THE DOUGLAS

WALTER SCOTT

NOTE. - The Douglas, who has long been exiled by King James, has come unrecognized to take part in the sports of the country people. He has a faint hope that the king may recognize him and renew their old friendship. Instead of this, the cruel treatment of his faithful dog leads Douglas to strike the king's huntsman.

Then clamored loud the royal train,

And brandished swords and staves amain,
But stern the Baron's warning:—“ Back!
Back, on your lives, ye menial pack!
Beware the Douglas.- Yes; behold,

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King James! The Douglas, doomed of old,
And vainly sought for near and far,

A victim to atone the war,

A willing victim, now attends,

Nor craves thy grace but for his friends."
"Thus is my clemency repaid?

Presumptuous lord!" the Monarch said;
"Of thy misproud ambitious clan,
Thou, James of Bothwell, wert the man,
The only man, in whom a foe
My woman-mercy would not know;
But shall a Monarch's presence brook
Injurious blow and haughty look?-

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What ho! the Captain of our Guard!
Give the offender fitting ward.—

Break off the sports!"- for tumult rose,

And yeomen 'gan to bend their bows,
"Break off the sports!" he said, and frown'd,
"And bid our horsemen clear the ground."

Then uproar wild and misarray
Marred the fair form of festal day.
At once round Douglas darkly sweep
The royal spears in circle deep,

And slowly scale the pathway steep;
While on the rear in thunder pour
The rabble with disordered roar.
With grief the noble Douglas saw
The Commons rise against the law,
And to the leading soldier said,
"Sir John of Hyndford! 't was my blade
That knighthood on thy shoulder laid;
For that good deed, permit me then
A word with these misguided men.

"Hear, gentle friends! ere yet for me
Ye break the bands of fealty.

My life, my honor, and my cause,
I tender free to Scotland's laws.
Are these so weak as must require
The aid of your misguided ire?

Or, if I suffer causeless wrong,
Is then my selfish rage so strong,
My sense of public weal so low,
That, for mean vengeance on a foe,
Those cords of love I should unbind,
Which knit my country and my kind?
O no! Believe in yonder tower
It will not soothe my captive hour

To know those spears our foes should dread
For me in kindred gore are red;

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For me, that mother wails her son;
For me, that widow's mate expires;

For me, that orphans weep their sires;
That patriots mourn insulted laws,
And curse the Douglas for the cause.

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O let your patience ward such ill,
And keep your right to love me still!"

The crowd's wild fury sunk again
In tears, as tempests melt in rain.
With lifted hands and eyes, they prayed

For blessings on his generous head,
Who for his country felt alone,
And prized her blood beyond his own.
Old men upon the verge of life.

Blessed him who stayed the civil strife;
And mothers held their babes on high,
The self-devoted chief to spy,
Triumphant over wrongs and ire,

To whom the prattlers owed a sire:

Even the rough soldier's heart was moved;
As if behind some bier beloved,

With trailing arms and drooping head,

The Douglas up the hill he led,
And at the castle's battled verge,

With sighs resigned his honored charge.

From "The Lady of the Lake.'

amain': with main, or force. We still say "with might and main.". misproud: viciously proud. - ward: confinement. — misarray': disorder. Hynd'ford: a village on the Clyde. - yonder tower: a tower in Stirling Castle. Here another Douglas had been killed. —ward: ward off. — the rough soldier: Sir John. - verge formerly pronounced varge. Notice that Scott has also used it in a previous selection to rhyme with urge.

WHAT A GOOD HISTORY OUGHT TO BE

THOMAS CARLYLE

THOMAS CARLYLE (1795-1881) was a Scottish philosopher and essayist. He was always protesting and denouncing, and his rough style is not easy to read. He was a thorough student of German literature, and his fondness for its idioms is shown in all his work. Personally he had to contend with much illness and anxiety, and though his irritable temper 5 made him “ower hard to live with," he was respected for his great mental strength and for his unflinching honesty. His book "Heroes and Hero Worship" is a favorite with young people.

It is not speaking with exaggeration, but with strict measured sobriety, to say that this Book of Boswell's will 10 give us more real insight into the History of England during those days than twenty other Books, falsely entitled "Histories," which take to themselves that special aim.

What good is it to me though innumerable Smolletts and Belshams keep dinning in my ears that a man named 15 George the Third was born and bred up, and a man named George the Second died; that Walpole, and the Pelhams, and Chatham, and North, with their Coalition or their Separation Ministries, all ousted one another; and vehemently scrambled for "the thing they called the 20 Rudder of Government, but which was in reality the Spigot of Taxation"?

That debates were held, and infinite jarring and jargoning took place; and road-bills and enclosure-bills, and game-bills and India-bills, and Laws which no man can 25