it deserves. The beauty of the expressions gives a novel charm to an idea not very new, and even the melancholy turn of it is an additional beauty:

The crowd are gone, the revellers at rest;
The courteous host, and all-approving guest,
Again to that accustomed couch must creep
Where joy subsides, and sorrow sighs to sleep,
And man, o'er-labored with his being's strife,
Shrinks to that sweet forgetfulness of life:
There lie Love's feverish hope, and Cunning's guile,
Hate's working brain, and lulled Ambition's wile;
O'er each vain eye Oblivion's pinions wave,
And quenched existence crouches in a grave.
What better name may slumber's bed become?
Night's sepulchre, the universal home,

Where weakness, strength, vice, virtue, sunk supine,

Alike in naked helplessness recline;

Glad for a while to heave unconscious breath,

Yet wake to wrestle with the dread of death,

And shun, though day but dawn on ills increast,

That sleep, the loveliest, since it dreams the least.

We could not forgive ourselves, after having called our readers' attention to the beauty of the last stanza, if we did not claim from them scarcely a secondary admiration for that which begins the second canto :

Night wanes the vapours round the mountains curled
Melt into morn, and Light awakes the world.
Man has another day to swell the past,

And lead him near to little, but his last;
But mighty Nature bounds as from her birth,
The sun is in the heavens, and life on earth;
Flowers in the valley, splendour in the beam,
Health on the gale, and freshness in the stream.
Immortal man! behold her glories shine,
And cry, exulting inly, They are thine!'
Gaze on, while yet thy gladdened eye may see;
A morrow comes when they are not for thee:
And, grieve what may above thy senseless bier,
Nor earth nor sky will yield a single tear;

Nor cloud shall gather more, nor leaf shall fall,
Nor gale breathe forth one sigh for thee, for all;
But creeping things shall revel in their spoil,
And fit thy clay to fertilize the soil.

The morning on which Sir Ezzelin, the stranger knight, was to redeem his pledge, arrives. Lara repairs to the castle of Otho, and waits in calm but haughty confidence the coming of his accuser. Otho becomes impatient, but firm in his belief of his absent friend's honour and veracity, and pledges himself for his appearance, or offers to redeem his knighthood's stain.'

Lara, with the same composed demeanour that has always marked him, requires the baron either to produce his friend or to redeem the pledge he has given with his sword, Otho says the last alternative befits him best, and bares his weapon.

With cheek unchanging from its sallow gloom,
However near his own or other's tomb;
With hand, whose almost careless coolness spoke
Its grasp well-used to deal the sabre-stroke;
With eye, though calm, determined not to spare,
Did Lara, too, his willing weapon bare.
In vain the circling chieftains round them closed,
For Otho's frenzy would not be opposed;
And from his lip those words of insult fell-
His sword is good who can maintain them well.

Short was the conflict; furious, blindly rash,
Vain Otho gave his bosom to the gash:
He bled, and fell; but not with deadly wound,
Stretched by a dexterous sleight along the ground.
'Demand thy life!' He answered not: and then
From that red floor he ne'er had risen again,
For Lara's brow upon the moment grew
Almost to blackness in its demon hue;
And fiercer shook his angry falchiou now
Than when his foe's was levelled at his brow;

Then all was stern collectedness and art,

Now rose the unleavened hatred of his heart;
So little sparing to the foe he felled,

That, when the approaching crowd his arm withheld,

He almost turned the thirsty point on those,
Who thus for mercy dared to interpose ;
But to a moment's thought that purpose bent;
Yet looked he on him still with eye intent,
As if he loathed the ineffectual strife

That left a foe, howe'er o'erthrown, with life;
As if to search how far the wound he gave
Had sent its victim onward to his grave.

The haughty conqueror, thus prevented from taking the vengeance for which he thirsts, returns to his own towers.

But where was he? that meteor of a night,
Who menaced but to disappear with light?
Where was this Ezzelin? who came and went
To leave no other trace of his intent.
He left the dome of Otho long ere morn,
In darkness, yet so well the path was worn
He could not miss it: near his dwelling lay;
But there he was not, and with coming day
Came fast inquiry, which unfolded nought
Except the absence of the chief it sought.
A chamber tenantless, a steed at rest,
His host alarmed, his murmuring squires distrest:
Their search extends along, around the path,
In dread to meet the marks of prowlers' wrath :
But none are there, and not a brake hath borne
Nor gout of blood, nor shred of mantle torn;
Nor fall nor struggle hath defaced the grass,
Which still retains a mark where murder was;
Nor dabbling fingers left to tell the tale,
The bitter print of each convulsive nail,
When agonized hands, that cease to guard,
Wound in that pang the smoothness of the sward.
Some such had been, if here a life was reft;
But these were not; and doubting hope is left
And strange suspicion, whispering Lara's name,
Now daily mutters o'er his blackened fame;
Then sudden silent when his form appeared,
Awaits the absence of the thing it feared
Again its wonted wondering to renew,
And dye conjecture with a darker hue.

Otho's wounds are healed, and with returning strength grows the desire for revenge on Lara. He hates him no less for the defeat which be bas suffered from him than for the wrong which he believes Sir Ezzelin has received at his hands. The valour and high honour of the latter knight were too well known to permit the supposition that he would shrink from a couflict with any one, still less that he would shun such as that he had provoked with Lara. It was not unreasonable, therefore, to suppose that he had perished by the hands of that person who could alone have cause to tremble at being confronted with him. At all events, the circumstances were sufficient to found an accusation upon; and Otho, not thinking it wise again to have recourse to the sword, denounces Lara to the tribunals of justice as the murderer of Ezzelin. The power, the wealth, and the reputation of Otho, give weight to his charge; while the mystery which envelops Lara adds to the prejudice already excited against him:

And he must answer for the absent head

Of one that haunts him still, alive or dead.

Lara's manner of ruling his own serfs, which was more temperate and reasonable than that adopted by the other feudal lords, had made him very popular among the desperate and discontented. He found that there was a large band of resolute persons willing to take up arms, and able to wield them, at his entire disposal. He saw that in a court of justice he should be exposed to difficulties, perhaps to dangers, which his spirit prompted him to disdain. An account would be required from him of his past life, and this it would at least be highly inconvenient to answer, He resolved, therefore, at once to dispute the authority which it was attempted to exercise over him; and to take his chance of fighting out the battle, though against great odds.

The moment came, the hour when Otho thought
Secure at last the vengeance which he sought;
His summons found the destined criminal
Begirt by thousands in his swarming hall,
Fresh from their feudal fetters newly riven,
Defying earth, and confident of heaven.
That morning he had freed the soil-bound slaves
Who dig no land for tyrants but their graves!
Such is their cry-some watchword for the fight
Must vindicate the wrong, and warp the right;

Religion-freedom-vengeance-what you will

A word's enough to raise mankind to kill; ́

Some factious phrase by cunning caught and spread,
That guilt may reign, and wolves and worms be fed !

The men which Lara brings into the field at first obtain a victory, under the mere impulse of their new courage and their dawning hopes of freedom; but this victory is their ruin. Intoxicated with the belief that the prize is won, they rush blindly onward, and are severely checked. Excellent soldiers for the campaign of a day, but utterly unable to encounter all the slow and toilsome duties of a long-continued warfare, they are, after various successes, reduced to a small band, with which Lara seeks to effect a retreat to the frontiers. In this, however, he is disappointed; he is surrounded on all sides, and reduced to the desperate necessity of attempting to cut a passage through the forces which hedge him round. In this attempt he receives a mortal shot:

His blade is bared, in him there is an air
As deep, but far too tranquil for despair;
A something of indifference more than then
Becomes the bravest, if they feel for men.
He turned his eye on Kaled, ever near,
And still too faithful to betray one fear;
Perchance 'twas but the moon's dim twilight threw
Along his aspect an unwonted hue

Of mournful paleness, whose deep tint exprest
The truth, and not the terror, of his breast.
This Lara marked, and laid his hand on his :
It trembled not in such an hour as this;
His lip was silent, scarcely beat his heart,
His eye alone proclaimed We will not part!
Thy band may perish, or thy friends may flee;
Farewell to life, but not adieu to thee!'

The word hath passed his lips, aud, onward driven,
Pours the linked band through ranks asunder riven;
Well has each steed obeyed the armed heel,
And flash the scimitars, and rings the steel;
Outnumbered, not outbraved, they still oppose
Despair to daring, and a front to foes;

And blood is mingled with the dashing stream,
Which runs all redly till the morning beam.