readers in possession of a catastrophe that takes place behind the scene.

• Enter a young Pensioner, with a wild terrified look, her hair and dress all scattered, and rushes forward amongst them.

Abbess. Why com'st thou here, with such disorder'd
looks,

To break upon our sad solemnity?

Pen. Oh! I did hear thro' the receding blast,
Such horrid cries! they made my blood run chill.
Abb. 'Tis but the varied voices of the storm,
Which many times will sound like distant screams:
It has deceiv'd thee.

Pen. O no, for twice it call'd, so loudly call'd,
With horrid strength, beyond the pitch of nature;
And Murder! murder! was the dreadful cry.
A third time it return'd with feeble strength,
But o'the sudden ceas'd, as tho' the words
Were smother'd rudely in the grappled throat,
And all was still again, save the wild blast
Which at a distance growl'd-

Oh! it will never from my mind depart!
That dreadful cry, all i'the instant still'd:
For then, so near, some horrid deed was done,
And none to rescue.

Abb. Where didst thou hear it?

Pen.

In the higher cells,

As now a window, open'd by the storm,

I did attempt to close.'

(A loud knocking is heard without.)

Abb. Ha! who may this be?

2d Monk. It is the knock of one in furious haste.

Hush! hush! What footsteps come? Ha! brother
Bernard.

Enter BERNARD bearing a lantern.

1st Monk. See, what a look he wears of stiffen'd fear! Where hast thou been, good brother?

Bern. I've seen a horrid sight!

Bern. As on I hasten'd bearing thus my light,
Across the path, not fifty paces off,

I saw a murder'd corse, stretch'd on his back,
Smear'd with new blood, as tho' but newly slain.
Abb. A man or woman was't?

Abb. Didst thou examine if within its breast
There yet were lodg'd some small remains of life?
Was it quite dead?

Bern.

Nought in the grave is deader.
I look'd but once, yet life did never lodge

1st Monk. And does the face seem all unknown to thee? Bern The face! I would not on the face have look'd

For e'en a kingdom's wealth, for all the world!

O no! the bloody neck, the bloody neck!

(Loud knocking heard without.)

Sist. Good mercy! who comes next?
Bern.

Not far behind

I left our brother Thomas on the road;
But then he did repent him as he went,
And threaten'd to return.

2d Monk.

See, here he comes.

Enter Brother THOMAS.

1st Monk. How wild he looks!

Bern. (going up to him eagerly.) What, hast thou seen

it too?

Thom. Yes, yes! it glar'd upon me as it pass'd.

Bern. What glar'd upon thee?

(All gathering round Thomas, and speaking at once)
O! what hast thou seen?

Thom. As, striving with the blast, I onward came,
Turning my feeble lantern from the wind,

Its light upon a dreadful visage gleam'd,
Which paus'd and look'd upon me as it pass'd.
But such a look, such wildness of despair,
Such horrour-strained features, never yet

Did earthly visage show. I shrunk and shudder'd.
If a damn'd spirit may to earth return,

I've seen it,

Bern.

Was there any blood upon it?

Thom. Nay, as it pass'd, I did not see its form;
Nought but the horrid face.

Bern. It is the murderer.

1st Monk.

What way went it?

Thom. I durst not look till I had pass'd it far.'

De Monfort, (for he is the murderer) is brought in, and with him the corpse of the murdered Rezenvelt. They are left together: one Monk lingers behind.

'De Mon. All gone! (Perceiving the Monk.) O stay
thou here!

De Mon. I'll give thee gold; I'll make thee rich in gold, If thou wilt stay e'en but a little while,

Monk. I must not, must not stay.

De Mon.

Monk. I dare not stay with thee.
De Mon.

I do conjure thee!

And wilt thou go?

(Catching hold of him eagerly.)

O! throw thy cloak upon this grizly form!
The unclos'd eyes do stare upon me still.

O do not leave me thus!

[Monk covers the body, and Exit.

De Mon. Alone with thee! but thou art nothing now.
'Tis done, 'tis number'd with the things o'erpast;
Would! would it were to come!-

What fated end, what darkly gathering cloud
Will close on a 1 this horrour?

O that dire madness would unloose my thoughts,
And fill my mind with wildest fantasies,

Dark, restless, terrible! aught, aught but this.
How with convulsive life he heav'd beneath me,
E'en with the death's wound gor'd. O horrid, horrid !
Methinks I feel him still.-What sound is that?
I heard a smother'd groan.-It is impossible!

It moves! it moves! the cloth doth heave and swell.
It moves again! I cannot suffer this-

Whate'er it be, I will uncover it.

All still beneath.

Nought is there here but fix'd and grizly death,
How sternly fix'd! Oh! those glazed eyes!
They look upon me still? Vol. pp. 38, 39.

The horrors of a guilty conscience are strongly pourtrayed, though the passage is not the most original.

'Ethw. Thou shalt not go and leave me thus alone.

Qu. I'll soon return again, and all around thee

Is light as noon-day.

Ethw. Nay, nay, good wife! it rises now before me
In the full blaze of light.

Qu. Ha! what mean st thou?

Ethw The faint and shadowy forms,

That in obscurity were wont to rise

In sad array, are with the darkness fled.

But what avails the light? for now, since sickness

Has pressed upon my soul, in my lone moments,
E'en in the full light of my torch-clad walls,

A horrid spectre rises to my sight.

Close by my side, and plain and palpable,
In all good seeming and close circumstance,
As man meets man.

Qu. Mercy upon us! What form does it wear?
Ethw. My urder'd brother's form.

He stands close by my side: his ghastly head
Shakes horridly upon its sever'd neck

As if new from the head-man's stroke; it moves
Still as move; and when I look upon it,
It looks-No, no, I can no utterance find
To tell thee how it looks on me again.

Qu. Yet, fear not now; I shall not long be absent;
And thou may'st hear my footsteps all the while,
It is so short a space.

(Exit Queen.
Ethw. I'ill fix my steadfast eyes upon the ground,
And turn to other things my tutor'd thoughts intently.
-It may not be: I feel upon my mind

The horrid sense that preludes still its coming.
Elburga! ho, Elburga!

(Enter Queen in haste.)

Qu. Has't come again?

Ethw. No, but I felt upon my pausing soul
The sure and horrid sense of its approach.
Had'st thou not quickly come, it had ere now
Been frowning by my side.' pp. 351-3.

The following scene is strongly painted.

'Woman. Alas! be there such sights within our walls? Officer. Yes, maid, such sights of blood! such sights of

nature!

In expectation of their horrid fate,

Widows, and childless parents, and 'lorn dames,
Sat by their unwept dead with fixed gaze,

In horrible stillness.

But when the voice of grace was heard aloud,

So strongly stirr'd within their roused souls

The love of light, that, even amidst those horrors,
A joy was seen-joy hateful and unlovely.
I saw an aged man rise from an heap
Of grizly dead, whereon, new murder'd, lay
His sons and grandson's, yea, the very babe
Whose cradle he had rock'd with palsied hands,
And shake his grey locks at the sound of life
With animation wild and horrible.

I saw a mother with a murder'd infant

Still in her arms fast lock'd, spring from the ground-
No, no! I saw it not! I saw it not!

It was a hideous fancy of my mind.

I have not seen it.' Const. Paleol. pp. 420, 421.

It is, however, in Orra that the author has given full scope to her powers in the terrific. The heroine of the tragedy is a superstitious maiden, filled with terrors of ghosts and goblins, &c.--but she is described in the play:

I have watched her long.

I've seen her cheek flush'd with the rosy glow

Of jocund spirits, deadly pale become

At tale of nightly sprite or apparition,

Such as all hear, 'tis true, with greedy ears,

Saying, "Saints save us!" but forget as quickly.

I've marked her long: she has, with all her shrewdness
And playful merriment, a gloomy fancy,

That broods within itself on fearful things.' Vol. III. p. 19, VOL. X.

The poor girl is sent, by the artifices of an unsuccessful lover, to a solitary castle, haunted, according to the vulgar, by a spectre huntsman. The lover accompanies her, and sleeps in the lady's antichamber. Her terrors may be imagined.

Or. I am alone; That closing door divides me

Front ev'ry being owning nature's life.

And shall I be constrain❜d to hold communion
With that which owns it not?

O that my mind

Could raise its thoughts in strong and steady fervour
To him, the Lord of all existing things,
Who lives and is where'er existence is;
Grasping its hold upon his skirted robe,

Beneath whose mighty rule Angels and Spirits,
Demons and nether powers, all living things,
Hosts of the earth, with the departed dead
In their dark state of mystery, alike

Subjected are!And I will strongly do it.—

Ah! Would I could! Some hidden powerful hindrance
Doth hold me back, and mars all thought.-

Dread intercourse!

O, if it look on me with its dead eyes!

If it should move its lock'd and earthly lips

And utt'rance give to the grave's hollow sounds.!
If it stretch forth its cold and bony grasp―

Ó horror, horror!

O that beneath these planks of senseless matter
I could until the dreadful hour is past,

As senseless be!

O open and receive me,

Ye happy things of still and lifeless being,
That to the awful steps which tread upon ye
Unconsious are!

(Enter CATHRINA behind her)

Who's there? Is't any thing?

Cath. 'Tis I, my dearest Lady! 'tis Cathrina.' pp. 70, 71.
(The cry of hounds is heard without at a distance, with
the sound of a horn; and presently Orra enters, burst-
ing from the door of the adjoining chamber, in great
alarm.)

Or. Cathrina! sleepest thou? Awake! Awake!
(Running up to the coach and starting back on seeing
Rudigere.)

That hateful viper here!

Is this my nightly guard? Detested wretch!

I will steal back again.

O no! I dare not.

Tho' sleeping, and most hateful when awake,
Still he is natural life and may be 'waked.
'Tis nearer now that dismal thrilling blast
I must awake him.