desolate precincts on whose entrance this inscription was placed, how many had made their last resting-place. The wise and the brave, the sage and the soldier, after their perils and counsel, had here found a Home. The mariner who had been buffeted about on the ocean, and returned in his old age to die among his native hills, after the storms and vicissitudes of life, had found here a Home. The wearied in body and wearied in mind had found a Home and a refuge from the toil that weighed down their frames, and the anxieties that wore out their spirits.

I was fortunate enough, after a day or two sojourn, to fall in with a brother collegian. We were both much pleased at our accidental concurrence, for I found my companion a youth of merry vein; and it would be no great stretch of self-flattery to suppose my own society not altogether indifferent to him. Neither of us was much addicted to sporting of any description; so that riding, walking, sailing, conversing, and the chequer-board, were our only resources to while away the tedium of a week in the country. As for books-there was the public library with its score of volumes; but I seldom read more than the names of novels, and the title-pages of the Misses Porter's fictions were already much more familiar to me than I am willing to confess. But, without these desperate aids, we contrived to kill time very reputably and effectually.

Among other means, a visit to a beach some four or five miles distant from our residence, was a circumstance not soon to be forgotten by one tolerably attached to his neck, and exceedingly annoyed by violent and dangerous exercise. After riding two or three miles over perhaps the worst attempt at a road in the civilized world, we parted with all traces of a path, and plunged into a cluster of sandy and rocky hills. The vehicle in which we were seated had been in better days a chaise, but was now merely the relic of one. We were every minute in the most imminent hazard of our limbs. It was really an absurd matter, when I reflect upon it, to expose ourselves in this crazy style, to such unsatisfactory peril. The perpendicular ascents and descents that we encountered, are serious affairs to look

back upon, and I am only astonished that we arrived at a stopping-place in safety. We left our carriage at a fisherman's but about a mile from the sea-shore, and completed the remainder of our journey on foot.

An extent of dry sand is worse if possible for walking than for riding, and consequently on reaching the water-side, we were not a little fatigued. The day was a quiet one, and the ocean rolled its broad waves calmly and almost noiselessly to the shore. A number of boats were floating lazily on the water; and a few sportsmen were scattered over the beach, frequently startling, and occasionally shooting, the rapid sea-birds. Huts had been erected at convenient distances on the beach, to afford some slight shelter to wrecked mariners in a storm, and to add to the picturesque desolateness of the scenery, in the sunshine.

The

On returning to the hut where we had left our vehicle, I was struck by the peculiarity of its situation and appearance. It was removed miles from any other habitation-a low half-painted cottage, surrounded by some dozen apple and plum-trees, with accomodation for a few winged and unwinged domestic animals. The blunt seaman who occupied it met us on our return with a very hearty welcome, and insisted upon our taking a cup of tea or a glass of punch with him, an invitation that we did not need much urging to accept. On entering our host's apartinents, I was astonished by nothing so much as the appearance of a young girl, simply dressed, but of a most exquisite beauty. mother was a very respectable, matronly-looking_character, and the father as well-knit and noble a son of Neptune, as ever ploughed the ocean;-but the daughter-though I am singularly reserved in my affections, and very little given to romanticizing-there are probably half a dozen sonnets on the subject, carefully folded away among my valuables. It turned my head for a week, and if, during my stay in the vicinity, I had been able perfectly to restore all my bones to their peculiar sockets, I would willingly have consented to hazard their second displacement, to rest my eyes again upon so lovely a vision.

After tea, we took a short walk about the premises, and having conversed a while with Miss Mary, the male population adjourned to a punch-bowl. A finer fellow than our

mariner never trod deck. He amused us with his adventures, which he related in a spirited and unique style, till very late in the evening. We had no fears of the high mettle of our steed, but other considerations made us feel a little blank as we seated ourselves on our return ride; and though we escaped entirely from any accident by field or flood, I am disposed to consider it as very little short of a miracle. If I ever again go within ten miles of this place, I will not fail to pay a visit to the fisherman's daughter; though from the nature of the sand-hills in that vicinity, and their propensity to keep continually moving, I should not be surprised to find that they had swallowed up my friend's house in their progress.

We

Only one more incident marked our quiet week. had despaired of finding any occupation for the most delightful August day that ever shone, when it occurred to us that if a boat, barge, or raft were to be obtained any where within a circle of a five-mile radius, we could ascend some distance on a very pretty stream that ran through the centre of the village.

We obtained a slight skiff, and trusting to the skill of my companion, I accomodated myself as pleasantly as possible to its frail proportions. After sailing about an hour, we reached a retired part of the river which was particularly beautiful. It was so narrow at this passage that the trees which overhung it on either side almost interwove their branches. Tall scarlet flowers were flaunting among humbler weeds and brush, on both banks; and our course was impeded by the broad leaves of the fragrant water-lilies. Birds were darting among the branches about us, displaying brilliant plumage, and warbling their rapid songs. A spirit of quiet joy seemed to have been breathed over all nature; the sky, in its unclouded serenity; earth, in its green beauty; and the waters, as they rolled and sparkled over their silver sands. Our course was arrested about sunset by some falls, which we thought could not be very safely or conveniently passed. It was accordingly reversed, and we floated

quietly down the many-winding stream, in a soft moonlight, which tinged everything with its delicate hues.

All this is among the have beens. It is pleasant, however, to run over these agreeable recollections, even when pent up within a room eighteen by sixteen, our feet upon a fender, our pencil rapidly marring a delicate sheet, and liable ourself to be summoned every moment to a recitation or prayer. And here, reader, we must part; for by way of comment upon my last sentence, the bell is calling me to vespers.

THE WANDERER'S TALE.

THE sailor-boy sinks in his hammock to sleep,
And the mermaid in grotto of ocean bewails,
As the good ship is hastening over the deep,

With the south wind to swell out the curve of her sails.
The brine of the sea dashes up from the prow,

And her wake is marked out by the glimmering glare,

As a meteor will rush on the heavens' broad brow,
And leave in its passage a light in the air.

The dolphin plays round and gives chace to his prey,

And the wild-shrieking gulls are perched high on the mast, The sea-birds are resting their wings until day,

But the ship in her beauty is speeding on fast.

The breeze is refreshing, and wafts on its wings

The sweet bloom of the south to the bosoms it fans,

For the passengers sit at the stern, where there sings

With his low, sailor notes, the stout watch of the sands.1
They sit and, as wont, to beguile the slow time,
The song and the story go merrily round,

And their words are retold by the breeze's low chime,
And the lay that is sung in the billows' sad sound.
They tell of their capture by fierce, robber hordes,
Or conjure up goblins that used once to be,
Or relate the wild legends the ocean affords,

And the marvellous tales of the fathomless sea.

1 The watch of the sands. The helmsman at night has an hour-glass running before him in the compass-box, to mark the time.

Some whisper the pranks of the Elfins of green,
Or tell of adventures, where erst they did roam;
While others call up the far-off village scene,

And run o'er the darling mementos of home.
There's a pause-and the low-sounding murmurs go by ;
There's a pause, that is broke by a gloomy-browed man,
Who, looking around with his shrivelled, grey eye,
Thus slowly and lowly, all silent, began.

"To quell a pain-to seek out rest,
I've wandered to the glowing West,
Where, for the night, Apollo furled
His golden banner on the world ;—
I've been where ope at rising morn
The gates, to show that day is born,
I've been where reigns the Ice-King stern,
And seen the northern meteors burn,
And shed upon the iceberg frames,

Ten thousand thousand lambent flames :-
But memory's self shall fade away,

As fades at eve the beam of day
Before the night and twilight grey,
Ere from her pages I can blot
The sad remembrance of a spot,

That decks the clime where flowers o'errun

The woods, beneath the tropic sun,

And comes before me, like the gleam
Left on the soul by some wild dream.

Down to the west from his bright pathway,
Declines the brilliant lamp of day;

And soft as the fame from the good man's grave,
Is his light as he sinks in the ocean wave,-
And bright as his deeds is the deepening dye
That flows from the copper-colored_sky.2
Wide sweeping on my wondering glance,
And laving my feet, is a fair expanse
Of limpid water,-pure as the spring
Narcissus wooed, as poets sing,

And all so clear, that the hawks, as they lie
In the booming air, or swing on high,
Affrighted, start at the glittering show,
Of themselves in another far world below!
Blue mountains rise from the edge of the tide,
With forests of palm, so deep and wide,

And their leafy boughs where the fire-flies hide.
And the hollows re-echo the wail of the dove,
And the lake is tinged with tints from above;

2 At sunset in the southern regions, the whole heavens often glow like burnished copper.