gold in the blaze of the banquet-lights, and that wondrous beauty, without parallel amidst the dames of England, shone like the vision of an accusing angel, on the eyes of the startled duke and the breathless knights. But, twice in her life, Edith beheld that awful man : once, when roused from her reverie of innocent love, by the holiday pomp of his troops and banners, the child-like maid stood at the foot of the grassy knoll and once again, when in the hour of his triumph, and amidst the wrecks of England, on the field of Sanguelac, with a soul surviving the crushed and broken heart, the faith of the lofty woman defended the hero dead.

There, with knee unbent, and form unquailing, with marble cheek, and haughty eye, she faced the Conqueror; and as she ceased, his noble barons broke into bold applause.

"Who art thou?' said William, if not daunted at least amazed, 'methinks I have seen thy face before-thou art not Harold's wife or sister.'

"Dread lord,' said Osgood, 'she was the betrothed of Harold, but as within the degrees of kin, the Church forbade their union, and they obeyed the Church.'

"Out from the banquet throng stepped Mallet de Graville. O, my liege,' said he, thou hast promised me land and earldom; instead of these gifts undeserved, bestow on me the right to bury and to honor the remains of Harold; to-day I took from him my life: let me give all I can in return—a grave.'

"William paused; but the sentiment of the assembly, so clearly pronounced, and it, may be, his own better nature, which, ere polluted by plotting craft, and hardened by despotic ire, was magnanimous and heroic, moved and won him.

"Lady,' said he, gently, thou appealest not in vain to Norman knighthood: thy rebuke was just, and I repent me of a hasty impulse. Mallet de Graville, thy prayer is granted-to thy choice be consigned the place of burial -to thy care, the funeral rites of him whose soul hath passed out of human judgment.'

"The feast was over. William the Conqueror slept on his couch, and round him slumbered his Norman knights, dreaming of baronies to come; and still the torches moved dismally to and fro the waste of death; and through the Lush of night was heard, far and near, the wail of women.

"Accompanied by the brothers of Waltham, and attended by link-bearers, Mallet de Graville was yet engaged in the

search for the royal dead, and the search was vain. Deeper and stiller the autumnal moon rose to its melancholy noon, and lent its ghastly aid to the glare of the redder lights; but on leaving the pavilion they had missed Edith; she had gone from them alone, and was lost in that dreadful wilderness. And Ailred said, despondingly

"Perchance we may already have seen the corpse we search for, and not recognised it; for the face may be mutilated with wounds. And therefore it is that Saxon wives and mothers haunt our battle-fields, discovering those they search by signs not known without the household.'

"Ay,' said the Norman, I comprehend thee, by the letter or device, in which, according to your customs, your warriors impress on their own forms some token of affection, or some fancied charm against ill.'

"It is so,' answered the monk; 'wherefore I grieve that we have lost the guidance of the maid.'

"While thus conversing, they had retraced their steps, almost in despair, towards the duke's pavilion.

"See,' said de Graville, 'how near yon lonely woman hath come to the tent of the duke-yea, to the foot of the lowly gonfanon, which supplanted "the Fighting Man." Parder! my heart bleeds to see her striving to lift up the heavy dead!'

"The monks neared the spot, and Osgood exclaimed, in a voice almost joyful, It is Edith the fair! This way the torches; hither, quick!'

"The corpses had been flung in irreverent haste from either side of the gonfanon, to make room for the banner of the conquest and the pavilion of the feast. Huddled together they lay in that holy bed; and the woman silently, and by the help of no light save the moon, was intent on her search. She waved her hand impatiently as they approached, as if jealous of the dead, but as she had not sought, so neither did she offer them aid. Moaning low to herself, she desisted from her task, and knelt, watching them and shaking her head mournfully, as they removed helm after helm, and lowered the torches upon stern and livid brows. At length the lights fell red and full on the ghastly face of Haco, proud and sad as in life.

"De Graville uttered an exclamation: The king's nephew; be sure the king is

near.'

"A shudder went over the woman's form and the moaning ceased. They unhelmed another corpse, and the monks and the knight, after one glance, turned away, sickened and awe-stricken at the

sight; for the face was all defeatured and mangled with wounds; and nought could they recognise save the ravaged majesty of what had been man. But at the sight of that face a wild shriek broke from Edith's breast. She started to her feet, put aside the monks with a wild and angry gesture, and bending over the face, sought with her long hair to wipe from it the clotted blood; then, with convulsive fingers, she strove to loosen the buckles of the breast mail. The knight knelt to assist her. 'No, no,' she gasped, he is mine, mine now!' Her hands bled as the mail gave way to her efforts. The tunic beneath was all dabbled with blood. She rent the folds, and on the breast, just above the silenced heart, was punctured in the old Saxon letters the word 'EDITH,' and just below, in characters more fresh, the word 'ENGLAND.'

"See, see!' she cried in piercing accents, and clasping the dead in her arms, she kissed the lips, and called aloud in words of the tenderest endearments, as if she addressed the living. All knew then that the search was ended; all knew that the eyes of love had recognised the dead.

666

'Wed, wed,' murmured the betrothed, 'wed at last. O Harold, Harold! the fates were true and kind,' and laying her head gently on the breast of the dead, she smiled and died.

"At the east end of the choir, in the abbey of Waltham, was long shown the tomb of the last Saxon king, inscribed with the touching words, Harold Infelix.' But not under that stone, according to the chronicler who should best know the truth, mouldered the dust of him, in whose grave was buried an epoch in human annals.

"Let his corpse,' said William the Norman, 'let his corpse guard the coasts which his life madly defended; let the seas wail his dirge and girdle his grave, and his spirit protect the land which hath passed to the Norman's sway;' and Mallet de Graville assented to the word of his chief; for his knightly heart turned into honor the latent taunt ; and well he knew that Harold could have chosen no burial spot so worthy his English spirit and his Roman end.

"The tomb at Waltham would have excluded the faithful ashes of the betrothed whose heart had broken on the bosom she had found. More gentle was the grave in the temple of heaven, and bewailed by the bridal death-dirge of the everlasting sea.

"So, in that sentiment of poetry and love which made half the religion of a Norman knight, Mallet de Graville suffered death to unite those whom life had

divided. In the holy burial ground that encircled a small Saxon chapel on the shore, and near the spot on which William had leaped to land, one grave received the betrothed, and the tomb of Waltham only honoured an empty

name.

"Eight centuries have rolled away, and where is the Norman now, or where is not the Saxon? The little urn that sufficed for the mighty lord, is despoiled of his very dust; but the tombless shade of the kingly freeman still guards the coasts and rests upon the seas. In many a noiseless field, with thoughts for armies, your relics, O Saxon heroes, have won back the victory from the bones of the Norman saints; and whenever, with fairer fates, freedom opposes force, and justice, redeeming the old defeat, smites down the armed frauds that would consecrate the wrong, smile, O soul of our Saxon Harold, smile, appeased, on the Saxon's land!"

In comparing this work with the former productions of the author, it is impossible not to feel that it is one of a higher and loftier aim than any which have preceded it. No attempt has been made to interest the reader by scenes of startling effect, by exaggerated sentiment, or by any of those ordinary devices, often so successfully adopted by writers of fiction. The brilliant pictures in which its pages abound, the lofty and graceful portraits of the mighty dead, have all the sober charms of truth and reality; and as a commentary upon the obscure history of remote ages, it is an invaluable addition to the literature of England. Difficult as it was to link the long-forgotten past with our own times, by associations which are imperishable, because they belong to all ages and to all countries, the author has been completely successful. If this work has less of tender and touching interest than the "Last of the Barons,' it is unquestionably enriched by more varied learning. The style is more pure and classic, the conceptions more grand and lofty, while, at the same time, the historical narration is enlivened by a living vein of the most exquisite and beautiful poetry.

The part of the work which will be found least interesting to the general reader, is, possibly, the first volume, which is somewhat like the exordium of a speech before the orator has fully ·

THE Chinese are a nation of the most industrious habits, and must be considered as an agricultural people. They have most wisely established laws for the protection and encouragement of agriculture, and to such an extent is it carried, that the emperor does not think it derogatory to his dignity, once in every year, at the agricultural festival, to descend from his throne, clad as a husbandman, to set the laudable example to his subjects of tilling the earth; his family and courtiers, similarly habited with himself, attend him on the occasion. The appointed day having been previously proclaimed throughout the empire, the emperor goes forth and ploughs a particular field, and every farmer through his vast territories simultaneously turns up the earth. The produce of the field ploughed by the emperor is always most carefully preserved, being considered far superior to any other. The ancient laws are so particular upon the subject, that they even declare the peculiar manner in which the sovereign shall perform this ceremony. So essential do the Chinese consider agriculture to the prosperity of a nation, in contradistinction to the many heavy blows and great discouragements inflicted upon it in Great Britain, by modern legislation. By another ancient law, all uncultivated or neglected lands are declared forfeited to the emperor, who grants them to farmers, on condition of their being kept in proper cultivation. The consequence of this is, that, in China there is not an uncultivated spot to be seen. A fifth, and in some instances, a fourth part, of all produce is reserved for the emperor, which is paid in kind to the principal mandarin of the prince, who farms the tax. There is one great peculiarity in Chinese agriculture, which, if adopted, might prove highly advan

tageous to British farmers. All seeds, previous to being sown, are steeped in liquid manure until they germinate, and to this, coupled with their system of irrigation, may be attributed the rich luxuriance and abundance of their

various crops. Their ingenuity and perseverance may daily be witnessed in the terraces, built one above the other, up to the summit of a rocky mountain, where paddy is cultivated. They form reservoirs and dams on each platform, and the water having passed along one terrace, is received into the reservoir of the next below, and thus descends, step by step, in its irrigatory course. After the rainy season,

when the water has been exhausted which was saved in these reservoirs, the water is carried both by hand and ingenuity, to the heights above. Their various modes of irrigation have been frequently described. Their methods of threshing rice or paddy are numerous. I have seen them threshing with flails of bamboo, somewhat similar to ours in form, but shorter. I have also seen them or their oxen, tread out the corn, reminding me, in that heathen land, of the passage, "Thou shalt not muzzle the ox which treadeth out the corn." Rice is the staff of life in China, from which grain they distil a spirit called samshoo, known in England as arrack. Here are we furnished with an example of the manner in which everything is turned by the Chinese to account, and nothing wasted. The grain forms their food, the straw thatches their houses, and out of it they construct coarse mats, and make paper. The husks are carefully collected, and being mixed with a greasy substance, are formed into cakes to feed the pigs. Ornaments are manufactured out of prepared rice, which is first pounded into paste, and then hardened by fire. I have seen very pretty vases, and

bottles of antique form of this material. As they cultivate their hills to the summits, so do they make the morasses subservient to the support of man. Bamboos, split longitudinally, are placed upon the marsh, and over these are laid layers of earth. In this artificial soil vegetables and pot-herbs are raised to the greatest perfection. There is no plant, in short, growing in China, which is not rendered subservient to man's use. They extract oil, equal to the finest Florence, for table use, from the kernels of apricots. Excellent oil is also extracted from various seeds, such as the cotton and turnip, which is used for lamps, and by the lower orders for culinary purposes. A most beautiful black dye is prepared from the cup of the acorn; and the finest scarlet is extracted from the cactus. Should the crop of mulberry leaves prove insufficient for the support of the silk-worm, the leaves of the ash-tree are made to supply the deficiency.

As

The sugar-cane plantations in China are allowed to be of a very superior quality, and I have been induced to believe, from the complaints made by West Indian planters, of the want of water, that to the superiority of Chinese irrigation, is due the excellence of their canes. They conduct water through trenches from the large reservoirs between each row of canes, and at regular intervals allow it to flow through transverse trenches; these trenches are either closed or opened, as the canes in their respective vicinities require moisture. no farmer exclusively cultivates the sugar-cane, as the farms are all small, and none can afford the expense of machinery, the use of a perambulating machine for the extraction of the juice, is contracted for by several adjoining farmers. A temporary building or bamboo shed for boiling is constructed in some central position; the proprietors of each plantation, with the assistance of their families, carry their canes to this building, and in like manner convey back the manufactured produce. There is nothing lost even here, for the canes, after the sugar has been extracted, are used for fuel.

In gravelly soils, where nothing else can be cultivated, the farmer plants the bamboo, of which there are several

kinds. The appearance of the tree, with its tapering trunk, and leaves of most graceful form, something resembling, but larger, than those of the willow, of a brilliant, light green color, is peculiarly elegant. I have seen them growing from twenty to thirty feet in height. The yellow trunk and green leaves of a bamboo plantation present a very agreeable contrast to the eye. The uses to which the bamboo is applied are various; of the young sprouts a most delicious preserve is manufactured; a medicinal substance is extracted from the hollow of the tree. I am ignorant as to whether this is known in England. Paper is manufactured from the pulp; masts and spars are formed of the full grown tree, as well as rafts, houses, and furniture. The poles used by coolees for carrying burthens are made of bamboo, and the oxen are yoked with it.

The fruits I have eaten in China are very fine, but not equal to those of Singapore. The Chinese have the pine-apple, custard-apple, lee-chea, pomegranate, pumbelow-aplum which comes from Chink-chew, which is very delicious, not unlike our eggplum, grapes-from which a weak wine is made, used by the richer classes, resembling, in flavour, bad Madeira-water-melons, sweet-melons, apricots, guavas, plantains, bananas, papaw, chesnuts, citrons, mangoes, and, though last not least, oranges. Many of the fruits are dried, and also made into preserves and jellies. The orange-plantations are truly beautiful, and their fragrance almost overpowering, surpassing those of Italy and Spain. The size of the blossoms and flowers is most extraordinary. Their beauty is peculiar to China. But the Orange, par excellence, of China, is the mandarin orange. To be eaten in perfection, it must be used immediately after it has been taken from the tree, as it will not keep above two or three days. They are of a flatter form than others, and somewhat smaller; the rind is the bright color of the Seville orange; although I cannot say, as a friend of mine did, that it was worth a voyage to China to taste it, yet it is a most delicious fruit.

The dwarf vegetation of China is peculiar to that country. I have had in my possession an oak, two feet high,