trees, and there they illuminated, in brilliant patches, the portions of turf to which they made their way.'

suffered, and to let the Normans know, that childless as he was, the blood of Hereward flowed in the veins of Cedric; and here we have a most beautiful passage, in which the Thane compares himself, in his age, like the solitary oak that throws out its shattered and unprotected branches against the full sweep of the tempest.' From this musing, Cedric was suddenly awakened by the blast of a horn, and sent to know the cause. In less than three minutes, a warden announced

What a scene for the painter the author has here described; Nasmyth or Wilson, perhaps, alone could do justice to it on canvass. Two human figures complete the landscape; and, as they are more important personages in the work than might at first be expected, we must notice them. The first of these, a swineherd, called Gurth, had a stern, savage, and wild aspect; his garments were of the simplest form; to a broad leathern belt, which he wore, was attached a sort of scrip, and a ram's horn, accoutred with a mouth-piece, for the purpose of blowing. In the same belt, was also stuck a long sharp pointed two-edged knife, which bore, even at that time, the name of a Sheffield whittle. Another part of his dress was, A brass ring, resembling a dog's collar, but without any "Aymer, the Prior Aymer? Brian de Bois Guilbert?" opening, and soldered fast round his neck, so loose as to form muttered Cedric, "Normans both; but Norman or Saxon, no impediment for his breathing, yet so tight as to be the hospitality of Rotherwood must not be impeached; they incapable of being removed, excepting by the use of the are welcome, since they have chosen to halt-more welcome file. On this singular gorget was engraved, in Saxon cha-would they have been to have ridden further on their wayracters, an inscription to the following purport.-"Gurth, But it were unworthy to murmur for a night's lodging and a the son of Beowulph, is the born thrall of Cedric, of Rother-night's food; in the quality of guests at least, even Normans wood." """ must suppress their insolence."

Besides Gurth, there was another person, who looked much younger, and who was fantastically dressed, and wore a cap and bells; he was one of those domestic clowns, or jesters, which at that period were maintained in the houses of the wealthy. This man wore a collar round his neck, similar to that of Gurth, on which was inscribed, Wamba, the son of Witless, is the thrall of Cedric, of Rotherwood.' While these men were engaged in conversation, and a dog was collecting the scattered swine, a splendid cavalcade approached them, consisting of ten men. At their head was a well-fed sporting friar, Aymer, of Jorvaulx Abbey, accompanied by Brian de Bois Guilbert, a Knight Templar. These men, with their retinue, were on their way to Ashby de la Zouche, and wishing to call on Cedric, of Rotherwood, inquired the way of Wamba; but he knowing that they were Normans, and that his master, who was a Saxon, and proud of his descent, would not be very glad to see them, purposely misdirected them, but meeting with a Palmer, just returned from the Holy Land, he conducted them to Rotherwood. Cedric was in rank a thane, or, as the Normans called him, a franklin, who kept up the dignity of his rank by the hospitality of his mansion, even to those whom he considered as his irreconcileable enemies, the Normans. We pass over an excellent description of the hall and the dress of Cedric, to notice a sketch of the hatred which the Saxons had for their Norman conquerors. Cedric is impatient for the return of Gurth with the swinelerd, whom he fears the Normaus may have seized, when,—

Oswald, the cup-bearer, modestly suggested, "that it was scarce an hour since the tolling of the curfew;" an ill chosen apology, since it turned upon a topic so harsh to Saxon ears. "The foul fiend," exclaimed Cedric, "take the curfew bell, and the tyrannical bastard by whom it was devised, and the heartless slave who names it, with a Saxon tongue to a Saxon ear! The curfew!" he added, pausing," ay, the curfew, which compels true men to extinguish their lights, that thieves and robbers may work their deeds in darkness: ay, the curfew! Reginald de Front de Bœuf and Philip de Malvoisin know the use of the curfew as well as William, the bastard, himself, or e'er a Norman adventurer that fought at Hastings."

Cedric vowed to avenge any new wrongs he might have

That the Prior Aymer, of Jorvaulx, and the good Knight Brian de Bois Guilbert, commander of the venerable order of Knights Templars, with a small retinue, requested hospitality and lodging for the night, being on their way to a tournament which was to be held not far from Ashby de la Zouche, on the second day from the present.

Directions were immediately given to Hundebert, a sort of major domo, to provide the strangers with every thing necessary, and see them carefully tended, and tell them that Cedric would himself bid them welcome, but he is under a vow never to step more than three steps from the door of his own hall, to meet any who spares not the blood of Saxon royalty.'

On the entrance of the guests, Cedric made three steps towards them, and then apologised for his vow, that would not permit him to advance farther; the banquet was served up:

The feast, however, which was spread on the board, needed no apologies from the lord of the mansion. Swine's flesh, dressed in several modes, appeared on the lower part of the board, as also that of fowls, deer, goats, and hares, and various kinds of fish, together with huge loaves and cakes of The smaller sorts of wild fowl, of which there was abundance, bread, and sundry confections made of fruits and honey. were not served up in plates, but brought in upon small wooden spits or broaches, and offered by the pages and domestics who bore thein to each guest in succession, who cut from them such a proportion as he pleased. Beside each person of rank was placed a goblet of silver; the lower board was accommodated with large drinking horns.'

At this repast, Rowena, the heroine of the romance, was present; she was the ward of Cedric, and a lady of great beauty and accomplishments:

Formed in the best proportions of her sex, Rowena was tall in stature, yet not so much so as to attract observation on account of superior height. Her complexion was exquisitely fair, but the noble cast of her head and features prevented the insipidity which sometimes attaches to fair beauties. Her brow of brown sufficiently marked to give expression to the clear blue eye, which sate enshrined beneath a graceful eyeforehead, seemed capable to kindle as well as melt, to com

mand as well as beseech.'

The Knight Templar was deeply smitten with the beauty of Rowena, who anxiously inquired of him the latest news from Palestine:

"I have little of importance to say, lady," answered Sir Brian de Bois Guilbert, "excepting the confirmed tidings of a truce with Saladin."

He was interrupted by Wamba, who had taken his appropriated seat upon a chair, the back of which was deco

While Isaac thus stood, an outcast in the present society distribute the palm to the victor was not fixed, but left The fair Sovereign of Love and Beauty who should like his people among the nations, looking in vain for welcome or resting place, the pilgrim who sat by the chimney, to the conqueror to name her. This was done in consetook compassion upon him, and resigned his seat, saying quence of Prince John's wishing to confer that honour on briefly, "old man, my garments are dried, my hunger is ap- Rebecca, but it was stated that no one would enter the peased, thou art both wet and fasting." So saying, he ga- lists. When the barriers were opened, the five Norman thered together, and brought to a flame, the decaying brands challengers, including Bois Guilbert and Front de Bœuf, which lay scattered on the ample hearth; took from the overcame all their opponents, until no one appeared very larger board a mess of pottage and seethed kid, placed it desirous of renewing the encounter. Cedric was keenly upon the small table, at which he had himself supped, and, affected by the result, and considering it a triumph gained without waiting the Jew's thanks, went to the other side of the hall-whether from unwillingness to hold more close com- by the Normans over the honour of England, inquired munication with the object of his benevolence, or from a wish of Athelstane if he was not tempted to take the lance; to draw near to the upper end of the table, seemed uncer- I shall tilt to-morrow,' answered Athelstane. tain.'

sented a picture of natural custoins and manners, he has offered many historical and biographical notices, not to be met with elsewhere, and yet, as far as their accuracy has been investigated, narrated with scrupulous regard to truth; these, though disguised under fictitious names, comprise the adventures of private individuals, whom the author did not deem himself warranted to drag before the public.

The work commences with an account of the birth and parentage of Anastasius, who was born of Greek parents, originally from Epirus, but settled at Chio. His father combined, in his single person, the various characters of diplomatist, husbandman, merchant, manufacturer, and master of a privateer. To be more explicit, he was drogueman, (official interpreter,) to the French consul at Chio. The mother of Anastasius was a native of Naxos, and esteemed a great heiress in her country.

In the account of the family of Anastasius, we have, at the very outset of the work, one of those felicitous sketches which distinguish this work, and draw the reader, as it were, insensibly to admire it:

mure Eustathius, destined to succeed my father in his place of drogueman. A sleek, smooth-spoken, sanctified lad, with a round face and a red and white complexion, Eustathius, beside that little treasure his own dear self, which he always world, namely, money. Of this, after a long courtship, he kept with the utmost care, valued but one other thing in this had the good fortune, through dint of unabating perseverance, to marry a prodigious heap, encumbered, however, with a wary widow, its mistress, who, after four distinct refusals, at last condescended to accept my brother as her slave, under the name of her husband. But the chains Eustathius wore were of massy gold; and all he wanted was the pleasure of contemplating their glitter.'

Anastasius being the youngest, was, (as it is not unusual,) a spoiled child, whose education was much neglected :

My parents, as may be supposed, were great sticklers for punctuality in every sort of devout practice; mass going, confession, lent observance, &c. Of moral duties-less tangible in their nature-they had, poor souls, but a vague and to one's neighbour, they taught me chiefly to estimate acconfused notion; and the criminality of actions, in reference cording to the greater or smaller risk connected with them, of My mother was a native of Naxos, and esteemed a great incurring the bastinado from the Turks. As to manual corheiress in her country. She possessed an estate of three hun-rection at the hands of my own father, it seemed so desirable dred piastres a year, clear, managed by a relation of her own, a circumstance, from the ample amends my mother never Marco Politi; very wealthy himself, primate of all the failed to make me for her husband's cruelty to her poor boy, Greek villages of the island, and a very great rogue. that my only despair was at being able to obtain it so seldom.

My brothers and sisters-and there came, one by one, just three of each-all contrived to take precedence of me at their birth, and consequently throughout the whole of their subsequent lives. The punctilio of the thing I should not have minded, but, among my countrymen, a foolish family pride exhausts people's fortunes during their lifetime, in portioning their daughters; the elder sons ran away with what remained, and poor Anastasius brought up the rear with but an indifferent prospect. My kind parents, however, determined to make up for leaving me destitute at their death, by spoiling me as much as possible during their lives.'

As we have not room for a description of the whole family group, we shall insert some of the most characteristic sketches:

Having contented themselves for a reasonable number of years with wistfully contemplating-the drogueman my active inake and well set limbs, and the droguemaness my dark eyes, ruddy cheeks, and raven locks,-they at last began to ponder how they might turn these gifts to the best advantage. Both agreed that something should be done, but neither knew exactly what; and the one never proposed a profession, which the other did not immediately object to, until an old relation stepped in between, and recoinmended the church, as a neverfailing resource to those who can think of no other. My cousin had set the example, by making his own son a little caloyer, at twelve. Prohibited by the Turks from the trade of soldier, and by my parents from that of sailor, I myself saw nothing better, and agreed to the proposal. It now became necessary My sister Roxana, who would have been a beauty, but to give me a smattering of learning, and I was put under the for a scar, which she chose to call a dimple, at an early age the title of logiotatos, and only averred himself inferior to tuition of a teacher of the Hellenic language, who assumed fell desperately in love with a Turk; and, spite of all remonstrances of her friends, bestowed her hand upon this un- Demosthenes, out of sheer modesty. My idleness got the believer. Nor was it until the very last of her offended rela- better of my preceptor's learning and diligence. All the tions had been prevailed upon to grant her an unlimited par- gold that flowed from the lips of St. Chrysostom his favourite, don, that she became conscious of the heinousness of her could not, to my taste, gild the bitter pill of his lessons; and crime, and began to feel an unconquerable desire to re-enter even Homer, much as I liked fighting out of doors, found but the pale of our holy communion. This she at length effected, an indifferent welcome in school hours. The truth is, I had a by never ceasing to bewail her apostacy, until her husband, dislike to reading in the abstract; but when away from my in disgust, allowed her a divorce. Immediately she flew books, I affected a great admiration for Achilles; called him, back at once into the arms of the church and into those of a in reference to Epirus the land of my ancestors, my countryyoung Greek, who, an effective instrument in her reforma- man, and regretted that I was not born two thousand years tion, obliterated every trace of her first unhallowed wedlock, ago, for no other purpose but to be his Patroclus. In my fits by a more canonical union. He truly laboured for the of heroism, I swore to treat the Turks as he had done the Trochurch; for he was by trade an agio-graphis, or painter of jans, and for a time dreamt of nothing but putting to the saints; and connoisseurs esteemed him the Apelles of our dis-sword the whole Seraglio-dwarfs, eunuchs, and all. These trict, in that line. His spouse sat for all his virgins; and, ac- dreams my parents highly admired, but advised me not to diaccordingly as she behaved well or ill, he used to paint them vulge. Just rancour," they said, " should be bottled up, handsome or ugly: a practice which kept her very much to give it more strength."-Upon this principle they cringed upon her good behaviour. She was conceited about her to the ground to every Moslemin they met. looks, and wasted as much paint upon her cheeks as her husband did upon his canvass; a circumstance, however, which produced a striking resemblance between the portraits and the original.'

After noticing his eldest brother, Theodore, he proceeds to the second :

The dove is not more distinguished from the game-cock, than differed from the noisy blustering Theodore the sly de

'The inclinations of the little future papas for the church militant, meantime began to appear more prominently. I had collected a troop of ragamuffins of my own age, of whom I got myself dubbed captain; purloined from my uncle, the and, under the auspices of the Panagia, set about robbing orpainter, one of his most smirking Madonnas, for a banner; chards, and laying under contribution the villagers, with all the devotion imaginable. So great was the terror our crusades inspired, that the sufferers durst not even complain, ex

cept in a body. Whenever, as chief of the band, I became shoulder a musket. In the battle which ensued with the the marked object of animadversion, I kept out of the way, Arnaoots, Anastasius fought with great bravery not foruntil my father had paid the damage, and sued my pardon for getting to plunder those whom he had subdued, and to his backwardness in doing so. Once, indeed, when tired of my pranks, he swore I would be his ruin, I begged he would bear, as a trophy of his valour, the head of his enemy :quiet his fears, by granting me an unlimited leave of absence; look out for my return, on seeing me arrive thus fierce and My master, already informed of my prowess, and on the pledging myself not to return till doomsday. This was too much for him. Sooner than part with his Anastasius, he would turbulent, immediately cried out, "Bravo, Anastasius. At have bribed the peasants beforehand, to suffer all my depre-added he, laughing, " since the fight is over, and the enemy your first outset you are become a complete hero!-But," routed, suppose you put up your sword, and wash you face!"

dations.'

Anastasius, as the drogueman's chief assistant and messenger, was in daily attendance at the consular mansion, where, being engaged to teach the lyre to the consul's daughter, the blue-eyed Helena,' he had an amour with her, which obliged him to quit Chio. The author's advice to parents, to be careful how they trust their daugh ters to the care of music masters, is too good to be omitted, and the truth of his remarks too well supported by facts in our own country, to be disputed :—

Parents who do not particularly wish your daughters to fall in love with their teachers, above all things avoid admitting under your roof any music masters, except such as are antidotes to that passion. Where harmony alone is to rule the sense, how can souls remain unattuned to each other? The boy's hand, in guiding the taper fingers of his pupil, will sometimes make them stray from her chords to his heart, and mistake for the vibrations of one the pulsations of the other. The very lips of the fair one, accustomed to re-echo the sounds of her teacher's voice, will, by degrees, respond to his feelings and he who has so many means of disclosing his passion, and of insinuating a reciprocal warmth, without any imputation of forwardness, or breach of respect, will be more anxious to interpret the sounds he utters, than to disavow their sense.'

:

When his amour could no longer be concealed, Anastasius, mortified by a reproach of Helena, as to his birth, thought no way in which he might sever himself from her unfair he hurried into a tavern, and, (though by no means addicted to intemperance,) drank to excess, and then embarked on board a Venetian brig, where he filled the humble office of cabin-boy. He had not been long on board, a prey to the most melancholy reflections, when a boatful of Maynote pirates boarded the ship, (through the connivance of the captain,) and almost immediately afterwards, a caravella, belonging to the famous Hassan Captain-pasha, (commander-in-chief of the Turkish navy,) gave them chase, and took possession of the vessel: thus,' says Anastasius, was I, hapless Greek, compelled, in the space of four days, to bear the yoke of four different nations-French, Venetians, Maynotes, and Turks."

Hassan, who was then engaged in delivering the Morea from the Arnaoots, (Albanians,) was by birth a Persian:

'The advice was seasonable. I had, in the heat of the engagement, received, I know not how, a cut across the jaw, of which the scar remains to this day, and shews a shining white ridge across my strong black beard.

fore the pasha, he only treated as a foot-ball; an usage which The head which, in imitation of my companions, I laid bemade me feel vexed for its dignity and my own; but when the whole harvest was got in, he ordered the produce to be built into the base of a handsome pyramid. The remaining Arnaoots of the peninsula, cut off at the Dervens, afterwards supplied its top, and thus afforded the inhabitants of TripoOne of our men, indeed, attempted to keep back, from the lizza a most agreeable vista, which they enjoy to this day. common store, a skull of his own collecting, meaning to turn it into a drinking cup for private use: but the pasha severely lized nation like the Turks," and was near making its author, censured an idea" so disgraceful," he observed, "to a civi in punishment of his offence, contribute to the building materials from his own stock. As for myself, when I came to of fer my mite, I found that same Hassan, before so supercilious, all condescension. Bravery was with him the first of virtues some said the only one !-Putting his hand into his pocket, he pulled out and gave me a handful of sequins, adding, you are a brave lad, and if you will but become a true believer, you may rely upon me for promotion.'

The courage of Anastasius did not, however, relieve him from his servile employment under the drogueman, and he laid by his sword to resume his coffee-tray. When Hassan was ordered by the Porte to return to Constantinople, Anastasius accompanied the drogueman, Mavroyeni. While at Constantinople, Anastasius had an intrigue with Theophania, whose husband held one of the highest offices at the court of Moldavia. He was soon after dismissed from his employment in disgrace, which he thus

states:

One evening, after having repeated my frequently pardoned error of staying out the whole day, I was, on coming home, disappointed of the lecture I expected at my master's hands. Instead of blustering as usual, Mavroyeni asked what had detained me, in the most placid tone imaginable. I now gave myself up for lost. It was precisely the tone which the Brogueman was wont to assume when, fully resolved to have no further dealings with the person who had offended him, he deemed reproach an useless waste of breath. I however made In the memorable battle which the Russians, after aban-out a little story, which Mavroyeni listened to very patiently; doning the Morea, gave the Turks in the streights of Chio, he commanded the admiral ship of the Turks, which was attacked by that of the Russians, while the two commanders, Khassim and Orlow, both kept aloof from the fight. Prevented by his instructions from unmooring, Hassan towed his ship on its anchors, boarded the Russian vessel, and only threw himself into the sea, and swam ashore, when both hulks, on fire, and blown up together, mingled their wrecks in the sky. The sultan, seeing his navy annihilated, and himself threatened with bombardment in his seraglio, by a fleet from the Baltic, now named Hassan, his capitan-pasha, and was saved.'

Anastasius was taken into the suite of Hassan's drogueman; and when the pasha set out with four thousand picked men, for Tripolizza, Anastasius was permitted to

and then pointing to the door, desired me to walk out, and never to walk in again.

'I knew him too well to have the least hopes of his recalling a sentence uttered in this manner. My only remaining solicitude, therefore, was to make a dignified retreat. After a profound bow-of defiance rather than respect,-I strutted away, carrying my head so high that I knocked it against the sofite of the door.

'But in spite of my seeming indifference I felt injured, if not degraded; for in surveying my conduct, I only took into ac count the last drop that rose above the brim; the rest was hid within the vessel.

'I need not observe that what to me appeared the heighth of injustice, was deemed by the remainder of the family only a tardy and inadequate act of equity. Such as it was, however, it