and mace,

Whose silent fold shall hence thy sorrows But we are now on our way to the Wrap,

Chapter House--and you see the proFitz-Hugh of Merton erst, now Phillip of cession—" stern Arundel their soveLa Trappe.'

reign" following all We are made to feel that this Trappist is deeply concerned in what is Propp'd on a staff, with pomp of cross about to happen—and that is good ;

Pole-axe and pillar borne before his face, but why he is here, we are informed in language that to us can only be per

Of hoary locks, but eye that darted fire

From beetling brows, beneath his forky plexing, or rather teasing-and that is

tire, bad; a mystery should be spoken of

In purple robe, with rocket and a copemysteriously-and in general terms

Lord Primate of the realm, Lord Legate whereas in this passage it is partly de- of the Pope." tailed—the poet being in possession of certain facts, some of which he cannot

Great pains have been taken-and help letting out too circumstantially, successfully—to awaken interest in the while, in the pride of superior know. business about to be done by the breledge, others he keeps provokingly thren, and that interest now gradually under his thumb.

deepens into tragic passion.
“ Silent and slow the cloister's court they tread

The cloister, paved with tombstones of the dead,
And paved with stones, which yet no letters show,
Where they, who muse above, shall mould below.
For them the chapter-house unfolds its gate.
Eight were its walls, and o'er its angles eight,
Eight arches, springing to the zenith, groind,
Bow'd to one pillar in the midst, and join'd;
Whose shoulders, towering from the floor, alone
Heaved up and held the firmament of stone.
And pictured saints discoursed from windows seven,
And seers approved their mission graced by Heaven,
Whose beams, thus hallow'd by the scenes they pass,

Told round the floor each parable of glass.
" Through files the primate enter'd tow’rd his chair;

Bow'd to the cross above it, murmuring prayer;
(Lest sin, beleagu’ring sin, the heart surprise,
Corrupt its ward, or pass in virtue's guise ;
For subtle are the fiends within to steal,
By reason's proud or pity's kind appeal):
Then gain'd his throne, on oaken steps upheld,
High canopied, and carved with tales of eld:
Low on each side his suffragans had seat;
The rest were rank'd ou benches at his feet.
All still’d, -his Grace-brief stating what the cause,
These clerks, profound in Holy Church's laws,
Met to assist,-commanded those who ought,

To bring for doom who waited to be brought.
“ Near the west wall, a flag-stone long and wide,

With rings, was roll'd by warders four aside ;
A flame was lit; a trap-door upward thrown;
And twain with keys went down a hundred steps of stone.
Scrolls, in the mean, above the bar were spread,
By scribes, before the synod robed in red;
Below, there throng’d, dividing for a way,
Priests of all orders, wbite, and black, and grey.
The nearest peering down the shalt terrene ;
Where torches, lost a while, again were seen:

Whose bearers, re-ascending, led their charge.
“ Young, comely, tall beyond her years, and large,

Yet delicately shaped, and finely nerved,
Her form, though shatter’d, still that charm preserved,

Which marks a mould and temper well com bined
To lodge all grace and energy of mind.
With faltering step, and hand held forth to lean,
Aoxious and dark and melancholy mien :
She, wildly rising from the womb of earth,
Seem'd pot of English, scarce of mortal, birth.
A robe of woollen, coarse and black, compress'd
Around her waist, and ample o'er the breast,
Hung to her feet; her neck and arms unveild;
Broad lofty forehead; cheek depress'd and paled ;
Nose of an eaglet's daring; lips beneath
Curved o'er a wall of strong and pearly teeth-
Lips curved to sternness, but with angles prest
In dimples faint to elegance and rest;
While, from her brow dividing, flow'd behind
Her raven bair, uncurl'd, and unconfined,
Save by- what moved some shudder of surmise-

Folds of white linen plaited round her eyes." “ Folds of white linen plaited round before him, evoked so vividly by his her eyes.” This line gives a dread. own strong imagination, could have ful hint; and her few words are inco. suffered the very life and soul of it all herent, as she is led up along the lane to escape, at the time when his own of the throng, and takes her stance feelings, one would have thought, must behind a chain.

have been at the utmost pitch of inten. Compare this with the celebrated sity-how he could have all at once so picture of Constance in the peniten- cooled them down, as to give permistial aisle.

sion to his fancy to play with an image " When thus her face was given to view,

80 poor and passionless! (Although so pallid was her hue,

The passage is not well writtenIt did a ghastly contrast bear

there is no exquisite choice of words. . To those bright ringlets glistering fair,)

“ That, but her breathing did not fail," Her look composed, and steady eye,

is very awkward_" and of her bosom, Bespoke a matchless constancy;

warranted,” still more 30%" That And there she stood so calm and pale, neither sense nor pulse she lacks,” is That, but her breathing did not fail, painfully prosaic - and though poeAnd motion slight of eye and head, tic passion indulges in repetition, And of her bosom, warranted

not in such repetition as “ although so That neither sense nor pulse she lacks, pallid was her hue," " so calm and You might have thought a form of wax, pale,"

" " so pale, so fair.” The last Wrought to the very life, was there; Iine is in itself good-but how much So still she was, so pale, so fair." better had it been without the previous Jeffrey says well, “ The picture of “ pallid," and " calm," and * pale !" Constance before her judges, though Had it imaged Constance as she stood more laboured, is not, to our taste, so there-flesh and blood, about to be pleasing; though it has beauty of a kind buried alive in stone and mortar--and fully as popular.” It is laboured, but we had not been reminded that there not successfully--its beauty is not was such a substance as wax in the without some flaws--and, worst of all, world ! the chief image is fatal to the pathos. Byron says in one of his letters :What is that? You might have thought " I sent for Marmion, because it her " a form of wax!". And what then occurred to me there might be a reif had ? Of all creations of art semblance between part of Parisina, the most uninteresting to us—and we and a similar scene in the second canto hope to you—are“ wax-works.” This of Marmion. I fear there is, though at least is certain, that a wax woman I never thought of it before. I wish is under no imaginable circumstances you would ask Mr Gifford whether I so interesting as a flesh and blood one ought to say any thing upon it. I had --and that to make us feel terror and completed the story on the passage from pity for Constance, the poet had no Gibbon, which indeed leads to a like need to call in the aid of Madame Tus- scene naturally, without a thought of saud. Strange and unaccountable to us the kind ; but it comes upon me not how such a poet-with such a vision very comfortably." Byron's obliga

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tions—in his poetry-to Scott are in- admirable ; but why " that fair lid," numerable and great--as Mr Lockhart and not “ those fair lids ?" You may has boldly said in the Life-and it think that a trifling question, but a needed not “ to come upon him not good wriier never departs from the very comfortably," nor was there the natural language of men without a least occasion in the world for him to sufficient reason. Eyes unmoved," apply to Mr Gifford. The scene in “ sweet eyelids," " orbs of deepest Parisina is, beyond all doubt, imi- blue," " that fair lid,” “ human eyes," tated, with his Lordship's usual skill, should not have occurred within so from that in Marmion_inimitable short a compass. " It was a thing to though that is said to be; and is faulty see not hear," is a most unhappy and and imperfect.

ungrammatical plagiarism from Chris

tabelle.“She stood, I said, all pale and still,

.“ A sight to dreain if not to The living cause of Hugo's ill ;

tell ;" and those who saw, it did surHer eyes unmoved, but full and wide,

prise,” is true Sternhold, and no misNot once had turn'd to either side

take. And why " it did surprise'' Nor once did those sweet eyelids close,

them that such drops could fall from Or shade the glance o'er which they rose,

human eyes," does surprise us; for But round their orbs of deepest blue

human eyes were made for weeping, The circling white dilated grew

as human hearts for suffering, and the And there with glassy gaze she stood biggest drop that the law of gravitaAs ice were in her curdled blood;

tion will let gather there, is but a But every now and then a tear,

transient token of the endless misery So large and slowly gather'd, slid welling up in a region visible but to From the long dark fringe of that fair God. “ The imperfect note" is insuflid,

ferable—as of one essaying not to It was a thing to see, not hear!

speak but to sing ; and the two closing And those who saw, it did surprise, lines, though taken on the rough, for. Such drops could fall from human eyes. cible, are far from being what they To speak she thought—the imperfect note ought to be—and if poetry be, as Was choked within her swelling throat,

Coleridge called it, " the best words Yet seem'd in that low hollow groan, Her whole heart gushing in the tone.”

in the best places,” they are not poetry;

for what kind of collocation of words “ The living cause of Hugo's ill" is is “ in that low hollow groan gushing a wretched line; or shade the glance in the tone ?" o'er which they rose” is as bad as Turn back then from these celepossible, “ glance" being the very brated pictures by two of the great reverse of the expression given to masters, to that of Anne Ayliffe by Parisina's eye throughout the passage an artist as yet almost unknown, a glassy gaze;".

“ as ice were in Nicholas Thirning Moile, and tell us her curdled blood" is, we think, com- if you do not think it equal to either mon-place, and not needed there; of them in conception-in execution " from the long dark fringe of that superior ? fair lid” is elaborate, and may be very But the trial is about to begin.

“ Be silent,” cries the apparitor," and hear!
And Phillip of La Trappe, press not so near!
Thy hood had better hide those streamy cheeks.

Peace, ho! attend! His Grace the Primate sreaks!” The Primate, we find in Weaver, stones, which belonged first to the who follows Godwin, at the age of King of Spaine, and was sold to this two-and-twenty years was consecrated Bishop by the Black Prince, for three Bishop of Ely, « which he laudablie hundred 'merks. Hee also bestowed governed-considering the greennesse the building of the great gatehouse of of his age-the space of fourteene Ely. house in Houlborne : during his years, three weeks, and eighteene abode at Yorke, which was about days. In which time he was Lord cight years, he bestowed much in Chancellour of England; from Ely he building upon divers of his houses, and was translated to Yorke; leaving for unto the church. Besides many

rich an implement at his house of Ely, a ornaments, he gave two great basons wonderfull, sumptuous, and costly of silver and gilt, two great censers, table, adorned with gold and precious two other basons of silver, and two

NO, CCLXXXVIII, VOL. XLVI.

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cravetts; he gave to the vicars a silver good reader, both to learn and to marcup of great weight, and a massive vel. To learn, in that thou shalt hear bowl of silver to the canons. From truth discoursed and discussed, with Yorke he was removed hither to Can- the contrary reasons of the adversary terbury, and here he sate one month dissolved. To marvel, for thou shalt above seventeen years. In which time, behold large, in this man, the marvel. at the west end of his church, he built lous force and strength of the Lord's a faire spire steeple, called to this day might, Spirit, and grace, working and Arundell steeple, and bestowed a tun- fighting in his soldiers, and also speak. able ring of five bells on the same, ing in their mouths according to the which he dedicated to the Holy Trinity, word of his promise." The author of to the blessed Virgin Mary, to the the Poem before us, has well studied angel Gabriel, to Saint Blase, and the the character of the Archbishop's fifth to St John the Evangelist. This mind, exhibited in that “ Examinamuch he effected; howsoever hee was tion"_worked most effectively upon no sooner warm in his seate, than that the materials he found there—and not he, with his brother, the Earl of Arun with ingenuity only, but with genius, dell, were condemned of high treason, transferred the spirit of the persecutor his brother executed, and ho banished from a real to a fictitious case, of the the kingdom, and so lived in exile- persecuted from that of William ment the space of near two yerrs, Thorpe, the Protestant Christian, who until the first of the raigne of Henry was indeed given to the fire, to that Fourth. This worthy prelate died of a of Anne Ayliffe, who knew not how swelling in his tongue, which made him to choose between the Cross and the unable to eate, drink, or speake for a Crescent, and perishes only before our time before his death, which happened imagination, in these flames. February 20, anno 1413.” In Fox's

" Peace, ho! attend! His Grace the History of the Martyrs, the Arch

Primate speaks!” bishop appears in a different light. “ After the decease or martyrdom of And the haughty Churchman speaks these who were executed in the month well-yca even as if he were a humble of January A.D. 1414, in the next Christian. Who shall say that he is month, and in the same year, God not sincere in hatred of heresy, and took away the great enemy of his would fain persuade the heretic to word, and rebel to his king, Thomas adopt the only creed by which she Arundel, Archbishop of Canterbury, may save her soul alive? To show whose death followed after the exe.. her how wicked is her own creed and cution of these good men, by the mar- how wild, would be a fruitless task with vellous stroke of God, so suddenly, her—to him and the brethren a painmay seem somewhat to declare their ful one-nay, might haply “ taint innocency, and that he was also one some less instructed breast" with her great procurer of their death, in that unhallowed and sinful delusions. God would not suffer him longer to Enough that she has confessed her live, striking him immediately with tenets, and that Holy Church condeath."

demns them therefore the mother of And here we may notice, that we souls must rescue this erring child as have within an hour been reading in from a fascinating serpet-from a Fox's Martyrs, "the Examination of slippery cliff and a gulf of fire. Oh! William Thorpe, penned with his own that the poor, dear, infatuated, lost hand,” of which the Martyrologist creature would but recant and repent, says well,~" Next comes the history and how blessed an office would it be of Master William Thorpe, a valiant for that servant of the Lord of mercy warrior under the triumphal banner of as well as judgment, to save her soul Christ, with the process of his exami- from perdition, and her body from the nation before Thomas Arundel, Arch- flames ! bislop of Canterbury. In his exami- For, hear how like a disciple of Jesus nation (A. D. 1407) thou shalt have, the Primate says

“ Taken,- I call to witness you, whose aid
Thereto was lent, and Heaven, for whose we pray'd,
No art was unemploy'd, no time exempt,
No labour spared, unwearied no attempt ;
All, wit could compass, zeal and pity gave,

To purify her soul, convince, and save.
But all in vain! When Self-conceit and Doubt,
Those unbelieving spirits, seem'd cast out,
There entered in two others, near allied,
But more unclean, Obduracy and Pride.
To banish these required more sharp research,
By rigorous means, abhorr’d of Holy Church ;
Means only urged when none beside succeed,
Then urged with sorrow, nor beyond the need ;
But which, urged here to equal it, have proved
Less rigid than the soul they have not moved.

sin,

" What rests ? All human labours know their span :
Nor will the Spirit always strive with man:
Apostasies are rife; more odious none;
Examples needed ;-and God's will be done!
God's and the King's. For having crown'd his brows
O’er prostrate France, the Fifth King Henry vows
To wear Christ's cross, his sepulchre restore,
And lash the apostate tribes from Judah's shore.
And well must we in England aid our chief,
And purge his realm of schism and unbelief.
What therefore rests ? but having once more striven,
Ere that last-dread--anathema be given,
To save this miscreant, miserable maid,
Whom Hell has hardened thus, and Heaven betray'd ;
Should these lures fail-the last to be renew'd,
Should penitence and grace be stili eschew'd,
What rests, my brethren, save-ye all concur,

To leave the secular arm to deal with her ?” What saith Anne Ayliffe to an ap- * Behold the Book of Life! abjure thy peal so kind, considerate, charitable, Christian? She says not a word—for And haste, dear child, to write thy name the Evil one is busy within her-and therein; she smiles. “Smiles, wretched girl, Thine shall be all rewards a heaven posbeseem her ill," cries the Primate,

sest, shocked at the blindness_not of her

And all this earth retains to make thee

blest." bodily eyes-for these he had extinguished—but of her soul; for it he would fain enlighten with gospel say-pointing to the bandage, can

What blessing—she might haply truth

earth now retain for her? Hush-say “ And on its sightless eyeballs pour the not--think not so-for the good Bishop, day.”

« Lord Primate of the realm, Lord But tolerance must end somewhere-- Legate of the Pope,” has ready for and is near its end. The gates of her a holy retreat, where she may enhell are yawning to receive her. joy earthly peace and commune with “ Penance and pardon still are in thy heaven. choice."

In Netley Abbey-on the neighbouring isle
The woods of Binstead shade as fair a pile ;-
(Where sloping meadows fringe the shores with green,
A river of the ocean rolls between,
Whose murmurs, borne on sunny winds, disport
Through oriel windows and a cloister'd court;
O'er hills so fair, o'er terraces so sweet,
The sea comes twice each day to kiss their feet :-
Where sounding caverns mine the garden bowers,
Where groves intone, where many an ilex towers,
And many a fragrant breath exhales from fruit and flowers :--
And lowing herds and feather'd warblers there
Make mystic concords with repose and prayer ;
Mix'd with the hum of apiaries near,
The mill's far cataract, and the sea boys' cheer,

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