extinguish the noble ardour of poetic genius, and that men should never be wanting to celebrate true virtue and valour in immortal strains, to expofe vice and infamous pleasure, and boldly cenfure tyranny and oppreffion. His fong ended, the venerable bard precipitated himself from the mountain, and was loft in the river that rolled at its feet.

On a rock whose haughty brow

Frowns o'er cold Conway's foaming flood;
Robed in the sable garb of woe,

With haggard eyes the poet stood;

(Loose his beard and hoary hair

Streamed like a meteor to the troubled air ;)
And with a master's hand and prophet's fire
Struck the deep sorrows of his lyre.

"Ruin seize thee, ruthless king!

Confusion on thy banners wait;

Tho' fanned by conquest's crimson wing,
They mock the air with idle state.
Helm nor hauberk's twisted mail,
Nor e'en thy virtues, tyrant, shall avail

To save thy secret soul from nightly fears,
From Cambria's curse, from Cambria's tears."
Such were the sounds that o'er the crested pride
Of the first Edward scattered wild dismay,
As down the steep of Snowden's shaggy side,

He wound with toilsome march his long array.

The memory of the ancient minstrels is always affociated with ideas of liberty and freedom-" The children of fong may not languish in chains;” and this idea is charmingly preferved by Moore in his fong of "The Minstrel Boy," where he tells how—

The minstrel fell!-but the foeman's chain
Could not bring his proud soul under;
The harp he loved ne'er spoke again,

For he tore its chords asunder;
And said, "No chains shall sully thee,

Thou soul of mirth and bravery!

Thy songs were made for the pure and free,
They never shall sound in slavery.”

There ftill live in England many of the fongs of our fathers -many of thofe which, Mrs. Hemans tells, were

The songs their souls rejoiced to hear,

When harps were in their hall ;

And each proud note made lance and spear
Thrill on the bannered wall.

The songs that through our valleys green,

Sent on from age to age,

Like his own river's voice, have been

The peasant's heritage.

So let it be a light they shed

O'er each old fount and grove;

A memory of the gentle dead;
A lingering spell of love.
Murmuring the names of mighty men,

They bid our streams roll on;
And link high thoughts to every glen,
Where valiant deeds were done.

Teach them your children round the hearth,

When evening fires burn clear;

And in the fields of harvest mirth,

And on the hills of deer.

U

So shall each unforgotten word,

When far those loved ones roam,

Call back the hearts which once it stirred,

To childhood's holy home.

A graphic picture is given of the laft of the bards in Scott's "Lay of the Laft Minstrel: "—

The way was long, the wind was cold,
The minstrel was infirm and old;
His wither'd cheek and tresses gray
Seem'd to have known a better day;
The harp, his sole remaining joy,
Was carried by an orphan boy;
The last of all the bards was he,
Who sang of Border chivalry;
For, well-a-day! their date was fled,
His tuneful brethren all were dead;
And he, neglected and oppress'd,
Wish'd to be with them, and at rest.
No more on prancing palfrey borne,
He caroll'd, light as lark at morn;
No longer courted and caress'd,

High placed in hall, a welcome guest,

He pour'd, to lord and lady gay,

The unpremeditated lay:

Old times were changed, old manners gone;

A stranger fill'd the Stuarts' throne;

The bigots of the iron time

Had call'd his harmless art a crime.

A wandering Harper, scorn'd and poor,
He begg'd his bread from door to door,
And tuned, to please a peasant's ear,
The harp a king had loved to hear.