26 WILD SCENES AND WILD HUNTERS. 
The pomp of her heroic games, 
And crested chiefs and tissued dames 
Assembled at the clarion’s call, 
In some proud castle’s high arched hall” 
—-we have the most illustrious period of our race, in which, 
through the expansion of the higher virtues, woman emerged 
to her true place, and stood forth in light—the angel of the 
fireside! Though the feudal age was partial in its immediate 
effects, and the masses were still held in rude vassalage, yet 
such developments as came to and for the few, were large 
and grand. Then came the accession, though it was much 
confined to the privileged classes, of that bold individuality 
which dared to question any despotism, or hoary precedent 
for truth, and out of which emancipation, sprung those liberal 
opinions which have so far through blood and “terror” worked 
out the modern ideas of liberty and equality. Thence came, 
too, those regal impulses—those mild and liberal sentiments, 
which in their open-handed dispensations fell like the benedic- 
tion of blessed dews from heaven, upon the feverish embittered 
struggle of man with man; and which cooled down their heat, 
restoring that calm, mutual faith, that is the basis of any 
