himself of his conquest, instead of which he reveals himself, desires his kind love and compliments to his mistress, and rides off under plea of urgent business. To Jason's earnest entreaty that he will

Come now and with my lady speak,
Or else, I wot, her heart will break;
For if she knew thou went'st
away,
She liveth never to-morrow day,
"Thou shalt, Jason, understand,
I would not tarry for all this land."
He took his leave and went his way.

Jason makes his report to the queen, who takes on prodi giously, but still hopes that he wont give her up quite so. lightly.

Ipomydon meantime returns in haste to his post by the queen of Meleager, meeting, as agreed, with Sir Tholomew by the way, discarding his white horse and armour, and receiving the hounds and plenty of venison, which he displays at the feast, boasting that the king had not such luck in jousting as he had in hunting. At supper a king's messenger arrives with details of the tournament, in which, of course, the exploits of the white knight make a great figure. Ipomydon turns every thing into a joke, and pits the feats of his white hound against all their tilting.

The following day he plays the same game with the red armour, horse, and hound,"

Fast they jousted on every side';
And ever looked that lady bright,
If she could see her bold white knight;
But none for him could she mistake,
She thought her very heart would break.
A knight that day was Jason made,
And richly for the field arrayed:
And in the mélée as he fought,
The stoutest foe he ever sought;
But little guessed his friend so dear,
The knight who ever shunned his spear;
And let him gain on other shields,
His spurs in this his first of fields.

Ipomydon's courtesy to his friend Jason is well repaid by his defeating every other knight, and, as before, at the close of the sport Jason invites him to seek the reward of his valour, thanks him for his considerate help in the tourney, and declares him to be without peer, save indeed the white knight the day before, but he had left the country.

I wot thou shalt be Lord here,
For I know pone that is thy peer ;
Save yesterday the white knight;

But he is out of the land dight. (cleared)

To be sure it sounds like a bull, that the man had no equal in the country but another who had left it. Again Ipomydon discovers himself to Jason, and again resolutely rides away.

On the third day he repeats all his pretences, and appears as a black knight, and finds in the field a gallant knight in red, who is mistaken by the queen for her lover in his second day's dress; he clears this up by upsetting the stranger, and leading away his horse as a prize. Then came Sir Camys, a stout knight enough, but doomed to see his horse placed by the captive red one. Sir Campanys, thinking to redeem his comrade's honor, next assailed our hero, and had the pleasure of standing in one tilt, and falling in the next, his horse also being led away. King Meleager, by this time, had worked himself into such a passion that he forgot himself entirely, and attacking Ipomydon behind his back, wounded him in the left arm with his spear. Ipomydon did not lose the op portunity of shewing his superior manners.

As thou art kind, gentle, and free,

Abide and joust a course with me,
And I forgive this villany.

The king had better have been quiet, for he lost his horse and almost had his neck broken into the bargain.

Jason's rhetoric is again unsuccessful. Ipomydon loves, and Ipomydon fights, and Ipomydon rides away.

༞、,་

Jason turned home full of care;
And when he came into the hall,
He told his lady what had befall:

"The black knight was the squire so strong,

That erst had dwelt with her so long;

And how he won her with his hand;

But he is passed out of this land."

The lady sighed so full of woe,

And thought her heart would break in two;

But yet she trowed in her heart,

So lightly he would never part,

From one for whom he ventured life,

With headed lance in tourney strife.

Meantime Ipomydon, as usual, is home by supper time, and amuses the ladies of the court by his usual jokes on kings and knights who go to tournaments and lose their horses, while he goes to the forest for venison. The wound

in his arm falling a bleeding, he ingeniously fabricates a story of a fall from his horse, and a thorn running into his arm. To an invitation to attend the claiming of the prize next day he gives a plump negative, and further intimates that his own affairs call him away, and he must trouble the queen for his damsel again. We know by this time that when he takes a thing in head, ropes and horses can't hold him and next day he departs, having first disposed of his own, and his prize horses as follows: His white horse and armour he sends to the king, confessing that he, the queen's body squire, rode him at the first day's tourney; the red steed and armour he sends to his mistress the queen; the black horse and armour to Sir Campany's; the king's own horse he sends to his lady love the heiress of Calabria; Sir Campany's steed he sends to Jason; the red horse of the other red knight he gives, with all these commissions, to his landlord at the inn, charging him to be precise in delivering his messages, and paying him forty pounds for his bill: all this the landlord does in a manner quite satisfactory to all but two of the party-the heiress of Calabria who is in despair at the loss of her lover, and swears she will never wed man, but the man who won her in the field; and Sir Camy's who swears that he will fetch Ipomydon back again for breaking the queen's bower, and carrying away her waiting woman, and so he takes horse accordingly.

In the mean time Ipomydon was proceeding on his journey, till coming to a forest, he ordered a halt for the purpose of procuring a little horizontal refreshment, dismounted, and laying his head in the lady's lap, went fast asleep. The innocence of manners in those simple times, cannot be better expressed than in the two lines to that effect:

He laid his head on his mayden barme, *

And fell on slepe; he thought no harme.

Nor is the simplicity of expression less worthy of notice. Coleridge comes the nearest of modern poets; but even Coleridge cannot excel the moral and physical beauty of those two lines; but not to digress-Camys soon interrupts Ipomydon's slumbers, and another tilting match is the consequence, and however richly the poor man deserved a lesson, we think he is harshly treated. Ipomydon not only unhorses him (in both senses of the word) but (although his arm

* Anglo-Saxon, bosom, or lap.

is broken in the fall) ties him on a miserable hack, with his face to the tail, and sends him back to court, "wilthou n'yllthou," which is old English for nolens volens.

Ipomydon continuing his journey is encountered by missives from his own land, to announce to him the death of his father. His grief, and the rites attendant on his father's funeral and his own succession are briefly described. We quote four lines to shew the antiquity of a common Devonshire expression: when a man is later than he should be in coming home at night from market, or other merry making, his careful wife is sure to send somebody "against him." Ipomydon held forth his way;

Full glad he was of his journey.

He saw grete folk AGAYN HIM ryde,
The which had sought hym wonder wyde.

We wish that somebody well qualified for the task, would undertake a rational exposition of our Devonshire tongue : we seriously consider it to contain a pure wELL of undefiled English.

Here for the present we must leave off, for Ipomydon's mother makes a disclosure to him of so extraordinary a nature, that we must take leisure to devise the terms in which we shall communicate it to our readers.

THE beautiful song of Charmante Gabrielle, by Henri Quatre, is well known to most French scholars, and even to music-dabbling misses. The following, also by the great Henry, is less known, but equally, if not more, beautiful.

We have tried to offer a translation, but cannot please ourselves. We shall be extremely happy to receive one,

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

We have been so much in the habit of having a parting word with our small public, that whether we have any thing to say or no, say something we must and will. One thing we CAN say safely, that the present number shall be the last DULL one; how many BRIGHT ones may follow it depends not upon either the public, or the present writer.

Festina Lente does not mean, as our corespondent supposes, Feasting in Lent: our opinions about eating and drinking may be very singular, but we beg to say that we keep all the fasts as rigidly as any mitred abbot, aye, even the prior of Jorvaulx Abbey himself. It means that the best way of doing a thing well, is to do it coolly, or, make as much haste as you can without being in a hurry.

Z's enigma in our next.

The Essay on Courage also in our next, if we can find room for it; altho' it reads to us as if our own writing, especially from the meaning being very imperceptible.

The charade, by an original correspondent, shall certainly have a place in

number XI or. XII.

Searle, Printer, Barnstaple.