and scourge him for his crimes. His outward throes bear witness to his mental troubles; the blush of shame, the flush of anger, are traced upon his face, and now his hand seems to grasp a dagger-knife-and now the life-blood rushing from his heart, awakens him with a pang, from his painful slumbers. Fearing to trust again to such dire repose, he passes the night in watching his lamp, telling the hours on the castle bell, listning to the cry of the owlet; or, to the sad breeze which whistles round the tower. His ear, sharpened by revenge, catches, far townward, a distant tread-it approaches-a stranger enters the castle, and Oswald orders his attendants to admit him to his presence; to bring food and wine and withdraw. The stranger entered with a heavy stride; his gigantic form was cased in armour, and his bearing was bold, commanding, fierce and savage. To the courtesy of Oswald he returns a short answer-but laying aside part of his armour he turned to the genial board, and fed and drank without the slightest pledge of social reverence. Oswald paced the room in feverish agony to learn the news which Bertram brought; but fear and shame would not allow him frankly to de mand it, and he endeavoured to lure it out of his sullen guest unasked. To the question of Oswald whether a field had been fought, Bertram detailed the battle on Marston heath, between the troops of the parliament, and those of the king, and said, that when he left the fight, Rupert was routing the army of the commons. To this intelligence Oswald feigned sorrow, while joy was in his eye;—and must I, said he, dew the tomb of a friend, or is he dead whom thou knowest I hate the most. If thou wouldst know aught of friend or foe, replied Bertram, ask it in simple terms, and thou shalt receive a soldier's answer. The wrath of Oswald now suppressed his art-wretch, said he, hast thou paid thy bloody debt-does Philip of Mortham live? The soldier springing from his seat, seized Oswald's hand, and exclaimed, Now Oswald Wycliffe, thou playest thy genuine part; now thou art worthy, like me, to roam a buccaneer. What reckest thou of either cause if thou possess Mortham's wealth and lands? Yes, he is dead, for when Rupert thundered on our flank, it was then amidst tumult smoke and strife, I fired, and Mortham, steed and rider fell. The reward I demand for this deed,

is, that thou bestow upon me the wealth which Mortham acquired in his Indian wars, and which is hoarded in the caverns of his castle. Thou, as heir, will inherit his lands, and I take the gold and the jewels by the laws of the buccaneers-come thou along, for without thy presence I shall not be admitted. Oswald hesitated-he was awed by the ruffian; he feared to accompany him, and even grudged him the mighty prize. He said that his charge would not then allow of his absence, but that Wilfrid, his only son, should accompany his friend. Bertram despised the excuse and accepted the substitute. Wilfrid was called from his unpressed couch while pouring forth some sweet verses to the moon. Wilfrid was polluted by none of his father's wickedness; his heart was even too soft to contend with the usual calamities of life. While his sire was blessed with numerous sons, his weakness was despised, but even then, he was the care and the joy of a fond mother. No frolic play of childhood ever gave elasticity to his blood, but hour after hour, he loved to ponder over the rich and varied lore of Shakspeare, to muse with the wisdom of Hamlet, or mingle his tears with the woes of Desde. mona. He was a minstrel, and possessed the art, "unteachable, untaught." Like other poets, he loved, and the object of his flame was the bright Matilda, the very dame his father designed him to wed. But he loved in vain, for the affections of Matilda were placed upon Redmond, a youth of a more bold and gallant bearing, who had been brought up with her from childhood, in her father's house. This Matilda was the daughter of the knight of Rokeby, whose domains, like those of Oswald, bordered on the banks of the Tees. In the civil war which was then raging, Rokeby had joined his bands to the northern earls, while Mortham, to whom he was allied by the marriage of his sister, joined the opposite party under Fairfax; and Oswald held his towers for the commons, bound by a sympathy of wickedness to wily Vane.

Bertram did not wait to behold the splendid scenes which sun-rise shows from the heights of Bernard, but early took his way, with Wilfrid, along the southern banks of the Tees. They shunned the nearer path, and crossed the stream by the ancient bridge of Greta; but when Rokeby's turrets gleamed upon their

sight, then, though Spencer himself had strayed by the side of Wilfrid, and had pointed out to him the luxuriant charms of the lovely glade through which they passed, he would have wasted his power in vain, for the eye of Wilfrid was fixed upon the disfant turret, whose lattice lighted the bower of Matilda. The travellers now abandoned the open vale, and plunged into a dark and narrow dell, whose gloom was peopled with the spectres of superstition. In this dismal glen, Bertram affirmed he beheld a form which appeared to dog their way, and before Wilfrid could rouse himself to a reply, he shouted and sprung for. ward with his sword, and pursued the object, over rock, wood, stream and cliff, at the imminent peril of his life. Wilfrid by a safer circuit attained the height, and found Bertram pondering by a tomb which stood a short distance from the silent hall of Mortham. "It vanished like a flitting ghost behind this tomb," said Bertram. Wilfrid despised his superstition, but inquired of him the form and show of the apparition. Bertram, unconscious what he spoke, replied, that it was Mortham's form-his shape, his mein-his morion, with the plume of red-it was Mortham just as he slew him in the fight. Thou slew him?thou-demands Wilfrid. Yes, I slew him, replied the haughty ruffian with a start-I had forgot, strippling, that thou knewest not of the conspiracy, but I shall never deny a deed which I have done it was by this hand that Mortham died. Wilfrid, the gentle Wilfrid, in his fragile form nourished one brave spark of noble fire, and when injustice made that spark blaze forth, his blood beat high, his hand waxed strong, and he rose superior to his frame. This generous temperament now came in the full current of his blood. On Bertram he laid a desperate hand, drew his sword, and called upon the attendants of Mortham to arouse and arrest the murderer of their lord. Bertram was fixed a moment, as by a spell, but when he felt the feeble stroke of Wilfrid the fiend within him awoke, and his blade was raised to end both the love and the woes of Wilfrid, when a warlike form presented his sheathed rapier, parries the descending blow and steps between the combatants. This was Mortham, and with a monarch's voice he forbid the battle, and motioned Bertram from his presence. The villain sullenly retires, and the tramp of steeds

being heard, the warrior, warning Wilfrid to tell none that Mortham lived, plunged into the shade. The words were still ringing in Wilfrid's ear when his father rode up at the head of a gallant band of horsemen.

We shall stop here, for it is a dull work to convert poetry into prose. We the more willingly do this, because, any observations we might have otherwise been induced to make on the fable, have been precluded by the able and acute remarks to be found on this department of Rokeby in our last number.

Bertram is the form which strikes the eye most prominently on the canvas-he is the connecting principle of the piece, and that which gives unity to the other figures of the poem, which are grouped around him. The character is vigorously executed, but we confess that it is not a character to our taste. He is a bad fellow, and no one chooses to be pestered with bad company for any length of time. His sphere of action, then, is so eccentric, that sympathy with him is more a matter of fancy than of feeling. Such characters, too are not of difficult performance. Strong unmixed passion, like the outline of a bold face, is struck off easily, because it is course, but the skill of an artist is discovered in catching the likeness of a countenance more remarkable for its expression than its contour. Bertram has been compared with Roderick Dhu. Both the characters are nobly drawn; but Roderick could love Ellen, and had a frank and noble generosity-sentiments which were strangers to the bosom of Bertram. We therefore think Roderick superior to Bertram, for the same reason that Pliny asserts that the Laocoon is superior to the Apollo Belvidere, not for being finer proportioned, but beeause it has a greater variety of expression.

Edmund is also a vicious character, but he possesses a high interest, for we sometimes encounter such persons in our intercourse with the world. He is a youth of that undecisive complexion, who has not hardihood enough for a villain, nor virtue enough for an honest man-one in whom strong passions have obtained the ascendant of strong parts, whose talents for want of a higher range, exert themselves in feats of low ambition, but who, amidst the uproar of wickedness is perpetually casting back a mournful glance to the days of his innocence. This assemblage of qualities, forms a character, which requires a discrimi

nating eye and a skilful hand, accurately to delineate. Mr. Scott has successfully accomplished it, and we know of nothing similar to it in his works.

Of Mortham, Matilda and Redmond, we shall say but little. It is impossible to get a full view of Mortham-through the whole poem he does nothing but groan and vanish. Matilda is the sister of Ellen,

"Facies non una duabus,

Nec diversa tamen: qualem decet esse sorrorum."

The character is well drawn and well supported. She has the same happy union of feminine softness and steadfast resolution which charmed us in Ellen. But we can never forget her discourteous treatment to Wilfrid when he bore her from the flaming castle: and that boarding-school eagerness for marriage, which joined her to Redmond before the sod was green upon the grave of Wilfrid, might have been exceedingly natural in Nancy Article, the daughter of the marriage broker, but it defaces the purity of the soft, the thoughtful, the melancholy Matilda. These shades make Matilda, in comparison with the "Lady of the Lake," appear

"Less fair,

Less winning soft, less amiably mild,
Than that smooth watery image."

Redmond is fashioned in the same mould with those other sprightly lovers of Mr. Scott, De Wilton, and Malcome Græme. He is a promising, debonnaire lad, of great generosity and dashing courage; on one occasion, he, indeed, speaks very prettily, but his principal qualifications are, "to bestride a steed, and to wield a brand.”

It is the character of Wilfrid we delight to contemplate.Scott has here exceeded himself, and we know of nothing surpassing it in the whole range of poetry. A lettered youth tinctured with the melancholy of genius, and the victim of a fruitless passion-possessed of a mind of too high a pitch for the tones of ordinary life, with a romantic fancy which is perpetually waring with the allotments of its condition, and shattering the feeble tenement which confines its range. This contest between love and generosity, between fancy and reason, between a vigorous