been assigned by circumstances, and lays claim to the merit of any achievement possible to the greatest virtue. CAPTIVITY OF SMITH. Captain Smith was not aware of the stealthy approach of the Indians; a slight wound by an arrow was the first intimation he had of their presence. In this peril, of a nature to quell the greatest courage, because its exercise must be hopeless, his energies did not desert him; seizing his Indian guide, he constrained him to serve as a shield against the missiles of the assailants--and interposing the Indian's person between himself and his enemies, he commenced his retreat in the direction of the canoe; but being obliged to make face to the Indians, his progress was consequently retrograde, and thus not being able to pick his way, he sunk through the ice to the waist in a morass. Here, embarrassed as he was, he slew with his musket three of the Indians, and for several hours kept the others at a distance, until fatigued with his fruitless efforts to extricate himself from the morass, and benumbed by the cold, he desisted from the idle contest. The Indians dared not yet approach him, until he had thrown his arms to a distance from him, when they raised him and carried him to a fire at the canoe, near which lay the dead bodies of his companions. Smith, with the vague intention of gaining time, and of making a favorable impression upon his captors, endeavored to establish a communication with their chief, whom he propitiated by the offering of his pocket compass. The curiosity of the savage was forcibly roused by the apparent life in the vibrations of the needle, the motions of which were visible through the crystal, although it eluded his touch; but when the prisoner, by signs, and so much of their language as he had acquired, engaged his attention to the description of its properties and uses--how, by its indication alone, the solitary hunter could track his pathless way, in darkness, through the deepest forests, and direct his canoe through the expanse of waters to its destined point, and this by mysterious and inscrutable influence between the heavenly bodies and the little talisman he held in his hands, the Indian's faculties were absorbed in the recital, and he remained fixed in an attitude of mute and vague wonder. * * * * * LADY LEONORE AND HER LOVER. FYTTE I. _Leonore_. Why art thou sad? _Lover_. Sweet Leonore Come hither and list! On their golden shore Yon waters sing. The winds are nigh; They have swept all cloud from the starry sky; And a rare song-woof their fingers weave On earth--in air. 'Tis a pleasant eve! A magic is in wind, moon and star-- A magic that winneth hearts afar To the days that are past. Come, best beloved, Look forth from this lattice: own the spell Which hath moved a spirit long unmoved-- While I tell thee a tale I love to tell. _Leon_. A tale thou lovest!