The name of Azteca, Heaven hath destroy'd With painful toil, through long and dangerous ways He bade a pile be raised upon the top So moveless were the winds. Upward it roll'd, 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! Yahidthiton 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 Then he turn'd, And lifted up his voice, and call'd upon Ye who are weak of body or of heart, Which whoso would accept the Strangers' yoke 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, What thou hast ever known me! Side by side As he spake, 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, Fighting with ceaseless zeal his country's cause, With that he took So in the land 1 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 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 1 BALLADS AND METRICAL TALES. 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 England. 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 She weeps not, yet often and deeply she sighs; 9. "I'll wager a dinner," the other one cried, "That Mary would venture there now." "Then wager and lose!" with a sneer he replied, "I'll warrant she'd fancy a ghost by her side, And faint if she saw a white cow." 10. 19. "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, "I shall win,.. for I know she will venture there now, Then her limbs could support their faint burthen no And earn a new bonnet by bringing a bough From the elder that grows in the aisle." 11. With fearless good-humour did Mary comply, 12. O'er the path so well known still proceeded the Maid 13. All around her was silent, save when the rude blast Where the elder-tree grew in the aisle. 14. Well pleased did she reach it, and quickly drew near, When the sound of a voice seem'd to rise on her ear, 15. The wind blew, the hoarse ivy shook over her head, She listen'd.. nought else could she hear; The wind fell; her heart sunk in her bosom with dread, For she heard in the ruins distinctly the tread 16. Behind a wide column half breathless with fear 17. Then Mary could feel her heart-blood curdle cold; It blew off the hat of the one, and behold 18. "Curse the hat!" he exclaims: "Nay, come on till we hide The dead body," his comrade replies. She beholds them in safety pass on by her side, She seizes the hat, fear her courage supplied, And fast through the Abbey she flies. 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, When the name of her Richard she knew! 21. Where the old Abbey stands, on the common hard by, His irons you still from the road may espy; 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 The fisher in the lake below |