Then mournfully the parting bugle bid Its farewell, o'er the grave of worth and truth; His face on earth;-him watched in gloomy ruth He watch'd, beneath its folds, each burst that came 'And I could weep ;'-th' Oneyda chief 'But that I may not stain with grief The death-song of my father's son, For by my wrongs and by my wrath (That fires you heav'n with storms of death) And we shall share, my Christian boy, The foeman's blood, the avenger's joy! 'But thee, my flower, whose breath was given By milder genii o'er the deep, The spirits of the white man's heaven Forbid not thee to weep; Nor will the Christian host, Nor will thy father's spirit grieve To see thee, on the battle's eve, She was the rainbow to thy sight! 'To-morrow let us do or die! But when the bolt of death is hurled, Shall Outalissi roam the world? Seek we thy once-loved home?— Its echoes and its empty tread Would sound like voices from the dead. 'Or shall we cross yon mountains blue, A thousand warriors drew the shaft? The desert serpent dwells alone, Where grass o'ergrows each mouldering bone, Then seek we not their camp-for there 'But hark, the trump!-to-morrow thou Because I may not stain with grief The death-song of an Indian chief.' JOHN HOOKHAM [JOHN HOOKHAM FRERE was born in London in 1769, and died at Malta in 1846. The first part of his Whistlecraft poem was published in 1817 as the Prospectus and Specimen of an intended National Work, by William and Robert Whistlecraft of Stow-Market in Suffolk, Harness and Collar Makers. In the following year a second part was issued with the first under the title of The Monks and the Giants; but the work was never completed. Frere contributed much to the Anti-Jacobin, 1797–8, and translated several of the plays of Aristophanes. His Works in Verse and Prose, with a prefatory Memoir, were published in 1872 by his nephews, W. E., and Sir Bartle Frere.] Frere's versions of the Aristophanic Comedy have an established reputation for spirit of rendering and mastery of metre. His translations from the Poema del Cid, which were printed in Southey's Chronicle, have also a fine balladic lilt; but their literal fidelity to the Spanish has been lately challenged. Of his original work, the best examples are to be found in the Anti-Jacobin and the Whistlecraft fragment. He had a hand in all the great successes of the former,-notably the immortal Needy KnifeGrinder and the excellent imitations of Darwin and Schiller in the Loves of the Triangles and The Rovers. For The Monks and the Giants he adopted an eight-line stanza based upon that of the Italians. It had already been used by Harrington, Drayton, Fairfax, and (as we have seen) in later times by Gay; it had even been used by Frere's contemporary, William Tennant; but to Frere belongs the honour of giving it the special characteristics which Byron afterwards popularised in Beppo and Don Juan. Structurally the ottava rima of Frere singularly resembles that of Byron, who admitted that Whistlecraft was his 'immediate model.' But notwithstanding the cleverness and versatility of The Monks and the Giants, its interest was too remote and its plan too uncertain to command any but an eclectic audience. Moreover, it was almost immediately eclipsed by Beppo. Byron, taking up the stanza with equal skill and greater genius, filled it with the vigour of his personality, and made it a measure of his own, which it has ever since been hazardous for inferior poets to attempt. AUSTIN DOBSON. FROM THE MONKS AND THE GIANTS.' And certainly they say, for fine behaving Their manners were refined and perfect-saving They looked a manly, generous generation; Beards, shoulders, eyebrows, broad, and square, and thick, To give the lie, pull noses, stab and kick; And for that very reason, it is said, They were so very courteous and well-bred. The ladies looked of an heroic race At first a general likeness struck your eye, Large eyes, with ample eyebrows arched and high; Neither repulsive, affable, nor shy, Majestical, reserved, and somewhat sullen; Sir Gawain may be painted in a word- His courteous manners stand upon record, The proverb says, As brave as his own sword; On every point, in earnest or in jest, His judgment, and his prudence, and his wit, His memory was the magazine and hoard, Adviser-general to the whole community, He served his friend, but watched his opportunity. Meanwhile the solemn mountains that surrounded Yet) Cader-Gibbrish from his cloudy throne Those giant-mountains inwardly were moved, |