This hearth, will it not be covered with green sod! Its ample cauldron boiled the prey taken from the foe. This hearth, will it not be covered with toad-stools! This hearth, will it not be overgrown with spreading brambles! This hearth, will it not be covered with thorns! More congenial on it would have been the mixed group This hearth, will it not be covered over with the ants! This hearth, will it not be covered with dock-leaves! This hearth, will it not be turned up by the swine! Heroic Elegies of Llywarch Hen, by Owen, The hall of Cynddylan is gloomy this night, Without fire, without bed I must weep awhile, and then be silent! The hall of Cynddylan is gloomy this night, Without fire, without candle Except God doth, who will endue me with patience? The hall of Cynddylan is gloomy this night, The hall of Cynddylan, gloomy seems its roof, Woe to him that saw it, if he neglects to do good! The hall of Cynddylan, art thou not bereft of thy appearance! Thy shield is in the grave; Whilst he lived there was no broken roof! The hall of Cynddylan is without love this night, Ah, death! it will be but a short time he will leave me! The ball of Cynddylan is not easy this night, The hall of Cynddylan is gloomy this night, Tears afflict the cheeks! The ball of Cynddylan is gloomy this night, Without fire, without family My overflowing tears gush out! The hall of Cynddylan pierces me to see it, Without a covering, without fire My general dead, and I alive myself! The ball of Cynddylan is the seat of chill grief this night, After the respect I experienced ; Without the men, without the women, who reside there! The hall of Cynddylan is silent this night, The great merciful God, what shall I do? Ibid. p. 77. Note 6. Stanza xii. -Marwood-chase and Toller-hill. «Mac-Curtin, hereditary Ollamh of North Munster, and Filea to Donough, Earl of Thomond, and President of Munster. This nobleman was amongst those who were prevailed upon to join Elizabeth's forces. Soon | as it was known that he had basely abandoned the is terests of his country, Mac-Curtin presented an adulatory poem to Mac-Carthy, chief of South Munster, and of the Eugenian line, who, with O'Neil, O'Donnel, Lars, and others, were deeply engaged in protecting ther violated country. In this poem he dwells with rapture of on the courage and patriotism of Mac-Carthy; but the verse that should (according to an established isw of the order of the bards) be introduced in the praise of O'Brien, he turns into severe satire:-'How am I afflicted (says he), that the descendant of the great Bown Boiromh cannot furnish me with a theme worthy the honour and glory of his exalted race! Lord Thom hearing this, vowed vengeance on the spirited bard, who fled for refuge to the county of Cork. One day, observing the exasperated nobleman and his equipage at a small distance, he thought it was in vain to fly, and pretended to be suddenly seized with the pangs death; directing his wife to lament over him, and tes his lordship that the sight of him, by awakening the sense of his ingratitude, had so much affected him that i he could not support it; and desired her at the same time to tell his lordship that he entreated, as a dying request, his forgiveness. Soon as Lord Thomond arrived, the feigned tale was related to him. The noble- | man was moved to compassion, and not only declared that he most heartily forgave him, but, opening hus purse, presented the fair mourner with some pieces to inter him. This instance of his lordship's pity and ge nerosity gave courage to the trembling bard, who, suddenly springing up, recited an extemporaneous ode in praise of Donough, and re-entering into his service, be came once more his favourite.»-WALKER's Memoirs of the Irish Bards, Lond. 1786, 4to. p. 141. Note 10. Stanza xxvii. --Littlecot-ball. The tradition from which the ballad is founded was supplied by a friend, whose account I will not do the Marwood-chase is the old park extending along the injustice to abridge, as it contains an admirable picDurham side of the Tees, attached to Barnard Castle.ture of an old English hall:Toller-hill is an eminence on the Yorkshire side of the river, commanding a superb view of the ruins. «Little-cot house stands in a low and lonely situa tion. On three sides it is surrounded by a park that weeds over the adjoining hill; on the fourth, by mea- were the lady on whose account she had been sent for, ws which are watered by the river Kennet. Close on and a man of a haughty and ferocious aspect. The ur side of the house is a thick grove of lofty trees, lady was delivered of a fine boy. Immediately the the verge of which runs one of the principal ave- man commanded the midwife to give him the child, Bas to it through the park. It is an irregular building and catching it from her, he hurried across the room, of great antiquity, and was probably erected about the and threw it on the back of the fire, that was blazing wine of the termination of feudal warfare, when defence in the chimney. The child, however, was strong, and ane no longer to be an object in a country mansion. by its struggles rolled itself off upon the hearth, when Yay circumstances, however, in the interior of the the ruffian again seized it with fury, and, in spite of se, seem appropriate to feudal times. The hall is the intercession of the midwife, and the more piteous e spacious, floored with stones, and lighted by large entreaties of the mother, thrust it under the grate, and, thesim windows, that are clothed with casements. Its raking the live coals upon it, soon put an end to its ware hung with old military accoutrements, that life. The midwife, after spending some time in affordLase in been left a prey to rust. At one end of the ing all the relief in her power to the wretched mother, 12 is a rage of coats of mail and helmets, and there was told that she must begone. Her former conductor ia every side abundance of old-fashioned pistols and appeared, who again bound her eyes, and conveyed her many of them with matchlocks. Immediately behind him to her own home: he then paid her handSew the cornice hangs a row of leathern jerkins, made somely, and departed. The midwife was strongly agithe form of a shirt, supposed to have been worn as tated by the horrors of the preceding night; and she armour by the vassals. A large oak table, reaching nearly immediately made a deposition of the fact before the one end of the room to the other, might have magistrate. Two circumstances afforded hopes of deed the whole neighbourhood, and an appendage to tecting the house in which the crime had been comne end of it made it answer at other times for the old mitted; one was, that the midwife, as she sate by the pime of shuffle-board. The rest of the furniture is in bedside, had, with a view to discover the place, cut out the style, particularly an arm-chair of cumbrous a piece of the bed-curtain, and sewn it in again; the constructed of wood, curiously turned, other was, that as she had descended the staircase, she big back and triangular seat, said to have been had counted the steps. Some suspicions fell upon one Bed by Judge Popham in the reign of Elizabeth. The Darrell, at that time the proprietor of Littlecot-house, are into the hall is at one end by a low door, com- and the domain around it. The house was examined, ting with a passage that leads from the outer and identified by the midwife, and Darrell was tried at dor in the front of the house to a quadrangle within; Salisbury for the murder. By corrupting his judge, he at the other, it opens upon a gloomy staircase, by which escaped the sentence of the law, but broke his neck by to ascend to the first floor, and, passing the doors of a fall from his horse in hunting, in a few months after. me bed-chambers, enter a narrow gallery which ex- The place where this happened is still known by the s along the back front of the house from one end name of Darrell's Stile,-a spot to be dreaded by the the other of it, and looks upon an old garden. This peasant whom the shades of evening have overtaken 5ery is hung with portraits, chiefly in the Spanish on his way. trees of the sixteenth century. In one of the bedambers, which you pass in going towards the gallery, is a bedstead with blue furniture, which time has now made dingy and threadbare, and in the bottom of one of the bed-curtains you are shown a place where a ma piece has been cut out and sewn in again,-a circumst nice which serves to identify the scene of the fol-pression.»> ing story: P. I was on a dark rainy night in the month of Nober, that an old midwife sate musing by her cottage rade, when on a sudden she was startled by a loud Locking at the door. On opening it she found a horseman who told her that her assistance was required immedately by a person of rank, and that she should be somely rewarded, but that there were reasons for Keeping the affair a strict secret, and, therefore, she must submit to be blind-folded, and to be conducted in hat condition to the bed-chamber of the lady. With me hesitation the midwife consented; the horseman bound her eyes, and placed her on a pillion behind him. After proceeding in silence for many miles, through magh and dirty lanes, they stopped, and the midwife was led into a house, which from the length of her vak through the apartments, as well as the sounds about her, she discovered to be the seat of wealth and power. When the bandage was removed from her yes, she found herself in a bed-chamber, in which I think there is a chapel on one side of it, but am not quite sure. «Littlecot-house is two miles from Hungerford, in Berkshire, through which the Bath road passes. The fact occurred in the reign of Elizabeth. All the important circumstances I have given exactly as they are told in the country; some trifles only are added, either to render the whole connected, or to increase the im With this tale of terror the author has combined some circumstances of a similar legend, which was current at Edinburgh, during his childhood. About the beginning of the eighteenth century, when the large castles of the Scottish nobles, and even the secluded hotels, like those of the French noblesse, which they possessed in Edinburgh, were sometimes the scenes of strange and mysterious transactions, a divine of singular sanctity was called up at midnight, to pray with a person at the point of death. This was no unusual summons; but what followed was alarming. He was put into a sedan-chair, and, after he had been transported to a remote part of the town, the bearers insisted upon his being blindfolded. The request was enforced by a cocked pistol, and submitted to; but in the course of the discussion he conjectured, from the phrases employed by the chairmen, and from some part of their dress, not completely concealed by their cloaks, that they were greatly above the menial station they had assumed. After many turns and windings, the chair was carried up stairs into a lodging, where his eyes were uncovered, and he was introduced into a bed This hearth, will it not be covered with green sod! Its ample cauldron boiled the prey taken from the foc. This hearth, will it not be covered with toad-stools ! This hearth, will it not be overgrown with spreading brambles! This hearth, will it not be covered with thorns! More congenial on it would have been the mixed group This hearth, will it not be covered over with the ants! This hearth, will it not be covered with dock-leaves! This hearth, will it not be turned up by the swine! Heroic Elegies of Llgtearch Hen, by Owen. The hall of Cynddylan is gloomy this night, I must weep awhile, and then be silent! The hall of Cynddylan is gloomy this night, Without fire, without candle Except God doth, who will endue me with patience? The hall of Cynddylan is gloomy this night, The hall of Cynddylan, gloomy seems its roof, Woe to him that saw it, if he neglects to do good! The hall of Cynddylan, art thou not bereft of thy appearance! Thy shield is in the grave; Whilst he lived there was no broken roof! Note 7, Stanza xiv. ---Hawthornden. Drummond of Hawthornden was in the zenith of his reputation as a poet during the civil wars. He died in 1649. Note 8. Stanza xiv. Mac-Curtin's harp. << Mac-Curtin, hereditary Ollamh of North Munster, and Filea to Donough, Earl of Thomond, and President of Munster. This nobleman was amongst those who were prevailed upon to join Elizabeth's forces. Soon as it was known that he had basely abandoned the interests of his country, Mac-Curtin presented an adulatory poem to Mac-Carthy, chief of South Munster, and of the Eugenian line, who, with O'Neil, O'Donnel, Lacy, and others, were deeply engaged in protecting their i violated country. In this poem he dwells with rapture on the courage and patriotism of Mac-Carthy; but the verse that should (according to an established law of the order of the bards) be introduced in the praise of O'Brien, he turns into severe satire:-'How am I afflicted (says he), that the descendant of the great Boen Boiromh cannot furnish me with a theme worthy the honour and glory of his exalted race! Lord Thomond, hearing this, vowed vengeance on the spirited bard, who fled for refuge to the county of Cork. One day, observing the exasperated nobleman and his equipage at a small distance, he thought it was in vain to fly, and pretended to be suddenly seized with the pangs of death; directing his wife to lament over him, and teli his lordship that the sight of him, by awakening the sense of his ingratitude, had so much affected him that he could not support it; and desired her at the same time to tell his lordship that he entreated, as a dying request, his forgiveness. Soon as Lord Thomond arrived, the feigned tale was related to him. The noble-j man was moved to compassion, and not only declared that he most heartily forgave him, but, opening his purse, presented the fair mourner with some pieces to inter him. This instance of his lordship's pity and nerosity gave courage to the trembling bard, who, suddenly springing up, recited an extemporaneous ode in praise of Donough, and re-entering into his service, became once more his favourite.»-WALKER'S Memoirs of the Irish Bards, Lond. 1786, 4to. p. 141. of spreads over the adjoining hill; on the fourth, by meadows which are watered by the river Kennet. Close on the side of the house is a thick grove of lofty trees, along the verge of which runs one of the principal avenues to it through the park. It is an irregular building f great antiquity, and was probably erected about the time of the termination of feudal warfare, when defence came no longer to be an object in a country mansion. May circumstances, however, in the interior of the house, seem appropriate to feudal times. The hall is very spacious, floored with stones, and lighted by large transom windows, that are clothed with casements. Its walls are hung with old military accoutrements, that I have long been left a prey to rust. At one end of the hall is a range of coats of mail and helmets, and there is on every side abundance of old-fashioned pistols and guns, many of them with matchlocks. Immediately below the cornice hangs a row of leathern jerkins, made in the form of a shirt, supposed to have been worn as armour by the vassals. A large oak table, reaching nearly from one end of the room to the other, might have feasted the whole neighbourhood, and an appendage to one end of it made it answer at other times for the old ame of shuffle-board. The rest of the furniture is in a suitable style, particularly an arm-chair of cumbrous Workmanship, constructed of wood, curiously turned, with a high back and triangular seat, said to have been used by Judge Popham in the reign of Elizabeth. The entrance into the hall is at one end by a low door, communicating with a passage that leads from the outer door in the front of the house to a quadrangle1 within; | at the other, it opens upon a gloomy staircase, by which you ascend to the first floor, and, passing the doors of some bed-chambers, enter a narrow gallery which extends along the back front of the house from one end to the other of it, and looks upon an old garden. This gallery is hung with portraits, chiefly in the Spanish dresses of the sixteenth century. In one of the bedchambers, which you pass in going towards the gallery, sa bedstead with blue furniture, which time has now made dingy and threadbare, and in the bottom of one of the bed-curtains you are shown a place where a small piece has been cut out and sewn in again,-a circumstance which serves to identify the scene of the following story: It was on a dark rainy night in the month of November, that an old midwife sate musing by her cottage fire-side, when on a sudden she was startled by a loud knocking at the door. On opening it she found a horseman, who told her that her assistance was required immediately by a person of rank, and that she should be handsomely rewarded, but that there were reasons for keeping the affair a strict secret, and, therefore, she must submit to be blind-folded, and to be conducted in that condition to the bed-chamber of the lady. With some hesitation the midwife consented; the horseman bound her eyes, and placed her on a pillion behind him. After proceeding in silence for many miles, through rough and dirty lanes, they stopped, and the midwife was led into a house, which from the length of her walk through the apartments, as well as the sounds about her, she discovered to be the seat of wealth and power. When the bandage was removed from her eyes, she found herself in a bed-chamber, in which I think there is a chapel on one side of it, but am not quite sure. were the lady on whose account she had been sent for, and a man of a haughty and ferocious aspect. The lady was delivered of a fine boy. Immediately the man commanded the midwife to give him the child, and catching it from her, he hurried across the room, and threw it on the back of the fire, that was blazing in the chimney. The child, however, was strong, and by its struggles rolled itself off upon the hearth, when the ruffian again seized it with fury, and, in spite of the intercession of the midwife, and the more piteous entreaties of the mother, thrust it under the grate, and, raking the live coals upon it, soon put an end to its life. The midwife, after spending some time in affording all the relief, in her power to the wretched mother, was told that she must begone. Her former conductor appeared, who again bound her eyes, and conveyed her behind him to her own home: he then paid her handsomely, and departed. The midwife was strongly agitated by the horrors of the preceding night; and she immediately made a deposition of the fact before the magistrate. Two circumstances afforded hopes of detecting the house in which the crime had been committed; one was, that the midwife, as she sate by the bedside, had, with a view to discover the place, cut out a piece of the bed-curtain, and sewn it in again; the other was, that as she had descended the staircase, she had counted the steps. Some suspicions fell upon one Darrell, at that time the proprietor of Littlecot-house, and the domain around it. The house was examined, and identified by the midwife, and Darrell was tried at Salisbury for the murder. By corrupting his judge, he escaped the sentence of the law, but broke his neck by a fall from his horse in hunting, in a few months after. The place where this happened is still known by the name of Darrell's Stile,-a spot to be dreaded by the peasant whom the shades of evening have overtaken on his way. «Littlecot-house is two miles from Hungerford, in Berkshire, through which the Bath road passes. The fact occurred in the reign of Elizabeth. All the important circumstances I have given exactly as they are told in the country; some trifles only are added, either to render the whole connected, or to increase the impression.»> With this tale of terror the author has combined some circumstances of a similar legend, which was current at Edinburgh, during his childhood. About the beginning of the eighteenth century, when the large castles of the Scottish nobles, and even the secluded hotels, like those of the French noblesse, which they possessed in Edinburgh, were sometimes the scenes of strange and mysterious transactions, a divine of singular sanctity was called up at midnight, to pray with a person at the point of death. This was no unusual summons; but what followed was alarming. He was put into a sedan-chair, and, after he had been transported to a remote part of the town, the bearers insisted upon his being blindfolded. The request was enforced by a cocked pistol, and submitted to; but in the course of the discussion he conjectured, from the phrases employed by the chairmen, and from some part of their dress, not completely concealed by their cloaks, that they were greatly above the menial station they had assumed. After many turns and windings, the chair was carried up stairs into a lodging, where his eyes were uncovered, and he was introduced into a bed room, where he found a lady, newly delivered of an infant. He was commanded by his attendants to say such prayers by her bed-side as were fitting for a person not expected to survive a mortal disorder. He ventured to remonstrate, and observe that her safe delivery warranted better hopes. But he was sternly commanded to obey the orders first given, and with difficulty recollected himself sufficiently to acquit himself of the task imposed on him. He was then again hurried into the chair; but, as they conducted him down stairs, he heard the report of a pistol. He was safely conducted home; a purse of gold was forced upon him; but he was warned, at the same time, that the least allusion to this dark transaction would cost him his life. He betook himself to rest, and, after long and broken musing, fell into a deep sleep. From this he was awakened by his servant, with the dismal news, that a fire of uncommon fury had broken out in the house of ****, near the head of the Canongate, and that it was totally consumed; with the shocking addition, that the daughter of the proprietor, a young lady eminent for beauty and accomplishments, had perished in the flames. The clergyman had his suspicions, but to have made them public would have availed nothing. He was ti-soner to Morris mid; the family was of the first distinction; above all, the deed was done, and could not be amended. Time wore away, however, and with it his terrors. He became unhappy at being the solitary depositary of this fearful mystery, and mentioned it to some of his brethren, through whom the anecdote acquired a sort of publicity. The divine, however, had been long dead, and the story in some degree forgotten, when a fire broke out again on the very same spot where the house of **** | had formerly stood, and which was now occupied by buildings of an inferior description. When the flames were at their height, the tumult, which usually attends such a scene, was suddenly suspended by an unexpected apparition. A beautiful female, in a night-way, who brought word that he was come thither safe, dress, extremely rich, but at least half a century old, appeared in the very midst of the fire, and uttered these tremendous words in her vernacular idiom: « Anes burned; twice burned; the third time I'll scare you all!» The belief in this story was formerly so strong, that on a fire breaking out, and seeming to approach the fatal spot, there was a good deal of anxiety testified lest the apparition should make good her de-Howell's houses, and assaulting him in his owne house, nunciation. Howell in his own house, after the manner he had seene in the French warres, and consumed with fire his barnes and his out houses. Whilst he was thus as saulting the hall, which Howell ap Rys and many other people kept, being a very strong house, he was shot out of a crevice of the house, through the sight of his beaver into the head, and slayne out-right, being otherwise armed at all points. Notwithstanding his death, the assault of the house was continued with great vehe mence, the doores fired with great burthens of straw; besides this, the smoake of the out-houses and barnes ! not farre distant annoyed greatly the defendants, for i that most of them lay under boordes and benches upon the floore, in the hall, the better to avoyd the smoake, i During this scene of confusion onely the old man, Howell ap Rys, never stooped, but stood valiantly in the middest of the floore, armed with a gleve in his! hand, and called into them, and bid them arise like men, for shame, for he had knowne there as greate a smoke in that hall upon Christmas even.' In the end, seeing the house could no longer defend them, being overlayed with a multitude, upon parley betweene them, Howell ap Rys was content to yeald himself priap John ap Meredith, John ap Meredith's eldest sonne, soe as he would swear unto him to bring him safe to Carnarvon Castle, to abide the triall of the law for the death of Graff ap John ap Grouw, who was cosen-german removed to the said Howell ap Rys, and of the very same house he was of. Which Morris ар John ар Meredith undertaking, did put a guard about the said Howell of his trustiest friends and servants, who kept and defended him from the rage of his kindred, and especially of Owen ap John ap Meredith, his brother, who was very eager against him. They passed by leisure thence like a campe to Carnarvon, the whole countric being assembled, Howell his friends posted a horseback from one place or other by the « Note 11. Stanza xxxiii. As thick a smoke these hearths have given Such an exhortation was, in similar circumstances, actually given to his followers by a Welch chieftain:Enmity did continue betweene Howell ap Rys ap Howell Vaughan and the sonnes of John ар Meredith. After the death of Evan ap Robert, Griffith ap Gronw (cozen-german to John ap Meredith's sonnes of Gwynfryn, who had long served in France and had charge there), comeing home to live in the countrey, it happened that a servant of his, comeing to fish in Stymilyn, his fish was taken away, and the fellow beaten by Howell ap Rys his servants, and by his commandment. Griffith ар John ap Grow took the matter in such dudgeon that he challenged Howell ap Rys to the field, which he refusing, assembling his cosins John ap Meredith's sonnes and his friends together, assaulted for they were in great fear lest he should be murthered, and that Morris ap John ap Meredith could not be abie to defend him, neither durst any of Howell's friends be 1 there, for fear of the kindred. In the end, being delivered by Morris ap John ap Meredith to the constable of Carnarvon Castle, and there kept safely in ward until the assises, it fell out by law that the burning of was a more haynous offence in Morris ap John ap Me- CANTO VI. Note 1. Stanza xxi. O'er Hexham's altar hung my glove. This custom among the Redesdale and Tynedale be derers is mentioned in the interesting life of Brn.r Gilpin, where some account is given of these wild ... |