muscles like that of a tiger about to spring, "know'st thou not 'tis sacrilege to touch my Zeineb? begone, or I will strangle thee!" I did not wait a farther summons to depart, but, fixing my eyes keenly on his motions, I retreated backwards as expeditiously as my shaking limbs would permit. As I approached the door I saw him again lean over the corpse, and fix his lips on those of his dead Egyptian. Sick, and shuddering with involuntary loathing, I stumbled when near the glass partition, and fell against it with a violence which, while it opened the door, broke the glass with a loud report and roused the maniac. Rising hastily from the coffin, he advanced some steps with a settled fierceness in his gaze which boded no good. I saw him put his hand in his bosom, draw forth a glittering weapon, and dart forward. Happily I was now without the glass door, which I pushed against him to arrest his progress. I found the step-ladder, crawled up it on allfours, and in deadly terror explored my way through the darkness to the door of the hovel. Here, however, a formidable obstacle awaited me. The door was fastened I knew not how, and probably by a spring-lock. While vainly attempting to open it, I heard my pursuer on the ladder, I fancied even that he was breathing closer behind me- nay, that I felt the point of his dagger in my back. Rendered powerful by despair, I struck my foot with violence against the door—the pannel, old and frail, yielded to the shock-the aperture appeared large enough, and with difficulty I crawled, or rather forced my way through it. When I had regained my feet, I found myself in darkness. The moon had disappeared, and the obscurity was so dense that I could not see a foot in advance, nor, in the fear and confusion of the moment, could I even guess the direction of my friend's house. The maniac was at the door behind me, I heard him a draw a bolt, and feeling that I had not a moment to lose, I plunged forward through the darkness too late, however, to evade the keen sight of my pursuer. Too soon his rapid step in close chace assailed my ear. I could not see him, but I felt that he gained upon me-I heard his loud and horrid menaces-I heard too the loud beat of my heart, as in deadly terror I strained every nerve to escape from certain death. Vain was the effort. He caught the skirt of my long dressing-gown—arrested my progress, and closed upon me. Turning round I saw the flash of his eyes, the upraising of his glittering dagger to stab me to the heart-I felt the point pass between my ribs, and fell senseless and bleeding on the pavement. What time had elapsed I know not, but I was roused by the sudden blast of a trumpet. I thought that I had expired under the mortal stab of the maniac, and that the awful sound which recalled me to consciousness, was the last trumpet summoning the dead and the living to judgment. Suddenly I felt myself lifted under each arm, and opening my eyes, I beheld by the light of their lanterns the bluff and weather-beaten faces of two old watchmen, one of whom, I was informed, had discovered me lying on the pavement, and had brought another watchman by a blast of his horn to assist him in carrying me home. Happily I was not many yards from my friend's house. Giving the watchmen a florin each for their trouble, I returned unperceived into my apartments, too much excited, however, to enjoy repose, and fearfully conscious that a habit of walking in my sleep, to which as a child and boy I had been addicted, was not eradicated by the non-occurrence for several years of this perilous propensity. A severe cold and feverish pulse that confined me for a time, were the consequence of my nocturnal expedition to the ruin; where it was ascertained, by inquiry from old Durbach, that some one had thrice knocked loudly at his door soon after midnight. Passing through Treves some years subsequently, I heard from my friend's father, that the wife of Durbach had died in the hospital, and that the morning after her decease the bodies of the old man and his idiot son were taken out of the Moselle. 115 EARLY IMPRESSIONS. "Last noon beheld them full of lusty life, Last eve in Beauty's circle proudly gay, The midnight brought the signal-sound of strife, Battle's magnificently-stern array ! The thunder clouds close o'er it, which when rent, The earth is cover'd thick with other clay, CHILDE HAROLD. "AND what do you say, doctor?" demanded the Countess Z- -y, waving her hand to an extremely interesting young man, who had just joined the company in the saloon, and beckoning him to her side. 66 'Here," she continued, "we have been disputing with Frederic for the last fifteen minutes, and we are still at the same point with which we started,-revolving in a circle, as you philosophers would say.” "May I presume to ask the point in dispute?" demanded the youth. "Why it is a little abstruse, and I doubt whether I should be able to put it into precise language; however I shall try." 66 "I am all attention," said the doctor. "We are disputing whence the fearful increase of infidelity arises, the decline of belief, and of the efficacy of the Christian religion. My nephew ascribes it to the perverse blindness of our ecclesiastics; to their reluctance in proceeding with the spirit of the age. He says they are ever bent upon inculcating doctrines which have no foundation whatsoever in the Gospel, but are the excrescences of a barbarous age. I affirm that this infidelity arises from our alleged enlightenment; that half enlightening, I mean, of the middle and lower classes, which ends in knowing something of the wrong side, without taking the pains of investigating the right, or which, in the very pride of this dangerous demiknowledge, scoffs at farther inquiry and information." The countess paused for a moment. "You will allow doctor," continued she, "that a well-informed man, a reflecting being, a philosopher even, will always be at heart and in practice a good Christian. Indeed, I cannot conceive how a mind which has weighed the doctrines of revelation, studied their principles, and compared their effects on practical life—I cannot conceive how such a mind can become sceptical." "And," interjected the count, "as, comparatively speaking, the number of really enlightened is so very limited; as there are but few who have the will and the capacity to penetrate the depths of Christian philosophy, it follows naturally that the rest should profit little by the crude dogmas which are palmed upon them by our blind and bigotted priesthood." "You are right, count," said the doctor, "and your |