brought back to him that lovely morning, when his father first placed him on the cross-way of life, where the right hand led by the sunny paths of virtue, into a large and quiet land, full of light and harvests; and the left plunged by the subterranean walks of vice, into a black cave, full of distilling poison, of hissing snakes, and of dark, sultry vapors.

Alas, the snakes were hanging upon his breast, and the drops of poison on his tongue; and he now, at length, felt all the horror of his situation. Distracted, with unspeakable grief, and with face up-turned to heaven, he cried, "My father! give me back my youth! O, place me once again upon life's cross-way, that I may choose aright." But his father and his youth were long since gone. He saw phantom-lights dancing upon the marshes, and disappearing at the church-yard; and he said, "These are my foolish days!" He saw a star shoot from heaven, and glittering in its fall, vanish upon the earth. "Behold an emblem of my career," said his bleeding heart, and the serpent tooth of repentance digged deeper into his wounds.

His excited imagination showed him specters flying upon the roof, and a skull, which had been left in the charnel-house, gradually assumed his own features. In the midst of this confusion of objects, the music of the new-year flowed down from the steeple, like distant church-melodies. His heart began to melt. He looked around the horizon, and over the wide earth, and thought of the friends of his youth, who now, better and happier than he, were the wise of the earth, prosperous men, and the fathers of happy children; and he said, “Like you, I also might slumber, with tearless eyes, through the long nights, had I chosen aright in the outset of my career. Ah, my father! had I hearkened to thy instructions, I too might have been happy."

In this feverish remembrance of his youthful days, the skull bearing his features, seemed slowly to rise from the door of the charnel-house. At length, by that superstition, which, in the new-year's night, sees the shadow of the future, it became a living youth. He could look no longer; he covered his eyes; a thousand burning tears streamed down, and fell upon the snow. In accents scarcely audible, he sighed disconsolately: "Oh, days of my youth, return, return!" And they did return. It had only been a horrible dream. But, although

he was still a youth, his errors had been a reality. And he thanked God, that he, still young, was able to pause in the legrading course of vice, and return to the sunny path which leads to the land of harvests.

RICHTER.

IN one of those sober and rather melancholy days, in the latter part of autumn, when the shadows of morning and evening almost mingle together, and throw a gloom over the decline of the year, I passed several hours in rambling about Westminster Abbey. There was something congenial to the season in the mournful magnificence of the old pile; and, as I passed its threshold, it seemed like stepping back into the region of antiquity, and losing myself among the shades of former ages.

I entered from the inner court of Westminster school, through a long, low, vaulted passage, that had an almost subterranean look, and pursued my walk to an arched door, opening to the interior of the abbey. On entering here, the magnitude of the building breaks fully upon the mind, contrasted with the vaults of the cloisters. The eye gazes with wonder at clustered columns of gigantic dimensions, with arches springing from them to such an amazing hight; and man wandering about their bases, shrinks into insignificance in comparison with his own handwork. It seems as if the awful nature of the place presses down upon the soul, and hushes the beholder into noiseless reverence. We feel that we are surrounded by the congregated bones of the great men of past times, who have filled history with their deeds, and the earth with their renown. And yet it almost provokes a smile at the vanity of human ambition, to see how they are crowded together and jostled in the dust; what parsimony is observed in doling out a scanty nook, a gloomy corner, a little portion of earth to those whom, when alive, kingdoms could not satisfy; and how many shapes, and forms, and artifices are devised to catch the casual notice of the passenger, and save from for

getfulness, for a few short years, a name which once aspired to occupy ages of the world's thought and admiration.

I passed some time in Poet's Corner, which occupies an end of one of the transepts or cross aisles of the Abbey. The monuments are generally simple; for the lives of literary men afford no striking theme for the sculptor. Shakspeare and Addison have statues erected to their memories; but the greater part have busts, medallions, and sometimes mere inscriptions. Notwithstanding the simplicity of these memorials, I have always observed that the visitors to the Abbey remain longest about them. A kinder and fonder feeling takes place of the cold curiosity or vague admiration, with which they gaze on the splendid monuments of the great and heroic. They linger about these as about the tombs of friends and companions; for there is something of companionship between the author and the reader. Well may posterity be grateful to his memory; for he has left it an inheritance, not of empty names and sounding actions, but whole treasures of wisdom, bright gems of thought, and golden veins of language.

I entered that part of the Abbey which contains the sepulchers of the kings. I wandered among what were once chapels, but which are now occupied by the tombs and monuments of the great. At every turn I met with some illustrious name, or the cognizance of some powerful house, renowned in history. As the eye darts into these dusky chambers of death, it catches glimpses of quaint effigies; some kneeling in niches, as if in devotion; others stretched upon tombs, with hands piously pressed together; warriors in armor, as if reposing after battle; prelates, with crosiers and miters; and nobles in robes and coronets, lying as it were in state. In glancing over this scene, so strangely populous, yet where every form is so still and silent, it seems almost as if we were treading a mansion of that fabled city, where every being had been suddenly transmuted into stone.

In the opposite transept to Poet's Corner, stands a monument which is one of the most renowned achievements of modern art; but which, to me, appears horrible, rather than sublime. It is the tomb of Mrs. Nightingale, by Roubilla.c. The bottom of the monument is represented as throwing open its marble doors, and a sheeted skeleton is starting forth. The

shroud is falling from his fleshless frame as he lanches his dart at his victim. She is sinking into her affrighted husband's arms, who strives, with vain and frantic effort, to avert the blow. The whole is executed with terrible truth and spirit. We almost fancy we hear the gibbering yell of triumph, bursting from the distorted jaws of the specter. But why should we thus seek to clothe death with unnecessary terrors, and to spread horrors around the tomb of those we love? The grave should be surrounded by every thing that might inspire tenderness and veneration for the dead, or that might win the living to virtue. It is the place, not of distrust and dismay, but of sorrow and meditation.

Two small aisles on each side of one of the chapels present a touching instance of the equality of the grave. In one is the sepulcher of the haughty Elizabeth; in the other is that of her victim, the lovely and unfortunate Mary. Not an hour in the day, but some ejaculation of pity is uttered over the fate of the latter, mingled with indignation at her oppressor. The walls of Elizabeth's sepulcher continually echo with the sighs of sympathy, heaved at the grave of her rival. A peculiar melancholy reigns over the place where Mary lies buried. The light struggles dimly through windows, darkened by dust. The greater part of the place is in deep shadow, and the walls are stained and tinted by time and weather. A marble figure of Mary is stretched upon the tomb, around which is an iron railing, much corroded, bearing her national emblem, the thistle. I was weary with wandering, and sat down to rest myself by the monument, revolving in my mind the chequered and disastrous story of poor Mary.

The sound of casual footsteps had ceased from the Abbey. I could only hear, now and then, the distant voice of the priest, repeating the evening service, and the faint responses of the choir. These paused for a time, and all was hushed. Suddenly, the notes of the deep-laboring organ burst upon the ear, falling with doubled and redoubled intensity, and rolling as it were, huge billows of sound. How well do their volume and grandeur accord with this mighty building! With what pomp do they swell through its vast vaults, and breathe their awful harmony through these caves of death, and make the silent sepulcher vocal! And now, they rise in triumphant acclama

tion, heaving higher and higher their accordant notes, and piling sound on sound. And now, they pause, and the soft voices of the choir break out into sweet gushes of melody; they soar aloft and warble along the roof, and seem to play about these lofty vaults like the pure airs of heaven. Again, the pealing organ heaves its thrilling thunders, compressing air into music, and rolling it forth upon the soul. What longdrawn cadences! What solemn, sweeping concords! It grows more and more dense and powerful; it fills the vast pile, and seems to jar the very walls; the ear is stunned; the senses are overwhelmed. And now, it is winding up in full jubilee; it is rising from earth to heaven; the very soul seems rapt away, and floating upward on this swelling note of harmony!

I sat for some time lost in that kind of reverie which a strain of music is apt sometimes to inspire. The shadows of evening were gradually thickening around me; the monuments began to cast a deeper and deeper gloom; and the distant clock gave token of the slowly waning day. I rose, and retraced my morning's walk, and as I passed out at the portal of the cloisters, the door closing with a jarring noise behind me, filled the whole building with echoes. I endeavored to form some arrangement in my mind of the objects I had been contemplating, but found they were already passing into indistinctness and confusion. What, thought I, is this vast assemblage of sepulchers but a treasury of humiliation; a huge pile of reiterated homilies on the emptiness of renown, and the certainty of oblivion? It is, indeed, the empire of Death; his great and shadowy palace; where he sits in state, mocking at the relics of human glory, and spreading dust and forgetfulness on the monuments of princes. How idle a boast, after all, is the immortality of a name! Time is ever silently turning over his pages. We are too much engrossed by the story of the present to think of the character and anecdotes that gave interest to the past; and each age is a volume thrown aside to be speedily forgotten. The idol of to-day pushes the hero of yesterday out of our recollection; and will, in turn, be supplanted by his successor of to-morrow.

What then is to insure this pile, which now towers above me, from sharing the fate of mightier mausoleums? The time must come, when its gilded vaults, which now spring so loftily,