brought to His MAJESTY'S notice, he ordered his carriage, and proceeded immedidiately to canvass the Canons, and other Dignitaries in whose gift the appointment lay: they had made their promises, but -it must be so-the King's wishes were a law, and Horne was nominated to the vacancy. Wishing, however, to gratify the old man by himself announcing (the joy ful tidings, his MAJESTY commanded him to attend at the Royal Lodge. The summons was unexpected, was distressing: "how could he appeer before the Presence, with a wardrobe not fit to visited private friend. But," continued the gratified veteran, "it is not the coat, it is the man the King wants to see: I must, I will go:" and he took a change of linen, and proceeded to Windsor. On his arrival at the Royal Lodge, he was received with kindness by the major domo, and refreshments were placed before him, with an intimation that his attendance would be required in the course of the evening in the drawing room. That time arrived, and the old man, on entering, was overpowered by the condescending affability with which he was received. The King, surrounded by the brilliant circle of his private friends, rose from his seat, and taking poor Horne by the hand, led him to the piano, requesting him to give once more a specimen of that skill which had entranced his juvenile mind. This was too much-he sat down overpowered with contending emotions, and the modest tear trickled from his aged eye. He forgot every thing, ran his fingers over the keys in the most abstracted manner, and was any thing but himself. A few affectionate words revived him; and, as if inspired by the sudden recollection of days gone by, struck off a fantasia, which he performed with all the execution of his best days. The King was delighted, and having only a slight recollection of the air, asked what it was. The old man could no longer contain his joy-" That air, your MAJESTY, was composed by my pupil, His Royal Highness the PRINCE of WALES, when he was eighteen years of age,. We need not say that the King was highly gratified; he had composed it in the early period of life, had entirely forgotten it, and as the Professor said, he had also lost sight of it for upwards of forty years, when it suddenly flashed on his memory, as a bright meteor suddenly enlightens the darkened sky. The dignity of the Monarch sank for a moment to the familiarity of the friend, he pressed the old man's hand, told him of his good fortune, and bade him retire, and compose himself. He remained at the Lodge ten days, and was then inducted into the organ Diary and Chronology. DATE. DAYS. DIARY. DATE. July Tues. St. Rumbold, bis. June hop and Martyr A. D. 776. 11690. CORRESPONDING CHRONOLOGY. The memorable battle of the Boyne was fought on this day, when the Protestant army of William III. totally defeated the Catholic and French forces, commanded by James II.; who upon his ill success fled a second time into France. In this engagement the great Duke of Schomberg lost his life. 2 St. Oudoceus was the third Bishop of Llandaff, and 3 This saint was martyred during the Dioclesian per- 1824. Ipsara, in Greece taken and destroyed by 4 St. Ulric was Bishop of Augburg. This saint is 5 St. Peter was born at Ligny in Lorrain, A. D. 1369. 6 St. Palladius is acknowledged by Scottish historians to have been the first bishop in that country. He died at Fordun, A. D. 450. 823. Expired the eminent Sir Henry Raeburn, first portrait painter to the king in Scotland. This artist possessed the rare faculty of producing, in every instance, striking and agreeable likenesses, to which he gave a peculiar chasteness by his admirable colouring. 7 This haughty prelate was born in London, a. D. 1119, and was the son of a merchant named Gilbert by Matilda, a Saracen lady, who is recorded to have fallen in love with him whilst a prisoner to her father in Jerusalem. 8 1816. Died Richard Brinsley Sheridan, one of the St. Elizabeth was the daughter of Peter III. of Ar- ILLUSTRATED ARTICLE. HAROLD HARRUNG. "HENCE, then, proud scorner of the power of Urfred? hence to unknown seas, where thy pennon shall droop idly on the mast, and thy sail hang loose and quivering; where the dauntless riders of the ocean shall sink, powerless and unresisting, before an unseen enemy! Hence, and learn how swiftly comes the vengeance of the gods on those who mock their favoured servants!" Such were the accents which pursued the young and valiant Harold Harrung, as he launched his gallant ship, in those far-distant days when the children of Norway were rulers and dwellers on the deep. The betrothed husband of the beauteous Ulla, the favourite leader of a bold and numerous crew, he had vowed to undertake a distant voyage, and to return with spoils sufficient to render his bridal splendid, as became that of Odin's lineal offspring. But the imprudence of Harold was, alas! as pre-eminent as his valour; and, in his recklessness of danger, he neglected to propitiate, by gifts or flattery VOL. I. 2 E the favour of the sorceress, Urfred-the most powerful of those who were then universally believed to direct the elements at will. He made no prayer to her for prosperous winds; he even treated with scorn her prophetic warnings, and thus drew upon himself those maledictions which filled the bravest of his followers with dread, and caused Harold himself to wish in secret that the hour of his return to the embraces of Ulla were now come, notwithstanding his ardent anticipation of a successful descent upon the shores of Spain. But he carefully concealed such feelings as he cheered his drooping warriors to spread their broad canvass to the wind; and a favourable breeze from the north-east soon bore them far away from the Norwegian coast, till the cloudlike hills melted into air, and the sinking sun gleamed only on a world of waters. It was high morning, and the young hero still rested half-slumbering on his couch of reindeer-skins, when the aged pilot roused him to point out the tokens of an impending storm which his experience warned him would be violent. But the bold sea-kings of those days were too 27-SATURDAY, JULY 12, 1828. much accustomed to brave the utmost fury of the elements, in their small and fragile barks, to tremble at the coming of the tempest; and the delay of a few days, which might result from driving out of their course, was all that Harold feared. But there were some among that crew, who, while they remembered the threatenings of the sorceress, could not, without some sinking of the heart, mark cloud upon cloud piling in awful accumulation toward the south, or watch the rapidlyincreasing swell that came from that quarter, though the vessel now lay rolling heavily, without a breath to fill her flapping canvass. Suddenly, the cry of the steersman was heard to take in every sail; and, ere this could be more than partially accomplished, a blast, that swept off the whole surface of the sea into a mist of foam, snapt the stout mast in twain, and the vessel was in a moment driving northward with portentous swiftness. Four days and nights did that resolute crew in vain expect the lulling of the gale; though its violence abated, it still drove them powerless before it, unable to use oar or Sail. On the sixth morning it grew calm; and all snatched a brief space of delicious slumber, before they gathered round their leader, to consult on their perilous situation. The land was not in sight, and in what direction any lay, the most experienced of the crew were ignorant; but the intense cold which benumbed their hardy limbs, and the vast fragments of ice that floated on all sides round the ship both proved that the power of the tempest had driven them farther to the north, than any, perhaps, of their countrymen had ever ventured to penetrate before. What was their horror and astonishment, when, after wasting the dubious twilight of those arctic nights in troubled slumber, they woke to find themselves encompassed on all sides by rough fields of ice, to which the swell from the south, yet unsubsided, was each minute adding in extent. Hour after hour, as it passed, only increased the dangers of their position; yet the bolder still talked hopefully of escape, and their chieftain went from man to man to cheer, by exhortation, their fast drooping spirits. But when a discoloured fog gathered round the ship, and the thick-falling snows reminded them too surely that autumn was advancing-when their provision, though scantily doled out, began to fail then dismay and despair fell on all but the firm soul of Harold Harrung." Warriors and friends!" he exclaimed, as they stood with stern and anxious looks around hin, "fear not for yourselves; curse me not, that I disdained to purchase the favour of a loathsome witch! Can ye believe that the mighty Odin would permit his descendant, hitherto so favoured, to die the death of a dog in a wreath of snow? No, friends! if it had seemed fitting to the gods to bid me thus, in early youth, to the banquets of Valhalla-the battle-field, the deck running deep with foemen's blood, would have been my appointed place of summons. The gods, who only can, will aid us yet." They answered not; for they loved their chief too well to curse him, even in such extremity of misery. Meanwhile the snow gave place to a frost of the bitterest intensity; the last morsel of food was gone; and, one by one, yet without a reproachful glance or word, Harold beheld his gallant followers expire around him, till he was left the only living thing in that dark and icy desert. It was, in truth, a dreadful doom to linger thus alone among the dead-to gaze upon their glassy eye-balls and withered lips, that seemed to glare and smile in scorn!many, too, still standing, as the frost had fixed them in their death-pangs, with the air and attitude of life-and Harold, racked almost to madness by the horror of the scene, cast himself over the vessel's side, and fled across those pathless wastes he knew not whither. The pangs of inemory returned not to the hero, till he found his headlong flight arrested suddenly by a rocky precipice that rose high into the clouds before him. In its front, not far above his head, there yawned a spacious cave; and, still seeking to escape from his own thoughts, he sprang up and entered. He passed a long and winding way in utter darkness, but, at length, a faint light glimmered in the distance. The passage through which he moved spread wider and higher as he approached till it expanded into a vast illuminated hall. To a mind less torn with anguish than the hero's, the spectacle of that cavern might have compensated years of toil. r'ar as the eye could reach, the soil was overspread with structures of magnificence and beauty. All that the inventive genius of man has, in ancient or modern times, devised the massy pyramid-the graceful column-the arch, in each variety of form and ornament;-all these were there carved out of solid ice, tinted with all the hues of the rainbow, and above floated a transparent cloud, athwart which the hand! : Long have we watched, long have we wished for thee. he reached a pleasant bower, where the Harold, for thee the feast is spread; Drink, and cast all cares away. Rest, wanderer, rest! All nature now lies dreaming; The small bird settles in its downy nest; Hushed lies the deer beneath the mild moon's beaming : Then rest-oh! rest. |