Upon a sledge he mounted then, And when he came to the high cross, Soon as the sledde drew nigh enough, 'Thou seest me, Edward! traitor vile! Exposed to infamy; But be assured, disloyal man, I'm greater now than thee. "By foul proceedings, murder, blood, "Thou thinkest I shall die to-day; I have been dead till now, And soon shall live to wear a crown For aye upon my brow; King Edward's soul rushed to his face, And to his brother Gloucester "To him that so-much-dreaded death 'So let him die!' Duke Richard said; And now the horses gently drew Sir Charles did up the scaffold go, Of victory, by valorous chiefs And to the people he did say: 'As long as Edward rules this land, "You leave your good and lawful king, When in adversity; Like me, unto the true cause stick, Then he, with priests, upon his knees, A prayer to God did make, Beseeching him unto himself 'Whilst thou, perhaps, for some few Then kneeling down, he laid his head Most seemly on the block; Which from his body fair at once The able headsman stroke. ... Thus was the end of Bawdin's fate: And rant he may, with Bawdin's soul, The Minstrel's Song in Eila. O sing unto my roundelay; My love is dead, Gone to his death-bed, All under the willow-tree. Black his hair as the winter night, Gone to his death-bed, All under the willow-tree. Sweet his tongue as throstle's note, Oh! he lies by the willow-tree. Gone to his death-bed, All under the willow-tree. Hark! the raven flaps his wing, In the briered dell below; Gone to his death-bed, All under the willow-tree. See the white moon shines on high; Gone to his death-bed, All under the willow-tree. Here, upon my true-love's grave, All the celness (2) of a maid: Gone to his death-bed, All under the willow-tree. With my hands I'll bind the briers, Gone to his death-bed, Come with acorn cup and thorn, Drain my heart's blood all away; Gone to his death-bed, All under the willow-tree. Water-witches, crowned with reytes, (5) I die I come-my true-love waits.- Freedom-A Chorus in the Imperfect Tragedy of 'Goddwyn.' When Freedom, dressed in blood-stained vest, To every knight her war-song sung, Upon her head wild weeds were spread, She danced on the heath, She heard the voice of death. Pale-eyed Affright, his heart of silver hue, On high she hoist her shield, Power, with his head straight unto the skies, She bends before his spear, Hard as the thunder doth she drive it on. Yet closely wimpled (10) guides it to his crown, 1 Baren flowers, flowers borne or carried. 7 To chill or freeze. 2 Coldness. 3 Grow. 6 A short sword or dagger. 10 Wimpled, veiled. 4 Elfin. 8 Undismayed or unbanished. Chaucer has: And appetite flemeth discretion.' 5 Water-flags. 9 Meteors. His long sharp spear, his spreading shield is gone. WILLIAM FALCONER. The terrors and circumstances of a shipwreck had been often described by poets, ancient and modern, but never with any attempt at professional accuracy or minuteness of detail before the poem of that name by Falconer. It was reserved for a genuine sailor to disclose, in correct and harmonious verse, the 'secrets of the deep,' and to enlist the sympathies of the general reader in favour of the daily life and occupations of his brother-seamen, and in all the movements, the equipage, and tracery of those magnificent vessels which have carried the British name and enterprise to the remotest corners of the world. Poetical associations-a feeling of boundlessness and sublimity-obviously belonging to the scene of the poem-the ocean; but its interest soon wanders from this source, and centres in the stately ship and its crew-the gallant resistance which the men made to the fury of the storm-their calm and deliberate courage-the various resources of their skill and ingenuity-their consultations and resolutions as the ship labours in distress-and the brave unselfish piety and generosity with which they meet their fate, when at last The crashing ribs divide She loosens, parts, and spreads in ruin o'er the tide. Such a subject Falconer justly considered as new to epic lore,' but it possessed strong recommendations to the British public, whose national pride and honour, and commercial greatness, are so closely identified with the sea, and so many of whom have some friend, some brother there.' ་ WILLIAM FALCONER was born in Edinburgh on the 11th of February 1732, and was the son of a poor barber, who had two other children, both of whom were deaf and dumb. He went early to sea, on board a Leith merchant ship, and was afterwards in the royal navy. Before he was eighteen years of age, he was second-mate in the Britannia, a vessel in the Levant trade, which was shipwrecked off Cape Colonna, as described in his poem. In 1751 he was living in Edinburgh, where he published his first poetical attempt, a monody on the death of Frederick, Prince of Wales. The choice of such a subject by a young friendless Scottish sailor, was as singular as the depth of grief he describes in his poem; for Falconer, on this occasion, wished, with a zeal worthy of ancient Pistol, To assist the pouring rains with brimful eyes, 1 Burled, arist, armed, arose. He continued in the merchant-service for about ten years. In 1762 appeared his poem of The Shipwreck,' preceded by a dedication to the Duke of York. The work was eminently successful, and his royal highness procured him the appointment of midshipman on board the Royal George, whence he was subsequently transferred to the Glory, a frigate of 32 guns, on board which he held the situation of purser. After the peace, he resided in London, wrote a poor satire on Wilkes, Churchill, &c. and compiled a useful marine dictionary. In October 1769, the poet again took to the sea, and sailed from England as purser of the Aurora frigate, bound for India. The vessel reached the Cape of Good Hope in December, but afterwards perished at sea, having foundered, as is supposed, in the Mozambique Channel. No tuneful Arion' was left to commemorate this calamity, the poet having died under the circumstances he had formerly described in the case of his youthful associates of the Britannia, Three editions of the 'Shipwreck' were published during the author's life. The second (1764) was greatly enlarged, having about nine hundred new lines added. Before embarking on his last fatal voyage, Falconer published a third edition, dated October 1, 1769-the day preceding his departure from England. About two hundred more lines were added to the poem in this edition, and various alterations and transpositions made in the text. These were not all improvements: some of the most poetical passages were injured, and parts of the narrative confused. Hence one of the poet's editors, Mr. Stanier Clarke, in a splendid illustrated copy of the poem (1804), restored many of the discarded lines, and presented a text compounded of the three different editions. This version of the poem is that now generally printed; but in a subsequent illustrated edition, by the Messrs. Black, Edinburgh (1858), Falconer's third and latest edition is more closely followed. Mr. Clarke conjectured-and other editors have copied his error-that Falconer, overjoyed at his appointment to the Aurora, and busy preparing for his voyage, had intrusted to his friend David Mallet the revision of the poem, and that Mallet had corrupted the text. Now, it is sufficient to say that Mallet had been four years dead, and that Falconer in the advertisement prefixed to the work, expressly states that he had himself subjected it to a strict and thorough revision. Unfortunately, as in the case of Akenside, the success of the poet had not been commensurate with his anxiety and labour. 'The Shipwreck' has the rare merit of being a pleasing and interesting poem, and a safe guide to practical seamen. Its nautical rules and directions are approved of by all experienced naval officers. At first, the poet does not seem to have done more than describe in nautical phrase and simple narrative the melancholy disaster he had witnessed. The characters of Albert, Rodmond, Palemon, and Anna were added in the second edition of the work. By choosing the shipwreck of the Britannia, Falconer imparted a train of interesting recollections and images to his poem. The wreck occurred off Cape Colonna-one of the fairest portions of the beautiful shores of Greece. In all Attica,' says Lord Byron, if we except Athens itself and Marathon, there is no scene more interesting than Cape Colonna. To the antiquary and artist, sixteen columns are an inexhaustible source of observation and design; to the philosopher, the supposed scene of some of Plato's conversations will not be unwelcome; and the traveller will be struck with the beauty of the prospect over "isles that crown the Egean deep;" but for an Englishiman, Colonna has yet an additional interest, as the actual spot of Falconer's "Shipwreck." Pallas and Plato are forgotten in the recollection of Falconer and Campbell Here in the dead of night by Lonna's steep, Falconer was not insensible to the charms of these historical and classic associations, and he was still more alive to the impressions of romantic scenery and a genial climate. Some of the descriptive and episodical parts of the poem are, however, drawn out to too great a length, as they interrupt the narrative where its interest is most engrossing, besides being occasionally feeble and affected. The characters of his naval officers are finely discriminated: Albert, the commander, is brave, liberal, and just, softened and refined by domestic ties and superior information; Rodmond, the next in rank, is coarse and boisterous, a hardy, weather-beaten son of Northumberland, yet of a kind, compassionate nature; Palemon, charged with the commerce,' is perhaps too effeminate for the rough sea: he is the lover of the poem, and his passion for Albert's daughter is drawn with truth and delicacy: "Twas genuine passion, Nature's eldest born. The truth of the whole poem is indeed one of its greatest attractions. We feel that it is a passage of real life; and even where the poet seems to violate the canons of taste and criticism, allowance is liberally made for the peculiar situation of the author, while he rivets our attention to the scenes of trial and distress which he so fortunately survived to describe. Evening at Sea. The sun's bright orb, declining all serene, |