Nor martial shout, nor minstrel tone,
Announced their march; their tread alone,
At times one warning trumpet blown,
At times a stifled hum,

Told England, from his mountain-throne
King James did rushing come.

Scarce could they hear or see their foes,
Until at weapon-point they close.

They close in clouds of smoke and dust,
With sword-sway and with lance's thrust;
And such a yell was there,

Of sudden and portentous birth,
As if men fought upon the earth,
And fiends in upper air.

Long looked the anxious squires; their eye
Could in the darkness nought descry.
At length the freshening western blast
Aside the shroud of battle cast;
And, first, the ridge of mingled spears
Above the brightening cloud appears;
And in the smoke the pennons flew,
As in the storm the white sea-mew.
Then marked they, dashing broad and far,
The broken billows of the war,

And plumèd crests of chieftains brave,
Floating like foam upon the wave;

But nought distinct they see:
Wide raged the battle on the plain;
Spears shook, and falchions flashed amain;
Fell England's arrow-flight like rain;
Crests rose, and stooped, and rose again,

Wild and disorderly.

[Night came on, and the spectators of the fight were compelled to leave the field of battle.]

But as they left the darkening heath,
More desperate grew the strife of death.
The English shafts in volleys hailed,
In headlong charge their horse assailed:
Front, flank, and rear, the squadrons sweep,
To break the Scottish circle deep,

That fought around their king.

But yet, though thick the shafts as snow,
Though charging knights like whirlwinds go,
Though bill-men ply the ghastly blow,
Unbroken was the ring;

The stubborn spearmen still made good
Their dark inpenetrable wood,

Each stepping where his comrade stood,
The instant that he fell.

No thought was there of dastard flight;
Linked in the serried phalanx tight,
Groom fought like noble, squire like knight,
As fearlessly and well;

Till utter darkness closed her wing
O'er their thin host and wounded king.
Then skilful Surrey's sage commands
Led back from strife his shattered bands;
And from the charge they drew,
As mountain-waves from wasted lands
Sweep back to ocean blue.

Then did their loss his foemen know;

Their king, their lords, their mightiest low,

They melted from the field as snow,

When streams are swoln and south winds blow,

Dissolves in silent dew.

Tweed's echoes heard the ceaseless plash,

While many a broken band,

Disordered, through her currents dash,

To gain the Scottish land;

To town and tower, to down and dale,
To tell red Flodden's dismal tale,
And raise the universal wail.

Tradition, legend, tune, and song,
Shall many an age that wail prolong :
Still from the sire the son shall hear
Of the stern strife and carnage drear
Of Flodden's fatal field,

Where shivered was fair Scotland's spear,
And broken was her shield!

From "Marmion," by Sir Walter Scott.

In 1513, in the reign of Henry VIII., James IV. of Scotland declared war against England. The Earl of Surrey led an English army against the Scots, and met them on Flodden Hill, in Northumberland, near the river Till. The Scotch were defeated, and their king slain. Two hundred years previously, the Scotch had defeated the English at Bannockburn, near Stirling, 1314.

LESSON XLVI.

THE SPANISH CONQUEST OF MEXICO.
THE VALLEY OF MEXICO.

1. After the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus, in 1492, the Spaniards rapidly extended their conquests in those regions. In 1511 Cuba, the largest of the West Indian islands, was permanently colonized by Spain. Three years afterwards the governor of Cuba entrusted to his next officer, Cortes, the command of an expedition to conquer Mexico. This country proved to be much more highly civilized than any other part of the American continent, or the West Indies, hitherto visited by the Spaniards.

2. The earliest inhabitants, so far as is known, came probably from the north, and occupied Mexico from the seventh century. They were known as the Toltecs. They seem to have introduced agriculture and the art of working in metals, as the land abounded in minerals. They made roads, built enormous cities and temples, of which the ruins still remain. Their capital was called Teztuco, on the north-east of a lake of the same name.

3. About the twelfth century the Toltecs were overcome by the Aztecs, who are also supposed to have come from the north. Their capital city was called Tenochtitlan, and on the site of it the modern capital, Mexico, is built. It is built on an island on the western side of the same lake, and was connected with the mainland by two broad causeways. Both these capitals are in the beautiful Valley of Mexico.

4. Cortes landed on the east coast, and founded a settlement at his landing place, to which he gave the name of Vera Cruz, or the True Cross, as it was the custom of the Spaniards to show their zeal for the Roman Catholic Church by giving some name connected with the worship of that church to every place they conquered. The following describes their first view of the Valley of Mexico.

5. The troops had not advanced far, when turning an angle of the mountain ridge, along which on the previous day they had been marching with considerable difficulty, they suddenly came on a view which more than compensated the toils of the preceding day. It was that of the Valley

L

of Mexico, or Tenochtitlan, as more commonly called by the natives. The prospect, with its picturesque assemblage of water, woodland, and cultivated plains, its shining cities and shadowy hills, was spread out like some gay and gorgeous panorama before them.

6. In the bright, clear atmosphere of those upper regions, even remote objects have a brilliancy of colouring and a distinctness of outline which seem to bring the most distant objects quite close. Stretching far away at their feet, were seen noble forests of oak, sycamore, and cedar, and beyond, yellow fields of maize, and fine, tall shrubs, intermingled with orchards and blooming gardens; for in this populous valley flowers were unusually abundant.

7. In the centre of the great valley were beheld the lakes, occupying then a much larger portion of its surface than at present; their borders thickly studded with towns and hamlets, and, in the midst like some Indian empress with her garland of pearls-the fair city of Tenochtitlan, with its white towers, and temples built in the form of pyramids, reposing, as it were, in the bosom of the

waters.

8. High over all rose the royal hill where stood the residence of the Mexican monarchs, crowned with the same grove of gigantic cypresses which at this day fling their broad shadows over the land. In the distance beyond the blue waters of the lake, and nearly hidden by foliage, was seen a shining speck, which proved to be the rival capital of