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Still let your haggard debtors bear all their fathers bore:
Still let your dens of torment be noisome as of yore;

No fire when Tiber freezes; no air in day-star heat;

And store of rods for free-born backs, and holes for free-born
feet.1

Heap heavier still the fetters; bar closer still the grate ;
Patient as sheep we yield us up unto your cruel hate.
But, by the Shades beneath us, and by the Gods above,
Add not unto your cruel hate your yet more cruel love!
Have ye not graceful Ladies, whose spotless lineage springs
From Consuls and High Pontiffs, and ancient Alban kings?
Ladies, who deign not on our paths to set their tender feet,
Who from their cars look down with scorn upon the wondering
street,

Who in Corinthian mirrors their own proud smiles behold,
And breathe of Capuan odours, and shine with Spanish gold?
Then leave the poor Plebeian his single tie to life—
The sweet, sweet love of daughter, of sister, and of wife,
The gentle speech, the balm for all that his vexed soul endures,
The kiss, in which he half forgets even such a yoke as yours.
Still let the maiden's beauty swell the father's breast with pride;
Still let the bridegroom's arms infold an unpolluted bride,
Spare us the inexpiable wrong, the unutterable shame,

That turns the coward's heart to steel, the sluggard's blood to
flame,

Lest, when our latest hope is fled, ye taste of our despair,
And learn by proof, in some wild hour, how much the wretched
dare.3

LORD LYTTON.

LORD LYTTON, one of the most elegant novelists of the time, is also a dramatic poet and satirist. His plays are the "Lady of Lyons," the "Duchess de la Valliere," and "Richelieu." The lyrical pieces scattered over his novels are remarkable for their pure and classic gracefulness. His most elaborate poetical work is a romantic legendary poem entitled "King Arthur." Few authors have been at once so industrious and so versatile. He has tried all subjects and styles, his chief success being in the department of prose fiction, in which he has been steadily advancing in purity of taste and moral power, as well as in popularity. Born in 1805, Edward Lytton Bulwer Lytton was created a baronet in 1838, and raised to the peerage as Lord Lytton in 1866.

1 The insignia of Consular authority were the Fasces (bundles of rods with axes stuck among them), denoting the punishments of scourging and decapitation; koles, the stocks (nervus, Lat.-podokakke, Gr.) See Potter and Adam.

2 The ancient mirrors were of metal: the aes Corinthium was celebrated for its excellence.-Capua, “the luxurious capital" of Campania. The mines of Spain supplied gold to the neighbouring countries.

For specimens of the Roman "radical" orations, on which the passage is founded, see Livy. ii. 23, 55: iii. 9, 10, 15, 39, 52; and in later times, iv. 3-5, 35, 44: V. 2, etc. 4 The mistress of Louis XIV.

FROM THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 509

FROM THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE.

Act IV. Scene 4.

BRAGELONE TO THE KING.

ALAS! the Church! 'Tis true, this garb of serge
Dares speech that daunts the ermine, and walks free
Where stout hearts tremble in the triple mail.1
But wherefore?—Lies the virtue in the robe,
Which the moth eats? or in these senseless beads?

Or in the name of Priest? The Pharisees

Had priests that gave their Saviour to the cross!
No! we have high immunity and sanction,

That Truth may teach humanity to Power,

Glide through the dungeon, pierce the arméd throng,
Awaken luxury on her Sybarite2 couch,

And, startling souls that slumber on a throne,

Bow kings before that priest of priests—THE CONSCIENCE!

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This makes us sacred. The profane are they

Honouring the herald while they scorn the mission.
The king who serves the church, yet clings to mammon,
Who fears the pastor, but forgets the flock,

Who bows before the monitor, and yet

Will ne'er forego the sin, may sink, when age
Palsies the lust and deadens the temptation,
To the priest-ridden, not repentant, dotard,-
For pious hopes hail superstitious terrors,
And seek some sleek Iscariot of the Church,
To sell salvation for the thirty pieces.

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Great though thou art, awake thee from the dream
That earth was made for kings-mankind for slaughter- -
Woman for lust-the People for the Palace!

Dark warnings have gone forth; along the air
Lingers the crash of the first Charles's throne.
Behold the young, the fair, the haughty king,
The ruling courtiers, and the flattering priests!
Lo! where the palace rose, behold the scaffold-

The crowd-the axe-the headsman-and the victim !

Lord of the Silver Lilies, canst thou tell

If the same fate await not thy descendant!

If some meek son of thine imperial line

May make no brother to yon headless spectre !

1 Shakespeare; 2 Henry VI., Act i. Sc. 3. Comp. Hor. odes, i. 3, 9.

2 The Greek cities of the south coast of ancient Italy were infamous and proverbial for their luxury and effeminacy: one of the most splendid and powerful of them was Sybaris on the Tarentine Gulf. Juvenal, vi. 295. Ælian, i. 19, etc.

3 Of England.

4 Louis XVI.; the French nation have of late had too much contempt for their deposed kings, or too much magnanimity to execute them.

And when the sage who saddens o'er the end
Tracks back the causes, tremble, lest he finds
The seeds, thy wars, thy pomp, and thy profusion,1
Sowed in a heartless court and breadless people,

Grew to the tree from which men shaped the scaffold,-
And the long glare of thy funereal glories
Light unborn monarchs to a ghastly grave?
Beware, proud King! the Present cries aloud,
A prophet to the Future! Wake!-beware!

FROM THE LADY OF LYONS.

Act II.-Scene 1.

MELNOTTE TO PAULINE.

[Their home was to be]

A palace lifting to eternal summer
Its marble walls, from out a glossy bower
Of coolest foliage musical with birds

Whose songs should syllable thy name! At noon
We'd sit beneath the arching vines, and wonder
Why Earth could be unhappy, while the Heaven
Still left us youth and love; we'd have no friends
That were not lovers; no ambition, save
To excel them all in love; we'd read no books
That were not tales of love-that we might smile
To think how poorly eloquence of words
Translates the poetry of hearts like ours!

And when night came, amidst the breathless heavens
We'd guess what star should be our home when love
Becomes immortal; while the perfumed light
Stole through the mists of alabaster lamps,
And every air was heavy with the sighs

Of orange groves and music from sweet lutes,
And murmurs of low fountains that gush forth

I' the midst of roses! Dost thou like the picture?

FROM KING ARTHUR.-Book IV.

INVOCATION TO LOVE.

Hail thou, the ever young, albeit of night

And of primæval chaos, eldest born;

Thou, at whose birth broke forth the Founts of Light,
And o'er Creation flush'd the earliest morn!

1 Many of the seeds of the first French Revolution were sown, by the "causes" mentioned, in the reigns of Louis XIV. and of his contemptible successor Louis XV. Society was corrupted by false philosophy and bad government; the national taxation was unequal and oppressive: and when a financial crisis came, all the ties that bind civilised men together seemed broken up in the terrible struggle.

FROM KING ARTHUR.

Life, in thy life, suffused the conscious whole;
And formless matter took the harmonious soul.

Hail, Love the Death-defyer! age to age

Linking, with flowers, in the still heart of man!
Dream to the Bard, and marvel to the Sage,
Glory and mystery since the world began.
Shadowing the cradle, bright'ning at the tomb,
Soft as our joys, and solemn as our doom!

Ghost-like amidst the unfamiliar Past,

Dim shadows flit along the streams of Time;
Vainly our learning trifles with the vast

Unknown of ages! Like the wizard's rhyme
We call the dead, and from the Tartarus
'Tis but the dead that rise to answer us!

Voiceless and wan, we question them in vain ;
They leave unsolved earth's mighty yesterday.
But wave thy wand-they bloom, they breathe again!
The link is found!-as we love, so loved they!
Warm to our clasp our human brothers start,
Man smiles on man, and heart speaks out to heart.

Arch power, of every power most dread, most sweet,
Ope at thy touch the far celestial gates;

Yet Terror flies with Joy before thy feet,

And, with the Graces, glide unseen the Fates;
Eos and Hesperus,-one,1 with twofold light,
Bringer of day, and herald of the night.

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Mild, like all Strength, sits crowned Liberty,
Wearing the aspect of a youthful Queen;
And far outstretch'd along the unmeasured sea
Rolls the vast shadow of her throne; serene
From the dumb icebergs to the fiery zone,
Rests the vast shadow of that guardian throne.

And round her group the Cymrian's changeless race,
Blent with the Saxon, brother-like; and both
Saxon and Cymrian from that sovereign trace

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Their hero line ;-sweet flower of age-long growth;

1 Venus is sometimes a morning (Eos) sometimes an evening star (Hesperus). Some of the beauties of this invocation are drawn from the Orphic and Hesiodic mythology.

2 Cymri, Cumbri, the ancient Britons, of whom Arthur was king; hence Cambria, Wales: Cumberland, and the Cumbrae isles, on the coast of the British" kingdom of Strathclyde. For the Welsh Cymri, see Scott's "Betrothed."-Cerdic, the Saxon founder of the Heptarch kingdom of Wessex, Arthur's antagonist.-White plume, see Spenser's description of Arthur, p. 60.

The single blossom on the twofold stem;
Arthur's white plume crests Cerdic's diadem.

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Behold the close of thirteen hundred years;
Lo! Cymri's daughter on the Saxon throne!
Free as their air thy Cymrian mountaineers,

And in the heavens one rainbow cloud alone
Which shall not pass, until, the cycle o'er,
The soul of Arthur comes to earth once more.

THOMAS NOON TALFOURD.
(1795-1854.)

MR. JUSTICE TALFOURD was the author of three tragedies, "The Athenian Captive," "Ion," and "The Massacre of Glencoe." The two former are constructed on the classical model, the incidents and catastrophe of each piece being independent of the character of the hero, and urged on under the law of an uncontrollable destiny. Both tragedies are extremely interesting in the conduct of the story, rich in imagery, and pure and elegant in language. The poet produced a number of small occasional pieces; and he was twice the biographer of his beloved friend Charles Lamb. Talfourd was a native of Reading in Berkshire.

FROM THE ATHENIAN CAPTIVE.
Act IV. Scene 3.

MOTHER AND SON-THE REVELATION.1

SCENE-The hall of Statues in the Palace (at Argos).

Thoas. [Alone.] Again I stand within this awful hall;
I found the entrance here, without the sense

Of vision; for a foul and clinging mist,
Like the damp vapour of a long-closed vault,
Is round me. Now its objects start to sight
With terrible distinctness! Crimson stains
Break sudden on the walls! The fretted roof
Grows living! Let me hear a human voice,
Or I shall play the madman!

Enter Ismene, richly dressed.

Ismene. Noble soldier,

I bid thee welcome, with the rapturous heart
Of one, for whom thy patriot arm hath wrought

1 Thoas, an Athenian warrior, captured in battle by the Corinthians, and reduced to slavery by Creon the Corinthian king, is urged by the queen Ismene, originally an Athenian lady, to murder Creon in revenge for the injuries she had suffered from the king. Thoas performs her will, and escapes in remorse to the approaching Athenian army; the city surrenders, and Ismene reveals herself as the mother of Thoas.

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