HE following Legend is illustrative of the popular opinions and apprehensions that pervaded the minds of almost all classes of society during the early and middle ages; namely, a firm belief in ghosts, hobgoblins, and the whole tribe of white spirits and black, blue spirits and grey, that at will could assume all forms, dilated or condensed, bright or obscure, as the caprice of the moment influenced their spiritual choice. In those times it was customary, during "the piping times of peace," for squires, pages, and not unfrequently grooms and the other retainers that formed the dramatis persona of a baron's retinue, to assemble around the log-fire blazing in the great hall of the castle, after the sports and exercises of the day were ended; and, to while away the tedious hours that intervened between even-fall and night's cheerless noon, they had recourse to story-telling. Local romances, and the most terrific traditionary tales peculiar to the neighbourhood, were eagerly sought after, and attentively listened to, till dread "caused each particular hair to stand erect upon the heads of the fear-stricken auditors, who would start, even at their own elongated shadows dancing among the rusted swords and lances, stags, horns, and other trophies of the chase, that adorned the vacant spaces of the smoke-dyed walls of the spacious apartments. Meanwhile the noble flagon and his trusty attendant-yclept Black Jack-were in constant circulation. Yet such are the characteristics that mark an untutored people, that these men in real difficulties evinced an unusual degree of courage and chivalrous enterprise. If the bugle sounded a foray o'er the Border, or announced the approach of the foeman, they hastily sped to the place of rendezvous; and, regardless of danger and reckless of life, they would grapple the enemy with the same alacrity and enthusiasm as evinced by schoolboys on the pro

jected despoliation of a hornet's nest, or the dispersion of predatory rooks from the harvest fields of the husbandman.

The pusillanimous yet valiant Cuddy has a literary companion possessing an analogous character, in the attendant on the Count in Lodoiska, who quaintly observed, when his master ridiculed him for his lack of valour, "I can fight the devil by day-light, but a ghost in the dark is quite a different thing."

THE LEGEND OF CUDDY BELL.

N days of yore, before the birth of order,

When Rapine was the warden of the Border;

When will was law, craft, wisdom, and strength,
right,-

And the best plea for doing wrong was might!
Those good old times the poets love to paint,
When whip-cord and cold water made a saint,
And turbulence a hero; when the maid
Stabbed her betrayer-if she was betrayed.
Or, if the gentle suitor begged her love,
She sent him to the wars his faith to prove ;
When all the honeyed words the lover spoke
Were far less moving than the heads he broke.
Then if he died, or stayed away too long,
The minstrels told his story in a song;
And the fair lady strove her grief to smother
For one true love-by wedding to another!

Ay! these were times indeed—when if a fair one
Had twenty lovers, yet she could not spare one,
But set them in a chamber all together,

Or in the yard (according to the weather);

Armed them with spears or cudgels, as the case was,
Mounted or not, as more or less the space was;
And he who in this struggle stood the longest,
Whose head was thickest or whose arm was strongest,
And best his rivals thumped or hacked pell-mell,
From every crown-cracked champion bore the bell.

Oh! blessed age! oh! dear lamented times!
When theft and homicide were jokes, not crimes;

When burning peels and towns were acts of merit,
And deep revenge became a lad of spirit;
When every eye saw fairies, ghosts, and devils,
Frisk in the moon-beam in their midnight revels.

When Merlay ruled in Morpeth's well-kept castle,
And plundered and protected many a vassal,
Of one of them a fearful tale is told,
Which, if you dare to listen, I'll unfold.

He was a youth of grace in form and manners,
Hight Cuddy Bell-or Cuddy of the Stanners,'
A sturdy, home-spun, true Northumbrian yeoman,
Who neither fear'd the devil nor a foeman;

Scotchmen he drubbed, as drubbed St. George the dragon,
And loved one woman as he loved a flagon,—

The daughter of the Parish Clerk of Mitford;

I'll sketch her portrait, though she did not sit for't.

In person just below the middle size,

With dark brown hair, and black and sparkling eyes;
A pretty nose, ripe lips, and ruby cheeks;

That neatness, which a well-turned mind bespeaks,
Graced her plump person-plump ?—at least her boddice
Required tight lacing to make Nan a goddess.
One night, when fierce December's drifting snow
Whitened the towers above-the ground below,
When the keen blasts alternate roared and howled,
And thro' the hall strange fire-bronzed shadows scowled,
There, midst the wardens, while the black jack danced
Merrily round, had Cuddy sat entranced,

And still had sat, nor cared to sleep a wink,

While tales were yet to tell, or draughts to drink.

But churlish duty roused at length his hosts

From cup and jest, and tales of blood and ghosts,
And sent them growling to their several posts.
Then forth must Cuddy, right reluctant, hie,
To brave the tender mercies of the sky;

1 'The Stanners' are portions of ground on the margin of the Wansbeck, near to Morpeth. The appellation Stanners, is used provincially to denote those small stones and gravel within the channel of the river, which are occasionally left dry. The word STANNERS is derived from the Gothic STENOEB, composed of STEN, a stone, and OER, gravel.

And then-oh then!-to love and Nanny true,
Towards Mitford's town with timeless steps he drew.
Of blood and ghosts, I say, their tales had been,
Of wild shrieks heard and hideous faces seen!
Of forms from new-made graves beheld to rise,
Grim fleshless things that glared with stony eyes!
Of dancing devils, gibbering and grinning
At wights less prone to praying than to sinning;
And elves and spirits that oft, at midnight's hour,
O'er righteous men themselves have fearful power,
No marvel then that Cuddy held his way,
Brimful of horrors, as a rustic may,

And heard a thousand demons in the woods,
And in the Wansbeck's redly rushing floods.
Sore was the conflict, none, methinks, may doubt,
"Twixt ghastly terrors and sublime brown stout.

But when our hero reach'd at length the place
Where the Newminster rear'd its hoary face,
What was his joy to find his Nanny wait,
In such a night, his coming at the gate!
He clasped Nanny gently to his breast,
And fiercely kissed, and boorishly carest.
In vain the tempest work'd its furious will,
The raptured lovers kissed and wander'd still,

And reach'd at length the foot of the dark hill,
On the south bank above the abbey mill;
And just as glared the castle beacon's gleam,
A dread voice thundered from the rushing stream,
And, "Come, Diabolo!" it loudly cried,

And Nanny whisked from Cuddy's shuddering side,
And straight the form, so beautiful before,
A demon's horns, and tail, and talons wore !-
Full in his face she laugh'd with fiendish spite,
And would have torn his eyes out if she might;
But on and fast sped Cuddy like the wind,
And left his phantom sweetheart far behind.
"Oh! Mary! mother!"-thus the frighted swain,
Once in his own rude dwelling safe again,
Roar'd to the Virgin,-" this was kindly parried;
Thank God, I've found her out before we married."

Sonnet

ON THE MEMORY OF THOMAS BEWICK.

THINK I see thee now, with beaming eyes,
Unfolding nature's wonders to the sight

Of listening youth, or bending with delight

O'er works, whose excellence could charm the wise.

Oh! sure thy simple heat was one to prize

The fame, forth blazoned by the new born light,
When from the darkness of art's dreary night

Thou badst thy morning of revival rise-
Yet, hadst thou seen the joy thy talents bring
To young and guileless minds, the love they call,-

The tenderness for each created thing,

And reverence for the mighty cause of all

These would have formed a meed more dear to thee,
And 'tis for these, I bless thy memory.