gallant steed, and followed by his esquires and men at arms, rested not either night or day, until he reached the marches of Wales.  The lions of England still proudly flying over the castle walls, assured him that the countess had been enabled to hold out against the savage horde, who surrounded it on all sides.  The besiegers set up a furious yell as the knight and his party approached their encampment.  Half naked, their eyes glaring wildly from beneath a mass of yellow hair, and scantily armed with the rudest species of offensive and defensive weapons, their numbers alone made them terrible; and had the castle been manned and victualled, it might have long defied their utmost strength.  Drawing their falchions, the knight and his party keeping closely together, and thus forming an impenetrable wedge, cut their desperate path through the fierce swarm of opposing foes, who, like incarnate demons, rushed to the onslaught, and fell in heaps before the biting steel of these experienced soldiers.  Pressing forward with unyielding bravery, Fitzwalter won the castle walls; whence, with the assistance of such frail aid as the living spectres on the battlements could give, he beat back the Welsh host, and in another quarter of an hour, having dispersed the enemy with frightful loss, gained free entrance to the castle.  Feeble was the shout of triumph which welcomed Fitzwalter and his brave companions; the corpses of the unburied dead lay strewed upon the pavement; the heroic countess, and her attendant damsels, clad in the armour of the slain, weakened by famine, and hopeless of succour, yet still striving to deceive the besiegers by the display of living warriors, by this stratagem retarded the assault which they could not repel.  Fitzwalter took advantage of the darkness of the night, and the panic of the Welshmen, to withdraw from a fortress which was destitute of all the implements of war; and with the rescued ladies mounted behind them, the brave band returned to the court of King Stephen; and the charms of the fair one, and the valour of her chivalric defender, formed the theme of the minstrel in every knightly hall and lady’s bower throughout Christendom.

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SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

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THE CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH NOVEL READER.

How shall I describe the emotions with which I read the first novel I ever perused!  A school-fellow had secretly brought with him from home after the holidays, the novel of Peregrine Pickle, which he carefully concealed in his trunk.  He at first lent it to some of the elder boys, who read it, and enlarging on some of the most despicable incidents to be found, disgusted my meek spirit of it, by their report.  It seemed to violate all my cherished ideas of beauty and soft luxury.  I was then about fourteen years of age, and my companions persuaded me to a perusal.  I took it up listlessly, expecting but little pleasure, but what language can paint the manner in which I was entranced by it?  I read it over and over with increased delight, my entire soul and frame of mind and passions seemed to be suddenly changed and remodelled.  I forgot Ariadne and Telemachus, and Tom Pipes and Hatchway became my idols, the undivided objects of my admiration.