The lonely mountains o'er,

And the resounding shore,

A voice of weeping heard and loud lament; From haunted spring, and dale

Edged with poplar pale,

The parting genius is with sighing sent; With flow'r-inwoven tresses torn,

The nymphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets mourn.

In consecrated earth,

And on the holy hearth,

The Lars and Lemures moan with midnight plaint;

In urns, and altars round,

A drear and dying sound

Affrights the Flamens at their service quaint;

And the chill marble seems to sweat,

While each peculiar Pow'r forgoes his wonted seat.

Peor and Baälim

Forsake their temples dim,

With that twice-batter'd god of Palestine ;

And mooned Ashtaroth,

Heav'n's queen and mother both,

Now sits not girt with tapers' holy shine;

The Lybic Hammon shrinks his horn,

In vain the Tyrian maids their wounded Thummuz mourn.

And sullen Moloch, fled,

Hath left in shadows dread

His burning idol all of blackest hue;

In vain with cymbals' ring

They call the grisly king,

In dismal dance about the furnace blue :

The brutish gods of Nile as fast,

Isis, and Orus, and the dog Anubis haste.

Nor is Osiris seen

In Memphian grove or green,

Trampling the unshow'r'd grass with lowings loud;

Nor can he be at rest

Within his sacred chest,

Nought but profoundest hell can be his shroud;
In vain with timbrell'd anthems dark

The sable-stoled sorcerers bear his worshipp'd ark.

He feels from Juda's land

The dreaded Infant's hand,

The rays of Bethlehem blind his dusky eyn;
Nor all the gods beside

Longer dare abide,

Not Typhon huge ending in snaky twine:
Our Babe, to show his Godhead true,

Can in his swaddling bands control the damned crew.

So when the sun in bed,

Curtain'd with cloudy red,

Pillows his chin upon an orient wave,

The flocking shadows pale

Troop to th' infernal jail,

Each fetter'd ghost slips to his several grave;

And the yellow-skirted fayes

Fly after the night-steeds, leaving their moon-loved maze.

But see the Virgin blest

Hath laid her Babe to rest,

Time is our tedious song should here have ending;
Heav'n's youngest teemed star

Hath fix'd her polish'd car,

Her sleeping lord with handmaid lamp attending;

And all about the courtly stable

Bright harness'd Angels sit in order serviceable.

331. THE DEATH OF LORD HASTINGS.

HALL.

[THE great scene of Shakspere's Richard III. (Act iii. Scene iv.), in which Gloster accuses Hastings of witchcraft, and sends him to the block as

traitor, faithfully follows the Chronicle of Hall. But this remarkable narra. tive has even a higher interest. It is taken, almost literally, from Sir Thomas More's 'Tragical History of Richard III.' The air of truth which pervades this history throughout-and which Shakspere has almost invariably retained-is partly attributable to the minuteness with which little incidents are detailed, such as Richard's asking the Bishop of Ely for strawberries from his garden. More, when he was fifteen, was placed in the house of this same Bishop of Ely-Thomas Morton-then Archbishop of Canterbury; and from his table-talk these anecdotes were probably derived, and treasured up by the "one wit in England."]

The Lord Protector caused a council to be set at the tower on the Friday the thirteenth day of June, where was much communing for the honorable solemnity of the coronation, of the which the time appointed approached so near, that the pageants were a making day and night at Westminster, and victual killed which afterward was cast away.

These lords thus sitting communing of this matter, the Protector came in among them about nine of the clock, saluting them courteously, excusing himself that he had been from them so long, saying merely that he had been a sleeper that day. And, after a little talking with them, he said to the Bishop of Ely, "My lord, you have very good strawberries in your garden, at Holborn; I require you let us have a mess of them." "Gladly, my lord," quoth he, "I would I had some better thing as ready to your pleasure as that;" and with that, in all haste, he sent his servant for a dish of strawberries. The protector set the lords fast in communing, and thereupon prayed them to spare him a little, and so he departed, and came again between ten and eleven of the clock, all changed, with a sour, angry countenance, knitting the brows, frowning, and fretting, and gnawing on his lips, and so set him down in his place. All the lords were dismayed and sore marvelled of this manner, and sudden change, and what thing should him ail. When he had sitten awhile, thus he began :-"What were they worthy to have that compass and imagine the destruction of me, being so near of blood to the king, and protector of this his royal realm ?" At which question all the Lords sat sore astonished, musing much by whom the question should be meant, of which every man knew himself clear.

Then the Lord Hastings, as he that, for the familiarity that

was between them, thought he might be boldest with him, answered, and said that they were worthy to be punished as heinous traitors, whatsoever they were, and all the other affirmed the same, "that is (quoth he) yonder sorceress my brother's wife, and other with her, meaning the queen;" at these words many of the lords were sore abashed which favored her, but the Lord Hastings was better content in his mind that it was moved by her, than by any that he loved better, albeit his heart grudged that he was not afore made of council in this matter, as well as he was of the taking of her kindred, and of their putting to death, which were by his assent before devised to be beheaded at Pomfret, this selfsame day, in the which he was not ware that it was by others devised that he himself should the same day be beheaded at London: then, said the Protector, in what wise that sorceress and other of her council, as Shore's wife with her affinity, have by their sorcery and witchcraft thus wasted my body and therewith plucked up his doublet sleeve to his elbow, on his left arm, where he showed a wearish withered arm, and small as it was never other. And thereupon every man's mind misgave them, well perceiving that this matter was but a quarrel, for well they wist that the queen was both too wise to go about any such folly, and also, if she would, yet would she of all folk make Shore's wife least of her council, whom of all women she most hated, as that concubine whom the king, her husband, most loved.

Also there was no man there but knew that his arm was ever such sith the day of his birth. Nevertheless the Lord Hastings, which from the death of King Edward kept Shore's wife, whom he somewhat doted in the king's life, saving, it is said, that he forbare her for reverence toward his king, or else of a certain kind of fidelity toward his friend. Yet now his heart somewhat grudged to have her, whom he loved so highly, accused, and that, as he knew well, untruly; therefore he answered, and said, Certainly, my lord, if they save so done, they be worthy of heinous punishment!" "What!" quoth the Protector, thou servest me, I ween, with if and with and, I tell thee they have done it, and that will I make good on thy body, traitor!" And therewith (as in great anger) he clapped his fist on the board a great rap.

at which token given, one cried treason without the chamber, and therewith a door clapped, and in came rushing men in harness as many as the chamber could hold. And anon the Protector said to the Lord Hastings, "I arrest thee, traitor!" What! me, my lord?" quoth he. "Yea, the traitor!" quoth the Protector; and one let fly at the Lord Stanley, which shrunk at the stroke, and fell under the table, or else his head had been cleft to the teeth, for as shortly as he shrank yet ran the blood about his ears. Then was the Archbishop of York, and Doctor Morton, Bishop of Ely, and the Lord Stanley, taken, and divers other, which were bestowed in divers chambers, save the Lord Hastings (whom the Protector commanded to speed and shrive him apace), “for by Saint Paul (quoth he) I will not dine till I see thy head off." It booted him not to ask why, but heavily he took a priest at a venture, and made a short shrift, for a longer would not be suffered, the Protector made so much haste to his dinner, which he might not go to till this murther were done, for saving of his ungracious oath. So was he brought forth into the green beside the chapel within the Tower, and his head laid down on a log of timber, that lay there for building of the chapel, and there tyrannously stricken off, and after his body and head were interred at Windsor by his master, King Edward the Fourth, whose souls Jesu pardon. Amen.

A marvellous case it is to hear, either the warnings that he should have voided, or the tokens of that he could not void. For the next night before his death the Lord Stanley sent to him a trusty messenger in all the haste, requiring him to rise and ride away with him, for he was disposed utterly no longer for to abide, for he had a fearful dream, in which he thought that a boar with his tusks so rased them both by the heads, that the blood ran about both their shoulders; and, forasmuch as the Protector gave the boar for his cognisance, he imagined that it should be he. This dream made such a fearful impression in his heart, that he was thoroughly determined no longer to tarry, but had his horse ready, if the Lord Hastings would go with him; so that they would ride so far that night that they should be out of danger by the next day. "Ah! good lord (quoth the Lord Hastings to the messenger), leaneth my lord, thy master, so much