434 CRITICAL NOTICES OF NEW PUBLICATIONS. 



Of the mare's track, I see the little colt's 

 Small round impression — down this wat'ry way 

 The rascals must have gone — come on, come on, 

 We soon shall overtake them. 



Exit Peter. 



Scene changes to the Hoar Stone in Tedstone. A thief is seen mounted on pattens 

 leading a mare and colt along the bed of the brook. 



Thief. These stones seem soft as clay, I cannot tread 

 But something pulls me down ; the horses drag 

 As if some lumb'ring wain, high pil'd in air 

 Was at their heels. The curse of some pure saint 

 Is on me ; ere a felon's doom is mine, 

 I'll leave the nags to fate. 



{As he goes off, Peter with a possee of countrymen with pikes and 

 staves rush on him and bind him.) 



Peter. So-ho— So-ho I 



Villain, we've track'd you to this last retreat, 

 Spite of your wiles ; bind up the recreant knave. 

 Screw him to the Hoar-stone, and from its dizzy peak 

 There let him dangle, till the dripping springs 

 Have from his head to every nether part 

 Made him a stony mass hard as his heart. 



Enter St. Catherine. 



St. Cath. Long renowned in future story 

 Be his memorable end. 

 Here to Sapey's wild rocks hoary. 

 Pilgrims shall for ever bend ; 

 Here with awe the footsteps trace 

 Of my mare upon the place, 

 There the colt's with wonder view, 

 And the ring's impression too ; 

 Distant ages shall inquire, 

 And the theme shall never tire. 



This most impressive scene, we are persuaded, would have been re- 

 ceived with the '* greatest approbation'* at Ledbury, and we repeat our 

 regret at the " untoward" circumstances that prevented its representation. 

 The writer seems to have thought that it was his duty rather to bring St. 

 Catherine to Ledbury as soon as possible, as the ringing of the bells of 

 Ledbury church " without hands" was of course an event more interest- 

 ing to the good people of that place than any antecedent facts, however 

 curious and important. We regret, however, to be obliged to remark, 

 that at this critical point our writer breaks down, and when all his 

 energies were required to bear upon the bells, he comes to a most lame 

 and impotent conclusion — and his efforts to hear the bell prove vain. It 

 was evidently his duty to have introduced the belfry and bells of Ledbury 

 upon the stage, that the audience might have been fully satisfied that np 

 trickery was practised upon them. It is useless to object that the belfry 

 was too bulky — for we answer with Don Quixotte in reply to the stupid 

 actor who thought the stage could not admit the numerous throng pro- 

 posed by the Don — 



" So vast a throng the stage will ne'er contain, — 

 Then make a new, or act it on a plain." 



So our author was bound to show the audience the bells in question 

 moving without hands. Instead of this, when Mabel sagely remarks 

 that *' nothing but my own ears (eyes she means) shall convince me we 

 shall ever hear bells rung without hands," Peter is made to show the 

 possibility of the phenomenon by reference to the bell of Marcle church. 



