my enemy, that is nonsense. Why should we be melodramatic? I am sure he wishes me well in his heart."

she sat with Mary waiting in the dusk of the evening for her husband's return. "My poor old lord is long of coming; he'll be worn to death with this terrible day."

"A likely story!" said the old lady, her old cheeks blazing hotter and hotter; and when Val announced his intention Lord Eskside was very late. The of going off at once to make his proposal dressing-bell had rung, and the ladies known to Mr. Pringle, and claim his con- were lingering, waiting for him in the sent, the passionate resentment and in- pale dusk, which had come on earlier dignation which she strove to suppress than usual. The sun and the season and were almost too much for her. She bade the hour were very much like that other the boy remember that he owed it to his bleak night, fifteen years ago, when Val grandfather at least to tell him first of so came first to Rosscraig. There was no important a step, but at last had to come storm, but it had been raining softly all down to arguments of convenience and the afternoon, refreshing the country, expediency. "You may be sure Sandy but darkening the skies, and increasing Pringle is not at the Hewan to-day. He the depression of all who were disposed has too much mischief in hand to stay to be depressed. Val had gone out in there in his hole. He is at work, doing the rain into the woods after his day's you all the harm he can, the old sneck- work, not knowing why it was that some drawer," said the indignant old lady uneasiness in the house had taken hold not daring to put half her indignation upon him, some sense of contradictoriinto words. ness and contrariety. Were things going wrong somehow, that had been so triumphantly right? or what was it that irritated and oppressed him? The ladies, in their anxiety, which he was not allowed to share, were glad when he went away, releasing them from all necessity for dissimulation. They sat in different parts of the room, not even talking to each other, listening to the rain, to the taps of the wet branches upon the windows, and all the hushed sounds of a

"As he is to be my father-in-law, you must be more civil to him, grandmamma," said Val, half laughing at her vehemence. He gave in at last, very reluctantly, to put off his going for the day. But even when this was attained, Lady Eskside's work was but half done, for Val had to be kept at home if possible, kept occupied and amused, that he might not discover prematurely the cruel attack of which he was the victim. She was afraid he might do something rash, and compromise him-rainy night. Lady Eskside had her back self before the election. In the excitement of that day itself, and when the business was too near completion to be capable of being deranged by any hotheaded folly poor Val might be guilty of, the risk would be less, or so at least the old people thought.

Thus things went on until the evening. Lord Eskside had fortunately left some business behind him to be completed, which gave Val occupation, and my lady had a moment of ease in which she could confide all that had happened to Mary. This last complication about Violet made everything so much the worse. Lady Eskside would have thought Sandy Pringle's daughter a poor enough match for her boy at any time, but now! Her only trust was that Mrs. Pringle was a sensible woman, and might see the necessity of putting a stop to it; but with the precedent of his father's reckless marriage before him, and Val's hot and hasty disposition, the old lady's heart sank at the prospect. "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof," she said at last, letting fall a silent tear or two, as

to the window, but, for that very reason, started with the greater excitement when a sound more distinct than the taps of the brauches - the knocking of some one for admission, and a low plaintive voice -came to her ear, mingled with the natural sounds of the night. Crying out, "Mary, for God's sake! who is it? she rose up from her chair. Just about the time and the moment when one of the boys was brought to her! I think for the time the old lady's mind was confused with the pain in it. She thought it was Val's mother come back at last with the other boy.

A little figure, young and light, was standing outside the window in the rain, -not Val's mother, in her worn and stormy beauty, but poor little Violet in her blue cloak, the hood drawn over her golden hair - her eyes, which had been pathetic at their gayest moment, beseeching now with a power that would have melted the most obdurate. "Oh, my lady, let me in, let me in!" cried Vi. Lady Eskside stood for a minute immoyable. Her "heart turned," as she said

afterwards, against this trifling little he would be glad to see your lad yship in creature that was the cause of so much his own room.' trouble (though how poor Vi, who suffered most, could be the cause, heaven knows! - people are not logical when they are in pain). Then I think it was the rain that moved her, and not the child's pleading face. She could not have left her enemy's dog, let alone his daughter, out in that drenching rain. She went across the room, slow and stately, and opened the window. But when Violet in her wet cloak came in, Lady Eskside gave her no encouragement. "This is a wet night for you to be out," was all she said.

"Oh, Lady Eskside!" said poor Violet, throwing herself down in a heap at the old lady's feet-"I have come to ask your pardon on my knees. Oh, you cannot think we knew of it, mamma and I. She is ill, or she would have been here too. Oh, my lady, my lady, think a moment! if it is hard for you, it is worse for us. It will kill mamma; and my heart is broken, my heart is broken!" cried poor little Vi.

"Miss Pringle, I do not think, on the spur of the moment, that there is much to be said between you and me."

"Oh, my lady!" Violet cried out, as if she had been struck, at the sound of her own name.

or

"Nothing to be said," continued Lady Eskside, though her voice wavered. "Who would blame you, poor thing your mother either? but between your father's family and mine what can there be to say? That is not a fit posture for a young lady. We are not in a theatre, but private life," said the old lady, severely calm. "If you will rise up and put off your wet cloak, I will order the carriage to take you home."

Lady Eskside hurried away. She did not pause even to look again at the suppliant whom she had repulsed. Violet stood looking after her, wistful, incredulous. The girl could not think it was anything but cruelty; perhaps at the bottom of her poor little distracted soul she had hoped that the old lady, who was always so kind to her, would have accepted her heart-broken apology, and refused to accept her renunciation. She could not believe that such a terrible termination of all things was possible, as that Lady Eskside should leave her without a word. She turned to Mary, and tottered towards her, with such a look of surprised anguish as went to Miss Percival's heart.

"My dear, my dear, don't look so heart-broken! She has gone to hear what has happened. She is very, very anxious. Come to my room, and change your wet things, my poor little Vi."

66

No, no! Not another moment! Let me go, let me go!" cried the girl, escaping from her hold; and, with the swiftness of youth and passion, Violet turned and fled, through the open window by which she had entered, out into the darkness, the rain, and the night.

From Fraser's Magazine. THE POET-KING OF SCOTLAND.

THE tragic fate of David, Duke of Rothesay, oldest son of Robert III. of Scotland, is known to every reader of Scott, as it forms perhaps the most startling incident in The Fair Maid of Perth. The youthful prince, like many other "Oh, no, no!" cried Violet, rising to heirs-apparent, and the more that he had her feet. Her soft eyes sent forth an a feeble and doting father, yielded himanswering flash; her pale little face self without restraint to the impulses of flushed over. "If you will not have any youthful blood, and rioted in all manner pity I meant nothing else, my lady of insolence and debauchery. He and will you tell Val," she added, with a Jack Falstaff's Prince Hal were simulhysterical sob rising in her throat, "that taneously pursuing similar courses. he is not to think any more of what he pleasing as this was to the State at large, said last night. I'll-forget it. It can- it was emphatically so to the haughty not be now, whatever might have been. Earl of Douglas, whose daughter MarOh, Mary," cried the girl, turning to Miss jory was the prince's wife, and who natuPercival, whom she saw for the first time rally resented the dishonour done to his -"tell him! I never, never can look him blood. Here, then, was one powerful and in the face again." dangerous enemy. But an enemy more "If you please, my lady," said Hard-powerful and more dangerous still was ing, appearing at the door in the dark- his uncle, the Duke of Albany, a man ness, "my lord has just come home; and cruel, crafty, unscrupulous, and ambi

Dis

66

Upon the wevis weltering to and fro,

So infortunate was we that fremyt day, That maugre plainly quethir we wold or no, With strong hand by forse schortly to say, Of inymyis taken and led away,

We weren all, and brought in thaire contrée,

Fortune it schupe non othir wayis to be.

first of Henry IV., and then of his son, For nineteen years he was the prisoner Henry V.

In the treatment of "his

captive

tious, who had set his heart on the throne | capture, that the only remaining obstacle for himself and his family. Rothesay between himself and the throne might be being entrusted by the feeble king to his in a fair way of being altogether removed. artful brother, as old Boece says, to lier James's own account of the capture is as him honest and civil maneris," was follows: brought to Falkland and thrown into a dungeon without meat or drink. He was subjected to that most tedious, terrible, and revolting of all violent deaths starvation; and we need not wonder that round such a "strange eventful history" much circumstantial romance should have gathered. For instance, a woman moved with compassion for the unhappy prince is said to have let meal fall down through the loft of the tower, by which his life was prolonged several days; but her action having been discovered she was put to death. Another supplied him with milk from her own bosom, through a long reed, and as soon as it was known "she was slain with great cruelty." At length the captive was reduced to such straits that he devoured the filth of his dungeon, and gnawed his own fingers. A death so tragic necessarily had miraculous consequences; and his body having been buried at Lindores, miracles were performed there for many years after; until, indeed, his brother, James I., began to punish his slayers, and fra that time furth," says the chronicler, "the miraclis ceissit." There can be little doubt in the mind of the competent enquirer that both Albany and Douglas, the prince's brother-in-law, were, as the Scottish law-phrase has it, "art and part" in this foul murder, though probably not to an equal degree, for in the Remission that they afterwards received at the hands of the feeble monarch their condonation was in terms as ample as if they had been the actual murderers.

guest," says John Hill Burton,
Henry V. showed a nature in which jealousies
and crooked policy had no place. Had he
desired to train an able statesman to support
his own throne, he could not have better ac-
complished his end. The King of Scots had
his naturally active intellect with learning and
everything that England could give to store
accomplishments; and he had opportunities
of seeing the practice of English politics, and
of observing and discoursing with the great
statesmen of the day, both in England and in
France, where Henry had also a court.
would be sent back all the abler governor of
his own people, and more formidable foe to
her enemies, for his sojourn at the Court of
England.

He

It may be so; but though there is an over-ruling Providence

From seeming evil still educing good, it is a spurious liberality that credits violence and breach of faith with happy results that were certainly not contemplated. It has often been asked why Henry IV. captured and detained the youthful prince, and above all why he Robert was advised to provide for the was kept in captivity so long. If Albany safety of his remaining son James by had been the instigator, why was James sending him for education and protection detained nearly five years after his to his ally the King of France. The uncle's death? and if, as it has been prince, then only eleven years of age, said, James was detained because there sailed from the Bass with his tutor, the was a refugee monk at Stirling believed to Earl of Orkney, and a suitable atendance, be Richard the Second of England, who in March 140 5. In direct violation of a had escaped from Pontefract, why was truce then existing between the two he not liberated on the death of that perkingdoms, an English ship of war cap-sonage, whoever he was, which occurred tured the Scottish vessel off Flamborough in 1419, when there was no longer the Head, on the 12th of April. To argue in such a case would have been unavailing besides, it was known to the English that Albany would not be displeased that his nephew and his attendants should be treated as prisoners of war; and in fact it is surmised that he gave hints for the

shadow of a claimant to the English throne? These questions are more easily asked than answered. A royal captive was too tempting a prize to be lightly parted with and it was natural that England should not restore the sovereign of her troublesome neighbour till she had

soft now loud among," was in the mood to invest any comely daughter of Eve with the attributes of a goddess. When night is darkest the light is near; and when the heart of James was at the saddest the light of his life was about to dawn on him. Jane Beaufort, attended by two of her maidens, entered the garden to make her morning orisons, and the captive of the Tower was so overcome with pleasure and delight that "suddenly his heart became her thrall."

taken what precautions she could to se- with the notes of the nightingale, "now cure amity between the two nations. In this case the fetters of love strengthened the bands of policy. A marriage with the blood-royal of England was the most obvious expedient, and James had already lost his heart to the nearest choice, Jane Beaufort, daughter of the Earl of Somerset, and cousin-german of the English king. Romance and policy went hand in hand, and the aspirations of the royal lover were in unison with the wishes and the plans of politicians. The story of his love is told with singular sweetness and beauty in "The King's Quair ” (¿.e. Quire,- Book), to which we now turn without prosecuting the narrative of his subsequent busy, energetic, and useful life.

Than gan I studye in myself and seyne,

Ah! suete are ye a warldly creature,
Or hevingly thing in likenesse of Nature?
Or ar ye god Cupidis owin princesse ?
And cumyn are to loose me out of band,
Or are ye veray Nature the goddesse ?
This gardyn full of flouris, as they stand?
That have depayntit with your hevinly hand
Quhat sall I think, allace! quhat reverence
Sall I mester unto your excellence?
He says she has -

This beautiful and graceful poem, one of the bright consummate flowers of romance, and therefore singular as the production of one whose whole after life, instead of being a romantic dream, was a sage, practical, far-sighted, stern reality, was inspired by his passion for the "lady of his love," the beautiful granddaughter of "Old John of Gaunt, time-honoured Lancaster." The royal captive, an adept in all knightly accomplishments, a musician, a scholar, a philosopher, and a poet, in the heyday of his blood, found himself, contrary to all the dictates of justice and hospitality, "in strait ward and in strong prison" in a strange land. For nearly eighteen years he had bewailed a "deadly life," or a living death, contrast-after his age, it can scarcely be matter of ing his own wretched fate with the freedom that each had in his kind,

The bird, the beast, the fish eke in the sea. He was tempted to question the Divine goodness, seeing that he more than others had had hard measure dealt him, and thus days and nights were spent in unavailing lamentations. As a solace amid his woes, it was his wont to rise early as day and indulge in exercise, by which he found joy out of torment. Looking from his chamber window in a tower of Windsor Castle, out on a small flower-garden, occupying the site of what had once been the moat, he saw walking

beneath

Beauty enough to make a world to dote. "The King's Quair" would have been inevitably lost had it not been for the preservation of a single manuscript, which once belonged to Selden, and is now in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. That James was the author of several poems, is a fact noted by all who have written of his life; but as printing was not introduced into Britain for a century

surprise that most of these should have been lost. As Mair, Dempster, and Tanner, Bishop of St. Asaph, all mentioned particularly James's poem "upon his future wife," and as reference was made to its being among the Seldenian manuscripts in the Boldleian, Mr. Tytler, of Woodhouselee, engaged an Oxford student to search for it; and this search having been successful, he further engaged him to make an accurate copy. Mr. Tytler published it in 1783, prefixing a historical and critical Dissertation on the Life of James I., and adding a Dissertation on Scottish Music. The text was illustrated by valuable philological and explanatory

notes. "Christis Kirk of the Grene was also included by Mr. Tytler in his publication, but we reserve what we have to say of this most humorous poem for the close of our paper. The title of the Seldenian manuscript above referred to is "The Quair, maid be King James of Scotland, the First, callit The King's Quair. Maid qn. his Ma. was in Eng

land; " and at the end there is the colo- calamities of his own unhappy life. Hearphon-"Quod King James I." The ing the bell ring to matins, he rose from transcript is said to be a very indifferent his couch, but could not divest himself one, and contains not a few errors. of the idea that the bell was vocal, and George Chalmers published in 1824 The was urging him to write his own chequered Poetic Remains of some of the Scottish history. Our readers will remember how Kings, in which what is defective in Tyt- often Charles Dickens avails himself of ler's exemplar of "The Quair" has not a similar fancy. James, therefore," took been remedied. As James was taken conclusion some new thing to write," to England when a mere boy, and and invoked, as was the custom, the wrote his poem there, and as he was a Muses to his aid. He recounts the dediligent student of Gower and Chaucer, tails of his capture and captivity; at last it is more than probable that it was his eye is delighted with the garden and originally written in Southern or East-its bowers, and his ear charmed with the Midland English. The existing manu-song of the nightingale, of whose sweet script is not, however, in that dialect, but harmony this was the text: in the Northern English used in the Lowlands of Scotland; therefore it is probable that we have not got the first form, but that which it took at the hands of native scribes across the Tweed.

For the ease of the reader Mr. Tytler divided the poem into six cantos, according to the various episodes contained in it. After the taste of the age, it is allegorical, a style of poetic composition probably derived from the Provençal writers, and continued in Britain to the end of the reign of Elizabeth. To us of the present day it is wearily, and perhaps drearily, prolix; but it accorded well with an age of stately decorum and stilted compliment, and has all the elements of cumbrous magnificence. Congruity was not aimed at by the allegorical poets, and in "The Quair" there is an unseemly admixture of Christian and Pagan mythology. This cannot be ascribed to a want of knowledge, but it is to be set down to a defect of taste; for, except in the case of the very highest poets, who wrote entirely from inspiration, and had no recourse to models, taste is a quality of culture, and the child of criticism. It may exist in a high degree with a mediocrity of genius, and be sought for in vain in the compositions of rich, original, inventive bards. James did not rise above the taste of his age, nor furnish a purer and more chastened model to his successors. But leaving out of view the structure of his work, in individual passages he soars to an elevation, and revels in a sweet beauty, exceeded by none of his contemporaries, and admired even in this highly critical age, familiar with the chastened grace of Tennyson, by all possessed of catholic sympathies.

Awaking from sleep in his prison, he consoles himself by reading Boethius, and this suggests to him the instability of human affairs, and the misfortunes and

Worshippe, ye that lovers been, this May,

And sing with us, Away, winter, away!
For of your bliss the Kalends are begun,
Come, summer, come, the sweet season and

sun;

Awake, for shame; that have your heavens

won,

And amorously lift up your heades all;
Thank Love that list you to his mercy call.
He now speculates on the nature of Love,
to which he had hitherto been a stranger,
and prays that he might enter his service,
and evermore be one of those who serve
him truly in weal and woe. His prayer
is answered sooner than he expected, for
in the garden appeared his future queen,
as has been mentioned above, and falling
under the dominion of love, suddenly—

My wit and countenance,

My heart, my will, my nature, and my mind,
Was changed clean right in ane other kind.
The personal beauty of the royal maiden
was enhanced by all the art of the time:
Off hir array the form gif I sal write,

Toward hir golden haire and rich atyre,
In fretwise couchit with perlis quhite,

And grete balas lemyng as the fyre,
With mony ane emerant and faire saphire,

And on hir hede a chaplet fresch of hewe,
Of plumys partit rede, and quhite, and blewe.

To this tricolour, the chosen emblem of liberty, the royal youth succumbed in a willing bondage. About her neck, fair as the white enamel, was a goodly chain of gold, by which there hung a ruby shaped like a heart; it seemed burning wantonly on her white throat like a spark of love. But better and beyond all these were youth, beauty, humble port, bounty, and womanly feature; all sweet gifts and graces to such extent that Nature could

no more her child advance." He is now under the law of Venus, and calls on the nightingale to resume her song.