thousand years ago, as her present Majesty is in the provinces in our own time. Yet there are many in the present day who think it a waste of time to dwell for a few hours upon the fates of those ancient kings, who, forsooth! because they have been so long dead, are considered as undeserving of notice by those who seem to measure the events of the past by their own present insignificance, who, conscious that they themselves will be forgotten for ever as soon as the grave has closed over them, look begrudgingly upon almost every name that Time has not wholly obliterated. CHAPTER XVI. OFFA, SURNAMED THE TERRIBLE. "Come, come you spirits That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here; And fill me from the crown to the toe, top-full Of direst cruelty! make thick my blood, Stop up the access and passage to remorse, That no compunctious visitings of nature Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between The effect and it! Come to my woman's breasts, And take my milk for gall."--SHAKSPERE. To the kingdom of Mercia must we again turn the reader's attention for a few moments, and take up the thread of our history from the death of Ethelbald, who, it will be remembered, fell, while endeavouring to put down the rebellion which was headed by Bernred. Of the latter we know nothing, excepting that he reigned for a few months, when he was either banished by the nobles, or driven from the throne by Offa, surnamed The Terrible, who descended from a brother of the king-slaying Penda. Though we have no clear proofs of the means by which Offa got possession of the crown of Mercia, there are many dark allusions scattered over the works of the monkish historians who were living about this period, which scarcely leave a doubt that he obtained the title of The Terrible through the violent measures he had recourse to in attaining it. Bede says, he won the kingdom of Mercia "with a bloody sword." One of the most romantic incidents which occur in the records of this period, is that which first introduced the future queen, Drida, into Offa's presence. She was a bold, beautiful, ambitious, and cruel woman, and appears to have been related to Charlemagne. She committed some crime, for which she was doomed to undergo the ordeal of iron or fire; but although her deeds were so clearly proved, yet, as she was allied to Charlemagne, she was allowed the more merciful ordeal of water, and launched alone upon the pathless ocean, in a small boat, without either oar, rudder, or sail. She was supplied with food for a few days, and left to the winds and waves, by which she was driven upon the British coast, somewhere on the territory over which Offa reigned. The storm-tossed beauty was conducted to the presence of the Mercian monarch, and having had ample time, while thrown from wave to wave, companionless upon the ocean, to make up a false tale, she at once gave utterance to a story which won both the pity and the love of Offa at the same time.