indeed men, spare them that can resist no longer!" "The bridge the bridge which communicates with the castlehave they won that pass?" exclaimed Ivanhoe. "No," replied Rebecca; "the Templar has destroyed the plank on which they crossed-few of the defenders escaped with him into the castle-the shrieks and cries which you hear, tell the fate of the others. Alas! I see that it is still more difficult to look upon victory than upon battle."

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"What do they now, maiden?" said Ivanhoe; "look forth yet again—this is no time to faint at bloodshed." "It is over, for a time," said Rebecca; our friends strengthen themselves within the outwork which they have mastered." "Our friends," said Ivanhoe, "will surely not abandon an enterprise so gloriously begun, and so happily attained; Oh no! I will put my faith in the good knight whose ax has rent heart of oak and bars of iron. Singular," he again muttered to himself, "if there can be two who are capable of such achievements. It is, it must be Richard Cœur de Lion."

"Seest thou nothing else, Rebecca, by which the Black Knight may be distinguished?" "Nothing," said the Jewess, "all about him is as black as the wing of the nightraven. Nothing can I spy that can mark him further; but having once seen him put forth his strength in battle, methinks I could know him again among a thousand warriors. He rushes to the fray as if he were summoned to a banquet. There is more than mere strength; it seems as if the whole soul and spirit of the champion were given to every blow which he deals upon his enemies. God forgive him the sin of bloodshed! it is fearful, yet magnificent, to behold how the arm and heart of one man can triumph over hundreds."

-Walter Scott.

NOTES.-Ivanhoe, a wounded knight, and Rebecca, a Jewess, had been imprisoned in the castle of Reginald Front de

Bœuf. The friends of the prisoners undertake their rescue. At the request of Ivanhoe, who is unable to leave his couch, Rebecca takes her stand near a window overlooking the approach to the castle, and details to the knight the incidents of the contest as they take place. Front de Boeuf and his garrison were Normans; the besiegers, Saxons.

The castles of this time (twelfth century) usually consisted of a keep, or castle proper, surrounded at some distance by two walls, one within the other. Each wall was encircled on its outer side by a moat, or ditch, which was filled with water, and was crossed by means of a draw-bridge. Before the main entrance of the outer wall was an outwork called the barbacan, which was a high wall surmounted by battlements and turrets, built to defend the gate and draw-bridge. Here, also, were placed barriers of palisades, etc., to impede the advance of an attacking force. The postern gate was small, and was usually some distance from the ground; it was used for the egress of messengers during a siege.

L. MARCO BOZZARIS.

Fitz-Greene Halleck, 1790-1867, was born in Guilford, Connecticut. At the age of eighteen he entered a banking-house in New York, where he remained a long time. For many years he was book-keeper and assistant in business for John Jacob Astor. Nearly all his poems were written before he was forty years old, several of them in connection with his friend Joseph Rodman Drake. His "Young America," however, was written but a few years before his death. Mr. Halleck's poetry is carefully finished and musical; much of it is sportive, and some satirical. No one of his poems is better known than "Marco Bozzaris."

AT midnight, in his guarded tent,

The Turk was dreaming of the hour
When Greece, her knee in suppliance bent,
Should tremble at his power.

In dreams, through camp and court he bore
The trophies of a conqueror;

In dreams, his song of triumph heard;

Then wore his monarch's signet-ring:

Then pressed that monarch's throne-a king: As wild his thoughts, and gay of wing,

As Eden's garden bird.

At midnight, in the forest shades,
Bozzaris ranged his Suliote band,
True as the steel of their tried blades,
Heroes in heart and hand.

There had the Persian's thousands stood,
There had the glad earth drunk their blood,
On old Platea's day:

And now there breathed that haunted air,

The sons of sires who conquered there,

With arms to strike, and soul to dare,
As quick, as far as they.

An hour passed on-the Turk awoke;
That bright dream was his last:

He woke to hear his sentries shriek,

"To arms! they come! the Greek! the Greek!" He woke to die mid flame and smoke,

And shout, and groan, and saber-stroke,

And death-shots falling thick and fast
As lightnings from the mountain-cloud;
And heard, with voice as trumpet loud,
Bozzaris cheer his band:

"Strike-till the last armed foe expires;
Strike-for your altars and your fires;
Strike for the green graves of your sires;
God-and your native land!"

They fought-like brave men, long and well; They piled that ground with Moslem slain; They conquered-but Bozzaris fell,

Bleeding at every vein.

His few surviving comrades saw

His smile, when rang their proud hurrah,
And the red field was won:

Then saw in death his eyelids close
Calmly, as to a night's repose,
Like flowers at set of sun.

Come to the bridal chamber, Death!
Come to the mother, when she feels
For the first time her first-born's breath;
Come when the blessed seals

That close the pestilence are broke,
And crowded cities wail its stroke;
Come in consumption's ghastly form,
The earthquake's shock, the ocean storm;
Come when the heart beats high and warm
With banquet-song, and dance, and wine:
And thou art terrible-the tear,

The groan, the knell, the pall, the bier,
And all we know, or dream, or fear
Of agony, are thine.

But to the hero, when his sword

Has won the battle for the free,
Thy voice sounds like a prophet's word;
And in its hollow tones are heard
The thanks of millions yet to be.

Bozzaris! with the storied brave

Greece nurtured in her glory's time, Rest thee there is no prouder grave Even in her own proud clime.

We tell thy doom without a sigh, For thou art Freedom's, now, and Fame's. One of the few, the immortal names,

That were not born to die.

NOTES.-Marco Bozzaris (b. about 1790, d. 1823) was a famous Greek patriot. His family were Suliotes, a people inhabiting the Suli Mountains, and bitter enemies of the Turks. Bozzaris was engaged in war against the latter nearly all his life, and finally fell in a night attack upon their camp near Carpenisi. This poem, a fitting tribute to his memory, has been translated into modern Greek.

Platæa was the scene of a great victory of the Greeks over the Persians in the year 479 B. C.

Moslem.-The followers of Mohammed are called Moslems.

LI. SONG OF THE GREEK BARD.

George Gordon Byron, Lord Byron, 1788-1824. This gifted poet was the son of a profligate father and of a fickle and passionate mother. He was afflicted with lameness from his birth; and, although he succeeded to his great-uncle's title at ten years of age, he inherited financial embarrassment with it. These may be some of the reasons for the morbid and wayward character of the youthful genius. It is certain that he was not lacking in affection, nor in generosity. In his college days, at Cambridge, he was willful and careless of his studies. "Hours of Idleness," his first book, appeared in 1807. It was severely treated by the "Edinburgh Review," which called forth his “English Bards and Scotch Reviewers," in 1809. Soon after, he went abroad for two years; and, on his return, published the first two cantos of "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage," a work that made him suddenly famous. He married in 1815, but separated from his wife after one year. Soured and bitter, he now left England, purposing never to return. He spent most of the next seven years in Italy, where most of his poems were written. The last year of his life was spent in Greece, aiding in her struggle for liberty against the Turks. He died at Missolonghi. As a man, Byron was impetuous, morbid and passionate. He was undoubtedly dissipated and immoral, but perhaps to a less degree than has sometimes been asserted. As a poet, he possessed noble powers, and he has written much that will last; in general, however, his poetry is not wholesome, and his fame is less than it once was.

THE isles of Greece! the isles of Greece!
Where burning Sappho loved and sung,
Where grew the arts of war and peace,-
Where Delos rose, and Phoebus sprung!
Eternal summer gilds them yet,
But all, except their sun, is set.