native, which had become a necessity, when the events of the contest separated him from his preserver. The Austrians became in their turn the assailants, and Nardoni and his youthful foe lost sight of each other. They parted, however, not too hastily for Nardoni to recognise, by a hurried glance, the features of the gallant preserver of the standard his ambition had, in a former campaign, prompted him to endeavour to seize.

From this time, Nardoni embraced every opportunity of making inquiries about his generous foe, but he could gain no traces of him. The solitary trait of magnanimity which he had discovered was lost amidst a number of brilliant and more useful achievements; and the chances of war never permitted them to meet, For several successive years, misfortune in almost every form continued to persecute the unfortunate Nardoni. A deficiency of prudence, and the expenses attendant on the life of a thoughtless soldier, involved him in pecuniary embarrassment; it became necessary to part with his patrimony. A severe wound in his chest subsequently rendered him too feeble to support the fatigue of a military life. His habits rendered him unfit for any other profession.

In a state of extreme distress, Nardoni found his way to England. In its immense metropolis he endeavoured, but with moderate success, to gain a scanty livelihood by teaching his native tongue.

The high-toned soul of Nardoni, however, was but ill formed to brook obscurity. His naturally elastic spirits sank gradually under the pressure of solitude; and his mind, accustomed to behold, as from an elevated seat, a rapid succession of interesting events, became warped and depressed by the sameness of sedentary occupation.

In one of those paroxysms of acute feeling to which the noblest minds only are unhappily subject, Nardoni contemplated self-destruction. He had wandered out in the chill of a winter's evening, and, passing several crowded streets, he found himself near one of

the bridges. He gained the centre of the elevation; he leaned listlessly on the parapet; he gazed on the innumerable lights which, glimmering through the darkness, enabled the eye to trace the course of the river; he listened to the confused hum of the immense multitude, which gave life and animation to the extended space around him. An unconquerable sensation of loneliness took possession of his bosom. The rattling of rapid carriages, the boisterous shouts and careless mirth of a crowd of beings, amongst whom he remembered that there was but one who felt interested for him, while every one appeared to his imagination infinitely more to be envied than himself- all seemed to insult his solitude and his poverty. He imagined that his existence was totally useless; that it could be no duty to preserve a being in which he found scarcely any duties to perform. He had almost reasoned himself into the conviction of the propriety of shortening a life to which he felt no attachment, and from all the duties of which he fancied himself dismissed, when his meditations were interrupted by low and plaintive notes, proceeding from a wretched being whose close proximity to himself he had not before noticed.

The stranger was, to all appearance, in a condition as wretched as could be produced by all the varieties of misfortune combined. Poverty peeped out from every rent of his scanty apparel, famine hung on his projecting cheek, despair scowled on his brow. His miserable appearance diverted Nardoni for a moment from the contemplation of his own less obvious miseries, and he accosted him with emotions of mingled curiosity and compassion.

Nardoni's first idea was that the stranger had entertained the same views with himself-he was mistaken. No,' said the stranger; God has ordained that we should sometimes suffer--to suffer is, then, not less a duty than is at other times to enjoy.'

The stranger was in a state of extreme debility. With difficulty Nardoni supported him to his lodgings;

and while sharing with him his moderate accommodation-while soothing his sufferings, and ministering to his wants, he found that Providence had still left some object in the wide world to which his heart might cling, and on which it might exercise its finer feelings. The now obscure Nardoni had long ceased to inquire, and even to think, of the dashing and impetuous young Austrian, whom he had twice encountered, only in a moment of danger and of glory. He had endeavoured to forget that he had ever aspired to fame and distinction; he had endeavoured to reduce his mind to a level with his altered circumstances.

Nardoni found his protegé a man of highly cultivated mind and versatile talents. He had evidently borne a part in the higher scenes of life; he had evidently fallen from a high sphere. It was not till a degree of confidence had produced a return as a debt of gratitude-it was not without many efforts to pierce through the veil of modesty that obscured in the stranger's mind qualities of the highest order-that Nardoni discovered that his wretched acquaintance and the dashing Austrian were the same individual.

The moment of recognition was a moment that would not have been exchanged by either for a throne. Nardoni and his friend were henceforth inseparable. They united their efforts and their talents, and a partial success speedily crowned their exertions. They had both a talent for invention. Nardoni, in one of those freaks of the mind which careless conversation produces and fosters, struck out an idea which more careful discussion matured. It grew into a useful and important discovery; the friends procured a patent; and the biting evil of poverty was dismissed.

It was in the next moment, when the imaginations of both friends were on the wing, each in search of whatever might be entertaining to both, that Nardoni called up a scene of his early childhood. It was drawn from the forest in which he had been detained by the banditti. The remarks of his friend led to a narration of the events that had fixed the picture in

his imagination. The cave, the forest, the robbers, the escape, the cottage of the woodman, the little Coretti, were all conjured up in perspective; and the smiles and the wonder of his listening friend were followed by the discovery that the gallant foe, the generous saviour, and the late found friend of Nardoni, was the companion of his unfortunate childhood, and of his daring escape.

The hand of death-too true to its aim, though erring in its selection-deprived Nardoni of his friend. The violent grief which followed his loss was succeeded by a dejected state of mind, in which Nardoni still fancied that his deceased friend was present. The chair was placed; the convivial glass was filled; the rapid sally of confidential and undisguised goodhumour was called up; the reflected reply was imagined. And at such times it was not till exhausted Nature sank under the unnatural excitement produced by a mind diseased, that Nardoni recovered a consciousness of the truth.

Nature was not, however, called on long to endure this exhausting conflict. The Wizard of Westminster, as he was named by his youthful neighbours, followed his friend to a modest grave, and his eccentricities, with his virtues, were forgotten.

THE TRUMPETS SOUNDS TO WAR'S ALARMS.
THE trumpet sounds to war's alarms,
And bids each hero fly to arms,

To guard his native land;
Hark! the shrill blast again resounds,
And every patriot bosom bounds
To meet the hostile band.

The lover meets his mistress dear,
Whose lovely eye betrays each fear,
But honour conquers beauty:
Eager for vict'ry's wreath he burns,
He flies, he conquers, and returns
To love, endeared by duty.

W. C. O.

LINES TO KENILWORTH CASTLE.

IMMORTAL relics of the times of old,
Reared by a lordly and exalted hand,
How grand ye look, and how supremely bold,
As in your fallen majesty ye stand.
Mournful I read the history of your glory,
And bless the issue of your wond'rous story.
You're but a spectre of your former state;
No dames join now the revel of your halls,
No daring knight now rattles at your gate,

No knight within etorts his haughty calls,
For now your gates are gone, your towers are broken,
And ne'er within your walls the watch-word's spoken.
In your proud form an emblem yet we find,
E'en in your later and degenerate day,
Of a once vig'rous, energetic mind,

Noble in ruins, reverend in decay,

That shines resplendently in hist'ry's pages,
And stands a pattern fit for future ages.
Tell me, ye ivy'd towers, can ye repeat
The tales of revelry your lords have told?
Do ye remember ev'ry varied feat

Of chivalry, and gallant knights of old,
Who in these lower courts so fiercely battled,
Whose armour glistened, and whose truncheons rattled?
Tell me, ye halls, what pageantry passed by,

What glittering ornaments were showered around, When at your portals entered royalty,

In-ushered by the trumpet's martial sound,
Did not each bosom overflow with pleasure,
To hail the queen and hear the joyous measure.
Silence prevails! then 'twas decreed on high
That ye like men should revel in your fame,
Then in the wreck of former glory lie,

With nothing left but ruins and a name.

Yes! as a vision of your glory lying,

Without the power or e'en the thought of dying.

U. C. K. L'E.