Nothing, I am persuaded, is wanting, to give our Liturgy that marked superiority, in the general estimation, above all other modes of publick worship, which its intrinsick excellence deserves, but the proper performance of that part which belongs to the people. Were it duly executed, we should indeed, then "pray with the spirit and with the understanding also; we should sing with the spirit and with the understanding also." The prayers and praises which we should thus offer unto God in his Holy Temple, would be a Service justly calculated to express the profound humility of the worshipper, and as justly accommodated to the dignity and majesty of the object addressed, as the feeble powers of human ability can possibly frame. We should thereby prove that we are a people " taught of GOD;" and by so proper an exhibition of our inimitable Liturgy, should be justly said to "worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness."*

*It is perhaps worthy of observation, that even in those Christian Societies where extempore prayer is practised in Publick Worship, though the expressions be extem. pore, and they profess disapprobation of forms as to the Minister, yet they certainly constitute a form as to the Congregation, the people being altogether led by them, and the aspirations of their hearts directed by them. In such case, which is the most likely to be accommodated to the dignity, solemnity, and importance of the occasion? -those prayers which are precomposed by the united talents of the wisest and most pious members of a Church, and which the people are well acquainted with before they utter them, or those which are dictat.

ORIGINAL POETRY.

For The Port Folio.

MR. OLDSCHOOL,

The reception of "Sir Elmer, and other tales of the same cast, induced me to send you the following. I copied it some years since from a friend's manuscript. He was unable to inform me of its date or parentage. If you have ever met with it before, be so kind as to annex the name of the authour, and receive the respectvant, &c. ful thanks of your most humble ser

THE TWO EARLS

Harold of Curwin, and Arthur of

"Brave Hendrick, is the deed performed!. Lies Harold's corse in Curwin low;" "Yes, noble Earl, this fearless hand "Comes reeking from the blow." "I stabbed him, on his princely couch, While dreams of night his fancy led; Fear not; no morn shall wake him, till The trumpet calls the dead." "Brave Hendrick, for this high exploit, Tomorrow claim the promis'd fee,

Myself alone, in Cranden Hall,

Henceforth thy paramount shall be." Then gath'ring round the blazing hearth, Earl Arthur cheered his powerful clan; And many an ancient cork was drawn,

And many a tale began.

They told of wars in Palestine,

When Monks' and Barons' mighty trains,
Of seventeen hundred thousand souls,
Did muster on Asiatick plains.

And of the last croisade, from which,
Brave Lion-Heart had just returned:
How Ascalon in fight he won,

And scars of glory earned.

How many an English baron bold,

In battle's bosom fought and died, The flowers of noble chivalry,

For God, St. George, and England's pride!

The heroes of the cross who bared Their arms in High Jehovah's name : Now closed in tombs, but living still

In the long life of fame.

And some did vaunt their valiant deeds
Achieved in savage feudal wars:
And veterans bold arose to boast
Their skirmishes and scars.

One claimed the blood of Harold's sire;
Two of that elan had Rufus slain;
And Hendrick pointed on his blade,
Where Harold's blood did stain.

"My Lord," a humble villain cried,

"A strolling harper waits below." "Well, send him up," the Earl replied, Nor was the vassal slow.

To hear the vagrant minstrel's strain
Of scenes and deeds of flying time,
Sat Arthur's lady, courtly Jane,
In beauty's wondrous prime.

His robe full often wrapt about,

To guard him from the winter blast; Crossed o'er his head and on his brow A midnight shadow cast.

His harp was of a stately height,

And richly carved its polished frame; But when he swept the silver chords Immortal spirits came!

O surely 'twas no human hand

That wove such high and holy strain! For even the cold and cruel heart

Grew merciful again.

'Twas like the midnight holy hymn
Of angels on the winter heath,
When round some lost and frozen saint,
They win a soul from death.

But soon he changed the tone to war,
High deeds, and hosts, and wild alarms
Till each eye flamed and beating hearts
All started up to arms.

And then of tilts and tournaments,

And Knights who bore away the ring, "When Harold vanquished Cranden's Earl Before high England's King!"

"Hold," wrathful Cranden starting cried, "Vile recreant! who and what art thou?" The harper rose, threw back his hood

"Earl Arthur, ask me now""

His hood curled down, and as it fell,
In shade deceiving lost the eye,
He rose a Knight all clad in steel,
And plumes of sable high.
His mien, majestick as the form
That fancy gives to kings of yore:

And on his stately shoulder high
The cross of Christ he bore.
Like lightning gleamed his awful eye,
Each Cranden started forth his sword,
For lo! all armed before them stood
Earl Harold, Curwin's Lord.
"Thou wretch!" Earl Arthur fiercely cri
ed

"Thou wretch, was I deceived, be-
trayed?"

Then deep in ghastly Hendrick's breast
He sheathed his shining blade.

"Ha, bloody fiend! he falling shrieked

Too well I served false hell and thee! Curse" but the red withdrawing steel. There set the guilty spirit free. "Thou murderer-from thy justest deed, 'Tis Harold, Harold bids thee turn, Now thou shalt expiate the blood

That stains my father's urn."

"No cursed Harold, now thy days

Are circled just as Arthur willed; I'll string thy vitals on this blade,

The same thy son and Father killed. Now pull I down thy haughty clan,

And cast their pride, their boast, their
stay

Torn like an eagle-slaughtered lamb,
On hungry winds away;

But let me rack thy bosom first,

And tell thee e'er we kindly part,
This grasped thy sire, and this the steel
Shoved slowly through his heart.

I took thy son, when hunting gay,
And in the face of fervid noon:
Raised high this glittering sword and
stabbed

As I will show thee soon →

"Earl Arthur, dost thou, basely false,
Accuse thyself to torture me?
Though thou didst foully stab my sire,
Of Richard's blood thy hand is free:

But hold! no praise I give thee there,

'Twere damning guilt to give thee praise Thou keepest my son in cavern pent, To murder all his days.

Beneath this castle vaulted deep,

Where cheery day did never glare, Round my poor son old vapours weep Sad on the heavy air.

Like morn of God, on sleep of death,

His dungeoned eyes shall wakened be, For I am come, ye know not whence, To set the captive free."

"Hah! yelled Earl Arthur, haggard Jane, Art thou a damned traitor too?"

The fainted lady's bosom then

His falchion quivered through.

"Didst thou conspire and cheer my foe? Thou who alone that secret heard; Go first and tell the hounds of hell

How thy friend Harold fared!"

On her white breast th' untimely blood
In devious traces wildly ran:
And on their far more savage lord
Stared all his savage clan.

The doomsday voice of Harold broke:
"Now hound! thy dark career is o'er!
Weep, weep, for never human blood
Shall stain thy weapon more."

"Nay, sayst thou so gigantick Earl

Let this thy prophecy attest:" Then high his spotted falchion reared O'er dauntless Harold's crest. The vengeful steel in hurtless way, Through seeming helm and corslet wound,

Glanced down the shining form of air

And shivered in the ground!

O, back recoiled the clan dismayed,

And Arthur's eye strained fixed and dim, The unsubstantial warriour's plume

More awful high did swim.

"Poor Arthur, wouldst thou murder twice,

Exclaimed the awful, frowning shadeNow where is fled thy valour, wretch? Now lift thy daring blade!

Thou

Saracen assassin! gloat,

raise thy hair, O marked of hell! Thou hiredst my slave to stab his lord, And there the murderer fell! And look-look there! that angel form, Whose bitter fate allied to thine; All chaste and fair, lo, there she lies, A branch of ble line.

So like the lily in its prime,

Cut down before the ruthless plough; Once fairest flower of all the field,

But who can raise it now?

My butchered father's clammy clay
Long pent in marble vault doth lie;
But now, yea now, his dusky ghost
Glares on his murderer nigh.

Thou slave of Envy and of Hate,
Now stand on life's extremest bound,
And like an o'erspent tempest view
The ruin spread around.

Shrink, shrink again thou sentenced chief,
Convulsive draw thy counted breath;
For never shalt thou sleep again,
But in the bony arms of Death.

Soon, gathering round thee, blighting

Shall snatch thy spirit and rejoice, When the high angel of the tombs

Doth call thee with a monarch's voice.

The owl is still, the meteors fall,
Pale Morning rides the eastern blast;
The sprites of hollow hell carcer
In shivering silence past.

A way to Death's wide-yawning womb
The solemn, restless shade must flee."
The martial spirit sailed away,

Crying, "Arthur, Arthur, follow me.""Hold! stop him slave," wild Arthur yelled,

"Strike down the moulded shadowthere? But no man raised his daring arm

To stay the formal air.

It glided down the marble flight

A mist beneath its footing curled; Then through the avenues of night. Departed o'er the world.

To noble Curwin's later Lords,

This tale a hoary harper sung:
And how he'd seen Earl Richard's self,
Long since, when he was young.

Told how Earl Arthur died that night,

All ghastly wild, and gasping grim; And how young Richard soon was found In dungeon deep and dim.

How England's lion-hearted King

Proud Cranden unto Curwin gave;
And Richard Earl of titles twain,

Proved wise, and just, and brave.
How he and numerous Barons more,
From hated, weak, and cruel JoHN,
In Freedom's cause, at Runimede,
The magna charta won.

And praising long th' united clans
Loud on the shivering strings:
Clos'd, chanting, "God save EDWARD
bold,

The King of England's Kings."

PRINTED AND PUBLISHED,

FOR THE EDITOR,

BY SMITH & MAXWELL,

No. 28, NORTH SECOND-STREET.

Vol. VI.

For The Port Folio.

TRAVELS..

LETTERS FROM GENEVA AND FRANCE.

Written during a residence of between two and three years in different parts of those countries, and addressed to a lady in Virginia.

(Continued from page 132.).
LETTER XXXVIII.

THE comfortable accommodation of a good inn enabled us to undertake the ascent of the Montanvert, the next day, but the mules, which we set out upon, could only carry us about halfway up, and it was necessary to perform the rest of the expedition on foot: this our ladies prepared themselves for, with courage, and each placing herself between two guides, who walked before and behind her, and resting with either hand upon two poles, the extremities of which were held horizon-. tally by the guides, moved slowly forwards, while the others of us

No. 10.

walked singly. We ascended in this manner about three miles, from where the mules were left, stopping frequently to take breath, and admiring, at every pause, the beauty of the valley below us, in which the narrow fields of grain, of clover, and of potatoes, seemed spread along like ribbons. I took occasion to inform the guides that they were obliged to the country. I and my fellow-travellers came from, for the introduction of potatoes, and excited their admiration by telling them of the distance at which we lived, and the ocean we had sailed over. We passed below many fragments of rock, which seemed to have been accidentally impeded on their descent towards the foot of the mountain, and over some steep gullies where a person committing himself to his own weight would have descended frightful velocity. We approached at length to an open space: it was a small pasturage, and there was a hut and another small build

T

with

ing of apparently elegant construction, which seemed ready for our reception; but the sensation of fatigue gave way to that of admiration or surprize, when on moving across the narrow space which terminated the ascent, we found ourselves on the brink of another valley, broader than that of Chamouny, and filled up to within a few hundred feet with ice which rose into a variety of forms and inequalities-this is the place described by travellers as the sea of ice, and which extending for several miles, and bordered by high, inaccessible, and naked rocks of granite, and opening from place to place into frightful chasms, seems the seat of eternal winter. If you can suppose for a moment the valley which leads through the S. W. mountains from immediately behind the house at Belvoir filled up with snow blown from the neighbouring heights, and that snow compressed by its own weight and connected into one mass by the water which trickling through from the surface becomes frozen as it descends, and the extremity of this mighty mass protruded into the

old fields, and ending abruptly

and a rapid stream issuing from below it, you may form some idea of what a glacier is. Mr. Coxe gives a very good description of the scene which was now before us, availing himself of those who have gone before him, and particularly of Mr. de Saussure-so entirely indeed does he confine his narration to what was already written, that had he not told us that he put crampons to his shoes, and that he afterwards refreshed himself with cold victuals, his description might have been supposed the production of some laborious compiler in a garret. We left some of our company at the top of the

mountain, and descending with the others to the surface of the sea of ice, advanced upon it with great caution, as you may imagine, for about 150 yards: on all sides there was to be heard a rush of waters, and there were crevices the very idea of approaching which was painful, and inequalities like the waves of a high sea; after surveying the scene about us for some time, and hearing the effects of the large fragments of rock which our guides rolled into the crevices, we ascended again, and having registered our names in a sort of temple of fame, which the edifice generously erected by a Monsieur Desportes for the protec-. tion of travellers, has been converted into, and on the same pannel with those of Mr. and Mrs. Darby, whom you must remember at we commenced our return towards the valley taking another road for that purpose, and descending towards the source of the Arveiron, which is at the lower extremity of the sea of ice, and 2782 perpendicular feet below the edifice on Montanvert. We were too late in the year to enjoy the sublime beauties of this view, as they are described by travellers: the immense arch of ice of 100 feet in height and broad in proportion had lately fallen in, but various tints of colour from a pale white to a deep green diversified the surface, which rose abruptly and ended in piramidical forms, while the Aiguille de Dru one of the naked rocks of granite which I mentioned as appearing to bound the valley of ice was visible above all rising like an immense obelisk to the stupendous height of upwards of 9000 feet from the spot we stood on. What added to the singularity of the scene before us were the forest trees which cover the sides of the