III. Down sunk the draw-bridge with a thund'ring shock; And hung in calmness o'er the flood below ;- Forced his lone path through many a darksome glen, Till join'd by all his tributary rills, From lake and tarn, from marish and from fen, He left his empire with a kingly glee, And fiercely bade recoil the billows of the sea. IV. I felt it was a dream; nor wish'd to wake: And cliff and castle from the clouds withdrew. Like the wild music of the summer leaves; Till, like an army mustering in the dell, The blasts came rushing from their pine-clad caves, And swept the silence of the scene away, Even like a city storm'd upon the Sabbath day.❤ V. Though strange my dream, I knew the Scottish strand, As mid dark clouds a sudden shower of light. The shadowy stories of departed days Before my tranced soul in tumult throng, And I with fearless voice on them will call, From camp and battle-field, from princely bower and hall. VI. With only my still shadow by my side, And Nature's lifeless things that slept around, The wild romantic realm where I have willed to reign ?›› *This image is from an unpublished poem of Mr Coleridge. A, B, and C, D, sides of the coffin, each being 11 feet 7 inches long, and about 27 inches broad. E and F, the gables, each 3 feet high, being that part of the tree next to the root, their girth measuring 7 feet 6 inches. G, part of the bottom-breadth of it, and of the cover or lid, 2 feet 3 inches, length 5 feet 8 inches. H and I, the projecting extremities of the sides. Amid the many hundred barrows, tumuli, and cairns, which have been opened, either in the course of antiquarian research, or for other purposes, we are not aware that any wooden coffins have ever been discovered. Their contents usually are urns, either deposited in little compartments formed of upright stones in the centre of the barrow, or the stone coffins known by the name of Kist-Vaen, or Cromlechs. But we have not found an instance during the age of barrows, that is, during the four or five first centuries, of wood being employed in forming a receptacle for the reliques of the dead. So much with respect to the actual experience of modern antiquaries; but even the records of ancient discoveries help us only to two instances, and in each case they referred to persons of the highest import ance. Most readers will remember, if not from Leland or Camden, at least from the beautiful poem of Warton, entitled "The Grave of King Arthur," the romantic discovery of the tomb of that prince, by Henry II., in the abbey of Glastonbury. The body was found, according to Giraldus Cambrensis, at the depth of 16 feet from the surface, enclosed in the hollowed trunk of an oak, in quercu cavata,says Giraldus, though Leland supposes the wood to have been alder, as better calculated to resist wet. Chiflet, an accurate antiquary, who was present at the opening of the tomb of Childeric, King of the Franks, is inclined to believe, from the frag. ments there discovered, that the roy al coffin had been composed of oak planks, hooped together with bands of iron. These are the only two instances we have found of wooden coffins, at the very early period to which, con. sidering its contents and construction, we must necessarily refer that found in the Laav-park. The name of the place affords but little ground for further conjecture; it is pronounced Liav, like the double Ll of the Welch, or the Italian gli, and may be the same word with the Gaelic Llamh, signifying a hand. It may have been the grave of a chieftain, bearing the epithet of red-hand, strong-hand, fairhand, or the like, though the adjective has been lost through time; Llamhdearg, or the like, being a natural appellative of an ancient chieftain. The division in the coffin was probably intended to separate the reliques of the chief from those of his family, or of the victims which were often sacrificed at the funeral of such a personage. But without wearying our readers with farther conjecture, we have only to add, that the historical antiquary owes the preservation of this very curious relique to the care of the Reverend Mr Ellis, minister of the gospel at Culsamond. HISTORY OF LOPE DE AGUIRRE. The history of Aguirre's crimes has never before been published in England, and though often alluded to, is by no means generally known among the Spaniards themselves: Ulloa and the authors of the Mercurio Pernano, speak of it in such a manner as to shew that they were ignorant even of the principal circumstances. It is an extraordinary case of guilt and madness. Power, which intoxicates weak men, makes wicked ones mad; this truth has not been sufficiently observed, but it is proved by the Annals of Newgate as well as by those of the Roman emperors. An account of these extraordinary transactions, which is mentioned by Acosta, was written by a Jesuit who was in the expedition, being at that time a lad. There can be little doubt that this is the source from whence Pedro Simon (who has related them more at length than any other writer) obtained his information. The authorities from which the following narrative has been formed, are referred to mi nutely at the end of every paragraph. In the year 1560, the river Orellana became the scene of one of the strangest tragedies in American history. A horde of Brazilians, wandering first in search of some resting place, beyond the reach of the Portugueze, and then flying before the enemies whom they provoked on their march, found their way, after a ten years travel, into the province of Quito. The Peruvian Spaniards were never without rumours of mighty kingdoms in the interior, abounding with gold, and offering as easy a prey as the great empire which they had already conquered; and a tale in confirmation of these hopes was soon bruited abroad, as the report which these Brazilians had related of their route. It was said that they had passed through a country of the Omaguas, full of large towns, in which there were whole streets of goldsmiths here they had been kindly received, and the inhabitants seeing iron in their possession, asked where they had ob tained it; when it was replied, from a nation of white men with beards, who dwelt on the shores of the sea towards the east, they made answer, that such another nation dwelt to the westward, gave them shields which were covered with gold and set with emeralds in exchange for their iron, and besought them to tell these white men in the west to come and carry on the same sort of trade with them. Two Portugueze were with these • Pedro de Magalhaens, quoted by Berredo, 1. § 84. VOL. III. PART II. a wanderers, and it is not unlikely that they contributed to delude a people who were eager to be deluded.* A great stir was occasioned in Peru by this account. The Marquis de Canete, then viceroy, was solicited to send out an expedition for the conquest of El Dorado, now, it was thought, surely to be found; and he was glad of an occasion to rid the country of those turbulent spirits, from whom new rebellions were else to be apprehended. Nor is it unlike ly that the viceroy himself partook of the general credulity; he furnished money for the expedition from the treasury, and some on his own account, which he borrowed; and he appointed Pedro de Orsua, a knight of Navarre, to the command, a tried and enterprising man. The miserable fate of Gonzalo Pizarro's army had warned Orsua against attempt ing to proceed by land; he fixed upon a new settlement, called Santa Cruz de Capocoba,+ as the place of rendezvous for his followers, and there upon the Rio de los Motilones began to build two brigantines and nine flat-bottomed barks, each capable of carrying two hundred men and forty horse. This river, which rises at the back of Tamay-bamba, in the province of Guanuco, was so called from a tribe who, contrary to the P. Simon, 6. 1. § 2. The ordinary fashion of the Indians, wore the hair cut short. The tribe still exists, but the river is no longer known by this name,-it is one of the sources of the Guallaga. force which was raised consisted of three hundred Spaniards, about forty of whom were men of rank, and an hundred mestizos. So many of these adventurers had borne a part in the late rebellions, that the government began to fear the consequences of its own policy, seeing them thus collected; and there were not wanting malicious men, who endeavoured to render Orsua himself suspected. Orsua's own friends were with more reason alarmed for his safety; and one of them wrote to him, beseeching him not wilfully to shut his eyes to the danger, but to dismiss a few of those adventurers, from whom the greatest mischief was to be apprehended, naming, in particular, a certain Don Martin, Lorenzo de Zalduendo, Lope de Aguirre, Juan Alonso de la Vandera, Christoval de Chaves, and a few others. 66 H," said this true friend, whose name was Pedro de Linasco, you are unwilling to dismiss them because of their poverty, do not let that feeling of compassion prevent you, but send them to me; and I will support them to the best of my means, till you have advanced into your con + Ulloa says, a village called Llamas was, according to the most credible ac counts, the place where Orsua embarked. He places it on a river which rises in the mountains of Moyo-bamba, and in the middle of its course to the Guallaga." (Book 6. C. 5. Engl. transl. p. 366.) This river is probably the Rio de Moyo-bamba: the village is not marked in the great Spanish map. In the same chapter, (p. $84,) Ulloa says, "the first news of Örsua was, that he and the greatest part of his men were killed in an ambuscade by the Indians, a catastrophe entirely owing to his own ill conduct." It is singular that this author could have been so ignorant of so remarkable a history. Ulloa is ranked far above his deserts: he is neither a judicious nor a well-informed writer, except in points of science. Unquestionably these are of great, but not of paramount importance. A very scientific man may be a very dull one. Herrera, Hist. Gen. l. 9. c. 12, |