What! routed we a hundred thousand men

Here to be slaughtered by a crazy wench!

(The guards rush upon ELENA; VAN RYK interposes for her defence; after some struggle, both are struck down and slain.)

DUKE OF BOURBON.

So! curst untoward vermin! are they dead?
His very corse breeds maggots of despite !

DUKE OF BURGUNDY.

I did not bid them to be killed.

CAPTAIN OF THE GUARD.

My lord,

They were so sturdy and so desperate

We could not else come near them.

KING.

Uncle, lo!

The Knight of Heurlée, too, stone dead.

SANXERE.

By Heaven,

This is the strangest battle I have known!

First we've to fight the foe, and then the captives.

DUKE OF BOURBON.

Take forth the bodies. For the woman's corse,

Let it have christian burial. As for his,

The arch-insurgent's, hang it on a tree

Where all the host may see it.

DUKE OF BURGUNDY.

Brother, no;

It were not for our honour, nor the king's,
To use it so. Dire rebel though he was,
Yet with a noble nature and great gifts
Was he endowed: courage, discretion, wit,
An equal temper, and an ample soul,
Rock-bound and fortified against assaults
Of transitory passion, but below

Built on a surging subterranean fire

That stirred and lifted him to high attempts.
So prompt and capable, and yet so calm,

He nothing lacked in sovereignty but the right;
Nothing in soldiership except good fortune.
Wherefore with honour lay him in his grave,
And thereby shall increase of honour come
Unto their arms who vanquished one so wise,
So valiant, so renowned. Sirs, pass we on,
And let the bodies follow us on biers.
Wolf of the weald, and yellow-footed kite,
Enough is spread for you of meaner prey.

Other interment than your maws afford

Is due to these. At Courtray we shall sleep,
And there I'll see them buried side by side.

THE END.

[Exeunt.

NOTES.

PREFACE, PAGE XVI.

"Lord Byron's conception of a hero is an evidence, not only of scanty materials of knowledge from which to construct the ideal of a human being, but also of a want of perception of what is great or noble in our nature."

I WILL beg to extract here, as an appendix to my Preface, three or four stanzas from the conclusion of a poem written above six years ago, which will support the assertion that some of the opinions I have expressed, obnoxious as I am afraid they may at first sight appear to the charge of presumption, are not hastily hazarded, or now first adopted. The poem from which the extracts are taken, was written in anticipation of the accomplishment of the work now published, and was intended as a proem, or poetical introduction to it. But writing then with no more than a distant and indistinct prospect of publication, I was betrayed into a sort of domestic egoism, which, now that the time comes to print, I do not venture to present to public notice. The stanzas which follow, are, I trust, unobjectionable on this score; and they contain (besides the expression of opinion to which I have adverted) an acknowledgment of intellectual obligations which I am unwilling to omit, and a tribute of respect VOL. II.

T

and admiration, which I confess that it is a pleasure to me to pay in public; and which is not improperly so paid, because the person spoken of is one with whom it cannot be said that the Public have no concern.

Then learned I to despise that far-famed school
Who place in wickedness their pride, and deem
Power chiefly to be shown where passions rule,

And not where they are ruled: in whose new scheme

Of heroism, self-government should seem

A thing left out, or something to contemn,

Whose notions, incoherent as a dream,

Make strength go with the torrent, and not stem,

For wicked and thence weak' is not a creed for them.

I left these passionate weaklings: I perceived
What took away all nobleness from pride,

All dignity from sorrow; what bereaved

Even genius of respect; they seemed allied
To mendicants that by the highway side
Expose their self-inflicted wounds, to gain

The alms of sympathy-far best denied.
I heard the sorrowful sensualist complain,
If with compassion, not without disdain.

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