nasal voice and chanted, without mercy, the whole of the 119th Psalm! With exemplary patience Isabella stood it out, but for the "diffusion of the discount" she could not summon fortitude to wait. Leaving an offering of money for the self-conceited Dr. Obadiah, she took her departure amidst the exclamations of "Gar Amighty bless missis!" from the assembled crowd.

Isabella drove home in a more cheerful state of mind, and all traces of gloom were soon put to flight when, on alighting at her own door, she found that Evelyn had just arrived.

After listening to his gay account of his excursion, with all its pleasures and its hardships, Isabella related her more sombre adventure at the old burying-ground, and she was relieved of her worst apprehensions when she found that Evelyn took the same view of the matter as old Sophy had done, and believed that the three negroes were practising some obeah charm, which they were anxious to conceal from the knowledge alike of the whites on the estate and of their own class.

The apparition that had been visible to her, or that her fancy had conjured up, Isabella did not mention. She thought that Evelyn would but laugh at it, and she did not choose to expose herself even to his ridicule.

STEREOSCOPIC GLIMPSES.

BY W. CHARLES KENT.

VIII. -SHELLEY AT MARLOW.

'MID the verdant shade
Of a sylvan glade

That the river's deeps and shallows
Have with crystal floored,

For its emerald sward,
Fringed about with reeds and mallows:

'Neath the beechen leaves
Where the sunbeam weaves,

Overhead, such a glimmering glory,
That the tremulous sheen

Of the blue and the green

Tell again in the stream day's story:

Here in lovely haunt
That a fay might vaunt

As the realm for dreaming, doting;
On the limpid pool,
'Mid the shadows cool,

Lo! a little bark lies floating.

And seraphic face,

With a soul as serene as tender!

Mark the sweet surprise
In those dreamful eyes

And arched brows of pencilled beauty:
It reveals the wonder

That struggles under
Godlike views of human duty.

For, though young in years,
Yet Love's sighs, Life's tears,
Have anointed as with chrism,
In his vernal age,

Yonder poet-sage

With all heaven for his azure prism.

High above, far below,
Leaflets stir, waters flow,

While the shallop sways and trembles,
As her darling around,

With most delicate sound,

Nature's love charm on charm assembles.

Far below, to and fro,
As the gleams come and go,

Speckled trout through the rushes glitter:
High above, as they move

Round their nestlings in love,

Little birds 'mid the branches twitter.

Up the slanting stream

Of a solar beam,

Lo! yon blowball slow revolving;

How it swims and burns,

How it wheels and turns,

Till in distant light dissolving.

Not a seed afloat,
Not a golden mote,

Not a gleam of the glancing river,
But hath charmed those eyes
To that sweet surprise,

With a love that will last for ever.

For the fleetest grace
That o'er Nature's face
Flits in magic evanescence,
Shall for ever shine
In the light divine

Of that soul's celestial presence.

With the lark it hies
To the radiant skies,
Trilling down melodious showers;
Through the garden goes,

Where the purpling rose

Reigns the queen of unfading flowers.

'Tis a soul whose love
The green earth above

Aye shall chant like a rhythmic blessing:
Clothe decay with bloom:
Around cradle and tomb
Cling half-sobbing, half-caressing:

O'er the heart's thrilled chords,
With its soul-breathed words,

As Eolian music chiming

'Mid the hush of eves,

From oft-rustling leaves

Pour the spell of a dulcet rhyming.

Where, as warm tints steal
Through the golden meal

On the king-moth's blood-red pinion,
With a ruby shine

Through each silver line

Passion throbs as in life's dominion.

What though brief the span
Of that life as Man,
There thy Angel-life ne'er slumbers
Where its pulses bound
With immortal sound

In thy wild harmonious numbers!

So recline at ease 'Neath the beechen trees, Ever thus to my Fancy's vision,

Like a shade afloat

In a spectral boat

In a solitude Elysian.

Ir was on one stormy night in May, 1805, that I was returning home after having attended the death-bed of one of my patients. A bleak wind blew down the narrow streets, the sky was covered with clouds, and I met no one as I hurried on, my thoughts harrowed by the painful scene I had just witnessed. It was a young man who had been cut off in the bloom of youth, and I had attended the case with deep interest for some time past, but my art had failed: I was powerless to save him from the common doom, and his eyes had but just closed in death. Suddenly I was startled from my reverie by the low, deep tone of a bell, which vibrated upon the wind, and then was still. I paused. Again the sound was repeated; some life had likewise run its course, and the body was to be interred at the solemn hour of midnight, was my natural conclusion. A spirit of curiosity seized me: I was in a fit state of mind to be present at a sight such as I knew this could not fail to be; so, turning, I bent my steps towards the grave-yard, whilst each toll of the bell seemed to vibrate in my heart, and a voice repeated in my ear the word, "Death, death!" It was as if the bell pronounced the doom of all that is earthy in its deep, mournful tone.

I stood in the open market; a black group of figures had gathered in the centre. I paused, for I knew it was the funeral procession, and I did not wish to intrude upon the mourners.

The coffin-bearers were resting from their labour, but soon and silently they raised their heavy burden up again, and proceeded on their way. I followed at a little distance; my heart was full, not with individual sorrow, but with that which touches every human heart at times such as these-sympathy in the common woe we all have to bear. At length we reached the grave-the coffin was lowered slowly down. The heavens, which had till now been shrouded by dark clouds, parted, and the moon shone lovingly upon the coffin. I saw the faces of the bystanders, and recognised many: they were young artists and students of the town, whom I had often met. The coffin disappeared from our sight into the cold, dark grave, the clouds closed over the moon, and a bleak wind blew, howling across the quiet churchyard. I heard a suppressed sob, and then the mourners knelt, whilst the touching words of the Lord's Prayer were repeated solemnly.

"Thy will be done!" The broken heart may say those words, but oh, how hard it is to mean and feel what the lips so easily pronounce! The hinges of the iron door which led to the chamber of death grated. saw it close, and heard, as if in a trance, the name of Schiller breathed

I

by one of those who stood around the tomb, and then they all turned slowly away, leaving me alone and still standing unobserved by Schiller's new-made grave.

Was it possible! Had I then been an unconscious witness of the burial of so great a man? Had he, who in his lifetime had stirred so many hearts to reverence and love him--had he been followed to his last home comparatively by so few? Could the genius that had burnt so brightly be extinct, entombed in yonder vault? Oh, no! the mind of man is immortal, and cannot die.

I felt this as I stood by Schiller's grave on that dark night, and believed more firmly than I had ever believed before in a world to come.

A nightingale sang close by, and its warbling note rose up to heaven as if it were an echo from the tomb of him who had so often sung in praise of Nature.

Long did I linger in that peaceful spot, musing on the life of the poet, who had been one of those gifted few who leave an undying track behind them when they sleep-a track of thoughts, the influence of which is unbounded, incalculable.

"Ruhe sanft!" I murmured, as I had done over my father's grave the year before, and then I, the intruder, turned homewards, and left the slumberer to his long, long sleep.

Heilig, heilig, heilig bist du, Gott der Grüfte!

Wir verehren dich mit Graun!

Schiller died on a Friday of the disease which had so long tormented him, and it was expected that he would have been interred on Sunday, but it was found necessary that the funeral should take place before. Goethe was ill at the time, and grieved bitterly for the loss of his friend. A gloom hung over our little town; one of its bright stars had set, and every one loved Schiller. The theatre was closed, and the circumstances of the poet's death talked over by people who had seen and heard so much of him that they felt as if they were his acquaintances, though in reality they were not.

Thus the first rain-drop of the storm which was to break over our little capital fell, and we all felt its influence more or less.

The tragedies committed the year before on the Duc d'Enghien, General Pichegru, and Captain Wright, had all come to our hearing. The audacious seizure of Sir George Rumbold, English minister at Hamburg, on German ground, was an insult rightly resented by Prussia. France's hope of anything like freedom was annihilated; Moreau, the principal leader of the republican party, was in exile; and there was no opposition to the all-powerful sway of Napoleon, who had now openly declared himself the despot he was, and had crowned himself emperor, sanctified by the blessing of no less a personage than the Pope of Rome. Europe, with the exception of three nations, bowed before him, but they little knew then how much lower he intended them to bow ere two more years had run their course.