Onward King Karl in his anger goes;
Down on his harness his white beard flows.
The barons of France spur hard behind;
But on all there presseth one grief of mind
That they stand not beside Count Roland then,
As he fronts the power of the Saracen.

Were he hurt in fight, who would then survive?
Yet threescore barons around him strive.
And what a sixty! Nor chief nor king
Had ever such gallant following.

Roland looketh to hill and plain,

He sees the lines of his warriors slain,

And he weeps like a noble cavalier.
"Barons of France, God hold you dear,
And take you to Paradise's bowers,

Where your souls may lie on the holy flowers;
Braver vassals on earth were none,

So many kingdoms for Karl ye won;
Years a-many your ranks I led,

And for end like this were ye nurturèd.
Land of France, thou art soothly fair;
To-day thou liest bereaved and bare;
It was all for me your lives you gave,
And I was helpless to shield or save.
May the great God save you who cannot lie.
Olivier, brother, I stand thee by;

I die of grief, if I 'scape unslain:
In, brother, in to the fight again."

Once more pressed Roland within the fight,
His Durindana he grasped with might;
Faldron of Pui did he cleave in two,
And twenty-four of their bravest slew.
Never was man on such vengeance bound;
And, as flee the roe deer before the hound,
So in face of Roland the heathen flee.
Saith Turpin, "Right well this liketh me.
Such prowess a cavalier befits,

Who harness wears, and on charger sits;
In battle shall he be strong and great,
Or I prize him not at four deniers' rate;
Let him else be monk in a cloister cell,
His daily prayers for our souls to tell."
Cries Roland, "Smite them, and do not spare."

Down once more on the foe they bear,

But the Christian ranks grow thinned and rare.

Who knoweth ransom is none for him,
Maketh in battle resistance grim;
The Franks like wrathful lions strike,
But King Marsil beareth him baronlike;

He bestrideth his charger, Gaignon hight,
And he pricketh him hard, Sir Beuve to smite,
The Lord of Beaune and of Dijon town,

Through shield and cuirass, he struck him down:
Dead past succor of man he lay.
Ivon and Ivor did Marsil slay;

Gerard of Roussill on beside.

Not far was Roland, and loud he cried,
"Be thou forever in God's disgrace,

Who hast slain my fellows before my face;
Before we part thou shalt blows essay,
And learn the name of my sword to-day."
Down, at the word, came the trenchant brand,
And from Marsil severed his good right hand:
With another stroke, the head he won
Of the fair-haired Jurfalez, Marsil's son.
"Help us, Mahound!" say the heathen train,
"May our gods avenge us on Carlemaine!
Such daring felons he hither sent,

Who will hold the field till their lives be spent."
"Let us flee and save us," cry one and all,
Unto flight a hundred thousand fall,
Nor can aught the fugitives recall.

But what availeth? though Marsil fly,
His uncle, the Algalif, still is nigh;
Lord of Carthagena is he,

Of Alferna's shore and Garmalie,
And of Ethiopia, accursed land:
The black battalions at his command,
With nostrils huge and flattened ears,
Outnumber fifty thousand spears;
And on they ride in haste and ire,
Shouting their heathen war cry dire.

"At last," said Roland, "the hour is come,
Here receive we our martyrdom;

Yet strike with your burnished brands
Who sells not his life right dearly first;

accursed

In life or death be your thought the same,
That gentle France be not brought to shame.
When the Emperor hither his steps hath bent,
And he sees the Saracens' chastisement,
Fifteen of their dead against our one,

He will breathe on our souls his benison."

EPISODES OF ENGLISH HISTORY.

BY DAVID HUME.

[DAVID HUME, Scotch philosopher and historian, was born at Edinburgh, April 26, 1711. At first a merchant's clerk, he went to France to write in seclusion his "Treatise of Human Nature," which fell flat, but is now a classic. He published "Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary," in 1742 and 1752; in the latter year also his "Inquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals," from 1754 to 1761 "The History of England," and in the mean time the "Natural History of Religion." In 1763-1766 he was in France; 1767-1769 an undersecretary of state. He died August 25, 1776.]

HAROLD AND WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR.

THE Duke of Normandy, when he first received intelligence of Harold's intrigues and accession, had been moved to the highest pitch of indignation; but that he might give the better color to his pretensions, he sent an embassy to England, upbraiding that prince with his breach of faith, and summoning him to resign immediately possession of the kingdom. Harold replied to the Norman ambassadors, that the oath with which he was reproached had been extorted by the well-grounded fear of violence, and could never, for that reason, be regarded as obligatory that he had had no commission, either from the late king, or the states of England, who alone could dispose of the crown, to make any tender of the succession to the Duke of Normandy; and if he, a private person, had assumed so much authority, and had even voluntarily sworn to support the duke's pretensions, the oath was unlawful, and it was his duty to seize the first opportunity of breaking it: that he had obtained the crown by the unanimous suffrages of the people; and should prove himself totally unworthy of their favor, did he not strenuously maintain those national liberties, with whose protection they had intrusted him and that the duke, if he made

any attempt by force of arms, should experience the power of an united nation, conducted by a prince who, sensible of the obligations imposed on him by his royal dignity, was determined that the same moment should put a period to his life and to his government.

This answer was no other than William expected; and he had previously fixed his resolution of making an attempt upon England. Consulting only his courage, his resentment, and his ambition, he overlooked all the difficulties inseparable from an attack on a great kingdom by such inferior force, and he saw only the circumstances which would facilitate his enterprise. He considered that England, ever since the accession of Canute, had enjoyed profound tranquillity during a period of near fifty years; and it would require time for its soldiers, enervated by long peace, to learn discipline, and its generals experience. He knew that it was entirely unprovided with fortified towns, by which it could prolong the war; but must venture its whole fortune in one decisive action against a veteran enemy, who, being once master of the field, would be in a condition to overrun the kingdom. He saw that Harold, though he had given proofs of vigor and bravery, had newly mounted a throne which he had acquired by faction, from which he had excluded a very ancient royal family, and which was likely to totter under him by its own instability, much more if shaken by any violent external impulse; and he hoped that the very circumstance of his crossing the sea, quitting his own country, and leaving himself no hopes of retreat, as it would astonish the enemy by the boldness of the enterprise, would inspirit his soldiers by despair, and rouse them to sustain the reputation of the Norman arms.

The Normans, as they had long been distinguished by valor among all the European nations, had at this time attained to the highest pitch of military glory. Besides acquiring by arms such a noble territory in France, besides defending it against continual attempts of the French monarch and all his neighbors, besides exerting many acts of vigor under their present sovereign, they had, about this very time, revived their ancient fame, by the most hazardous exploits, and the most wonderful successes in the other extremity of Europe. A few Norman adventurers in Italy had acquired such an ascendant, not only over the Italians and Greeks, but the Germans and Saracens, that they expelled those foreigners,

procured to themselves ample establishments, and laid the foundation of the opulent kingdom of Naples and Sicily. These enterprises of men who were all of them vassals in Normandy, many of them banished for faction and rebellion, excited the ambition of the haughty William, who disdained, after such examples of fortune and valor, to be deterred from making an attack on a neighboring country, where he could be supported by the whole force of his principality.

The situation also of Europe inspired William with hopes that besides his brave Normans he might employ against England the flower of the military force which was dispersed in all the neighboring states. France, Germany, and the Low Countries, by the progress of the feudal institutions, were divided and subdivided into many principalities and baronies; and the possessors, enjoying the civil jurisdiction within themselves, as well as the right of arms, acted, in many respects, as independent sovereigns, and maintained their properties and privileges, less by the authority of laws than by their own force and valor. A military spirit had universally diffused itself throughout Europe; and the several leaders, whose minds were elevated by their princely situation, greedily embraced the most hazardous enterprises; and being accustomed to nothing from their infancy but recitals of the success attending wars and battles, they were prompted by a natural ambition to imitate those adventures, which they heard so much celebrated, and which were so much exaggerated by the credulity of the age. United, however loosely, by their duty to one superior lord, and by their connections with the great body of the community to which they belonged, they desired to spread their fame each beyond his own district; and in all assemblies, whether instituted for civil deliberations, for military expeditions, or merely for show and entertainment, to outshine each other by the reputation of strength and prowess. Hence their genius for chivalry; hence their impatience of peace and tranquillity; and hence their readiness to embark in any dangerous enterprise, how little soever interested in its failure or success.

William, by his power, his courage, and his abilities, had long maintained a preeminence among those haughty chieftains; and every one who desired to signalize himself by his address in military exercises, or his valor in action, had been ambitious of acquiring a reputation in the court and in the armies of Normandy. Entertained with that hospitality and