and the violent obstinacy of her brother Lothaire. The reader therefore will not be surprised when he hears that the Saxon beauty, bowing respectfully to her father, thus addressed him :

"Not to thee, my father, not to thee is thy daughter restored; in good and in evil, in life and in death, she shall abide with her preserver-with him who hath delivered her from the grasp of the spoiler."

"Thou art mad, my child!" said the old man in astonishment," the knight that sued for thee thou didst contemn and reject, and wilt thou now wed with his serving-man ?"

Elfrida appeared to recollect the circumstances which had preceded her capture; the suitor who had solicited her hand; and the deceit which she had conspired to put upon him: she looked up to the dais, and beheld Bertha, her waiting-woman, seated by the side of the Norman guest; she glanced round and met the eye of her preserver turned upon her with an expression of the deepest adoration; she looked no further, but immediately, addressing her father, said,

"Why should it not be so, my father? To-day thou hast married thine handmaid to the Knight ;-to-morrow thou shalt marry thy daughter to the Knave."

Her unknown deliverer, at these words, began to stare about him; he gazed upon his dress, upon his attendants, upon Elfrida; and then, with all the embarrassment of a performer who comes forward to play in a pageant without the smallest acquaintance with his part, observed, "this morning was I a Knight, mounted on a goodly steed, and clad in goodly apparel; but whether I am now Norman or Saxon, Knight or Knave, by my grandfather's sword-I doubt."

Leofwyn stared; his large eyes were dilated into a truly comic expression of astonishment. "Who art thou?" he cried at last to the bridegroom: "art thou Reginald d'Arennes? or must we hang thee for a rogue ?" "Peace, good father-in-law," said the sham Reginald,

shaking off his drunkenness, and leering around him with an arch look of self-satisfaction, "I am not Reginald d'Arennes, but yet as good a man! I am Robin, the son of Egwulph; truly a cunning Knave, and a wily."

"I do begin to perceive," said the waiting-woman, Bertha, looking on the sham Reginald with a disappointed air, "that our plot hath altogether failed."

"Mine hath fared no better!" said the Knave, returning a glance of equal disappointment upon the mock In this I have been but a silly Knave, and a

Elfrida. witless!"

Dost thou comprehend, gentle reader, the circumstances which led to these mistakes? or is it necessary for me to inform thee, that the Knave, Robin, proceeded to Kennet-hold in Reginald's apparel, with the purpose of revenging, by his wedding with the heiress, the death of his master, which he fancied had been occasioned by the heir; that at Kennet-hold the said Knave met with the counterplot which had been prepared by the jocose Saxon, and became the husband of the maid instead of the mistress; that Reginald, recovering from his swoon, after the departure of his attendant, advanced towards Kennet-hold, and encountered, in his way, his new acquaintance, Richard de Mallory; from whom he had the good fortune to rescue the life of Lothaire and the honour of Elfrida?

There is yet one point unexplained. The reader must be aware that a considerable interval took place between the memorable blow given by Lothaire, and his rencontre with de Mallory. Upon this point the MS. makes mention of Winifred-a certain arch-damsel, whobut Decorum puts her forefinger on her mouth-I have done.

Rather than desert a longes tablished custom, I proceed to state that the personages of my Tale lived and loved to a green old age. Robin died before it was tho

roughly decided whether he was more properly termed "the Wily" or "the Witless." Reginald, it appears, never got rid of his old trick of hesitation, for it is upon record, that when he told the story of his adventures to Cœur de Lion, at the siege of Acre, and was asked by the humorous Monarch whether the Knight or the Knave were the more fortunate bridegroom, he scratched his chin for a few minutes, played with his sword for a few more, and replied slowly, "I have doubts as touching this matter."

I KNEW that Death was stern and strong,
That sceptred hand and helmed head,
The fear'd on earth, the famed in song,
Must sink beneath his silent tread;
That Poet's brain, and Warrior's heart,
And Beauty's most resplendent form,
Glory, and pride, and strength, must part,
To grace the banquet of the worm.

But tell not me-it cannot be,

That Death, my love, may alter thee.

II.

Oh! hast thou ne'er in fancy view'd
The shadows dark of days to come-
Their toils and cares, a hideous brood,
Strife with the world's fierce multitude,—
Pain, sickness, agony, distress,
When yearns the heart in weariness
Tow'rds absent friends, the dead, the lost,
And those by fortune tempest-toss'd
To some far-distant home?

Though many an hour of love and mirth
May cheer man's spirit here on earth,
And friends may meet in moments gay,
And the dancing heart keep holiday;
Yet oh! far oftener must it bear
fts solitary load of care,

Aching in anguish deep and lone,
For many a loved and loving one.—
I'll not believe that at his birth

To man such sympathies were given,
But that their joys, so few on earth,
Might be renew'd in Heaven.
Then tell not me-it cannot be,
That Death, my love, may alter thee.

III.

And hast thou ne'er, at fall of Even,

When moans the breeze in sounds of woe,

And stars begin to wink in Heaven,

And earth in twilight melts below,

And, in the stillness of the hour,

The voice of waters solemn seems

Felt some unknown mysterious Power

Breathe o'er thee, from the woods and streams,

Steeping thy soul in tearful dreams;

Till wandering thoughts spring up on high,
As the soul would roam through the starry sky,
And the realms of the sainted dead explore,
Whom the living eye shall view no more,
In the crystal light of their calm retreat,
The look of Earth's affection bearing,
And still their radiant faces wearing
The smile we used to think so sweet?
Thou must have felt that witching hour,
Its deep, and calm, and silent power;
Thou must have felt that tearful gushing
From the heart's fresh and lonely springs;
And the charm'd soul through the blue sky rushing,
On the Spirit of Twilight's wings.

Then rise, each sense to rapture hushing,

Visions of unforgotten things,

And they who loved, whose spirits love us,
Float in the deep blue sky above us,
In dreamlike wanderings.
On every passing breeze float by
Voices we loved in infancy-
They tell of some untroubled land,

Where souls that love repose together,
And many a white and radiant hand

With gentlest motion waves us thither.
And oh! 't is sweet to rove on high
With that celestial company,

And feel, while yet we breathe beneath,

That hearts remain unchanged in Death.

IV.

In sleep I dream of happy days,

That smile beyond the tomb;

And fond imagination roves

Through wondrous valleys, fields, and groves,
Where gentle brooks that gush between,

And skies eternally serene,

Make one perpetual bloom.

And ever in those dreams divine,

Thy gentle spirit stands by mine;