est
laws of chastity, is aiming at the 'high grand-mastership,' and
consequently suffers not only the remorse of the murderer, but the dread
of that defeat which his ambition must encounter in the discovery of his
deed. His character is ably delineated; perhaps too nicely drawn, for so
brief a tale, since the interest momentarily awakened in the 'dark, proud
man,'

----'whose half-blown youth
Had shed its blossoms even in opening,'

is immediately lost in the horror of the catastrophe. But to pursue the
outline of the story:

Now, on the second day, there was to be
A festival in church: from far and near
Came flocking in the sun-burnt peasantry,
And knights and dames with stately antique cheer,
Blazing with pomp, as if all faerie
Had emptied her quaint halls, or, as it were,
The illuminated marge of some old book,
While we were gazing, life and motion took.

* * * * *

Then swelled the organ: up through choir and nave
The music trembled with an inward thrill
Of bliss at its own grandeur: wave on wave
Its flood of mellow thunder rose, until
The hushed air shivered with the throb it gave,
Then, poising for a moment, it stood still,
And sank and rose again, to burst in spray
That wandered into silence far away.

The whole of the description of this choir-service is equally beautiful
with these stanzas; yet it may be objected that it in some degree impedes
the progress of narration; and the tale is of that sort which will scarce
brook any delay in the telling. But to continue. During the chanting, a
breathless pause comes over the congregation; the music hushes; all eyes
are drawn by some strange impulse toward the altar; and while all is mute
and watchful, the voice of Margaret is heard from heaven, imploring a
baptism for her unborn babe. The author himself cannot feel more sensibly
than ourselves the injustice of thus patching together the beauteous
fragments of his sorrowful and melodious history in so hugger-mugger a
way; but MAGA is peremptory, and hints to us that we cannot command the
scope of the 'Edinburgh Review:' The voice ceases to thrill the wondering
multitude, and the poet thus proceeds:

Then the pale priests, with ceremony due
Baptized the child within its dreadful tomb,
Beneath that mother's heart, whose instinct true
Star-like had battled down the triple gloom
Of sorrow, love, and death: young maid