"The ladders are thrown down," replied Rebecca, shuddering; "the soldiers lie groveling under them like crushed reptiles; the besieged have the better." "Saint George strike for us!" said the knight; "do the false yeomen give way?" "No," exclaimed Rebecca, "they bear themselves right yeomanly; the Black Knight approaches the postern with his huge ax; the thundering blows which he deals, you may hear them above all the din and shouts of the battle; stones and beams are hailed down on the brave champion; he regards them no more than if they were thistle down and feathers."

"Saint John of Acre!" said Ivanhoe, raising himself joyfully on his couch, "methought there was but one man in England that might do such a deed." "The postern gate shakes," continued Rebecca; "it crashes—it is splintered by his powerful blows—they rush in—the outwork is won! O God! they hurry the defenders from the battlements—they throw them into the moat! O men, if ye be indeed men, spare them that can resist no longer!" "The bridge—the bridge which communicates with the castle—have they won that pass?" exclaimed Ivanhoe. "No," replied Rebecca; "the Templar has destroyed the plank on which they crossed—few of the defenders escaped with him into the castle—the shrieks and cries which you hear, tell the fate of the others. Alas! I see that it is still more difficult to look upon victory than upon battle."

"What do they now, maiden?" said Ivanhoe; "look forth yet again—this is no time to faint at bloodshed." "It is over, for a time," said Rebecca; "our friends strengthen themselves within the outwork which they have mastered." "Our friends," said Ivanhoe, "will surely not abandon an enterprise so gloriously begun, and so happily attained; Oh no! I will put my faith in the good knight whose ax has rent heart of oak and bars of iron. Singular," he again muttered to himself, "if there can be two who are capable of such achievements. It is,—it must be Richard Coeur de Lion."

"Seest thou nothing else. Rebecca, by which the Black Knight may be distinguished?" "Nothing," said the Jewess, "all about him is as black as the wing of the night raven. Nothing can I spy that can mark him further; but having once seen him put forth his strength in battle, methinks I could know him again among a thousand warriors. He rushes to the fray as if he were summoned to a banquet. There is more than mere strength; it seems as if the whole soul and spirit of the champion were given to every blow which he deals upon his enemies. God forgive him the sin of bloodshed! it is fearful, yet magnificent, to behold how the arm and heart of one man can triumph over hundreds." — Walter Scott.

NOTES.—Ivanhoe, a wounded knight, and Rebecca, a Jewess, had been imprisoned in the castle of Reginald Front de Boeuf. The friends of the prisoners undertake their rescue. At the request of Ivanhoe, who is unable to leave his couch, Rebecca takes her stand near a window overlooking the approach to the castle, and details to the knight the incidents of the contest as they take place. Front de Boeuf and his garrison were Normans; the besiegers, Saxons.

The castles of this time (twelfth century) usually consisted of a keep, or castle proper, surrounded at some distance by two walls, one within the other. Each wall was encircled on its outer side by a moat, or ditch, which was filled with water, and was crossed by means of a drawbridge. Before the main entrance of the outer wall was an outwork called the barbacan, which was a high wall surmounted by battlements and turrets, built to defend the gate and drawbridge. Here, also, were placed barriers of palisades, etc., to impede the advance of an attacking force. The postern gate was small, and was usually some distance from the ground; it was used for the egress of messengers during a siege;

L. MARCO BOZZARIS. (202)

Fitz-Greene Halleck, 1790—1867, was born in Guilford, Connecticut. At the age of eighteen he entered a banking house in New York, where he remained a long time. For many years he was bookkeeper and assistant in business for John Jacob Astor. Nearly all his poems were written before he was forty years old, several of them in connection with his friend Joseph Rodman Drake. His "Young America," however, was written but a few years before his death. Mr. Halleck's poetry is carefully finished and musical; much of it is sportive, and some satirical. No one of his poems is better known than "Marco Bozzaris." ###

At midnight, in his guarded tent,
The Turk was dreaming of the hour
When Greece, her knee in suppliance bent,
Should tremble at his power.
In dreams, through camp and court he bore
The trophies of a conqueror;
In dreams, his song of triumph heard;
Then wore his monarch's signet ring;
Then pressed that monarch's throne—a king:
As wild his thoughts, and gay of wing,
As Eden's garden bird.

At midnight, in the forest shades,
Bozzaris ranged his Suliote band,
True as the steel of their tried blades,
Heroes in heart and hand.
There had the Persian's thousands stood,
There had the glad earth drunk their blood,
On old Plataea's day:
And now there breathed that haunted air,
The sons of sires who conquered there,
With arms to strike, and soul to dare,
As quick, as far as they.