Gods! it was sweeter than nectar to my taste. I tore her flesh with my teeth, and beat her uselessly with my unarmed left hand. My heart became filled with pride; - I knew my situation, and yet would not have changed it for any the world can offer. I saw sights, such as I had never been blessed with before; - I saw my mother and sisters, but they all seemed red to me as blood. I heard voices that spoke kindly to me, but I knew they were not human. My friends came near me; they strove to withdraw me from the tigress, but I resisted all their efforts. I sunk my face deeper in the tigress's flesh, and tore it with more resolute fury-'Twas glorious! Ha! who are they that sit glaring on me with hot eyes? Are their eyeballs redhot iron? How's this? Know ye not that I am the forest king! lord of a thousand jungles!-that I fly like a tornado to my revenge-whoo!" Mr Riggs and the other gentlemen of the party, though in the most dreadful state of trepidation, endeavoured to calm the agitation of the ladies. Mr Knight continued uttering the dreadful yell, and glaring all round him as if he was preparing for a spring; but Mr Day sat quietly in his chair. "For Heaven's sake, sir, do speak to your friend!" said Mr Riggs. "Hold off there!" thundered Mr Day, " and let me discharge my thunderbolt at the King of the Jungles. What! is Jupiter the son of Saturn to be insulted here? I am monarch of Olympus; and Pluto and Neptune are a couple of infernal thieves. eldest son, and heaven goes by entail. Hold off, I say, and let me throw my bolt at that howling tiger!" I'm He stood up upon his chair, and raised his right hand; but at this moment the door opened, and the old gentleman made his appearance. "Oho! this is the way, is it? Hilloo! Duffy, bring in a couple of strait waistcoats and two pair of handcuffs. Down with Jupiter and the tiger into the cellars!" The arm of Jupiter was paralysed; the howling of the tiger ceased. Hats and bonnets were hurried on -no leave was taken-not a word said. In less than half a minute, there was not a member of the party inside the gates of Holywell Lodge. "That was what he wanted with the cellars, was it?" muttered Mr Riggs, in the ear of Mr Larkin. "I'm blest if he hasn't made Holywell Lodge into a madhouse. I shall take the constable with me the first thing in the morning. You'll come, Larkin?" " I shall bring my gun if I do; for curse me if I would trust myself within a mile of that tiger for fifty pounds." That night their contemplations were so momentous, that they separated without their usual potation. Miss Julia Riggs and Miss Marianne sat up half the night busily employed in writing; and the subject of their labours may perhaps be guessed at, when we inform the reader that two elegantly folded notes were seen next morning on their dressing-tables, addressed respectively to Mr Thomas Hughes and Mr Joseph Adams. With the grey dawn Mr Riggs left his couch, accompanied by Mr Larkin and the constable: he proceeded to Holywell Lodge, and knocked authoritatively at the door. No answer was returned; and after repeated attempts, with similar unsuccess, they resolved to make an entry by the upstairs window. This was with some difficulty effected; for it is not to be expected that an operation promising so much danger as perhaps falling into the very den of the tiger, or the clutches of Jupiter, could be performed without sundry misgivings. At last, however, an entrance was effected. All was silence. "I say, Riggs, they have eloped. London thieves, after all! Where are the spoons ? "They were plated," answered the amazed proprietor. Room after room was searched, but no vestige discovered of the inhabitants. At last, as they stood in the most helpless perplexity in the lobby, they thought they heard groans proceeding from the lower story. They descended, guided by the sound; and paused at the door of the very cellars which had given rise to so much conversation. "Hush! that is Jupiter howling," said one. "No, no; 'tis the tiger," said another. Mr Larkin cocked his gun-the constable grasped his baton-Mr Riggs retreated to the foot of the stair. "For the sake of Heaven, open this door, we are nearly stifled!" uttered a voice. "Are you quiet and peaceable now?" enquired Mr Larkin. "Yes, yes-open, open !" With some trepidation Mr Larkin turned the key, and, to the amazement of the three heroes, out walked, not Jupiter and the tiger, but the old gentleman and Tim Duffy the gardener. "What's the meaning of all this?" enquired Mr Riggs, thunderstruck at the apparition. "Are you mad as well as the others?-and you, Tim Duffy, what are you doing down here?" "Shaking with cowld, yer honour, and wishing for my breakfast." "He is a traitor, gentlemen-he deserted me last night, when I required his help to bind the two patients. He turned against me, and aided in my incarceration." "Divil a bit; but them gentlemen made a fair fight of it, and rouled us into the cellar like a couple of empty barrels." "The fact is, gentlemen," resumed the liberated tenant, "I am a professor of the sanitary art; you have seen my advertisements in all the newspapers. I am the person who has made the noblest, the grandest, and most magnificent of human or divine discoveries. I can restore a madman in less than half a year to the full use of his reason; my recipe is infallible, my cure certain. Two young gentlemen came to me a few weeks ago, and told me they required my assistance. I undertook their cure. All was going on well, till the scene of last night destroyed my labours. But I'll catch the scoundrels yet; and if whips and chains can be found in England, I'll work them!" The old gentleman ground his teeth with rage. "So you go on the old systemtouch 'em up with a flogging, eh?" enquired Mr Larkin, not at all prepossessed in favour of the discoverer. "I think I've heard of you before, sir; and as to the thrashing you received, and your night's lodging in the cellar, I think it sarved you right." Not much politeness was wasted on the professor; he was forced to disburse for Holywell Lodge, and turned out of the premises in a manner which would have appeared a little too rough in the polished eyes of a court chamberlain. CHAPTER IV. The tournament at Eglinton Castle collected from all quarters thousands of animated spectators, anxious to see the dead bones of chivalry endowed with new life by the touch of modern refinement. Amidst the numberless vehicles of all descriptions that rolled gaily along the road from Ardrossan on the only fair day of the spectacle, wasanondescript vehicle, which might have passed either for a post-chaise or a family carriage, as you were disposed to find fault or not with its appearance. It was large and roomy, and luckily so, for it contained four people-two gentlemen and two ladies -and by the glossy white gowns of the ladies, and the ditto blue coats of the gentlemen, and an indescribable look at the same time of the whole party, it was very evident that they were two couples newly married, and that this was their marriage jaunt. Exclamations of rapture proceeded without any apparent interval from the two ladies, as knight after knight presented himself in the course. At last, when a tall and handsome tilter was led up to the throne of the Queen of Beauty, and bowed as she smiled her approval of his doughty deeds, one of the ladies in the nondescript carriage turned still more alarmingly red in the face than before, and whispered in the ear of her companion "Oh, Marianne, don't you see him?" A warning look from Marianne conveyed a hint to her sister to restrain her surprise; but when the next knight came forward to receive the prize of his achievement, assurance now became doubly sure. "'Tis Mr Day!" whispered Marianne, but Mrs Thomas Hughes took no notice; Mr Joseph Adams also was luckily of an unenquiring turn of mind, and detected no resemblance in the gallant cavaliers of the lists to the halfwitted inhabitants of Holywell Lodge. "Don't you think, ducky, you would look well in a suit of armour?" said Mrs Thomas Hughes, laying her hand on Mr Thomas Hughes's shoulder. "I should make a deuced deal beter appearance in a suit of law," was the reply of the inexhaustible wit; "but come along, the rain is coming on again, and dinner is ordered at Hardrossing at half-past five." NAPOLEON'S TELEGRAPH ON MONTMARTRE. " In my ramblings round Paris during the days of Napoleon, my steps always turned, at the beginning or end of my ramble, towards MONTMARTRE, and my eyes always to the Telegraph upon its summit. I constantly found a number of people lingering there; watching, like myself, the movements of the machine which had sent out so many awful messages in its time. It was, of course, especially busy during the foreign campaigns of the great Kingwarrior. Its perfect stillness, until it began its communications; and then its sudden, various, and eccentric movements, of which no cause could be discovered, and whose purpose was a secret of state; made it to me, and to thousands of others, the most singular, and perhaps the most anxious of all contemplations, at a period when every act of the Government shook Europe." -MS. Journal. I SEE thee standing on thy height, Now to thy long lank sides they fall, And wast thou but a toy of state? All eyes upon thy tossings gazed, Round the wide world that mandate shot, I saw thee once. The eve was wild, But evil instinct seem'd to fill Thy ghastly form. With sudden thrill As if in challenge to the sky. Ay, all its tempests, all its fires were tame To thy fierce flight-thy words of more than flame! The thunderbolt was launch'd that hour,* Talk of the necromancer's spell! Into the troubled air its wild spells hurl'd, I saw thee once again. 'Twas morn: The soundless curse went forth it pass'd. That sign of woe let loose the iron horde That crush'd in gore the Hapsburg helm and sword! † Again I look'd-'twas day's decline: Thy mount was purple with the vine; The clouds in rosy beauty slept, The birds their softest vesper kept; The plain, all flowers, was one rich-painted floor, And thou, wild fiend, even thou, wast still once more. I saw thee from thy slumber start; That blow was, Russia, to thy heart! That voiceless sign to wolf and vulture cried, Then swept the sword, and blazed the shell, The groans of Empire in its doom! Till all was death-then came the final ban, And Heaven broke down the strength too strong for man.‡ Then earth was calm. I saw thee sleep- Was dungeon'd far upon the ocean-wave- ALCMEON. * The Prussian war, Oct. 1806. † The Austrian war, begun April 1809. ‡ The Russian war begun, May 1812. § Death of Napoleon, 1821. THE CROWNING OF CHARLEMAGNE. On the death of Pope Adrian the First, his nephew had been set aside for Leo, a priest of the Lateran. The election was met with the usual violence of those times; the partisans of the defeated candidate attacked the new Pope in one of his processions, swept his guards before them, and beat himself, until they thought that they had killed him. But he recovered, and made his complaint to Charlemagne, then at the head of an army in the north of Germany. Already the first soldier of Europe, he instantly seized on the opportunity of administering the affairs of Italy-marched with an overwhelming force to Rome. The multitude met him in grand procession, and, with the ejected Pope in his train, he entered the city, and drove his opponents into exile. The Emperor, in Italy, had hitherto borne only the title of "The Great Patrician." But on Christmas day, A.D. 800, mass was celebrated with peculiar pomp in St Peter's; and while Charlemagne knelt at the Papal feet, in his patrician robe, Leo suddenly arose and placed on his head a diadem, and the Emperor was hailed by the whole assemblage, as "the most pious Augustus, crowned by God, the great and pacific Emperor of the Romans." The power of this mighty master of European dominion thenceforth lent an irresistible superiority to the Papal influence: the army of Charlemagne was virtually the army of the Pope; there were but two steps more to supremacy, and both were accomplished, the election of the Popes without the consent of the German Emperor, and the extension of their temporal dominion over Christendom-the former by Gregory the Seventh, (A.D. 1073,) the latter by Innocent the Third, (A.D. 1198.) MIDNIGHT Sits upon the sky: Yet among thy myriads, Rome, Lights from roof and wall are Clangs the bell's unwearied tongue. Through the streets the human tide On the dark and dewy air, Comes the trumpet's stirring swell; Still rolls on the living stream, Onward to the Volscian hill Sweep on foot and horse the throng; There, on high, like watching stars, There around the ruddy flame, On that wild and glorious day,* Rank on rank the Moslem lay; * The great battle of Tours, in which Charles Martel, at the head of the French chivalry, drove the Moors from France. |