Читать книгу: «The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 20, No. 556, July 7, 1832», страница 2

KING KENULPH'S DAUGHTER

This is little better than a versified fact. The outline may be found in Sir Robert Atkyns' History of Gloucestershire, p. 435.

 
King Kenulph he died, as kings have died,
The will of the Lord be done;
And he left to the care of his daughter fair,
Queen Quendred, an infant son.
The daughter gazed at her brother king,
Her eye had an evil mote;
And then she played with his yellow hair,
And patted his infant throat;
And then she muster'd a bloody mind,
And whisper'd a favour'd slut,
While patting the infant monarch's throat,
It would not be much to cut.
The favour'd gipsey noted the hint,
And she thought it not amiss,
She hied to the infant's governor,
And gave him a loving kiss.
The kiss of woman's a wond'rous juice,
That poisoneth pious minds,
It worketh more than the wrath of hell,
And the eye of justice blinds.
So they cut the infant monarch's throat,
They buried him in the wood,
The Mistress Quendred liv'd as a queen,
And they thought the deed was good.
Now mark, how ill is a crime conceal'd,
Bad deeds will never accord,
The murder never beheld at home,
Was to light elsewhere restor'd,
They wash'd their hands in the monarch's blood,
And the world roll'd on the same,
Till swift to the holy shrine at Rome,
A fluttering dove there came.
A dove, a peaceful, timorous bird,
That carried a parchment scroll,
And in letters of gold, the crime it told,
That blasted a sister's soul.
That fluttering dove flew round the shrine,
Where the Pope by chance was led,
And he let the scribbled parchment fall
On his holiness' bald head.
Now the Pope was very sore perplex'd,
At the words the dove had scrawl'd,
For he could not read the pig-squeak tongue,
Which is now old English call'd.
He questioned the French ambassador,
The news of that scroll to speak.
Who bowing observed, "it was not French,
He never had learn'd the Greek."
He ask'd a monk from Byzantium,
A monk as fat as a tench,
He merely remark'd "it was not Greek,
He never had learn'd the French."
He question'd the grave Lord Cardinal,
He ordered the monks to pray'rs,
The monks ne'er knew what language it was,
When they saw it was not theirs.
But there chanced to be an Englishman,
At Rome, on a trading hope,
The tale of blood and the letters gold,
He read to the holy Pope.
'Twas how King Kenulph an infant son,
Bequeath'd to his daughter's care,
And how the daughter slaughtered the son,
It clearly mention'd where.
Then the Pope cried, "Heaven's will be done,"
And a loud Hosanna sung,
The incense fumed to the lofty dome.
Like ray-beam drapery hung.
And they canoniz'd the holy dove,
Like the soul of a martyr dead,
The deed is still in the calendar,
In capital letters red.
Now when to Britain the tidings came
Of her island's perish'd hope,
The monks took hatchets to Winchcomb Wood,
And they glorified the Pope.
And after many a night of toil,
They struck at the infant's bone,
Beneath a tree, where an awful owl
Was screeching a midnight groan.
They bore the bones by the moonlight ray,
To the convent's holy shrine,
And from the psaltry sang a psalm,
The psalm one hundred and nine.
The queen, she hearken'd the pious tones,
As they pass'd the palace by,
It seem'd the saints and the morning stars
Were chorussing in the sky.
But when she hearken'd the deed was known,
And her coming hour of strife,
And how they had found the royal bones
From which she had taken the life,
She got King David's psalter book,
And turn'd to the psalm they sung,
And began to read it contrariwise,
Though it blister'd on her tongue.
And she mock'd the monkish melody,
With a heart like boiling pitch,
And the clouds went shudd'ring as they heard
Like a broom beneath a witch.
When she had gotten to verse the twelfth,
'Twas the twelfth verse from the end,
Her breast upheav'd a horrible groan,
And she gave the psalm a rend.
The lofty turret quiver'd with fear,
The floor of the chapel shook,
Her eyeballs fell from her burning brow,
And blooded the psalter book.
And thrice she groan'd and thrice she sigh'd,
And thrice she bowed her head.
And a heavy fall and a light'ning flash
Was the knell of a sinner dead.
And forth from her eyeless sockets flew
A furious flame around,
And blood stream'd out of her spirting mouth,
Like water upon the ground.
The magpie chatter'd above the corpse,
The owl sang funeral lay,
The twisting worm pass'd over her face,
And it writhed and turn'd away.
The jackdaws caw'd at the body dead,
Expos'd on the churchyard stones,
They wagg'd their tails in scorn of her flesh,
And turn'd up their bills at her bones.
The convent mastiff trotting along,
Sniff'd hard at the mortal leaven,
Then bristled his hair at her brimstone smell,
And howl'd out his fears to heaven.
Then the jackdaw screech'd his joy,
That he spurn'd the royal feast,
And keen'd all night to the grievous owl,
And the howling mastiff beast.
Loud on that night was the thunder crash,
Sad was the voice of the wind,
Swift was the glare of the lightning flash,
And the whizz it left behind.
At morn when the pious brothers came
To give the body to ground,
The skull, the feet, and palms of her hands
Were all that they ever found.
Then the holy monks with ominous shake
Of the head, looked wond'rous sly,
While the breeze that waved their whiten'd locks,
Bore a pray'r for her soul on high.
 

P.S.

SPIRIT OF DISCOVERY

VAN DIEMEN'S LAND

[There is a touching interest in the following narrative of the surrender of certain tribes of the aborigines of Van Diemen's Land to the British authorities. Some time since a war of extermination was commenced against them by the colonists; but, happily for humanity, this atrocious attack, which future historians may varnish over with "civilization," was a signal failure; and the poor, simple creatures were still left to enjoy the woods and caves and painted skins of savage life; not, however, without having fiercely retaliated upon the colonists for the cruel treatment which they experienced.]

The Oyster Bay and Big River tribes, the most sanguinary in the island, have surrendered themselves to Mr. Robinson, by whose conciliatory intervention the desirable event has been mainly brought about. On the 7th of January, Mr. Robinson made his triumphant entry into Hobart Town with his party of blacks, amounting in all to forty. They walked very leisurely along the road, followed by a large pack of dogs, and were received by the inhabitants on their entry into town with the most lively curiosity and delight. Soon after their arrival they walked up to the Government House, and were introduced to his Excellency, and the interview that took place was truly interesting. They are delighted at the idea of proceeding to Great Island, where they will enjoy peace and plenty uninterrupted. The great susceptibility which they one and all evinced of the influence of music when the band struck up, which Colonel Logan had purposely ordered down, clearly showed the numerous spectators the power of this agent of communication, even in the savage breast. After, in the greatest good humour, and with an evident desire to make themselves agreeable, going through various feats of their wonderful dexterity, they proceeded on board the Swan River packet, until the Tamar is ready to proceed with them to Great Island. The women were frightfully ornamented with human bones hung round them in various fantastic forms, even to the rows of teeth and skulls. Some of these were the remains of enemies, and white persons whom they had killed, but more as the mementos of the affection which they bore to the husband or children whom they had lost. They each carried a handful of spears. They wore the usual kangaroo skin cloak thrown over the back or shoulder, and thickly smeared with red ochre and grease. Their hair as well as skin was also thickly coated with the same, the hair being carefully dressed or formed by its help into neat little knots or globules all round the head. One of the men has lost his arm, being the same who about two years ago was caught in the rat trap that happened to be set in the flour cask in Mr. Adey's stock-keeper's hut. They surrendered to Mr. Robinson (who, however, very prudently did not take possession of them) six stand of arms, which they had taken from the whites they had murdered, or stolen from the huts. Three of them were ready loaded, and the muzzles carefully stuffed with pieces of blanket, and one is the same which was so recently borne by the late unfortunate Mr. Parker. The inside of several of their bark huts, which Mr. Robinson entered, was very ingeniously ornamented with rude delineations of kangaroos, emus, and other animals. The removal of these blacks will be of essential benefit both to themselves and the colony. The large tracts of pasture that have so long been deserted, owing to their murderous attacks on the shepherds and the stockhuts, will now be available, and a very sensible relief will be afforded to the flocks of sheep that had been withdrawn from them, and pent up on inadequate ranges of pasture—a circumstance which indeed has tended materially to impoverish the flocks and keep up the price of butcher's meat.

The dogs which these poor people have nursed and bred up in order to assist them in hunting the kangaroo, have latterly become so numerous and wild as to be a very serious and alarming nuisance to the settlers, committing on many farms nightly ravages on their flocks. In the neighbourhood of Benlomond they are particularly troublesome, and are so wild and savage as to set even men at defiance. Notwithstanding this, however, the numbers of the kangaroo seem daily and rapidly to increase. Whether this arises from the latterly diminished slaughter among them, owing to the decrease of the blacks who formerly fed upon them, or from the effects of the Dog Act, which induced many to destroy their dogs and to desist from the chase, or from the relish which the animal itself has acquired for the corn and other artificial food it finds upon the cultivated farms, we cannot say, but certain it is, that not only patches, but whole acres of corn in many situations are this year destroyed by their nightly inroads, coming as they do in droves of fifties and hundreds. As an instance we may mention that on Mr. Gunn's farm at the Coal River alone, a fine field of five acres of wheat has lately been completely eaten down by them. Many persons are in consequence falling on the expedient of catching them in wires and pitfalls in order to diminish them.

The ravages committed by the opossums, in like manner, are almost equally ruinous to the hopes of the farmer, in addition to the attacks of bandicoots, kangaroo rats, and the other almost innumerable (and certainly as yet unknown to naturalists) species of small quadrupeds that every where inhabit the wild bush and underwood of this island. Mr. Nicholas, of the Clyde, accompanied by his servant, lately, in the course of half a dozen evenings, and within the range of a moderate-sized field, killed no less than 340 of these opussums in the immediate vicinity of his own house.

[The beneficial result of this surrender need not be explained. The lives and properties of the settlers will now be secure, and the wild natives become useful members of society. The passing of man from the opposite states of barbarism and civilization is one of the most pathetic episodes in the drama of human life. In the Morning Herald, where we find the above extract from a recent Hobart Town Courier, it is pertinently observed, "When we find one of those natives of Van Diemen's Land had lost an arm which had been torn off in a trap, and that the wound was healed, the question naturally suggests itself, after all that we have heard of late about 'anatomical science,' what is the science of the wilderness that performed such a cure?" We fear it will puzzle the heads of all the colleges in Europe to solve this problem.]