more powerful nobles might have denied it. When her troops charged, or made any other voluntary movement, they put all their hearts into their blows; and when they were compelled to await the enemy, they stood as inflexible as walls of iron. It was like hammering upon metal statuary; or staking their fated horses upon spears rivetted in stone. Doracles was taken prisoner. The queen, re-issuing from her tent, crowned with laurel, came riding down the eminence, and remained at the foot with her generals, while the prisoners were taken by. Her pale face kept as royal a countenance of composed pity as she could manage, while the commoner rebels passed along, aching with their wounded arms fastened behind, and shaking back their bloody and blinding locks for want of a hand to part them. But the blood mounted to her cheeks, when the proud and handsome Doracles, whom she now saw for the first time, blushed deeply as he cast a glance at his female conqueror, and then stepped haughtily along, handling his gilded chains as if they were an indifferent ornament. "I have conquered him," thought she: “it is a heavy blow to so proud a head; and as he looks not unamiable, it might be politic as well as courteous and kind in me to turn his submission into a more willing one." Alas! pity was helping admiration to a kinder set of offices, than the generous-hearted queen suspected. The captive went to his prison, a conqueror after all; for Daphles loved him.

The second night, after having exhibited in her manners a strange mixture of joy and seriousness, and signified to her counsellors her intention of setting the prisoner free, she released him with her own hands. Many a step did she hesitate as she went down the stairs; and when she came to the door, she shed a full, but soft, and as it seemed to her a wilful and refreshing flood of tears, bumbling herself for her approaching task. When she had entered, she blushed deeply, and then turning as pale, stood for a minute silent and without motion. She then said, "Thy queen, Doracles, has come to shew thee how kindly she can treat a great and gallant subject, who did not know her;" and with these words, and almost before she was aware, the prisoner was released, and preparing to go. He appeared surprised, but not off his guard, nor in any temper to be over grateful. "Name," said he, "O queen, the conditions on which I depart, and they will be faithfully kept." Daphles moved her

lips, but they spoke not. She waved her head and hand with a deadly smile, as if freeing him from all conditions; and he was turning to go, when she fell senseless on the floor. The haughty warrior raised her with more impatience than good will. He could guess at love in a woman; but he had but a mean opinion both of it and her sex; and the deadly struggle in the heart of Daphles did not help him to distinguish the romantic passion, which had induced her to put all her past and virgin notions of love into his person, from the commonest liking that might flatter his soldierly vanity.

The queen, on awaking from her swoon, found herself compelled, in very justice to the intensity of a true passion, to explain how pity had brought it upon her. "I might ask it," said she," Doracles, in return;" and here she resumed something of her queen-like dignity; "but I feel that my modesty will be sufficiently saved hy the name of your wife; and a substantial throne, with a return that shall nothing perplex or interfere with thee, I do now accordingly offer thee, not as the condition of thy freedom, but as a diversion of men's eyes and thoughts from what they will think ill in me, if they find me rejected." And in getting out that hard word, her voice faultered a little, and her eyes filled with

tears.

Doracles, with the best grace his lately defeated spirit could assume, spoke in willing terms of accepting her offer. They left the prison; and his full pardon having been proclaimed, the courtiers, with feasts and entertainments, vied who should seem best to approve their mistress's choice; for so they were quick to understand it. The late captive, who was really as graceful and accomplished as a proud spirit would let him be, received and returned all their attention in princely sort; and Daphles was beginning to hope that he might turn a glad eye upon her some day, when news was brought her that he had gone from court, nobody knew whither. The next intelligence was too certain. He had passed the frontiers, and was leaguing with her enemies for another struggle.

From that day, gladness, though not kindness, went out of the face of Daphles. She wrote him a letter, without a word of reproach in it, enough to bring back the remotest heart that had the least spark of sympathy; but he only answered it in a spirit which shewed that he regarded the deepest love

but as a wanton trifle. That letter touched her kind wits. She had had a paper drawn up, leaving him her throne in case she should die; but some of her ministers, availing themselves of her enfeebled spirit, had summoned a meeting of the nobles, at which she was to preside in the dress she wore on the day of victory; the sight of which, it was thought, with the arguments which they meant to use, would prevail upon the assembly to urge her to a revocation of the bequest. Her women dressed her, while she was almost unconscious of what they were doing, for she had now began to fade quickly, body as well as mind. They put on her the white garments edged with silver waves, in remembrance of the stream of Inachus, the founder of the Argive monarchy ; the spear was brought out, to be stuck by the side of the throne, instead of the sceptre; and their hands prepared to put the same laurel on her head, which bound its healthy white temples, when she sat on horseback, and saw the prisoner go by. But at sight of its twisted and withered green, she took it in her hand; and looking about her in her chair with an air of momentary recollection, began picking it, and letting the leaves fall upon the floor. She went on thus, leaf after leaf, looking vacantly downwards; and when she had stripped the circle half round, she leaned her cheek against the side of her sick chair; and shutting her eyes quietly, so died.

The envoys from Argos went to the court of Calydon, where Doracles then was; and bringing him the diadem upon a black cushion, informed him at once of the death of the queen, and her nomination of him to the throne. He shewed little more than a ceremonious gravity at the former news; but could ill contain his joy at the latter, and set off instantly to take possession. Among the other nobles who feasted him, was one, who, having been the particular companion of the late king, had become like a second father to his unhappy daughter. The new prince observing the melancholy which he scarcely affected to repress, and seeing him look up occasionally at a picture which had a veil over it, asked him what the picture, was that seemed to disturb him so, and why it was veiled? "If it be the portrait of the late king," said Doracles, pray think me worthy of doing honour to it, for he was a noble prince. Unveil it, pray. I insist upon What? am I not worthy to look upon my predecessor, Phorbas?" At these words he frowned impatiently. Phor

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bas, with a trembling hand, but not for want of courage, withdrew the black covering, and the portrait of Daphles, in all her youth and beauty, flashed upon the eyes of Doracles. It was not a melancholy face. It was drawn before misfortune had touched it, and sparkled with a blooming beauty, in which animal spirits and good nature contended for predominence. Doracles paused, and seemed struck. "The possessor of that face," said he inquiringly, "could never have been so sorrowful, as I have heard?”- “Pardon me, sir,” answered Phorbas; "I was as another father to her, and knew all." "It cannot be," returned the prince. The old man begged his other guests to withdraw a while, and then told Doracles how many fond and despairing things the queen had said of him, both before her wits began to fail and after. "Her wits to fail?" murmured the king: "I have known what it is to feel almost a mad impatience of the will; but I knew not that these gentle creatures, women, could so feel for such a trifle." Phorbas brought out the laurel-crown, and told him how it was that the half of it became bare. The impatient blood of Doracles mounted, but not in anger, to his face; and breaking up the party, he requested that the picture might be removed to his own chamber, promising to return it.

A whole year, however, did he keep it; and as he had no foreign enemies to occupy his time, nor was disposed to enter into the common sports of peace, it was understood that he spent the greatest part of his time, when he was not in council, in the room where the picture hung. In truth, the image of the once smiling Daphles haunted him wherever he went; and to ease himself of the yearning of wishing her alive again and seeing her face, he was in the hahit of being with it as much as possible. His self-will turned upon him, even in that gentle shape. Millions of times did he wish back the loving author of his fortunes, whom he had treated with so clownish an ingratitude; and millions of times did the sense of the impotence of his wish run up in red hurry to his cheeks, and help to pull them into a gaunt melancholy. But this is not a repaying sorrow to dwell upon. He was one day, after being in vain expected at council, found lying madly on the floor of the room, dead. He had torn the portrait from the wall. His dagger was in his heart; and his cheek lay upon that blooming and smiling face, which had it been living, would never have looked so at being revenged.

A TALE OF WONDER,

SIR,-When I was a young boy, I had delicate health, and was somewhat of a pensive and contemplative turn of mind: it was my delight in the long summer evenings to slip away from my noisy and more robust companions, that I might walk in the shade of a venerable wood, my favourite haunt, and listen to the cawing of the old rooks, who seemed as fond of this retreat as I was.

One evening I sat later than usual, though the distant sound of the cathedral clock had more than once warned me to my home. There was a stillness in all nature that I was unwilling to disturb by the least motion. From this reverie I was suddenly startled by the sight of a tall slender female who was standing by me, looking sorrowfully and steadily in my face. She was dressed in white, from head to foot, in a fashion I had never seen before; her garments ware unusually long and flowing, and rustled as she glided through the low shrubs near me as if they were made of the richest silk. My heart beat as if I was dying, and I knew not that I could have stirred from the spot; but she seemed so very mild and beautiful, I did not attempt it. Her pale brown hair was braided round her head, but there were some locks that strayed upon her neck; and altogether she looked like a lovely picture, but not like a living woman. I closed my eyes forcibly with my hands, and when I looked again she had vanished.

I cannot exactly say why I did not on my return speak of this beautiful appearance, nor why, with a strange mixture of hope and fear, I went again and again to the same spot that I might see her. She always came, and often in the storm and plashing rain, that never seemed to touch or to annoy her, and looked sweetly at me, and silently passed on; and though she was so near to me, that once the wind lifted those light straying locks, and I felt them against my cheek, yet I never could move or speak to her. I fell ill; and when I recovered, my mother closely questioned me of the tall lady, of whom, in the height of my fever, I had so often spoken.

I cannot tell you what a weight was taken from my boyish spirits, when I learnt that this was no apparition, but a most lovely woman; not young, though she had kept her young looks, for the grief which had broken her heart seemed to have spared her beauty,