have been established all over the kingdom; and the nation has been once more fully roused from its apathy. Had concessions been made, had the more disgusting features of the system been softened down, its appearance might have been rendered less revolting, and the people might have remained passive, under the delusion that the progress of amelioration, by the colonists themselves, would gradually restore the slaves, without their interference, to a state more nearly resembling that of human beings. But the obstinacy of the planters has recoiled on themselves; and the people of England have much reason to thank them. The principle on which the Anti-Slavery Society proceeded was, that exposure was the first and only thing needful—that England wanted but to be made acquainted with the subject, to express her abhorrence of it; and nowhere have they received so much assistance in their laborious task, as in the insane contumacy of the Colonial Assemblies. In every shape, and by every possible means, the abolitionists have courted inquiry—a sure test of the goodness of any cause, and in this the Assemblies have most unwittingly aided them. The numerous discussions which have taken place since 1823, and the multitude of official documents, illustrative of the operation of slavery, piled year after on the tables of Parliament, have laid the system bare in its most revolting and disgusting features. Let any one who doubts this, and has not ready access to these documents, read a pamphlet entitled, "A picture of Negro Slavery drawn by the Colonists themselves." No picture of human atrocity, not even the annals of the Slave Trade itself, exceed the horrors there brought to light. After such disclosures-disclosures to which frightful additions have been even made within these few days-no Trinidad Order in Council-no ameliorating clauses-no pruning of the branches-will satisfy, or ought to satisfy, the British people.

year

Here, for the present, we must pause,-but with the full intention of resuming the subject in our next number; for it is one not only of deep but of most urgent and immediate interest. We shall then proceed to consider the present position and aspect of the cause of Negro Emancipation—as advocated by the Abolitionists-as now supported by His Majesty's government-and as opposed by the banded and bitter foes of freedom. And who are these its inveterate foes? They are the West India party in Parliament, (the last remains and suitable successors of those who for twenty years prevented the abolition of the execrable Slave Trade,) now intimately and irrevocably leagued with the ANTI-REFORMERS— the Ultra-Tory Opposition-the selfish, sordid, boroughmongering faction. We entreat the people of England to mark well the recent compact between these cunning, cruel, and corrupt factions, and to treat them according to their deserts. Let it never again be forgotten that the Noble and Right Honourable Ultras, the Eldons, Lyndhursts, and Londonderrys-the Peels, the Wetherells, and the Bankses, and their worthy compeers, now conspiring to rob us of our birthright, and to clench for ever the abhorred fetters of a corrupt oligarchy round the indignant neck of England—that this party are the sworn allies of the SLAVE-HOLDERS,—of the party headed in the House by Chandos and Seaford, Keith Douglas and Baring and Burge, and the other pro-slavery partisans,-who are straining every nerve to defeat the noble cause of Abolition, and to retain in perpetuity, (for that is the fact, whatever they may profess,) under the degrading and murderous yoke of West India bondage, eight hundred thousand of our innocent fellow subjects. Let the Electors of Great Britain and Ireland remember this; and when they strictly claim, as their high duty calls them, the solemn pledges of parliamentary candidates on the great question of REFORM, in order to ensure their own deliverance from base political bondage, let them remember the infinitely more intolerable personal bondage of the negro slave, and strike a noble blow for his deliverance also. Let them, in the name of God and humanity, firmly abjure every candidate who hesitates to pledge himself unequivocally to vote for the early and total abolition of Slavery, as an enemy to the rights of mankind, and a traitor to the liberties of Englishmen.

THE BATTLE FLAG OF SIGURD.

This is founded on an incident mentioned in Norse history. Sigurd, Earl of Orkney, in the beginning of the eleventh century, landed with a large fleet and considerable body of men in Ireland, to assist Sigbryg with the silken beard, then making war against Brian, King of Dublin. From his mother the Earl of Orkney had obtained a magic flag, which possessed the virtue of ensuring victory to the party who raised it, but death to the unhappy standard-bearer. Of course it was no coveted office, that of standard-bearer. On one occasion, when Sigurd consulted his mother on the issue of an expedition which he contemplated, and stated the disparity of his forces compared with those of the enemy, the Icelandic historian puts this answer in his mother's mouth, and gives this account of the flag." When long ago I fed thee on my lap, I foresaw that thou shouldst not live for ever, nor be able to rule thine own destiny. I judge it better that a man should die with honour, and be holden up to the admiration of posterity, than live ingloriously, and entail disgrace on himself, his kindred, and his country!" Having said this, she gave her son a standard of curious workmanship, which betokened death to the bearer, but victory to the possessor. It was shaped in form of a raven, and was endued with wonderful virtue, and had the appearance of being flying when the wind blew on the enemy.

THE eagle hearts of all the North
Have left their stormy strand;
The Warriors of the World are forth
To choose another land!

O TRYGYVASONAR SAGA.

Again their long keels sheer the wave,
Their broad sheets court the breeze;
Again the reckless and the brave
Ride lords of weltering seas.

Nor swifter from the well bent bow

Can feathered shaft be sped,

Than o'er the ocean's flood of snow

Their snoring galleys tread.

Then lift the can to bearded lip,

And smite each sounding shield;

Wassaile! to every dark-ribbed ship—

To every battle field!

So proudly the Skallds raise their voices of triumph,
As the Northmen ride over the broad-bosomed billow.

Aloft Sigurdir's Battle Flag
Streams onward to the land,

Well may the taint of slaughter lag

On yonder glorious strand.

The waters of the mighty deep,

The wild birds of the sky,

Hear it, like vengeance, shoreward sweep,

Where moody men must die.

The waves wax grim beneath our keel,

The clouds above us lower,

They know the Battle Sign, and feel

All its resistless power!

Who now uprears Sigurdir's flag,

Nor shuns an early tomb?

Who shoreward through the swelling surge

Shall bear the Scroll of Doom?

So shout the glad Skallds as the long ships are nearing
The low-lying shores of a beautiful land."

Silent the Self-Devoted stood
Beside the massive tree;

His image mirrored in the flood
Was terrible to see!

As leaning on his gleaming axe,
And gazing on the wave,
His fearless soul was churning up
The Death-Rune of the brave.
Upheaving then his giant form
Upon the brown bark's prow,
And tossing back the yellow storm
Of hair from his broad brow;
The lips of song burst open, and
The words of fire rushed out,

And thundering through that martial crew,
Pealed Haralld's battle shout.

It is Haralld the Dauntless that lifteth his great voice,
As the Northmen roll on with the Doom-written Banner.

"I bear Sigurdir's Battle Flag,

Through sunshine or through gloom,

Through swelling surge on bloody strand,
I plant the Scroll of Doom!

On Scandia's lonest, bleakest waste,
Beneath a starless sky,

The Shadowy Three like meteors past,

And bade young Haralld die.

They sang the war-deeds of his sires,

And pointed to their tomb,

They told him that this Glory Flag

Was his by right of doom.

Since then where hath young Haralld been,

But where Jarl's son should be?

'Mid war and waves--the combat keen

That raged on land or sea!"

So sings the fierce Haralld, the Thirster for Glory,
As his hand bears aloft the dark Death-laden Banner.

"Mine own death's in this clenched hand!

I know the noble trust:

These limbs must rot on yonder strand,

These lips must lick its dust.

But shall this dusky Standard quail

In the red slaughter day;

Or shall this heart its purpose fail,
This arm forget to slay?

I trample down such idle doubt,

Haralld's high blood hath sprung

From sires whose hands in martial bout,

Have ne'er belied their tongue.

Nor keener from their castled rock,
Rush eagles to their prey,

Than panting for the battle shock
Young Haralld leads the way."

It is thus that tall Haralld, in terrible beauty,

Pours forth his big soul to the joyaunce of heroes.

"The ship-borne warriors of the North,
The sons of Woden's race,
To Battle as to Feast go forth,
With stern and changeless face.
And I, the last of a great line-
The Self-Devoted-long

To lift on high this Runic Sign
Which gives my name to Song.
In battle field young Haralld falls,
Amid a slaughtered foe,

And backward never bears this Flag,

While streams to ocean flow.

On, on, above the crowded dead

This Runic scroll shall flare,

And round it shall pale lightnings spread,
From swords that never spare."

So rush the hero-words from the Death-Doomed one,
While Skallds harp aloud the renown of his fathers.

"On sweeps Sigurdir's Battle Flag—
The scourge of foreign shore,

It dashes through the seething foam-
But I return no more!

Wedded unto a fatal bride

Boune for a bloody bed

And battling for her side by side,

Young Haralld's doom is sped!

In starkest fight, where kemp on kemp

Reel headlong to the grave,

There Haralld's axe shall ponderous ring,

There Sigurd's Flag shall wave.

Yes, underneath this banner tall,

Beside this fateful Scroll,

Down shall the towerlike prison fall,

Of Haralld's haughty soul."

So sings the Death-Seeker, while nearer and nearer,
The fleet of the Northmen bears down to the shore.

"Green lie those thickly timbered shores,

Fair sloping to the sea;

They're cumbered with the harvest stores

That wave but for the free.

Our sickle is the gleaming sword

Our garner the broad shield

Let peasants sow, but still he's lord,
Who's master of the field.

Let them come on, the bastard-born,
Each soil stained churle-alack!
What gain they but a splitten skull,
A sod for their base back?

They sow for us these goodly lands-
We reap them in our might,
Scorning all title but the brands
That triumph in the fight!"

It was thus the Land-Winners of old gained their glory,
And grey stones voice their praise in the bays of far isles.

"The rivers of yon island low
Glance redly in the sun;

But ruddier still they're doomed to glow,
And deeper shall they run.

The torrent of proud life shall swell
Each river to the brim,

And in that spate of blood how well
The headless corpse shall swim!
The smoke of many a shepherd's cot,
Curls from each peopled glen;
And hark, the song of maidens mild,
The shout of joyous men!

But one may hew the oaken tree,
The other shape the shroud;

As the LANDEYDA, o'er the sea,
Sweeps like a tempest cloud!"

So shouteth fierce Haralld-so echo the Northmen,
As shoreward their ships like mad steeds are careering.

Sigurdir's Battle Flag is spread
Abroad to the blue sky,

And spectral visions of the dead,

Are trooping grimly by.

The Spirit-Heralds rush before

Haralld's destroying brand,

They hover o'er yon fated shore,

And death-devoted band.

Marshal, stout Jarls, your battle fast!

And fire each beacon height!

Our galleys anchor in the Sound,

Our Banner heaves in sight.

And through the surge and arrowy shower

That rains on this broad shield,

Haralld uplifts the Sign of Power

Which rules the battle field!"

So cries the Death-Doom'd on the red strand of slaughter, While the helmets of heroes like anvils are ringing.

On rolled the Northmen's war, above

The Raven Standard flew,

Nor tide nor tempest ever strove

With vengeance half so true.

"Tis Haralld-'tis the Sire-Bereaved

Who goads the dread career,

And high, amid the flashing storm,

The Flag of Doom doth rear.

"On, on," the tall Death-Seeker cries,

"These earth-worms soil our heel,

"Their spear-points crash like crisping ice

"On ribs of stubborn steel!"

Hurra! hurra! their whirlwinds sweep,

And Haralld's fate is sped

Bear on the Flag-he goes to sleep

With the life-scorning dead.

Thus fell the young Haralld as of old fell his sires,

And the bright hall of heroes bade hail to his spirit.