To claim the beautiful Orphan of Ade,

By the will of the Pope, and the will of the maid;
For oft in the night,

By the moon's pale light,

He had swum o'er the lake
To the greenwood brake,

And plighted his troth, 'neath the juniper's shade.

And Chivalry's flower, and Chivalry's pride,
Is assembled to meet her at eventide;
From castle and tower,

And garden and bower,
Fair Ladye and Knight,
Distinguished in fight,

Are gathered to welcome the beautiful bride.

But the Knight may go back to his well guarded tower, And the Ladye return to her garden and bower,

And the bridal train

Disperse again,

For the Abbess did fall

By the convent wall,

And fainted away at that dread hour.

But Clarence swore by his crosslet red,

That the wretch had better have been with the dead,

That tolled, as they said, over Alice's tomb.

And those four soldiers, the stoutest and best,
Were pinioned and bound at the Abbess' behest;
In a dungeon wide

They rotted and died;

And in the Abbess' power,

Was Alice's dower,

And the secret locked up in her own-own breast.

Young Clarence sorrowed for a space,
And then did clanging war embrace;
He soon forgot
Poor Alice's lot,

And it's sung in rhyme,

How he died in his prime

In the far-famed hunt of Chevy Chase.

But the Abbess—she lived in a horrible mood,
And her food appeared to be poisoned food;
And night and day,

Wherever she lay,

She dreamt that her back
Was stretched on a rack,

And weeping she wept out tears of blood.

And when the pale moon was full to the view,
And her beams rode by on the sweet mildew,
At the deep midnight,
Did a maiden in white,
With never a sound,

Go paddling around

That island so green, in her little canoe.

And the birds would suddenly stop in their song,
And the owls would gather with fear in a throng;
And even the breeze

Would pause in the trees,
When that maiden in white,
By the moonbeam's light,

Would solemnly, silently paddle along.

Years passed on, and the Abbess died,
And the old walls fell by the water side;
And that isle so fair

Is barren and bare,

And the night wind moans

O'er the moss-grown stones,

That are laved each day by the crystal tide.

But even yet, when in the sky so blue

The moon shines bright through the sweet mildew,

In the midst of night,

Does a maiden in white,

Without one sound,

Go paddling around,

As she sits in her beautiful little canoe.

F. A.

MISANTHROPY.

THE author of 'Pelham,' in his history of Sir Reginald Glanville, says, that'some time hence it will be a curious enquiry, to ascertain the causes of that acute and sensitive morbidity of mind, which has been, and still is, so epidemic a disease.' That such a state of feeling is far more prevalent than is generally supposed, we have no doubt; and that little trouble has been taken to investigate the causes of its existence, is accounted for by the fact, that in all matters, but particularly in those connected with mental philosophy, we look back on the past, and forward to the future, far more than we reflect on the present. To us, this has long been a subject of deep interest, and though our notions may be crude and undigested, we shall venture a few remarks upon it.

The state of mind to which our author alludes is commonly termed Misanthropy. There are different kinds of it, which develope themselves in various ways, and strike us at once as distinct both in their nature and action. The principal, however, are two. One degrades the being, in whose breast it has taken root, below the beasts; shows him as made up of selfishness, ingratitude, and all the evil passions of which our nature is capable. The other casts a dark gloom over the mind, chills the warm current of the affections, and causes the eye to look with cold indifference on every object that meets it. The former is peculiar to men of active and scheming intellects, whose whole souls are absorbed in the pursuit of some worldly object, the gratification of their ambition, their avarice, or their revenge-the latter is common only to those of a serious and contemplative cast of mind, whose ill-directed energies have failed to compass their ends, or in whom early disappointments have engendered scepticism and distrust. Of the first class, Richard the Third and Iago are prominent examples-of the second, the most striking, perhaps, that can be produced, either from fiction or real life, are Byron and Rousseau.

In Richard, it was not so much the execution of Buckingham, for the first act of a usurper is to ruin those to whom he owes his elevation-it was not that he murdered his brother Clarence and his two nephews, for such things are common

in such cases, that branded him as the utter despiser of all the laws of God and man. The total depravity of his character was not half so glaringly displayed in the bloody train of assassinations by which he mounted the throne of England, as in the easy indifference with which he rent asunder every bond of natural affection; slighted and insulted the mother that bore him; made the most sacred of all connexions to promote his schemes, and broke it by a murder, to give place to a new one, to further the same ends for which the first was entered into. These were the acts that proved him the incarnate demon,

"Hell's black intelligencer,

Only reserved its factor, to buy souls,
And send them thither."

Iago possesses, in common with Richard, great subtleness and ready wit, but the theatre of his action is much more confined. The object of his machinations is less self-aggrandizement than revenge; and he scruples not to infuse the jealousy into his noble and confiding lord, which he foresaw would act so like a quick and deadly poison. Many of the means used by him are low and contemptible; proving, however, that though he had less energy of character than Richard, he knew equally well the springs of human passion, and was as insensible to every obligation of honor and truth.

Byron was by nature a man of quick and violent passions, which were unsubjected to salutary restraint in early life, and could never afterwards be brought under his control. An imagination that might have soared to the highest heaven of invention, was often directed to the most degrading objects. We see but faint indications in his youth of those feelings which afterwards so entirely engrossed his soul. The ill reception of his works among the critics of the day, was perhaps the means of first bringing them out; for after that time his sensibility became gradually more morbid, and easily wounded by the slighted insult, from whatever source it came. Disappointment in love piqued his pride, as well as injured his better affections. In time the quickness of his temper was superseded by a stern, settled apathy, from which few occurrences could rouse him. His mind, in after life, resembled a dead lake, reflecting only frowning precipices, and dark masses of