tion, slays Helge in single combat, deprives Halfdan, who surrenders, of his kingdom, and takes it to himself, making the other his viceroy.

Before we conclude, it is but justice to Mr. Strong to remark that his notes exhibit a great deal of research, and contain a considerable quantity of amusing information, and some interesting specimens of Danish and Swedish poetry. There are, to be sure, a few errata, which sometimes may prove rather perplexing; as, for instance, when we are informed that Grön-sund or Green-sound lies between the islands of Iceland, Moen, and Falster-Iceland being a misprint for

Zeeland; but these detract but little from their merits. The notes to the joint version are comparatively few, and occasionally inaccurate, though, not, indeed, in matters of any greater moment, than the sex of a few of the Scandinavian deities, and such like matters. Perhaps, too, we should mention that Mr. Strong's version is inscribed to the Princess Victoria, "as a living impersonation" of the various excellent qualities and attributes, "ascribed by the fiction of the poet to the regal maiden of Norway," &c. &c. &c.; while the other is inscribed to that poet himself.

"WHERE did I leave off, my prince," said the bard, addressing Art next night, as the captives closed their little circle round the fire.

You left brother Virgil on his way to the Mac Gillmore's booth on Ben Madigan," replied O'Neill; "the lady has just sent to desire his attendance."

"Yes, my prince, I remember now it was so," replied Turlogh, "but I had been thinking of the pleasant days I used to spend about the same green hollows, and down upon the banks of the White Well, or round the crags and heathery back of the hill, 'till I had quite forgotten the adventures of both monk and outlaw in my own.-God be with the time, for it will never come again! They are scattered and sorely changed, now, that used to gather the wild strawberries with me in the Fairy Well Meadows some under sorrow, and some dead. The tears are in my eyes when I think of these dewy slopes of daisies, and the bright faces that I have seen shining over them:-Oh! the light echoes of my brother's laughter among the hanging banks! the clear call of my sweet-voiced sister hiding in the hazel grove! Oh, for the heart that was in my bosom then, when I had no care nor foresight of trouble, but all the world, wherever I went, was a garden of wonder and romantic dreams!" The old man paused, and looked up, till the tears that were glistering under his eyelids had sunk back again to their source;

" yet, blessed be God," he then said, when his voice had recovered its firmness, “we still can fancy new fortunes for others, let our own dreams be read as crossly as they may."

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Ay, Turlogh," said Art, 66 I never thought that this could have been the doom of my youth;" and he cast a mournful glance round their prison walls; "but, thank Heaven, I can sometimes think myself on the open field still let fate read our past dreams as she will; while fancy is free to take refuge in the future, I will dream on faster than she can overtake me.”

:

"It is the last privilege of misfortune;" said Henry; "God pity those in trouble who can look only to the present !"

"He is the best man who looks to all," said Hugh, "we could do little for ourselves in present peril, without considering the experience of the past, and the chances of the future."

"We are all agreed, then,” cried Art; "we are sad now, thinking of our captivity; we were pleased last night, forgetting it in the recital of this good Franciscan's adventures among the outlaws of Chaneboy; 'tis likely we would be pleased again by hearing more of the same story; so we will meet our present peril of sadness by trying the cure that has been before successful."

"Well, argued, my prince;" cried the bard; "and in obedience to so conclusive a sentence, I will proceed." He then took up his half-finished tale of

Brother Virgil was again divided between pious indignation and humane charity. The recent excitement under which he had imprecated the vengeance of his dishonoured saint upon the spoilers of his sanctuary, still filled his heart with angry agitation; but natural pity, and a certain sense of obligation, as well as of dependence, struggled powerfully in the better cause. Perhaps, too, there might have been another motive at work. There was, indeed, the pardonable pride of some self-sacrifice in a good cause; the gratifying thought that, humble as he hitherto had been among the members of a comparatively inefficient brotherhood, even he might yet be destined to the achievement of some good service to the church. "What," he could not help thinking, as he walked slowly down towards the booth of the wounded outlaw,-"what if I should indeed succeed in reclaiming some of these benighted outcasts?Why, if I could but sow such seed among them as would yield a good harvest, even fifty years hence, it would surely be a blessed work. I would be the first to have ventured among them, or to have preached among them: no man could deny that. They have been the scandal of Christendom now for nigh three generations, and surely the man who wipes that blot off the character of the Church, would not be soon or easily forgotten, Holy and blessed Francis! to think what I might be yet! And it is neither impossible nor unlikely-many a man has been canonized for less; and, Oh! blessed Virgin, to think of poor Fergall Mac Naughten being one day Sanctus Virgilius!"-But, conscious of an unworthy ambition thus overcoming purer motives which he would fain have recognised alone at his heart, the good brother recalled his fancy from her flight, and sought to fix his mind solely on the course sanctioned by strict duty and disinterested zeal in the service of religion. But imagination, once let loose, was not easily to be withheld from the premeditated excursion. "Nay," said brother Virgil, "this is a work of charity and love, which I would do, and which I would be bound to do, even though the world were never to know

that I had existed. If I saw a traveller who had fallen into a pit, would I not aid him out, in the wilderness as readily as in the gaze of a thousand men? And this miserable people, entrapped as they are in Satan's deepest pitfall, shall I make a merit of reaching out the Church's saving hand to them, because there are none to order or applaud the charitable service? My heart should rather be filled with gratitude for such an opportunity of doing my duty with voluntary good will, instead of being thus puffed up with vain dreams of honors that I can never gain by adequate deservings,—and Oh, that my humble efforts may be availing! Renowned or unknown, let my endeavours be but auspicious! What a blessed change these miserable men would find it! What a blessed sight it would be for me to see!-Already methinks I can see the repentant heathen casting away his bloody sword, to clasp the cross of his salvation; already Ican hear the glad voice of thanksgiving ascending from the peaceful dwellings of man no more at strife, and no longer in trouble.-I see these wild woods, now the refuge of the wolf, yielding to the fair green fields of a civilized and prosperous people: the prayers of the faithful rising from many a spire half hidden among sheltering trees; the answering dews of heaven filling the sweet food on the stalks of an hundred corn fields. The hum of cheerful labour sounds from the populous city like the message of the summer beehive: ships come and go over the broad bosom of the waters with the breath of favoring heaven in their sails :-Blessed be God! see how the brown husbandman sets apart his tenth sheaf to the holy Francis!-how the grateful merchant solicits our smiling cellarer with the richest hogshead of his safe-landed cargo!-well may the good prior, walking in his cool cloisters, exclaim to the attendant brotherhood, “ Deus nobis hæc otia fecit;"—" and who," the smiling monk beside will ask, "who, under God, was the chosen instrument of this blessed change? "He was an humble brother of the order," the prior will reply, "a poor servant of the blessed Francis, like ourselves. Fergall, the

son of Naughten,” he will say, “was the man who first went forth into that howling wilderness. This fair country," he will tell them, "was then overrun with forests and morasses; these pleasant grazing parks of our cattle were the resort of wild and savage animals; these fruitful corn fields noting but a tangled growth of furze and tractless thickets; nettles and briars covered all the sunny slopes where our trim gardens now scent the dewy air with thyme and rosemary, and the heathen people who won their casual subsistence from the wild roots and crude berries of that thorny desert, were as rough and uncultivated as the inhospitable scenes amid which they lived. But the mild apostle of peace went forth among them, alone in the strength of truth, and the confidence of duty :-yes," he will say, "it was the humble Fergall, now known in our calendar as Virgilius de Rupe.-" "The bantierna awaits you, GillyFrancisagh," said some one plucking the good friar by the sleeve, and brother Virgil, awakening from his dream of pious ambition, perceived, with some confusion, that he had unconsciously stopped mid-way upon the path leading to the lady's habitation." I come, my friend, I come," he said, opening his eyes with some regret on the realities around him, while visions of chapels and altars to Saint Virgil of the Rock, and all the bright pictures of peace and plenty which he had been drawing a moment before, went floating away from before his imagination, like the scattered clouds of a bright sunset. It was Owen Grumagh who had interrupted his reverie; and the recollection of that rude heathen's late success in foiling his first efforts at converting him, considerably damped the ardor which these bright hopes had kindled. He accordingly took his way to the booth of the outlaw, much less zealously disposed for immediate controversy than on first receiving the lady's commands to attend her. The lady was sitting awaiting him in her own apartment. "Thanks to your charity, my father," she said, as the monk entered, "Mac Gillmore is now much easier than we could have hoped, and I have taken the first moment I could be spared from his side, to thank

you for the aid you have rendered us. I would, besides, entreat you to sit and talk with me; for it is long since I had the means of speaking with a priest before; and, holy father, lost as you think me in wickedness and ignorance, I am no heathen ;-God forbid!"

"Daughter," said the Franciscan, taking his seat on a low boss of rushes by her side, "thine must be a strange history: I would fain hear it from the beginning, for, otherwise I could not judge how far thou hast sinned against thy soul in voluntarily dwelling so long among this heathenish people."

I have sinned grievously in what I did; I confess it," said the lady, "yet, holy father, when you hear my story, you will not say that my fault has been solely without excuse. I will make haste and tell you all, for I know not when I may have such an opportunity again,-alas! many a time I have thought that I was to die unshriven like the poor pagans around me-but, blessed be God, who has sent you here at last! for I feel that if I had this burthen lifted from my heart, I could die contented,-what I never looked to do before today!"

"Proceed, then, my daughter," said the monk; "who wert thou before the Gillmore wedded thee? Where dwell thy people? Hast thou father or brother alive? Tell me all, freely, and trust me, we will find a remedy for thy distresses, and a certain pardon for thy faults."

"It is the worst to tell," said the lady, looking down in painful embarrassment; "but I will tell you at once: I am daughter of the Seneschal of Ards."

God help thee!" exclaimed the benevolent man, clasping his hands together, in sudden agitation, "it is little wonder that thou art a wretched woman."

"You have heard, then, of ourour sad history ?" she inquired, timidly raising her eyes to his face.

"Enough to make me shudder when I hear what thou hast now told me, he replied; "art thou not the sister of those two chieftains who were once imprisoned in these caverns?" The lady again cast down her eyes, and sunk her head in silence before her questioner.

"Yes," he continued, "it is little wonder that thou art indeed most wretched. I have heard enough of their fate, and have seen enough of thy condition here, to feel strong compassion for thee; stronger, I fear, than thy faults and follies have deserved for-for a daughter of thy nation to fall away to the heathens, even so far as thon has done, is in itself a sin not easily forgiven."

"Father," said the lady, "when I left my people I had little knowledge of the wild race among whom I was coming." "Then why not leave these pagan kindreds when thou wast better informed of their barbarity and ungodliness?" demanded brother Virgil.

The lady pressed her hand below her breast; "I had not been long with the Clan Gillmore," she said, "till I had other ties to bind me to them."

Nay," said the Franciscan, “ I would not have thee leave thy husband, if he be, as thou sayest, bound to thee in Christian wedlock; but I would have had thee separate him from his savage associates, and bring him back with thee to the bosom of the church, and the protection of the law."

You know little of Hugh More," she replied, "if you think that the persuasion of either wife or child could make him desert the kindred: the poorest and meanest of the name is dearer to him than his own heart's blood."

"Then would I have had thee use thine influence with him and his people, for their conversion and instruction in civility and honest life;" said brother Virgil.

"I have tried, and failed," was the lady's answer.

"And Heaven only knows whether I may not fail also!" exclaimed the good monk, "for an ignorant and a blasphemous people they be to deal withal, and I little marvel at thine ill success amongst them."

"But surely Heaven will grant a better end to your labours than to mine:" said the lady, "for what could I expect who had neither learning nor holy calling, nor the gift of speech to tell their true condition to them, as you, my father, have done since you came hither." "Alas!" cried the good brother, "I have done nothing! They are even as deaf adders to my words.--Of such brutish beings as the son of Rory, and the blacksmiths of the cave, I have

indeed no hope,-none : they are worse than the beasts: stocks and stones are intelligent in comparison with them :— but with the Gillmore himself, I do trust that I shall yet have some success. He seems of a more humane understanding than one might naturally look for from the savage life he leads; and I do marvel, in truth, that thou hast made no impression on such a mind; for he is of a discreet and reasonable judgment in many things, and I have observed in his conversation, certain glimpses, as it were, of a natural piety that bespeak a heart not altogether estranged from the love of charity and justice.—Still he is, notwithstanding all this, a very uninstructed pagan.”

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"O! if you knew him," cried the lady, with the animation of affectionate pride, you would say that his are more than glimpses of natural piety. If you knew his wisdom in the government of his people, his valor in war, his tenderness and gentleness with his own, you would then feel how worthy he is indeed of all that can be done to save and succour him."

“I doubt it not, I doubt it not,” said brother Virgil, carried away for a moment by the earnestness of the lady's manner: but, suddenly recollecting himself" My God! what do I say?" he exclaimed; “I doubt not, indeed, that it would be a good deed to save him, firebrand though he is, from the burning; but when I remember what he has done, it is too much to ask me, who am myself unworthy, to assent to his worthiness of God's unpurchasable mercy."

"Let him be as unworthy as you will, only be the minister of that mercy to him, and I will be contented and thankful," said the lady with submissive gentleness.

The good brother did not need much submission to restore him to his natural benevolence. "Surely I will administer such help and consolation to him as in me lies," he said; “but, meanwhile, daughter, we can do nothing more for him till it pleases Heaven to carry his disease to a crisis. Proceed, then, and let me not again interrupt thee in thy story; for thine is a tale that I long to hear."

The lady, thus exhorted, drew her robe closer round her, and in a modest voice proceeded to tell her history.

"I have told you, holy father," she said, "that I am the unfortunate sister of the great Mac Seneschal. My father lived in a strong castle over Dundonald; you can see the hill from the door. May the Queen of Heaven pity me! Look which way I will, I behold nothing but the scenes of my shame or of my misery; for if I look up, there is the cave where Mac Gillmore kept my brother Raymond till his beard was grown over the collar of his hauberk; and if I look down, there are the fair hills of Ards and Castle reagh, where I once roamed through the green woods and meadows, innocent and happy, as I once was, and as I am never to be again!" The lady paused, and wiped away a tear; then, with a heavy sigh, proceeded-"We were two brothers and myself, and we spent a happy childhood; but my mother died while we were all young, and my father was slain in an ambush by the wild Irish, while my brothers were still youths, and I a girl just rising into womanhood. Raymond and Alan were unlike in character as in their looks. Raymond was open and fiery, but kind and tender-hearted; Alan, black as his own brow, proud, revengeful and turbulent. They had both been wild hunters and rangers of the woods before my father's death; but when the kindred rose to avenge his murder, they took to the wars as if they had been bred to nothing but blood and plunder. Fierce and terrible warriors they grew, above all others of their age in Ulster. Many a creaght they plundered, many a strong castle they broke and burned, while their cheeks were yet beardless as my own. All the Irish of Kilwarlin and Claneboy stood in terror of them; for they scarce spent one day in twenty within their own walls, but were almost constantly in the field, burning and preying. The kindred had been bold and warlike in my father's time; but under Raymond and Alan they became quite as fierce and cruel as the barbarous clans they had to contend with. It used to shock my soul to hear the tales of slaughter and devastation which they would bring home with them from their ravages. I would urge mercy on Raymond, and sometimes for my sake he was merciful; but with Alan I never yet prevailed to save a grey hair

from the sword, or a widow's cow from the driving. I was glad when they left me alone, even while I shuddered to think of the work they went on. I could then forget the tumults and distresses of a life of violence in the quiet lawns and woods about our own castle; for there we were far removed from danger, and friends were at hand if danger had come nigh us. I was young, father; and worn as I am today with hardship and suffering, I was then not unworthy to be called the daughter of Margery Ghal Ni' Niel; my heart was new and eager, and I longed, as I roamed the green meadows, for some one better able to share its fresh affections than the maidens with whom I spent the idle mornings, wishing and wondering as we would sing the songs of true lovers, or listen to the strange tales of ladies and their knights. Well, father, one evening before sunset, as I sat aloue in a haunt that I loved dearly

it was a mossy grotto in the bank of a little stream that ran hard by the bawn of the castle-I saw a strange hunter coming down the glen with his dogs. He carried a bow and a hunting-spear, and had a sheaf of arrows stuck in his belt, and his dogs were the goodliest I ever saw. But, father, he was himself, I thought, by far the goodliest man I ever saw, and by my troth I think so still; for, broken as he lies within, Mac Gillmore is still the best man of his name, and they are the tallest kindred of men in Ulster at this day. It was there I saw him first, father; but we did not speak that evening. He came back again the next night and spoke to me, and I staid talking with him till after sunset. I had no thought of harm in what I did; but I told no one when I came home, only hurried to my bed and thought myself almost happy at last. He came back again, evening after evening, and as often as he came I was there to meet him. He told me he was of the clan Rory-and true it was, for his mother's people were of the blood of Kilwarlin-and that he had not been with his kindred since the month before, but was on a hunting expedition, with ten comrades only, in the woods. I asked no more; for whatever he told me I was satisfied with it. A happy life I had, until we parted for that time; for he told