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ready been his lot, to witness many scenes of horror, and ride over fields of blood.

We have said it was a silent journey. George's despair was too deep for words.

The first motion of the carriage affected the position of the corpse. George put one arm round it, and kept it immoveable. Sometimes, his scalding tears would fall on that cold face, whose outline yet preserved its beautiful roundness.

It appeared to Sir Henry, that he had never seen life and death, so closely and painfully contrasted. There sat his brother, in the full energies of manhood and despair; his features convulsed-his frame quivering-his sobs frequent-his pulse quick and disturbed.

There lay extended his mistress-cold-colourless-silent-unimpassioned. There was life in the breeze that played on her raven tresses—grim death was enthroned on the face those tresses swept.

Not that decay's finger had yet really assailed it; but one of the peculiar properties of the preservative used by Doctor Pormont, is its pervading sepulchral odour.

They reached Rome; and the consummation of

their task drew nigh.

Pass we over the husband's last earthly farewell. Pass we over that subduing scene, in which Henry assisted George to sever long ringlets, and rob the cold finger, of affection's dearest pledge.

Alas! these might be retained as the legacy of love.

They were useless as love's memento. Memory, the faithful mirror, forbade the relic gatherer ever to forget!

Would you know where Acmé reposes?

A beautiful burial ground looks towards Rome. It is on a gentle declivity leaning to the southeast, and situated between Mount Aventine and the Monte Testaccio.

Its avenue is lined with high bushes of marsh roses; and the cemetery itself, is divided into three rude and impressive terraces.

There sleeps in a modest nook, surmounted by the wall-flower, and by creeping ivy, and by many-coloured shrubs, and by one simple yellow flower, of very peculiar and rare fragrance; a type,

as the author of these pages deemed, of the wonderful etherialised genius of the man—there sleeps, as posterity will judge him, the first of the poets of the age we live in-Percy Bysshe Shelley! There too, moulders that wonderful boy authorJohn Keats.

Who can pass his grave, and read that bitter inscription, dictated on his deathbed, by the heartbroken enthusiast, without the liveliest emotion?

"Here lies one, whose name was writ in water. February 4th, 1821."

The ancient wall of Rome, crowns the ridge of the slope we have described. Above it, stands the pyramid of Caius Cæstius, constructed some twenty centuries since.

Immediately beneath it, in a line with a round tower buried with ivy, and near the vault of our beautiful countrywoman, Miss Bathurst, who was thrown from her horse and drowned in the Tiber, may be seen a sarcophagus of rough granite, surmounted by a black marble slab.

Luxuriant with wild flowers, and studded even in the winter season, with daisies and violets, the

sides of the tomb are now almost concealed. Over the slab, one rose tree gracefully droops.

When seen in the dew of the morning, when the cups of the roses are full, and crystal drops, distilling from leaves and flowers, are slowly trickling on the dark stone, you might think that inanimate nature was weeping for the doom of beauty.

Only one word is engraved on that slab. Should you visit Rome, and read it, recollect this story. That word is" Acmé!"

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The former, with hopes that the exertion might be useful, in distracting George from the constant contemplation of his loss, plunged at once into the sight-seeing of "the eternal city."

Their days were busily passed-in visiting the classic sites of Rome and its neighbourhood-in wandering through the churches and convents-and loitering through the long galleries of the Vatican.

Delmé, fearfully looking back on the scenes that had occurred in Malta, was apprehensive, that

George's despair might lead to some violent outbreak of feeling; and that mind and body might sink simultaneously.

It was not so.

That heavy infliction appeared to bear with it a torpedo-like power. The first blow, abrupt and stunning, had paralysed. Afterwards, it seemed to carry with it a benumbing faculty, which repressed external display. We say seemed; for there were not wanting indications, even to Sir Henry's partial eye, that the wound had sunk very deep.

The mourner might sink, although he did not writhe.

In the mornings, George, followed by Thompson, would find his way to the Protestant burial ground; and weep over the spot where his wife lay interred.

During the day, he was Sir Henry's constant and gentle companion; giving vent to no passionate display, and uttering few unavailing complaints. Yet it was now, that a symptom of disease first showed itself, which Delmé could not account for.

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