know that Rosamond most unreluctantly has paid the forfeit of her folly.'

The queen, deeply stung by the calm and winning smile of her victim, rushed, with a shriek, from the apartment. Instantly after Henry entered, breathless. 'I saw my queen!' he exclaimed, in a voice of madness, I saw my queen rush from hence. Rosamond, art thou harmed? speak, speak, my love! tell me, my life, has that curst woman injured thee in aught?'

The ill-fated Rosamond turned on her lover a dying glance of love unutterable. 'Oh, Henry!' she exclaimed, 'I still am thine-the same fond woman still!' She sank lifeless into the arms of the frantic monarch.

Glancing his eye wildly around, he saw the bowl which Rosamond had drained; the horrid truth, in all its overwhelming terrors, flashed upon his soulhastily snatching the bowl, he swallowed the portion of poison that remained. It is not enough!' he cried, it will not kill!' and straining the lifeless victim of jealousy to his breast, sank with a deep and thrilling shriek upon the floor. CHARLES M.

FROM ESCHYLUS.
Ξένος δὲ κλήρους ἐπινω

Μα, Χάλυβος Σκυθῶν ἄποινος

BUT a stranger comes from a Scythian horde,
The guest of danger and fell turmoil,
The murd'rous, cold, Chalybian sword,
To divide the booty and share the spoil,
And he shall allot to the chiefs their land,

Not such as the tyrant's heart would crave;
But the spot of ground, on which they stand,
And a heap of earth to make their grave.
When a brother sheds a brother's blood,
Oh, who shall wash the lifeless clay?
When earth drinks in the crimson flood,
Who, wipe pollution's stain away?
Trouble and woe-trouble and woe
Shall mutter the dirge o'er the fallen foe.
F. W-s.

I 2

ANNA VERNON.

The time shall come, not far removed, when thou
Shalt feel far more than thou inflictest now;
And the stern curse of crushed affections light
Back on thy bosom with redoubled blight.
Lord Byron.

'MOTHER,' said Alexander Coupland to the wife of the rector of as they were sitting in the little breakfast-room which overlooked the church-yard, 'what made you answer Lady Geraldyne so hastily yesterday morning, when she asked you whose grave that was so near Mr. De Lacy's-Anna Vernon's, you know. Who was she, and what is there in her history, which rendered you so unwilling to enter into any particulars?'

'Lady Geraldyne, my dear,' replied Mrs. Coupland, 'admired the beautiful simplicity of the place of Anna's interment; but she did not know that the occupier of that lonely tomb was the innocent cause of her being a widowed bride. Nor did I wish to renew sorrows which twenty years have not entirely subdued.'

6

'I have heard you and my father sometimes talk of her,' pursued Alexander; but I wish you would let me hear the whole of her history. I believe there was one erring character in it, and as I am about entering the world, when the watchful arm which has guarded my infancy cannot shield me from the more hidden snares of youth, let me hear something which may prove a beacon through those dangers where my little bark may perhaps be called to steer.'

Mrs. Coupland embraced her beloved son, and as she gazed upon him, how fervently did she pray that the noble, ingenuous youth of nineteen might return to her with the same enthusiastic mind, the same affectionate heart as he possessed when quitting her.

I will comply with your request, my dear,' she returned; and if the recital may, by warning you, save your bosom one future sorrow, the pain I shall feel in recalling the narrative will be repaid.

'It was a most beautiful morning in, if I recollect aright, the May of 1802, that walking through this village with my cousin, Alfred de Lacy, who, like myself, was visiting our grandfather, who then resided at the Grange, two miles distant, while passing the churchyard our attention was arrested by seeing a funeral, apparently belonging to some family of respectability. The mourners were standing by the grave into which mortality had just been lowered. There was an expression of holy resignation in the countenance of the elder mourner, which showed that all his affections were not "set on things below;" that from a higher source he sought consolation. On his arm leaned a form so fragile that I mistook it for that of a child, till the impassioned, though stifled sobs, convinced me it belonged to one who too well understood the nature of sorrow. She stood for a moment after the thrilling words "Dust to dust" had received their mournful echo from the earth which rattled on the coffin-lid, when, with a shriek so bitter and agonizing that it seemed the last effort of despair, she sunk from the arm of him who, bowed to the earth beneath his own share of sorrow, was unable to sustain this additional calamity. Alfred, springing forward, caught her in his arms, and supported, or rather bore, her to the rectory, when, having removed the mournful habiliments which concealed her face, we found she was perfectly insensible; but how beautiful were those inanimate features! Chantry never sculptured any thing more exquisite. Lip, cheek, and brow were equally cold and colourless, and it was not till the heart-rent parent joined us that animation was restored. He came forward-the bereaved father and the Christian minister knelt by the side of his child. He cried for help to one who was mighty, and at the sound of his beloved voice the almost hovering spirit returned to its frail tenement. The flood-gates of her heart burst open, and for some minutes she wept convulsively. My dearest Anna," murmured the venerable saint, "let us not arraign the wisdom of Providence ;

666

he who says, 'Son of man, behold, I take from thee the desires of thine eyes at a stroke,' has also promised him,As thy day is, so shall thy strength be.' The child of the dust must return to its original parent, and it is wrong to "—"repine,” perhaps, he would have added, but the emotions of his own heart overcame him, and he hid his face in his handkerchief.

666

Father, dearest father," exclaimed the weeping girl, throwing her arms around him, "I know I am acting most cruelly, I am not fulfilling the last request of that blessed angel: she bade me comfort you; oh! forgive me, and I will endeavour to-"

'She paused, when Dr. Mosely, who was then rector, requested his wife to conduct Miss Vernon to another apartment, that nature might, if possible, find some relief in sleep. De Lacy and I then withdrew. We were both deeply affected with the scene we had witnessed, and as we again crossed the churchyard, Alfred made several inquiries respecting the funeral, from which we learned that the deceased was the twin daughter of Mr. Vernon, Dr. Mosely's respected curate.

She was but eighteen, sir," said the sexton, from whom we heard the particulars, as a tear fell from eyes unaccustomed to weep. "She was married but last June to a villain, an officer man he was, sir, but he was a villain still. Poor thing, she knew he was wild, but she hoped he would reform. Alack, Miss," turning to me, "when the tree has got bended it is seldom, if ever, straightened. Well, sir, the poor old gentleman, Mr. Vernon, I mean, tried to put it off, and Miss Adah said she would never do any thing to vex her papa; but when he saw her cheek grow so pale, and her poor eyes always red, why, he gave his consent. And the captain promised great things, so they were married; but before Christmas he had spent every shilling of her fortune, and left her to die in poverty; but her father went and brought her home. I don't hear where he is now."

"A curse, an everlasting curse rest on him, here and hereafter!" murmured my impatient cousin. "May

the man who deceives a confiding woman live in misery and die in infamy!" Horrible was the imprecation, and twice have I seen it awfully accomplished. The husband of Adah, a prey to remorse and poverty, ended his days in an asylum. The other-but I will not anticipate.

Hush, Alfred," I exclaimed, pressing his arm. Pray rather that repentance may follow his guilt." "You say right, miss," rejoined the old man. "I knew a young woman, once, who was deceived by the man she loved, and she wished he might never prosper. Alack, in two years she became his wife; he never did prosper; so never wish ill to any one, young gentleman, for perhaps it may come home to you as it did to my danghter, who is now a widow with six fatherless children. Poor Miss Adah used to say to her brother, 'Charles, when you feel angry with poor Dungarrow, think your sister loved him.' Poor Captain Charles is now abroad; oh, he will fret!"

Having rewarded the good sexton for his information, we returned home. Alfred and myself remained three months at the Grange, during which time we became intimate with Mr. Vernon and his daughter.

'Anna Vernon was certainly the most beautiful creature I ever beheld; her figure, though slight, was perfectly elegant. I cannot say in what her principal charm consisted. Every feature appeared faultless. Yet in describing her it was neither the eye, the lip, the truly noble brow, nor the complexion, which you would have named in particular. No: that beautiful whole was like the rainbow, where the colours blush and blend into loveliness.

'Miss Vernon was not simply a clever young woman. She possessed every accomplishment, natural and acquired; her drawings were perfection: she was a scientific performer on the piano-forte, and her voice was not merely sweetly harmonious-it was magnificent: Oh, never, never shall I forget that voice in song. short, Alexander, I shall never see her like again. Yet, amidst all, she was the sweet, unsophisticated child of

In