Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

"The heart's gentlest waters,

Lightening the fount they flow'd from;"

but in large heavy drops, slowly gathered beneath her eyelids, and fell upon her bosom.

[ocr errors]

Say not so, gentlest Madam," returned Don Henry; "all residences are not as dismal as the Castle of Valladolid; all hearts are not as cold and barbarous as Don Pedro's. The vows which you have plighted to him, he has himself rendered null and void, and in the compass of the world, surely another will be found who will know how to estimate

[ocr errors]

"No more, Count; no more of this," said the Queen, interrupting him. "It has pleased Heaven to link me to Don Pedro by irrevocable ties. For yourself, rest assured that you possess my esteem, my gratitude, and even my affection,” Say'st thou so, Traitress!" shouted Don Pedro, who had arrived only in time to hear the latter part of her answer to Henry. "Adultress! miscreant! serpent of France! here receive the reward of thy perfidy and shame!"

[ocr errors]

Thus saying, he passed his sword thrice through the body of the unhappy Queen, who fell at his feet bathed in blood. Don Henry, although unarmed, would have rushed upon him, but was instantly made a prisoner by the guard. With the

cold, Gorgon-like gaze of Maria de Padilla fixed upon him, his blood ran chilly in his veins at this hateful sight; his lips quivered, and for a moment he could have fancied himself undergoing the metamorphosis which the glance of Medusa is said to have effected in those on whom it was fixed.

"Sire!" said Maria, in an under tone to the King, as she raised his hand wet with the blood of his Queen to her lips,-" behold the traitor! what shall be his doom?"

"To the scaffold with him! to the block instantly!"

"Not so, my Liege, not so; the Bastard's fate would but excite too much sympathy in Valladolid, where he has contrived to gain the people's hearts; and his brother Don Tello would not suffer his death to pass unrevenged. Strip him of his titles, degrade him, banish him ; and thus prolong his pangs for years, instead of the brief interval between the uplifting of the axe and it's descent."

"Thou counsellest wisely, my sweet Maria," said the King; and then turning towards his prisoner, added," thank my mercy that I will not stain myself with thy bastard blood, traitor! but upon pain of death, instantly begone! nor let Castile be further polluted by thy presence. Depart not, however, as Count of Trastamare, but

simply, Henry de Guzman, the fruit and evidence of thy mother's infamy!"

[ocr errors]

Tyrant and murderer !" retorted the indignant Henry, "I will fly from Castile, and even to the end of the earth to escape from the domination of such a monster as thou art.”

The King grinned fiercely, and raised his weapon, but his arm was restrained by Maria; and his fears, and not his clemency, having at length triumphed over his thirst for blood, Don Henry walked uninjured, out of the custody of the guards.

Month succeeded month, and year rolled after year, and the blood of Blanche of Bourbon seemed to call for vengeance in vain. That vengeance was at length, however, fully and signally accomplished by a series of events, which are too familiar to the readers of French and Spanish history to require to be enumerated. Maria de Padilla, though loaded with the favours of Don Pedro, could not give him her heart, and the remembrance of her flagrant crimes and her unrequited affection, combined to bring her to an early grave; whilst Don Pedro, after a reign of unexampled cruelty and oppression, was chased from his throne by his indignant subjects, and died by the hands of his deeply-wronged brother, Don Henry, Count of Trastamare, who subsequently wore his crown.

SHAKSPEARE'S

SUPERNATURAL CHARACTERS.

He was the Soul of genius,

And all our praises of him are like waters

Drawn from a spring, that still rise full, and leave
The part remaining greatest.

JONSON.

IT is one of the most striking peculiarities in the genius of Shakspeare, that, although he is eminently the Poet of Nature, and exhibits her with singular felicity in her ordinary and every day attire, yet that, when he gets "beyond this visible, diurnal sphere," he surpasses all other writers, in the extraordinary power and invention which he displays in the delineation of Supernatural beings. It has been justly remarked, that, in his most imaginary characters he cannot be so properly said to go beyond Nature, as to carry Nature along with him, into regions which were before unknown to

her. There is such an extraordinary propriety and consistency in his supernatural beings, and every thing which they say and do, is in such strict accordance with the character with which he has invested them, that we at once become, as it were, denizens of the imaginary world, which the potent art of the Poet has conjured around us; the marvellous merges into the probable; and astonishment and surprise are changed into intense interest and powerful sympathy. Shakspeare is the only Poet who effects this; at least, to the same extent. The magic of other writers pleases and surprises us; but in that of Shakspeare we are thoroughly wrapt up. We are as much under the influence of the wand of Prospero, as are Ariel and Caliban; the presence of the Weird Sisters on the blasted heath, arrests our attention as strongly as it did that of Macbeth and Banquo; and the predictions of the prophetic Spirits on the eve of the battle of Bosworth, ring as fearfully and as solemnly in our ears, as they did in those of the conscious usurper. The great secret of all this is, the wonderful art with which the character of these visitants from another world is sustained, and in which they are not surpassed by any of our Author's representations of mere humanity. Ariel is as perfect and harmonious a picture as Miranda,

« AnteriorContinuar »