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While on our secret record stood
Anselmo's wrong, and Gondolph's blood?
And thou, whose impious rage could scorn
Salvation's God in triumph borne,
Hop'dst thou we had not might, to bow
Thy stubborn neck and brazen brow?
Our thousands with applauding breath
Had drowned your yells of lingering death,
But policy prevailed-How tame
Stands the bright heir of Aztlan's fame!
Mute as his mighty sires, who fled,
Dumb with amaze, and wild with dread
When thundered forth our warrior host
Stern greeting, on their vassal coast.
Can fear the braggart's tongue enchain?
Hast thou no parting curse for Spain ?"
"No; may a Saviour's pleading win
Remission of this crowning sin!
On your polluted souls be shown
Such mercy as redeems our own:
Circle a few short years, we meet,
Confronted, at the judgment seat;
And, grace despised, Almighty ire
Must whelm you in eternal fire.
Albert, proceed: this bounding wave,
Like a triumphal car, shall bear
Our souls to bliss, and yield a grave,

Till dust revive that bliss to share."
"Brother, I come, o'erjoyed to twine,
In life or death, my fate with thine.
For ye, whose erring scorn would shame
Your patient prey with coward's name,
And on the very verge of heaven
His spirit taint with passion's leaven,—
Nor man nor demon quelled the soul
That cowed ye once with proud control:
The Lord alone that conquest won,
A rebel crushed, and claimed a son.
Mark, doth his blooming cheek appear
By vengeance scorched, or blanched by fear?
Mysterious Heaven the deed allows,
While for the youth's immortal brows,
Unwittingly, your hands prepare

A brighter crown than monarchs wear."
Poising the shallop's rocking side,

With foot advanced, his comrade stood,
Calm as the brooding dove, and eyed
The tumult of that swelling flood:
A smile of joyous meaning broke
O'er his glad lip as Albert spoke ;
Then lightly, through the slender spray,
They gained the bark, and launched away.

Fleetly the rolling waters bore Their burden from the fatal shore. There rose no billow's crested head, The deep a sheeny surface spread, Beneath a storm-portending sky, Heaving unbroken, huge, and high;

Though oft the roughening breeze impressed
Rude circlets on its glossy breast;
And wide and low the purple cloud,
With thunder fraught, in menace bowed,
While on its dark verge melt away
Dim relics of the evening ray.
In air and ocean closely pent,
Struggled the storm: the waters vent,
Unbroken yet, a moaning sound,
While falling shadows thicken round.

Curtained beneath that timeless night,

66

The towering rocks no more appear; They fade from Izram's yearning sight, While trembles on his lash a tear; And sad his pensive accents swell— 'My own devoted land, farewell! Though wrapped in black oblivious skies, Thy dawn shall break, thy splendour rise; But darksome deeds may long prevail, Ere rent thy spirit's ebon veil. Not mine to hail thee, blest and free, Yet teems my latest sigh with thee; And mine, perchance, from yonder skies, To watch thy ripening destinies. List, Albert, to the thunder's voiceNow could my inmost soul rejcice, In prospect of the tranquil shore, Where sin and sorrow war no more, But thou, my victim,"

deem

A spirit of celestial birth So wedded to a grovelling dream, So tangled in the mire of earth,

"Canst thou

To change, were yet the choice mine own,
This billow for a kingly throne?
No:-for my raptured eye hath caught
Visions of glory, passing thought:
Terrestrial pageants shrink and die
In beams of immortality.

I mount the sapphire heights; I see
Jesus, the Lamb who died for me:

I press amid th' adoring throng,
And wave the palm, and learn the song.
Even now, angelic squadrons sweep,
With viewless step, this awe-struck deep,
Circle our joyous course, and mark

The progress of our gliding bark.
How richly o'er the waters steal
The echoes of that distant peal!
How swift the trembling flash! a light
Of quenchless noon is ours to-night.
Commotion rudely rocks the tide,
See how these crazy planks divide;
The surges press in foaming chase,
And tidings of deliverance tell;
Welcome the note-this last embrace,
Dear Izram, speaks a long farewell."

"Recall the word; we sever not,
Nor such the spirit's chilling lot:
Death triumphs o'er the withering clay,-
Immortal souls deride his sway,
And perfect, in ethereal birth,

Th' embryo bud that swelled on earth.
Oh, thine hath been an angel's care,
And thine the love that seraphs bear;
And hast thou toiled so sore below,
Through peril, darkness, blood, and woe,
To win me from th' infernal strife,
And draw me to the fount of life,
And here, to glory's threshold, led
My fainting heart, and faltering tread,
To lose me now-when, fetter-free,

Th' exulting spirit springs on high,
And sin's detested progeny

Low in unfathomed waters lie?
Can love, unearthly, pure, as thine,
Dissolve beneath material brine,
A sparkle of celestial fire
As elemental dross expire?
No, Albert: no disunion this;
Co-heritors of endless bliss,

Down, down to ocean's deepmost cell,
Be plunged that gloomy word, farewell!
And be the rivets doubly driven

That clasp our souls in bonds of heaven!"

Impetuous gales, careering, urge To fiercer speed the writhing surge;, Rushed the tumultuous tides, to rock Their giddy prey with wilder shock: Buoyed on the mounting foam they go, And totter in the gulf below: Then burst the straining bark, and gave Its burden to the greedy wave. Instinctive nature struggled still, While youthful courage, nerve, and skill, Held the terrific king at bay, And triumphed o'er the angry spray. But short the toil-unsevered yet, Their souls the awful summons met"He calls! forbear this idle strifeWhy linger at the gate of life? The crown is won, the conflict o'er ; Together let us sink, and soar. Receive us, Lord!"- -The arm they closed, And, bowing, on the wave reposed: Soft, from that pall of sable cloud,

A farewell flash in brightness came, And broad upon their liquid shroud

Quivered a while the lingering flame; And sadly o'er the moaning tide

Low thunders pealed the funeral dirgeIn death embracing, side by side,

They sank beneath the eddying surge.

NOTES.

Page 10, 1. 55.-"Know'st thou Chiapa's Page 13, 1. 37.-" New treasures to the gaze

soil," &c.

"THE inhabitants of the province of Chiapa are distinguished above all others. They owe their superiority to the advantage of having had for their teacher Las Casas, who originally prevented them from being oppressed. They surpass their countrymen in size, genius, and strength: their language has a peculiar softness and elegance: they are painters, musicians, and dexterous in all arts. Their principal town is called Chiapa dos Indos. It is only inhabited by natives of the country, who form a community, consisting of about 4,000 families, amongst which are found many of the Indian nobility. They form naval armies with their boats: they engage, attack, and defend themselves with surprising agility: they excel no less in the chase of bulls, cudgelling, dancing, and all bodily exercises. They build towns and castles of wood, which they cover with oilcloth, and besiege in form.-From these particulars we see what the Mexicans were capable of, had they passed under the dominion of a conqueror, possessing moderation and good sense enough to relax the chains of their servitude, instead of riveting them."-RAYNAL.

unfoid."

The author has availed herself of poetic licence (however disputable her pretensions to a poet's name) in following the more romantic and less probable accounts given by Spanish writers of the costly treasures and exquisite workmanship displayed in Mexico's imperial palaces. Dr. Robertson, while protesting against these exaggerated descriptions, has doubtless erred in the opposite extreme; depreciating the genius, wealth, civilization, arts, and policy of the Mexicans, as palpably as other chroniclers have over-rated them. The fanatical barbarism of an ignorant Franciscan, John of Zummaraga, who committed to the flames all he could collect of the national hieroglyphic records, under the absurd pretence of their being monuments of idolatry, has deprived Europeans of valuable documents tending to illustrate such attainments in science as few are disposed to admit this extraordinary people had made, though very competent judges have asserted it. Astronomy, music, medicine, and political economy, were certainly understood among them and if the uncontradicted testimony of eye-witnesses may be credited, they were accomplished architects, horticulturists, sculptors, goldsmiths, jewPage 10, 1. 79.-" Sons of those illustrious ellers, and excelled in all the imitative arts.

dead," &c.

The Caziques were sovereign princes, each in his own territory: they displayed the state, and exercised the privileges of independent monarchs, but followed the imperial standard in battle, and are said to have brought each from 50,000 to 100,000 warriors into the field. Their title was hereditary, and to a select number of them was committed the task of electing the Emperor. The Caziques of Tezeuco and Tacuba were always included among these they appear to have been the most powerful and influential of the native princes, and their territories were hardly inferior in extent to those of the Mexican monarch. 6

VOL. II.

Page 15, 1. 9.-" Aztlan's native train."

Aztlan was the country from whence migrated the tribe of Aztecas, who founded the Mexican empire.

Page 18, 1. 60.-" That mysterious treasury."

It is well known that the heroic Emperor Guatimozin was most barbarously, but ineffectually, tortured by the unprincipled Cortez, who caused him to be stretched on burning coals, to extort the discovery of treasures which he was suspected of having concealed from the merciless depredators. His prime minister expired

beside him, after indicating a disposition to disclose the secret, which was checked by the memorable reproof of Guatimozin, who exclaimed, "Am I now on a bed of roses ?" This royal sufferer, whose only crime was a gallant defence of his throne and people, was hanged three years afterwards, on an improbable charge of conspiring against the usurpers of his crown, whose captive he yet remained! Do not our days exhibit an awful visitation of the sins of the fathers upon their impenitent children, in the accumulated miseries under which Spain is yet groaning? The atrocities of Cortez, his companions, and their successors, would have disgraced a horde of savages who never had heard of a righteous God, or a judgment to come: but when it is considered how the name of Christ was blasphemed through them, while His pure word was prostituted to their iniquitous purposes, and His symbolical cross made the

standard under which to perpetrate their enormities, against an unoffending, confiding people, we cannot but shudder in contemplating the Now irrevocable doom of the aggressors, and long to address to their descendants the warning voice, " Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish."

It is futile and contemptible to argue that the idolatrous Mexicans were more superstitious, inhuman, and bloodthirsty, than their invaders. "The dark places of the earth are full of the habitations of cruelty." THEY were pagans: the Spaniards, on the contrary, assumed the Christian name: and the only message that the Christian is commissioned to bear among heathen nations is, GLORY TO GOD IN THE HIGHEST: ON EARTH PEACE; GOOD-WILL TOWARDS MEN. BELIEVE IN THE LORD JESUS CHRIST, AND YE SHALL BE SAVED.

HELEN FLEETWOOD.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTION.

tence.

Of the milk-pail which swung lightly to and fro upon her arm, she could have discoursed with judgment and propriety but of that blaze of light, first stealing, then flashing, then broadly spreading in a refulgent mantle, over the surface WHO that has seen the sun's uprising, of the deep, Helen had little to say. She when his first bright beam comes spark-nevertheless felt its joyous influence ling over the billows on a clear autumnal through every fibre of her frame, and her morning, but has felt a thrill of gladness young heart danced as gaily beneath its at his heart-an involuntary, perhaps an light as the most airy bubble upon the unconscious ascription of praise to the billow's crest. In like manner Helen's lips Creator, who has so framed him that all had hitherto been mute, when others spoke his innate perverseness cannot bar the en- of brighter beams, the influence of the trance of that thrill? The brisk wind Sun of Righteousness, as he rises with that curls the wave, and flings its light healing in his wings upon a benighted spray abroad, does but multiply mirrors world of tumult and strife; but there was for the imaged ray to flash from; and that within her bosom which owned his when the mighty orb has wholly lifted his power, and rejoiced in his light. disk above the swelling outline of the beautifully-rounded horizon, and looks down upon the surmounted barrier, sending beam after beam to traverse that watery world, and to gild it with dazzling splendour, who does not accord the palm of natural magnificence to that of which no adequate idea can be conveyed to one who has not looked upon it-sunrise at

sea.

It was on such a morning, in the month of September, when the breeze was strong, the billows tumultuous, and the sun resplendent in a clear blue sky, that Helen Fleetwood paused on the edge of a cliff which overlooked the eastern wave, to indulge, perhaps for the thousandth time, an emotion of delight not the less vivid because Helen was a simple country girl whose thoughts had never learned to clothe themselves in language worthy of the occasions that called them into exis

Tripping by her side as she walked on, and wheeling in a restless circle around her when she paused, little Mary Green bore the three-legged stool that was to aid them in their operation on the two cows, whose distant lowings were occasionally audible during the short pauses of the ocean's measured roar. It was not in Mary's nature to be silent long; and, after gazing up into Helen's face, to read in its happy expression the pleasure that her loving heart never failed to reciprocate, the little girl gave utterance to her companion's thought and her own, by remarking "Sunrise is very pretty, Helen."

"Yes, it is," replied the other, "and a pity it would have been to lose the fine sight by letting some sleepy little girls take their own time to get up."

Mary laughed: "Why you know the mornings are not so warm now as they were a month ago; and there was hardly

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