Only feel how warm our hands are; wake, and place thy hands in ours. Wake, and sing us some old ballad of the wand'ring troubadours. Tell us of those knights whom fairies used to help to love and fame, Knights who brought, instead of posies, spoils and trophies to their dame, And whose war-cry in the battle was a lady's gentle name. Tell us what's the sacred token wicked shapes and sprites to scare! And of Lucifer who was it saw him flying through the air? What's the gem that's on the forehead of the King of Gnomes display'd? Does Archbishop Turpin's psalter, or Roland's enormous blade, Daunt the great black King of Evil?-Say, which makes him most afraid? Or thy large old Bible reach us, with its pictures bright and blue,Heav'n all gold; and saints a-kneeling; and the infant Jesus too, In the manger with the oxen; and the kings; and soft and slow O'er the middle of the pages guide our fingers as we go, Reading some of that good Latin, speaks to God from us, you know. Grandam, see! the light is failing,-failing; and upon the hearth And around the blackened ingle leaps the shadow in its mirth. Ha! perhaps the sprites are coming!yes, they'll soon be at the door ;Wake, oh, wake! and if you're praying, dearest grandam, pray no more: Sure, you do not wish to fright us, you who cheered us aye before! But thine arms are colder, colder; and thine eyes so closed are ;— 'Twas but lately you did tell us of another world afar; And of heav'n you were discoursing, and the grave, where people lie,Told us life was short and fleeting, and of death, that all must die. What is death? dear grandam, tell us what it is, you don't reply!" Long time did those slender voices moan and murmur all alone: Still the aged dame awaked not, though the golden morning shone. Soon was heard the dismal tolling of the solemn funeral bell, Mournfully the air resounded: and, as silent evening fell, One who pass'd that door half-open'd those two little ones espied, With the holy book before them kneeling at the lone bedside. To quit troubadours and trouvères, " Provençals or Picards, here is a snatch from the Romancero General. Who, native or foreign, has ever ventured to compete with Lockhart in the handling of a Spanish ballad? The following "Romance Mauresque stands in the middle of the Orientales; Spain is a ground that Victor delights to tread over again. We place the English version of this, one of the many ballads on the infants of Lara, beside that of our author, and we think the Frenchman must here cede the palm. His version is gallant and easy in parts, but it wants the total spirit and the dash of Lockhart's bounding lines; it has not the resolute compression, the masterly abruptness of the Scot's handiwork: VICTOR HUGO. "Romance Mauresque. "Don Rodrigue est à la chasse, Sans épée et sans cuirasse, Un jour d'été, vers mudi, Sous la feuillée et sur l'herbe Il s'assied, l'homme superbe, Don Rodrigue le hardi. La haine en feu le dévore, Sombre il pense au bâtard maure A son neveu Mudarra, Dont ses complots sanguinaires, Jadis ont tué les frères Les sept infans de Lara. Pour le trouver eu campagne, De Figuère à Setuval, 'Chevalier, chrétien ou maure, Qui dors sous la sycamore, Dieu te guide par la main !' 'Que Dieu répande ses grâces Sur toi, l'écuyer qui passes, Qui passes par le chemin !' 'Chevalier, chrétien ou maure, Qui dors sous la sycamore, Parmi l'herbe du vallon, Dis ton nom, afin qu'on sache Si tu portes le panache D'un vaillant ou d'un félon.' 'Si c'est là ce qui t'intrigue, On m'appelle Don Rodrigue, Don Rodrigue de Lara ; Doña Sanche est ma sœur même ; Du moins, c'est à mon baptême, Ce qu'un prêtre déclara. J'attends sous ce sycamore, Certe, à moins qu'il ne m'évite, Oui, par mon âme chrétienne, Don Rodrigue de Lara? Eh bien! seigneur, le jeune homme Qui te parle et qui te nomme, C'est Mudarra le bâtard. C'est le vengeur et le juge, Cherche à présent un réfuge!' L'autre dit; tu viens bien tard!' • Moi, fils de la renégate, Du roi maure Aliatar; Nous voici!' Tu viens bien tard!' Trop tôt pour toi, Don Rodrigue, A moins qu'il ne te fatigue De vivre. Ah! la peur t'émeut, Ton front pâlit; rends, infâme, A moi ta vie, et ton âme A ton ange, s'il eu veut. Si mon poignard de Tolède Le souffle d'entre les dents! Le neveu de Doña Sanche, La soif qui le dévora; Un moment! afin que j'aille 'Tu n'auras d'autres délais, Que celui qu'ont eu mes frères; Dans les caveaux funéraires, Où tu les as mis, suis-les! Si, jusqu'à l'heure venue, LOCKHART. "The Vengeance of Mudara. "To the chase goes Rodrigo with hound and with hawk, But what game he desires is revealed in his talk, 'Oh, in vain have I slaughter'd the infants of Lara, There's an heir in his balls-there's the bastard Mudara! There's the son of the renegade-spawn of Mahoun : If I meet with Mudara, my spear brings him down!' While Rodrigo rides on in the heat of his wrath, A stripling, armed cap-à-piè, crosses his path; 'Good morrow, young 'squire !' 'Good morrow, old knight!' 'Will you ride with our party and share our delight?' Speak your name, courteous stranger," the stripling replied, Speak your name and your lineage, ere with you I ride!' My name is Rodrigo,' thus answered the knight, Of the line of old Lara, though barr'd from my right; For the kinsman of Salas proclaims for the heir Of our ancestors' castles and forestries And now for a painful confession. Among some pieces at the end of the volume of Orientales is an awful ballad, "La Légende de la Nonne," which would have gladdened the soul of Monk Lewis, and-better than his own "Cloud - kings and Water kings"-better than Southey's “Old Women of Berkeley" and "Painters of Florence"-better than Sir Walter's contributions to that collection -would, with its grim German conception, clothing itself in the fierce colours of Spanish passion and the dark light of Spanish scenery, its reckless rapidity of verse contrasting with the solemn horror of the tale, its bizarre refrain ringing ever and anon amid the recounted crime and the recorded punishment,-would, we say, have made the fortune of the Tales of Wonder. We confess, with confusion of face, that it has baffled our powers of "oversetting." Our limits forbid us to extract it, with its four-andtwenty stanzas of eight lines a-piece ; but we freely offer a couple of uncut copies of REGINA to whoever shall worthily execute its traduction. But let him who attempts it beware what he is about. It well-nigh drove us to an act of the last desperation. For the life of us, we could not succeed in rendering, with safe gravity, the singular refrain,-which, by the bye, while perfectly in character with the land of the toreador, is decidedly of the northern ballad, by its want of connexion with the current of the story, "Enfans, voici des bœufs qui passent, Cachez vos rouges tabliers." A son neveu: 'Pour un baiser, pour un sourire d'elle, Infant don Ruy, je donnerais l'Espagne Le vent qui vient à travers la montagne Je ne sais pas si j'aimais cette dame, Que pour avoir un regard de son âme, J'aurais gaiment passé dix ans au bagne Le vent qui vient à travers la montagne Un jour d'été que tout était lumière, Elle s'en vint jouer dans la rivière Avec sa sœur ; Je vis le pied de sa jeune compagne Et son genou. Le vent qui vient à travers la montagne Quand je voyais cette enfant, moi, le De ce canton, Je croyais voir la belle Cléopâtre Ménait César, empereur d'Allemagne, Le vent qui vient à travers la montagne Car je suis las; Avec ce comte elle s'est donc enfuie, Par le chemin qui va vers la Cerdagne, Le vent qui vient à travers la montagne Je la voyais passer de ma demeure, Mais à présent je m'ennuie à toute heure, Rêveur oisif, l'âme dans la campagne, Le vent qui vient à travers la montagne 'Twas Gastibelza, ranger bold, And thus it was he sung, "O who doth here Sabina know, Ye villagers among? Dance on the while! On Mount Faloù Die the last streaks of day ; The wind that 'thwart the mountain comes Will witch my wits away. Doth any my señora know, Who shriek'd at night in the great tow'r, The wind that 'thwart the mountain comes Dance on the goods the hour bestows The wind that 'thwart the mountain comes The queen beside her had been plain, At fair Toledo, you bebeld 'Neath bodice black, and chaplet old The wind that'thwart the mountain comes The king unto his nephew said, 'But for a kiss, a smile of her, Trust me, Don Ruy, I'd give broad Spain, I'd give Peru's rich sway I know not if I loved this dame, That for one look from out her soul 'Neath bolt and chain to work the oar, The wind that 'thwart the mountain comes One summer's day, one sunny day, To sport her in the rivulet, That bright and beauteous dame! The wind that 'thwart the mountain comes When, simple shepherd, I beheld - Dance, villagers; the night draws down! Sabina, wo the hour! Did sell her love, did sell her all, Sold heart and beauty's dow'r, For Count Saldaña's ring of gold, All for a trinket gay. The wind that 'thwart the mountain comes Now let me lean on this old seat, I tell you with this Count she fled, They went by the Cerdaña road, The wind that 'thwart the mountain comes I saw her pass, my dwelling by, O the wind that 'thwart the mountain comes Hath witch'd my wits away." And now, adieu, Victor! Peer though thou be, forget not thine other designation: for all the greenbraided badge of thy new order, see that thou discard not the Muse's livery and, in the intervals of senatorial session, give us yet another of those delightful volumes of thine, with their quaint, fantastic, arabesque, crepuscular, enigmatical titles. : THE CHAMBER OF THE BELL. CHAPTER I. THE events which we are about to relate occurred in a small and obscure German town, which, for our own convenience, we will designate Nienburg. Who, in the present day, is unacquainted with the general outline of the petty towns of the "Fatherland?"" Suffice it, that Nienburg formed no exception to the rule, but shewed its narrow streets of tall, many-gabled, and picturesque-looking houses, its dark, mysterious churches, its long lines of convent walls, its close and irregular-shaped places, and its motley population of peasants, monks, soldiers, béguines, and beggars. As regarded its geography, it was seated at the base of one of two conical hills; that immediately in its rear being cultivated to nearly two-thirds of its height, and planted on the southern side with vines, while the more lofty and more distant eminence was crowned by the mouldering remains of what had evidently once been a formidable stronghold. Upon this rock no trace of vegetation could be detected; all was arid, bleak, and desolate; the crude and abrupt outline of the height being broken in many places by the remains of cyclopean masonry, indicating the extent and direction of the outworks, which, on the more accessible sides of the acclivity, descended almost to the valley. Portions of now mouldering towers, blending their hoary tints with that of the stones on which they had been seated for centuries, afforded shelter to the foul birds of carnage and darkness, whose shrill screams and hoarse hootings swelled and quivered upon the night-wind, like the wailings of the dead over the ruins of their former pride. The valley or gorge between the two hills was scarcely more cheerful than the castled height which frowned above it, for it was occupied throughout its whole extent with graves; save that, immediately under the shadow of the emi nence last described, stood a low and small erection of stone, parted by this city of the dead from the living town of Nienburg; which, cut off by an angle of its own vine-clad eminence from all view of this dreary necropolis, was further enlivened by a cheerful stream, which swept swiftly and smilingly at its foot, hurrying to cast its pure and sparkling waters into the bosom of the Rhine. A few light craft, moored along the shore, heaved lazily upon the cur rent, and the nets of the fishers spread upon the bank sufficiently denoted the uses of the little fleet. Beyond the town, in the opposite direction to the ruins, spread one of those fine old forests to which Ger many is indebted for so much of her prosperity and so many of her superstitions; and where the warm sun and the flying clouds produced the most fantastic effects, as they grap pled for power above the stern old trees, spread over the rarely occurring glades, or succeeded each other upon the dancing leaves. The blast which had howled its defiance over the neighbouring ruins, where it beat freely against the sharp rock and the rigid masonry, took another and a wilder tone as it penetrated into the mystic depths of the dark wood, or forced its way through the living network of the swinging branches. None ventured there at nightfall: the goatherd drove home his flock, the woodsman laid by his axe, and the benighted fowler hastened to escape into the open country, without venturing to cast one glance behind upon the scenes of his day's sport. Such was the position of the little town, to some of whose inhabitants we are about to introduce our readers. It was evening, and a bright moon was paving the river with flakes of silver, which looked like the armour of some watergiant, beneath which his huge frame was quivering with desire to visit the tranquil carth that slept so The breeze peacefully beside him. was sighing through the vines, and heaving aside their large glossy leaves and delicate tendrils; the laughter of children and the voices of women might be heard at intervals; and here and there, upon the bosom of |