my Rhodalind, and a boat of flowers has tempted her from her husband's land to mine. Wait till the morning comes, and Florice of Engelland shall be thine."-"How can that be certain," replied Florice, "when she has with her the coronet of lilies which her husband gave as the token of his love and fidelity?"-"There is no token of love," said the yellow dwarf, "which a woman would not exchange for the gold bracelet which I offered. Since the days of our great-grandfather Odin, I have seen twelve thousand brides wear that coronet, and as many times I have seen it changed into a heap of dead lilies."-" Can it be thought," said Florice, "that the lady of Engelland will love me in this green attire, and in this hideous land of cold and desolation ?"—"No," answered the Gold King, laughing-" but my palace furnishes ornaments to decorate a bridegroom. Take my tarn-cap and my silken mantle; and when the evening star shines, our youngest brother's boat will come to this shore. The lady Florice dwells with the high-priest's sister, and will follow thee as she followed the Inermaid in my boat of flowers."-The pretended Green Dwarf paused awhile, aud answered, "I have a fancy for thy vest, brother, to conceal my deformed shoulders."- "No part of my apparel should be denied to thee, except this," said the sovereign of the gold mines; but when Odin strove to make me invulnerable, a rose-leaf lay near my heart, and on that spot I am penetrable by a woman's hand; therefore I cannot give thee the armour that defends it."-Florice said no more, and the yellow dwarf clapping his hands, summoned all his gnomes to prepare a feast for his brother. Fruits of all kinds were spread in shells of pearl laid on tables supported by peacocks, whose outspread wings were composed of precious stones. He knew his brother would taste nothing except the dew gathered from Persian roses, and a cup was brought which had been filled from the gardens of Shirauz. At length the yellow dwarf sank on the rich couch prepared for him in a deep sleep; and his wife, lifting the mail of plaited gold from his breast, saw the print of a roseJeaf on the part which admitted a wound. She would have pierced it with his own poignard, but Florice would not permit a deed of treachery. She only took the cap and mantle he had offered, and

placing them on her sister, they passed unresisted through all the marble doors of his palace. But when they had reached the last, Florice remembered the infant she had left sleeping unseen in her enemy's chamber. Her sister would have prevented her return; but she replied, "I will not abandon the innocent and the helpless." Chrysos was still asleep, and she brought the babe safely away in its mantle. When they reached the coast, a boat was seen moored among the rocks, without oar or sail; but a gold bracelet and a few roses lay on the edge. Heedless of her sister's safety, and eager only to secure her own, Rhodalind leaped into this deceitful boat, which instantly disappeared. Florice looked in despair at the dark waters, when another boat, transparent as crystal, and steered by a White Dwarf of the most diminutive stature, touched the shore. His face shone in the moon-beams like the smallest leaf of a lily, and his cloak seemed as light and thin as if it had been woven of the May-fly's wings. Florice placed the sleeping babe's mantle on the helm, hoping that the touch of a creature so innocent would dissolve the work of an evil spirit, but the boat remained unchanged, and the helmsman spoke in a voice as soft as the music of a reed tuned by the south-wind." Enter, Florice !—my boat is framed of air aud light, and will convey no freight except innocence and beauty. The Green Serpent Midgard, whose folds encircle the world, has received your sister, and conveyed her to the burning mountain of this island, where the Black Dwarf will avenge her treachery to his brother. But the presence of this innocent babe will smooth our way through the waters."-Florice placed herself in the boat, and sang the hymn to the Sea-King as her pilot steered. Yet her courage failed when they sunk into a fog so white and so vast as to confound both sight and hearing. our home near?" she said; but the

"Is

White Dwarf was no longer visible, and his voice even from the helm could not be heard. It seemed as if they had traversed a thousand miles before a blue bird came through the mist, and alighted on the helm. Then Florice perceived that a wall of ice, two hundred fathoms deep below the sea and half as many

*The May-fly, or Marienwurmchen, makes a figure in Northern romance.

* * *

Here ends all that tradition has preserved of the first founders of this Arctic colony, and their descent from our ancestors is evinced by the exact resemblance their legend bears to those which the most distinguished poet of our sister kingdom has lately ushered into the modern world. The heroic songs of Denmark, collected by the orders of Sophia when storm-stayed at Knutstrup, whither she had gone to see Tycho Brahe's observatory, abound in such wild tales of dwarfs, mermaids, and gardens of roses, as our Arctic islander has collected. And the romantic ballads lately translated from the Icelandic language, especially Ulrich and Annie, Child Axelvold, the Maiden and the Hasel, Stark Tiderich and Olger Danske, Ribolt and Guldborg, and Young Child Dyring, so strongly resemble our old favourites Lord Tho-, mas, Gil Morice, the Hawthorn Tree, Chevy Chase, the Douglas Tragedy, and Young Lochinvar, that our new friends near the North Pole cannot surprise us by the near affinity they claim. And though this romantic history of their origin may not appear in the "Book of Heroes," "the Nibelungen Lay," or any other illustration of Northern Antiquities, it may claim a place among the legends dedicated to St. Julian, the patron-saint of travellers. V.

THE FIRST NIGHT

OP

“LE NOTTI ROMĀNE.”

TH

TRANSLATED BY J. J.

(Continued from page 300.)

DIALOGUE IV.

The Ghost of Gralidian.

HE Dictator was thus in his defence, haranguing the assembly, when a spectre appeared, having his head vacillating as though it had been recently cut off and replaced upon his shoulders. I saw the mark of the axe in a bloody circle round his neck. He was without eyes and without hands; and when he had approached the Dictator, he extended his mutilated arms, as imploring either pity or vengeance; while from the sockets of his obtruded eyes (oh, horrid sight!) dropped tears of blood! Cæsar suspended his speech, and seemed horror-struck by this revolting apparition; who, as unwilling longer to offend the eyes of the beholders, withdrew through the crowd behind him.

The Dictator then resumed his defence" You have just beheld," said he, "a terrific instance of Catiline's cruelty-au instance of which none but a fratricide could be capable. That is the illustrious patrician Gratidian, proscribed, only because he was the nephew of Marius. Catiline invented the mode of his punishment, and under Catiline's direction it was executed. He was first whipped by the common executioner through the public streets-his eyes were excavated-his hands were cut off-his tongue cut out -his limbs all broken-and, lastly, his head was cut off.—But pity under such sufferings were allowed him?—No!A senator fainting at the sight, was immediately put to death for this evidence of human feeling. Catiline himself, with horrid avidity, presented to Silla the head of Gratidian, and afterwards washed in the lustral waters of the temple of Apollo his blood-stained hands, as though he had performed a holy ceremony.

To the house of Silla, open to daily slaughters, were brought from all parts of Italy the heads of the proscribed, and there the assassins demanded their reward, as from the treasury of public atrocity. Thither frequently the proscribed were brought alive, despatched, and never heard of more. In those

dreadful days, I know not that there remained one worthy the appellation of Roman citizen, excepting a youth then fourteen years old, our venerable Cato-who being frequently taken by his governor to the house of Silla, a mutual friendship existing between the families, when he found the threshold stained with blood, would stand, struck with a generous horror, unable to conIceive how Rome could endure such abominable deeds, and lament that he had not a sword to slay the intolerable tyrant; so inflamed was the youth with this exalted anger, that at times his governor could scarcely restrain him from putting into action his magnanimous but dangerous thoughts. I myself, who now declare it to you, was included in the number of the proscribed, for no other crime than that of being related to the family of Marius. I was then in my eighteenth year, and was compelled to fight as the only means of saving my life from its remorseless persecutors-numerous and continual supplications being made to the tyrant in my favour, he was at last overcome by wea riness if not by pity, and cancelled my name from the fatal scroll. But so repugnant to his nature was any act of clemency, he used daily to lament his having done it.

"What amplitude of eloquence can comprehend the extent and enormity of Silla's massacres? Tell what we may, the more numerous, and the more horrible, still remain untold. Time and strength would fail ere the sad subject could be exhausted, which, as the ocean, still spreads as I advance, unbounded to my mental contemplation. The whole city was proscribed-the whole city was depopulated, and its desert ways covered with the lifeless victims of the general massacre. Preneste was desolated by the slaughter of 12,000 proscribed inhabitants. Spoleto, Interamna, Florence, Sulmona, Boviano, Isernia, Pelesia, and many other cities, were inundated with blood, and consigned to destruction.

"Having given this dreadful earnest of his power, Silla assumed the title of Dictator, and from your cowardice exacted the unheard-of concession, that whatever he did should be approved by you!-of which availing himself, he immediately appeared in the Comitium with twenty-four lictors bearing the fasces, and, for the first time, that ensign of death the axe in the midst of them. Then as a cruel jest, evincing

at the same time the pomp and proof of his own pride and your meanness, he invited you to choose new consuls: when Lucretius Offella, a most illustrious patrician, having aspired to that dignity, Silla coolly ordered, from his high seat, a centurion to slay the candidate-and while, insinuating himself with the multitude, he solicited their suffrages, he was prostrated by the centurion. Him the indignant people conducted as a criminal to Silla, from whom they obtained no other redress than this sentence, slowly and gravely uttered, "Release him-he has only obeyed my orders." A silence sad and shameful closed your lips-and though numerous was the assembly, there was in it not a Roman heart or hand. Slaves ye were, and with slavish palpitation in your cowardly bosoms, each withdrew to his home.

"Thus by day in the Comitium sat Silla as an infernal judge, decreeing punishments; and afterwards went home to relax in voluptuous revelry. Thi ther came bands of players, musicians, gluttons, parasites, and the dissolute and wanton of both sexes. With these did Silla lavish the property of the proscribed, in luxury and lasciviousnessand having put to death all the good, as a compensation to the city for their loss, advanced the vilest of the community to their posts and privileges-and declared his freedmen, young and ready to execute the will of their implacable Lord, to the number of ten thousand, Roman Citizens.

"Such were the means of exaltation adopted by this proud destroyer; and after killing by war, proscription, plots, and open massacre, more than a hundred thousand of you, among whom were ninety senators and two thousand knights, he assumed the titles of the amiable, the desirable, the happy. It is true, after these enormous inassacres, he laid down the axe, and passed his latter years in unoffending tranquillity; but it is doubtful whether it was more the effect of that extreme contempt in which he held you, or of that degeneracy to which he had reduced your minds This is, however, certain, so bowed were your heads, formerly prompt to look defiance at all tyranny, that although then become again arbit ets of your liberty, ye remained slaves. So stands the ox when the yoke is taken off, his head still bent, expecting it again.

"Now, oh Tully, our unhappy times arrive, when we saw driven from the Comitium, with clubs and stones, that venerable citizen Cato, and the Consul Metellus dragged to prison by Flavius the Tribune! Nor can thy recollection fail of the irreverent jests of the Tribune Clodius, which in the Comitium moved the mob to bespatter thee with dirt! You saw in the tumult the Orator Hortensius almost dead from their bru tal violence, and the Senator Vibienus killed. The consular fasces, the sight of which, among our ancestors, was sufficient to restrain all violence in the populace, were then viewed with contempt. The Comitium and the Forum were filled by Clodius with criminals set loose from the prisons, and with gladiators, who in every part of them left sad vestiges of their atro cious outrage. The Tiber, embrued, oh Romans! with your blood, flowed slowly, as charged with the multitude of the dead. Pompey himself, famed for his achievements, venerated for his goodness, had his gown stained with blood in the Comitium. Suffrages no longer conferred honours, no longer were they solicited by humble candidates, but daring ambition, accompanied by armed satellites, overpowered its competitors with force.

Considering, therefore, this general state of depravity and corruption, by me rather obscured than described, I think it will appear to thee, oh Marcus Brutus, and to this assembly, that genuine liberty, so long outraged, was almost dead, and that no hope remained of better times but by an absolute and vigorous control of this wild, ungoverned licentiousness. When exalt ed minds disdaining servility resolve on freedom, they must attempt an elevation that shall place them beyond the reach of insult. This opinion, replete with noble perils, I had, and by my deeds manifested. Many others confirmed it in various ways, but all declared vain every hope of liberty. Ye saw the great Lucullus, when at the head of your eagles he had put to flight Tigranes and Mithridates beyond the Tigris, waste the remainder of his life in retire ment-disdaining to oppose himself to the outrages of the mob-and becoming; afterwards as much celebrated for his suppers as he had been before by his triumphs, evinced in his neglect of the civil discords for his luxurious case, that he thought

And

them worthy of no greater care. that Cato, who in Utica held my cleinency in so great contempt, previous to his committing the act of suicide, left, as his last lesson to his son, an injunction not to connect himself with public business, as being no longer compatible with the character of an honest citizen. The peaceable and virtuous citizens quitted the city walls as flying from the impending storm, and sought shelter in domestic life, where alone they could preserve their innocence and honour-and especially Pomponius, who remained at Athens too long for our happiness and welfare, so valuable was his society to us all. Thou also, oh Tully, considered the oppressions of your country so great, that to deplore them you cloathed in mourning, and from your example many of the patricians did the same: the senate also frequently ap peared in those insignia of regret, as a rite funereal at the death of Liberty-nay, after the battle of Pharsalia, a victory which I should call happy, had I not conquered Romans, you used to say, it was expedient not only to yield, but to throw the arms away.

In this afflicted country, if country it might be called, were two citizens, famous for many deeds of signal enterprise, and between them they had divided the empire-the one was, Pompey, and the other, I. He remained in Italy, I in Gaul, by me reduced, with no small glory, oh Romans, under your dominion. The fate of Rome was in suspense-all minds perplexed, and all authority uncertain but that of arms, The senate, however, preserving nothing of its fallen greatness but its pride, dared to order me to quit that army which had been the minister of my victories, and to trust myself private and unarmed to civil commotions. Although such a command was as despicable as the assembly whence it is sued, I declared myself ready to obey it, when Pompey should be placed in a similar condition. To this I obtained no other answer, than that I must obey, and with respect to my rival, the fathers would at their convenience deliberate. Afterwards, under pretence of making an expedition against the Parti, the Senate demanded two legions from me, which, deceived by this pretence, I yielded. These were immediately attached to the army of Pompey, and remained in Italy against me. I never

theless still continued to assure the fathers of my readiness to obey them on the fair condition I had made. But they with haughtiness despised my humble letters. Still so sincere was my desire of avoiding extremities, I consented that Pompey should remain at the head of all the troops, on condition that one single legion should be left me, with the government of Illy

ria.

This, I may say, vile proposal was received with contempt by the fathers, who declared war against me as an enemy to the country. I then presented myself on the bank of the Rubicon, the boundary of my province, compelled, I will not say by hostile motives, but by civil defence. As a son before a cruel mother, when I first set my foot upon the bridge, I felt those powers languishing within me, which, until that day, had been always ready for the most arduous and perilous enterprises. An icy chill ran through my veins, and I stood unresolved. Then turning to Asinius Pollio, "It is yet," said I, "in our choice to recede; but if we advance, all decision must be that of arms." He heard, and was silent, and the rest by their silence seemed to reprove my hesita tion. I therefore advanced, as one who driven into an abyss closes his eyes to avoid the sight of its frightful profundity.

"Then did the great Pompey, who boasted that wherever he stamped the ground with his foot whole legions would proceed, fled, not only from Rome, but Italy, although with superior numbers. The people yielded to my squadrons, and I conquered more by clemency than terror. I pursued Pompey into Greece, always and in vain proposing peace on moderate conditions. Thus was urged to the extreme trial of my fortune at Pharsalia, where I no longer recognized the great Pompey, who, as oppressed by Fate, and fighting badly, fled. And if with any virtuous action of my mortal life, I may, in this immortal state, solace my soul, it is, that on that bloody day I tempered and restrained the rage and violence of the victors-for no sooner did I perceive the victory certain, then I rode through the squadrons, crying out to my soldiers, Pardon to Romans." My command was obeyed, and the conquered remained safe on the field, and confident in my clemency, 1, a Roman, had fought against Europ. Mag. Vol. LXXIV, Nov. 1818.

My

Romans-I stood a conqueror, without a conqueror's exultation; and contemplating the bitter fruits of civil discords, in the language of real sorrow, and in the hearing of the conquerors and conquered, I lamented the dreadful necessity, all law despised, all rights trampled on, all authority contemned, which had driven me to arms. Nor was I satisfied only with pardoning, after the victory, every one who implored my clemency-1 divested myself of every inducement to vengeance, for many letters being found written to Pompey by his partisans, I ordered them all to be burned without reading one; thus hiding from myself the hatred of others, and choosing rather to live in danger than in suspicion. And, oh Brutus, thou on that day in which the battle was fought wast one of the objects of my most anxious solicitude. Thou, a follower of Pompey, although he had killed thy father, stoodst in arms against me, who had always loved thee as a son. I rode through the squa drons, issuing a general order to hold thy person inviolate, and to give to thee a free passage of retreat. heart as I urged citizens against citizens palpitated with regret, and my mind was filled with the apprehension of encountering thee living, or to be hold thee dead. Oh, Brutus ! illbeloved man! thou on that day seeking me, and thirsting for my blood, mightst have satiated thy thirst with some degree of honour. Or if to fall had been thy fate, thou wouldst have fallen valiantly-how much more creditable to thy character had it been, than to survive, imploring my clemency, obtaining it, then, under a face of friendship, to cherish in thy heart for years an inveterate hatred, until at length tearing off the mask, to declare thyself an ungrateful and perfidious enemy. I think I see thee now, thy dagger dropping blood, and thy stern eyes fixed on me, in which too late I read the sentence of my death. It was astonishment, and not my wounds, that killed me; seeing my murderers, those in whom I had placed my greatest confidence, on whom I had conferred the greatest benefitsamong whom, oh Brutus! when I beheld thee, I abandoned my life to thy ingratitude, and covering my face with my robe, resigned my body to your swords, and my spirit to the God who gave it.

3 E