That plane-tree

HIPPOMACHUS.

ALCIBIADES.

Never mind the plane-tree. Come, Callicles, you were not so timid when you plundered the merchantman off Cape Malea. Take up the torch and move. Hippomachus, tell one of the slaves to bring a sow *.

CALLICLES.

And what part are you to play?

ALCIBIADES.

I shall be Hierophant. Herald, to your office. Torchbearer, advance with the lights. Come forward, fair novice. We will celebrate the rite within. (Exeunt). T. M.

SONGS OF THE HUGUENOTS.

I. MONCONTOUR.

Он! weep for Moncontour. Oh! weep for the hour
When the children of darkness and evil had

power;

When the horsemen of Valois triumphantly trod
On the bosoms that bled for their rights and their God.

Oh! weep for Moncontour. Oh! weep for the slain
Who for faith and for freedom lay slaughtered in vain.
Oh! weep for the living, who linger to bear
The renegade's shame, or the exile's despair.

One look, one last look, to the cots and the towers,
To the rows of our vines, and the beds of our flowers,
To the church where the bones of our fathers decayed,
Where we fondly had deemed that our own should be laid.

Alas! we must leave thee, dear desolate home,
To the spearmen of Uri, the shavelings of Rome,
To the serpent of Florence, the vulture of Spain,

To the pride of Anjou, and the guile of Lorraine.

* A sow was sacrificed to Ceres at the admission to the greater mysteries.

VOL. II. PART I.

D

Farewell to thy fountains, farewell to thy shades,

To the song of thy youths, and the dance of thy maids,
To the breath of thy gardens, the hum of thy bees,
And the long waving line of the blue Pyrenees.

Farewell, and for ever. The priest and the slave
May rule in the halls of the free and the brave ;-
Our hearths we abandon ;-our lands we resign ;—
Bu, Father, we kneel to no altar but thine.

T. M.

II. IVRY.

Now glory to the Lord of Hosts, from whom all glories are!
And glory to our Sovereign Liege, King Henry of Navarre!
Now let there be the merry sound of music and of dance,
Through thy corn-fields green, and sunny vines, Oh pleasant land
of France!

And thou, Rochelle, our own Rochelle, proud city of the waters,
Again let rapture light the eyes of all thy mourning daughters.
As thou wert constant in our ills, be joyous in our joy,

For cold, and stiff, and still are they who wrought thy walls annoy.
Hurrah! Hurrah! a single field hath turned the chance of war,
Hurrah! Hurrah! for Ivry, and Henry of Navarre.

Oh! how our hearts were beating, when, at the dawn of day,
We saw the army of the League drawn out in long array ;
With all its priest-led citizens, and all its rebel peers,
And Appenzel's stout infantry, and Egmont's Flemish spears.
There rode the brood of false Lorraine, the curses of our land;
And dark Mayenne was in the midst, a truncheon in his hand :
And, as we looked on them, we thought of Seine's empurpled flood,
And good Coligni's hoary hair all dabbled with his blood;
And we cried unto the living God, who rules the fate of war,

To fight for his own holy name, and Henry of Navarre.

The King is come to marshal us, in all his armour drest,
And he has bound a snow-white plume upon his gallant crest.
He looked upon his people, and a tear was in his

eye;

He looked upon the traitors, and his glance was stern and high.

Right graciously he smiled on us, as rolled from wing to wing, Down all our line, a deafening shout, "God save our Lord the King." "An if my standard-bearer fall, as fall full well he may,

"For never saw I promise yet of such a bloody fray,

"Press where ye see my white plume shine, amidst the ranks of war, "And be your oriflamme to-day the helmet of Navarre.”

Hurrah! the foes are moving. Hark to the mingled din,
Of fife, and steed, and trump, and drum, and roaring culverin.
The fiery Duke is pricking fast across Saint André's plain,
With all the hireling chivalry of Guelders and Almayne.
Now by the lips of those ye love, fair gentlemen of France,
Charge for the golden lilies,-upon them with the lance.
A thousand spurs are striking deep, a thousand spears in rest,
A thousand knights are pressing close behind the snow-white crest;
And in they burst, and on they rushed, while, like a guiding star,
Amidst the thickest carnage blazed the helmet of Navarre.

Now, God be praised, the day is ours. Mayenne hath turned his rein.
D'Aumale hath cried for quarter.
The Flemish count is slain.

Their ranks are breaking like thin clouds before a Biscay gale;
The field is heaped with bleeding steeds, and flags, and cloven mail
And then we thought on vengeance, and, all along our van,
"Remember Saint Bartholomew," was passed from man to man.
But out spake gentle Henry," No Frenchman is my foe:

66

Down, down, with every foreigner, but let your brethren go."

Oh! was there ever such a knight, in friendship or in war,
As our Sovereign Lord, King Henry, the soldier of Navarre !

Ho! maidens of Vienna; Ho! matrons of Lucerne ;
Weep, weep, and rend your hair for those who never shall return.
Ho! Philip, send, for charity, thy Mexican pistoles,

That Antwerp monks may sing a mass for thy poor spearmen's souls.
Ho! gallant nobles of the League, look that your arms be bright;
Ho! burghers of Saint Genevieve, keep watch and ward to-night.
For our God hath crushed the tyrant, our God hath raised the slave,
And mocked the counsel of the wise, and the valour of the brave.
Then glory to his holy name, from whom all glories are;
And glory to our Sovereign Lord, King Henry of Navarre.

T. M.

36

REMARKS ON THE ENGLISH CHARACTER.

ADDRESSED BY A FOREIGNER TO HIS FRIEND IN ITALY.

MY DEAR GIULIO,

LETTER II.

Since you have been pleased with my last communication concerning England and English peculiarities, I now resume the pen to furnish you with a few additional sketches illustrative of the same subject. In my present disposition of mind, this task is not, I assure you, one of the easiest. You have heard of the appalling features of this climate in the month of November; and you may easily imagine what effect · the sight of never-ending rows of dark brick houses, monotonous in their appearance, under a grey canopy of mixed fog and coal-fire smoke, must have upon my spirits, naturally inclined to depression. But yet, courage! Our old acquaintance Ovid used to write from a much more dismal place, to his friends at Rome, those affecting elegies of which you and I were so fond at school. I recollect the first day I entered the class, in which afterwards I became acquainted with you, our venerable master Abate T. was reciting, in his solemn tone of voice, those lines of the Tristia :

Si tamen interea quid in his ego perditus oris,
Quod te credibile est quærere, quæris, agam?
Spe trahor exigua .

These simple, and yet touching words of the unfortunate bard of Sulmona, have often recurred to me in the course of my peregrinations; they might serve now as an appropriate motto to this letter.

You ask me, what is the condition of a foreigner in this country? In two words; that of remaining always a foreigner. I know of no European country in which there is for an alien less chance of amalgamating himself with the people among whom he resides. There is a sort of distinguishing mark upon foreigners in this country which descends even to the second generation. "He is the son of an alien; he is of foreign extraction ;"-you often hear these sentences significantly pronounced from the mouth of a genuine Briton. The customs, education, prejudices, and language of this people are to a foreigner so many almost insurmountable barriers. In this sense the old line, Et penitus toto divisos orbe Britannos, still applies to them. The language alone would be sufficient to draw the distinction. A man may pass for a Frenchman, for an Italian, or for a German; although born

out of those countries, he may acquire their respective languages so as to deceive the natives; but a foreigner brought up out of England, and who can pass for an Englishman here, must be a rara avis; I have never heard of such a prodigy. The phraseology, the tone of voice, the action and expression in speaking, and, above all, the pronunciation, that "insular accent," as Mme. de Staël calls it, can never be perfectly imitated by a continental man; the ears of an Englishman are extremely quick at catching the discordant sounds.

Well educated Englishmen, especially those who have travelled, shew much politeness and indulgence in their intercourse with foreigners; they listen patiently to their broken English, supply them with words, smile good humouredly at their mistakes and encourage them; but taking the nation at large, there is certainly much less condescension in this respect than in France or Italy. I except from the latter country, the city of Naples, where people are remarkable for their want of urbanity to foreigners; and you know that all other Italians are foreigners in Naples. In this particular, the lower classes of English stand prominent for their coarseness. The aliens in the three kingdoms, I believe, do not amount to thirty thousand,-a comparatively small number. Naturalization is extremely difficult to be obtained; no length of residence will give you a right to it. Foreigners who reside in England are chiefly men engaged in trade; there is also a considerable number of teachers, musicians, and artists; besides the inferior crew of mechanics, domestics, and adventurers. Some of the last-mentioned class, possessed of assurance, strong nerves, and an unblushing countenance, having no character to lose, and no scruples of delicacy to surmount, succeed at times marvellously well. The calamitous dissensions of the Continent have, at different periods, caused a vast number of men of respectability from various countries, to seek an asylum here for a time; the laws are hospitable in this respect; the unfortunate of all parties may quietly and safely remain on this holy ground; the formalities required by the police are few and little troublesome ;-very different in this from what we are accustomed to on the Continent. Many of these political refugees, particularly those from southern regions, pine under the influence of the climate, the difference of habits, the want of society; they suffer from privations which are more keenly felt here than under a milder atmosphere; or they are tormented by ennui, and this is not a residence favourable to people depressed in spirits, constrained in their circumstances, and at the same time refined in their ideas. Happiness is too dear in this country, if I may use the expression.