with the fine outline of Maria's features wrought upon it, as on a bust in miniature. Maria awoke, as he stooped down to kiss the dead child, and placed her hand within his, while she faintly whispered, “I thought I should never have seen you again, Godfrey !-Oh,-I have been very ill-I feared I should die without seeing you!-I prayed that I might live to see you once more, and kiss you before I died!— God hath answered my prayer, Godfrey!-I heard his angels singing to me whilst I slept-they came to carry my dear baby into heaven.— I saw a light like the sun, and it awoke me-and-I am very thirsty -the water they gave me was warm-give me some-cold-cold—my feet are very cold-but my poor head burns and aches-oh, how it aches !-my baby-lay it beside me-on that side-on my heart—that heart, Godfrey, which never loved but you-will soon be cold-very cold. Come nearer-let me put my arm round your neck-so-and my baby" She turned to kiss it, as it was placed beside her; and, folding her hands on her breast, said, "Now let me die, and carry with me all that I ever loved into heaven!" She then closed her eyes; and with clasped hands, and arms enfolding Godfrey and the child, breathed forth a silent prayer; the low whispering of her voice only broken by the deep heart-rending sobs of Godfrey Malvern, as he knelt down with his head resting upon her bosom, while the kind-hearted landlady hung, weeping, over the bed,

And so she died!-she breathed her last breath on the lips of Godfrey Malvern !-her last look was on his face !-his name the last word on her lips! and they closed for ever ere the last syllable of that name was uttered. Her breath departed between the utterance of God-and Godfrey. It might be that the angel of Death stepped in and severed the word, and carried the spirit, with the Holy Name upon its silent lips, into heaven!-Who can tell?

Peace to her memory! Maria thou wilt now

"Fear no more the lightning-flash,

Nor the all-dreaded thunder-stone;

Fear not slander, censure rash;

Thou hast finished joy and moan:

All lovers young, all lovers must

Consign to thee, and come to dust."-CYMBELine.

What a void there seemed in that parlour, into which Godfrey Malvern, half broken-hearted, was conveyed! The folding-doors opened into the bed-room; behind those doors lay the dead :-before them, all spoke of the living. There lay her music, the songs she had sung:

6

the words were there, but the voice which gave to them such sweet utterance, life, and feeling, was now mute. Death had snapped the strings asunder. And there lay a Book in which she had read much of late it was the Holy Bible. Skeins of silk, and slips of paper were still within its pages. The Book of Job, and the Psalms (penned by Israel's repentant Poet), were studded, like a chart, with those landmarks, which seem ever pointing to Eternal Life and the peaceful shores beyond the grave:-Signals of Salvation, planted by the hand of God Himself along the rocky coast of Life, to guide the storm-tost and troubled soul into the tranquil haven of Heaven, where all tears are wiped from our eyes' by the hand of His 'ministering angels.' A half-finished landscape lay upon the table, beautiful, but hard; it wanted the light throwing in upon it; the fine touch, and the delicate hand;-but that hand was now cold and heavy :—even the drawing itself looked dead, as if the night had come down at once upon it, or turned back upon the Morning, just as it was breaking into Day. There lay a silk glove, with its embroidery unfinished; the stem of the rose was there, but the flower and the bud were wanting; there was a trace a faint outline, which you might fancy had once been filled in, but the centre was blank now-bud and flower had vanished. Her bonnet and shawl had been hung hastily behind the door: the bonnet fronted you, and looked like Maria. You saw only her face within it; it matched no other countenance: it seemed made to fit her fine face only, to hold the long clusters of her dark hair. Oh! she was very beautiful! Her slippers were laid upon the hearth-rug. You knew to what foot they had belonged their small size and beautiful shape, would become none other but Maria. Her necklace was upon the mantel-piece; her side-combs were placed beside it; a light-blue satin turn-over hung across a chair back; near it was suspended a silk-bag; a child's cap, unfinished, stood on the side-board, together with a little. frock the tasteful embroidery about the front of that little frock, had occupied Maria many a long hour. The beautiful forms into which she had twined the flowers, and worked them one within the other, has rarely been excelled. What love died with her death!How she would have idolized that child, although she had no husband to call it father! And would that love have been less holy, because it was mingled with the blush of shame? Is the blushing maiden-rose less lovely than its crimson-cheeked sister, because it weareth the tinge of MODEST SHAME? No; both are very lovely; though the paler beauty is said to have been touched in Eden by Eve, after she fell.—

Yet beautiful was our first mother with all her sin; and the angel, who leaned over the gates of Paradise, watching her as she departed with Adam, in the evening sunset, heaved a sigh, and breathed a prayer, wishing that it were his lot to lead her forth; though beyond he saw only the bare desolate landscape, that stretched for miles, wild and barren, to the very edge of the sky, without the walls of Eden.

Maria would have clung to her child, had they both lived, although she had been compelled to wander forth, weeping, into the wilderness, like Hagar, when she led forth Ishmael, and turned with half-averted head and scornful look upon Abraham, as she parted with him in the early morning, with the bottle of water, and loaf of bread hanging over her white shoulder. And that God, who heard her voice, and said, "What aileth thee, Hagar? fear not,' would not have forsaken Maria ;for God is more merciful than man.

If there is one thing we hate more than another, in this beautiful world, filled with so many things that a poet can love, it is a hard, cast-iron, would-be saint-so cold, irony, and unfeeling is his nature, though modelled into the acknowledged form of an angel.Such a man we would not sit by the side of. And yet there are many such in this world; fellows who sink souls as they would ships, and leave them to perish at the first discovery of a leak; idle men too lazy to work at the pumps,-and they are dearly beloved by the devil! Hard-hearted pastors, who would have consigned Maria and her baby to that hell, which they themselves shudder only to think upon. What glorious fellows were the old divines !—what a treat to have lived with them, to have known them, as Shakspeare and Milton must have done, in their day. But we knew Parson Preedom, we know him now, and to know him reconciles us to the whole race-time-servers, and living-hunters albeit too many of them are. Thank God! they are not all bad.

Turn we now to Squire Ingledew, who had found it necessary to prolong his stay in London, at this very unfashionable season of the year. It was evening, not yet dark, when he stood at the windows of his drawing-room, looking out upon the extensive square, which had now a desolate and deserted appearance, the inhabitants having either retired to their country residences, or gone away to squander their gold in foreign countries, having cut England for a time, and universally voted it to be only a great bore, in which tradesmen failed, and artisans starved for want of employment; as if they had no concern whatever with such a country: although the very wealth which made them