This for Mathraval is a happy hour,
When Madoc, her hereditary guest,
Appears within her honour'd walls again,
Madoc, the British Prince, the Ocean Lord,
Who, never for injustice rear'd his arm;
Whose presence fills the heart of every foe
With fear, the heart of every friend with joy;
Give him the Hirlas Horn, fill, till the draught
Of joy shall quiver o'er the golden brim!
In happy hour the hero hath return'd!

In happy hour the friend, the brother treads
Cyveilioc's floor!

He sprung to greet his guest;
The cordial grasp of fellowship was given;
So in Mathraval there was double joy
On that illustrious day; they gave their guest
The seat of honour, and they fill'd for him
The Hirlas Horn. Cyveilioc and his Chiefs,
All eagerly, with wonder-waiting eyes,
Look to the Wanderer of the Water's tale.
Nor mean the joy which kindled Madoc's brow,
When as he told of daring enterprize

Crown'd with deserved success. Intent they heard
Of all the blessings of that happier clime;
And when the adventurer spake of soon return,
Each on the other gazed, as if to say,
Methinks it were a goodly lot to dwell
In that fair land in peace.

Then said the Prince

Of Powys, Madoc, at an happy time

Thou hast toward Mathraval bent thy way;
For on the morrow, in the eye of light,

Our bards will hold their congress. Seekest thou
Comrades to share success? proclaim abroad
Thine invitation there, and it will spread
Far as our fathers' ancient tongue is known.

Thus at Mathraval went the Hirlas round;

A happy day was that! Of other years
They talk'd, of common toils, and fields of war
Where they fought side by side; of Corwen's scene
Of glory, and of comrades now no more: . .
Themes of delight, and grief which brought its joy.
Thus they beguiled the pleasant hours, while night
Waned fast away; then late they laid them down,
Each on his bed of rushes, stretch'd around
The central fire.

The Sun was newly risen
When Madoc join'd his host, no longer now
Clad as the conquering chief of Maelor,
In princely arms, but in his nobler robe,
The sky-blue mantle of the Bard, arrayed.
So for the place of meeting they set forth;
And now they reach'd Melangell's lonely church.
Amid a grove of evergreens it stood,
A garden and a grove, where every grave
Was deck'd with flowers, or with unfading plants

"In Pennant-Melangle church was the tomb of St. Monacella, who, protecting a hare from the pursuit of Brocwell Yscythbrog, Prince of Powis, he gave her land to found a religious house, of which she became first Abbess. Her hard bed is shown in the cleft of a neighbouring rock, her tomb was in a little chapel, now the vestry, and her image is still to be seen in the churchyard, where is also that of Edward, eldest son of Owen Gwynedh, who was set aside from the succession on account of a broken nose, and flying here for

O'ergrown, sad rue, and funeral rosemary.

Here Madoc paused. The morn is young, quoth he,
A little while to old remembrance given
Will not belate us.. Many a year hath fled,
Cyveilioc, since you led me here, and told

The legend of the Saint. Come!.. be not loth!
We will not loiter long. . . So soon to mount
The bark, which will for ever bear me hence,
I would not willingly pass by one spot
Which thus recalls the thought of other times,
Without a pilgrim's visit.

Thus he spake,

And drew Cyveilioc through the church-yard porch,
To the rude image of Saint Monacel.

Dost thou remember, Owen, said the Prince,
When first I was thy guest in early youth,
That once, as we had wandered here at eve,
You told, how here a poor and hunted hare
Ran to the Virgin's feet, and look'd to her
For life?.. I thought, when listening to the tale,
She had a merciful heart, and that her face
Must with a saintly gentleness have beam`d,
When beasts could read its virtue. Here we sate
Upon the jutting root of this old yeugh...
Dear friend! so pleasant didst thou make those days,
That in my heart, long as my heart shall beat,
Minutest recollections still will live,
Still be the source of joy.

As Madoc spake,
His glancing eye fell on a monument,
Around whose base the rosemary droop'd down,
As yet not rooted well. Sculptured above,
A warrior lay; the shield was on his arm;
Madoc approach'd, and saw the blazonry,..
A sudden chill ran through him, as he read,
Here Yorwerth lies,. . it was his brother's grave.

Cyveilioc took him by the hand: For this,
Madoc, was I so loth to enter here!
He sought the sanctuary, but close upon him
The murderers follow'd, and by yonder copse
The stroke of death was given. All I could
Was done;.. I saw him here consign'd to rest,
Daily due masses for his soul are sung,

And duly hath his grave been deck'd with flowers.

So saying, from the place of death he led
The silent Prince. But lately, he pursued,
Llewelyn was my guest, thy favourite boy.
For thy sake and his own, it was my hope
That at Mathraval he would make his home:
He had not needed then a father's love.
But he, I know not on what enterprize,
Was brooding ever; and those secret thoughts
Drew him away. God prosper the brave boy!
It were a happy day for this poor land
If e'er Llewelyn mount his rightful throne.

XI.

THE GORSEDD.

THE place of meeting was a high hill-top,1
Nor bower'd with trees nor broken by the plough,
Remote from human dwellings and the stir
Of human life, and open to the breath
And to the eye of Heaven. In days of old,
There had the circling stones been planted; there,
From earliest ages, the primeval lore,

Through Bard to Bard with reverence handed down :
They whom to wonder, or the love of song,
Or reverence of their fathers' ancient rites
Drew thither, stood without the ring of stones.
Cyveilioc entered to the initiate Bards,

Himself, albeit his hands were stain'd with war,
Initiate; for the Order, in the lapse

Of years and in their nation's long decline
From the first rigour of their purity
Somewhat had fallen. The Masters of the Song
Were clad in azure robes, for in that hue
Deduced from Heaven, which o'er a sinful world
Spreads its eternal canopy serene,
Meet emblem did the ancient Sages see
of unity and peace and spotless truth.

Within the stones of Federation there, On the green turf, and under the blue sky, A noble band, the Bards of Britain stood, Their heads in reverence bare, and bare of foot. A deathless brotherhood! Cyveilioc there, Lord of the Hirlas; Llywarc there was seen, And old Cynddelow, to whose lofty song, So many a time amid his father's court Resigning up his soul, had Madoc given The flow of feeling loose. But Madoc's heart Was full; old feelings and remembrances, And thoughts from which was no escape, arose ; He was not there to whose sweet lay, so oft,

The Bardic meetings, or Gorseddau, were held in the open air, on a conspicuous place, while the sun was above the horizon; for they were to perform every thing in the eye of light, and in the face of the sun. The place was set apart by forming a Circle of Stones, with a large stone in the middle, beside which the presiding Bard stood. This was termed Cyle Cyngrair, or the Circle of Federation, and the middle stone Maen Llog, the Stone of Covenant.

Mr. Owen's very curious introduction to his translation of Llyware Hen has supplied me with materials for the account of the Gorsedd, introduced in the poem. That it might be as accurate as possible, he himself and Edward Williams the Bard did me the favour of examining it. To their knowledge and to that of Mr. Turner, the historian of the Anglo-Saxons, and to the liberality and friendliness with which they have ever been willing to assist me therewith, I am greatly and variously indebted.

The Bard at these meetings wore the distinguishing dress of his order: a robe of sky blue, as an emblem of truth, being unicoloured, and also as a type, that, amid the storms of the moral world, he must assume the serenity of the unclouded sky. The dress of the Ovydd, the third order, or first into which the candidate could be admitted, was green. The Awenyddion, the Disciples, wore a variegated dress of blue, green, and white, the three Bardic colours, white being the dress of the Druids, who were the second order. The bards

With all a brother's fond delight, he lov'd
To listen,.. Hoel was not there!.. the hand
That once so well, amid the triple chords,
Moved in the rapid maze of harmony,
It had no motion now; the lips were dumb
Which knew all tones of passion; and that heart,
That warm, ebullient heart, was cold and still,
Upon its bed of clay. He look'd around,
And there was no familiar countenance,
None but Cynddelow's face, which he had learnt
In childhood, and old age had set its mark,
Making unsightly alteration there.
Another generation had sprung up,
And made him feel how fast the days of man
Flow by, how soon their number is told out.
He knew not then that Llywarc's lay should give
His future fame; his spirit on the past
Brooding, beheld with no forefeeling joy
The rising sons of song, who there essay'd
Their eaglet flight. But there among the youth
In the green vesture of their earliest rank,
Or with the aspirants clad in motley garb,
Young Benvras stood; and, one whose favoured race
Heaven with the hereditary power had blest,
The old Gowalchmai's not degenerate child;
And there another Einion; gifted youths,
And heirs of immortality on earth,
Whose after-strains, through many a distant age
Cambria shall boast, and love the songs that tell
The fame of Owen's house.

There, in the eye

Of light and in the face of day, the rites
Began. Upon the stone of Covenant
First, the sheathed sword was laid; the Master then
Upraised his voice, and cried, Let them who seek
The high degree and sacred privilege

Of Bardic science, and of Cimbric lore,
Here to the Bards of Britain make their claim!
Thus having said, the Master bade the youths
Approach the place of peace, and merit there
The Bard's most honourable name 3: With that,

stood within the circle bareheaded and barefooted, and the ceremony opened by sheathing a sword and laying it on the Stone of Covenant. The Bardic traditions were then recited.

2 "By the principles of the Order a Bard was never to bear arms, nor in any other manner to become a party in any dispute, either political or religious; nor was a naked weapon ever to be held in his presence, for under the title of Bardd Ynys Prydain, Bard of the Isle of Britain, he was recognised as the sacred Herald of Peace. He could pass unmolested from one country to another, where his character was known; and whenever he appeared in his unicoloured robe, attention was given to him on all occasions; if it was even between armies in the heat of action, both parties would instantly desist."— Owen's Llyware Hen.

Six of the elder Bards are enumerated in the Triads as having borne arms in violation of their Order; but in these latter days the perversion had become more frequent. Meiler, the Bard of Grufydd ab Cynan, distinguished himself in war; Cynddelw, Brydydd Mawr, the Great Bard, was eminent for his valour; and Gwalchmai boasts in one of his poems that he had defended the Marches against the Saxons." -Warrington.

3 No people seem to have understood the poetical character so well as the Welsh; witness their Triads.

"The three primary requisites of poetical Genius; an eye

Heirs and transmittors of the ancient light,
The youths advanced; they heard the Cimbric lore,
From earliest days preserved; they struck their harps,
And each in due succession raised the song.

He heard the symphony and voice attuned;
Even in such feelings as, all undefined,
Come with the flow of waters to the soul,
Or with the motions of the moonlight sky.
But when his bidding came, he at the call
Arising from that dreamy mood, advanced,
Threw back his mantle, and began the lay.

that can see Nature, a heart that can feel Nature, and a resolution that dares follow Nature.

"The three foundations of Genius: the gift of God, man's exertion, and the events of life.

"The three indispensables of Genius; understanding, feeling, and perseverance.

"The three things which constitute a poet; genius, knowledge, and impulse.

"The three things that enrich Genius; contentment of mind, the cherishing of good thoughts, and exercising the memory." E. Williams's Poems. Owen's Lyware Hen.

"The Welsh have always called themselves Cymry, of which the strictly literal meaning is Aborigines. There can be no doubt that it is the same word as the Cimbri of the ancients they call their language Cymraeg, the Primitive Tongue."-E. William's Poems.

2"Gavran, the son of Aeddan Vradog ab Dyvnwal Hen, a chieftain of distinguished celebrity in the latter part of the fifth century. Gavran, Cadwallon, and Gwenddolau, were the heads of the three faithful tribes of Britain. The family of Gavran obtained that title by accompanying him to sea to discover some islands, which, by a traditionary memorial, were known by the name of Gwerdonnau Llion, or the green Islands of the Ocean. This expedition was not heard of afterwards, and the situation of those Islands became lost to the Britons. This event, the voyage of Merddín Emrys with the twelve Bards, and the expedition of Madoc, were called the three losses by disappearance."- Cambrian Biography.

Of these Islands, or Green Spots of the Floods, there are some singular superstitions. They are the abode of the Tylwyth Teg, or the Fair Family, the souls of the virtuous Druids, who, not having been Christians, cannot enter the Christian heaven, but enjoy this heaven of their own. They however discover a love of mischief, neither becoming happy Spirits, nor consistent with their original character; for they love to visit the earth, and, seizing a man, inquire whether he will travel above wind, mid wind, or below wind; above wind is a giddy and terrible passage, below wind is through bush and brake; the middle is a safe course. But the spell of security is, to catch hold of the grass, for these beings have not power to destroy a blade of grass. In their better moods they come over and carry the Welsh in their boats. He who visits these islands imagines on his return that he has been absent only a few hours, when, in truth, whole centuries have passed away.

If you take a turf from St. David's church-yard, and stand upon it on the sea-shore, you behold these islands. A man once, who had thus obtained sight of them, immediately put to sea to find them; but they disappeared, and his search was in vain. He returned, looked at them again from the enchanted turf, again set sail, and failed again. The third

Where are the sons of Gavran? where his tribe The faithful 2 ? following their beloved chief, They the Green Islands of the Ocean sought; Nor human tongue hath told, nor human ear, Since from the silver shores they went their way, Hath heard their fortunes. In his crystal Ark, Whither sail'd Merlin with his band of Bards,

Belike his crystal Ark, instinct with life,

time he took the turf into his vessel, and stood upon it till he reached them.

"The inhabitants of Arran More, the largest of the south isles of Arran, on the coast of Galway, are persuaded that in a clear day they can see Hy Brasail, the Enchanted Island, from the coast, the Paradise of the Pagan Irish."-Collectanea de Rebus Hibernicis. Beauford's Ancient Topography of Ireland.

General Vallancey relates a different history of this su perstition. "The old Irish," he says, "say, that great part of Ireland was swallowed up by the sea, and that the sunken part often rises, and is frequently to be seen on the horizon from the Northern coast. On the North-west of the island they call this enchanted country Tir Hudi, or the city of Hud, believing that the city stands there which once possessed all the riches of the world, and that its key lies buried under some druidical monument. When Mr. Burton, in 1765, went in search of the Ogham monument, called Conane's Tomb, on Callan mountain, the people could not be convinced that the search was made after an inscription, but insisted that he was seeking after an Enchanted Key that lay buried with the Hero, and which, when found, would restore the Enchanted City to its former splendour, and convert the moory heights of Callan mountain into rich and fruitful plains. They expect great riches whenever this city is discovered."

This enchanted country is called 0 Brcasil, or 0 Brazil, which, according to General Vallancey's interpretation, signifies the Royal Island. He says it is evidently the lost city of Arabian story, visited by their fabulous prophet Houd,... the City and Paradise of Irem! He compares this tradition with the remarks of Whitehurst on the Giant's Causeway, and suspects that it refers to the lost Atlantis, which Whitehurst thinks perhaps existed there.

Is that remarkable phenomenon, known in Sicily by the name of Morgaine le Fay's works, ever witnessed on the coast of Ireland? If so, the superstition is explained by an actual apparition. I had not, when this note was written, seen Mr. Latham's account of a similar phenomenon at Hastings, (Phil. Trans. 1798), which completely establishes what I had here conjectured. Mr. Nicholson, in his remarks on it, says the same thing has been seen from Broadstairs, and that these appearances are much more frequent and general than has usually been supposed.

3 The name of Merlin has been so canonised by Ariosto and our diviner Spenser, that it would have been a heresy in poetry to have altered it to its genuine orthography.

Merddin was the bard of Emrys Wledig, the Ambrosius of Saxon history, by whose command he erected Stonehenge, in memory of the Plot of the Long Knives, when, by the treachery of Gwrytheyrn, or Vortigern, and the Saxons, three hundred British chiefs were massacred. He built it on the

Obedient to the mighty Master, reach'd The Land of the Departed; there, belike,

site of a former Circle. The structure itself affords proof that it cannot have been raised much earlier, inasmuch as it deviates from the original principle of Bardic circles, where no appearance of art was to be admitted. Those of Avebury, Stanton-Drew, Keswick, &c. exemplify this. It is called by the Welsh Gwaith Emrys, the work of Ambrosius. Drayton's reproach, therefore, is ill founded,

"Ill did those mighty men to trust thee with their story, Thou hast forgot their names who reared thee for their glory."

The Welsh traditions say that Merddin made a House of Glass, in which he went to sea, accompanied by the Nine Cylveirdd Bards, and was never heard of more. This was one of the Three disappearances from the isle of Britain. Merddin is also one of the Three principal Christian Bards of Britain; Merddin Wyllt and Taliesin are the other two.- Cambrian Biography.

A diving House of Glass is also introduced in the Spanish Romance of Alexander, written about the middle of the 13th century, by Joan Lorenzo Segura de Astorga: —

"Unas facianas suelen les gentes retraer, Non yaz en escrito, é es grave de creer; Si es verdat ó non, yo non he y que veer, Pero no lo quiero en olvido poner.

"Dicen que por saber que facen los pescados, Como viven los chicos entre los mas granados, Fizo cuba de vidrio con puntos bien cerrados, Metios en ella dentro con dos de sus criados.

"Estos furon catados de todos los meiores, Por tal que non oviessen dona los traedores, Ca que el ó que ellos avrien aguardadores, Non farien á sus guisas los malos revoltores.

"Fu de bona betume la cuba aguisada,

Fu con bonas cadenas bien presa é calzada,
Fu con priegos firmes á las naves pregada,
Que fonder non se podiesse é estodiesse colgada.

"Mando que quinze dias lo dexassen hy durar,
Las naves con todesto pensassen de tost andar,
Assaz podrie en esto saber é mesurar,
Metria en escrito los secretos del mar.

"La cuba fue fecha en quel Rey acia,

A los unos pesaba, á los otros placia:
Bien cuidaban algunos que nunca ende saldría,
Mas destaiado era que en mar non moriria

"Andabal bon Rey en su casa cerrada,
Seia grant corazon en angosta posada;
Veia toda la mar de pescados poblada,
No es bestia nel sieglo que non fus y trobada.

"Non vive en el mundo nenguna creatura
Que non cría la mar semejante figura;
Traen enemizades entre si por natura,
Los fuertes á los flacos danles mala ventura.

"Estonce vio el Rey en aquellas andadas

Como echan los unos á los otros celadas Dicen que ende furon presas é sossacadas, Furon desent aca por el sieglo usadas.

"Tanto se acogien al Rey los pescados

Como si los ovies el Rey por subiugados,

They in the clime of immortality,
Themselves immortal, drink the gales of bliss,

Venien fasta la cuba todos cabezcolgados, Tremian todos antel como mozos moiades.

"Juraba Alexandre per lo su diestro lado, Que nunca fura domes meior accompannado; De los pueblos del mar tovose por pagado, Contaba que avie grant emperio ganado.

"Otra faciana vio en essos pobladores,

Vio que los maiores comien á los menores,
Los chicos á los grandes tenienos por sennores,
Maltraen los mas fuertes á los que son menores.

"Diz el Rey, soberbia es en todolos lugares, Forcia es enna tierra é dentro ennos mares: Las aves esso mismo non se catan por pares, Dios confunda tal vicio que tien tantos lugares.

"Nacio entre los angelos é fizo muchos caer,
Arramólos Dios per la tierra, é dioles grant poder,
La mesnada non puede su derecho aver
Ascondio la cabeza, non osaba parecer.

"Quien mas puede mas face, non de bien, mas de mal,
Quien mas á aver mas quier, é morre por ganal;
Non veeria de su grado nenguno si igual;
Mal peccado, nenguno no es á Dios leal.

"Las aves é las bestias, los omes, los pescados,
Todos son entre si á bandos derramados;
De vicio é de soberbia son todos entregados,
Los flacos de los fuertes andan desafiados.

"Se como sabel Rey bien todesto osmar
Quisiesse assimismo á derechas iulgar,
Bien debie un poco su lengua refrenar,
Que en tant fieras grandias non quisiesse andar.

"De su gradol Rey mas oviera estado

Mas á sus criazones faciesles pesado; Temiendo la ocasion que suel venir privado, Sacaronlo bien ante del termino passado."

The sweet flow of language and metre in so early a poem is very remarkable; but no modern language can boast of monuments so early and so valuable as the Spanish. To attempt to versify this passage would be laborious and unprofitable. Its import is that Alexander, being desirous to see how the Fish lived, and in what manner the great Fish behaved to the little ones, ordered a vessel of glass to be made, and fastened with long chains to his ships, that it might not sink too deep. He entered it with two chosen servants, leaving orders that the ships should continue their course, and draw him up at the end of fifteen days. The vessel had been made perfectly water-tight. He descended, and found the fish as curious to see him as he had been to see the fish. They crowded round his machine, and trembled before him as if he had been their conqueror, so that he thought he had acquired another empire. But Alexander perceived the same system of tyranny in the water as on the land, the great eat the little, and the little eat the less; upon which tyranny he made sundry moral observations, which would have come with more propriety from any other person than from himself. However, he observed the various devices which were used for catching fish, and which, in consequence of this discovery, have been used in the world ever since. His people were afraid some accident might happen, and drew him up long before the fifteen days were expired.

The Poet himself does not believe this story. "People

Which o'er Flathinnis breathe eternal spring,
Blending whatever odours make the gale
Of evening sweet, whatever melody

Charms the wood-traveller. In their high roof'd halls
There, with the Chiefs of other days, feel they
The mingled joy pervade them? . . Or beneath
The mid-sea waters, did that crystal Ark
Down to the secret depths of Ocean plunge
Its fated crew? Dwell they in coral bowers
With Mermaid loves, teaching their paramours
The songs that stir the sea, or make the winds
Hush, and the waves be still? In fields of joy
Have they their home, where central fires maintain
Perpetual summer, and an emerald light
Pervades the green translucent element ? 2

Twice have the sons of Britain left her shores, As the fledged eaglets quit their native nest; Twice over ocean have her fearless sons For ever sail'd away. Again they launch Their vessels to the deep... Who mounts the bark? The son of Owen, the beloved Prince, Who never for injustice rear'd his arm. Respects his enterprize, ye Ocean Waves! Ye Winds of Heaven, waft Madoc on his way! The Waves of Ocean, and the Winds of Heaven, Became his ministers, and Madoc found The world he sought.

Who seeks the better land? Who mounts the vessel for a world of peace? He who hath felt the throb of pride, to hear

gently-sloping hills of green, nor did they wholly want their clouds; but the clouds were bright and transparent, and each

1 Flath-innis, the Noble Island, lies surrounded with tempests in the Western Ocean. I fear the account of this Paradise is but apocryphal, as it rests upon the evidence of Macpherson, and has every internal mark of a modern fiction. "In former days there lived in Skerr* a magician † of high renown. The blast of wind waited for his commands at the gate; he rode the tempest, and the troubled wave offered itself as a pillow for his repose. His eye followed the sun by day; his thoughts travelled from star to star in the season of night; he thirsted after things unseen; he sighed over the narrow circle which surrounded his days: he often sat in silence beneath the sound of his groves; and he blamed the careless billows that rolled between him and the Green Isle of the West.

"One day, as the Magician of Skerr sat thoughtful upon a rock, a storm arose on the sea: a cloud, under whose squally skirts the foaming waters complained, rushed suddenly into the bay, and from its dark womb at once issued forth a boat, with its white sails bent to the wind, and hung around with a hundred moving oars. But it was destitute of mariners, itself seeming to live and move. An unusual terror seized the aged Magician; he heard a voice though he saw no human form. Arise! behold the boat of the heroes arise, and see the Green Isle of those who have passed away!'

"He felt a strange force on his limbs: he saw no person, but he moved to the boat; immediately the wind changed; in the bosom of the cloud he sailed away. Seven days gleamed faintly round him, seven nights added their gloom to his darkness: his ears were stunned with shrill voices; the dull murmurs of winds passed him on either side; he slept not, but his eyes were not heavy; he ate not, but he was not hungry on the eighth day the waves swelled into mountains; the boat was rocked violently from side to side; the darkness thickened around him, when a thousand voices at once cried aloud, The Isle! the Isle! The billows opened wide before him; the calm land of the departed rushed in light on his eyes.

"It was not a light that dazzled, but a pure, distinguishing, and placid light, which called forth every object to view in their most perfect form. The isle spread large before him like a pleasing dream of the soul, where distance fades not on the sight, where nearness fatigues not the eye. It had its

* Skerr signifies, in general, a rock in the Ocean. A magician is called Druidh in the Gaellc.

stream, which, wandering down the steep, was like the faint notes of the half-touched harp to the distant ear. The valleys were open and free to the ocean; trees loaded with leaves, which scarcely waved to the light breeze, were scattered on the green declivities and rising ground; the rude winds walked not on the mountain; no storm took its course through the sky. All was calm and bright; the pure sun of Autumn shone from his blue sky on the fields; he hastened not to the West for repose, nor was he seen to rise from the East: he sits in his mid-day height, and looks obliquely on the Noble Isle.

"In each valley is its slow moving stream; the pure waters swell over the bank, yet abstain from the fields; the showers disturb them not, nor are they lessened by the heat of the sun. On the rising hill are the halls of the departed,.. the high-roofed dwellings of the heroes of old.

"The departed, according to the Tale, retained, in the midst of their happiness, a warm affection for their country and living friends. They sometimes visited the first; and by the latter, as the Bard expresses it, they were transiently seen in the hour of peril, and especially on the near approach of death; it was then that at midnight the death devoted, to use the words of the Tale, were suddenly awakened by a strange knocking at their gates: it was then that they heard the indistinct voice of their departed friends calling them away to the Noble Isle; a sudden joy rushed in upon their minds, and that pleasing melancholy which looks forward to happiness in a distant land.'"-Macpherson's Introduction to the History of Great Britain.

"The softer sex, among the Celta," he adds, "passed with their friends to the fortunate isles; their beauty increased with the change, and, to use the words of the Bard, they were ruddy lights in the Island of Joy."

2 I have supplied Merlin with light when he arrived at his world of Mermankind, but not for his submarine voyage; let Paracelsus do this.

"Urim and Thummim were the Philosopher's Stone, and it was this which gave light in the Ark.

"For God commanded Noah to make a clear light in the Ark, which some take for a window. But since the Text saith," Day and night shall no more cease;" it seems it did then cease, and therefore there could be no exterior light.

"The Rabbis say, that the Hebrew word Zohar, which the Chaldees translate Neher, is only to be found in this place. Other Hebrew doctors believe it to have been a precious stone hung up in the Ark, which gave light to all living creatures therein. This the greatest carbuncle could not do, nor any precious stone which is only natural. But the Universal Spirit, fixed in a transparent body, shines like the sun in glory, and this was the light which God commanded Noah to make."- Paracelsus's Urim and Thummim.