Frithioff remains behind in the wood with the old King, who is unable to follow up the chase; and with the restlessness of love and misery, silently bewails his having quitted the sea and its congenial perils to pine in hopeless torment on the land. He thinks on Baldur's temple and its broken vows; broken, he says, not by his betrothed, but by the incensed gods, to whom human joy is hateful, and who have revenged themselves by laying "his rosebud in cold winter's icy lap."

While Frithioff is thus bitterly musing, the old King expresses a wish to sleep, and lays his head, in all the confidence of unsuspecting virtue, on the knee of his unknown rival. He is no sooner asleep, than two birds, one coal black, the other white as snow, perch on an adjoining bough. The former urges Frithioff to dispatch the old King, and possess himself of his own betrothed bride, for no human eye can see, and the grave tells no tales." The other "guardian cherub sits up aloft," and, reminding him of the allseeing eye of Heaven, bids him for ever forswear the hero's name, if he could murder the aged and the sleeping. Frithioff, shuddering with horror, flings his sword far from him into the forest. The tempter flies to the land of oblivion, while the white pin

ions of the heavenly messenger sound in the skies like the tone of a distant harp.

The King wakes, and misses Frithioff's sword. The hero answers that it was possessed by an evil spirit, inimical to sleep, and a foe to grey hairs; on which the King owns he had not been asleep, but had now fully proved his guest's fidelity-reproaching him, however, with having come to his court in disguise, thereby giving rise to injurious suspicions. These being now for ever dissipated, he offers to retain him as his son and friend, till his own decease, which cannot be far distant. Frithioff sadly declines, disclaiming all evil purposes in having sought his court, but declaring that the unappeased wrath of the gods weighs too heavily to permit him to enjoy anything on earth; that storm and tempest, the excitements and perils of the deep alone, afford any alleviation of his misery-or the hope of soon rejoining through their means, the reconciled deities in Valhalla.

Frithioff now takes a pathetic leave of Ingeborg, solemnly consigning to her, once more, the bracelet so fatally rescued for her sake from the arm of Baldur. He bids her resign it only with life, though she will never, on earth, see him again. The sea, henceforth, is to be his home and grave.

belief of his countrymen, no one dying in his bed can enter Valhalla-he abridges the short remnant of his pilgrimage by dignified suicide. He inscribes Odin's mystic characters deep in his arm and breast; and "it is beautiful," (in the eyes of those who

These long-peaceful subjects of a pacific monarch at length meet, fully armed, for the election. Frithioff is seated in the midst, on the crowning stone, but by his side the King's little fair-haired boy. The council at first incline to set the child aside; but Frithioff raises him on his shield, and says," Here is a sapling from your venerable oak! See! this child of lofty race, is as much at home on my shield as a fish in the sea! I

swear to defend him and his crown against all foes, and take to witness Baldur's son !"-(the God of Justice.)

The child sat meantime on the polished shield, proud and confident "as the young eagle on the sunbeam!" At length, tiring of his position, and of the delay, he springs boldly down! The delighted people unanimously swore fidelity to this "Son of the Shield," but appoint Frithioff protector of him and the kingdom, with a hint to marry his fair step-mother. But Frithioff coldly answers, -"We are met to choose kings, not brides. I select not mine at the will of others. I must go to Baldur's grove, and hold converse with my Destinies, who await me there. The mild eye of the God is still unreconciled; and he alone who robbed me

of my bride, can restore her." So, kissing the forehead of the king's son, he silently withdrew.

Frithioff, at his father's grave, in a beautiful strain, well worthy translation, hails all the well-known objects around the consecrated spot; but oppressed by the burden of his unexpiated guilt, invokes the shade of his father to point out a mode of atonement. 'If Aganthyr, when interrogated on the subject, spoke from the dark gráve about a sword, surely a son's release from misery is worthier the exertion."

Suddenly the setting sun illumines the west with a flood of glory! and one of those gorgeous illusions called Fata Morgana in Italy, and by the poet said to have a more beautiful name in heaven, appears immediately over Baldur's Grove, like a diamond

on

an emerald ground. A stately temple gradually unfolds itself to view-such as mortal eyes have rarely seen-woven out of shining ether. Its silver walls are an emblem of the palaces of heaven,-its pillars of glittering steel,—its altar an inestimable gem. The dome, raised by viewless hands, resembles a clear starry winter sky, and all the gold-crowned gods of Valhalla occupy its awful summit. At the gate, the Sisters three are seen, leaning on their mystic shields White

Ulda, who presides over the present, points to the ruined temple; Skulda, the Goddess of Futurity, gently raises her hand towards the new one; but, ere Memory can seize its image, the pageant vanishes from Frithioff's eyes. He hails the omen, however, and resolves to rebuild the temple, that the work of piety may atone for that of passion, and the gates of Heaven be re-opened to the pardoned One. He lifts once more a joyous and fearless eye to the stars, "walking in brightness," and no longer sees in the northern lights," unreal mockery" of the burning Temple. Cradled by the song of his native heroes, he lies him down on his shield, to dream of peace and reconciliation!

The Temple is at length finished, and surrounded with a palisade of iron, tipped with gold, like a guard of steel-clad warriors with golden helmets. Its mystic circle is formed of gigantic stones, destined to astonish posterity,-like Upsala's Temple, regarded by the North as an earthly image of Valhalla. Round it, like a flowery girdle, lay Baldur's vale, with the murmur of its groves and the songs of its birds, once more the abode of peace.

Before the image of the God, twelve dedicated maidens, "with the roses of youth on their cheeks, and the rose

of innocence in their bosoms," danced, softly "as spring winds rock the fountain's cradle, or, as the elves of the wood flit over the long grass, scarce shaking its pearls of morning dew." They sang the holy hymn of Baldur, the spotless-how beloved he was among all creatures, till he fell by the arrow of his blind brother Hodur, while earth, sea, and heaven wept. The song never drew its birth in the narrow cell of a human bosom, but seemed a strain from the abodes of immortality,-like a maiden's solitary dream, when the quail's deep note wakes the echoes of night, and the full moon lingers over the birches of the North.

Frithioff stood lost in ecstacy! His piratical life, with all its battles and adventures, vanished like a bloody spectre; and the feeling of hate and vengeance melted away with it, as the "icy cuirass of the cliff yields to summer sunshine."

The aged high priest, before whom he bends in filial reverence, solemnly addresses him in mingled strains of welcome and admonition, beautifully founded on the mythology of his country. After bewailing the untimely death of Baldur, and its consequences to humanity, he thus represents him as yet living in the hearts of the virtuous :

The papers published by the House of Commons, on the Burning of the Indian Widows, are a striking evidence of the affected delicacy which men can assume in matters which do not touch their own interests. Within the five years ending with 1824, there have been no less than,-will it be believed?-two thousand nine hundred and eighty-one murders of wretched women committed in the face of day, by the most horrible of all tortures, in the presence of the British Authorities, and, for the most part, in the very centre of our power, the Presidency of Bengal !

The plea on which these horrors have been sanctioned, (for to permit them under the circumstances is to sanction them, and, in fact, the British Authorities are in general pre: sent,) is the delicacy of interfering with the prejudices of the people. But if the question were one of tribute, we have no delicacy on record. It must offend the Hindoo population as much to be compelled to pay a tax, or to be shot, as to see a miserable woman prohibited from burning herself, or being burned by the rabble as a sport. Yet let a rupee be deficient, and the European collector feels no scruple of offending the Hindoo's morbidness by demanding summary payment, and shooting the refractory.

But the Burning is supposed to be a rite of religion. Even if it were, we have no scruple of taking possession of pagodas, and making ourselves the disposers of the Brahminical influence on all occasions that suit our convenience. We guard the passes of the Ganges, and knock the pilgrims on the head if they are unruly; we VOL. XXIII.

plant our sentinels in the very house of Juggernaut, and raise a handsome revenue out of their pious foolery, to their infinite indignation; we cudgel, confine, and mulct the whole holy mob, without caring a sixpence whether we hurt the feelings of a worshipper of Mahomet or Brahma. But the moment that the question comes unconnected with money or power, and merely calling upon common sense and common humanity, our East India governors discover that the religious prejudices of the natives are very solemn affairs, and not to be touched but at the risk of the overthrow of the whole Indian empire.

Now, the Burning of the Widows is not a religious ceremony, nor a part of Hindoo religion, for it is not enjoined in any of the standard books of their religion, and the command of them is simply, that the widow should devote herself to a reserved and correct life. It is merely an act of presumed voluntary effort to gain a place in the state of future happiness, or to shake off the inconveniencies of a solitary life; the act, however, is attended by fabricated ceremonies, by Brahmins who are paid by the relatives, who divide the property of the victim, and by the rabble, who are described as crowding to the sight, with the same kind of enjoyment with which an English mob would crowd to a bull-bait.

Nothing is more known in India, than that with those Brahmins we may do what we will; a menace or a bribe has every man of them, at least in the Presidency of Bengal, completely at our disposal. Nothing is more certain, than that the whole

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