Scarce were they seated, when with clamours loud
In rush'd at once a rude promiscuous crowd.
Now chang'd the jarring noise to whispers low,
As winds forsaking seas more softly blow;
When at the western gate, on which the car
Is plac'd aloft, that bears the God of War,
Proud Arcite entering arm'd, before his train,
Stops at the barrier, and divides the plain.
Red was his banner, and display'd abroad
The bloody colours of his patron god.*
At the self moment enters Palamon
The gate of Venus and the rising-sun;
Wav'd by the wanton winds, his banner flies,
All maiden white, and shares the people's eyes.
From East to West, look all the world around,
Two troops so match'd were never to be found.

Thus rang'd, the herald for the last proclaims
A silence, while they answer'd to their names:
The tale was just, and then the gates were clos'd;
And chief to chief, and troop to troop oppos'd.
The heralds last retir'd, and loudly cry'd,
'The fortune of the field be fairly try'd.'

At this, the challenger, with fierce defy,
His trumpet sounds, the challeng'd makes reply:
With clangor rings the field, resounds the vaulted sky.
Their visors clos'd, their lances in the rest,

Or at the helmet pointed, or the crest;
They vanish from the barrier, speed the race,
And, spurring, see decrease the middle space.
Full oft the rivals met; and neither spar'd
His utmost force; and each forgot to ward.
Both were by turns unhors'd; the jealous blows
Fall thick and heavy, when on foot they close.
So deep their faulchions bite, that every stroke
Pierc'd to the quick; and equal wounds they gave and
took.

So when a tiger sucks the bullock's blood,

• Mars.

The swains come arm'd between, and both to distance

drive.

At length, as fate foredoom'd, and all things tend

By course of time to their appointed end;
The strong Emetrius came in Arcite's aid,
And Palamon with odds was overlaid,
Unyielded as he was, and to the pillar bound.
The royal judge, on his tribunal plac'd,
Who had beheld the fight from first to last,
Bade, Cease the war;' pronouncing, from on high,
'Arcite of Thebes had won the beauteous Emily.'
The sound of trumpets to the voice reply'd,
And round the royal lists the heralds cry'd,
'Arcite of Thebes has won the beauteous bride.'
The people rend the skies with vast applause;
All own the chief, when fortune owns the cause.'

The preceding verses nearly agree with the description of a tournament, taken from Ivanhoe. Dryden's scene of the tournament is Athens. Whether such a spectacle was ever exhibited there, is doubtful; but the earlier English poets did not regard local probability, which, according to the present practice of writers of prose or poetic fable, is become indispensable. A few of the expressions used in this description may not be readily understood.

Crested morions, with their plumy pride.-The morion was the cap worn by the Knights, adorned with a plume, and expressing in its appearance something of the dignity of the wearer.

Their squires in gaudy liveries march.-Livery is a dress appropriated to a particular order of persons. In modern times, the dress of men-servants appertaining to a gentleman's family coach, is called livery, and is usu ally only a red, blue, or yellow edging to the cape and

cuffs of the man's coat.

Palfreys, travelling horses, of mettle and appearance inferior to the war-horse.

Yeomen, soldiers employed as guards and attendants. The rank of the subordinate persons engaged in the private warfare of the middle ages is very clearly displayed in the first Canto of Scotts' Lay:

"Nine and twenty Knights of fame

Hung their shields in Branksome hall;

Nine and twenty squires of name

Brought them their steeds from bower to stall;
Nine and twenty Yeoman tall

Waited duteous on them all.

-Numbers hold

With the fair freckled King, &c.

But most their looks on the black monarch bend.

These lines express the party feeling with which the heroes of the tournaments was regarded. It has been remarked, that at the commencement of the exercises, the spectators usually gave the preference to one or other of the combatants.

His double-biting axe and beamy spear,

Each asking a gigantic force to rear.

The beamy spear, expresses the high polish of the spear's point, which reflected the beams or rays of light in every direction. The weight of these arms required a gigantic force to lift them. It appears that the active and self denying habits of the Knights gave them extraordinary strength.

Armed cap-a-pee-from head to foot.

King-at-Arms.-An officer employed in ancient pageants to announce the pleasure of the presiding prince in respect to the order of the ceremonies. The kingat-arms here declares it is the sovereign's will that dangerous weapons be banished from the field, and that the strife shall spare the lives of those engaged in it. The combatants seldom had sufficient forbearance to observe this prohibition; and at length, in consequence of the numbers killed in them, the Popes suppressed tournaments altogether.

The tourney, the trial of horsemanship.

The dismounted Knight was not allowed to repeat the tourney, but might fight on foot, his honour to regain.

The western gate, on which the car Is plac'd aloft, that bears the god of war.

The gates which Dryden here describes are adorned with sculpture. Over the western gate is the car of Mars and its terrible master; the eastern gate-that of the rising sun—was embellished by the beautiful figure of Venus.

BOADICEA.

Boadicea was queen of the Iceni, a tribe of native Britons. When the Romans invaded Britain, they did not at once achieve the conquest of that Island. A. D. 60, Boadicea, among other of the native princes, resisted the Roman arms, but fighting at the head of her subjects, she fell into the hands of the enemy. The Romans beat her, and treated her with the most cruel indignities, so that at last in her despair she put an end to her existence. Cowper's verses which follow, describe her, some time before her defeat, resorting for direction in her holy purpose of pre serving her people from their invaders, to a Druid, one of the priests of her religion; and though the venerable man could not promise her the deliverance she sought, he predicted for her consolation the downfal of the Roman, and the exaltation of the British power.

"When the British warrior queen,

Bleeding from the Roman rods,
Sought with an indignant mien,
Counsel of her country's gods.

Sage beneath the spreading oak
Sat the Druid, hoary chief;

Ev'ry burning word he spoke
Full of rage, and full of grief.

Princess! if our aged eyes

Weep upon thy matchless wrongs,

'Tis because resentment ties
All the terrors of our tongues.

Rome shall perish-write that word
In the blood that she has spilt ;
Perish, hopeless and abhorr'd,
Deep in ruins as in guilt.

Rome, for empire far renown'd,
Tramples on a thousand states;
Soon her pride shall kiss the ground-
Hark! the Gaul is at her gates!

Other Romans shall arise,

Heedless of a soldier's name; Sounds, not arms, shall win the prize, Harmony the path to fame.

Then the progeny that springs

From the forests of our land, Arm'd with thunder, clad with wings, Shall a wider world command.

Regions Cæsar never knew

Thy posterity shall sway;
Where his eagles never flew,
None invincible as they.

Such the bard's prophetic words,
Pregnant with celestial fire,
Bending as he swept the chords
Of his sweet but awful lyre.

She, with all a monarch's pride,
Felt them in her bosom glow:
Rush'd to battle, fought, and died:
Dying hurl'd them at the foe.

Ruffians, pitiless as proud,

Heav'n awards the vengeance due ;

Empire is on us bestow'd,

Shame and ruin wait for you.