e, in his preface to his Miscellanies, says, talking of
his mind, "It must, like the halcyon, have fair weather to breed in."

The story of Ceyx and Alcyone is beautifully told in Ovid, Met. 11.
fab. 10.

* * * * *

HOUSE OF COMMONS.

(_For the Mirror._)

In the vale of Evesham, was fought the most memorable battle recorded in
the annals of English history, between Simon de Mountfort, the powerful
Earl of Leicester, and Prince Edward, afterwards King Edward the First;
in which the earl was completely defeated, and the refractory barons,
with most of their adherents taken or slain. This important battle
restored Henry the Third to his throne and liberty. When he had ascended
the throne, he determined to still further curtail the enormous power of
the barons; and by his writs summoned together, as his advisers,
representatives from numerous cities and boroughs, as well as counties;
the battle of Evesham therefore may be considered, says a modern writer,
"_as the origin of our present House of Commons_."

The learned John Selden says, "All are involved in a parliament. There
was a time when all men had their voice in choosing knights. About Henry
the Sixth's time they found the inconvenience, so one parliament made
a law, that only he that had forty shillings per annum should give his
voice, they under should be excluded." "In a word (says Chamberlayne)
a parliament's authority is most absolute; a parliament can do all that
_Senatus populusque Romanus_ could do, _centuriatis Comitis seu
Tributis_; it represents the whole kingdom, so that the consent of
the parliament is presumed to be the consent of every man in England."

P.T.W.

* * * * *

THE LEGACY OF THE SWORD.

(_For the Mirror._)

It is thine--it shall win thee a wreath for thy brow
When thy spirit seems more energetic than now;--
It is thine in the war-cloud of gloom and of fire,
The pride of thy kindred--the sword of thy sire!

It is thine--let the bright rose around it entwine,--
Let it glance in the sunbeam which smiles on the shrine,
And sheathe it triumphant when cravens retire,
The pride of thy household--the sword of thy sire!

It is thine--but the warrior who bore it is laid
Where the rose throws its balm, and the cypress its shade,
And churls and marauders have ceased to retire
From the star of the battle--the sword of thy sire!

It is thine--t