now relinquishes!-But know, if it will give thee comfort to know it, that Ulrica is bound to the same dark coast with thyself, the companion of thy punishment, as the companion of thy guilt. -And now, parricide, farewell for ever! May each stone of this vaulted roof find a tongue to echo that title into thine ear!"

So saying, she left the apartment; and Front de Boeuf could hear the crush of the ponderous key as she locked and double locked the door behind her, thus cutting off the most slender chance of escape. In the extremity of agony he shouted upon his servants and allies-" Stephen and St. Maur!-Clement and Giles !-I burn here unaided!-To the rescue-to the rescue, brave Bois de Gilbert, valiant De Bracy.-It is Front de Boeuf who calls!-It is your master, ye traitor squires!-Your ally-your brother in arms, ye perjured and faithless knights! -all the curses due to traitors upon your recreant heads, do you abandon me to perish thus miserably !— They hear me not-they cannot hear me-my voice is lost in the din of battle.-The smoke rolls thicker and thicker-the fire has caught upon the floor below.-O for one draught of the air of heaven, were it to be purchased by instant annihilation!" And in the mad frenzy of despair the wretch now shouted with the shouts of the fighters, now muttered curses on himself, on mankind, and on Heaven itself. "The red fire flashes through the thick smoke!" he exclaimed, "the demon marches against me under the banner of his own element. -Foul spirit, avaunt! I go not with thee without my comrades-all, all are

thine, that garrison these walls.-Thinkest thou Front de Boeuf will be singled out to go alone? -No-the infidel Templar, the licentious De Bracy-Ulrica, the foul murdering strumpetthe men who aided my enterprises-the dog Saxons, and accursed Jews, who are my prisoners -all, all shall attend me-a goodly fellowship as ever took the downward road-Ha, ha, ha!" and he laughed in his frenzy till the vaulted roof rung again. "Who laughed there?" exclaimed Front de Boeuf, in altered mood, for the noise of the conflict did not prevent the echoes of his own frenzied laughter from returning upon his ear."Who laughed there? Ulrica, was it thou? Speak, witch, and I forgive thee-for, only thou or the fiend of hell himself could have laughed at such a moment. Avaunt! avaunt!"

But it were impious to trace any farther the picture of the blasphemer and parricide's deathbed.

SIR W. SCOTT.

ALBANIA AND ITS INHABITANTS. ALBANIA comprises part of Macedonia, Illyria, Chaonia, and Epirus. Iskander is the Turkish word for Alexander; and the celebrated Scanderbeg (Lord Alexander) is alluded to in the third and fourth lines of the thirty-eighth stanza. I do not know whether I am correct in making Scanderbeg the countryman of Alexander, who was born at Pella, in Macedon, but Mr. Gibbon terms him so, and adds Pyrrhus to the list, in speaking of his exploits.

Of Albania, Gibbon remarks, that a country "within sight of Italy is less known than the interior of America." Circumstances, of little consequence to mention, led Mr. Hobhouse and myself into that country before we visited any other part of the Ottoman dominions; and with the exception of Major Leake, then officially resident at Joannina, no other Englishmen have ever advanced beyond the capital into the interior, as that gentleman very lately assured me. Ali Pacha was at that time (October, 1809) carrying on war against Ibrahim Pacha, whom he had driven to Berat, a strong fortress which he was then besieging: on our arrival at Joannina we were invited to Yepaleni, his highness's birthplace, and favourite Serai, only one day's distance from Berat; at this juncture the vizier had made it his headquarters.

After some stay in the capital, we accordingly followed; but though furnished with every accommodation, and escorted by one of the vizier's secretaries, we were nine days (on account of the rains) in accomplishing a journey which, on our return, barely occupied four.

On our route we passed two cities, Argyrocastro and Libochabo, apparently little inferior to Yanina in size; and no pencil or pen can ever do justice to the scenery in the vicinity of Zitza and Delvinachi, the frontier village of Epirus and Albania proper.

The Arnasuts, or Albanese, struck me forcibly by their resemblance to the Highlanders of Scotland, in dress, figure, and manner of living. Their very mountains seemed Caledonian, with a kinder

climate. The kilt, though white; the spare, active form; their dialect, Celtic in its sound; and their hardy habits, all carried me back to Morven. No nation are so detested and dreaded by their neighbours as the Albanese: the Greeks hardly regard them as Christians, or the Turks as Moslems; and in fact, they are a mixture of both, and sometimes neither. Their habits are predatory: all are armed; and the red-shawled Arnaouts, the Montenegrins, Chimariots, and Gegdes are treacherous; the others differ somewhat in garb, and essentially in character. As far as my own experience goes, I can speak favourably. I was attended by two, an infidel and a Mussulman, to Constantinople, and every other part of Turkey which came within my observation; and more faithful in peril, or indefatigable in service, are rarely to be found. The infidel was named Basilius; the Moslem, Dervish Fahiri; the former a man of middle age, and the latter about my own. Basili was strictly charged by Ali Pacha in person to attend us; and Dervish was one of fifty who accompanied us through the forests of Acarnania to the banks of Achelous, and onward to Messalunghi in Ætolia. There I took him into my own service, and never had occasion to repent it till the moment of my departure.

LORD BYRON.

THE ROOKERY.

In a grove of tall oaks and beeches, that crowns a terrace-walk, just on the skirts of the garden, is an ancient rookery, which is one of the most important provinces in the squire's rural domains.

The old gentleman sets great store by his rooks, and will not suffer one of them to be killed; in consequence of which they have increased amazingly; the tree-tops are loaded with their nests; they have encroached upon the great avenue, and have even established, in times long past, a colony among the elms and pines of the churchyard, which, like other distant colonies, has already thrown off allegiance to the mothercountry.

The rooks are looked upon by the squire as a very ancient and honourable line of gentry, highly aristocratical in their notions, fond of place, and attached to church and state; as their building so loftily, keeping about churches and cathedrals, and in the venerable groves of old castles and manor-houses, sufficiently manifests. The good opinion thus expressed by the squire put me upon observing more narrowly these very respectable birds; for I confess, to my shame, I had been apt to confound them with their cousingerman the crows, to whom, at the first glance, they bear so great a family resemblance. Nothing, it seems, could be more unjust or injurious than such a mistake. The rooks and crows are, among the feathered tribes, what the Spaniards and Portuguese are among nations, the least loving in consequence of their neighbourhood and similarity. The rooks are old established housekeepers, highminded gentlefolks, that have had their hereditary abodes time out of mind; but as to the poor crows, they are a kind of vagabond, predatory, gipsy race, roving about the country without any settled home; "their hands are against every body, and every body's against