which had so laid waste his once fair and well

ordered kingdom."

Rothelan being thus imprisoned in Windsor Castle, and believing for his old treason, the revival of which he attributed to the malice of his uncle, began to fret and complain of his hard fortune, and the suf ferings to which, without offence, his noble mother had been so long consigned. But the plump heart of youth soon rejects sorrow. As the morning brightened, and the goodly prospect of woodlands and fields below his window opened to the rising sun, his stormy passions subsided into a serene resolution to sustain his fate as became a soldier. Even this, as the day advanced, is described by our author as yielding to gentler thoughts -the remembrance of the hopes he had cherished amidst the revels and the banquetings; and, as usual, when he fell into that soft and placid mood, his fancy flowed into melody,

and the images of the morning suggested the

following

SONG.

In the morning of life, and the spring of the

year, Like the bud

to the glow of the

sun-beam re - veal - ing, My heart felt the

charm of fond pas-sion en- dear, And offered to

beauty the fragrance of feeling. All brightness was

nature, all gladness my bo-som, The tear in my

eye like the dew on the flower; O gay was my

Ad lib.

wish, as the beam on the blossom, And fan-cy but

echo'd the bird in the bower.

While he was thus singing, and his spirit rising into more happy reflections, he heard the window of the chamber above suddenly opened, and in a moment after the delightful voice of the Lady Blanche calling him by name. But love-feasts at windows have been rendered stale by that of Romeo and Juliet, and, therefore, though our author's, with its impassioned flights and flashes of joyous tenderness, far excels, we shall not extract it; neither how the lovers congratulated one another on having escaped the plague wishing, in the same breath, that they had both died, since cruel destiny forbade their love. But much as the Lady Blanche rejoiced in the safety of her lover, her pleasure was not a

little saddened by the circumstances in which she had found him. Her feminine ingenuity, however, soon discovered what had not occurred to him,-that the mysterious manner in which he had been brought to Windsor did not look much like a seizure for treason; and she suggested for his consolation, that in all probability her father or Lord Suffolk had some hand in the conspiracy.

"But," said she, "I will inform the king, who hath been much disquieted concerning you; for, last night, a servant, who was supposed to have fallen in battle with your father, arrived from Scotland, and is gone to London to ascertain your fate."

In this manner was Rothelan informed of Hubert Neville's return, on the morning of the same day that he so avengingly visited Sir Amias, the sequel of whose machinations we shall now proceed to narrate.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE CHAIN BROKEN.

I 'gin to be a-weary of the sun,

And wish th' estate o' the world were now undone.
MACBETH.

WHEN the penitent, Hubert Neville, left the knight in that state of consternation, which his declaration was so well calculated to produce, it appears that he went immediately from Crosby-house towards the Guildhall of the city, for the purpose of disclosing the conspiracy in which he had himself been engaged against his master. In his way thither he met Ralph Hanslap, who, on arriving at Winchester-house, had been told that the bishop was gone on a special summons to the king at Windsor.