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For which thy child was on a cross yrest;
Thy blissful eyen saw all his

Then is there no comparison between
Thy woe, and any woe men may sustain.

Thou saw'st thy child yslain before thine eyen,
And yet now liv'th my little child perfay:
Now, lady bright! to whom all woful dyen,
Thou glory of womanhood, thou faire May!
Thou haven of refute, bright star of day!
Rue on my child, that of thy gentleness
Ruest on every rueful in distress.

'O little child; alas! what is thy guilt
That never wroughtest sin as yet, perdie?
Why will thy harde father have thee spilt ?
O mercy, deare Constable !' quod she,
'As let my little child dwell here with thee;
And if thou dar'st not him from blame

So kiss him one's in his father's name.'

Therewith she looketh backward to the eand
And saide, Farewell, husband ruthless!'
And up she ran and walketh down the strand
Toward the ship; her followeth all the press.
And ever she prayeth her son to hold his peace,
And tak'th her leave, and with a holy intent
She blesseth her, and into the ship she went.

Victailled was the ship, it is no drede
Abundantly for her a full long space;
And other necessaries that should need
She had enow,
be Godde's grace:

For wind and weather, Almighty God,

And bring her home! I can no better say,-
But in the sea she driveth forth her way.

It must be remembered that both the poet and his heroine were Roman Catholics, and that a Roman Catholic mother would naturally pray to the Virgin for her child.

I could not help wondering, as my kind host and I stood together under that groined roof, whether any of the monks of Chaucer's day-for in Chaucer's time there was an ecclesiastical establishment at the bottom of the hill on whose foundation indeed, and probably comprising part of the walls, the beautiful mansion called the Priory now stands; I could not help wondering whether any of the monks of that day were as well suited to the old bard as its present master would undoubtedly have

proved; and from wondering I got to wishing that four centuries could have been annihilated, and Geoffrey Chaucer and John Hughes have been placed each in his own residence with only that beautiful winding up-hill road between them; neighbors hardly a mile apart. How they would have given each other legend for legend, tale for tale, wisdom for wisdom, song for song, jest for jest! In his one great act Chaucer would of course have had the better—indeed of whom except of Shakspeare and Milton would he not? But my friend would have made it up in his infinite variety. To say nothing of the classical learning for which he has always been renowned a scholar among scholars; does he not write and talk as a native nearly all the languages of Europe, all certainly that have a literature to tempt to the acquirement. Was not his "Provence and the Rhone" almost the only book ever praised in the "Waverley Novels ?" Does not he contrive in his juvenals to make his pen do double duty as sketcher and writer? And are not those pen and ink drawings of his something astonishing for spirit and truth? Is he not also an artist in wood, embroidering his oaken wainscots with every quirk and quiddity that comes into his head, from a comic masque to an old English motto? Is he not such a reciter that he can make people laugh till they cry with his fun, and afraid to go to bed with his ghost stories? Can the very beasts of the field resist him? Did not he frighten me out of my wits, by calling around him all the wild cattle of Highclare from the box of his own carriage? Unhappy creatures! he enchanted them with his mimicry till they took him for one of themselves. Is there any thing he can not do? that is the fitter question. Can not he, if he heard a German soldier in a barrack-yard singing an old song while polishing his musket, note down the air, retain the words, put them into English verse, adapted to the tune, and sing it as heartily as the soldier could have done for the life of him? Did he not do so by the ballad of "Prince Eugene,” said to have been composed, words and air, by one of the Prince's old troopers, and long as popular in the German army as "Tom Bowline" or Tom Tough" among the British tars. Here is

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Mr. Hughes's version:

Prince Eugene, our noble leader,
Made a vow in death to bleed, or

Win the Emperor back Belgrade:

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Crying, "On, boys, every hand to't,
Brother Germans, nobly stand to't,

Charge them home for our old renown!"

Gallant Prince, he spoke no more; he

Fell in early youth and glory

Struck from his horse by some curst ball:
Great Eugene long sorrowed o'er him,
For a brother's love he bore him,
Every soldier mourned his fall.

In Waradin we laid his ashes;
Cannon peals and musket flashes
O'er his grave due honors paid:
Then the old Black Eagle flying
All the Pagan powers defying

On we marched and stormed Belgrade.

Mr. Hughes was honored with the friendship of Sir Walter Scott, and among the most valued treasures of the Priory is the last portrait ever taken of the great novelist.

XXXVIII.

UNRECOGNIZED POETS.

GEORGE DARLEY-THE REV. EDWARD WILLIAM BARNARD.

UNRECOGNIZED Poets! many, very many are there doubtless of the world's finest spirits, to whom these words may be truly applied; poets whom the world has not known, or has refused to acknowledge. If Wordsworth had died fifty years ago, after the Excursion," after " Ruth," after the "Yew Trees," after the very finest of his shorter poems had been published, he would have been among the disowned. But he was strong of frame and of heart, vigorous and self-reliant; competence came to him early; moreover he dwelt in the healthy atmosphere of the northern hills, and heard no more of the critical onslaught than served to nerve him for fresh battles. So he lived through the time of tribulation, and gathered from the natural effect of the reaction more of fame and praise than would have fallen to his share had he won his laurels without the long probation and the fierce contest which preceded his recognition as the "Great High Priest of all the Nine."

Men of less power and of less faith die of the trial. Of such was George Darley. Gifted certainly with high talents, and with the love of song, which to enthusiastic youth seems the only real vocation, he offended his father, a wealthy alderman of Dublin, by devoting his whole existence to poetry, and found, when too late, that the fame for which he had sacrificed worldly fortune eluded his pursuit. It is impossible not to sympathize with such a trial; not to feel how severe must be the sufferings of a man conscious of no common power, who sees day by day the popularity for which he yearns won by far inferior spirits, and works which he despises passing through edition after edition, while his own writings are gathering dust upon the publisher's shelves or

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