She proceeds to explain how she detected the fraud that had been practised upon the Princess, of which she accuses the Lady Psyche of being cognisant, how she had intended to tell the Princess when she returned from her day's ride, but

"These monsters blazon'd what they were, According to the coarseness of their kind."

Her whole speech is a fine effort, and helps to elucidate Lady Blanche's character, if indeed that is not yet sufficiently disclosed to an attentive reader. The Princess's answer is altogether worthy of her. In all her pride of dignity, and seated on her throne, she scorns to enter into explanations:

"The Princess answered coldly, 'Good;' Your oath is broken: we dismiss you go,'

At this juncture there bursts into the room, in breathless haste, a female messenger entrusted with two letters to the Princess, which she scornfully throws to the Prince to read. The one from Ida's father, King Gama, runs thus:

"Fair daughter, when we sent the Prince your way.
We knew not your ungracious laws, which learnt,
We, conscious of what temper you are built,
Came all in haste to hinder wrong, but fell
Into his father's hands, who has this night,
You lying close upon his territory,
Slipt round, and in the dark invested you,
And here he keeps me hostage for his son !"

The other from the rough old northern King: *** You have our son,-touch not a hair of his head, Render him up unscathed; give him your hand : Cleave to your contract;"

and so on, threatening this night to

unless you send us back

Our son, on the instant, whole."

Hereupon the Prince discloses his identity, and his object in intruding in disguise upon the privacy of the University, and pleads his cause in exquisitely chosen language:

"O, not to pry and peer on your reserve,
But led by golden wishes, and a hope
The child of regal contract, did I break
Your precinct; not a scorner of your sex,
But venerator, zealous it should be,
All that it might be: hear me, for I bear,
Tho' man, yet human, whatsoe'er your wrongs,
From the flaxen curl to the grey lock a life

Less mine than yours: my nurse would tell me of you;
I babbled of you, as babies for the moon,

Vague brightness; when a boy, you stooped to me

From all high places, lived in all fair lights,

Came in long breezes, rapt from inmost south

And blown to inmost north; at eve and dawn

With Ida, Ida, Ida, rang the woods;

The leader wild-swan in among the stars

Would clang it, and wrapt in wreaths of glowworm light. The mellow breaker murmur'd Ida. Now,

E

Because I would have reach'd you had you been
Sphered up with Cassiopeia, or the enthroned
Persephone in Hades, now at length,
Those winters of abeyance all worn out,
A man I came to see you; but indeed,
Not in this frequence can I lend full tongue,
O noble Ida, to those thoughts that wait
On you, their centre.

Except you slay me here,

According to your bitter statute-book,

I cannot cease to follow you, as they say
The seal does music; who desire you more
Than growing boys their manhood; dying lips,
With many thousand matters left to do,

The breath of life; O more than poor men wealth,
Than sick men health-yours, yours, not mine--but half
Without you; with you whole; and of those halves
You worthiest ; and howe'er you block and bar
Your heart with system out from mine, I hold
That it becomes no man to nurse despair,
But in the teeth of clenched antagonisms
To follow up the worthiest till he die:
Yet that I came not all unauthorised.
Behold your father's letter."

She is on the point of delivering her scornful answer when a panic arises among the students

"Some crying there was an army in the land,
And some that men were in the very walls,
And some they cared not; till a clamour grew
As of a new-world Babel, woman-built,
And worse confounded."

In stilling this panic and restoring order her heroic qualities shine out again. The ringleaders whom she has detected are to be expelled next day.

Her estimate of their position consequent upon their disgrace is withering in its sarcasm; they will be, she says,

"No wiser than their mothers, household stuff,

Live chattels, mincers of each other's fame,
Full of weak poison, turnspits for the clown,
The drunkard's football, laughing stocks of Time,
Whose brains are in their hands and in their heels,
But fit to flaunt, to dress, to dance, to thrum,
To tramp, to scream, to burnish, and to scour,
For ever slaves at home and fools abroad.'"

And now in a manner neither very graceful nor very grateful, she thanks her deliverer:

""We owe you bitter thanks,'

she says; but with regard to the suit which he has so forcibly urged:

'I wed with thee! I bound by pre-contract

Your bride, your bondslave! not tho' all the gold
That veins the world were pack'd to make your crown,
And every spoken tongue should lord you. Sir,
Your falsehood and yourself are hateful to us :
I trample on your offers and on you:
Begone: we will not look upon you more.
Here push them out at gates.'"

On leaving the gates the Prince is again attacked by his weird seizures.

SONG.

Thy voice is heard thro' rolling drums,
That beat to battle where he stands;
Thy face across his fancy comes,

And gives the battle to his hands;
A moment, while the trumpets blow,
He sees his brood about thy knee;
The next, like fire he meets the foe,

And strikes him dead for thine and thee."

The influence of home and wedded love in nerving a man for the shocks and conflict of life is here portrayed. Home affection is shown to be the moving spring of patriotism and heroic effort. The song is sung by Lilia.