“The presents were sent by water, and the captains went by land with fifty good shot. All being met at Werowocomoco, the next day was appointed for his coronation. Then the presents were brought in, his bason and ewer, bed and furniture set up, his scarlet cloak and apparell with much adoe put on him, being perswaded by Namontack they would not hurt him. But a foule trouble there was to make him kneele to receive his crowne, he neither knowing the majesty nor meaning of a crowne, nor bending of the knee, endured so many perswasions, examples, and instructions, as tyred them all. At last, by leaning hard on his shoulders, he a little stooped, and three having the crowne in their hands put it on his head.” [NOTE 24--CANTO SIXTH, SECT. VII.] And still with sad and anxious thought And moveless eyes he stood, Till he saw her by another flash Enter the midnight wood. SKETCH OF THE CHARACTER OF POCAHONTAS. “The character of this interesting woman, as it stands in the concurrent accounts of all our historians, is not, it is with confidence affirmed, surpassed by any in the whole range of history; and for those qualities more especially, which do honor to our nature--a humane and feeling heart, an ardor and unshaken constancy in her attachments--she stands almost without a rival. “At the first appearance of the Europeans, her young heart was impressed with admiration of the persons and manners of the strangers. But it is not during their prosperity that she displays her attachment. She is not influenced by awe of their greatness, or fear of their resentment, in the assistance she affords them. It was during their severest distresses, when their most celebrated chief was a captive in their hands, and was dragged through the country, as a spectacle for the sport and derision of her people, that she places herself between them and destruction. “The spectacle of Pocahontas in an attitude of entreaty, with her hair loose, and her eyes streaming with tears, supplicating her enraged father for the life of Captain Smith, when he is about to crush the head of his prostrate victim with a club, is a situation equal to the genius of Raphael. And when the royal savage directs his ferocious glance for a moment from his victim, to reprove his weeping daughter; when, softened by her distress, his eye loses its fierceness, and he gives his captive to her tears, the painter will discover a new occasion for exercising his talents. “In Pocahontas we have to admire, not the softer virtues only; she is found, when the interest of her friends demands it, full of foresight and intrepidity. “When a conspiracy is planned for the extermination of the English, she eludes the jealous vigilance of her father, and ventures at midnight, through a thousand perils, to apprise them of their danger.