XXXIX. ENGLISH RIVERS. "BESIDES Carrying off the superfluous water from the land, rivers perform the most important office of fertilising the districts through which they flow. Wherever there is water, there is vegetation, life, and beauty. Even sandy deserts become, as we have remarked, spots of nutrition and pleasantness, where any spring or river moistens the surface. Rich products adorn their banks, and mark their neighbourhood, and follow from their inundations. The country which abounds with them is ever fertile and prosperous, and when once inhabited and cultivated is distinguished by its opulence and population. They are always one of the greatest physical blessings which Providence confers upon the land which they enrich."- Turner's Sacred History. RIVERS, arise; whether thou be the son Of utmost Tweed,' or Ouse, or gulfy Dun, 2 Or Trent, who, like some earth-born giant, spreads Or sullen Mole, that runneth underneath, Or rocky Avon, or of sedgy Lea, 5 Or coaly Tyne, or ancient hallowed Dee, Or Humber loud, that keeps the Scythian name;" 1. Why utmost Tweed? 2. Trent is by some rather fancifully supposed to be connected with the Latin word triginta, thirty, and the thirty arms are its tributaries. 3. The Mole is a river in Surrey, and it is said to sink into a subterranean channel between Dorking and Leatherhead. 4. The Lea is a very sluggish river, and all along its banks grow sedges. 5. Why coaly Tyne? MILTON. 6. The Humber is said to have been named after a Scythian king who was drowned in the river. 7. The Thames flows past the Royal Tower of Windsor and the Tower of London, and, "though last not least," past the Royal Hospital of Greenwich. XL. THE EXCOMMUNICATION OF THE CID. "THE Cid (from the Arabic El Seid, the Lord'), so called by the Moors of Spain, whom he subjugated by his victories, was born at Burgos, somewhere about 1040. His real name was Rodrigo Diaz de Bivar. He attached himself to Sanchez II., King of Leon and Castile, whose life he once saved in battle. Sanchez having been treacherously slain, the Cid insisted on his brother and successor, Alfonso, taking an oath of his innocence of his brother's murder. The life of the Cid was a continued series of combats with the Moors, who occupied by far the largest and richest part of the country. He fell upon them in Aragon, established himself there, and then extended his conquests to Valencia, the capital city, and held it until his death, which happened about 1099. The adventures of the Cid form the subject of some of the most interesting of the ballad poems of Spain. They are of course largely intermixed with fable.-Knight's National Cyclopædia. THE EXCOMMUNICATION OF THE CID. 71 It was when from Spain across the main the Cid had come to Rome, He chanced to see chairs four and three beneath St. Peter's dome. "Now tell, I pray, what chairs be they?"-"Seven kings do sit thereon, As well doth suit, all at the foot of the holy Father's throne. The Pope he sitteth above them all, that they may kiss his toe, Below the keys the Flower-de-lys doth make a gallant show; For his great puissance, the King of France next to the Pope may sit, The rest more low, all in a row, as doth their station fit." "Ha!" quoth the Cid, "now God forbid! it is a shame, I wiss, To see the Castle planted beneath the Flower-de-lys. No harm, I hope, good Father Pope-although I move thy chair." In pieces small, he kicked it all ('twas of the ivory fair). The Pope's own seat, he from his feet did kick it far away, And the Spanish chair he planted upon its place that day; Above them all he planted it, and laughed right bitterly; Looks sour and bad, I trow he had, as grim as grim might be. Now when the Pope was aware of this, he was an angry man, His lips that night, with solemn rite, pronounced the awful ban, The curse of God, who died on rood, was on that sinner's head To hell and woe man's soul must go, if once that curse be laid. I wot, when the Cid was aware of this, a woful man was he, At dawn of day he came to pray, at the blessed Father's knee : "Absolve, blessed Father, have pity upon me, Absolve my soul, and penance I for my sin will dree." "Who is the sinner," quoth the Pope, "that at my feet doth kneel ?" "I am Rodrigo Diaz-a poor baron of Castille." Much marvelled all were in the hall, when that name they heard him say. "Rise up, rise up," the Pope he said, "I do thy guilt away; I do thy guilt away," he said, "and my curse I blot it out- 1. Rood, i.e., the cross. 2. Dree is an old word for to suffer or endure. XLI. THE WARDEN OF THE CINQUE PORTS. "THE Duke of Wellington left to his countrymen a great legacygreater even than his glory. He left them the contemplation of his character. I will not say his conduct revived the sense of duty in England. I will not say that of our country. But that his conduct inspired public life with a purer and more masculine tone I cannot doubt. His career rebukes restless vanity, and reprimands the irregular ebullitions of a morbid egotism. I doubt not that, among all orders of Englishmen, from those with the highest responsibilities of our society to those who perform the humblest duties, I dare say there is not a man who in his toil and his perplexity has not sometimes thought of the duke, and found in his example support and solace. Though he lived so much in the hearts and minds of his countrymenthough he occupied such eminent posts and fulfilled such august duties -it was not till he died that we felt what a place he filled in the feelings and thoughts of the people of England. Never was the influence of real greatness more completely asserted than on his decease. In an age whose boast of intellectual equality flatters all our self-complacencies, the world suddenly acknowledged that it had lost the greatest of men; in an age of utility, the most industrious and common-sense people in the world could find no vent for their woe and no representative for their sorrow but the solemnity of a pageant; and we-we who have met here for such different purposes-to investigate the sources of the wealth of nations, to enter into statistical research, and to encounter each other in fiscal controversy, we present to the world the most sublime and touching spectacle that human circumstances can well produce-the spectacle of a senate mourning a hero!' - Disraeli's Speech on the Funeral of the Duke of Wellington. A MIST was driving down the British Channel, And through the window-panes, on floor and panel, It glanced on flowing flag and rippling pennon, And, from the frowning rampart, the black cannon THE WARDEN OF THE CINQUE PORTS. Sandwich and Romney, Hastings, Hythe, and Dover, To see the French war-steamers speeding over Sullen and silent, and like couchant lions, Holding their breath, had watched in grim defiance, And now they roared at drum-beat from their stations Each answering each, with morning salutations, And down the coast, all taking up the burden, As if to summon from his sleep the Warden Him shall no sunshine from the fields of azure, No morning gun from the black fort's embrazure, No more surveying with an eye impartial Shall the gaunt figure of the old Field-Marshal For in the night, unseen, a single warrior, Dreaded of man, and surnamed the Destroyer, He passed into the chamber of the sleeper, And as he entered, darker grew and deeper He did not pause to parley or dissemble, Ah! what a blow! that made all England tremble, And groan from shore to shore. Meanwhile, without the surly cannon waited, The sun rose bright o'erhead; Nothing in nature's aspect intimated That a great man was dead! H. W. LONGFELLOW. F 73 XLII. THE FALL OF WOLSEY. THE Earl of Northumberland received orders, without regard to Wolsey's ecclesiastical character, to arrest him for high treason, and to conduct him to London, in order to his trial. The cardinal, partly from the fatigues of his journey, partly from the agitation of his anxious mind, was seized with a disorder which turned into a dysentery; and he was able, with some difficulty, to reach Leicester Abbey. When the abbot and the monks advanced to receive him with much respect and reverence, he told them, that he was come to lay his bones among them; and he immediately took to his bed, whence he never rose more. A little before he expired, he addressed himself in the following words to Sir William Kingston, constable of the Tower, who had him in custody:-"I pray you have me heartily recommended unto His Royal Majesty, and beseech him, on my behalf, to call to his remembrance all matters that have passed between us from the beginning, especially with regard to his business with the Queen; and then will he know in his conscience whether I have offended him. "He is a prince of a most royal carriage, and hath a princely heart; and rather than he will miss or want any part of his will, he will endanger the one half of his kingdom. "I do assure you, that I have often kneeled before him, sometimes three hours together, to persuade him from his will and appetite; but could not prevail. Had I but served God as diligently as I have served the King, he would not have given me over in my gray hairs. But this is the just reward that I must receive for my indulgent pains and study, not regarding my service to God, but only to my prince. Therefore, let me advise you. If you be one of the privy council, as by your wisdom you are fit, take care what you put into the king's head, for you can never put it out again." Thus died this famous cardinal, whose character seems to have contained as singular a variety as the fortune to which he was exposed. Henry much regretted his death when informed of it, and always spoke favourably of his memory: a proof that humour more than reason, or any discovery of treachery, had occasioned the last persecutions against him.-Hume's History of England. CROMWELL,1 I did not think to shed a tear * |