And eastward, eastward strain my yearning" Under the western star, eyes To where beyond the veil of mist, Athwart the track of morn the island lies: And there, ah! there Peace, burning heart within thy crimson deeps; Thy reign at last is o'er ! Amid the halo of its golden hair Under the low gleams of the crescent moon, "Blow wind of summer, blow! Nor linger in the gardens of the west: "Too slow, my heart, too slow For thy fond pulses, that tumultuous beat The pale, sweet face, that I shall see no To clasp him ere we meet. more!" These lines are extremely beautiful; instinct with a mystical music suggested by "the salt, singing sea." But perhaps the most exquisite gem among the "Painter's" poems is a brief lyric-"Under the Western Star," with which we conclude our notice : "Fades the sweet evening light Gride on the silver shingle of the shore; THE ASS AND THE LADDER.-In Biblia Sacra Hebraica (Bibliotheca Sussexiana, vol. i. p. xi.) is the following expression, "May this book not be damaged, neither this day nor forever, until the ass ascends the ladder.' Query, the legend? A. W. H. Page was the judge who tried Savage for murder, whom he seemed anxious to condemn; in[The passage at the end of this manuscript deed, he owned that he had been particularly (Sec. xiii.) reads as follows: "I, Meyer, the severe against him. When decrepit from old son of Rabbi Jacob, the scribe, have finished age, as he passed along from court, a friend inthis book for Rabbi Abraham, the son of Rabbi quired particularly of the state of his health. Nathan, the 5052nd year (A.D. 1292); and he He replied, “My dear sir, you see I keep hanghas bequeathed it to his children and his chil-ing on, hanging on." He died on Dec. 18, 1741, dren's children forever. Amen. Amen. Amen. | aged eighty, at his seat at North Aston in OxSelah. Be strong and strengthened. May this fordshire.-Vide Noble's Biog. History of Engbook not be damaged, neither this day nor for- land, iii. 203.-Notes and Queries. ever, until the Ass ascends the Ladder. Like the Latin phrase of Petronius "asinus in tegulis" (an ass on the housetop), which is supposed to signify something impossible and incredible, the saying "until the ass ascends the ladder," is a proverbial expression among the Rabbins, for what will never take place; e.g., "Si ascenderit asinus per scalas, invenietur sci-held even almost to the famishment of many, entia in mulieribus; "a proposition so uncomplimentary to the superior sex, that we leave it in Buxtorf's Latin.-Notes and Queries. SIR FRANCIS PAGE was the son of the Vicar of Bloxham in Oxfordshire. He assumed the coif Dec. 14, 1704; became king's sergeant Jan. 26, 1714-15; a baron of the Exchequer May 22, 1718; a justice of the Common Pleas Nov. 4, 1726, and a justice of the King's Bench Sept. 27, 1727. He always felt a luxury in condemning a prisoner, which obtained for him the epithet of the hanging judge." Treating PAPER MONEY AT LEYDEN.-Mr. Dineley, in his MS. account of the Low Countries, written in 1674, describes the paper money made at the siege of Leyden in 1574, in these words:"During the siege of this city (Leyden), which they made money of paper, with these devicesHac libertatis ergo; Pugno pro patriâ; Godt behoed Leyden. Some of their pieces remain to this day in the hands of the curious of the University. This siege began a little after Easter, and was raised, and ended the 3d of October, 1574." Paper in this description must mean pasteboard, for pen-and-ink drawings of these coins are shown in Mr. Dineley's book, about the size of crown-pieces, with a lion crowned, and crosskeys as devices. Is there any instance of this kind of money in use in any other country than Holland? THOS. E. WINNINGTON. -Notes and Queries. MARCH. THE bud is in the bough, and the leaf is in the bud, The Earth's beginning now in her veins to feel the blood, Which, warmed by Summer suns in th' alembic of the vine, From her founts will overrun in a ruddy gush of wine. The perfume and the bloom that shall decorate the flower, Are quickening in the gloom of their subterranean bower; And the juices meant to feed trees, vegetables, fruits, Unerringly proceed to their pre-appointed roots. How awful is the thought of the wonders underground, Of the mystic changes wrought in the silent, dark profound: How each thing upward tends by necessity decreed, And a world's support depends on the shooting of a seed! The Summer's in her ark, and this sunny-pinioned day Is commissioned to remark whether Winter holds her sway; Go back, thou dove of peace with the myrtle on thy wing, Say that floods and tempests cease, and the world is ripe for Spring. Thou hast fanned the sleeping Earth till her dreams are all of flowers, And the waters look in mirth for their overhanging bowers; The forest seems to listen for the rustle of its And the very skies to glisten in the hope of Thy vivifying spell has been felt beneath the wave, By the dormouse in its cell, and the mole within its cave; And the Summer tribes that creep, or in air expand their wing, Have started from their sleep at the summons of the Spring. ALBERT THE GOOD. MR. TENNYSON has dedicated his new edition of the "Idylls of the King" to the memory of Albert the Good, in the following lines:— DEDICATION. These to His Memory-since he held them dear, And indeed He seems to me We know him now: all narrow jealousies And blackens every blot for where is he, From The New Monthly Magazine, MICHELET is clear that the young cadet of the Montpensier family was made Constable of France, simply because the king's mother, Louise of Savoy, was over head and ears in love with him. "Maladive, mais belle encore, passionnée, violente et sensuelle, elle avait fait trêve aux galanteries; elle avait un amour." The young man of whom she was enamored-of sombre mien, and tragic Italian aspect (a Gonzague he was, on his mother's side)—had married the heiress of Bourbon, a little humpbacked malade, who had not long to live. The king's mother, reckoned on this approaching decease. The Constable had become Constable by tolerating that august lady's demonstrativeness, to which, indeed, he so far responded as even to engage himself to her, and accept from her that enthralling symbol, a ring. This fatal present was the ruin of him: by means of it, Louise felt sure of holding him fast; in virtue of it she claimed him, pursued him, persecuted him, was the perdition of him. In the compass of that tiny golden round he might be said to carry about with him Louise and her fortunes. "Elle s'attacha à cet anneau "—and when the finger it encircled was cold as its own rigid, metallic clasp, she burned to have it back again, that anneau fatal qui le perdit, and caused search to be made for it, in sacked and smoking Rome, on the corpse of revolted Bourbon. Constable Charles had a dangerous number of relatives among the enemies of France. There was a deal of the Gonzague about him, and very little of the Montpensier. Henry VIII., on the Field of the Cloth of Gold, was struck by the aspect and mien of the mysterious-looking sword-bearer. The Tudor's penetrating eye saw some way into the man, but only far enough to recognize unsounded depths below, that lay in obscure and unruffled silence, and might one day be stirred into perilous unrest. Bluff Harry mistrusted the man with all his heart, and even said to King Francis, "If I had such a subject as that in my dominions, I would not leave his head on his shoulders long." Louis XII., who, nevertheless, had been the making of him, was also distrustful of Bourbon's impenetrable manner. "I would rather," said Louis, "see in him more openness and gayety, and that he were less taciturn. Nothing is worse than still waters." * Those still waters ran deep, and darkling; the undercurrent was strong, and often the untracked channel lay underground. In a modern historical romance-one of Mr. Archibald Boyd's, we believe-a confessedly faithful portrait (romances are not the unlikeliest places for such) is given of Bourbon in his thirty-third year. He is there shown to us reclining " in a large chair, and wrapped in a gown of damask edged with fur.” "His features, Roman in their outline, were dignified and noble. The skin had almost the darkness of a Moor's; but it was relieved by an eye whose great intelligence riveted attention and respect. The forehead was lofty, but was already furrowed and careworn; and the mouth, though decided, had irritability strongly marked in its outlines. Altogether, the face, though handsome, conveyed to the spectator a painful feeling, and, like that of Charles the First, suggested the idea of a hasty and untimely end. Is it that coming events cast their prophetic shadows over the spirit, and give to the mind and to its outward expression, that character of melancholy which would be the necessary result of the fate they herald? His hair was long, and fell in ringlets on the shoulders of his doublet; his beard, more pointed than it was usually worn; and his It was convenient to keep Louise in good humor by an apparent return of attachment and harmony in design. But the Constable was duping her all the while. His views tended elsewhither. He had no notion, in reality, of raising a seed of belated brothers to the king, by wedding the Savoyarde. His object was to marry a Daughter of France, a princess who (were but the Salic law cancelled) would give him a semblance of right. The two future queens of Protestantism occupied his thoughts, the daughter of Louis XII., Renée, who became Duchess of Ferrara; and graceful, spirituelle, charming Marguerite d'Alençon, married unhappily, but then married to one of those figures whose look tells you, Wife will be Widow soon. Now, according to Michelet, Bourbon's plan was to win the daughter, Marguerite, by the un-moustache trimmed after the Spanish fashconscious agency of the mother, Louise.* See Michelet, Histoire de France au XVIme Siècle, t. viii. ch. viii. ion, at other times, and in other men, a mat *Paroles de Louis XII. ter of indifference, but in him supposed to is inclined to believe that a main incentive express political partialities. A lamp was lay in the consideration, that this man, upon the table, and a copy of Polybius Charles of Bourbon, visibly the centre of evinced the taste, and hinted at the profes- the malcontents, a cousin of Charles the sion, of the reader. Fifth, and related to the Croys and the Gonzagues, really looked dangerous enough to justify an attempt to undo him. "Charles de Montpensier, second prince of the blood, was the only surviving son of the Count of Montpensier. In the days of Louis XII., the heir to the throne, Francis, Count of Angoulême, was educated at the Castle of Cognac, under the superintendence of his mother, Louise of Savoy; and thither, The Constable's origin is worth attention. The Montpensiers descended from the third son of a Bourbon; the Bourbons, from a sixth son of Saint Louis. This branch, the to share his studies, was sent the young kept up a supply of generals. The Constareverse of wealthy, was devoted to war; they Montpensier. The lad was handsome. The lady was a widow, middle-aged, and an ble's father died Viceroy of Naples. Italian. Any one of the three qualities is a As for the Gonzagues, again, Marquises dangerous addition to female susceptibility; of Mantua, they too let themselves out as their triple influence was overwhelming; and generals, in which capacity they were enLouise made a desperate attack on the affec-gaged by the Pope, by Venice, and by the tions of her pupil. It was not successful. Already the boy had formed for the young King of France. Princes and condottieri daughter of his hostess, Margaret of Valois, (like the Dukes of Urbino and Ferrara), they an attachment which strengthened with his "made" soldiers, and sold them ready made. years, and colored his future life. It was Petty as their position might be, they had warmly returned; but state policy laughs at ambition the most unlimited views that the heart's likings. The princess was mar- were lost in the dim and dusky distance. ried to the Duke of Alençon; and Montpen- They contracted alliance with the Sultan, sier, in his turn, on succeeding, by the death with Germany, in countries rich in fighting of a kinsman, to the title of the Duke of Bourbon, wedded that kinsman's only child men: they married their daughters to the and heiress, by the Lady of Beaujeu, daugh- soldier-princes of Würtemburg and Bradenter of Louis XI., and obtained possession of burg,-one, in France, to these Montpenthe estates of his house. The young Duch- siers. In later times, a Gonzague, who beess Susanna, plain and sickly, gave to her came by marriage Duc de Nevers, figured in husband three children, who died in infancy, the civil wars of France. and then herself followed them to the grave. Bourbon was a widower. With his freedom, the hopes of Louise revived. Like her sex, the duchess had become more loving as she grew older; and, determined on buying the affection she could not win, she induced her son, on his succession to the throne, to give the bâton of the Constable to his princely relative, together with the government of the Milanese. The gifts did not produce the expected return. Bourbon remained cold; and Louise, ever in extremes, changed at once her policy, and persuaded the easy-tempered king to recall Montpensier from Italy, and deprive him of what was the right of his military rank, the command of the advanced guard." Their foresight served them right well. The Montpensiers, albeit younger sons of younger sons, cadets de cadets, had some capital opportunities thrown in their way, and were too dexterous not to turn them to account. As the royal houses were wearing out so fast, possibly they might ere long remain the sole representatives of the Bourbons; and who knew but that, as Bourbons, they might even arrive at the throne itself? These cadets, all of them, says Michelet, dreamed of nothing less, nothing else: ne rêvaient d'autre chose. Their devices show it. Berri, brother to Charles V., had for his device: "Le temps viendra " (I bide my Some writers refuse to see anything else time). Burgundy: "J'ai hâte" (I hasten). than woman's vengeance in the great trial- Bourbon: "Espérance" (Hope). Bourboncase, commenced in the name of Louise, Albret: "Ce qui doit être ne peut manquer" August 12th, 1522, as heiress of the posses--which may mean Right makes Might, or, sions of the house of Bourbon. Without denying woman's vengeance a share in the motives that led to this procès, M. Michelet The Duchess: a Romance. 1850. perhaps, What must be will bc. * See the tenth chapter of Michelet's "Ré |