lover; she would gladly have wasted herself to the lightness of air for the purpose of diminishing his labour.  She wore only a single robe which closely enveloped her.  Her lover catching her up with one hand, and bearing the precious vial in the other, appeared perfectly unconscious of the burthen, and bore her, with the rapidity of lightning, more than half way up the mountain:  but here she perceived his breath began to fail, and conjured him to have recourse to his medicine.  He replied, that he was still full of vigour; was too much within sight of the multitude below, that their cries on seeing him stop, even for an instant, would annoy and dishearten him; and that, while able to proceed alone, he would not appeal to preternatural assistance.  At two-thirds of the height she felt him totter under the weight, and again repeated her earnest entreaties.  But he no longer heard or listened:  exerting his whole remains of strength, he staggered with her to the top, still bearing the untasted vial in his hand, and dropped dead on the ground.  His mistress, thinking he had only fainted, knelt down by his side, applied the elixir to his lips, but found that life had left him.  She then dashed the vial on the ground, uttered a dreadful shriek, threw herself on the body, and instantly expired.  The king and his attendants, much surprized at not seeing them return, ascended the mountain, and found the youth fast locked in the arms of the princess.  By command of her father they were buried on the spot in a marble coffin, and the mountain still retains the name of “The Two Lovers.”  Around their tomb the ground exhibits an unceasing verdure; and hither the whole country resort for the most valuable herbs employed in medicine, which owe their origin to the contents of the marvellous vial.[77]

No.  VII.—­YWONEC.

There lived once in Britain a rich old knight, lord of Caerwent, a city situated on the river Duglas.  He had married, when far advanced in years, a young wife of high birth, and transcendant beauty, in hopes of having an heir; but when, at the end of seven years, this hope was frustrated, he locked her up in his strong castle, under the care of his sister, an aged widow lady, of great devotion and asperity of temper.  His own amusements were confined to the chace; those of his sister to thumbing the Psalter, and chanting its contents:  the young lady had no solace but tears.  One morning in April, when the birds began to sing the songs of love, the old gentleman had risen early, and awakened his sister, who carefully shut the doors after him, while he sallied forth for the woods, and his young wife began her usual lamentations.  She execrated the hour when she was born, and the fatal avarice of her parents, for having united her to an old, jealous tyrant, afraid of his own shadow, who debarred her even from going to church.  She had heard the country round her prison was once famed for adventures; that young and gallant knights used