and the rendering of the account fixed for to-morrow, and ordered then the Friar Ignatius to be brought forward, who pitifully, like evil conscience personified, stood before his judge. "What have you done with the 30,000 pias tres," thundered he at the monk, "with which you were to ransom Donna Maria from me ?"

"My Lord, I have ransomed the prior and guardian of our convent with them," said the friar with shivering teeth.

"For that, you and all monks that are still in our hands, remain here as hostages until that sum is paid over again," decided Morgan, "and the cruelly deceived Donna is to be liberated this instant."

66

"Then be so good as to hand her over to the Bucanier-Captain Taureau!" called Montbars quickly, we will know her to be in honest hands-and, at all events, we must see, before we believe."

Morgan, conscious of his weakness, and afraid, by an eruption of anger to spoil his designs, bit his lips, and glad to purchase rest and a short delay at this price, he ordered his aide-de-camp to surrender, and Taureau to receive the lady. Montbars at their head, the Bucaniers marched into the palace soon the bolts of the subterranean dungeon sounded. From her straw-couch, pale, but lovely, she raised herself, recognised in her preserver her beloved, and overpowered by the sudden change of deepest misery to highest joy, sunk swooning in his arms.

The ouragan raged on Hispaniola. With terrible violence the winds were blowing from all points at once, unrooted trees, tore down houses, sunk vessels that anxiously were seeking the harbour, lifted the floods out of the deep, so that like clouds they floated in the air, and flung them like a waterspout upon the land; and dust and water, branches of trees, and ruins of buildings, were wheeling in the swiftest whirlwind, as if nature would fain have returned to her ancient chaos.-In the fort of the harbour the governor, Don Alonzo Joseph Iago Benalkazar was enjoying a cordial goblet with his old friend and brother-in-arms, the fugitive Governor-General, Don Gusman. But the golden wine was not able to disperse the sorrow, with which the latter

was gazing on the conflict of the elements. Long he sat in gloomy silence, then he painfully broke out: " This hurricane, whose blind rage spares nothing, is the terrible image of my fate!"

66 soon

"Is it really so, friend,-then its short duration may console you !" cried Don Benalkazar affectionately; the serene sun will smile again, and give us a cloudless evening."

"To me a cloudless evening!" cried Gusman ;-" man, you mock me; to me, the chief of the beaten army-the governor of the burned Panama-to the childless father, who has lost all, even his honour,-and now with anxious expectation looks forward to the just anger of his king!"

"That Don Gusman has not to fear," answered his friend kindly, "when the Duke of Medina Sidonia trembling announced the destruction of the invincible armada to King Philip, the monarch said: "I sent it against men and not against the elements." You had to fight against demons in human form and have been conquered only after a long and glorious resistance, And have you not, even then, done every thing in your power to lessen the immense loss?-Are not Panama's best treasures, is not the king's property in safety ?-Upon my oath, the galleon which, with rare intrepidity, you preserved, must warrant you the pardon of our lord, if the honourable wounds you received in that murderous battle, would fail to do so.

"The preservation of the Galleon is, I suspect, my least merit," said Don Gusman sadly. "God struck the villains with blindness or madness, for the chasing privateer was hardly a musketshot from us, when suddenly she tacked and let us escape."

"Who knows to whom you may be obliged for this fortunate accident?" asked the governor thoughtfully. There are amongst that crew of thieves, men to whom I cannot refuse my esteem; and to one of them I am myself still deeply indebted for a rare generosity which some of my family experienced from him. How, if such a one intentionally allowed you to escape."

Don Gusman was just about to prove with bitterness the improbability of this supposition, when an officer entered to report to the governor, that the hurricane had driven a dismasted

"You belong to Morgan's fleet?" asked the governor after a long silence. "I did belong to it," replied the young man calmly. "Since Morgan cheated his soldiers out of the reward of their sanguinary work, and made his escape with the greater part of the booty, the armada has dispersed, and Spain has nothing more to fear from it."

"There you have his impudent confession!" raged Gusman, "What do you require more?-Pronounce his sentence, and let him reap what he has sowed!"

Once more the governor requested him to be calm, and then with an emotion of compassion asked the robber, for whom he felt an interest and whom he wished to save, You have not, I hope, participated in all the horrors of Morgan, young man ?"

66

"In his deeds of arms from the beginning," said he proudly. I have helped to take St. Catherine, have stormed the Castle of St. Lawrence, fought the battle of the valley, and ascended the walls of Panama."

"Then, God help you, you are a dead man!" cried the governor, horrorstruck, turned his face away, and beckoned to the guards to lead him out. Then with shrieks of wild lamentation the boy tore himself from the heart of the prisoner, and rushed to the feet of the governor.

"For God's sake, father," cried he with all his strength, "recall the deadly word or pass sentence upon your unhappy daughter too!"

"Maria!" cried at once the two veterans, astonished, and with the haste of agony the lovely woman continued: "to him you twice owe the preservation of my honour and my life,-to him you owe the preservation of my noble brother, and even the privateer, that allowed this vengeance-thirsting old man to make his escape with infinite treasures, his courage has turned back to Panama !"

Whilst Gusman, seized by conflicting feelings, remained silent, the governor now looked on the captain with scrutinizing eyes and asked abruptly— "Your name?"

"I am the Flibustier-commodore Montbars," answered he calmly.

"If you are that person," continued the governor, "you must be able to prove it by a paper in my handwriting ?"

"Here it is!" cried Maria, and handed it exultingly to her father, whose features began to clear up. He showed Don Gusman the writing, and said "I have pledged my word to Montbars for two free requests. You are an old Castilian, Gusman, you may decide, whether I must keep my pledge."

Gusman gloomily looked on the writing and muttered a hollow" yes!" "Ask, then, Captain!" said the governor kindly to the young man.

"I ask pardon for my men," said he, a short sentence and an honourable grave for myself."

"For God's sake, do not hear him!" cried Maria, "grief for me has deprived him of his senses."

With surprise the governor looked at the blooming despiser of death and said, moved, "the first request is granted; the second I cannot have heard aright; think of a better one!"

Then despairingly Montbars cried, "Do not waste your favours upon an ungrateful man! Since, after a cruel contest with myself, I determined to lead Maria back into the arms of her husband, life has lost its last charm for me, and welcome is the death that is to reconcile me with God!"

"Do I understand you rightly ?” asked the governor with glad surprise. "It was your intention to bring Maria back to us?"

66

Yes, as I hope for mercy, it was!" cried Maria. "The hurricane overtook us off Hispaniola, where we expected to find my husband. That I

still am worthy to appear before his eyes, you owe to the heroic courage and renouncing self-possession of this man!"

"Vain magnanimity!" sobbed Gusman, whose grief broke his heart of steel. 66 My son is dead, here you never see him again!"

"So he has taken the path of death against which I honestly cautioned him?" cried Montbars, catching the swooning Maria in his arms.

"You, you cautioned him?" said Gusman, stepping towards him, "Thus you are the Hidalgo who delivered to me the false dispatches. Yes, I now recognise your features again. You loved Maria, and, notwithstanding, would save her husband, who proud and scoffing rejected your faithful warnings. Surely, you deserve to be a Castilian. I feel I could forgive you all I have suffered by you ;-I feel it, I have pardoned you-even if the preservation of the galleon was but a wellmeant story, composed by Maria's distracted love."

At this moment Don Diego entered the apartment, and, shuddering with awe, Montbars said, "The dead rise from the depths of the ocean to testify the truth for me!"

"For once my swimming has saved my life," cried he, heartily embracing the young man. "The galleon took me up. There, however, I remained silent about you and your true motives for discontinuing the chase-at first, to prevent that my magnanimous preserver should be betrayed in case we should, notwithstanding, have happened to be be taken; afterwards-to keep the disclosure of your latest actions for some decisive catastrophe. It has come now, I see, and I will speak. Yes, father, this hero, in order to save me from a death of torture, and to let the galleon escape, has twice, at the imminent hazard of his life, faced the mutiny of his own men. He has to the king of Spain preserved millions, to the holy church her consecrated daughters, to hundreds of noble Spaniards their wives and their children, and thereby deserved so well of our country, that he well may ask every reward that your hands are able to bestow."

Then the venerable governor beckoned to loose the fetters of the prisoner, drew with trembling hand the VOL. II.

golden-hilted sword, touched Montbars' head with it and said solemnly: "In the name of God, and the king, our lord, and by virtue of the power entrusted to me, I grant unto you, Montbars, and unto your men, full amnesty for the past." Then he sheathed his sword, drew with deep emotion the youth to his breast, and already seized Maria's hand to join it to his. But suddenly he drew back his hand and asked with seriousness," But are you also in truth a good Nobleman and Catholic Christian?"

"Of the oldest most faithful nobility of France!" cried Maria, "for centuries the Montbars and Montaubans have been honoured there."

Then the veteran united the hands of the lovers, when an officer announced an old Bucanier of Montbars' crew, who insisted upon dying with his captain, if he were to be executed.

"That is my faithful old uncle," said Montbars exulting, and brought in the old Taureau, who on hearing the fortunate change of affairs, wept tears of joy-the first time for many long, long years, and patted with his hard brown hand the rosy velvet of Maria's cheeks.

When now Don Gusman too, offered his reconciling hand to the happy Montbars, he, ashamed, drew back his, and said with a gentle reproach to Diego, "That in this contest of generosity I must blush, is your fault, my brother. You ascribed the preservation of the galleon to my generosity and remained silent as to the only true impulse of my action-love for Maria whom I thought to save with the vessel.”

"It was love, brother!" cried Diego, "and that is enough! Give to the heavenly flame what name you like→→ call it love of sex, humanity, generosity, compassion, gratitude :--wherever it burns, it inflames to noble deeds. It inspired you, forgetting party-rage and national hatred, to save us, where no hope for earthly reward could dazzle you. Glowing in our hearts it makes us exultingly recognise your rare worth, and through Maria's hand let it twine the sacred myrtle-wreath into your bloody laurel-crown."

"Amen!" cried Don Gusman; and blessing them, laid his hands upon the heads of the happy couple.

2 D

I was wandering through the Pyrerenees, holding a bible in my hand; I had just read the sublime and pathetic elegies, dictated by the Spirit to the most ancient poets about the death of Saul and Jonathan, on that of Abner, the fall of Jerusalem, the exile of Israel's Sons, the fall of Tyrus, the inexpressible sufferings of our Lord, and the weakness of human kind. The impression brought on my mind by the reading of those melancholy lamentations, increased by the awful and deep silence of the solitude, soon incited me to look back for the nature and origin of ancient elegy; which may be traced up as far as the birth of the world: when the first man and his consort having forfeited their innocence were obliged to leave the garden of Delices, and the blood of the first just man had been spilt, groans and lamentations succeeded songs of love, admiration and gratitude, which till then had been unceasingly sent up to the throne of our Creator: earth was no more happy because of her being guilty: then mercy descended from heaven to comfort her and she then first shed tears on the first tomb.

Poets, afterwards, having traced back the vestiges and gathered up the inspirations of that heavenly messenger, celebrated in their verses the remembrance of religious men, of benefactors to human kind, warriors killed for the defence of their country, or kings truly worthy to be the rulers of nations. At first closely shut up in the narrow circle of private affections and home sorrows, they soon raised their tone to sing the funerals of cities and empires. The Hebrews called these moanful tunes," Kinot," that is, groans, wailings; but the Greeks and Latins called it Elegeia."

Elegy among the Hebrews ever kept its own character; but in Greece and Italy it softened and gradually degenerated under the influence of a quite

sensual religion; at last almost forgetful of her primitive design, she boldly devoted to the describing of lovers' joys and sorrows, a voice which she had not been gifted with for such a use. Mimnermus is said to have first conveyed her from funerals and ruins to Cupid's bower.* My object here is not to follow her in her rambles in foreign lands; as well as herself restrained in the ancient bounds of her empire, I will describe her first such as she was among the Hebrews, when singing to her sad and majestic harp, through Job, David, Isaiah, Ezekiel and Jeremiah, the great and melancholy events that happened whilst they lived. Whilst under the delightful sky of Greece and Italy, she will draw on her my attentions only when she remembers that she was born amidst tears and groans, and that her cradle was shadowed by a cypress tree; I will follow her steps among modern nations, and will pay an homage to her songs, when she will have been faithfully consistent with her character: lastly I will bring her back to France, so worthy of awakening up her pathetic and comforting

voice.

ART. I.-ELEGY AMONG THE HEBREWS.

We read in the Paralipomenes that the death of Josiah, Judah's king, was lamented by the whole people, and especially by Jeremiah, and that on this occasion he composed an elegy, which was ever since sung every year in the solemnity of a festival:

"Et universa Juda et Jerusalem luxerunt eum, Jeremias maxime Cujus omnes cantores atque cantatrices usque in prosentem diem, lamentationes super Josiam replicant, et quasi lex obtinet in Israel." That sad hymn, had it been spared by time, would most certainly be the most splendid specimen of heroic elegy.

Josiah was as great a king as Jere

miah was an able Panegyrist. God had made a choice of them before they were born: the former to crush idolatry and restore the true worship, and the latter to foretel and sing the fall, restoration and glory of states.* The Holy Spirit has himself dictated the eulogium of the former,† and the latter, according to the opinion of the last father and most eloquent preacher of the Gallican church, is the only one able to adequate the wailings to the calamities. It must not be said that when the elegy, whose loss we must lament, was declared a national poem, the art was yet in its infancy; the Hebrews had long been possessed of the book of Job, of Moses', David's, Solomon's canticles as well as of the most part of the prophets, and other holy writers, whose names are met with in historical chronicles.

Besides, it is very worthy of remark, that poetry among God's people did not undergo that state of weaknessthat march of slow or rapid improvements and decay which signalize the different periods of profane sciences and arts. The beginning as well as the midst and end of its career is remarkable for its master pieces. Noble offspring of heaven.-She rushed up in her first soaring to the summit of perfection; thus proving the divinity of her origin, and how important was her mission on earth. We are, therefore, induced to believe, that in this grand circumstance he, who made himself the channel through which public grief was expressed, reached the height of the subject, fulfilled the expectations of the nation, and showed himself worthy of his high character.

Let us fancy that grand scene of mourning. Josiah, whilst fighting against Nechao, the Egyptian King, had been deadly wounded in the Mageddo fields, he bid his attendants to carry him on the second cart that, according to the kings of the East's custom, fol

lowed up close to his war cart. On hearing the afflicting news of a death far more glorious than a triumph, all Judah utters lamentable wailings "Heu! voe! Inclyte !"

Meanwhile, he is carried into the gardens of Oza, his ancestors' ancient burial ground; having entered his long home,§ Josiah takes his place and commences beside them his deathsleep. The standers-by withdraw, walking backwards, and thrice tearing up the grass, which they throw behind them, they exclaim, "As the flower of the field so man flourisheth."||

All of a sudden they call back to their memory the prophets' ancient and later predictions, and the awful reading of the book of the law by Josiah himself in the temple of Jerusalem; they feel that the king's piety is the only thing that kept back the arm of the Almighty, when at the very moment of falling heavily on Judah, and that his death is the infallible forerunner of the long, lasting, and dreadful evils announced in the Deuteronomy; they lift up their head towards the mountain which so many miracles had consecrated, and rush all at once to the abode of their Lord. Jeremiah follows them thither; this prophet, visibly filled with the Holy Spirit ascends that iron balcony from whence Solomon prayed to the Almighty his very regal prayer on the day when the temple was dedicated.**

It is to be regretted, that the frequently renewed searches to discover Bossuet's manuscript on the prophets have proved fruitless.++ It is flattering to reflect, that he might have filled up the place, so as to atone for the loss of the lamentation on Josiah. No body was ever so well qualified to fulfil such a high commission, and to raise a monument to the memory of the best of kings, as that genius, apparently born to be death's orator-that genius who has so gloriously mixed his name with

§ Eccl. xii. 5.

Isaiah xl. 6, and Ps. ii. 15.

Deut. c. xxviii.

** 3 Kings, iii, viii,