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During the night, a guilty accomplice of Corceca, a bold, blustering fellow, called Kirkrapine, comes to the cottage and commences his pranks, but receives his quietus from the paw of our honest friend Leo. Power is of right the guard ian of innocence. The following day the noble beast continues to protect the noble lady. Dur ing this day she sees not far off a noble knight approaching. His shield bears the well-remembered emblem, and on a nearer approach, she sees it is indeed her own dear knight, Saint George. Such at least the lady supposes him to be, although the reader knows it to be the false Archimago, dressed and framed to appear like the Red-Cross Knight. The subtle magician, who in regard to the person of a lover, can deceive a woman's eyes, will not lack words to deceive her wit. Poor Una! She receives good and suffici ent reasons for her lover's temporary absence, and she is too, too happy at his return, to refuse be lief to that which satisfies her heart, if not her head.

Supposing, therefore, that she had in truth found her own good knight, she goes on to recount her adventures since their separation. But soon a new foe appears. Bold and cruel Sansloy, brother of the Sansfoy who had been slain, meets and attacks them. The encounter is very much like that between Sansfoy and the real Saint George, except in its result. The false Saint George is unhorsed, and Sansloy is about to slay him, when removing the vizor, behold, to the amazement both of the Saracen and the lady, a wrinkled, feeble old man-Archimago, stripped of all disguise. Una has hardly time to rejoice at her escape from this fearful danger, before a new and more imminent one stares her in the face-that, namely, of falling into the hands of this rude and lawless unbeliever! Sansloy leaves the old magician to die or recover, as it might happen, and directs his ill-boding attentions to his beauteous prize. Taking her rudely from her palfrey, he is attacked by the brave and faithful lion. But mere honesty and simple-minded courage are not always a match for bold and prac tised villany. The glittering Damascus blade drinks the heart's-blood of the noble beast, and the lady is at the mercy of an insulting and godless foe. But the thought of sin or disloyalty hath not yet entered her pure breast, and the reader never for one moment entertains a doubt about her safety.

The fortunes of St. George are various and disastrous, and he does not escape the snares of his subtle foes, nor regain his faithful Una, until the appearance of the great Hero of the whole Poem, Prince Arthur. This knight excels all other knights in magnificence. His majestic but youthful person, his heroic and knightly bearing, his matchless armor, his princely qualities, are topics suited to the genius of Spenser. The reader finds himself in a perfect blaze of splendor. It is a brightness not devoid of heat. The imagination becomes not only dazzled, but warmed. The whole picture, indeed, is like one of those magnificent cathedrals of the olden time, in which the mind of the devout worshipper, faint with the endless multiplicity of ever-increasing wonders, finds relief at last in that ultimate and only resting-place of human thought, the heavens to which the ever-springing Gothic arch doth point. I will not spoil Spenser's description of Prince Arthur by extracts. It should be read entire, and in its connexion, or not at all. This noble person extricates the parties from their difficulties. The adventure of Prince Arthur occupies about eight hundred and fifty lines, and forms one of the connecting links between the first book and those which follow. It is something like the intervention of a comet within the

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bounds of our solar system, where it lingers awhile, and then flies away into different and distant systems with which we are not yet acquainted.

After Arthur has taken his departure, Saint George and Una resume their journey. While travelling together, enjoying sweet discourse, they meet something well suited to excite in the strongest degree their curiosity and their sympathy.

The Knight, having gone through a variety of preparatory adventures, having learned equally his power and his weakness, having put to the trial both his lady-love and the weapons which he bare in her defence, he is now ready to enter upon his principal adventure. The description of this adventure, containing the destruction of the monster, the release of the parents, and the betrothal of the lady to her chosen and deserving Knight, occupy the eleventh and twelfth Cantos. This adventure surpasses in magnificence all the previous ones, as much as Prince Arthur surpassed the Knight of Saint George, or any common Knight. I cannot do justice to it without quoting more than would be expedient. I leave, therefore, the whole adventure to the reader's imagination.

Lo! the day in twilight hushes,
Lone repose sits on the hill;
The tired stream in mellowed gushes
Falls beside the distant mill;
Like a bride the white cloud blushes,-
Heaven is saying, "Peace-be still."

Mark the forest dark and pensive,

And the flowers that meekly grow;
Are they ever apprehensive

Heaven will not its dews bestow?
Man, doubt not His love extensive,
Dew-like shed on all below.

Star by star from heaven sallies,
Day before the night retreats;
Softly, in the cultured valleys,
Zephyr kisses all she meets;
Scorns the city's reeking alleys,
And its hot and crowded streets,

LAND of the free! my own beloved land! Why from all climes do strangers seek thy shore?

Why still press myriad feet unto thy strand,

As if thy soil life's tree immortal bore? Where'er its starry folds thy banner spreads, Earth's countless nations haste as to a shrine; And place their all beneath its sacred shade,

And gladly shout this blessed land is mine! Samartia's sons from Scythian rule do flee, With limbs unshackled thy fair soil to tread; And from Italia's sunny clime they come,

Nor mourn the regal skies that o'er them spread. From where Helvetia's mountain ramparts stand, They hasten hither, and the strain they sung Amid the glorious Alps, is sounding now

The quiet vales of the New World among— From where Madeira sleeps amid the wave They come-nor pause their treasures thence to bring.

Why is it that all leave their father's graves, And all their heart's wealth to the wild winds

fling?

Is it that thou art free, my native land?

Freer than all the realms of earth besideFrom the Pacific's to th' Atlantic's wave,

The unconquer'd eagle spreads his pinions wide} "Tis not for this, though thou art nobly free,

That myriad feet do press thy verdant sod: But that through all thy mighty realm they find Elsewhere unfound, FREEDOM TO WORSHIP GOs.