[5]
of sable plumes. He gazed without believing his sight. What are ye doing? cried Manfred wrathfully; where is my son? A volley of voices replied, Oh! My Lord! the Prince! the Prince, the helmet! the helmet! shocked with these lamentable sounds, and dreading he know not what; he advanced hastily,—but what a sight for a father's eyes!—he beheld his child dashed to pieces, and almost buried under an enormous helmet, an hundred times more large than any casque ever made for human being, and shaded with a proportionable quantity of black feathers.
The horror of the spectacle, the ignorance of all around how this misfortune had happened, and above all, the tremendous phænomenon before him, took away the Prince's speech. Yet his silence lasted longer than even grief could occasion. He fixed his eyes on what he wished in vain to believe a vision; and seemed less attentive to his loss, than buried in meditation on the stupendous object that had occa-sioned
