session my own loved child, have thus ended in the murder of him he would have served!" The eye of the sufferer again appeared to beam with renewed energy-the lip moved, as if to speak-he gasped-fell convulsively forward-and was no more. "It seems to me most strange that men should fear, Seeing that death, a necessary end, Will come when it will come." Misfortune is the test by which we may estimate the character of the human mind, it seems either to refine or to render our natures more depraved and sensual; but woman, lovely woman, becomes more spiritualized as the weakening frame needs support from the sublime efforts of a soul unsubdued by the effect of circumstances: there is a feeling ever warm and powerful, to which love is most akin, but which constitutes but a small portion of its intensity, which is the essence of all that is virtuous, which makes a heroine of the timid, and a martyr of the "broken reed," which imparts strength to the strong, but upholds more firmly the attenuated frame, which whispers a kind word to the wretched, and cherishes the captive with a daring resolution, which bids the world, with all its misery, and all its iniquity, an undaunted defiance; and this is the charm which leads one to reflect and to feel that the spirit of woman possesses the power of an angel when controlled and softened by the inspiring effects of true religion. The baronet firmly held for some time the hand of his unfortunate victim, he stood horror-struck, and gazed upon his shrunken features, he raised his drooping head and remained motionless, as if life had been merely suspended and he but awaited its glimmering return. "Thou art a slave whom fortune's tender arm At length he reassumed his previous steady demeanour, and cautiously returned to the chamber of his daughter. They can barely conceive the effect of intense feeling who have never witnessed the mind's extreme anguish, or have marked how the effect glides, like the venom of a fiend's eye, through the bloodpassages of the body, cooling its warmth and staying its circulation until consciousness ceases and life appears extinct; when oblivion becomes bliss, and the awakening to the world a renewal of torture; every circumstance of awful reminiscence adding to the certain knowledge that the mind is under no dream or delusion, but that each idea is truth, and misery, and misfortune, the companions of our future track in life's dreary journey. The maid was sleeping, and this was her doom, when light should again dawn upon her eyelids; but she was now in a paradise of her fancy, and she was happy, for the smile was playing on her sweet lip, and the blush of the rose tinted her fair cheek but for an instant, and it again fled with the passing thought, and her brow was marked with a faint dark outline, as if it were the shade of the eyelash, and a curl had stolen from its tress and was reposing in luxury on her fair bosom, but in an instant a deep sigh displaced it; the features, so beautiful and before so tranquil, became dark and determined, the scene of blood had again recurred to her mind, and she awoke bitterly to deplore the eternal fate of true love. The baronet was seated in a high-back rudely carved antique chair, a small table before him was strewed over with old family papers, the documents of past days; a porte-feuille lay open upon the floor, and a few rings and seals of shape and make corresponding in age with the various other antiquities, lay scattered about, as if a doubt had been entertained of the authenticity of the writings, and these had emerged with them, corroborative of the evidence. Tear after tear trickled down the old man's furrowed cheek, his features had lost their energetic expression, deep grief appeared to have settled upon his mind, and pride had given place to humility; it evidently had been produced by great suffering and exhaustion of mind, and was not that quality which is the result of penitence for past transgression; he felt that he had erred, but his error had arisen, he thought, from accident and not from principle; he appeared desirous to say something, when he perceived that the eye of his daughter was resting with a fixed expression upon him, but he hardly dared to give a second glance towards her, for he appeared to shrink even from her kind look. At length she broke the silence, and tremulously said, "My father, I implore you to unravel this mystery; tell me, if you have ought of hope for an hereafter, that the murder of him whom I loved but too affectionately for me ever to recover from the shock which I have received, was neither by your hand nor through your means; it was a deed so horrible, so demoniacal, you could not have performed it." The baronet's face was concealed by his hand, which he kept clenched, as if to mitigate the agony of his brain: " My child, my Matilda," he replied," the stain of blood is upon my brow, my hand is dyed with the gore of my own kinsman, and him too whom I most loved; but I knew it not, for how could I have known it? I thought that he with whom I have seen you-he whom I have watched, as the tiger lies in wait for his unconscious prey, had been the despoiler of my fairest gem, the only relic of my little flock? the single bud left on the floweret's stem I felt had been broken, and already my fevered brain had pictured the sweet promise of my declining days possessed by one whom I then thought the being of my charity, and who through those means had become the despoiler of my family. Oh, pity me, merciful heaven! relieve the burden of my guilty conscience. Thy own cousin, my child, lies a mangled corpse; him to whom I had in mind betrothed you has been murdered by the hand that nurstled him in infancy, and protected him in youth." No reply was for some time made to the almost incoherent raving of the misguided parent; the slight convulsive sob bespake more than words could explain-the heart was fast sinking, it could not abide long this severe trial of misfortune, it might rally for a time, but the buoyancy of youth is sometimes even its own destruction. Perhaps, no situation of life affords a more varied or more useful lesson to those whose misfortune it may be to witness it, than the couch of sickness, especially when Providence appears to have selected an individual instance to exemplify the power and influence of scriptural truths on the characters of those who are the objects of affliction. In the instance before us, we should feel inclined to repine that so much loveliness of person and stability of character, added to sweetness of disposition, should be like a star in the darkened horizon, that affords its light and inspires us in our contemplations; but we need only watch the progress of the soul's purification, even while on earth, to feel that the moment must soon arrive when the fruit which has withstood the blast of temptation and remained uncorrupted by it, must, by the genial influence of that sun which ripens it, be at last received into the garner of the husbandman, according to the purposes of an allwise Deity; and here it was so destined: the spirit seemed to rebel against the vigour and health of youth, even the shrill whistle of the early lark would excite a desire in the mind of the maiden to attune a melody of plaintive softness, and her lyre would be touched until the corresponding sympathy of disappointment would well-nigh break the heart, so true is it that harmony. generally will echo only the prevailing passion of the afflicted spirit. One eve, when all things were hushed, that the wing even of the busy insect seemed at rest, and the leaf stirred not upon the fragile bough, as if nature awaited breathlessly an event; the daughter was reclining upon the arm of him whose eye had not closed since the issue of our tragic history, and her sunken features rested upon the feeble shoulder of the distressed parent; at length the gasping lip gave a convulsive utterance, and with an imploring accent, dwelling and apparently meditating as each line was expressed, her suffering soul was released from the bosom which it inspired, while the maiden calmly prefigured her destiny in the heart-searching and devotional exercise of the Lord's Prayer. The materials of this short tale, which has thus been denominated "The Love-stricken," were gathered from the conversation of mine host of the abbey: he had himself played some low character in the tragical affair, under the direction of the baronet, whose servant he had been unto the day of his death. The description of the closing scene of this miserable man's life is quite unconnected with the point of the story; but it appears that he lived for many years after his daughter's decease, and that he was of a morose and gloomy disposition; he became exceedingly jealous and suspicious of strangers, and has been known to awake in the dead of night under the delusion of being assailed by the officers of public justice. It has been hinted by some, that the passion for revenge has manifested itself as a prevailing feature of his character, in more than a single instance, and that other fatal results have ensued: I should hardly conceive this to be the case, from one or two striking incidents of kindness and humanity which have occurred in the recollection of many of his contemporaries, he has relieved the oppressed and comforted the afflicted; and these qualities, indicative of an amiable nature, should be sufficient to induce us to throw a veil over the failings of a man who in one action of his life, by following the impulse of pride and jealousy, became the bane and torment of his own existence. "No sleep close up that deadly eye of thine." A HIVE OF BEES CONSTITUTED GAME. OUR modern sportsmen will be surprised to find that wild bees were pursued in the chase as mountain game by our ancestors. A bee-hive hunt was then as much the fashion as a steeple-hunt at present. We find a hive of bees, haid wenyn, mentioned in the" Naw Helwriaeth" immediately between the carw, stag, and the gleisiad, salmon; thereby intimating, that after a stag hunt, a hive of bees was considered the most deserving object of a sportsman's attention, in preference even to the fishing or spearing of the salmon. Mr. Wyndham, in his "Tour in North Wales," alludes to this ancient field-sport of the Welsh. The Saxon word hyve was probably formed out of a conjunction of these two Welsh words, haid wenyn, by dropping the final letters of both, and by converting as usual the w of the last into v, which would give us haive, from whence the transition to hyve, or hive, is easy. Bee may, perhaps, be derived from byda, another Welsh word for a hive of bees. I HAVE often been solicitous to possess a brief register of the castles erected in the Principality, and the battles noticed in the chronicles, accompanied by such expositions of the localities as it might be possible to collect: such information, I believe, is not to be obtained in any work that I am acquainted with, treating upon Welsh occurrences; and without aid of such a description, the reader does not derive the minute knowledge conducive to accuracy of conception, nor that pleasure which he would experience in tracing events, when engaged in the perusal of the history of our country. Such a collection would materially assist many branches of study, and would very appropriately form a feature in your miscellany; if it suits your views to receive such communications, I will transmit to you the few and imperfect gleanings I have made on this subject, which may perhaps elicit from some of your correspondents, in the habit of such researches, much interesting information. Preparatory to this attempt, may I beg to solicit, through your medium, any notices that may occur to your readers upon the following places, the sites of which, owing to my very imperfect acquaintance with the topography of Wales, more especially the southern portion, I am unable to identify. Among the places where battles have been fought, noticed in the Chronicles, the following are unknown to me. Year. 656. Strages Gaii Campi. 721. Heilin, in Cornwall. 838. Feryllwg, between Wye and Severn. Is it the same as Ferrex? 844. Ketyll. The Gwentian Chronicle has Cyveiliog. 848. Finnant. 860. Cad Wythen. 873. Rhiw Saeson, in Morganwg. Is it in the parish of Llan trisaint? 880. Bryn Onnen. Bangolen, in Mona. 930. Brun. 980. Hirbarth, in Lleyn. 991. Cors Einion, in Gower. 1029. Poniwlwg, in Morganwg. I observe a tract, called Gowielwg, on the map of Monmouthshire, near the town of Usk. |