The name of Azteca, Heaven hath destroy'd

Our nation: Say, the voice of Heaven was heard,..
Heard ye it not? . . bidding us leave the land,
Who shakes us from her bosom. Ye will find
Women, old men, and babes; the many, weak
Of body and of spirit ill prepared,

With painful toil, through long and dangerous ways
To seek another country. Say to them,

The White Men will not lift the arm of power
Against the feeble; here they may remain
In peace, and to the grave in peace go down.
But they who would not have their children lose
The name their fathers bore, will join our march.
Ere ye set forth, behold the destined way.

He bade a pile be raised upon the top Of that high eminence, to all the winds Exposed. They raised the pile, and left it free To all the winds of Heaven; Yuhidthiton Alone approach'd it, and applied the torch. The day was calm, and o'er the flaming pile The wavy smoke hung lingering, like a mist That in the morning tracks the valley-stream. Swell over swell it rose, erect above, On all sides spreading like a stately palm. So moveless were the winds. Upward it roll'd, Still upward, when a stream of upper air Cross'd it, and bent its top, and drove it on, Straight over Aztlan. An acclaiming shout Welcomed the will of Heaven; for lo, the smoke Fast travelling on, while not a breath of air Is felt below. Ye see the appointed course; Exclaim'd the King. Proclaim it where ye go! On the third morning we begin our march.

Soon o'er the lake a winged galley sped, Wafting the Ocean Prince. He bore, preserved When Aztlan's bloody temples were cast down, The Ashes of the Dead. The King received The relics, and his heart was full; his eye Dwelt on his father's urn. At length he said, One more request, O Madoc!.. If the lake Should ever to its ancient bounds return, Shrined in the highest of Patamba's towers Coanocotzin rests... But wherefore this? Thou wilt respect the ashes of the King.

Then Madoc said, Abide not here, O King, Thus open to the changeful elements; But till the day of your departure come, Sojourn with me... Madoc, that must not be ! Yuhidthiton replied. Shall I behold A stranger dwelling in my father's house? Shall I become a guest, where I was wont To give the guest his welcome? . . He pursued, After short pause of speech,. . For our old men,

1 Mexitli, they said, appeared to them during their emigration, and ordered them to carry him before them in a chair; Teoycpalli it was called.— Torquemada, l. ii. c. 1. The hideous figures of their idols are easily accounted for by the Historian of the Dominicans in Mexico.

"As often as the Devil appeared to the Mexicans, they made immediately an idol of the figure in which they had seen him; sometimes as a lion, other times as a dog, other times as a serpent; and as the ambitious Devil took advan

And helpless babes and women; for all those Whom wisely fear and feebleness deter

To tempt strange paths, through swamp and wilderness

And hostile tribes, for these Yuhidthiton
Intreats thy favour. Underneath thy sway,
They may remember me without regret,
Yet not without affection... They shall be
My people, Madoc answer'd... And the rites
Of holiness transmitted from their sires, ..
Pursued the King,.. will these be suffer'd them? . .
Blood must not flow, the Christian Prince replied;
No Priest must dwell among us; that hath been
The cause of all this misery!.. Enough,
Yuhidthiton replied; I ask no more.
It is not for the conquer'd to impose
Their law upon the conqueror.

Then he turn'd,

And lifted up his voice, and call'd upon
The people: . . All whom fear or feebleness
Withhold from following my adventurous path,
Prince Madoc will receive. No blood must flow,
No Paba dwell among them.
Take upon ye,

Ye who are weak of body or of heart,
The Strangers' easy yoke: beneath their sway
Ye may remember me without regret.

Soon take your choice, and speedily depart,
Lest ye impede the adventurers. . . As he spake,
Tears flow'd, and groans were heard. The line was

So two days long, with unremitting toil, The barks of Britain to the adventurers Bore due supply; and to new habitants The city of the Cymry spread her gates; And in the vale around, and on the heights, Their numerous tents were pitch'd. Meantime the tale Of ruin went abroad, and how the Gods Had driven her sons from Aztlan. To the King, Companions of his venturous enterprize, The bold repair'd; the timid and the weak, All whom, averse from perilous wanderings, A gentler nature had disposed to peace, Beneath the Strangers' easy rule remain'd. Now the third morning came. At break of day The mountain echoes to the busy sound Of multitudes. Before the moving tribe The Pabas bear, enclosed from public sight, Mexitli; and the ashes of the Kings Follow the Chair of God.1 Yuhidthiton Then leads the marshall'd ranks, and by his side, Silent and thoughtfully, went Tlalala.

tage of this weakness, he assumed a new form every time to gain a new image in which he might be worshipped. The natural timidity of the Indians aided the design of the Devil, and he appeared to them in horrible and affrighting figures that he might have them the more submissive to his will; for this reason it is that the idols which we still see in Mexico, placed in the corners of the streets as spoils of the Gospel, are so deformed and ugly."— Fr. Augustin Davila Padilla.

At the north gate of Aztlan, Malinal, Borne in a litter, waited their approach; And now alighting, as the train drew nigh, Propt by a friendly arm, with feeble step Advanced to meet the King. Yuhidthiton, With eye severe and darkening countenance, Met his advance. I did not think, quoth he, Thou wouldst have ventured this! and liefer far Should I have borne away with me the thought That Malinal had shunn'd his brother's sight, Because their common blood yet raised in him A sense of his own shame!.. Comest thou to show Those wounds, the marks of thine unnatural war Against thy country? Or to boast the meed Of thy dishonour, that thou tarriest here, Sharing the bounty of the Conqueror, While, with the remnant of his countrymen, Saving the Gods of Aztlan and the name, Thy brother and thy King goes forth to seek His fortune!

Calm and low the youth replied,
Ill dost thou judge of me, Yuhidthiton!
And rashly doth my brother wrong the heart
He better should have known! Howbeit, I come
Prepared for grief. These honourable wounds
Were gain'd when, singly, at Caermadoc, I
Opposed the ruffian Hoamen: and even now,
Thus feeble as thou seest me, come I thence,
For this farewell. Brother,.. Yuhidthiton,..
By the true love which thou didst bear my youth,
Which ever, with a love as true, my heart
Hath answer'd,.. by the memory of that hour
When at our mother's funeral pile we stood,
Go not away in wrath, but call to mind

What thou hast ever known me! Side by side
We fought against the Strangers, side by side
We fell; together in the council-hall
We counsell'd peace, together in the field
Of the assembly pledged the word of peace.
When plots of secret slaughter were devised,
I raised my voice alone, alone I kept
My plighted faith, alone I prophesied
The judgement of just Heaven; for this I bore
Reproach and shame and wrongful banishment,
In the action self-approved, and justified
By this unhappy issue.

As he spake,
Did natural feeling strive within the King,
And thoughts of other days, and brotherly love,
And inward consciousness that had he too
Stood forth, obedient to his better mind,
Nor weakly yielded to the wily priests,
Wilfully blind, perchance even now in peace
The kingdom of his fathers had preserved
Her name and empire. . . Malinal, he cried,
Thy brother's heart is sore: in better times

It will scarcely be believed that the resemblance between Mexico and Messiah should have been adduced as a proof that America was peopled by the ten tribes. Fr. Estevan de

I may with kindlier thoughts remember thee And honour thy true virtue. Now, farewell!

So saying, to his heart he held the youth, Then turn'd away. But then cried Tlalala, Farewell, Yuhidthiton! the Tiger cried; For I too will not leave my native land,.. Thou who wert King of Aztlan! Go thy way; And be it prosperous. Through the gate thou seest Yon tree that overhangs my father's house; My father lies beneath it. Call to mind Sometimes that tree; for at its foot in peace Shall Tlalala be laid, who will not live Survivor of his country.

Thus he said,

And through the gate, regardless of the King,
Turn'd to his native door. Yuhidthiton
Follow'd, and Madoc; but in vain their words
Essay'd to move the Tiger's steady heart;
When from the door a tottering boy came forth
And clung around his knees with joyful cries,
And called him father. At the joyful sound
Out ran Ilanquel; and the astonish'd man
Beheld his wife and boy, whom sure he deem'd
Whelm'd in the flood; but them the British barks,
Returning homeward from their merciful quest,
Found floating on the waters... For a while,
Abandon'd by all desperate thoughts, he stood:
Soon he collected, and to Madoc turn'd,
And said, O Prince, this woman and her boy
I leave to thee. As thou hast ever found
In me a fearless unrelenting foe,
Fighting with ceaseless zeal his country's cause,
Respect them!.. Nay, Ilanquel! hast thou yet
To learn with what unshakeable resolve
My soul maintains its purposes? I leave thee
To a brave foe's protection... Lay me, Madoc,
Here, in my father's grave.

With that he took
His mantle off, and veil'd Пlanquel's face; ..
Woman, thou may'st not look upon the Sun,
Who sets to rise no more!.. That done, he placed
His javelin hilt against the ground; the point
He fitted to his heart; and, holding firm
The shaft, fell forward, still with steady hand
Guiding the death-blow on.

So in the land
Madoc was left sole Lord; and far away
Yuhidthiton led forth the Aztecas,
To spread in other lands Mexitli's name,1
And rear a mightier empire, and set up
Again their foul idolatry; till Heaven,
Making blind Zeal and bloody Avarice
Its ministers of vengeance, sent among them
The heroic Spaniard's unrelenting sword.

Salazar discovered this wise argument, which is noticed in Gregorio Garcia's very credulous and very learned work on the Origin of the Indians, 1. iii. c. vii. 2

MARY, THE MAID OF THE INN.

THE circumstances related in the following Ballad were told me when a school-boy, as having happened in the north of Eugland. Either Furnes or Kirkstall Abbey (I forget which) was named as the scene. The original story however is in Dr. Plot's History of Staffordshire. “Amongst the unusual accidents,” says this amusing author,

"that have attended the female sex in the course of their

lives, I think I may also reckon the narrow escapes they have made from death. Whereof I met with one mentioned with admiration by every body at Leek, that happened not far off at the Black Meer of Morridge, which, though famous for nothing for which it is commonly reputed so, (as that it is bottomless, no cattle will drink of it, or birds fly over or settle upon it, all which I found false,) yet is so, for the signal deliverance of a poor woman, enticed thither in a dismal stormy night, by a bloody ruffian, who had first gotten her with child, and intended in this remote inhospitable place to have dispatched her by drowning. The same night (Providence so ordering it) there were several persons of inferior rank drinking in an alehouse at Leek, whereof one having been out, and observing

the darkness and other ill circumstances of the weather, coming in again, said to the rest of his companions, that he were a stout man indeed that would venture to go to the Black Meer of Morridge in such a night as that: to which one of them replying, that for a crown or some such sum he would undertake it, the rest joining their purses, said he should have his demand. The bargain being struck, away he went on his journey with a stick in his hand, which he was to leave there as a testimony of his performance. At

length, coming near the Meer, he heard the lamentable

cries of this distressed woman, begging for mercy, which at first put him to a stand; but being a man of great resolution and some policy, he went boldly on however, counterfeiting the presence of divers other persons, calling Jack, Dick, and Tom, and crying, Here are the rogues we looked for,' &c. ; which being heard by the murderer, he left the woman and fled; whom the other man found by the Meer side almost stripped of her clothes, and brought her with him to Leek as an ample testimony of his having been at the Meer, and of God's providence too." -P. 291.

The metre is Mr. Lewis's invention; and metre is one of the few things concerning which popularity may be admitted as a proof of merit. The ballad has become popular owing to the metre and the story; and it has been made the subject of a fine picture by Mr. Barker.

1.

WHO is yonder poor Maniac, whose wildly-fix'd eyes
Seem a heart overcharged to express ?

She weeps not, yet often and deeply she sighs;
She never complains, but her silence implies
The composure of settled distress.

"Will Mary this charge on her courage allow ?" His companion exclaim'd with a smile;

She ran with wild speed, she rush'd in at the door, She gazed in her terror around,

And earn a new bonnet by bringing a bough

From the elder that grows in the aisle."

more,

And exhausted and breathless she sank on the floor, Unable to utter a sound.

20.

Ere yet her pale lips could the story impart,

For a moment the hat met her view; Her eyes from that object convulsively start, For.. what a cold horror then thrilled through her heart

When the name of her Richard she knew!

21.

Where the old Abbey stands, on the common hard by,
His gibbet is now to be seen;

His irons you still from the road may espy;
The traveller beholds them, and thinks with a sigh
Of poor Mary, the Maid of the Inn.
Bristol, 1796.

DONICA.

"In Finland there is a Castle which is called the New Rock, moated about with a river of unsounded depth, the water black, and the fish therein very distasteful to the palate. In this are spectres often seen, which foreshow either the death of the Governor, or of some prime officer belonging to the place; and most commonly it appeareth in the shape of a harper, sweetly singing and dallying and playing under the water.

"It is reported of one Donica, that after she was dead, the Devil walked in her body for the space of two years, so that none suspected but she was still alive; for she did both speak and eat, though very sparingly; only she had a deep paleness on her countenance, which was the only sign of death. At length a Magician coming by where she was then in the company of many other virgins, as soon as he beheld her he said, Fair Maids, why keep you company with this dead Virgin, whom you suppose to be alive?' when, taking away the magic charm which was tied under her arm, the body fell down lifeless and without motion." The following Ballad is founded on these stories. They are to be found in the notes to The Hierarchies of the Blessed Angels; a Poem by Thomas Heywood, printed in folio by Adam Islip, 1635.

HIGH on a rock whose castle shade
Darken'd the lake below,
In ancient strength majestic stood
The towers of Arlinkow.

The fisher in the lake below Durst never cast his net, Nor ever swallow in its waves Her passing wing would wet.