FROM Oberon in fairy land,

The king of ghosts and shadows there,

Mad Robin I, at his command,

Am sent to view the night-sports here. What revel rout

Is kept about,

In every corner where I go,

I will o'ersee, and merry be,
And make good sport, with ho, ho, ho!
More swift than lightning can I fly

About this aëry welkin soon,
And, in a minute's space, descry

Each thing that's done below the moon. There's not a hag

Or ghost shall wag,

Or cry, "'Ware goblins!" where I go;
But Robin I their feats will spy,
And send them home, with ho, ho, ho!

Whene'er such wanderers I meet,

As from their night-sports they trudge home, With counterfeiting voice I greet,

And call them on, with me to roam

Thro' woods, thro' lakes,

Thro' bogs, thro' brakes;

Or else, unseen, with them I go,

All in the nick to play some trick,
And frolick it with ho, ho, ho!
Sometimes I meet them like a man;
Sometimes an ox, sometimes a hound;
And to a horse I turn me can;

To trip and trot about them round;
But if, to ride,

My back they stride,

More swift than wind, away I go,

O'er hedge and lands, thro' pools and ponds,

I whirry, laughing, ho, ho, ho!

When lads and lasses merry be,

With possets and with juncates fine,
Unseen of all the company,

I eat their cakes and sip their wine;
And to make sport,

I snore and snort;

And out the candles I do blow;

The maids I kiss; they shriek, "Who's this ?"

I answer nought, but ho, ho, ho!

Yet now and then, the maids to please,
At midnight, I card up their wool;
And while they sleep and take their ease,
With wheel, to threads their flax I pull;
I grind at mill

Their malt up still;

I dress their hemp, I spin their tow; If any 'wake and would me take,

I wend me, laughing, ho, ho, ho!

When house or hearth doth sluttish lie,

I pinch the maidens black and blue; The bedclothes from the bed pull I, And lay them all uncovered too. 'Twixt sleep and wake

I do them take,

And on the key-cold floor them throw;
If out they cry, then forth I fly,
And loudly laugh out, ho, ho, ho!
When any need to borrow aught,

We lend them what they do require,
And for the use demand we nought,
Our own is all we do desire.
If to repay

They do delay,

Abroad amongst them then I go,
And night by night I them affright,
With pinchings, dreams, and ho, ho, ho!
When lazy queans have nought to do
But study how to cheat and lie,
To make debate and mischief too,
"Twixt one another secretly,
I mark their gloze,

And it disclose

To them whom they have wronged so;
When I have done, I get me gone,
And leave them scolding, ho, ho, ho!
When men to traps and engines set

In loopholes where the vermin creep,
Who from their folds and houses get

Their ducks and geese, and lambs and sheep, I spy the gin,

And enter in,

And seem a vermin taken so;

But when they there approach me near,

I leap out, laughing, oh, oh, oh!

By wells and rills in meadows green,
We nightly dance in heyday guise,
And so our fairy king and queen

We chant our moonlight minstrelsies.
When larks 'gin sing,
Away we fling,
And babes newborn steal as we go,
And elf in bed we leave instead;
Then wend us, laughing, ho, ho, ho!
From hag-bred Merlin's time have I
Thus nightly revelled to and fro,
And for my pranks men call me by
The name of Robin Goodfellow.
Elves, ghosts, and sprites,
Who haunt by nights-

The hags and goblins do me know, And beldams old my feats have told: So vale! vale! ho, ho, ho!

HEN Quentin Durward left his uncle to these sublime meditations, he followed his conductor, Master Oliver, who, without crossing any of the principal courts, led him partly through private passages exposed to the open air, but chiefly through a maze of stairs, vaults, and galleries, communicating with each other by secret doors, and at unexpected points, into a large and spacious latticed gallery, which, from its breadth, might have been almost termed a hall, hung with tapestry more ancient than beautiful, and with a very few of the hard, cold, ghastlylooking pictures, belonging to the first dawn of the arts, which preceded their splendid sunrise. These were designed to represent the Paladins of Charlemagne, who made such a distinguished figure in the romantic history of France; and as the gigantic form of the celebrated Orlando constituted the most prominent figure, the apartment acquired from him the title of Roland's Hall, or Roland's Gallery.

"You will keep watch here," said Oliver, in a low whisper, as if the hard delineations of monarchs and warriors around could have been offended at the elevation of his voice, or as if he had feared to awaken the echoes that lurked among the groined vaults and Gothic drop-work on the ceiling of this huge and dreary apartment.

"What are the orders and signs of my watch?" answered Quentin, in the same suppressed tone. "Is your harquebuss loaded?" replied Oliver, without answering his query.

"That," answered Quentin, "is soon done;" and proceeded to charge his weapon, and to light the slow match (by which, when necessary, it was discharged) at the embers of a wood fire, which was expiring in the huge hall chimney a chimney itself so large, that it might have been called a Gothic closet or chapel appertaining to the hall.

When this was performed, Oliver told him that he was ignorant of one of the high privileges of his own corps, which only received orders from the King in person, or the High Constable of France, in lieu of their own officers. "You are placed here by his Majesty's command, young

man," added Oliver, "and you will not be long here without knowing wherefore you are summoned. Meantime your walk extends along this gallery. You are permitted to stand still while you list, but on no account to sit down, or quit your weapon. You are not to sing aloud, or whistle, upon any account; but you may, if you list, mutter some of the Church's prayers, or what else you list that has no offence in it, in a low voice. Farewell, and keep good watch."

"Good watch!" thought the youthful soldier as his guide stole away from him with that noiseless gliding step which was peculiar to him, and vanished through a side-door behind the arras"Good watch! but upon whom, and against whom?-for what, save bats or rats, are there here to contend with, unless these grim old representatives of humanity should start into life for the disturbance of my guard? Well, it is my duty, I suppose, and I must perform it."

With the vigorous purpose of discharging his duty, even to the very rigour, he tried to while away the time with some of the pious hymns which he had learned in the convent in which he had found shelter after the death of his father.

Presently, as if to convince himself he now belonged not to the cell but to the world, he chanted to himself, but in such tone as not to exceed the licence given to him, some of the ancient rude ballads which the old family harper had taught him. This wore away a considerable space of time, and it was now more than two hours past noon, when Quentin was reminded by his appetite, that the good fathers of Aberbrothick, however strict in demanding his attendance upon the hours of devotion, were no less punctual in summoning him to those of refection; whereas here, in the interior of a royal palace, after a morning spent in exercise, and a noon exhausted in duty, no man 'seemed to consider it as a natural consequence that he must be impatient for his dinner.

There, are, however, charms in sweet sounds which can lull to rest even the natural feelings of impatience, by which Quentin was now visited. At the opposite extremities of the long hall or gallery were two large doors, ornamented with heavy architraves, probably opening into different suites of apartments, to which the gallery served as a medium of mutual communication. As the sentinel directed his solitary walk betwixt these two entrances, which formed the boundary of his duty, he was startled by a strain of music, which was suddenly waked near one of those doors, and which, at least in his imagination, was a combination of the same lute and voice by which he had

been enchanted on the preceding day. All the dreams of yesterday morning, so much weakened by the agitating circumstances which he had since undergone, again rose more vivid from their slumber; and, planted on the spot where his ear could most conveniently drink in the sounds, Quentin remained with his harquebuss shouldered, his mouth half open, ear, eye, and soul directed to the spot-rather the picture of a sentinel than a living form-without any other idea than that of catching, if possible, each passing sound of the dulcet melody.

These delightful sounds were but partially heard -they languished, lingered, ceased entirely, and were from time to time renewed after uncertain intervals. But, besides that music, like beauty, is often most delightful, or at least most interesting to the imagination, when its charms are but partially displayed, and the imagination is left to fill up what is from distance but imperfectly detailed, Quentin had matter enough to fill up his reverie during the intervals of fascination. He could not doubt, from the report of his uncle's comrades, and the scene which had passed in the presencechamber that morning, that the syren who thus delighted his ears was not, as he had profanely supposed, the daughter or kinswoman of a base cabaretier, but the same disguised and distressed countess, for whose cause kings and princes were now about to buckle on armour, and put lanco in rest. A hundred wild dreams, such as romantic and adventurous youth readily nourished in a romantic and adventurous age, chased from his eyes the bodily presentment of the actual scene, and substituted their own bewildering delusions, when at once, and rudely, they were banished by a rough grasp laid upon his weapon, and a harsh voice which exclaimed, close to his ear, "Ha! Pasques-dieu, Sir Squire, methinks you keep sleepy ward here!"

The voice was the tuneless, yet impressive and ironical tone of Maitre Pierre, and Quentin, suddenly recalled to himself, saw, with shame and fear, that he had, in his reverie, permitted Louis himself-entering probably by some secret door, and gliding along by the wall, or behind the tapestry-to approach him so nearly, as almost to master his weapon.

The first impulse of his surprise was to free his harquebuss by a violent exertion, which made the King stagger backward into the hall. His next apprehension was, that in obeying the animal instinct, as it may be termed, which prompts a brave man to resist an attempt to disarm him, he had aggravated, by a personal struggle with the King, the displeasure produced by the negligence with which he had performed his duty upon guard; and, under this impression, he recovered his harquebuss without almost knowing what he

did, and, having again shouldered it, stood motionless before the monarch, whom he had reason to conclude he had mortally offended.

Louis, whose tyrannical disposition was less founded on natural ferocity or cruelty of temper, than on cold-blooded policy and jealous suspicion, had, nevertheless, a share of that caustic severity which would have made him a despot in private conversation, and always seemed to enjoy the pain which he inflicted on occasions like the present. But he did not push his triumph far, and contented himself with saying "Thy service of the morning hath already overpaid some negligence in so young a soldier. Hast thou dined?"

Quentin, who rather looked to be sent to the Provost-Marshal, than greeted with such a compliment, answered humbly in the negative.

"Poor lad!" said Louis, in a softer tone than he usually spoke in, “hunger hath made him drowsy. I know thine appetite is a wolf," he continued; "and I will save thee from one wild beast as thou didst me from another; thou hast been prudent too in that matter, and I thank thee for it. Canst thou yet hold out an hour without food ?”

"Four-and-twenty, sire," replied Durward, "or I were no true Scot."

"I would not for another kingdom be the pasty which should encounter thee after such a vigil,” said the King; "but the question now is, not of thy dinner, but of my own. I admit to my table this day, and in strict privacy, the Cardinal Balue and this Burgundian-this Count de Crèvecœur, and something may chance-the devil is most busy when foes meet on terms of truce."

He stopped, and remained silent, with a deep and gloomy look. As the King was in no haste to procced, Quentin at length ventured to ask what his duty was to be in these circumstances.

"To keep watch at the beauffet, with thy loaded weapon," said Louis; "and if there is treason, to shoot the traitor dead."

"Treason, sire! and in this guarded castle!" exclaimed Durward.

"You think it impossible," said the King, not offended, it would seem, by his frankness; "but our history has shown that treason can creep into an auger-hole. Treason excluded by guards! Oh, thou silly boy!—quis custodiat ipsos custodes- · who shall exclude the treason of those very warders?"

"Their Scottish honour," answered Durward, boldly.

"True, most right-thou pleasest me," said the King, cheerfully; "the Scottish honour was ever truc, and I trust it accordingly. But treason!"here he relapsed into his former gloomy mood, and traversed the apartment with unequal steps"she sits at our feasts, she sparkles in our bowls, she wears the beard of our counsellors, the smiles