cheerfully shouted the relieved Professor, but the door was not unclosed. Again he called, but vainly as before. Then, starting from his chair, he opened the door, but discoverd no one. The students, who also fancied they had heard a gentle knock, looked at each other in silent amazement; and the warm-hearted Professor, unable to reason down his boding fears, determined to seek Julius at his lodgings, and requested one of the students to accompany him.

He knew the street, but not the house, in which the young man resided; and as soon as they had entered the street, their attention was excited by a tumultuous assemblage of people at no great distance. Hastening to the spot, the Professor ascertained from a bystander that the crowd had been collected by the loud report of a gun or pistol in the apartments of a student. Struck with an appalling presentiment, the Professor and his companion forced a passage to the house-door, and were admitted by the landlord, to whom the former was well known. "Tell me!" exclaimed the Professor, gasping with terror and suspense-"Is it Julius Arenbourg ???

"Alas! it is indeed," replied the other. "Follow me up stairs, and you shall see him."

They found the body of the illfated youth extended on the bed, and a pistol near him, the ball of which had gone through his heart. His fine features, although somewhat contracted by the peculiar action of a gun-shot wound, still retained much of their bland and melancholy character. The landlord and his family wept as they related that Julius, who was their favourite lodger, had returned home after the execution with hurried steps, and a countenance of death-like paleness. Without speaking to the children, as was his wont, he had locked the door of his apartment, where he remained several hours, and then hastened with some letters to the post-office. In a few minutes after his return, the fatal shot summoned them to his room,

where they found him dying and
"But I had nearly for-
speechless.
gotten," concluded the landlord,
"that he left upon his table a letter
addressed to Professor N."

The worthy man opened the letter with a trembling hand, and, in a voice husky with emotion, read the contents to his companion.

"From you, my dear Professor, and from my younger friends, although but friends of yesterday, I venture to solicit the last kindness which human sympathy can offer. If, as I dare to hope, I have some hold upon your good opinion, you will not refuse to see my remains interred with as much decency as the magistrates will permit. In my purse will be found enough to meet the amount of this and every other claim upon me.

"I have yet another boon to ask, and one of vital moment to my unhappy relatives. I have prepared them to expect intelligence of my death by fever; and surely my request, that the subjoined notice of my decease may be inserted in the papers of Metz and Strasbourg, will not be disregarded by those whose kindness taught me the value of existence when I had no alternative but to resign it.

"That those earthly blessings, which were denied to me and mine, may be abundantly vouchsafed to you, is the fervent prayer of the unhappy JULIUS.

"Died of fever, at in Germany, Julius Florian Laroche, a native of Champagne, aged 22."

"Alas!" exclaimed the deeply-affected Professor, "the mystery is solved, and my suspicions were too well founded. Sad indeed was thy destiny, my Julius, and sacred shall be thy last wishes!"

Kissing the cold brow of the deceased, he hung over his remains in silent sorrow, and breathed a fervent prayer for mercy to the suicide; then giving brief directions for the funeral, the Professor and his friend paced slowly homeward, in silence and in tears.

THE LAST STORK.

BY THE ETTRICK SHEPHERD.

"Yea, the stork in the heaven knoweth her appointed times; and the turtle and the crane and the swallow observe the time of their coming; but my people know not the judgment of the Lord."

I'VE heard a tale of olden time,
Of stately Stork of southern clime,
That sail'd the billowy ocean rare,
That waves above the ambient air-
That rolling sea which heaves reclined
Above the regions of the wind,
From which descendeth down amain
The drizzly day, the rattling rain,
The motley mists on mountain blue,
And showers of silver-sifted dew.

O'er this grand ocean of the sky,
Our noble Stork had sail'd on high,
With some few hundred thousands more,
From Nile's debased and muddy shore,
And Jordan's stream, held sacred still,
That from the springs of Hermon hill
Descends by Mirom's reedy brake,
And lone Tiberias' sultry lake,
To glut the Dead Sea's pregnant weed-
A gorgeous range for storks indeed!
And where they still a welcome prove,
As blessings sent from heaven above.

There had the guests their gathering made,
To shape the dauntless escalade

Of heaven's own arch, and there the host
Gather'd from all Arabia's coast;
From Ethiopia's lakes of gloom,
And jungles of the fierce Simoom:
At last, that none might lag behind,
The word was pass'd as day declined,
To mount upon the moaning wind.

As ever you saw the fire-flaughts sweep
From furnace at the midnight deep,
Pouring with fierce and heavenward aim,
Like rapid shreds of living flame,
Till, fading in the dark alcove,
They vanish in the fields above;
So rose from Jordan's sullen tide,
And dark Tyberias' sultry side,
To navigate the cloudy spheres,
Thousands of milk-white mariners,
All flickering with their dappled wings,
A spiral stream of living things,
Till far within the ether blue,
They melt in regions of the dew.

Then nought is seen from earth below,
Nor heard but sounds of distant woe,
A howling, shrieking strain on high,
Alongst the stories of the sky;
As if an host of spirits bright

From this dire world had ta'en their flight,
Weeping with dread uncertainty,

Where their abode was thence to be,

VOL. XXVII. NO. CLXII,

JEREMIAH, viii. 7,

Р

All heighten'd by the thrilling pain,
That they might ne'er return again.

It brings to mind that evening drear,
The last of Judah's hope or fear,
When Heathens raised the demon yell
Of triumph, and Jerusalem fell;
When the devouring brand of Rome
Uplighted Zion's sacred dome,
And told unto the remnant small
Of God's own people, that their thrall
Was then begun that end should never,
Forsaken by their God for ever.

Their temple in one smouldering flame,
What more on earth remain'd for them!
Then rush'd the young and old on death,
Sinking beneath the foemen's wrath,
Till even Havock's bloodshot eye
Turn'd from the carnage scared and dry;
And Avarice spared the wailing few,
Which Pity had refused to do.

What thousands of excluded souls

Would leave that night their earthly goals,
Mounting the air like flickering flame,
With rapid but unguided aim,

Guided, though all to them unknown,
The path unto the judgment throne!
Think of the air crowded to be
With beings of Eternity,

All fearing, hoping, trembling, crying,
Romans and Jews together flying,

How would they feel their race now run,
Of all that they had lost or won,
Of old heart-burnings and of strife,
And all their daring deeds of life!
Alas! would every warrior famed,
Or council where a war is framed,
But think of this as madness past,
And to what all must come at last,
And then remember seriously
That there's a reckoning still to be!
But simile now aside I lay,
For similes lead me still astray,
And to our migrant hordes repair.
High o'er the columns of the air,

Like fleets of angels on they steer,

With check, with challenge, and with cheer.
The light foam that we see besprent
On surface of the firmament,
Yielded before the downy prow
And silken sails of wavy snow,
And a long path of changing hue
Laid open vales of deeper blue,
While shepherds of the Alpine reign,
Of Kryman and the Apennine,
Are startled by the wailing cry
Within the bosom of the sky,
That dies upon the northern wind,
And gathers, gathers still behind;
In vain he strains his aching sight,
It strays bewilder'd, lost in light,
While, all alongst the empyrean cone,
Thousands of voices, sounding on,

Strike the poor hind with terror dumb!—
He deems man's sins have reach'd their sum,
And his last day on earth is come.

One resting-place, and one alone,
To mankind ever has been known,
A little lake on Alpine fell,
Where Zurich meets with Appenzell;
And such a scene as their descent
From out the glowing firmament,
While skies around with echoes rung,
No bard hath ever seen or sung;
They come with wild and waving wheel,
Or mazes of the maddening reel,
Pouring like snowballs in a stream,
Or dancing in the solar beam,
With shouts all shouts of joy excelling,
Till even the frigid Alps are yelling.
Such scenes were once on Scottish plain,
But there shall ne'er be seen again!

On Scottish plain! who this may trow?
What means our bard? he's raving now;
For save the fieldfare's countless band,
Or snowflakes of the northern land,
Of migrant myriads there are none,
And trivial such comparison,

With this great southern inundation,—
I hate so groundless an illation.
Stop, countryman, for I allude

To a more grand similitude.
'Tis known to you, or, if 'tis not,

'Tis pity that it were forgot,

That our own grandsires oft have seen,

As daylight faded on the green,

And moonlight with its hues was blending,

The fairy bridallers descending

Straight from the moon like living stream
On ladder of her golden beam,

All pure as dewdrops of the even,

And countless as the stars of heaven;
Their tiny faces glowing bright
With flashes of a wild delight,
Their little songs of fairy love,
Like music of the spheres above;
And every saraband and ring
As swift as fire-flies on the wing.
That was a scene the soul to glad!
Deem not my simile so bad.

Well, here within that Alpine lake,
Our blithe aërial sailors take
Their pastime with abundant joy,
Yet lost no moment of employ;
Tribe after tribe apart was set,
To stock each marsh and minaret,

From Zealand's swamps which oceans lave,
To Wolga's wastes and Dwina's wave,

While a small portion, deem'd the best,

Their potent leader thus address'd:

"Friends, countrymen, and kinsmen mine, Most noble Storks of sacred line, It grieves me much that we have lost Our empire upon Britain's coast, For nought can happen but mischance,