And as he gazed his tears flowed down, His nobles also wept "Oh I would ere I such words had said I'd with my fathers slept!" The lily hand full reverently And like a saint's he kissed. "O gentle hand! what noble heart Thee owned, I never wist. "I never dreamed that woman lived Who would, to save her lord, Thus freely give her own right arm And hand unto the sword. "Mah'med and God witness for me, I loved Sir Hugh de Vere! And thought if I this ransom asked I should retain him here. "Fair arm, fair hand, and true brave love! My kingdom I'd resign-- Richer than any king of earth In such a love as thine! "Take, Hugh de Vere, thy freedom, won So nobly by thy love; Take gems, and silks, and gold,--all vain Saladin's grief to prove. "Tell her I yield my selfish love: Well may she claim thy life! She who was such a noble love Will be a noble wife! "Unloose the sails, make no delay, Depart ere close the day. While I among my precious things Thy ransom stow away. "That, 'mid my treasure placed, it may To future ages prove How holy Christians' plighted troth, How pure their maidens' love!" {32} From Chamber's Journal. BELL GOSSIP. There are some competent artistic observers who contend that bells were the origin, the cause, the ruling motive, of one of the most important parts of a Christian church--perhaps _the_ most important, in regard to external appearance. The Rev. J. H. Sperling, in a paper read recently before the Architectural Institute, dwells at considerable length on the influence of the turret, campanile, or bell-tower in determining the character of a church. As a means of summoning the faithful to mass (there were no Protestant churches, because no Protestants, in those days), or to bid them pray wherever they might be, a bell was needed with a sound that would reach to a distance; and this could only be insured by placing it in a tower at some elevation. The Gothic architects made everything contribute to the design of their cathedrals and churches; and this elevation of the bell was just the thing to call forth their ingenuity. They made the bell-tower one of the chief features in their design. It was often entirely detached from the building, and was known generally as the campanile. Examples of this are observable at Canterbury and Chichester cathedrals, at Beccles, at Ledbury, and at West Walton in Norfolk. Salisbury cathedral had originally a campanile; but modern wiseacres, who thought they knew better than the men of old, removed it. The central towers of cathedrals and churches were intended as lanterns to let in light, not as turrets to contain bells; this was a later innovation. Many towers have been altered from their original purpose to convert them into bell-towers, but injuriously--as at Winchester and Ely. Mr. Sperling, as a matter of usefulness as well as