Hark! a footstep-tis gone! Be still, my heart. Hark! it is! I tremble. My Mordant! It is—Maria ! Maria.-My love! Ellen, Ellen! Nay, weep not. My beloved, you frighten me; my heart will break. He may comespeak to me, Ellen-he may come yet. Those convulsive sobs are dreadful. My love, speak to me. I am most miserable! Ellen.-Bear with me a little, a very little. 'Tis all true; I feel it now. My heart suffocates me, Maria. Bear with me awhile. MariaWeep on, my love. My poor Ellen, there, on my bosom, pour forth thy tears: tears are the heart's balm. My love! Ellen. My kind friend! I am very weak; I did not think I was so weak. Forgive me these tears, they are the last testimony of my passion. All is over. I am better now. Come. Maria.-Lean on me. You tremble, dear Ellen. SCENE III-GARDEN AS IN THE LAST SCENE-TIME, EVENING. Ellen.-I fear I shall weary you, Maria. 1 feel weaker to-night than usual. Maria-You falter, love. Lean heavily on me; there, let me clasp thy waist. We will return; the air is chill. Ellen.-No: I am better. We will rest awhile. Ellen.-Yes; no other. Nay, do not fear me; I am now sorrowseasoned. Yes, to the fountain! I feel stronger; a strange quietude comes over me, as if my spirit were bent to some bold enterprise. Maria, I do remember once-it seems an age ago-when I was young-yes, young; for hearts (not years) are time's true chroniclers: when I was young, then, some twelve month's since I do remember the story of a youth who had outlived his wants and could not wait for death; death was his last of human wants. He died. How inexplicable, then, to me, how dreadful, death; when life was Eden, and love's atmosphere bathed everything in its own radiance; till every ray, concentrate in one, burnt up the heart! Death, Maria, death now (for I am very old) is my sad life's refuge. Maria.-Ellen, my love, this is not kind; your grief is selfish. Ellen.-Selfish? Can grief be selfish? Maria. To wish for death: when I have watched, through two long months, the tedious windings of your illness, through days and nights unbroken interchange, and while you slumbered have tended you as doth the poor bankrupt the last venture of his fortunes, you would die! Ellen.-Forgive me; kiss me. I am a selfish girl: 'tis a lesson I have learned of late. Two months lost of my brief life! Here, Maria, rest we awhile, on this same moss-grown water edge. The dull grey stone is changeless, and the grotesque image gazes with untired eyes down on the restless waters. Three months, three months, Maria; and in three months more the change will be complete. Nay, weep not: would that I could weep! My heart is a dried fountain; there is no moisture, no, not even the dew of common tenderness. Maria.-Shall we compare our griefs? My woes wear the livery of yours, sole tenants of my desolate heart, how long concealed, brooding in silence, when you were all hope and joy! The contrast was a cruelty to me; yet talked I not of death, but with a patient spirit trained my heart to the hard task of seeming glad. Ellen.-Forgive me, my love. I am young in grief; I'll learn to suffer patiently. Here be our friendship's fane; by the bubbling waters we will meet and school each other into sober sadness, and with dry eyes talk of the past-the past. The sibyl could not die till she had clasped her dear Cumean earth. This spot is my Cumea; here first I felt the bliss of living, existence was till then a sparkling unconnected dream; Cumea gave me my heart's birth, and here-like a loving child, with its soft face of light and laughter, and visionary fancies of the future, suddenly blasted in its extacy-lies dead! This be my Cumea. Maria.-It cannot be ! Ellen. My love! Maria. And yet the long grass is bowed down far back into the wood.-(Suddenly turning round) Oh, God! my Ellen, know you this? (showing her a hair-ring, which she has just discovered on the margin of the fountain). 'Tis his! me. Ellen. What else? Maria.-(Looking round). He must be here! Maria. The ring, Fllen! Know you this ring? Ellen.-'Tis mine! yes, 'tis mine! 'twas mine! Nay, give it Poor trifle! I have a vague remembrance that thou wert once a costly treasure. I do remember me, Maria. He almost snatched it from my hand, and covered it with kisses. You smile: indeed, 'tis true. A strange worship and a silly idol, was it not, Maria? yet 'tis true. Ah, me! I think this little fold of platted hair should make me weep, for it is full of memories. I cannot weep; tears are the heart's counsellors, they say, poor pleaders often. I have no heart, no feeling; 'tis strange, Maria, but I cannot feel. Maria. The poor exile, who had wept long years away, complained he could not weep; he said 'twas strange. [Mordant, who had concealed himself, comes suddenly before them.] Mordant.-Ellen! Ellen. I should know you, Sir. Maria. (Whispers). Courage, my sweet girl. Ellen. Mordant, I have been very ill since last we parted: come, sit down by me, for we are old friends, you know. Oh, you are married; I do remember, you left me to be married. Your bride is beautiful? Does she often smile upon you, Mordant? You weep; you are very kind, a gay bridegroom, to feel thus for a poor sickly girl. Mordant.-My Ellen, forgive me! 'Tis false! 1 am not married-love none, have loved none, but thee! Ellen. Your arm, Maria. Mordant, I will be a debtor to you, too; your arm, come. Not married! not married! And what is that to me? yet, like a riddle, it enshrouds a meaning. Not married! Mordant. My beloved Ellen, I am thy own Mordant. Be not so lost thou shalt be my blooming bride. I ever loved thee. A vain caprice hath crept between us. 'Tis past I will never leave thee more! Ellen.-(Stands still, looking down). Thy blooming bride? Ellen.-Maria, pluck me that little pale and shrunken flower: thank you. How many sunny mornings, think you, have opened upon this flower, drinking the diamond-beaded dew from off its leaves? and it has withered! Know you, Mordant, why? Mordant. My love! Ellen.-It held no sympathy with life; the sun warmed and the dew bathed it, but it could not feel. Mordant.-My Ellen, what dost thou mean? Thou wilt live, and be again my joyous fondest girl, my wife, my fond wife! Ellen.-Thy wife! I should be happy then. I will be. My bridal dresses are prepared. Maria! nay, look not jealously upon me; we will not part, Maria. Oh, what a life of sunny dreams will float around me! I do behold it all. On a bright summer's morning, the village bells wake jocund every sparkling eye, the laughing maidens and the flaunting ribbons, the innocent jest, the wine cup and the feast, and heart-throbbing healths of happiness to the fair bride; the solemn service, the silence and the ring, the dead around us! I faint! the ring-Mordant-I sink—I die! SCENE IV.-AN OLD-FASHIONED PARLOUR An old Lady and young Maiden. Maiden. And she died, aunt? Aunt. She died. Maiden.-Poor Ellen! and she was beautiful! And Mordantdid he, too, die ? Aunt.-Listen, my child. And oh, may my words be a charm around thy heart, to save thee! Mordant lived and married. Maiden.-Married, aunt? Aunt.-Listen. A little before poor Ellen died, three days after her fainting in the garden, she woke as from an opiate dream. Her feelings, fondness, sympathies returned. She was most lovely: no stain of death obscured her bright complexion, no care disturbed her peace: passion was dead. Mordant and I sat by her couch. Mordant was a poet, and as the gold-suffused sky reflected its amber light over her beautiful and faded form, he felt-yes, he thought 'twas love. "Twas sensibility, or sentiment, or poetry; but 'twas not love. He wept; and so he would had all been but a vision of his mind. She died. He heard the village bells, and wept; and what was luxury he fancied woe. I hated him not; I despised him. Mordant was what the world approves, a man of refinement, sensibility, and caprice. Ellen's death was poetry to him. He robbed her of her love, and love, with woman, is a PRINCIPLE; left her through caprice, returned through selfishness, and wept by impulse: grieved -he never grieved. Maiden.-Are all men Mordants? Aunt.-All: the exceptions characterize the rule. Strength brutalizes them, school hardens them, society vitiates them, and poverty and wealth demonize them. Maiden.-And woman- RECENT CONTRIBUTIONS TO ENGLISH HISTORY. NUMBER I. "THE History of England is still to be written," is an observation as true as it is frequently made; and one, moreover, which must necessarily be repeated for many years to come. In the first place, because the earlier materials for such a work have as yet scarcely been subjected to that rigid critical examination into their authenticity and historical value, which is necessary to a just appreciation of their authority, though the recent labours of Lingard, Palgrave, and Lappenberg,* in this particular branch of the subject, have done much to facilitate the enquiries of subsequent writers; and, in the second place, because there exists many sources of our more recent history, which, having hitherto been neglected, require to be thoroughly investigated—a work which the present generation can scarcely hope to see brought to completion, notwithstanding the spirit of research and enquiry which is actively bestirring itself on every side, and has manifested its existence in an extraordinary manner, by the numbers which it has enrolled under the banners of the CAMDEN SOCIETY,† See more particularly the literary introduction which Dr. Lappenberg has prefixed to the first volume of his admirable History of England (Geschichte von England, Band I., s. i—lxxviii.), a work to which we purpose to direct the attention of our readers on some future occasion; in the meanwhile they will, we are sure, join us in our hope that the English translation of it, which has been already prepared by a very distinguished scholar, may be laid before the public. + We are here only echoing the sentiments expressed by Mr. Hallam at the late dinner of the Literary Fund, when, in returning thanks after the toast, "Mr. Hallam and the historical writers of England," that gentleman instanced, as a striking proof of the progress which historical studies were |