Oft, by the Pringle's haunted side,
The shepherd sees his spectre glide.
And near the spot that gave me name,
The moated mound of Risingham,*
Where Reed upon her margin sees
Sweet Woodburne's cottages and trees,
Some ancient sculptor's art has shown
An outlaw's image on the stone;t
Unmatch'd in strength, a giant he,
With quiver'd back, and kirtled knee.
Ask how he died, that hunter bold,
The tameless monarch of the wold,
And age and infancy can tell,
By brother's treachery he fell.
Thus warn'd by legends of my youth,
I trust to no associate's truth."

XXI.

"When last we reason'd of this deed,
Naught, I bethink me, was agreed,
Or by what rule, or when, or where,
The wealth of Mortham we should share;
Then list, while I the portion name,
Our differing laws give each to claim.
Thou, vassal sworn to England's throne,
Her rules of heritage must own;
They deal thee, as to nearest heir,
Thy kinsman's lands and livings fair,
And these I yield:-do thou revere
The statutes of the Bucanier.§
Friend to the sea, and foeman sworn
To all that on her waves are borne,
When falls a mate in battle broil,

His comrade heirs his portion'd spoil;
When dies in fight a daring foe,

He claims his wealth who struck the blow;
And either rule to me assigns

Those spoils of Indian seas and mines,
Hoarded in Mortham's caverns dark;
Ingot of gold and diamond spark,
Chalice and plate from churches borne,
And gems from shrieking beauty torn,
Each string of pearl, each silver bar,
And all the wealth of Western war.
I go to search, where, dark and deep,
Those Trans-atlantic treasures sleep.
Thou must along-for, lacking thee,
The heir will scarce find entrance free;
And then farewell. I haste to try
Each varied pleasure wealth can buy ;

that the family held their lands of Troughend, which are situated on the Reed, nearly opposite to Otterburn, for the incredible space of nine hundred years.

[M8.-" Still by the spot that gave me name, The moated camp of Risingham,

A giant form the stranger sees, Half hid by rifted rocks and trees."] Risingham, upon the river Reed, near the beautiful hamlet of Woodburn, is an ancient Roman station, formerly called Habitaneum. Camden says, that in his time the popular account bore, that it had been the abode of a deity, or giant, called Magon, and appeals, in support of this tradition, as well as to the etymology of Risingham, or Reisenham, which signifies, in German, the habitation of the giants, to two Roman altars taken out of the river, inscribed, DEO MOGONTI CADENORUM. About half a mile distant from Risingham, upon an eminence covered with scattered birch-trees and fragments of rock, there is cut upon a large rock, in alto relievo, a remarkable figure, called Robin of Risingham, or Robin of Reedsdale. It presents a hunter, with his bow raised in one hand, and in the other what seems to be a hare. There is a quiver at the back of the figure, and he is dressed in a long coat, or kirtle, coming down to the knees, and meeting close, with a girdle bound round him. Dr. Horseley, who saw all monuments of antiquity with Roman eyes, inclines to think this figure a Roman archer: and certainly the bow is rather of the ancient size than of that which was so formidable in the hand of the English archers of the middle ages. But the rudeness of the whole fizure prevents our founding strongly upon mere inaccuracy of proportion. The popular tradition is, that it represents a giant, whose brother resided at Woodburn, and he himself at Rising ham. It adds, that they subsisted by hunting, and that one of them. finding the game become too scarce to support them, poisoned his companion, in whose memory the monument was engraved. What strange and tragic circumstance may be concealed under this legend, or whether it is utterly apocryphal, it is now impossible to discover.

The name of Robin of Redesdale was given to one of the Um fravilles, Lords of Prudhoe, and afterwards to one Hilliard, a friend and follower of the king making Earl of Warwick. This person commanded an army of Northamptonshire and northern men, who seized on and beheaded the Earl Rivers, father to Edward the Fourth's queen, and, his son, Sir John Woodville.See HOLINSHED, ad annum, 1469.

Contempt kept Bertram's anger down,
And wreathed to savage smile his frown.
"Wilfrid, or thou,-'tis one to me,
Whichever bears the golden key.
Yet think not but I mark, and smile
To mark thy poor and selfish wile!

If injury from me you fear,

What, Oswald Wycliffe, shields thee here?
I've sprung from walls more high than these
I've swam through deeper streams than Tees.
Might I not stab thee, ere one yell
Could rouse the distant sentinel?
Start not-it is not my design,

But, if it were, weak fence were thine;
And, trust me, that, in time of need,
This hand hath done more desperate deed.
Go, haste and rouse thy slumbering son:
Time calls, and I must needs be gone."

XXIV.
Naught of his sire's ungenerous part
Polluted Wilfrid's gentle heart;

A heart too soft from early life
To hold with fortune needful strife.
His sire, while yet a hardier racell

Of numerous sons were Wycliffe's grace,
On Wilfrid set contemptuous brand,
For feeble heart and forceless hand;

: [MS.-" With bow in hand," &c.]

5 The statutes of the Bucaniers" were, in reality, more equi· table than could have been expected from the state of society under which they had been formed. They chiefly related, as may readily be conjectured, to the distribution and the inheritance of their plunder.

When the expedition was completed, the fund of prize-money acquired was thrown together, each party taking his oath that he had retained or concealed no part of the common stock. It any one transgressed in this important particular, the punishment was, his being set ashore on some desert key or island, to shift for himself as he could. The owners of the vessel had then their share assigned for the expenses of the outfit. These were generally old pirates, settled at Tobago, Jamaica, St. Domingo, or some other French and English settlement. The surgeon's and carpenter's salaries, with the price of provisions and ammunition, were also defrayed. Then followed the compensation due to the maimed and wounded, rated according to the damage they had sustained; as six hundred pieces of eight, or six slaves, for the loss of an arm or leg, and so in proportion.

per

After this act of justice and humanity, the remainder of the booty was divided into as many shares as there were Bucaniers. The commander could only lay claim to a single share, as the rest; but they complimented him with two or three, in proportion as he had acquitted himself to their satisfaction. When the vessel was not the property of the whole company, the son who had fitted it out, and furnished it with necessary arms and ammunition, was entitled to a third of all the prizes. Favour had never any influence in the division of the booty, for every share was determined by lot. Instances of such rigid justice as this are not easily met with, and they extended even to the dead. Their share was given to the man who was known to be their companion when alive, and therefore their heir. If the person who had been killed had no intimate, his part was sent to his relations, when they were known. If there were no friends nor relations, it was distributed in charity to the poor and to churches, which were to pray for the person in whose name these benefactions were given, the fruits of inhuman, but necessary piratical plunders."-RAYNAL'S History of European Settlements in the East and West Indies, by Justamond. Lond. 1776, 8vo, iii. p. 41.

[MS. -"while yet around him stood
A numerous race of hardier mood."]

But a fond mother's care and joy
Were centred in her sickly boy.
No touch of childhood's frolic mood
Show'd the elastic spring of blood;
Hour after hour he loved to pore
On Shakspeare's rich and varied lore,
But turn'd from martial scenes and light,
From Falstaff's feast, and Percy's fight,
To ponder Jaques' moral strain,
And muse with Hamlet, wise in vain ;
And weep himself to soft repose
O'er gentle Desdemona's woes.
XXV.

In youth he sought not pleasures found
By youth in horse, and hawk, and hound,
But loved the quiet joys that wake
By lonely stream and silent lake;
In Deepdale's solitude to lie,
Where all is cliff and copse and sky;
To climb Catcastle's dizzy peak,
Or lone Pendragon's mound to seek.*
Such was his wont; and there his dream
Soar'd on some wild fantastic theme,
Of faithful love, or ceaseless spring,
Till Contemplation's wearied wing
The enthusiast could no more sustain,
And sad he sunk to earth again.
XXVI.

He loved as many a lay can tell,
Preserved in Stanmore's lonely dell;
For his was minstrel's skill, he caught
The art unteachable, untaught;
He loved-his soul did nature frame
For love, and fancy nursed the flame;
Vainly he loved-for seldom swain
Of such soft mould is loved again;
Silent he loved-in every gaze
Was passion,t friendship in his phrase,
So mused his life away-till died
His brethren all, their father's pride.
Wilfrid is now the only heir
Of all his stratagems and care,
And destined, darkling, to pursue
Ambition's maze by Oswald's clue.
XXVII.

Wilfrid must love and woos the bright
Matilda, heir of Rokeby's knight.
To love her was an easy hest,
The secret empress of his breast;
To woo her was a harder task
To one that durst not hope or ask.
Yet all Matilda could she gave
In pity to her gentle slave;
Friendship, esteem, and fair regard,
And praise, the poet's best reward!
She read the tales his taste approved,
And sung the lays he framed or loved;
Yet loath to nurse the fatal flame
Of hopeless love in friendship's name,
In kind caprice she oft withdrew
The favouring glance to friendship due,"l
Then grieved to see her victim's pain,
And gave the dangerous smiles again.
XXVIII.

So did the suit of Wilfrid stand,

When war's loud summons waked the land,

I" And oft the craggy cliff he loved to climb,
When all in mist the world below was lost,
What dreadful pleasure! there to stand sublime,
Like shipwreckt mariner on desert coast."

BEATTIE'S Minstrel.] [MS.-"Was, love, but friendship in his phrase."] The prototype of Wilfred may perhaps be found in Beattie's Edwin; but in some essential respects it is made more true to nature than that which probably served for its original. The possibility may perhaps be questioned, (its great improbability is unquestionable,) of such excessive refinement, such over-strained, and even morbid sensibility, as are portrayed in the character of Edwin, existing in so rude a state of society as that which Beattie has represented,-but these qualities, even when found in the most advanced and polished stages of life, are rarely, very rarely, united with a robust and healthy frame of body. In both these particulars, the character of Wilfrid is exempt from the objections to which we think that of the Minstrel liable. At the period of the Civil Wars, in the higher orders of society, intellectual refinement had advanced to a degree sufficient to give probability to its existence. The remainder of our argument will be

Three banners, floating o'er the Tees,
The wo-forboding peasant sees;
In concert oft they braved of old
The bordering Scot's incursion bold:
Frowning defiance on their pride, T
Their vassals now and lords divide.
From his fair hall on Greta banks,
The Knight of Rokeby led his ranks,
To aid the valiant northern Earls,
Who drew the sword for royal Charles.
Mortham, by marriage near allied,-
His sister had been Rokeby's bride,
Though long before the civil fray,
In peaceful grave the lady lay,
Philip of Mortham raised his band,
And march'd at Fairfax's command;
While Wycliffe, bound by many a train
Of kindred art with wily Vane,
Less prompt to brave the bloody field,
Made Barnard's battlements his shield,
Secured them with his Lunedale powers,
And for the Commons held the towers.
XXIX.

The lovely heir of Rokeby's Knight**
Waits in his halls the event of fight;
For England's war rever'd the claim
Of every unprotected name,

And spared, amid its fiercest rage,
Childhood and womanhood and age.
But Wilfrid, son to Rokeby's foe,tt
Must the dear privilege forego,
By Greta's side, in evening gray,
To steal upon Matilda's way,
Striving, with fond hypocrisy,
For careless step and vacant eye;
Calming each anxious look and glance,
To give the meeting all to chance,
Or framing as a fair excuse,
The book, the pencil, or the muse;
Something to give, to sing, to say,
Some modern tale, some ancient lay,
Then while the long'd-for minutes last,-
Ah! minutes quickly over-past!-§§
Recording each expression free,
Of kind or careless courtesy,
Each friendly look, each softer tone,
As food for fancy when alone.
All this is o'er-but still, unseen,
Wilfrid may lurk in Eastwood green,
To watch Matilda's wanted round,
While springs his heart at every sound.
She comes!-'tis but a passing sight,
Yet serves to cheat his weary night;
She comes not-He will wait the hour,
When her lamp lightens in the tower; TT
'Tis something yet, if, as she past,
Her shade is o'er the lattice cast.
"What is my life, my hope ?" he said;
"Alas! a transitory shade."

XXX.
Thus wore his life, though reason strove
For mastery in vain with love,
Forcing upon his thoughts the sum
Of present wo and ills to come,
While still he turn'd impatient ear
From Truth's intrusive voice severe.

best explained by the beautiful lines of the poet," (stanzas XXV. and xxvi.)-Critical Review,]

[MS.-" And first must Wilfrid woo," &c.]
[MS.-"The fuel fond her favour threw."]
TIMS.-"Now frowning dark on different side,
Their vassals and their lords divide."]
** [MS.-" Dame Alice and Matilda bright,
Daughter and wife of Rokeby's Knight,
Wait in his halls," &c.]

++ [MS." But Wilfrid, when the strife arose,
And Rokeby and his son were foes,
Was doom'd each privilege to lose,
Of kindred friendship and the muse."]
[MS.- Aping, with fond hypocrisy,
The careless step," &c.]

$$ [The MS. has not this couplet.]
[MS.-May Wilfrid haunt the
Wilfrid haunts Scargill's S
thickets green."]
"watch the hour,
That her lamp kindles in her tower."]

TT [MS.

Gentle, indifferent, and subdued,
In all but this, unmov'd he view'd
Each outward change of ill and good:
But Wilfrid, docile, soft, and mild,
Was Fancy's spoil'd and wayward child;
In her bright car she bade him ride,
With one fair form to grace his side,
Or, in some wild and lone retreat,f
Flung her high spells around his seat,
Bathed in her dews his languid head,
Her fairy mantle o'er him spread,
For him her opiates gave to flow,
Which he who tastes can ne'er forego,
And placed him in her circle, free
From every stern reality,

Till, to the Visionary, seem

Her day-dreams truth, and truth a dream.

XXXI.

Wo to the youth whom Fancy gains,
Winning from Reason's hand the reins,
Pity and wo! for such a mind
Is soft, contemplative, and kind;
And wo to those who train such youth,
And spare to press the rights of truth,
The mind to strengthen and anneal,
While on the stithy glows the steel!
O teach him, while your lessons last,
To judge the present by the past;
Remind him of each wish pursued,
How rich it glow'd with promised good;
Remind him of each wish enjoy'd,
How soon his hopes possession cloy'd!
Tell him, we play unequal game,
Whene' er we shoot by Fancy's aim ;+
And, ere he strip him for her race,
Show the conditions of the chase.
Two sisters by the goal are set,
Cold Disappointment and Regret;
One disenchants the winner's eyes,
And strips of all its worth the prize.
While one augments its gaudy show,
More to enhance the loser's wo.§
The victor sees his fairy gold,
Transformed, when won, to drossy mould,
But still the vanquish'd mourns his loss,
And rues, as gold, that glittering dross.
XXXII.

More would'st thou know-yon tower survey,
Yon couch unpress'd since parting day,
Yon untrimm'd lamp, whose yellow gleam
Is mingling with the cold moonbeam,
And yon thin form!-the hectic red
On his pale cheek unequal spread;
The head reclined, the loosen'd hair,
The limbs relax'd, the mournful air.-
See, he looks up; a woful smile
Lightens his wo-worn cheek a while,-
'Tis Fancy wakes some idle thought,

* [M8.-" Wild car."]

[MS.-" Or in some fair but lone retreat, Flung her wild spells around his seat, For him her opiates gave to opiate draughts bade flow,

Which he who tastes can ne'er forego,

Taught him to turn impatient ear

From truth's intrusive voice severe."]

To gild the ruin she has wrought;
For, like the bat of Indian brakes,
Her pinions fan the wound she makes,
And soothing thus the dreamer's pain,
She drinks his life-blood from the vein.T
Now to the lattice turn his eyes,
Vain hope! to see the sun arise.
The moon with clouds is still o'ercast,
Still howls by fits the stormy blast;
Another hour must wear away,
Ere the East kindle into day,
And hark! to waste that weary hour
He tries the minstrel's magic power.
XXXIII.

SONG.

TO THE MOON.**

Hail to thy cold and clouded beam,
Pale pilgrim of the troubled sky!
Hail, though the mists that o'er thee stream
Lend to thy brow their sullen dye!tt
How should thy pure and peaceful eye
Untroubled view our scenes below,
Or how a tearless beam supply

To light a world of war and wo!
Fair Queen! I will not blame thee now,
As once by Greta's fairy side;
Each little cloud that dimm'd thy brow
Did then an angel's beauty hide.
And of the shades I then could chide,

Still are the thoughts to memory dear,
For while a softer strain I tried,

They hid my blush and calm'd my fear.
Then did I swear thy ray serene
Was form'd to light some lonely dell,
By two fond lovers only seen,
Reflected from the crystal well,
Or sleeping on their mossy cell,
Or quivering on the lattice bright,
Or glancing on their couch, to tell
How swiftly wanes the summer night!
XXXIV.

He starts a step at this lone hour!
A voice-his father seeks the tower,
With haggard look and troubled sense,
Fresh from his dreadful conference.
"Wilfrid :-what, not to sleep address'd?
Thou hast no cares to chase thy rest.
Mortham has fall'n on Marston-moor ;*
Bertram brings warrant to secure
His treasures, bought by spoil and blood,
For the state's use and public good.
The menials will thy voice obey;
Let his commission have its way,SS
In every point, in every word."-
Then, in a whisper,-"Take thy sword!
Bertram is what I must not tell.

I hear his hasty step-farewell!"'ll
[MS." On his pale cheek in crimson glow;
The short and painful sighs that show
The shrivell'd lip, the teeths' white row
The head reclined," &c.]

TIMS.

"the sleeper's pain,

Drinks his dear life blood from the vein."]

the stanza:

"That all who on her visions press,

Find disappointment dog success; ̧
But, miss'd their wish, lamenting hold
Her gilding false for sterling gold."]

5["Soft and smooth are Fancy's flowery ways.
And yet, even there, if left without a guide,
The young adventurer unsafely plays.
Eyes, dazzled long by Fiction's gaudy rays,
In modest Truth no light nor beauty find;
And who, my child, would trust the meteor blaze
That soon must fail, and leave the wanderer blind,
More dark and helpless far, than if it ne'er had shined?
"Fancy enervates, while it soothes the heart,
And, while it dazzles, wounds the mental sight:

To joy each heightening charm it can impart,

But wraps the hour of wo in tenfold night.

And often, where no real ills affright,

Ita visionary fiends, an endless train,

Amail with equal or superior might,

And through the throbbing heart, and dizzy brain,

And shivering nerves, shoot stings of more than mortal pain."

BEATTIE.]

not in general successful as a song-writer; but, without any extraordinary effort, here are pleasing thoughts, polished expressions, and musical versification."-Monthly Review.]

1 MS." Are tarnishing thy lovely dye 1

A sad excuse let Fancy tryHow should so kind a planet show Her stainless silver's lustre high, To light a world of war and wo!"] 11 [MS.-" Here's Risingham brings tidings sure, Mortham has fallen on Marston Moor; And he hath warrant to secure," &c.] $$ [MS. See that they give his warrant way."] We cannot close the first Canto without bestowing the highest praise on it. The whole design of the picture is excellent; and the contrast presented to the gloomy and fearful opening by the calm and innocent conclusion, is masterly. Never were two characters more clearly and forcibly set in opposition than those of Bertram and Wilfrid. Oswald completes the group; and, for the moral purposes of the painter, is perhaps superior to the others. He is admirably designed

- That middle course to steer To cowardice and craft so dear.'"

Monthly Review.]

CANTO SECOND.

I.

FAR in the chambers of the west,
The gale had sigh'd itself to rest;
The moon was cloudless now and clear
But pale, and soon to disappear.
The thin gray clouds wax dimly light
On Brusleton and Houghton height;
And the rich dale, that eastward lay,
Waited the wakening touch of day,
To give its woods and cultured plain,
And towers and spires, to light again.
But, westward, Stanmore's shapeless swell,
And Lunedale wild, and Kelton-fell,
And rock-begirdled Gilmanscar,
And Arkingarth, lay dark afar;
While, as a livelier twilight falls,
Emerge proud Barnard's banner'd walls,
High crown'd he sits, in dawning pale,
The sovereign of the lovely vale.
II.

What prospects from his watch-tower high,
Gleam gradual on the warder's eye!-
Far sweeping to the east, he sees
Down his deep woods the course of Tees,*
And tracks his wanderings by the steam
Of summer vapours from the stream;
And ere he paced his destined hour
By Brackenbury's dungeon-tower,†
These silver mists shall melt away,
And dew the woods with glittering spray.
Then in broad lustre shall be shown
That mighty trench of living stone,
And each huge trunk that, from the side,
Reclines him o'er the darksome tide,
Where Tees, full many a fathom low,
Wears with his rage no common foe;
For pebbly bank, nor sand-bed here,
Nor clay-mound, checks his fierce career,
Condemn'd to mine a channell'd way,
O'er solid sheets of marble gray.

III.

Nor Tees alone, in dawning bright,
Shall rush upon the ravish'd sight;
But many a tributary stream

Each from its own dark dell shall gleam:
Staindrop, who, from her sylvan bowers,§
Salutes proud Raby's battled towers;
The rural brook of Egliston,
And Balder, named from Odin's son:
And Greta, to whose banks ere long
We lead the lovers of the song:
And silver Lune, from Stanmore wild,
And fairy Thorsgill's murmuring child,
And last and least, but loveliest still,
Romantic Deepdale's slender rill.
Who in that dim-wood glen hath stray'd,
Yet long'd for Roslin's magic glade?

The view from Barnard Castle commands the rich and magnificent valley of Tees. Immediately adjacent to the river, the banks are very thickly wooded; at a little distance they are more open and cultivated; but, being interspersed with hedgerows, and with isolated trees of great size and age, they still retain the richness of woodland scenery. The river itself' flows in a deep trench of solid rock, chiefly limestone and marble. The finest view of its romantic course is from a handsome modernbuilt bridge over the Tees, by the late Mr. Morritt of Rokeby. In Leland's time, the marble quarries seem to have been of some value.Hard under the cliff by Egleston, is found on eche side of Tese very fair marble, wont to be taken up booth by marbelers of Barnardes Castelle and of Egleston, and partly to have been wrought by them, and partly sold onwrought to others."-Itinerary. Oxford, 1768, 8vo. p. 88.

[MS." Betwixt the gate and Baliol's tower."]

I [MS.-"Those deep hewn banks of living stone."]

§ (MS.-" Staindrop, who, on her sylvan way, Salutes proud Raby's turrets gray.'

[See notes to the song of Fair Rosabelle, in the Lay of the

Last Minstrel, p. 351.]

[Cartland Crags, near Lanark, celebrated as among the favourite retreats of Sir William Wallace.] **The ruins of this abbey, or priory, (for Tanner calls it the former, and Leland the latter,) are beautifully situated upon the angle, formed by a little dell called Thorsgill, at its junction with the Tees. A good part of the religious house is still in some degree habitable, but the church is in ruins. Eglistone was dedicated to St. Mary and St. John the Baptist, and is supposed to have been founded by Ralph de Multon about the end of Henry

Who, wandering there, hath sought to change
Even for that vale so stern and strange,
Where Cartland's Crags, fantastic rent,
Through her green copse like spires are sent?
Yet, Albin, yet the praise be thine,
Thy scenes and story to combine!
Thou bid'st him, who by Roslin strays,
List to the deeds of other days;

'Mid Cartland's crags thou show'st the cave,
The refuge of thy champion brave; T
Giving each rock its storied tale,
Pouring a lay for every dale,
Knitting, as with a moral band,
Thy native legends with thy land,

To lend each scene the interest high
Which genius beams from Beauty's eye.

IV.

Bertram awaited not the sight

Which sun-rise shows from Barnard's height,
But from the towers, preventing day,
With Wilfrid took his early way,
While misty dawn, and moonbeam pale,
Still mingled in the silent dale.

By Barnard's bridge of stately stone,
The southern bank of Tees they won;
Their winding path then eastward cast,
And Egliston's gray ruins pass'd;**
Each on his own deep visions bent,
Silent and sad they onward went.
Well may you think that Bertram's mood,tt
To Wilfrid savage seem'd and rude:
Well may you think bold Risingham
Held Wilfrid trivial, poor, and tame;
And small the intercourse, I ween,
Such uncongenial souls between.

Of different mood, a deeper sigh Awoke, when Rokeby's turrets highss the Second's reign. There were formerly the tombs of the fami lies of Rokeby, Bowes, and Fitz-Hugh. tt MS.-" For brief the intercourse, I ween, Such uncongenial souls between Well may you think stern Risingham Held Wilfrid trivial, poor, and tame; And nought of mutual interest lay To bind the comrades of the way."],

1: Close behind the George inn at Greta Bridge, there is a well preserved Roman encampment, surrounded with a triple ditch, lying between the river Greta and a brook called the Tutta. The four entrances are easily to be discerned. Very many Roman altars and monuments have been found in the vicinity, most of which are preserved at Rokeby by my friend Mr. Morritt. Among others is a small votive altar, with the inscription, LEG. VI VIC. P. F. F., which has been rendered, Legio. Serta. Victrix. Pia. Fortis. Fidelis.

This ancient manor long gave name to a family by whom it is said to have been possessed from the Conquest downward, and who are at different times distinguished in history It was the Baron of Rokeby who finally defeated the insurrection of the Earl of Northumberland, tempore Hen. IV, of which Holinshed gives the following account The King, advertised hereof, caused a great armie to be assembled, and came forward with the same towards his enemies; but ye the King came to Nottingham, Sir Thomas or (as other copies haue) Sir Rafe Rokesbie, Shirifle of Yorkeshire, assembled the forces of the countrie to resist the Earle and his power; coming to Grimbautbrigs, beside Knaresborough, there to stop them the passage; but they returning aside, got to Weatherbie, and so to Tadcaster, and finally came forward unto Bramhammoor, near to Haizlewood, where they chose their

Were northward in the dawning seen
To rear them o'er the thicket green.
O then, though Spenser's self had stray'd
Beside him through the lovely glade,
Lending his rich luxuriant glow
Of fancy, all its charms to show,
Pointing the stream rejoicing free,
As captive set at liberty,

Flashing her sparkling waves abroad,*
And clamouring joyful on her road;
Pointing where, up the sunny banks,
The trees retire in scatter'd ranks,
Save where, advanced before the rest,
On knoll or hillock rears his crest,
Lonely and huge, the giant Oak,

As champions, when their band is broke,
Stand forth to guard the rearward post,
The bulwark of the scatter'd host-
All this, and more, might Spenser say,
Yet waste in vain his magic lay,
While Wilfrid eyed the distant tower,
Whose lattice lights Matilda's bower.

VII.

The open vale is soon pass'd o'er,
Rokeby, though nigh, is seen no more ;t
Sinking mid Greta's thickets deep,
A wild and darker course they keep,
A stern and lone, yet lovely road,
As e'er the foot of minstrel trode !t
Broad shadows o'er their passage fell,
Deeper and narrower grew the dell;

It seem'd some mountain, rent and riven,
A channel for the stream had given,
So high the cliffs of limestone gray
Hung beetling o'er the torrent's way,
Yielding, along their rugged base,§
A flinty footpath's niggard space,
Where he, who winds 'twixt rock and wave,
May hear the headlong torrent rave,
And like a steed in frantic fit,

That flings the froth from curb and bit,||
May view her chafe her waves to spray,
O'er every rock that bars her way,
Till foam-globes on her eddies ride,
Thick as the schemes of human pride

and meet to fight upon. The Shiriffe was as readie to giue Sattell as the Erle to receive it; and so with a standard of S. George spread, set fiercelie vpon the Earle, who, vnder a standand of his owne armes, encountered his aduersaries with great manhood. There was a sore incounter and cruell conflict betwixt the parties, but in the end the victorie fell to the Shiriffe. The Lord Bardolfe was taken, but sore wounded, so that he shortlie after died of the hurts. As for the Earle of Northumberland, he was slain outright; so that now the prophecy was fulfilled which cane an inkling of this his heauy hap long before, namelie,

Stirps Persitina periet confusa ruina.'

For this Earle was the stocke and maine root of all that were left aliue, called by the name of Persie; and of manie more by diners slaughters dispatched. For whose misfortune the people were not a little sorrie, making report of the gentleman's valiantesse, renowne, and honour, and applieing vnto him certeine lamentable verses out of Lucaine, saieng,

'Sed nos nec sanguis, nec tantum vulnera nostri
Affecere senis: quantum gestata per urbem
Ora ducis, quæ transfixo deformia pilo

Vidimus.'

For his head, full of siluer horie haires, being put upon a stake Was openlie carried through London, and set vpon the bridge of the same citie: in like manner was the Lord Bardolfes."-HOLIN SED'S Chronicles. Lond. 1808, 4to. iii. 45. The Rokeby, or Rokesby family, continued to be distinguished until the great Civil War, when, having embraced the cause of Charles I., they suffered severely by fines and confiscations, The estate then passed from its ancient possessors to the family of the Robinsons, from whom it was purchased by the father of my valued friend, the present proprietor.

[MS.

Flashing to heaven her sparkling spray, And clamouring joyful on her way."] [MS.-" And Rokeby's tower is seen no more; Sinking mid Greta's thickets green, The journeyers seek another scene."] What follows is an attempt to describe the romantic glen, or rather ravine, through which the Greta finds a passage between Rokeby and Mortham; the former situated upon the left bank of Greta, the latter on the right bank, about half a mile nearer to its junction with the Tees. The river runs with very great rapidity over a bed of solid rock, broken by many shelving descents, down which the stream dashes with great noise and impetuosity, vindicating its etymology, which has been derived from the Gothic, Gridan, to clamour. The banks partake of the same wild and romantic character, being chiefly lofty cliffs of limestone rock,

That down life's current drive amain,
As frail, as frothy, and as vain!
VIII.

The cliffs that rear their haughty head
High o'er the river's darksome bed,
Were now all naked, wild, and gray,
Now waving all with green wood spray;
Here trees to every crevice clung,
And o'er the dell their branches hung;
And there, all splinter'd and uneven,
The shiver'd rocks ascend to heaven;
Oft, too, the ivy swathed their breast, T
And wreathed its garland round their crest,
Or from the spires bade loosely flare
Its tendrils in the middle air.1
As pennons wont to wave of old
O'er the high feast of baron bold,
When revell'd loud the feudal rout,
And the arch'd halls return'd their shout
Such and more wild is Greta's roar,
And such the echoes from her shore.
And so the ivied banners gleam,**
Waved wildly o'er the brawling stream.

IX.

Now from the stream the rocks recede,
But leave between no sunny mead,
No, nor the spot of pebbly sand,
Oft found by such a mountain strand ;††
Forming such warm and dry retreat,
As fancy deems the lonely seat,
Where hermit, wandering from his cell,
His rosary might love to tell,

But here, 'twixt rock and river, grew
A dismal grove of sable yew,‡‡
With whose sad tints were mingled seen
The blighted fir's sepulchral green.
Seem'd that the trees their shadows cast
The earth that nourish'd them to blast;
For never knew that swarthy grove
The verdant hue that fairies love:
Nor wilding green, nor woodland flower,
Arose within its baleful bower:
The dank and sable earth receives
Its only carpet from the leaves,

That, from the withering branches cast,
Bestrew'd the ground with every blast."

whose gray colour contrasts admirably with the various trees and shrubs which find root among their crevices, as well as with the bue of the ivy, which clings around them in profusion, and hangs down from their projections in long sweeping tendrils. At other points the rocks give place to precipitous banks of earth, bearing large trees intermixed with copsewood In one spot the dell, which is elsewhere very narrow, widens for a space to leave room for a dark grove of yew-trees, intermixed here and there with aged pines of uncommon size. Directly opposite to this sombre thicket, the cliffs on the other side of the Greta are tall, white, and fringed with all kinds of deciduous shrubs. The whole scenery of this spot is so much adapted to the ideas of superstition, that it has acquired the name of Blockula, from the place where the Swedish witches were supposed to hold their Sabbath. The dell, however, has superstitions of its own growth, for it is supposed to be haunted by a female spectre, called the Dobie of Mortham. The cause assigned for her appearance is a lady's having been whilom murdered in the wood, in evidence of which, her blood is shown upon the stairs of the old tower at Mortham. But whether she was slain by a jealous husband, or by savage banditti, or by an uncle who coveted her estate, or by a rejected lover, are points upon which the traditions of Rokeby do not enable us to decide $ [MS.-Yielding their rugged base beside

flinty

Adpath by Greta's tide."]

[MS." That flings the foam from curb and bit, tawny

Chafing her waves to whiten wrath,

spungy

O'er every rock that bars her path, Till down her boiling eddies ride," &c.] TIMS.-" The frequent ivy swathed their breast, And wreathed its tendrils round their crest, Or from their summit bade them fall, And tremble o'er the Greta's brawl."]

** [MS." And so the ivy's banners green,

++ [MS.

gleam,
Waved wildly trembling o'er the scene,
{Waved wild above the clamorous stream."]

-"a torrent's strand;
Where in the warm and dry retreat,
May fancy form some hermit's seat."]
:: [MS.-" A darksome grove of funeral yew,
Where trees a baleful shadow cast,
The ground that nourish'd them to blast,
Mingled with whose sad tints were seen
The blighted fir's sepulchral green."]