Whate'er thy source and purpose, I rejoice To list thy mystic murmurings, soft and clear:

and the performance of her domestic duties, her attention was almost exclusively devoted.* The fear of provoking the anger of his father, with the severity of whose disposition he was but too well acquainted, induced Don Pedro to allow the King to consider his connexion with Donna Inez as a mere affair of gallantry; and it was not until Alfonso had proposed to him a marriage with the daughter of the King of Castile, that he was induced to acknowledge the real truth. The old king, who was a man of a weak mind, but stern passions, was so exasperated by his disobedience, that, at the instigation of several of his nobles, who were jealous of the ascendancy which had been acquired by Inez over the young prince, he resolved upon putting her to death. With this by three of his ministers and an armed escort. intent, he set out for Coimbra, accompanied He arrived at his son's palace during the Prince's absence on a hunting party; but was so moved by the supplications of Donna Inez, who, with her children, threw herself at his feet and entreated of him mercy and forgiveness, that he would, in all probability, have spared her life, had it not been for the interposition of his counsellors. Not content with urg

ear,

To lead my soul from grovelling things of earth,

To hopes of loftier birth!

[This little poem was intended by its author as an imitation of the manner of Mrs. Hemans.]

From the Literary Souvenir. KING PEDRO'S REVENGE.

BY ALARIC A. WATTS.

Of the various romances of real life with which history abounds, there are few of more absorbing interest than that of Pedro the First of Portugal, and the fair but ill-starred Inez de Castro. The following little poem is founded on a very striking passage in the life of the monarch, which has never, as far as I am aware, been touched upon before. A brief recapitulation of incidents with which the historical reader must, already, be familiar, is, however, in some respects unavoidable.

Donna Inez de Castro was the daughter of a Castilian gentleman who had taken refuge at the Court of Portugal, in the reign of Alfonso IV. Her beauty and accomplishments having attracted the notice of Prince Pedro, his son, he became so passionately enamoured of her, as to desire to make her his wife. Satisfied, however, of the impossibility of prevailing upon his father to consent to his union with a woman so much his inferior in rank, he determined to espouse her secretly. They were, accordingly, married by the Bishop of Guarda, in the presence of only a single witness; and from that period lived together in the most private manner, in the palace of Santa Clara at Coimbra; where Donna Inez bore her royal consort several children, to whose education,

reproached him in bitter terms for his disregard of the welfare of his kingdom. Thus instiga ted, he relapsed into his former resolution, and commanded them to despatch her. But little time was allowed him to reflect upon his cruel mandate; for, dragging her immediately from hands, and then returned to the king, with his presence, they murdered her with their own their daggers reeking with her blood! No sooner was the prince informed of the assassination of his beloved Inez, than he was transported alternately with the most violent grief and rage. For a long time he appeared perfectly inconsolable; but his melancholy yield. ed at length to a deep and rooted passion for revenge. Immediately after her interment, he took up arms against his father; and hav ing placed himself at the head of a powerful army, whose leaders sympathized with him strongly in his indignation, he carried fire and sword through the adjacent provinces. It was not until he had ravaged the whole country between the rivers Minho and Doura, and laid waste the property of the murderers, that he was in some degree appeased by the interposition of the Bishop of Guarda; who, much as he loved the prince, and commiserated the fate of Inez, was anxious to avert, if possible, the horrors of a civil war. The King did not long survive his barbarous murder of his daughter-in-law; but expired full of contrition for his accumulated crimes. One of the first acts of Don Pedro, on his accession to the crown of

*La Neufville, Le Clede and other historians, confirm the fact, that Inez was privately married to the prince; and add, that his conjugal fidelity was no less remarkable than the ardour of his passion. One of their favourite places of residence was an old castle on the banks of the Mondego, through the grounds of which streamed the little rivulet known by the name of the Fountain of Amours, and alluded to by Camoens, in the third Book of the Lusiad.

The murderers of the martyred bride
Who should have shared his crown,
The felon slaves that had defied

So long his iron frown,-
Are given to his red hand at last,—
Stand fettered in his sight;
And his kindling glance is on them cast,
With a fierce and grim delight!
VI.

"Demons-nay, bend no fawning knee! Your doom is fixed, your sentence said; And such mercy shall ye gain from me

As ye vouchsafed the sinless dead ;The sainted dead-and but for you, The partner of my kingly state; The glorious dead-ye foully slew, To glut a savage dotard's hate.

VII.

"There's blood upon your dastard brands
That blood can only clear again;
There's guilt on those remorseless bands,
And fire, perchance, may cleanse the stain!
The tortures ye have wrought for me,
With keenest tortures I'll repay;
And your dying groans shall the music be,
To grace my festal board to day.

VIII.

"Call me not cruel-ye who turned Your swords against a woman's breast; Her pleading tears and beauty spurned, And made her dying pangs your jest! Call me not harsh, that thus I wreak

Late vengeance on your craven clay : Help from a loftier monarch seek;For mercy here 'twere vain to pray!

IX.

"Sweet Inez! by thy guiltless blood,
Unheeded wail, and fruitless tears;
By the love, even death hath not subdued;
By the calm delights of our early years;
By my widowed couch and withered heart;
By my broken hopes and burning brain;
By the feeling, now of my life a part;

By the vow, I never breathed in vain ;—
X.

"My vengeance shall not sleep!--and they
Who deem thy earthly reign is o'er,
Shall yet to thee their homage pay,
With awe they never felt before ;-
Shall see thee sitting by my side,
Uprisen from thy silent rest;
The sharer of my place of pride,'—
A queen-a saint by all confessed!
XI.

"But hark! the signal trumpet's peal;
The pile is laid-the banquet spread:
Why gleams so many a shining steel

Above each recreant traitor's head?
Put up your thirsting swords; 'twere vain
To give yon pyre a lifeless prey ;-
I will not bate a single pain

To guilt like theirs,-away! away!"
XII.

King Pedro sits at his festal board,
By his nobles compassed round;
And the sparkling wine is like water poured,
As each golden cup is crowned.

The shrieks that late their mockeries stirred,
At length resound no more;

And the thirst of vengeance, long deferred,
Is sated now and o'er!

XIII.
Mid Alcobaça's storied gloom,

Two sculptured effigies recline;
A woman's one, in youth's first bloom;
A queen-a saint by many a sign!
There's a crown upon her placid brow,
And a regal robe around her thrown;
And charms that bid the gazer bow,

Are breathing from that simple stone.
XIV.

And a warrior king is sleeping near,
With his crown and sceptre by his side;
With a knitted brow and a look severe,

And a lip of cruel scorn and pride!
His hand hath half unsheathed his sword,
As if some mortal foe defied;

He breathes some wild, revengeful word;'Twas thus King Pedro died!

From the Amulet.

THE CALDRON LINN.

An Anecdote.

BY R. K. DOUGLAS.

AMONG the objects of curiosity to which the attention of the traveller, through the west part of Perthshire, is directed, are a fall, or rather series of falls, formed by the little river Devon-" the clear-winding Devon" of Burns

-the loftiest of which is termed the "Caldron Linn;" and a bridge, that stretches its "wearisome, but needful length" over the same stream, and which, from the noise and turmoil of the waters, that tear and bellow like a chafed lion some forty feet below it, is called the "Rumbling Bridge." The Rumbling Bridge no longer exists, or rather, I should say, it is no longer accessible; and the manner in which this has been brought about is not a little indicative of the calculating genius of the people of the "north countrie." Some fifteen or sixteen years ago, the road-a wild and rugged and neglected mountain path-after toiling up the precipitous bank, dived down again almost perpendicularly, until it reached the bridge; and, that once passed, a similar ascent and descent awaited the traveller before he could reach what was, comparatively speaking, level ground. The bridge itself was, or is-I shall explain this ambiguity by and by-one "Where two wheelbarrows tremble when they meet."

The height of the time-worn and tottering parapet had never exceeded eighteen inches; and when a way-farer, whether on horseback or in a carriage, halted on the crown of the sharplyturned arch, and beheld, within a foot on each side, the fence that mocked his fears with the semblance of protection, and looked to the wild and tangled banks and dark dripping inasses of rock beetling over, and almost shutting out the light, and listened to the stream that roared beneath him in darkness all but utter, and this apparatus of terror accompanied as it at all times was, by a strong blast of wind sweeping down the narrow and tortuous funnel through which the waters poured-he must have possessed an imagination of the dullest, and a head of the hardest materials, if he did not feel the grandeur and giddiness of the scene.

When the present secure and convenient fabric, which joins the highway from Crieff to Stirling with the hill-road to Cleish and Dunfermline, was erected, the thrifty engineer, instead of hunting about for a more suitable point of projection, wisely considered that it would eave expense to build the new bridge above the old. The abutments of the latter served as a foundation for those of the former, and the old arch was used as a point d'appui for the frame-work of its successor. The new bridge, in consequence, struts, in all the pride of upstart greatness, above the humble and hidden friend to whom it owes its support; and it is only by clambering down the bank for a considerable way, that a glimpse can be caught of the real Rumbling Bridge hanging in unapproached obscurity some twenty feet below the structure that now usurps its name. When the long and dreary nights of winter begin to settle down upon the Ochils, the inhabitants of the neighbouring hamlets have, it is said, not unfrequently seen strange forms flitting about the untrodden road-way, and perching on the crumbling parapets; and unearthly voices have been heard passing down the stream, by more than one belated shepherd; but whether these are illusions of the fancy merely, or whether they are the real pranks of the water Kelpies that, time immemorial, have held their

revels around the falls and in the "wiels" of the Devon, I shall not take upon me to decide. -To return to the Caldron Linn. Down these falls a stray cow or sheep is now and then accidentally hurried; and in no case has it happened that the animal has not been found, at the foot of the hill, broken, and bleeding, and lifelesss, from dashing against the sides of the fearful rift, in its descent. Human beings have also stumbled into the stream, and, with one very singular and providential exception, their fate has been similar.

One fine summer day, Mr. H. (the person of whom I speak is, I believe, still alive) was wandering down the rugged banks below the "Rumbling Bridge," along with an older and more staid companion. Mr. H. was then a very young man, full of the vigour, activity, and joyousness of his years, and possessing all the fearlessness and dexterity of a mountaineer; in person somewhat about the middle size, and slightly but compactly formed. The stream had been swollen by a recent (4 spate," and the roaring of the cataract was like a continuous peal of thunder. Both parties were anxious to obtain a full view of the fall, but the nature of the ground rendered it a matter of considerable difficulty. They were creeping cautiously along the giddy and over-hanging bank, when Mr. H. perceived, at some distance below the spot where he hung half suspended by the roots and branches of the brushwood, a flat projecting piece of rock, within a few yards of the verge of the Linn; and pointing it out to his companion, and beckoning him to follow, he began to move downward in that direction. His more considerate friend endeavoured, by his gestures, to make him desist,-to communicate by any other means was impossible,rather from a general apprehension of danger, than from any anticipation of what was to follow. The admonition, however, as admonitions addressed to youth usually are, was received with a laugh of ridicule at the timidity in which it was supposed to originate, and only served to confirm the climber's purpose. In a few seconds he reached a spot immediately above the point that he aimed at, and dropped lightly down; but no sooner had his foot pressed the stone, than to the unspeakable horror of his companion, whose eye followed his progress with mingled terror and admiration, it trembled, loosened, and fell from beneath him! The unhappy young man grasped convulsively at the root of a bush immediately over his head, and had it been sufficiently strong, he would still have escaped; but root, and bush, and turf, gave way together under his weight, and he fell into the water a very few feet above the fall. Once, and once only, his eye met that of his friend as he rose above the surface; the next instant he sped over the cataract, like an arrow shot by a vigorous arm, and disappeared amid the clouds of spray, and the roaring billows of the pool below. The compa nion of the unfortunate young gentleman, although convinced, as he afterwards declared, that he should never again behold him alive, did not for a moment delay to embrace what he conceived to be the only chance of saving him. He climbed, or rather ran, directly up the bank, a feat which nothing but the excita

tion of the moment would have emboldened him to attempt-indeed he never was able very clearly to state how he accomplished it-and shouted an alarm to the farm-house close by. The cry was heard, and he was immediately joined by three or four of the inmates, who, sceing him alone, easily guessed what had happened; and the whole, without question asked or answered, rushed down the steep road that led to the point where the Devon enters the plain. Here, in a little bending, scooped out by the eddy of the stream, was usually landed whatever floating body happened from accident to pass over the falls. As they approached the cove, the first of the party, a strong and active shepherd, perceived a hat floating on the surface, and plunged into the water, from an idea that it was the body of the drowned youth. He was soon undeceived; and wading out with the hat in his hand, in a suppressed tone of voice, said to the rest who were now at his side, "He is in some of the Linn-pots-we must seek up the water."-" He had fallen with the bit whin in his hand, it is like," said another, pointing to the furze, which, with the sod still in part attached to it, had slowly eircled round until it was arrested by the water-worn pebbles that strewed the bottom of the shallow pool.

I must now return to young Mr. H. Before he recovered his recollection, after the plunge into the water, he was hurried, as I have described, over the fall, and found himself, after sinking in what seemed a bottomless abyss, whirling round with fearful and dizzy rapidity. Luckily he could swim a little; and from an instinctive desire to prolong life, he struck out with his hands and feet, and endeavoured to gain the edge of the whirlpool. To his astonishment, when his breath, and strength, and hope, were just departing, he found he had succeeded in reaching a spot where the waters were comparatively still, and where the depth was not above a few feet. The bottom, on which he had found a resting-place, was, however, of the loosest and most yielding nature. It was, indeed, a mere ridge of sand and pebbles, that had come down the fall, and which in that spot, and in it alone, the diminished agitation of the water had allowed to subside. On the crown of the ridge, Mr. H. had by accident stopped; and his momentary feeling of joyful surprise was followed by the bitterness of agony, when he found, after remaining for a second, the mound on which he stood gradually slipping away from beneath him. He looked upward, as the blast swept aside the dense cloud of spray, and saw afar off the line of the clear blue sky, with the light fleecy clouds swiftly sweeping over it, and caught a glimpse of the edge of the bank, with the trees and bushes bending in the breeze, and the birds flitting across the chasm, whose black and frowning and slippery sides rose to a height that seemed interminable. Behind, and touching him, was the whirlpool, from which ke had with so much difficulty escaped; and beyond it rushed down, like a solid wall, the waters of the Linn, over which he had been tumbled; while in front roared other falls, whose height he knew not, and which nothing but a miracle could enable him to pase, and

live. He saw all this; and he felt, at the same moment, that but a few minutes could elapse ere he must see them no more; yet he determined to struggle with his fate to the last. At first he endeavoured, by altering his position, to stay his feet from slipping; but a very few trials convinced him, that to shift at all only accelerated his sinking, and that his best chance lay in remaining as stationary as possible. Still, however, he sank to the breast-the shoulders-the neck. A thought now seized him, that seemed even more bitter than the death that was trembling over him. Had he sped over the falls his body would at least have been recovered by his friends-it would have been composed by kindly hands-pious tears would have been dropped over it-a mother's lips would have pressed his cold cheek-troops of kinsfolk and neighbours would have accompanied him to his last dwelling-place-the blessed sun would have looked down upon his grave, and the wind of his native hills would have swept over it; but now, the bottom of the whirlpool was to be his burial-place, and his bones were to bleach for ever in the torrent of the Caldron Linn! His mind began to give way under these dismal fancies. Amidst the roaring of the waters, he heard shrill and unnatural howlings. The superstitions of his childhood came across him; and he thought, while he listened to those terrible voices, that he heard the demons of the stream rejoicing over their anticipated victim; and in the fantastic forms of the frowning rocks, as the wreaths of spray passed over them, his imagination pictured the lurid aspect and goggling eyes of the water kelpie glaring upon him, and its rifted jaws open to devour hin. His soul was wound up to agony beyond endurance. He struggled to free himself from the gravel in which he had sunk, but his struggles only sank him deeper; the water rose to his lips,he gasped for air and it came not;-another second, and his sufferings would have ceased for ever. But the same power which had guided him over the fall, and snatched him from the whirlpool, was still watching over

him.

As the party that were searching, not for their companion, but for his body (for not one of them supposed it possible that he should ever be seen alive again), the same young man who had plunged into the stream, as he sprung from rock to rock, along the dizzy brink of the chasm, with the sharpened eye which a shepherd's life never fails to bestow, his vision rendered doubly acute by the excited state of his feelings, perceived a dark stationary speck in the water, which a moment's inspection convinced him to be the head and shoulders of a human being. "Ropes! ropes!" he shouted to his companions; "he is alive; I see him standing at the foot of the Linn." The binding-ropes from a couple of hay-wagons were knotted, and handed to him, and the upper extremity being firmly secured to the trunk of one of the twisted birches, at the top of the bank, the adventurous shepherd slid down with the other in his hand, until the overhanging rock forbade farther descent; those at the top hollowing, in the mean time, to attract the attention of their half drowned friend, with what