for the nonce, now propose her gallantry as a theme to the rival Bards at
the next Eisteddfod. She is to sit throned in full assembly, oak leaves
and mistletoe interwoven on her head, a white robe and green sash to
clothe her, and the vanquished beast's horns on a gilded pole behind the
dais; hearing the eulogies respectively interpreted to her by Colonel
Fluellen Wythan at one ear, and Captain Agincourt Gower at the other. A
splendid scene; she might well insist to be present.

There, however, we are at the pitch of burlesque beyond her illustrious
lord's capacity to stand. Peremptory orders from England arrive,
commanding her return. She temporizes, postpones, and supplicates to
have the period extended up to the close of the Eisteddfod. My lord's
orders are imperatively repeated, and very blunt. He will not have her
'continue playing the fool down there.' She holds her ground from August
into February, and then sets forth, to undergo the further process of
her taming at Esslemont in England; with Llewellyn and Vaughan and
Cadwallader, and Watkyn and Shenkyn and the remains of the race of Owen
Tudor, attending her; vowed to extract a receipt from the earl her lord's
responsible servitors for the safe delivery of their heroine's person at
the gates of Esslemont; ich dien their trumpeted motto.

Counting the number at four and twenty, it wears the look of an invasion.
But the said number is a ballad number, and has been since the antique
time. There was, at a lesser number, enough of a challenge about it for
squires of England, never in those days backward to pick up a glove or
give the ringing rejoinder for a thumb-bite, to ride out and tilt
compliments with the Whitechapel Countess's green cavaliers, rally their
sprites and entertain them exactly according to their degrees of dignity,
as exhibited by their 'haviour under something of a trial; and satisfy
also such temporary appetites as might be excited in them by (among other