A man bereaved, with something of a blight His appetites regerminate, his heart Shoot up renew'd. What blank I found be- From what is said you partly may surmise; rain Should this new-blossom'd hope be coldly nipp'd, Then were I desolate indeed! Elena. I said I fear'd another could not fill The Regent, on her departure, falls into the following soliloquy; to explain the lat ter part of which, it is necessary to premise that the criminals sentenced are Flemings detected in carrying on, at the instigation of Sir Fleureant, a correspondence between some of the Flemish cities and France: Nor inward light is needful; day by day Ho, Ellert! by your leave, though, you must Enter an Officer. Have me a gallows built upon the mount, My lord, Let Bulsen too be hung." tion for a love-scene; yet it is not more This is certainly an extraordinary terminadaring and original than it is in character. It is not such love as Artevelde's that expands the heart, nor such success that satisfies even self-love. From this time nothing prospers in the Flemish camp. Everything appears to fulfil the threat of Father John: "After strange women them that went astray Van den Bosch, the ablest of Artevelde's lieutenants, is defeated, and receives a mortal wound. Many of the Flemish towns transfer their allegiance to their former lord; and even the name of Artevelde no longer carries its old magic,. -a rumour having gone abroad that sorcery has subjected him to the spells of a French spy. The English king sends no aid: no hope remains but in a successful battle. Gathering together all his forces, Artevelde “Artevelde. [after a pause] The night is far marches to the eastern bank of the lower advanced upon the morrow, And but for that conglomerated mass Lis, to meet the French army and prevent them from passing the river. At a very early hour in the morning he leaves his tent: And the strange destiny that lifted me To be the leader of a mighty host, There he has a vision of his dead wife. cles gather around the body, and clumsily He thus describes it to Elena: And rigid was her form and motionless. A stain of blood went wavering to her feet. And as she pierced the river with her feet, Appear'd all blood, and swell'd and welter'd Before the battle begins Artevelde is informed that a foreign knight, with his visor closed, demands to see him. It is Sir Fleureant of Heurlée. On his former visit to the camp, when detected in a treasonable correspondence, he had been condemned to death; but his life had been spared at Elena's fatal intercession. He had broken his parole, escaped to the French camp, and there-half in despair and half in ambition-engaged himself to assassinate the Regent. While Artevelde is passing the bridge of the vision he is stabbed by the false knight. For a time he conceals his wound, and the battle rages with various fortune. His hosts are at last driven back in confusion; and Artevelde, making a desperate effort to rally them, is swept back towards the fatal bridge, and is suffocated in the crowd, the bridge giving way, ena. out the body. The Duke of Burgundy then appears, and Sir Fleureant approaches the group as the young king and his royal unendeavours to vindicate the fair fame of ElShe leaps to her feet, and snatching Artevelde's dagger, strikes it through the heart of his murderer. The guards rush in; and in the attempt to take her and Van Ryk prisoners, both are slain. The Duke of Bourbon gives orders that Elena shall receive Christian burial, but that the body of Artevelde shall be hung upon a tree, in the sight of the army. The Duke of Burgundy refuses to war with the dead: Burgundy. Brother, no; It were not for our honour, nor the king's, Wolf of the weald and yellow-footed kite, Thus ends this drama; which, for largeness of scope and skill in execution -for delineation of characters at once harmonized and contrasted for intellectual vigour, gravity, variety, and energy, has, as we believe, no equal since the Shakspearian age; and which, owing nothing to meretricious allurements, cannot fail to keep that place in the estimate of thoughtful readers which it early acquired. Our limited space has allowed us but to indicate a few of its more prominent characteristics. A play that revives the energy of the Elizabethan dramatists, while it avoids their coarseness, must ever occupy a historical position in English literature. It is the most vigorous of Mr. Taylor's works; though in his other plays, and in his minor In the last scene Elena kneels on the poems, there are perhaps a larger number bloody battle-field beside the body of Arte- of those passages which illustrate the wisvelde; while Van Ryk, an old Flemish cap-dom, the moral dignity, and the refinement tain, stands at the other side. He urges that characterize Mr. Taylor's poetry not her to flight; but she refuses to depart with- less than its vigour. * Vol. i. p. 269. * Vol. i. pp. 289–92. THE From the Sunday Magazine. BY THE AUTHOR OF "STUDIES FOR THERE was once, says an old legend, a young Italian noble, whose elder brother loved him much; he had moreover saved his life, and had reconciled him to his father when greatly offended with him. pointed out in the letter. It was a desolate place, in a thinly populated quarter of the city. By the faint light of the moon he counted the windows, and found the slit in the wall, which was deep, and fenced on the riverside with an iron grating backed by a sheet of horn; into this slit he hastened to place his lantern, and then began to look about him, and consider why his brother should have chosen such a place for their meeting. As might have been expected, the youth returned this affection, and after the death Not far off ran the river, and he did not of the father these brothers lived together, doubt that by water his brother would the younger obeying the elder, and behav-come, for it was evident that he feared to ing to him in all respects like a son. Once, on a certain day, however, a long separation came between them, for the elder went out, as if upon his ordinary affairs, and never returned again to his house. His young brother was first surprised, then alarmed. He sought for him, proclaimed his loss; he scoured the country, caused the waters to be searched, and sought in all the recesses of that old Italian city; but it was of no avail; his brother was gone, and none could tell him whither. No tidings were heard of him for more than six months, till one night as his young brother was knocking for admittance at his own door, a figure in a domino came up, and put a note into his hand, at the same time whispering his brother's name. It was during the time of the carnival, when it is so much the custom for people to wear disguises, that such things excite no surprise. Anselmo, for this was his name, would have seized the domino by the hand, but he quickly disappeared in the crowd; and full of wonder and anxiety the young man read the letter which he had left behind him : show himself in the streets of the city. Anselmo started once or twice during his solitary watch, for he thought he distinguished the splash of an oar, and then an advancing footstep; but he was mistaken, his brother did not come to meet him that night, nor the next, nor the one after; and when he had come to await him every night for a fortnight, he began to get sick at heart. And yet there was no way but this; he was to watch till his brother came. It was his only chance of seeing him; and he went on, without once failing, for eleven months and twenty days. In order that he might do this more secretly, he frequently changed his lodg ing; for as the time wore on he began to fear that his brother might have involved himself in one of the political intrigues common in those days, and he felt that the utmost caution was required, lest his constant visits to that quarter of the city should be watched, and lead to suspicion. A strange piece of blind obedience this seemed, even to himself, and of trust in his brother; what appeared to him the "Anselmo, I live, I am well! and I be- strangest part of the letter was the entreaty seech thee, as thou lovest me, fail not to do that he would always bring a lantern; "as for me what I shall require, which is, that if there could be any fear," he thought, thou wilt go every night down that lane" of my not recognizing his step, or as if it which leads along the south wall of the could be likely that more men than one P Palace; ten paces from the last win- could by any probability be standing by dow but one thou shalt find a narrow slit in that solitary corner." But in those days of the wall; bring with thee a dark lantern, tyrannical government and lawless faction, and into that slit do thou place it, turn-flight and mysterious disappearance were ing the light side inward that thou be not discovered. Thou shalt be at the place every night at twelve, and thou shalt stay until the clock of St. Januarius striketh one. So do, and one night I will meet thee there. Thy loving brother prays thee not to fail." not uncommon. Thus Anselmo watched on, though hope began to wax faint, even in his strong and patient heart. The clock struck one. "Eleven months," said he, "and one and twenty days!-I will watch for thee the year out." He put his hand to the slit in the wall, and withThat very night the young nobleman drew his lantern; it was dying in the went out unattended, in the hopes of meet- socket. "What," said he, "is the light ing with his brother. He carried a lantern, also weary of watching!" He turned, and proceeded to the unfrequented lane and a heavy stone hard by his feet was "Let it lie," he said, to his young brother. "I am sorry the light has gone out just when it is wanted," said Anselmo, for he was still amazed, and scarcely knew what he was talking about. "Eleven months and twenty-one days hath it served me well," his brother replied; nothing else, whether alive or dead, saving thyself only, will serve me so well again." over to the keeping of his deadly enemy: one whose house had long been of the opposite faction to his own. By this enemy he was conveyed to the P Palace, and laid in a dungeon, that, as he said, "Nothing it seemed could have broken through, unless his teeth had been strong enough to eat through that wall." Almost every hour in the day his enemy came and looked at him through a hole in the door; his food was given him by means of this aperture; and when he complained of the want of bedding, they gave him, also by means of the hole, a thin mattrass, and two coarse rugs to cover him. This dungeon contained nothing but one large chest placed against the wall, and halffilled with heavy stones; one of these, he was given to understand, would be tied round his neck should he attempt to escape, and his body would be thrown into the river. His light in the daytime came through What a strange thing this was to hear; the little slit so often mentioned; but in but the walls of the old Italian city echoed daylight he could do nothing, for his enethe sound so softly that none awoke to list-my's eyes were frequently upon him; from en, and the two figures, gliding under the deep shadow of the houses, passed away, and were seen there no more. By morning dawn a vessel left the harbour, and two brothers stood upon the deck, bidding farewell to their native country; the one was young, the other had a wan cheek, and hands hardened by labour; but the prison dress was gone, and both were clad in the usual costume of their rank and order. "And now we are safe and together," said Anselmo, "I pray thee tell me thy story. Why didst thou keep me waiting so long, and where didst thou rise from at last? "That I can tell thee at all, is thy doing," answered his brother : "because thou didst never fail to bring me the lantern." And then, while the grey Italian shores waxed faint in the sunny distance, and all hearts began to turn towards the new world, whither the vessel was bound, Anselmo's brother descended with him into the cabin, and there told him, with many expressions of affection, the remarkable tale which follows: He had, unknown to his brother, made himself obnoxious to the government; and the night of his disappearance he was surrounded, and after making a desperate defence, he was overpowered and thrown into prison. In a dreadful dungeon he lay till his wounds were healed, and then, for some cause unknown to himself, he was given twelve o'clock to three in the night were the only hours when all his jailers slept, and then it was dark, and he could do nothing but just feel the strength and thickness of the wall: a hopeless task indeed to break it down with one poor pair of hands! But, after months of misery and despair, one of the jailers took pity on him, and asked him whether there was anything he. could do to help him to endure his captivity better. 66 Yes," said the poor prisoner; "I have been a studious man, and if I could now read, it would help me to endure my misery. I dare not read in the daytime, for my enemy would not suffer me to have such a solace; but in the night, if I could have a light in the slit." The jailer was frightened, and told him not to think of it. Yet, as his prisoner kept urging it, he looked at the height of the slit and its small size, and then, when he had heard the words that were to convey this request for a light, and that they told nothing as to where Anselmo's brother was, he consented to convey them; first getting a solemn promise that he would never attempt to speak to his brother, even if he should find it possible, and, secondly, that he would never betray him. Whether this jailer felt certain that he never could escape, whether he was not loth to aid in it, or whether he pitied him, and thought no harm could come of the light, is not known; certain it is that he searched this dungeon diligently every night, and ex amined the iron protection to the slit: it| was far above the poor prisoner's head, and when the jailer found it always safe he appeared satisfied. Yet the work of breaking through the wall began the first night of the lantern, and never ceased till it came to a triumphant conclusion. The great chest, as has been said, was half-full of heavy stones; as soon as the light enabled him to act with certainty and perfect quiet, he laid his mattress and rugs beside it, opened the lid, took every stone out in turn, and placed it on one of them; he then, exerting all his strength, lifted the chest away, and began to undermine the stones behind it, and under it. With wonderful skill and caution, he went gradually on; but it took twenty minutes of labor to empty the chest, and twenty minutes to fill it with equal quiet: there remained, therefore, only twenty minutes in which to perform the rest of this herculean labour. But for the light he must have handled the stones with less certainty, and, of course, the least noise would have caused all to be discovered. How little could be done each night becomes evident, when it is remembered that the stones and rubbish which he displaced had to be put back again, and the chest returned to the same position before the light was withdrawn. For nine months he made but little progress, and for the next two months the difficulty of disposing of the rubbish daunted him; but the last night, when still far from the surface, though already through the wall, such a quantity of earth heaved in that he swept it down fearlessly upon the floor of his dungeon, and resolved to make a daring effort to escape, and risk all on that one venture. He crept through the hole once more, and shielding his head with one arm, pushed upwards with the other; more and more earth fell, and at last, nearly suffocated, he applied all his strength to the flat stone that it had left bare, heaved it up and escaped to life and freedom. Which is most remarkable here ?— the trust of the elder brother, who could venture so much on a protracted attention to his letter, or the obedience of the younger to a command which he could not understand? It is the true story of a King's Son, one who saved the lives of many, and reconciled them to his Father whom they had offended. In his wonderful condescension, He called himself their Elder Brother; but after He had long dwelt among them, He one day disappeared from their sight, promising them that after many days He would come again. He sent them a message afterwards, entreating them to watch, and saying " Behold, I come quickly!" For a while they did watch; but afterwards it was said in his kingdom which he had left, "Our Lord delayeth his coming, and we are weary of watching, the time is so long. If He had told us the exact day or the exact hour when He would return, we would have been ready, and would have gone out to meet Him with great joy; but we cannot always watch, though He has promised us and done for us so much." It is a long time now since that message was sent; some dispute its meaning, some say it shall be on this manner, and some on that manner; some have even said, "Those many days must now be drawing near their close." But, O prisoner, working by night in the light of your brother's candle! O elder brother, who had won such true fraternal love! O friend so trusted in, though not understood, so longed for, though scarcely expected-how differently was your earthly claim admitted - your earthly command obeyed! There was One who said, “Watch, for ye know not the day, neither the hour, when the Son of Man cometh ;" and "what I say unto you, I say unto all — Watch!” BUT DO THEY WATCH? From the Sunday Magazine. "THE BLACK CAMEL." A FEW THOUGHTS FOR BEREAVED PARENTS. WHEN God sent us our little Edith, it was a time of darkness and of sorrow, and the smiles that welcomed her were something like the rays of sunshine breaking through a rift in the storm-clouds, and falling upon the drenched and dripping foliWe can scarcely tell. Yet this story, age. But they were very bright smiles though widely different in some respects, nevertheless, just as the sunshine is, I think, has one point of resemblance to another all the brighter when it thus pierces the narrative far more worthy of credit, but blackness and is reflected by a myriad rainwhich passes among many for an idle tale, drops. And wonderful was the comfort if one may judge by the thoughts that they which that little baby brought us. There bestow upon it. she lay; tiny and helpless; clinging to us |