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We have only to add that new arrangements have been, made with a view to the general improvement of the OLIO; and that, for the future, our best efforts shall be exerted to render it fully equal, in every respect, to the larger and more expensive publications.

August 1, 1882.

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Illustrated Article.

TWO NIGHTS IN BEAUCHAMP TOWER; OR,

THE CORONATION AND THE SCAFFOLD. A Tale of the Times of Anne Boleyn.

FOR THE OLIO.

Forget not yet thine own approved.
The which so long hath thee so loved,
Whose stedfa st faith yet never moved-
Forget not this!

SIR T. WYATT.
"Go weigh against a grain of sand
The glories of a throne!"

Ir was the night before the first of June 15-, and the gallantest lords and loveliest ladies of England (each vying with the other in the splendour of their habiliments, and the courteous mystery of their devices,) were assembled in Beauchamp Tower. In the midst of the VOL. IX.

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radiant circle sat the "cynosure" of all eyes, the charming Anne Boleyn, surpassing all around her by the playful grace of her smiles, and the sparkling wit of her discourse; her beauty was of that warm enjoue character which is so peculiarly fascinating: the large dark loving eyes, "half languor and half fire;" the ripe, rich, delicate lips; the slight and swan-like neck, shadowed only by the long and clustering ringlets of dark brown glossy hair; the clear brunette complexion (heightened by the rich roses of her cheek), and the nymph-like grace of her form,-all united to render her the most bewitching woman of her times. Triumph and gratified ambition gave brighter lustre to her eloquent eyes, and the smile on her lips repaid the homage of her surrounding courtiers. Her attire was

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splendid: satin and silver and purple and ermine, arranged with a taste peculiar to herself, and displaying the graces of her figure with rather more latitude than the rigid costume of the ladies of her court. She appeared half occupied in examining the profusion of jewellery on a table near her, and half listening to the polished wit of Sir Thomas Wyatt, who stood behind her

chair.

"How like you the crown, daughter?" said the Countess of Wiltshire, placing one of exquisite workmanship, composed almost entirely of the richest gems, before her.

"Ithank Heaven well, lady mother," answered Anne; and turning to Wyatt she added, gaily, "How like you the crown, Sir Poet?"

"So well, lady, of all hearts

That may the FALCON* never rue The gallant height she won unto!" "How now! an evil prophecy on the eve of our coronation? That is not well from our Knight and Minstrel!" and taking a lute from the hands of an attendant lady, she held it forth to Sir Thomas. "Here, Sir Poet, we command thee on thy allegiance instantly to supplicate the Muses, and do homage on Parnassus for thy fault."

Wyatt knelt with graceful ease, and receiving the lute, murmured some words, which brought a blush to her cheek and a casting down of her long fringed eyelids, as if to hide the language of her smiling eyes, as the poet, rising, accompanied his rich and powerful voice with the lute, and poured forth

THE LAY OF THE FALCON.
There are crests in merry England
On their banners fair and free,
But the proudest and the gallantest
Is the one that's dear to me!
It is the first in battle-field,
The first in lordly hall,
And shines out like a silver star,
The brightest of them all!

It ever bore a stainless name
In ancient chivalry;

"Tis the gentlest and the courtliest-
Oh the Falcon crest for me!

There's a bird sings sweet at sunset,
And its music in that hour
Seems whispering of the balmy south,
And the silvery almond flower.
The soft low voice of fountains,
In its own bright summer clime,
Seems murmuring in the melody
It pours at even time.

Tis in the bower of Beauty,
'Mid smiles and revelry-
But the bold and fearless Falcon
In the cloudless sky for me!

The appropriate advice of Anne Boleyn.

There's a step heard on the forest leaves,
As if a fawn were there,

And white hands shed aside the boughs,
And ringlets soft and fair

Are shaken from a brow of snow,
As if they fear'd to hide
The timid light of thy blue eyes,
My young and gentle bride.

I own their sweet and touching charm,
My beautiful Marie,

But the flash of summer lightning

In the Falcon's glance for me!

It was the night before her coronation, and Anne Boleyn held a revel in Beauchamp Tower, herself leading the masque, and presiding at the banquet in all the pride of her beauty, her power, and her triumphant ambition. One alone in that gay assembly won not the smiles and ready words of the animated Queen. The lover of her youth, the forsaken Percy, whose heart she had sacrificed for a Crown, sat apart, gazing on the fair idol of the hour, his thoughts wandering to the sweet time when, as the Page and the Maid of Honour, they were the happiest and the gayest in the stately court of the now exiled Catharine.

"All earthly things have their change," murmured Percy to himself, "since thy heart could forget its early vows!-But that thy joyous smile may ne'er be darkened, or thy delicate brow withered by the crown thou hast chosen, is the true prayer of him thou hast deserted!"

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Stowe, the gorgeous chronicler of England's glories, has, in his own quaint style, pictured the splendour of Queen Anne Boleyn's coronation, and the radiant triumph in which she moved from the Tower to Westminster-the proudest Peers of England bare-headed at her bridle rein; the "marvellous rich and goodly" pageant of the heavenly Rose and the crowned Falcon at Leadenhall; the Tower of the Virtues at Ludgate; the "heavenly noyse" of the singing men at Temple-bar; and, above all, of the many conduits " ning continually wine, both white and claret.'-till the very imagination is fatigued with the overpowering magnificence which was the prevailing characteristic of the Court of Henry. Of a verity, if all is true which is there described of the costly dress of the peers and peeresses of those days, the goldsmiths must have possessed the secret of the philosopher's stone to furnish the profusion of wrought gold and powderings of diamonds and balass rubies,' which so lavishly mingle in his description of the splendour of Anne Bo

leyn's coronation. History has largely dilated on the circumstances attending her short career, and on the glorious reform of which she was the principal instrument. The suddenness of her fall, and the bitter indignities which were cast upon her by the vicious courtiers of the time, have long held forth its lesson to posterity. Attired with the royal magnificence in which she had presided for the last time at the court pageant of May Day, at Greenwich, she was hurried away in a solitary barge, and treated with contumely and disdain by those who had the same morning bowed the knee and bared the brow before her. The passionate avowals of her innocence, which she protested on her knees, were disregarded; and of all who were the actors in this first part of her sad tragedy, Sir Thomas Audley was the only one whose attentions and respect showed her she was still a woman and a Queen. On entering the Tower, she turned to Kingston, the governor, and exclaimed, "Come, sir, lead me to my dungeon!" "Not so, madam," he replied, "I lead you to the same lodging in Beauchamp Tower which you had before your coronation."

And, opening the door as he spoke, Anne was left alone in the silent chamber. Alas! how many different thoughts rushed wildly to her heart! The last time she had been beneath that roof, how bright and glorious were all her dreams of days to come!-Lovely and beloved, she left it a Queen, to meet the admiring gaze of thousands-to have the proudest peers of England for her servitors, and to feel the crown of St. Edward on her delicate brow, she came again to Beauchamp Tower neglected and despised-insulted and abased— to leave it for a scaffold, and to exchange the jewels of a crown for the cold glitter of the headsman's steel. "Oh, Beauchamp Tower!" said the weeping beauty, "could I but wear now the light heart with which I left thee! Oh, that bright day of triumph! oh, this sad night of worse than despair! Catharine! Catharine! thou art indeed avenged!" and she buried her face in her small clasped hands, as if to shut out the record traced by memory and conscience deeply on her heart. She had wept long and unrestrained, for none were near to soothe or court the fallen, when a portion of the tapestry was cautiously removed, and a stranger, wrapped closely in a mantle, was in an instant at her feet. Anne

sprang wildly up, and casting back the long ringlets of her chesnut hair from her pale face, glistening with tears, she gazed upon the intruder, who, at the same time throwing away his disguise, discovered her once loved and still faithful Northumberland!

"Ah!" half shrieked Anne, "( thought-I hoped-it was"

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"Lady of my heart," said the still kneeling Percy, "he to whom thy thoughts glanced holds dalliance in a palace-he for whom the truest lover was forsaken has forgotten thee-has doomed thee. Oh, mistress of my soul, can that delicate beauty be abandoned to so harsh a fate? Can the faithless tyrant"

"Rise, my Lord of Northumberland. To whom do you hold this language?— to the wife of your King ?-to your crowned Queen? How know you of the royal Henry's thoughts, or of my fancied doom?--how or why came you hither?" And as she spoke, Anne gathered her queenly robe around her slight and graceful form, and stood forth as proudly as when her smiles were a world's guerdon.

"How I came boots not now," said Percy, rising," and I have but a few short moments to plead to that heart which should have been my own.Anne, my beloved Anne! I can save thee from death-I can bear thee far away to a happier clime! Speak but the word, and thou art free! Gold can even unbar the prison of a Queen, and love can'

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"Hold, hold, my Lord Percy, I am not now that Anne Boleyn whose girlish heart listened to your fond love tales in Havering Bower!-I am the wife of your King! the mother of a Princess of England!—I hold no parley for flight or fear-Henry, the royal Henry, does this but to try my faith.* I rest secure, even were the axe before me, that this is but an ordeal of the true constancy of his anointed Queen! Speak not, Percy-I can call help, and".

66 "I have dared death for these words! Anne, my worshipped Anne! to-morrow they will condemn thee, and I must look on and see thee perish!Let it not be thus-let the agony of thy

lover"

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Mary Talbot would not thank thee for this," said the Queen, sinking on her chair, as Percy grasped her robe, and, kneeling, wet with the truest tears the hand she suffered him to retain.

Anne Boleyn's own words during her im

prisonment.

Percy looked up; there was reproach in the glance, and her heart felt it deeply; her pride and her ambition seemed to fade away, and the sweet dream of love in Havering Bower, when Percy knelt before her, and in the same voice of music wooed her for his bride, rose like a pleasant thought, to fade before the image of his despair and her own broken vows! Percy was again the lover of her youth, and the sweet eyes of Anne Boleyn looked sadly through their tears on him she had deserted; when the approach of footsteps roused her from that trance of a moment, and trying to withdraw her hands from his trembling clasp, she exclaimed

"Fly, Percy, fly! let me not have thy death to answer for. I know thy generous purpose-I thank thee truly; but I have no fears for the issue of tomorrow. The Falcon has not yet flown its flight. Thy Queen shall yet reward thy faith. Nay-nay, linger not if thou hast ever loved Anne Boleyn!"

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If I ever loved thee !-My beautiful! my lost! I cannot save thee-but never shall word of mine aid their detested purpose. Farewell! farewell,

my first and only love !-Oh, Anne Boleyn, would that thou hadst never entered Beauchamp Tower-would that" Voices were now heard so near, that Percy, moved by the agony of Anne, who feared all things in the discovery of his presence, with a desperate effort released her hands, which he had already covered with passionate kisses, and disappeared behind the tapestry as the Lady Edward Boleyn and the attendant maidens of the Queen entered the apartment.

History has recorded that fatal 15th of May (the peculiar month of her destiny), when the doom of Anne Boleyn was pronounced; and its records also show that Northumberland, who had gazed on the beautiful Queen (as she stood before her judges, calm in her innocence,) till his heart seemed breaking with agony, suddenly rose and left the hall, unable to hear the fatal verdict which doomed her to the block! Years have gone by since the beautiful martyr yielded her spirit (in the pure faith of the reformed religion) to her Creator; but where can ambition find a truer lesson on the vanity of this world's hopes, than by remembering the contrast of the first and last nights spent by Anne Boleyn in Beauchamp Tower. E. S. CRAVEN.

THE SHIPWRECK.

For the Olio.

Oh! listen how the tempest blows-
The thunder's deep and awful roar!
In livid sheets the lightning glows;
What crowds are thronging to the shore!
Why leave their homes on such a night!
What can their terrors thus excite?
What danger lurks unseen ?

Each visage pallid with affright,

And wild emotion's seen.
Yon vessel, late the ocean's pride,
Now seeking England's shore again,
In sight of land, from side to side,

Is rock'd upon the stormy main.
The billows high as mountains rise,
No ray of light illumes the skies-
Save when the forked lightning's flash;
Death frowns in every dreadful form,
Loud shrieks the demon of the storm,

And awful is the tempest's crash!
And now with wild distracted gaze,

The kindred of the hapless crew To heaven their supplications raise,

For those they never more shall view And see-the gaily swelling sail, (Erewhile fair spreading to the gale)

In strips and tatters torn;

The vessel now asunder flies,
Ah! never shall its inmates' eyes
Unclose to hail the morn!

See where the mother clasps her child,
And rushes frantic to the shore;
She stands distracted-hopeless—wild-
The vessel sinks-to rise no more!

How deep-how awful is the pause!
But near a dreadful moment draws,

Which bids that solemn pause be o'er:

For high uplifted by the storm,
Each billow bears some lifeless form,

And casts it on the shore!

And there a son, a brother here,
A lover, or a husband lie;
Their welcome-many a bitter tear,
Their greeting-sorrow's wailful cry!
MRS. KENTISH.

TALES OF THE BUREAU DE
POLICE.
For the Olio.

No. 1.

It

I used frequently, on a summer's evening, some few years ago, after putting in my pocket a volume of a favourite author, to stroll away to the Tulleries Gardens, intending to pass away an hour or two on one of the seats. was that one on the Terrace, near the Palace, where I could see the craft passing along the Seine, and the bustle of the Quays from one side, and the crowd of loungers in the garden on the other; although I fully intended reading the work I had put in my pocket, yet it rarely happened I did so, for I had contracted the acquaintanceship of a gentleman, whom I used frequently to meet on the same bench. He was a

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