perform, at the suggestion of his mistress, what- ¦ ever was consistent with propriety.' One employment was the writing of verses full of tenderness, not that it was at all requisite for the heart to be at all concerned in the matter. A little reflection, however, may serve to show that even this practice is only derivative from the older one. When AshWednesday happened to fall on St. Valentine's day, the knights and their ladies assembled only on the afternoon, the morning being necessarily devoted to pious purposes. Madame Royale, the daughter of Henry IV. of France, built a palace near Turin, which was called The Valentine, on account of the great veneration in which the Saint was held in that country. At the first entertainment given there by the princess, she directed that the ladies should choose their lovers for the year by lots. The only difference with respect to herself was, that she should be at liberty to fix on her own partner. At every ball during the year, each lady received from her gallant a nosegay; and, at every tournament, the lady furnished his horse's trappings, the prize obtained being hers."

In an old English ballad the girls are directed to pray cross-legged to St. Valentine, for good luck.

The marriage of the Princess Elizabeth with the Elector Palatine-(the marriage which gave the present royal family to the throne)-on Valentine's day, 1612-13, was solemnized at Whitehall with a degree of sumptuousness verging upon Eastern splendour. On that occasion the ceremony was performed on a raised stage in the middle of the chapel, and no persons were admitted under the degree of a baron, "saving the three Lords Chief Justices." "It were no end," says a spectator of the wedding, "to write of the curiosity and bravery both of men and women, with the extreme daubings of cost and riches." Different masks were represented by the lords, and by the members of the Temple, Lincoln's Inn, and Gray's Inn; that of the lords is described to have been " very rich and sumptuous, yet long and tedious, and with many devices more like a play than a mask." A new (temporary) marriage room was erected for the entertainment of the guests; and fireworks were displayed both in the gardens and on the river Thames, the cost of which amounted to more than 90007. On this marriage the celebrated Dr. Donne, Dean of St. Paul's, composed an epithalamium, of which the fine lines we have inserted at the commencement of the foregoing observations on St. Valentine's day and its customs form the opening.

Poetry.

[In Original Poetry, the Name, real or assumed, of the Author, is printed in Small Capitals under the title; in Selections, it is printed in Italics at the end.]

THE GRAY FOREST-EAGLE.

WITH storm daring pinion and sun-gazing eye,
The gray forest-eagle is king of the sky!
Oh, little he loves the green valley of flowers,

Where sunshine and song cheer the bright summer hours,
For he hears in those haunts only music, and sees
Only rippling of waters and waving of trees;
Where the red-robin warbles, the honey-bee hums,
The timid quail whistles, the sly partridge drums;
And if those proud pinions, perchance, sweep along,
There's a shrouding of plumage, a hushing of song;
The sun-light falls stilly on leaf and on moss,
And there's naught but his shadow, black, gliding across;

But the dark, gloomy gorge, where down plunges the foam
Of the fierce, rock-lash'd torrent, he claims as his home.
There he blends his hoarse shriek with the roar of the flood,
And the many-voic'd sounds of the blast-smitten wood;
From his crag-grasping fir-top, where morn hangs its wreath,
He views the mad waters, white, writhing beneath.
On a limb of that moss-bearded hemlock, far down,
With bright azure mantle and gay mottled crown,
The king-fisher watches, where o'er him his foe,
The fierce hawk, sails, circling, each moment more low:
Now poised are those pinions and pointed that beak;
His dread swoop is ready, when, hark! with a shriek,
His eyeballs red-blazing, high-bristling his crest,
His snake-like neck arch'd, talons drawn to his breast,
With the rush of the wind-gust, the glancing of light,
The gray forest-eagle shoots down in his flight;
One blow of those talons, one plunge of that neck,
The strong hawk hangs lifeless, a blood-dripping wreck;
And as dives the free king-fisher, dart-like on high
With his prey soars the eagle, and melts in the sky.

A fitful red-glaring, a low, rumbling jar,
Proclaim the storm demon, yet raging afar:
The black cloud strides upward, the lightning more red,
And the roll of the thunder more deep and more dread;
A thick pall of darkness is cast o'er the air,
And on bounds the blast, with a howl, from its lair;
The lightning darts zig-zag and fork'd through the gloom,
And the bolt launches o'er with crash, rattle, and boom;
The gray forest-eagle, where, where has he sped?
Does he shrink to his eyrie, and shiver with dread?
Does the glare blind his eye? Has the terrible blast
On the wing of the sky-king a fear-fetter cast?
No, no, the brave eagle! he thinks not of fright;
The wrath of the tempest but rouses delight;
To the flash of the lightning his eye casts a gleam,
To the shriek of the wild blast he echoes his scream,
And with front like a warrior that speeds to the prey,
And a clapping of pinions, he's up and away!
Away, O away, soars the fearless and free!
What recks he the sky's strife? its monarch is he!
The lightning darts round him, undaunted his sight;
The blast sweeps against him, unwaver'd his flight;
High upward, still upward, he wheels till his form
Is lost in the black, scowling gloom of the storm.

The tempest sweeps o'er with its terrible train,
And the splendour of sunshine is glowing again;
Again smiles the soft, tender blue of the sky,
Waked bird-voices warble, fann'd leaf-voices sigh
On the green-grass dance shadows, streams sparkle and run,
The breeze bears the odour, its flower-kiss his own,
And full on the form of the demon in flight
The rainbow's magnificence gladdens the sight!
The gray forest-eagle! O, where is he now,
While the sky wears the sign of its God on its brow?
There's a dark, floating spot by yon cloud's pearly wreath,
With the speed of the arrow 'tis shooting beneath!
Down nearer and nearer it draws to the gaze,
Now over the rainbow, now blent with its blaze,
To a shape it expands, still it plunges through air,
A proud crest, a fierce eye, a broad wing, are there;
'Tis the eagle-the gray forest-eagle-once more
He sweeps to his eyrie: his journey is o'er!

Time whirls round his circle, his years roll away,

But the gray forest-eagle minds little his sway;
The child spurns its buds for youth's thorn-hidden bloom,
Seeks manhood's bright phantoms, finds age and a tomb;
But the eagle's eye dims not, his wing is unbow'd,
Still drinks he the sun-shine, still scales he the cloud.
The green, tiny pine-shrub points up from the moss,
The wren's foot would cover it, tripping across :
The beech-nut down dropping would crush it beneath,
But 'tis warm'd with heaven's sunshine, and fann'd by its breath,
The seasons fly past it, its head is on high,

Its thick branches challenge each mood of the sky;
On its rough bark the moss a green mantle creates;
And the deer from its antlers the velvet-down grates;
Time withers its roots, it lifts sadly in air

A trunk dry and wasted, a top jagg'd and bare,

Till it rocks in soft breeze and crashes to earth;
Its blown fragments strewing the place of its birth.
The eagle has seen it up-struggling to sight,
He has seen it defying the storm in its might;
Then prostrate, soil-blended, with plants sprouting o'er,
But the gray forest-eagle is still as of yore,
His flaming eye dims not, his wing is unbow'd,
Still drinks he the sunshine, still scales he the cloud;
He has seen from his eyrie the forest below,
In bud and in le if, robed with crimson and snow.
The thicket's deep wolf-lairs, the high crag his throne,
And the shriek of the panther has answer'd his own.
He has seen the wild red man the lord of the shades,
And the smoke of his wigwams curl thick in the glades;
He has seen the proud forest melt breath-like away,
And the breast of the earth lying bare to the day;
He sees the green meadow-grass hiding the lair,
And his crag-throne spread naked to sun and to air;
And his shriek is now answered, while sweeping along,
By the low of the herd, and the husbandman's song;
He has seen the wild red man offswept by his foes,
And he sees dome and roof where those smokes once arose ;
But his flaming eye dims not, his wing is unbow'd,
Still drinks he the sunshine, still scales he the cloud.

Miscellaneous.

A. B. Street.

"I have here made only a nosegay of culled flowers, and have brought nothing of my own, but the string that ties them."--Montaigne.

GOOD ADVICE NOT TO BE DESPISED.

ONE day, as an ancient king of Tartary was riding with his officers of state, they met a dervise, crying aloud, "To him that will give me a hundred dinars, I will give a piece of good advice." The king, attracted by this strange declaration, stopped, and said to the dervise, "What advice is this that you offer for a hundred dinars?" "Sire," replied the dervise, "I shall be most thankful to tell you, as soon as you order the money to be paid me.' The king, expecting to hear something extraordinary, ordered the money to be given to the dervise at once. On receiving which, he said, Sire, my advice is, begin nothing without considering what the end may be."

The officers of state, smiling at what they thought ridiculous advice, looked at the king, who they expected would be so enraged at this insult, as to order the dervise to be severely punished. The king, seeing the amusement and surprise which this advice had occasioned, said, "I see nothing to laugh at in the advice of this dervise, but, on the contrary, I am persuaded, that if it were more frequently practised, men would escape many calamities. Indeed, so convinced am I of the wisdom of this maxim, that I shall have it engraved on my plate, and written on the walls of my palace, so that it may be ever before me." The king, having thanked the dervise for his advice, proceeded towards his palace; and, on his arrival, he ordered the chief bey to see that the maxim was engraved on his plate, and on the walls of his palace.

Sometime after this occurrence, one of the nobles of the court, a proud, ambitious man, resolved to destroy the king, and place himself on the throne. In order to accomplish his diabolical purpose, he secured the confidence of one of the king's surgeons, to whom he gave a poisoned lancet, saying, "If you will bleed the king with this lancet, I will give you ten thousand pieces of gold; and, when I ascend the throne, you shall be my vizier." This base surgeon, dazzled by such brilliant prospects, wickedly assented to the proposal. An opportunity of effecting his evil design soon occurred. The king sent for this man to bleed him he put the

(1) A silver coin.

poisoned lancet into a side pocket, and hastened into the king's presence. The arm was tied, and the fatal lancet was about to be plunged into the vein, when suddenly the surgeon's eye read this maxim at the bottom of the bason" Begin nothing without considering what the end may be." He immediately paused, as he thought within himself, "If I bleed the king with this lancet, he will die, and I shall be seized and put to a cruel death; then, of what use will all the gold in the world be to me!" Then, returning the lancet to his pocket, he drew forth another. The king, observing this, and perceiving that he was much embarrassed, asked why he changed his lancet so suddenly. He stated that the point was broken; but the king, doubting his statement, commanded him to show it. This so agitated him, that the king felt assured all was not right. He said, "There is treachery in this; tell me instantly what it means, or your head shall be severed from your body." The surgeon, trembling with fear, promised to relate all to the king, if he would only pardon his guilt. The king assented, and the surgeon related the whole matter, and acknowledged that had it not been for the words in the bason, he should have used the fatal lancet.

The king summoned his court, and ordered the traitor to be executed. Then, turning to his officers of state, he said, You now see that the advice of the dervise, at which you laughed, is most valuable: it has saved my life. Search out this dervise, that I may amply reward him for his wise maxim."

SIMONIDES, it is related, upon landing in a strange country, found the corse of an unknown person lying by the sea-side; he buried it, and was honoured throughout Greece for the piety of that act. Another ancient philosopher, chancing to fix his eyes upon a dead body, regarded the same with slight, if not with contempt; saying, "See the shell of the flown bird!" But it is not to be supposed that the moral and tender-hearted Simonides was incapable of the lofty movements of thought, to which the other sage gave way, at the moment while his soul was intent only upon the indestructible being; nor, on the other hand, that he, in whose sight a lifeless human body was of no more value than the worthless shell from which the living fowl had departed, would not, in a different mood of mind, have been affected by those earthly considerations which had incited the philosophic poet to the performance of that pious duty. And, with regard to this latter, we may be assured, that if he had been destitute of the capability of communing with the more exalted thoughts that appertain to human nature, he would have cared no more for the corse of the stranger, than for the dead body of a seal or porpoise, which might have been cast up by the waves. We respect the corporal frame of man, not merely because it is the habitation of a rational, but of an immortal soul. Each of these sages was in sympathy with the best feelings of our nature,-feelings which, though they seem opposite to each other, have another and a finer connexion than that of contrast.-Notes to Wordsworth's Excursion.

THE age of crusades was the youth of modern Europe. It was the time of unsophisticated feelings and un-. governable passions; the era of love, war, enthusiasm, and adventure.-Schlegel.

And now the summer-noon is bright,
The warm breeze woos the scent a
From a thousand flowers of red and white;
The year is fully spent!

"Paris, farewell, thou ancient town!

64

Farewell, my woods and plains!
Farewell, my kingdom and my crown!
And welcome, English chains!
Trim, trim the bark, and hoist the sail,
And bid my train advance,

I have found that loyal faith may fail-
I leave thee, thankless France."

These bitter words spake good King John;
But his liegemen counsel gave :

What recks it that the year is gone?

There yet is time to save.

Thou standest yet on thine own good land,
Forget thy plighted word,--

Remain and to thy foe's demand
We'll answer with the sword."

But the good King John spake firm and bold;
And oh his words should be
Graven in characters of gold

On each heart's memory:
"Were truth disowned by all mankind,
A scorned and banished thing,

A resting-place it still should find
In the breast of every king."
Again the good ship cleaves the sea
Before a favouring air,

But it beareth to captivity,

And not to freedom fair.

Yet when King John set foot on land,

Sad he could scarcely be,

For the Black Prince took him by the hand, And welcomed him courteously.

To Savoy Castle he was brought,

With fair and royal state:
Full many a squire, in rich attire,
Did on his pleasure wait.
They did not as a prisoner hold

That noble king and true,
But as dear guest, whose high behest
'Twas honour and joy to do.

Of treaty and of ransom then

The prince and he had speech;
Like friends and fellow-countrymen,
Great was the love of each;
No angry thought-no gesture proud,
Not a hasty word they spoke,
But a brotherhood of heart they vowed,
And its bond they never broke.

In Savoy Castle died King John-
They buried him royally;

And grief through all the land is gone
That such a knight should die.

And the prince was wont to say this thing
Whene'er his name was spoken,—

"He was a warrior and a king.

Whose word was never broken."

[The above ballad is a sequel to "The Black Prince," which appeared in Part III., and is derived from the same source.]