Irish " Whisperer," nay, our old friend Andrew Ducrow himself, could hardly stand a comparison with the "horsetamer Hector." They talked of pedigrees too, even in those days, with all the accuracy of the stud-book; there was an aristocracy of horses before the time of Homer. The "Xanthus and Balius of Podarge's strain," must have looked down with immeasurable contempt upon the bloodless undescended rips, over whose stiffening carcasses they whirled the chariot of Achilles. Even in "old Rome, the sevenhilly," (who, by the way, borrowed her fancy for horse-racing, as she did most of her more civilized tastes, from Greece,) are still to be found tablets to the memory of the good steed who called forth so frequently the plaudits of the "hoarse circus," recording how often he won in a canter, how many times he "ran a good second," nor even omitting to mention when he was fain to be content with a respectable third. The names of two or three favourites have outlived those of many an "antique Roman," who, doubtless, had his dreams of immortality. "Sed venale pecus Corythæ posteritas et Hirpini, si rara jugo victoria sedit. Nil ibi majorum respectus, gratia nulla Umbrarum: dominos pretiis mutare jubentur Exiguis, tritoque trahunt epirhedia collo Segnipedes." The whole sad ditty of the "HighMettled Racer," compressed into five lines of Juvenal! Alas, for the degeneracy of the turf of the nineteenth century! Newmarket and Doncaster boast no Pindar to immortalize their glories-the father of history and his nine muses would attract but a scanty audience in "the ring" at Epsomnay, we doubt if even our old acquaintance Pegasus, were he to start forth once more in propria persona, would make much of a figure in the betting. Old Homer has made magnificent use of a horse, as, indeed, he has of every thing else, in that comparison which, for splendour of language, need not fear to be set beside any horse-passage we know, saving only that most wonderful description in the Book of Job, which stands alone in its sublimity : Ὡς δ ̓ ὅτε τις στατὸς ἵππος, ἀποσέησας ἐπὶ φάτνῃ, Δεσμὸν ἀποῤῥήξας θείῃ πεδίοιο κροαίνων, Ἐωθὼς λούεσθαι ἐϋῤῥείτου ποταμοιο, Κυδιόων· ὑψοῦ δὲ κάρη ἔχει, ἀμφὶ δὲ χαίται "Ωμοις ἀΐσσονται· ὁ δ ̓ ἀγλαΐηφι πεποιθώς, ̔Γίμφα ἓ γοῦνα φέρει μετὰ τ ̓ ἤθεα καὶ νόμον ἵππων. Glorious indeed! We positively see him! He flashes before our eyes in his lightning like speed, as plainly as the hoof-tramp sounds in our ears in the "Quadrupedante putrem sonitu quatit ungula campum" of Virgil. And now we have but one fault to find-ay, you may well stare and look incredulous_we, even we, are going to pick a crow with Homer! The comparison is, to our thinking, far too good for Paris. We cannot, for the life of us, picture him as the ardent warrior which it would represent him to be: We are wont to think of him only as the "concinnus adulter," the regular "fancy-man," the pet of the petticoats, whose noblest accomplishment is "To caper nimbly in a lady's chamber, To the lascivious pleasing of a lute;" |