being victorious, he yet doubted the event of the field. The Scottish army, however, felt their loss, and abandoned the field of battle in disorder before dawn. They lost, perhaps, from eight to ten thousand men, but that included the very prime of their nobility, gentry, and even clergy. Scarce a family of eminence but has an ancestor killed at Flodden; and there is no province in Scotland, even at this day, where the battle is mentioned without a sensation of terror and sorrow:

Their king, their lords, their mightiest, low,
They melted from the field as snów,

When streams are swollen and south winds blow,
Dissolves in silent dew.

Tweed's echoes heard the ceaseless plash,

While many a broken band,
Disordered, through her currents dash,

To gain the Scottish land;

To town and tower, to down and dale,
To tell red Flodden's dismal tale,
And raise the universal wail.
Tradition, legend, tune, and song,

Shall many an age that wail prolong:

Still from the sire the son shall hear
Of the stern strife, and carnage drear,

Of Flodden's fatal field,

Where shivered was fair Scotland's spear,

And broken was her shield * !"

* Marmion, pp. cxx., cxxi., 354-cxxii., cxxiii., 369.

Lord Henry Clifford returned from the Field of Flodden hoping to enjoy with, if possible, still encreased zest, the quiet retreat and romantic solitudes of Barden Forest and Bolton Abbey. But, as is often the case with wealth and rank, his station and connexions too often forced him into scenes which were foreign to his heart; and, what was infinitely more distressing, his peace of mind was for some years broken in upon by the wild and extravagant conduct of the son whom he had by his first lady. It was not, therefore, without regret, without many a sigh, resulting from the contrast, that he looked back upon those years once, perhaps, thought tedious and humiliating, as now the happiest of his life, when in the lowly but peaceful seclusion of the shepherd's cot, he was a stranger alike to grief, ingratitude, or care.

Assuredly, therefore, we shall not err, if, with an elegant poet of the present day *, and a descendant also of the house of Clifford, we estimate the experience of lord Henry to have been, in his old age, what the following beautiful sonnets very shrewdly surmise.

* Sir Samuel Egerton Brydges.

SONNET 1.

I wish I could have heard thy long-tried lore,

Thou virtuous Lord of Skipton! Thcu couldst well From sage Experience, that best teacher, tell, How far within the Shepherd's humble door Lives the sure happiness, that on the floor Of gay Baronial Halls disdains to dwell, Tho' deck'd with many a feast, and many a spell Of gorgeous rhyme, and echoing with the roar Of Pleasure clamorous round the full-crown'd bowl! Thou hadst (and who had doubted thee?) exprest, What empty baubles are the ermin'd stole, Proud coronet, rich walls with tapestry drest, And music lulling the sick frame to rest! Bliss only haunts the pure contented soul!

SONNET 2.

Month after month, and year succeeding year,
When still the budding Spring, and yet again
The eddying leaf upon the dingy plain
Saw thee still happy in thy humble sphere,
But still as each return of foliage sere,

And still as on the warm banks of the lane,
Shelter'd with covering wood, the primrose train
Began to ope their yellow buds, a tear

Would start unbidden from thy placid check,

And a deep pang would swell thy honest heart, At hopes so long deferr'd:—yet couldst thou speak, Wouldst thou not thus the precious truth impart ? "Dearer those scenes, tho' mixed with many a sigh, Than all the joys that Grandeur can supply * !”

* Vide Censura Literaria, vol. vi. pp. 402, 403.

On April the 23d, 1523, this amiable and virtuous nobleman paid the debt of nature, having survived the battle of Flodden nearly ten years, and attained his seventieth year. He had given directions in his will to be interred at Shap, in Westmoreland, if he died in that county, or at Bolton, if he died in Yorkshire; and there is every reason to suppose that, in a vault now almost choked with rubbish, on the south side of the choir of Bolton Abbey, and which Dr. Whitaker conjectures to have been the resting-place of the lords of Skipton and patrons of Bolton, the remains of lord Henry the shepherd were deposited.

[To be continued.]

No. IX.

See from our native Britain's fair Domains,
With friendly emulation, Bards appear!
See them the Tuscan Muses' Banner rear,
And waft Valchiusa to our sterner plains:
Hear gentle Spenser, gallant Sidney's strains;
And DRUMMOND, to the Woodland Sisters dear.
CAPEL LOFFT.

THERE are few recollections more delightful than those which are called up by a retrospect of the beautiful and romantic scenery which has been visited in early life. Impressions are then made which, as long as the faculties remain entire, no aftertime has power to efface, so blended are they, so indissolubly associated with all that, during this spring-tide of our existence, is wont to spread around our path a fairy charm.

It was under the influence of this hope-inspiring season of life,

of

When the heart promis'd what the fancy drew, that I enjoyed the opportunity of visiting many the most striking and picturesque combinations of