above them. Blondel, bidding his companions to remain in hiding, started by himself to reconnoitre. Meeting with a shepherdmaiden, he gained from her many particulars of the castle and neighbourhood. Before parting, he unslung his harp and rewarded her for her information with a song; one, it is said, which had been composed by Richard himself. Ah," said the shepherdess, "that song sounds like the one which I so often hear the poor knight, who is imprisoned in the north tower of Trifels, sing, as I lead my sheep to graze on the mountain." Blondel was overjoyed at her words, and as night came on, placed himself beneath the wall of the north tower, and sang the same lay. The imprisoned monarch caught its tone, and continued the verse.

Then, with a heart full of joy and hope, Richard inquired, "Is it you, my faithful Blondel?" "It is I, your Majesty," was the reply. "God be thanked that we have found you at last!" It may be imagined that the devoted minstrel lost no time in contriving his master's escape. He managed to become acquainted with the family of the head gaoler, and to gain the affection of that officer's daughter, the beautiful Mathilda. To her he disclosed his secret. She promised to assist him, contrived to possess herself of the key of Richard's dungeon, and admitted her lover and his followers into the castle. The guards were soon overpowered, although, according to tradition, they kept watch night and day with drawn swords. Cœur de Lion was released, and the whole party, mounting the horses which stood ready saddled close at hand, rode swiftly away. Need it be said that they reached England in safety, and that the beautiful Matilda became the bride of the minstrel Blondel, whose fidelity was richly rewarded by Richard, once more a king.

A pretty legend this; and we dwell upon it musingly, with our eyes turned now skywards, now on the valleys and hills beneath, until we can almost fancy that Blondel, with his harp slung behind his shoulder, and the golden tuning-key suspended by its sky-blue silken scarf around his neck, is approaching along the road from Landau.

But it will not do to romance thus all day. We must turn resolutely from legend to more sober history if we wish to appreciate rightly the events which have given Trifels so great an interest to English eyes. Yet even the historical account of these circumstances

varies so considerably, as to be in some parts scarcely more trustworthy than the legend.

It was in the latter part of the year 1192 that Richard of England, deserted by his allies, had been forced to conclude a truce with the arch-foe of the Crusaders, Saladin. The truce was to last for the mystic period of three years, three months, three days, and three hours; and the King, having seen his wife and her attendants embark some few days before, himself took passage in a single ship. Having narrowly escaped being captured by pirates, he was at length thrown by a storm on the coast of Istria, and appears to have landed somewhere between Aquileia and Venice. Cast on a hostile shore, attended only by a Norman knight, Baldwin of Bethune, and by his two chaplains, Philip and Anselm, the Lion-heart found himself indeed in a dangerous predicament. He assumed the disguise of a wealthy merchant pilgrim, and adopted the name of Hugh. But a ruby ring, which one of his pages presented to the chief of the province while endeavouring to procure a passport for the party, was recognised, and the news that the great king was a wanderer in Germany was spread abroad, and travelled fast.

At Freisach he was recognised by a Norman knight in the service of Frederic of Betesow. The knight, a native of Argentan, whose name was Roger, loyally refused to betray his hereditary sovereign, and aided his escape by presenting him with his fleetest horse. Baldwin of Bethunc had meanwhile been arrested, and Richard was left to continue his journey, accompanied by a single knight and a page-boy who appears to have understood the language of the country; perhaps because, as Thierry suggests, he was English, and so few foreign words had then been introduced into the Saxon tongue, that there was sufficient resemblance between it and German to enable the two nations to comprehend each other. This boy was sent to market, where, either by his arrogant tone, or lavish display of gold, he excited curiosity, and though on the first occasion he contrived to elude inquiry, on the second he was seized, put to torture, revealed all, and indicated the inn where the King was lodging. Richard was now in the country of the most resentful of his many enemies-Leopold, Duke of Austria-nor was the Duke slow to avail himself of the means of revenge which chance had thrown into his hands. While in

Palestine, Cœur de Lion had torn down the Austrian banner, which Leopold had planted by the side of the English standard. "This insult," remarks a modern German historian, " deserved to be severely punished," but he adds, "the vengeance which the Duke of Austria took was ignoble." Richard was seized, was thrown into prison and laden with chains, his place of confinement being most probably the Castle of Durrenstein, on the Danube, some thirty-six miles west of Vienna. But the German Emperor, alleging, as that old historian William of Newburgh quaintly tells us, "that it was not fitting for a king to be detained by a duke, took measures to get the noble captive into his own possession, thinking it was no disgrace for royalty to be under the custody of an emperor." Leopold, having stipulated for one-third of whatever ransom the Emperor might obtain, delivered over his royal captive, and Richard was conveyed to the Castle of Trifels, about the Easter of 1193. It is true that by some authorities the Emperor is stated to have confined him in the Tyrol, but every probability seems in favour of Trifels; its close proximity to Hagenau, to the diet of which Richard was afterwards summoned, being an almost decisive point in its favour. In this dreary dungeon the unfortunate monarch languished for more than a year. Popular opinion in Europe was loudly expressed in favour of his release, and Pope Celestine was induced to threaten the Emperor Henry with interdict and excommunication if he persisted in holding captive the most renowned knight in Christendom, and the Crusader who had done most for the deliverance of the Holy Sepulchre from the infidels.

Richard was at length brought before the Imperial Diet at Hagenau, and the various accusations of his enemies were laid before him. His defence was eloquent and persuasive; and even the Emperor himself relented so far as to order his chains to be struck off, and the respect due to his station to be shown him. His ransom was at length fixed at a hundred thousand pounds of silver-an enormous sum in those days. The feudal system, indeed, provided for such an emergency, but the customary tax of twenty shillings on each knight's fee was utterly insufficient for the purpose; and at length, when almost all other means had been exhausted, the sacred vessels from the churches were sold, and the proceeds devoted to this cause. Even when, according to a contemporary writer, England "appeared to be utterly

drained of money, and the king's tax-gatherers were tired and wearied of collecting it," the whole accumulation was inadequate to cover the expense of the ransom, and hostages had to be given for the remainder. Meanwhile the royal captive of Trifels bemoaned his hard fate, and the apparent indifference of his subjects. Some of the verses which he composed during this portion of his confinement have been handed down to us. The following is a specimen, the dialect used being the Romance or Provencal :

"Or sapchon ben miey hom e miey baro

Angles, Norman, Peytavin e Gascon,
Qu'ieu non ay ja si paure compagnon,
Qu'ieu laissasse, per aver, en preison
Non ho dic mia per nulla retraison,
Mas anquar soi ie pres."

of which the sense would be: They know well, my knights and barons, both English, Norman, Poitevins, and Gascons, that I have not so mean a companion whom I, for gold, would leave in prison. I do not say this as a reproach, yet still am I a prisoner.

Three weeks after Christmas, 1194, the day of deliverance at length arrived. The Emperor presented him, in token of reconciliation, with several provinces which belonged to the King of France-a cheap present, for which Richard was proportionately grateful. Even as it was, the King narrowly escaped a second confinement, for scarcely had he quitted the Emperor's territories before Henry changed his mind, and took measures for Cœur de Lion's recapture, measures which, however, were fortunately futile.

Richard had the good fortune to survive both of his enemies; and, strange to say, both Henry of Germany and Leopold of Austria repented on their death-beds of the injustice of which they had been guilty, and ordered the ransom-money, which the English had already paid, to be restored. Not a marc of it ever reached our island.

Six hundred years after the death of the Emperor Henry, his grave in Palermo was opened, and it is said that even at that lengthened period the face of the corpse still exhibited traces of that hardness and avarice which had caused him to condemn his royal brother of England to so many weary hours in the castle of Trifels. As for Richard himself, it is difficult to judge of his character by the light of modern times. Probably the general opinion, however erroneous

it may be, is well summed up in the words which most of us may remember to have met with long ago in our old friend Mrs. Markham, where that prodigy of a boy, George, exclaims: “Notwithstanding all you have said about Cœur de Lion's faults, I really cannot help liking him very much; he was such a fine brave fellow."

I Revices the Popet or of modem journalism, and that Richard

N a previous paper on De Foe, we spoke of him as being in The

Steele followed in his wake when he published The Tatler. Before reaching that stage of Steele's literary career, it is necessary to sketch slightly his earlier days.

His birthplace is uncertain, but we find that he was, in March, 1672, baptized as the son of a Dublin attorney, and that in 1685 he was placed, through the influence of the Duke of Ormond, then LordLieutenant of Ireland, as an orphan Irish boy on the foundation of Charter House. There he found a friend and protector in Joseph Addison, who was two months his junior, and so opposite in many respects that at first sight it seems strange that one who was of a nature so shy, reserved, and silent, should fraternise with a lad like: Steele, who was impulsive, vivacious, and bold ; but in friendship, noless than in love, though the parties must be in accord in essential points of character, yet a difference in non-essential ones, which arises frequently from variety of temperament, is rather a help than a hindrance in such cases the one supplements that which is lacking in the other. It was exactly so with these two boys; in the one essential point they were at one: they were both religious boys, and they grew up to be religious men, i.e. they both held fast, in spite of many stumbles, to the love of God as the root of their spiritual life. Addison was distinguished even at school (when he came out of his shell) by that wonderful charm of manner which clung to him through life. It completely won Steele, in whose heart was a deep well of love, which kept brimming up, and which its owner delighted to pour out upon his friend. Such a love the graver lad was incapable