pretty knots unravelled in simultaneous movement? In vain for him might old Stubbes denounce peril to body and mind in his outcry against the "horrible vice of pestiferous dancing." The manner in which the first Puritans set about making people better, after the fashion of a harsh nurse to a froward child, was very remarkable. Stubbes threatens the dancers with lameness and broken legs, as well as with severer penalties; but, being constrained to acknowledge that dancing "is both ancient and general, having been used ever in all ages as well of the godly as of the wicked," he reconciles the matter upon the following principle:-" If it be used for man's comfort, recreation, and godly pleasure, privately (every sex distinct by themselves), whether with music or otherwise, it cannot be but a very tolerable exercise." We doubt if this arrangement would have been altogether satisfactory to the young men and maidens at the Welford Wake, even if Philip Stubbes had himself appeared amongst them, with his unpublished manuscript in his pocket, to take the place of the pipers, crying out to them "Give over, therefore, your occupations, you pipers, you fiddlers, you minstrels, and you musicians, you drummers, you tabretters, you fluters, and all other of that wicked brood."* Neither, when the flowing cup was going round amongst the elders to song and story, would he have been much heeded, had he himself lifted up his voice, exclaiming, "Wherefore should the whole town, parish, village, and country, keep one and the same day, and make such gluttonous feasts as they do?" One young man might have answered, "Dost thou think because thou art virtuous there shall be no more cakes and ale?"

* Anatomy of Abuses.

Twelfth Night, Act II., Scene 3.

† Ibid.

THE SLAVE-SHIP.

THERE was no sound upon the deep,
The breeze lay cradled there;
The motionless waters sank to sleep
Beneath the sultry air;

Out of the cooling brine to leap
The dolphin scarce would dare.

Becalm'd on that Atlantic plain
A Spanish ship did lie ;-
She stopp'd at once upon the main,
For not a wave roll'd by:

And she watch'd six dreary days, in vain,
For the storm-bird's fearful cry.

But the storm came not, and still the ray
Of the red and lurid sun
Wax'd hotter and hotter every day,
Till her crew sank one by one,
And not a man could endure to stay
By the helm, or by the gun.

Deep in the dark and fetid hold
Six hundred wretches wept;

They were slaves, that the cursed lust of gold
From their native land had swept;

And there they stood, the young and old,
While a pestilence o'er them crept.

Cramm'd in that dungeon-hold they stood,
For many a day and night,

Till the love of life was all subdued

By the fever's scorching blight,

And their dim eyes wept half tears, half blood,

But still they stood upright.

And there they stood, the quick and dead,
Propp'd by that dungeon's wall,-

And the dying mother bent her head
On her child-but she could not fall;--
In one dread night the life had fled
From half that were there in thrall.

The morning came, and the sleepless crew
Threw the hatchways open wide;
Then the sickening fumes of death up-flew,
And spread on every side ;-
And, ere that eve, of the tyrant few,
Full twenty souls had died.

They died, the gaoler and the slave-
They died with the self-same pain—
They were equal then, for no cry could save
Those who bound, or who wore the chain;
And the robber-white found a common grave
With him of the negro-stain.

The pest-ship slept on her ocean-bed,
As still as any wreck,

Till they all, save one old man, were dead,

In her hold or on her deck:

That man, as life around him fled,
Bow'd not his sturdy neck.

He arose the chain was on his hands,
But he climb'd from that dismal place;
And he saw the men who forg'd his bands
Lie each upon his face:-

There on the deck that old man stands,'
The lord of all the space.

He sat him down, and he watch'd a cloud

Just cross the setting sun,

And he heard the light breeze heave the shroud

Ere that sultry day was done;

When the night came on, 'the gale was loud,

And the clouds rose thick and dun.

And still the negro boldly walk'd
The lone and silent ship;

With a step of vengeful pride he stalk'd,
And a sneer was on his lip-

For he laugh'd to think how Death had baulk'd
The fetters and the whip.

At last he slept :-the lightning flash

Play'd round the creaking mast,

And the sails were wet with the ocean's plash,
But the ship was anchor'd fast-
Till at length, with a loud and fearful crash
From her cable's strain she past.

Away she swept, as with instinct rife,
O'er her broad and dangerous path;
And the midnight tempest's sudden strife
Had gathering sounds of wrath :

Yet on board that ship was no sound of life,
Save the song of that captive swarth.

He sang of his Afric's distant sands,
As the slippery deck he trod;
He fear'd to die in other lands,
'Neath a tyrant master's rod;
And he lifted his hard and fetter'd hands
In a prayer to the negro's God.

He touch'd not the sail nor the driving helm,

But he look'd on the raging sea,

And he joy'd-for the waves that would overwhelm Would leave his spirit free;

And he pray'd that the ship to no Christian realm
Before the storm might flee.

He smiled amidst the tempest's frown,
He sang amidst its roar;

His joy no fear of death could drown—
He was a slave no more.

The helmless ship that night went down
On Senegambia's shore!

SIR JOHN DINELY.

It is some forty years ago since a remarkable personage was to be daily gazed at amongst the sights of Windsor. One of the writer's earliest recollections is of this singular man. We see him now, as he appeared to our childish curiosity, mysteriously creeping by the first light of a winter's morning through the great gate of the lower ward of the Castle into the narrow back streets of the town. He then constantly wore a large cloak, called a roquelaure, beneath which appeared a pair of thin legs encased in dirty silk stockings. If the morning was wet, his cloak was not his only protection from the weather. He had a formidable umbrella; and, what was most wonderful, he stalked along upon pattens. Often have we watched him creeping out of his solitary house in the Castle, and most carefully locking doors behind him, as he went on his morning errands. There he lived in one of the houses of the Military Knights, then called Poor Knights, to which body he belonged: it was the house next to the governor's. No human being, it was imagined, had for some years entered that house except its eccentric possessor. The wise man, he held, was his own best assistant; and so he dispensed with all domestic service. In the morning, then, he duly went forth to make his frugal purchases for the day-a faggot, a candle, a small loaf, perhaps a herring. All luxuries, whether of meat, or tea, or sugar, or butter, were renounced. He had objects to be attained, and for whose attainment he laboured for years, which required money. His income in money, derived from his office, besides his house, was about sixty pounds. Regular attendance upon the service of St. George's Chapel was his duty; and the long blue mantle which the Poor Knights wore covered the faded finery beneath, as well as the roquelaure hid the loaf and the farthing candle. But when the offices of the morning had been performed, and the sun, perchance, shone