Ballad of Rosabelle.

(From "The Lay of the Last Minstrel.")

CASTLE RAVENSHEUCH was situated on a steep crag washed by the Firth of Forth. In this ballad Lady Clair is represented as having left this castle, and about to cross the Firth on a stormy night, on her way to Roslin Castle.

According to tradition Roslin Chapel always appeared as if on fire previous to the death of any member of the family.

LISTEN, listen, ladies gay!
No haughty feat of arms I tell :
Soft is the note, and sad the lay,
That mourns the lovely Rosabelle.

"Moor, moor the barge, ye gallant crew!
And, gentle ladye, deign to stay!
Rest thee in Castle Ravensheuch.
Nor tempt the stormy Firth to-day.

"The blackening wave is edged with white;
To inch and rock the sea-mews fly;
The fishers have heard the Water Sprite,
Whose screams forebode that wreck is nigh.

"Last night the gifted Seer did view

A wet shroud swathed round ladye gay; Then stay thee, Fair, in Ravensheuch : Why cross the gloomy Firth to-day?"

""Tis not because Lord Lindesay's heir
To-night at Roslin leads the ball;
But that my ladye-mother there
Sits lonely in her castle-hall.

""Tis not because the ring they ride,
And Lindesay at the ring rides well;
But that my sire the wine will chide,
If 'tis not filled by Rosabelle."-

O'er Roslin all that dreary night

A wondrous blaze was seen to gleam ;'Twas broader than the watch-fire light. And redder than the bright moon-beam.

It glared on Roslin's castled rock,

It ruddied all the copse-wood glen; 'Twas seen from Dreyden's groves of oak, And seen from caverned Hawthornden.

Seemed all on fire that chapel proud,
Where Roslin's chiefs uncoffined lie;

Each baron, for a sable shroud,
Sheathed in his iron panoply.

Seemed all on fire within, around,
Deep sacristy and altar's pale;

Shone every pillar foliage-bound,

And glimmered all the dead men's mail.

Blazed battlement and pinnet high,

Blazed every rose-carved buttress fair-
So still they blaze, when fate is nigh
The lordly line of high St. Clair,

There are twenty of Roslin's barons bold
Lie buried within that proud chapelle ;
Each one the holy vault doth hold—
But the sea holds lovely Rosabelle !

And each St. Clair was buried there,
With candle, with book, and with knell;
But the sea-caves rung, and the wild winds sung,
The dirge of lovely Rosabelle.

Love of Country.

(From "The Lay of the Last Minstrel.")

BREATHES there the man, with soul so dead, Who never to himself hath said,

"This is my own, my native land! Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned, As home his footsteps he hath turned,

From wandering on a foreign strand!If such there breathe, go, mark him well ; For him no minstrel raptures swell;

High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim;
Despite those titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch, concentred all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust, from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonoured, and unsung.

O Caledonia! stern and wild,

Meet nurse for a poetic child!

Land of brown heath and shaggy wood, Land of the mountain and the flood, Land of my sires! what mortal hand Can e'er untie the filial band,

That knits me to thy rugged strand!

WRITINGS:-Thirty-seven Plays (Tragedies, Comedies, Historical Drams); Venus and Adonis; Tarquin and Lucrece, and a collection of Sonnets.

—0—

Wolsey" and Cromwell.

(From "Henry VIII." Act 3.)

WOLSEY.

AREWELL, a long farewell, to all my greatness! This is the state of man: to-day he puts forth The tender leaves of hope; to-morrow blossoms, And bears his blushing honours thick upon him: The third day comes a frost, a killing frost; And,-when he thinks, good easy man, full surely His greatness is a ripening,-nips his root, And then he falls, as I do. I have ventur'd, Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders, These many summers in a sea of glory; But far beyond my depth: my high-blown pride At length broke under me, and now has left me,

*THOMAS WOLSEY was born at Ipswich, A.D. 1471. He became Archbishop of York and Lord Chancellor-was a Cardinal and also Pope's Legate. He was eventually disgraced by the king in consequence of his conduct in the divorce of Catherine of Arragon, and died at Leicester Abbey, A D. 1530.

THOMAS CROMWELL became Secretary of State to Henry VIII., but fell like Wolsey, and was beheaded on a charge of treason, A.D. 1540.