For all the tears e'er sorrow drew,
And all the raptures fancy knew,
And all the keener rush of blood,

That throbs through bard in bard-like mood,
Where here a tribute mean and low,
Though all their mingled streams could flow-
Woe, wonder, and sensation high,

In one spring-tide of ecstasy!

it may not last

The vision of enchantment's past:
Like frostwork in the morning ray,
The fancied fabric melts away;
Each Gothic arch, memorial-stone,
And long, dim, lofty aisle, are gone;
And, lingering last, deception dear,
The choir's high sounds die on my ear.
Now slow return the lonely down,
The silent pastures bleak and brown,
The farm begirt with copsewood wild,
The gambols of each frolic child,
Mixing their shrill cries with the tone
Of Tweed's dark waters rushing on.

Prompt on unequal tasks to run,
Tus Nature disciplines her son:
Meeter, she says, for me to stray,
And waste the solitary day,

In plucking from yon fen the reed,
And watch it floating down the Tweed;
Or idly list the shrilling lay,

With which the milkmaid cheers her way
Marking its cadence rise and fail,
As from the field, beneath her pail,

She trips it down the uneven dale:

Mecter for me, by yonder cairn,
The ancient shepherd's tale to learn;
Though oft he stop in rustic fear,
Lest his old legends tire the ear
Of one, who, in his simple mind,
May boast of book-learn'd taste refined.

But thou, my friend, can'st fitly tell,
(For few have read romance so well,)
How still the legendary lay
O'er poet's bosom holds its sway;
How on the ancient minstrel strain
Time lays his palsied hand in vain;
And how our hearts at doughty deeds,
By warriors wrought in steely weeds,
Still throb for fear and pity's sake;
As when the Champion of the Lake
Enters Morgana's fated house,
Or in the Chapel Perilous,

Despising spells and demons' force,

Holds converse with the unburied corse;1
Or when, Dame Ganore's grace to move,
(Alas, that lawless was their love!)
He sought proud Tarquin in his den,
And freed full sixty knights; or when,
A sinful man, and unconfess'd,
He took the Sangreal's holy quest,
And, slumbering, saw the vision high,
He might not view with waking eye."

The mightiest chiefs of British song
Scorn'd not such legends to prolong:

'See Appendix, Note A.

"See Appendix, Note B.

1

They gleam through Spenser's elfin dream,
And mix in Milton's heavenly theme;
And Dryden, in immortal strain,

Had raised the Table Round again,'

Dryden's melancholy account of his projected Epic Poem, blasted by the selfish and sordid parsimony of his patrons, is contained in an "Essay on Satire," addressed to the Earl of Dorset, and prefixed to the Translation of Juvenal. After mentioning a plan of supplying machinery from the guardian angels of kingdoms, mentioned in the Book of Daniel, he adds,

66

Thus, my lord, I have, as briefly as I could, given your lordship, and by you the world, a rude draught of what I have been long labouring in my imagination, and what I had intended to have put in practice; (though far unable for the attempt of such a poem ;) and to have left the stage, to which my genius never much inclined me, for a work which would have taken up my life in the performance of it. This, too, I had intended chiefly for the honour of my native country, to which a poet is particularly obliged. Of two subjects, both relating to it, I was doubtful whether I should choose that of King Arthur conquering the Saxons, which, being farther distant in time, gives the greater scope to my invention; or that of Edward the Black Prince, in subduing Spain, and restoring it to the lawful prince, though a great tyrant, Don Pedro the Cruel; which, for the compass of time, including only the expedition of one year, for the greatness of the action, and its answerable event, for the magnanimity of the English hero, opposed to the ingratitude of the person whom he restored, and for the many beautiful episodes which I had interwoven with the principal design, together with the characters of the chiefest English persons, (wheréin, after Virgil and Spenser, I would have taken occasion to represent my living friends and patrons of the noblest families, and also shadowed the events of future ages in the succession of our imperial line,)— with these helps, and those of the machines which I have mentioned, I might perhaps have done as well as some of my predecessors, or at least chalked out a way for others to amend my errors in a like design; but being encouraged only with fair

But that a ribald King and Court
Bade him toil on, to make them sport;
Demanded for their niggard pay,

Fit for their souls, a looser lay,
Licentious satire, song, and play;

The world defrauded of the high design,

Profaned the God-given strength, and marr'd the lofty line.

Warm'd by such names, well may we then, Though dwindled sons of little men,

Essay to break a feeble lance

In the fair fields of old romance;
Or seek the moated castle's cell,

Where long through talisman and spell,
While tyrants ruled, and damsels wept,
Thy Genius, Chivalry, hath slept:
There sound the harpings of the North,
Till he awake and sally forth,

On venturous quest to prick again,
In all his arins, with all his train,

Shield, lance, and brand, and plume and scarf,
Fay, giant, dragon, squire, and dwarf,
And wizard, with his wand of might,
And errant maid on palfrey white.
Around the Genius weave their spells,
Pure Love, who scarce his passion tells;
Mystery, half veil'd and half reveal'd;
And Honour, with his spotless shield;

words by King Charles II., my little salary ill paid, and no pros pect of a future subsistence, I was then discouraged in the beginning of my attempt; and now age has overtaken me, and want, a more insufferable evil, through the change of the times, has wholly disabled me."

Attention, with fix'd eye; and Fear,

That loves the tale she shrinks to hear;
And gentle Courtesy and Faith,
Unchanged by sufferings, time, or death;
And Valour, lion-mettled lord,
Leaning upon his own good sword.

Well has thy fair achievement shown, A worthy meed may thus be won; Ytene's1 oaks-beneath whose shade Their theme the merry minstrels made, Of Ascapart, and Bevis bold,"

And that Red King, who, while of old,

1 The New Forest in Hampshire, anciently so called.

"The "History of Bevis of Hampton" is abridged by my friend Mr. George Ellis, with that liveliness which extracts amusement even out of the most rude and unpromising of our old tales of chivalry. Ascapart, a most important personage in the romance. is thus described in an extract:—

"This geaunt was mighty and strong,
And full thirty foot was long.

He was bristled like a sow;

A foot he had between each brow;

His lips were great, and hung aside;

His eyen were hollow, his mouth was wide;

Lothly he was to look on than,

And liker a devil than a man.

His staff was a young oak,

Hard and heavy was his stroke."

Specimens of Metrical Romances, vol. ii. p. 136,

I am happy to say, that the memory of Sir Bevis is still fragrant in his town of Southampton; the gate of which is sentineled by the effigies of that doughty knight-crrant and his gigantic associate.

William Rufus.