which had delighted me when a child. Past associations revived with the music, blended with a sense of unreality, which at last became too powerful—I rushed out of the room to give vent to my feelings.

I wandered, scarce knowing where, into an old wood, that stands at the back of the house; we called it the Wilderness. A well-known form was missing that used to meet me in this place: it was thine, Ben Moxam, the kindest, gentlest, politest of human beings, yet was he nothing higher than a gardener in the family. Honest creature, thou didst never pass me in my childish rambles without a soft speech and a smile. I remember thy good-natured face. But there is one thing for which I can never forgive thee, Ben Moxam, that thou didst join with an old maiden aunt of mine in a cruel plot to lop away the hanging branches of the old fir-trees. I remember them sweeping to the ground.

I have often left my childish sports to ramble in this place; its glooms and its solitude had a mysterious charm for my young mind, nurturing within me that love of quietness and lonely thinking which have accompanied me to maturer years.

In this Wilderness I found myself after a ten years' absence. Its stately fir-trees were yet standing, with all their luxuriant company of underwood: the squirrel was there, and the melancholy cooings of the wood-pigeon— all was as I had left it; my heart softened at the sight— it seemed as though my character had been suffering a change since I forsook these shades.

My parents were both dead; I had no counsellor left, no experience of age to direct me, no sweet voice of reproof. The Lord had taken away my friends, and I knew not where He had laid them. I paced round the

Wilderness, seeking a comforter. I prayed that I might be restored to that state of innocence in which I had wandered in those shades.

Methought my request was heard, for it seemed as though the stains of manhood were passing from me, and I were relapsing into the purity and simplicity of childhood. I was content to have been moulded into a perfect child. I stood still as in a trance. I dreamed that I was enjoying a personal intercourse with my heavenly Father, and extravagantly put off the shoes from my feet, for the place where I stood, I thought, was holy ground.

This state of mind could not last long, and I returned, with languid feelings, to my inn. I ordered my dinner, green peas and a sweetbread: it had been a favourite dish with me in my childhood-I was allowed to have it on my birthdays. I was impatient to see it come upon table; but when it came I could scarce eat a mouthful, my tears choked me. I called for wine; I drank a pint and a half of red wine, and not till then had I dared to visit the churchyard where my parents were interred.

The cottage lay in my way. Margaret had chosen it for that very reason, to be near the church, for the old lady was regular in her attendance on public worship. I passed on, and in a moment found myself among the tombs.

I had been present at my father's burial, and knew the spot again; my mother's funeral I was prevented by illness from attending: a plain stone was placed over the grave, with their initials carved upon it, for they both occupied one grave.

I prostrated myself before the spot; I kissed the earth that covered them; I contemplated with gloomy delight the time when I should mingle my dust with theirs, and

kneeled, with my arms incumbent on the grave-stone, in a kind of mental prayer, for I could not speak.

Having performed these duties, I arose with quieter feelings, and felt leisure to attend to indifferent objects. Still I continued in the churchyard, reading the various inscriptions, and moralising upon them with that kind of levity which will not unfrequently spring up in the mind in the midst of deep melancholy. I read of nothing but careful parents, loving husbands, and dutiful children. I said jestingly, where be all the bad people buried? Bad parents, bad husbands, bad children, what cemeteries are appointed for these? Do they not sleep in consecrated ground-or is it but a pious fiction, a generous oversight, in the survivors, which thus tricks out men's epitaphs when dead, who, in their lifetime, discharged the offices of life perhaps but lamely? Their failings, with their reproaches, now sleep with them in the grave. Man wars not with the dead. It is a trait of human nature, for which I love it.

ABOU BEN ADHEM AND THE ANGEL.

1.

Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!)
Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,
And saw within the moonlight in his room,
Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom,
An angel writing in a book of gold:
Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold,
And to the Presence in the room he said:

'What writest thou?'-The vision raised its head,

And with a look made of all sweet accord,

Answered, 'The names of those who love the Lord.' 'And is mine one?' said Abou. Nay, not so,'

Replied the Angel. Abou spoke more low,
But cheerily still; and said: 'I pray thee, then,
Write me as one that loves his fellow-men.'

2.

The angel wrote and vanished.

The next night

It came again with the great wakening light,

And shewed the names whom love of God had blessed, And, lo! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest!

'THE SHIP AT ANCHOR.'

A TAVERN.

A sailor, who was in the habit of spending all his money at the public-house, one day made a vow to be temperate in future, and kept it. Meeting with an old friend about a twelvemonth afterwards, the following conversation took place:

Peter. Hollo, Jack! Here you are back from America. Jack. Yes, Master Peter.

Peter. Won't you come in, and have a glass this cold day?

Jack. No, Master Peter, no! I cannot drink.

Peter. What, Jack, can you pass the door of the 'Ship at Anchor' without taking a cup with your friends? Jack. Impossible, Master Peter; I have a swelling here-don't you see it?

Peter. Ah! that's because you don't drink your grog

as you used to do. Drink, my boy, and the swelling will soon go down.

Jack. You are quite right there! [He pulls out of his pocket a large leathern purse full of money.] There's the swelling I have given myself by steering clear of the 'Ship at Anchor.' If I begin drinking again, it will soon go down-there 's not the least doubt of that.

Peter. Is it possible you have saved so much money, Jack?

Jack. It is, indeed, and I mean to go on doing it; and when I pass the Ship at Anchor' after my next voyage, I hope to shew you a new swelling on the other side.

HOW THEY BROUGHT THE GOOD NEWS
FROM GHENT TO AIX.

1.

I sprang to the stirrup, and Joris, and he;

I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three;

'Good-speed !' cried the watch, as the gate-bolts undrew;

Speed!' echoed the wall to us galloping through;

Behind shut the postern, the lights sank to rest,

And into the midnight we galloped abreast.

2.

Not a word to each other; we kept the great pace
Neck by neck, stride by stride, never changing our place;
I turned in my saddle and made its girths tight,
Then shortened each stirrup and set the pique right,
Rebuckled the cheek-strap, chained slacker the bit,
Nor galloped less steadily Roland a whit.

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