the gale was roaring louder than Tyne roars when the first wave of a winter spate comes charging down over the gravel beds; and the great rain-drops were hurled so fiercely against my face that even had it been day I had scarce been able to see. Moreover John, down in our prison beneath, was waxing repentant, and calling to me that I should come back, and not risk my neck; and altogether my heart misgave me sadly, and I was almost minded to creep back again and give up the quest. But ere I had fully persuaded myself, the wind veered suddenly.... and with a gust of threefold fury so swayed and tossed the stubborn boughs of the great oak that one branch was blown sweeping along the wall, and struck me smartly upon the cheek as the twigs flew by. Then, being startled by the suddenness of the blow and the pain of the switching, I put my hands up in an instant, not thinking what I did and where I sat, to shield my face from a second stroke; and that same moment I lost my seat and fell." Fortunately for himself our hero is caught in the great tree, and thrown breathless upon a limb of it by the force of the gale. "Now as I lay thus, I thrust my hand forward a little space, thinking to find some smaller branch sprouting from the great bough, whereby I might get a surer hold ere the next blast came. But though I found no such branch as I wished, my hand touched something strange; and, creeping forward, I found a stout cord girdling the bough; which cord I followed by touch of hand to the under side, and thence felt it stretching downwards as far as my arm could reach, wherefore, since the lull in the storm still continued, I grasped the cord with my two hands, and, swaying off the bough, slid downward, till my feet struck against something which seemed to be tied to the cord. And then, being smitten with a strong craving to know what this thing might be, I crouched down upon my heels, and, holding fast to the cord with my right hand, stretched my left hand downward. But just as I touched somewhat the cord brake, and I fell again; nor could I withold a...cry....for that which I had touched was the cold forehead and dank hair of a dead man." The boy's fear of the gulf beneath him till the swinging bough of the great tree stings him into action; the roar of the wind in his ears; his utter helplessness in the grip of the gale; his swift journey down the providential rope that is to bring him to safety; and its gruesome ending round the neck of a rebel's corpse that swings beneath the tree: these are touches that enable our author to control the imagination of his readers, and show plainly that the root of the matter in him. In his account of the actual dissolution of the Priory of Hexham, Mr Forster sticks very closely to the facts. His chapter" of the coming of the King's Commisioners to Hexham, and what they demanded, and how the Master of Ovingham spoke with them from the Gate House," is evidently based upon the well-known state paper containing a report upon "the misdemeanours of the religious persons of Hexham in the County of Northumberland," and the language which our author puts into the mouths of the chief speakers is for the most part quoted by him verbatim from the report in question. It is good to know that there is authority for the resolute words spoken to the Commissioners by the Master of Ovingham, as he stood on the top of the wall like Shebna the Scribe, "being in harness with a bow bent with arrows." "We be twenty brethren in this House, and we shall die all, or that ye shall have the House." In the subsequent negotiations also our author follows the ancient record with the fidelity and devotion of one in whom the lawyer has not quite swallowed up the historian. But he misses one picturesque phrase. After receiving the answer of the House to the King's Highness, the Commissioners "recoiled back to Corbridge, where they lay all that night." But in spite of the care with which he has followed the records, our author does not appear to have fully grasped the social conditions of the period of which he is writing. Aunt Matilda is the prey of a 19th century passion for washing her nephew's face and hands, and combing his hair. Her zeal for personal cleanliness occupies an unnecessarily prominent place in the earlier chapters, and is alluded to with wearisome persistence some four or five times in the later ones. In these days, when soaps are various and cheap, such references would be only rather tiresome; in a Tudor story Aunt Matilda is a quite impossible creation. But such blemishes as these count for nothing against the interest created by the adventures of Mr. Forster's heroes, and the robust good sense with which he sets himself to the task of describing them. We can only hope that he will try his hand again at fiction, both for his own honour and the greater glory of the Bird under the shadow of whose wings he was reared. J. R. T. TO AMANDA. OTHERS may hymn the hues of morning's sky, Or forests filled with summer melody. I think of thee, nor know if skies be bright; Depart, and from my Heaven fades its bloom; P. L. B. BOADICEA. WHEN the British warrior queen, Sage beneath the spreading oak "Princess if our aged eyes "Weep upon thy matchless wrongs, "'Tis because resentment ties "All the terrors of our tongues. "Rome shall perish-write that word. "Rome, for empire far renowned, "Other Romans shall arise, "Heedless of a soldier's name; "Sounds, not arms, shall win the prize, "Harmony the path to fame. "Then the progeny that springs "From the forests of our land, "Armed with thunder, clad with wings, "Shall a wider world command. BOADICEA. QUUM fera bellatrix regina Britannica virgas Plena simul luctus, fervida verba cadunt: "At vindicta manet; manet alta mente repostum "Quod non lingua satis significare queat. "Roma perit; licet hoc tibi nunc inscribere verbum "Sanguine in effuso, quo maculavit humum: "Roma perit; perit auxilio sine; mersa ruina "Tot scelerum pœnas causa nefanda luet. "Imperio totum celeberrima Roma per orbem, "Mille tenens sova sub ditione plagas, "Mox prostrata cadet; cadet alta superbia: victor "Imminet en! portis Gallus, et ultor adest: "Exsurgent alii, soboles Romana, Quirites "Qui non militiæ nomen honore ferent; Queis sonitus, non arma, placent; concordia vocum "Prima tulit; famæ semita dulce melos. "Tum nova progenies, veteri de stirpe creata, "Quam genuit sylvis terra paterna suis, "Fulmine telorum resonans, velataque pennis, "Latius imperium per nova regna geret: |