SLINGSBY.-Mr. Forsyth has essayed a very difficult subject, and I cannot say that I think he has been perfectly successful. There is a style and a senti ment, I may say, consacré to Hebrew poetry, which is the only legitimate, or at all events effective, exponent of the feelings, religious, political, or social, of that people. It is not merely oriental; it is Biblical. We have moulded all our notions of Hebrew diction and thought upon the sublime recitals of their annalists, the burning rhapsodies of their seers, and the pure and lofty devotional ecstacy of their poets. Whatever falls short of these does not reproduce in our minds the true images of the Hebrews, and hence it is that few have achieved what so many have attempted. Milman has been very successful, and Byron

occasionally and to a certain extent only. I mean no dispraise to our friend, therefore, when I say that he, too, has fallen short of the mark.

POPLAR.-Ay, sir, he should have thrown into his poem more of the religious devotion, of the burning patriotism, of the absorbing, sorrowing love of country with which the heart of the exiled Israelite, pines for the stones of Jerusalem. Well, let it pass. I see he means to try his hand again, and let us hope the second attempt will be still better.

BISHOP.-What comes next, Anthony?
POPLAR.-We shall see.

called

Here are a couple of tales of chivalry. The first is

"The sally from Salerno was not properly an event of the Crusades. Its date was 1016, while the first Crusade was not until 1096. Its connexion with those wars, however, the actors in it having been pilgrims returning from the Holy Land and their Saracen enemy will, perhaps, justify it as a subject for a ballad under this title. The inducements to those wars were the Moslem's oppression of the Christian pilgrims, and the Moslem irruptions into Christendom, which made it necessary to bridle that power by a Christian kingdom in the East.

"The princes of Salerno were of the Longobard race, which will account for Waimar's Teutonic name and his daughter's. Historians tell us he offered the Normans an honourable settlement in his country in gratitude for their heroism, which they declined, but promised to send some of their countrymen, who accordingly came and founded the Norman dynasties of South Italy."

I.

CHRISTIAN Monk and Paynim Molla have the parchment clerkly scrolled,
Fair Salerno's safe from Saracen, for ransom weighed in gold.
"God has sent us good King Waimar for a ruler mild and sage,
To protect his trembling people from the ruthless Moslem's rage.

Stranger guests, ho! Norman pilgrims, what portends your strange array;
Why those shields, and casques, and corslets, as if bound for joust or fray?
Wherefore now, ye grim-browed strangers, spur your steeds, with lance in rest;
Know ye not Salerno's ransom'd at the Saracen's behest?"
"Out upon ye, pallid cravens, ope your gates, ye hearts of hare,
With our knightly swords and God's good help, we'll keep our honour fair."
Down they rode, those Norman pilgrims, on the Paynim straightly there.

II.

Careless seem they, lightly deem they, those beleag'ring myriads bold,
Of the band so scant that cometh, they must bear the promised gold.
"God is great, tho' slave or maiden of the Giaour have we none,
Well he wrought, Suleyman Aga, goodly ransom have we won.

Featly ride those two-score riders, knights they seem, not slaves to kneel—
Dogs of Nazareth, no gold they bear, but gleaming Norman steel."
Prayed a prayer each belted warrior, each a lady's name did say,

And the thunder-cloud burst, crashing thro' the infidel array.

Help, Mahomet! Damascus blades are dealing blows around in vain,
Sternly plies each Christian's labour, till their dripping sabres rain
From a thousand cloven Paynim bloody ransom on the plain.

III.

'Tis sweet evening; fading sunset sheds a gorgeous radiance down
On that beauteous bay and bloody strand, and fair Salerno's town.
Thro' Prince Waimar's palace gardens and tall groves the sunbeams rolled,
Thro' his windows rare, and chambers fair, and carvings quaint and old,
Till they kissed his gentle daughter there, the dark-eyed Henegild,
As so pensively she gazed abroad, her eyes with sadness filled;
Till they lit a gallant's youthful face, who sat that maid beside,
Lit his curling locks, his open brow, and beardless lip of pride-
Sir Asclittin, bold Asclittin, he whose foremost lance and shield
Broke to-day the Moslem leaguer and the heart of Henegild-
Sir Asclittin, bold Asclittin, peerless he in bower and field.

IV.

"Gentle ladye, in fair Normandie, in mine own rugged land,

Dwelleth she who first my knighthood's spurs bound on with her white hand;
I have seen as lovely maids, good sooth, in Greece and Palestine,
And I gaze upon more beauty now in those dark eyes of thine,
Tho' strayed my course to court, and listed field and lordly tower,
To hold with lance my loved Adela, beauty's peerless flower;
But fast upbraiding memory comes, her smiles are in my eyes,
I must fly betime, for charms like thine my fealty strangely tries."
Passed away that youthful knight, so leal in love, in war so bold,
While in the sunbeams dropped the maiden's tears in showers of gold,
Long, long sighed the Princess Henegild with weight of woe untold.

SLINGSBY.-A pleasant romaunt, and pleasantly sung.
POPLAR. Here is another of the same sort. (Reads):-

*

SIR RAINULF'S HENCHMAN.

WHAT stranger pauses at the castle gate,
And winds an echoing blast upon the horn?
A harper wearied seems he, and forlorn,
To warder, prying through the lattice grate.
Oh, well those towers are warded day and night
Since Suabia's duke was wroth with Elfstein's knight.
They lead the stranger in, where vassals tall

Are grouped, and meetly feast him at the board.
Thronged is the dais of that castle hall,
With dame, and damosel, and belted lord.

And when, elated by the generous wine,
He touched his harp and spoke of Holy Land,
They thought of Rainulf of the two-edged brand,
Sir Rainulf, heir of Schwarzwuld's knightliest line.
Then sought the gentles all, "if ere knew he
That lord in Syria or far Armenie."

Across the pilgrim's sun-browned features came
A paleness, as he answered wistfully,

Oft had he seen that knight of noble fame,

Full long will Christendom his memory dree.

"I left my home in Aquitaine,

A minstrel in Count Raymond's* train;
Sir Rainulf marched his stalwart band
Methinks with noble Godefroy,

And ere we reached the blessed land

His deeds were harped with warrior's joy.
I need not now the tale explain

Of Dorylerun's bloody plain;
Nor need I to your graces tell
Of what at Antioch befell.

How Famine swept away our bands
More fast than unbelievers' brands;
How on full many a Paynim corse
We stayed his grisly pangs perforce.†
But madly throbbed our bosoms when
Near Zion's holy walls we pause,

Though more like savage beasts than men,
Nor bound by God's or human laws.

Raymond, Count of Thoulouse, so distinguished in the first Crusade.

During the siege of Antioch the besiegers were obliged to resort to cannibalism.

Sorrows and sufferings seem past
Since yonder rise its towers at last.
Each harp all blithely bard unslings,
Each knight from saddle fiercely springs,
And beffry* high or ladder brings.
Were there ten times the swarthy foes
That now above the ramparts rose,
They could not quell our storm of blows.
As ruthless shafts and sabres brast,
We escalade the towers at last.
Foremost, o'er bulwark and battlement,
Sir Rainulf in the onslaught went;
Closest behind of his warriors brave

Rushed a boy stranger with bloody glaive-
So slender and small, but from heel to head
Casque, corslet, and vambrace were dripping red.
We stormed the ramparts, the towers, and town,
And slaughtered God's foes till the sun went down.
A few of us, then, from the carnage fled

To search for some lord or some kinsman dead;
Where the hand of the mower had thickest shred,
And there, amid ghastliest corses spread,

All stark, lay Sir Rainulf, his buckler battered,
And hauberk and head by the war-axe shattered;
And propped on his spear-pierced, mail-clad breast,
The stranger lay likewise in bloodiest rest.

"This stranger, whence came he?' the vassals all said,
'Till the ladders were laid for the escalade

Ne'er had they seen him, but through the red tide
Closest he kept to Sir Rainulf's side;

And once had they marked, too, their master's eyes
On his stranger-henchman, in seeming surprise.
We raised the plumed head of the ill-starred youth,
We lifted his visor and helm, and, good sooth,
Shone out a cluster of golden hair,

And the death-rigid face of a maiden fair
Chilled each grim warrior's blood as he gazed

On such beauty so ghastly, and blue eye so glazed,

Till old Siegfried stept forth, By the cross on my sword,
'Tis fair Winifred, daughter of Knitlingen's lord."

Through that wide castle chamber rose a wail
Louder than winter breeze o'er moonless waste,
Wilder than madness in its frenzied haste-
One heart has broke at that swart harper's tale.
Bowed to the ground is Knitlingen's proud dame,
And hushed, save murmur of her daughter's name.
For moons agone fair Winifred had fled
From out her father's halls, not one knew whither,
Or if the maid were living, or were dead,

Or passed in joys to bloom, or woe to wither.

BISHOP.-Very good, Anthony, very good. I love those tales of knightly times. The genius of Scott has done for them in poetry what the old chroniclers and French romancists have effected in prose. I sigh when I think of the days when first I read "The most Ancient and Famovs Historie of the Renowned

Beffry, a moveable wooden tower, covered with boiled hides to guard it from fire. It was used in sieges.

Prince Arthur, King of Britaine," with worthy old William Caxton's preface to the Christian reader.

SLINGSBY.-And what say you to Alfred Tennyson's delectable" Mort d'Arthur?" Does it not breathe the very spirit of olden song?

POPLAR. It is beyond all praise. Here is a translation from an Idyl of Moschus by Academicus:

By ocean's shore, when calm reclined,
And on my cheek the breeze delays,
Or freshly fans the cooling air,
Or o'er the rippling surface plays,
My wistful eyes the bark pursue
That wafts the wanderer o'er the deep,
For then the thoughts of home arise
Fresh o'er my bosom, and I weep.

I hear the swift oar cleave the foam-
My heart rebounds at ev'ry stroke;
Still echoing ring within my soul
The shouts that from the seamen broke.
A restless wish my breast consumes,
To tempt my wayward fate anew,
To spread my sails for distant shores,
And bid these lovely scenes adieu!
But when the loud winds roughly blow,
And madly dash the show'ry spray,
When darting fierce from frowning clouds
The lightnings o'er the surges play,
Then once again o'er winding shores,
O'er waving woods my eyes 1 cast,
Ι
O'er peaceful vales, delicious shades,
That sleep unconscious of the blast.
And I exclaim, "Thrice happy sage,
Who, musing, dreams those bowers among,
While hours glide by beneath the leaves,
And birds make music with their song."

SLINGSBY.-I marvel much, dear Anthony, that the minor poets of Greece are not better known and more cultivated in our own country. Nothing can be more sweet, rural, and graceful than the Idyls of Theocritus, Bion, and Moschus. Virgil did not disdain to borrow from them freely, and our own Milton and Ben Jonson have transferred many of their beauties to their own pages. Have you seen Mr. Frederick Ringwood's selections from the three poets?

POPLAR.-Who has not. It is a masterly production-erudite, critical, and laborious; abounding with evidences of taste and research. The work, so far as it has gone, is alike an honour to the learned editor and to the heads of our University who induced him to undertake it. How comes it that a second part has not appeared?

SLINGSBY.-Others must answer that question. Let us hope that the position which Mr. Ringwood now so worthily fills will afford him sufficient leisure to complete what he has so happily commenced.

BISHOP.-Come, now, let me try my luck at a dive.

POPLAR.-Be it so. "Good luck to your fishing; what catch ye to-night?" BISHOP.-A glorious take, by Neptune-a fish of our own, waters. Listen while I read for you

THE WISH; OR, THE FALL OF THE STAR.

I.

As Dermot was tending his herds on the mountain,
He mused of his love, but he mused in despair;
Young Norah came tripping adown from the fountain,
Less bright than her eyes was the crystal she bare;