"Alice, is 't thou? plague on't! my good old dame,
I grieve to think I kept thee up awake."-
"Lord bless ye! 'tis my custom all the same;

"

Now, dear young man, what will ye please to take?
The flask you left is fresh; there's chine and game.'
"Nothing, dear Alice."-"Not a slice of cake?"

No, nothing, thank ye, nothing; never mind it'
Nothing but rest; (would I knew how to find it!")

He threw him-no, 't was his habitual use

To do things rationally-went to bed,
And thought o'er his lov'd Shakspeare, to induce
Some train of thought to calm his feverish head.
The very words betray'd him.-"Idiot! Goose!
Seeking some bright particular star to wed,'
My reason's like bells jangled out of tune,'
And I a baby, crying for the moon."

Then Beatrice, and Rosalind, and she,

Gentler, but with like singleness of heart,
Devoted Imogen, too pointedly

Brought to his mind their fancied counterpart.
He turn'd to childhood's home, the chesnut-tree,
The fields where once he stray'd; but like a dart
At once the searching question smote him, "How
Was 't I ne'er reck'd of loss of lands till now?

"Well, fifty years hence, and 't will all be past:
This fever'd frame will rest a tranquil clod
In cooling Delaware's savannahs vast,

By the lone hunter's kindred footsteps trod."
He stretch'd him as in death; the thought at last
Of flowing streams, and his long home's green sod,
Brought a good hour of sleep's unrivall'd balm.
The early morning found him risen, and calm.

END OF CANTO II.

A PLAIN CASE.

ON HEARING THAT THE VAIN AND UGLY LADY

INTENDED GOING

TO THE CALEDONIAN BALL AS "MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS!"

WHAT! Scotland's beauty, frail as fair?
She cannot countenance that character!
Sure modesty must make her rue it ;
I'm certain she has not the FACE to do it!

LOUISA H. SHERIDAN.

FICTIONS OF THE MIDDLE AGES.

THE PROFESSOR OF TOLEDO.

UPON the sides of a steep acclivity, surrounded by lofty mountains, stands the renowned Toledo; in days of yore as much celebrated for its school of magic, as it has since become for its manufactory of swordblades. At one angle of the city, built upon the point of an abrupt and rocky summit, commanding an extensive prospect, is the Alcazar, five hundred feet below which the river Tagus angrily dashes along between rugged precipices, and then rolls away through neighbouring valleys, fertilizing and fructifying the green meadows on its banks. In the Alcazar is a grand public square called the Plaza Mayor, or Socodover, where the inhabitants of the town used to rendezvous and promenade, under stately colonnades and fanciful balconies. There the proud high-blooded noble and the lusty merry-hearted muleteer unconcernedly elbowed each other, and the young and lovely wife, attended by her constant and jealous Cortejo, gazed with the greatest froideur at her superannuated husband; but, when evening yielded the world to night, then began the scene of bustle and romance,-then the gay and amorous cavaliero, imbibing maddening draughts of love from his gentle señora, poured out his soul of song to the tinkling of his light guitar.

On the night of the 1st of April 1208, the moon then shining in brilliant splendour upon the lofty towers of the Alcazar, two cavalieros, concealed in the ample folds of their cloaks, were in earnest conversation in one of the most retired walks of the Socodover.

"Would you have me break my oath, Hermano, and, by offending my uncle, lose his estates and wealth? Know you not that he has sworn at the shrine of the Holy Virgin, if I ever entered the Professor's Tower he would disinherit me?"

"I would be the last man in Toledo," answered Hermano, "to counsel Don Alberto to act against his conscience; but if he have received a shaft from the frailest and softest thing in nature, woman's eye, it behoves him to get the wound speedily cured, or it will fester into frenzy."

"It has done that already," replied Alberto; "yet must I bear it; for he that wars, hunts, and loves is subject to a thousand sorrows for every pleasure."

"Nay, nay," interrupted Hermano, "those are fearful odds. My experience says, one sorrow to a thousand pleasures,-and that, I think, is ample payment, at least it fully satisfies me; but those who conjure up evils, and play the lover, poet, or lunatic, for they are all one, must suffer the penalty of their absurdity and temerity. I have generally observed that a love-shaft pierces through nine hundred and ninety-nine hearts at once, and, being spent, lodges harmless in the thousandth, in the position of which I always contrive, if possible, to place my own. But, to be serious, and recur again to this self-same professor, who is not one of your upstart adventurers, no needy fortune-teller and threadbare juggler, but one who, by his intercourse with spirits of the invisible world, can control the eternal order of the planets, and extort from reluctant demons the secrets of futurity-he can extinguish and recall life, blast creation's fairest works, and either inflame or subdue the strongest passion."

"I doubt not that he is a wonderful and fearful man; but I hate," said Alberto, interrupting him, "your philtres and amorous potions, and such like baits and tricks, to force affection, turn men's brains, and pervert their judgments. Besides, have I not told you that the girl herself is not insensible to my passion, but returns it? "Tis her cursed father and religion that stand in my way."

"Well-what of that? Go to the professor," said Hermano, " and if he do not devise some mode of fulfilling, ay, and exceeding too, your utmost desires, call me dotard, or any other name you please. Besides, what harm can listening to his project do you? Depend upon it, Alberto, Dame Nature had some wise end in view in framing ears without those coverts she has placed upon the eyes and tongue. After all, you need not follow his advice; for, by Santiago, that is an article oftener required than adopted."

"Then you sincerely advise me to go, notwithstanding my uncle's vow, whatever be the consequence?"

"I was never more sincere in my life," answered Hermano. "I will go, then," said Alberto, "be the result what it may." "And your curses rest upon my head," returned Hermano, " if you repent your resolution."

The friends embraced, - Hermano hastened to his three-deep assignations, and Alberto slowly and sadly passed through the courts and echoing galleries that led to the tower in which the Professor practised his mysterious powers of spells and incantations. Little did Alberto dream that the man whom he was going to consult was no less a person than Roderic Ximenes, archbishop of Toledo, his reputed maternal uncle, (popes, and other dignitaries of the Romish Church, never acknowledging children,) who, by his subtle learning in the occult sciences, had raised himself from comparative indigence to the high office he then enjoyed. He had been educated, under the name of Alfonso Raposo, in the celebrated school of magic in Toledo, where he became such a proficient in the mystic rolls of fate, that he never failed to predict correctly the earthly chances that would befall those who consulted him. So great was his fame, that his sovereign, Alonzo the Eighth, found it his interest to avail himself of Alfonso's advice, and gave the magician apartments in the Alcazar, where he wielded his wand over the diadems of the kings of neighbouring states, and employed his system of unhallowed machinations to hold in complete subjugation the subjects of his master and patron. The sovereign and the magician being thus leagued together in a dark conspiracy to deceive and enslave their species,- —as a reward for his valuable services rendered to the former, Alfonso was by his influence elevated to the highest ecclesiastical dignity in Spain; but, in order that the Christian world should not be scandalized by the Professor Alfonso Raposo being enthroned, he changed his name to Roderic de Ximenes. It was, however, one of the conditions of his appointment, that he should still hold the tower in the Alcazar, and once a-week during the reign of Alonzo, or whenever there was occasion, exercise his supernatural influence over the people; for well did both pontiff and sovereign know that a magician in those days had the means of penetrating into more of public and private intrigue than the most dexterous and insidious system of espionage, and that many things would be revealed in a magician's cabinet that would be concealed

even in the confessional. Thus King Alonzo and Archbishop Roderic, favoured by the ignorance of the times, became acquainted with the most trivial occurrences in public and domestic life.

To return to Don Alberto. He came at length to a vaulted corridor, which conducted him to a winding staircase, where there was just sufficient light to make the gloom more than ordinarily imposing. Descending the stairs, he arrived at a door of highly-polished brass, carved and embossed with cabalistical and hieroglyphical figures. Alberto gave a gentle and irresolute tap; but, gentle as it was, it must have been instantly heard within, for the door flew suddenly open with a noise like thunder, and drew both him and the floor upon which he was standing into a place of inconceivable obscurity.

"Powers of Darkness!" exclaimed Alberto, "whither are you conducting me?"

"Into the presence of him whom you seek," was the reply of an invisible speaker; and Alberto instantly felt himself gently raised, with the floor under him, towards the ceiling. After he had ascended about forty feet, his head lifted up a trap-door in the ceiling, and he stood in a circular vaulted room of dazzling light before the Professor of Toledo, who reclined upon a crimson velvet ottoman, of oriental shape, from which a stream of supernal melody seemed to flow. Upon a table, lying confusedly together, appeared various scrolls of parchment inscribed with cabalistic and mystic figures, instruments of quaint forms, books of science, glasses, retorts, alembics. In the room were twelve crystal lamps filled with fragrant oil, which, whilst they delighted the eye with a radiance like the tempered light of day, gratified the olfactory nerves with a delicious perfume.

"What brings the sombre melancholic Don Alberto to the Chamber of the Vates?" inquired the professor, without rising from his recumbent posture.

Alberto started at the sound of his name. "Nay, start_not," continued the professor, "at the bare mention of your name. Think you, seignior, that mortal man can enter my laboratory and I not know him?"

"As you know my person," answered Albert, " perhaps you also know my business, and can save me the trouble of explaining it."

"It is the custom for the sick to tell their ailments to the leech, and he prescribes a remedy," replied the professor. "Yours must be a desperate case, which puts in jeopardy your chance of becoming heir to your uncle's vast estates and wealth. Knows he of your coming hither, seignior?"

"Truly, sir," said Alberto, biting his lip, and inwardly cursing his friend Hermano for sending him thither, "I perceive you are familiar with my circumstances, which puzzles me. However, I came not here to talk of my chances of inheritance, but—”

"Surely not for a love-charm, Seignior Alberto!" interrupted the professor, "to philter and bewitch some fickle-minded maiden, nor for an oblivious baneful draught to dose a successful rival who dims the lustre of your smiles. Nay, seignior, frown not; for it avails you as little as do your nervous nail-nibblings." "A truce with your banter," said Alberto; " though I deserve it for being such an idiot as to come here."

"The sane," replied the professor, " need not the leech's aid, but those who are sick."

"I am not sick," said Alberto indignantly.

"Then why come to me?" asked the professor. "To seek thy aid," sullenly replied Alberto.

"As others do," returned the professor," who, guided by the magnetic influence of hope, that healing medicament for the miserable, come here to seek it amidst the anxieties and mysteries of science; and I, her officiating priest, dispense to the hopeless and despairing that only balm their case requires. But to the pointyou love the Jew Mordecai's daughter," continued the professor, casting a searching glance at Alberto's face," and come to me for advice in your unchristianlike devotion."

Alberto, thunderstruck at the professor's apparent prescience, replied, "Thou hast truly named the object of my desire, to procure whom I sought thee in my desperation. Her father wishes to extort a vow from her never to see me more, and bolts and bars administer to his will."

"And, by the powers I serve," answered the professor, rising from his seat, and angrily pacing the room, "I will administer to thy will, Don Alberto! Thou shalt have that Jew's daughter for thy mistress, slave, or aught besides his usurious heart shall break at thy success! He has crossed my path, spurned my offers, laughed at my spells, and set my power at defiance!"

"Can your mysterious powers and spells gain me admission into his house?" inquired Alberto; "'tis all I want."

"Ay-there, or anywhere," answered the professor, impatiently tapping his fingers on his forehead. "Here, take this reed, and introduce one end of it into the Jew's window; then, speaking through it, tell him to proceed at once to the house of Rabbi Manasseh, where he will find Henriques, who owes him twenty thousand dobleros, preparing to decamp at dawn of day. The door once open, the prize is your own."

"And will your scheme open his door?" inquired Alberto.

"The greatest works are often effected with the meanest aid," answered the professor. "Haste thee away-it wants but one hour of midnight."

Alberto warmly thanked the professor, and hastened to try the efficacy of the reed in gaining him admittance to the presence of the idol of his soul. As he passed down the Calle de la Campinera, he saw his friend Hermano with a chagrined countenance quitting the residence of the parish confessor.

"Holloa!" said Alberto, "who would have thought of seeing the volatile Hermano coming out of the Padre's door at this hour of night? Have your sins sate so heavily on your shoulders, that you need a midnight shriving?"

"The hare often starts out of a bush where we least dreamt of her sitting; and then, pondering and doubting on what course she had best pursue to avoid the fierce and bloodthirsty crew that seek her life, she flies from brake to brake, and visits all her wellknown haunts to gain security; but," continued Hermano, "to speak less sportingly, I have been with the avaricious priest, endeavouring to raise another sum to stop the clamours of the cursed duns that hourly beset me."