portion of the human frame to betray the consequence of death. While the eyes become glazed, and the nerves fixed, and the flesh grows colourless and icy cold,-the hair is the same that it was when it added so much beauty to beautiful life-when it waved in the wind, or gleamed in the sun, as the quick motion of youth might influence.

Yes, she was, indeed, lovely!-and what was this loveliness now ?almost already touched by that decay from which, though we know it to be invariable, our nature causes us to shrink so sickeningly! Sad, indeed, is it to gaze upon a face we love, beaming in all the brightness of beautiful youth, and reflect, that the flesh will moulder, and finally become dust,—that those eyes will cease to be,-and nought remain but an hideous and revolting bone, undistinguishable from that which formed the head of the coarsest or most brutal. What, then, must it be to look upon a countenance thus beautiful, and thus loved, when this terrible and disgusting process has nearly begun?-But this is a part of the subject too horrid to be dwelt upon.

I had ample time to gaze my fill, and to think of all these things, and many more ;-for L placed himself at the head of the coffin, and remained there, with his head bowed in his hands, upon its edge. Low, deep groans struggled from him at intervals-and the cold sweat was clammy on his brow. At length they came to fasten down the coffin. I wanted him to go with me from the room,-but the paroxysms of his despair were so terrible, when I strove to draw him towards the door, that I thought it better to desist.-He flung himself upon the body, and fastened his lips upon her's-now so damp and rigid.-There he lay, as if he would have lain for ever;-at last, I gently raised him up, and signed to the men to replace the lid.-They did so at once. Lgazed at them as if he were changed to stone; but when he heard the grinding sound of the first screw, as it was driven down into the wood, he uttered a loud and terrible shriek, and fell senseless into my arms.

I was afterwards glad that it was so-for all was over before he came to himself. It was, indeed, several days before he left his bed. After a short time I took him home with me,-where he staid nearly three months, recovering very slowly. At the end of that period, he went abroad, for change of air and scene, and I have not seen him since.

I last week received a letter from him, from Naples, to inform me he was going to be married! I can scarcely say the blow this has given me. Is this the duration of human love-of human sorrow? Do two short years suffice to root out from the heart all that has grown there so long, and, one would think, so deeply?—Is love, then, a mockery, that it vanishes so soon into air ?-Is grief a deceit, that it so soon is converted into joy?—Alas, alas, it is witnessing things like these that sours the milk of humanity in our hearts-that stifles all yearnings of kindliness towards our fellows, and makes us doubting and distrustful of them all. L- is, however, ashamed-and he writes to me as though I were wronged, as if an apology were due to me. And I am wronged, and an apology is due to me. I was no way connected with her whom he lost-I never even saw her, during her life, and grieved for her only for his sake. But to find the chosen friend of my youth and

heart thus fickle and shallow,-to see hopes, and affections, and sorrows, thus wiped from his heart at once, as a school-boy sponges from his slate the accounts of the past week,-to learn from him, of all men, the lesson of how light are all earthly loves-how speedily even the dearest and deepest are forgotten-these are things which are wrongs— these are things for which apology is indeed due.

It is true, indeed, that such grief as his was could not last-the human heart, the human frame, could not bear a continuance of such sorrow— -it must have ceased, or he must have died. But it should not have passed away thus-like a storm in June, leaving, every thing as gay and brilliant as before. It should have been succeeded by that deep, inward feeling, which is more calm than sorrow, less clouded than melancholy -which rests itself on holy fixedness upon its loved cause, and which is not only not fled from, but is so cherished, that it would be punishment as well as sacrilege, to seek to replace it by any lighter and more recent affection.

But, after all, why should I be angry with L - ? It is thus always; this, in very truth, is "the way of the world."-Oh! what a heartless, hollow, evil-hearted world it is!-Like the fabled apples of the East, it is without, all bloom and beauty-within, foulness and ashes. Its sun shines and looks bright, that it may scorch your brain its breezes blow, that they may chill you to the bones. It is shallower than a summer stream, and more rocky at the bottom; colder than the winter's ice-and, like it, faithless and fragile. The man who trusts to it may be assured that he is leaning upon a rotten staff, that will not only break beneath his weight, but pierce him to the heart as he falls.

It is this speedy vanishing of all love, all regret, even of all remembrance, that is so chilling to my heart-and yet we ever see it. It is our custom, and, perhaps, a wise one, to make our places of worship places of burial also. The presence, as it were, of the dead, is likely, beyond all else, to lead to devotional feelings.-And who has not seen a family, surrounded by monuments of their kindred-of those who were deeply dear, and have been lately lost,-sitting with countenances as cold and unmoved as the marble records on which they gazed;—who has not seen them, even, step with as firm a tread upon the stone which covered the remains of those they had loved, as if they were still pacing on the highway?

Who has not seen these things?-Who has not beheld more speedy and more utter forgetfulness even than this? It seems as if it were ä law of our nature that every thing should decay with rapidity, even affection and regret. Are the characters of love, then, traced upon sand-that the first wave of worldly collision can wash them out?Is there no rock whereon to found the edifice of friendship or affection? To what purpose should we give our hearts to all the joys of fond intercourse-the sweetness of fixed friendship-the delight of deep love, -if, in very truth, they be all thus airy, unsubstantial, and unreal? If we are to be forgotten before a second spring's grass has risen on our graves-if we are to forget, before the very monument, which tells our grief, is completed,-it is better to have no loves-no friendships-no PART IX. 34.-Fourth Edit.

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ties of kindred, or of long remembrance--no gushings of affection-no yearnings of the heart. Let us say, at once, our connections are those of circumstance, of convenience,- at best, of light regard;—to gratify, perhaps, a gust of transient passion-to feed the fancy of one passing hour. But if distance he placed between us—and, still more, if death finally intervene-then is all gone, never to return, or to be remembered -all is obliterated, as though it had never been: we are, (to use a homely, but most forcibly-expressive phrase,) out of sight-and therefore out of mind also.

Oh! God, and is it thus indeed? The very beasts of the field remember and sorrow for their lost fellows; and are we less human than they?-No-there are some hearts which can never forget—some things which can never be forgotten. No, there are some affections, over which Death has no power-which time itself is unable to cancel. If I were to number the years which were given to man in the early ages of the world, one feeling, at least--one recollection would still burn at the bottom of my soul.

"That love where Death has set his seal"-is to me the deepest, as it is the holiest, of all. It is without the impurity and earthly alloy of human passion—yet more strong and more fervent than any thing but human passion can ever be. Violent grief, as I have before said, must pass-and in those who are, as I am, thrown by necessity into the full current of worldly society, even deep melancholy will be worn off also. But the soul-seated remembrance which remains of the excess of that affection, which is at once the most vehement and the softest-the tenderest and the fiercest-of all mortal feelings-what can erase that? The sun-like heat and radiance of passion, though themselves no more, are mirrored, as in the moon, in this pure memory. I look on these feelings no longer as recollections-they are become part of myself. And can I believe that these will ever pass? No;-when they cease to exist, it will be when I cease to exist also. They are like writing engraven by a diamond upon glass-it cannot be destroyed unless the glass itself be broken.

THE INSTABILITY OF THE HEART.

ALAS! how frequently do we, when in the pursuit of those beautiful objects, flitting through the wilderness of the heart, believe them to be the genuine offspring of our own bosoms, and, as such, its genuine guides. And yet, how frequently do our actions, the only standard of a being's worth, belie those sentiments, and prove that they existed only in our fancy.

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THE FATE OF GENIUS.

I HAVE beheld, with feelings of admiration and awe, some noble tree, the wonder and glory of the plain, towering above the rest of its tribe, its wide spreading branches offering shelter and protection-its trunk firm, fixed, and apparently immoveable; grappling with the storms, and regardless of the breath of heaven, lifting its noble head towards the skies, as if longing to free itself from that earth to which it owed its existence. I have beheld the same tree, that viewed all around with a proud air of superiority, lying to-day on the surface of that earth, it but yesterday protected. I have seen with sorrowful eyes, the weakness of humanity displayed in its broken trunk and scattered limbs-the strength of the power that rideth on the wings of the storms, in the rupture of the earth its fangs had grasped and clenched so firmly; and have mourned that that, which warred triumphantly with the elements, and stood erect amidst the whirlwind of the tempest, should be thrown powerless in the dust, its leaves withering, and its boughs decaying,-a piteous lesson of the instability of human greatness!

I have beheld, with equal feelings of veneration and regret, the impulses of some noble mind, soaring above the pursuits of its fellow-mortals; unsatisfied with the world that gave its possessor birth, forming an ideal sphere in the wizard retreats of fancy, and clothing it with all the richness and beauty which a highly excited imagination could invent. I have known its proud spirit despising substance, and grasping at shadow -relying on expectations never to be realized. I have seen it grapple with the storm that must triumph over its weakness, and sink beneath a weight of misery, it vainly imagined it had strength to sustain.

Genius! however great may be thy gifts, they are counterbalanced by miseries, which reduce thy favourites to a level with-and too frequently beneath the common standard of mankind. A man of genius is not made for the world, and therefore he becomes its sport and prey; his soul rises above the grovelling of the rest of his fellow-creatures, and will not descend to the petty methods of acquiring their knowledge. He therefore lives and breathes in a sphere of which he knows nothing; his mind, constantly occupied in the pursuit of unreal creations, will not permit the common cares and wants of the present, to enter within the scope of its operations. A deceptious light is continually glimmering in his soul-he pursues the ignis fatuus-it leads him over flowery banks and fertile plains, but when seemingly within his grasp, the phantom is fled-the ray of hope gone for ever-and he finds himself plunged in the slough of despondency.

The fallen ruins of empires-the shattered fragments of all that was great and noble in art-the overthrow of "the cloud-capt towers and gorgeous palaces," individually awaken in the mind feelings of veneration and sorrow; but there is no sight in nature so heart-rending-so calculated to inspire the soul with awe, as that wreck of genius-forced by the waves of disappointment, and shattered on the rock of despair. Adver

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sity is the only birth-right of genius; for he who is the most munificently endowed by nature, is too frequently the poorest in the world's wealth. Fortune and nature are too jealous of each other, for the same individual to share promiscuously their favours. To think that men, whose ever-living efforts have descended from generation to generation, delighting and improving mankind, and whose name sheds a halo round the age in which they flourished, and an honour to the humblest of their contemporarieswhose fame like a snow fall increases as it descends-whose memory worshipped and perpetuated by costly monuments, and gilded trophies,were suffered, when delighting the world with their presence, to be enveJoped in the dark clouds of obscurity. That they, the fruits of whose minds spread a balm and solace over the troubles, and lifted the soul above the bitterness and vexations of the earth, should have known all the petty cares and anxieties attending a precarious existence, and experienced all the wants of poverty, in a world which they made rich. Tó think that the heart, that delighted all, and shed a brilliancy every where around it, should be in itself dark and miserable. That it should, when living, know all the contempts of indigence, all the privations of want; and at last, when sorrow and despondency pressed too hard, have sunk into an untimely grave. The world, in regard to its favourites, is like a mother, whose unfavoured child is suffered, while on earth, to feel the scorns and pangs of want and neglect, till its injured soul takes its flight, when its virtues and beauties come flocking to the memory, and its wrongs are deplored, when it is too late to relieve or redress them.

The public are not so much in fault as is generally imagined. They have been blamed, too frequently, for not upholding those who were undeserving of their countenance. Genius, by more than one author, has had the attribute of charity bestowed on it,—of covering a multitude of sins. That intellectual gift was never bestowed as a weapon to inflict misery and crime, nor as a shield to cover the vulnerable parts of our

nature.

Young authors have in general only themselves to thank for their disappointment. As soon as a young mind wakes to a consciousness of a feeling more intellectual and refined than what it has yet known, as early as a son of genius feels the spirit-stirring power of intellect glowing in his bosom, instead of fanning it as a perishable flame, cherishing it as a sickly offspring, and fostering it in the deepest cells of his breast, till it has acquired strength and vigor; he, at once, bares it to the open glare of day, and exposes it to the humid air-the perishing breath of criticism: and the infant, instead of becoming a child of light and grace, is blasted in its first bud, and sinks into the grave of obscurity, unpitied and unknown. The Parnassian hill is not so steep but what it may be ascended by degrees, but he who in one flight expects to gain the flowery summit, will fall headlong amidst the derision and scorn of those who witness his presumption. Before the adventurer wings his flight towards the etherial skies of immortality, he should be confident that his pinions have strength enough to bear him from the surface of the earth.

That the page of history is filled with melancholy instances of unre