tion and tenderness. Smiles, like sunbeams, illuminated her beauty; and then the rich lustre of her dove-like eyes was momentarily dimmed by the effusion of unbidden tears -tears of inexpressible joy. But when her gaze turned towards Mephistophiles, it underwent a sudden and most complete change. That she had any suspicion of his real nature I doubted. His representation of the German prince would, I felt certain, deceive more experienced eyes than hers. Besides, I knew that she was not superstitious. The belief in the supernatural, of late years, had so entirely been destroyed in the minds of those who thought themselves superlatively wise, by the progress of modern philosophy, that any person in educated society would be ridiculed for adhering to the ancient credulity. Dora's strong sense of religion prevented her from believing in the existence of a spirit of evil assuming the person of a human creature. I felt assured the mystery of my fearful companion could not be penetrated by her. But how to account for her evident dread at first sight, and her continual uneasiness in his society, I knew not. I thought it strange.

We visited various places; dioramas and panoramas; exhibitions of different kinds; wonders of every variety. In each Lady Brambleberry expressed her great delight, and Mephistophiles his unbounded contempt. The scornful opinions of the latter were only regarded by her ladyship as evidence of singularity; a sign she never objected to in persons of high rank. The fictitious prince rose in her estimation as long as he scoffed at inferior things, as Whigs, Radicals, popularity, the vulgarity of the rich, and the ignorance of the poor; and he knew too well her disposition to venture an attack upon Tories, or on the church, or on the constitution, in her hearing. Dora appeared gratified, and often regarded the things before her with pleasure and surprise. I remained by her side nearly the whole of the time we were together, and pointed out whatever was worthy her attention. My attentions were received with gratitude, and rewarded with smiles. She clung closer to my arm, looked up with more tenderness in my face, and seemed to forget that the world contained aught besides ourselves. I could not feel indifferent to a devotion which was in her as firm a principle of her nature as life itself, and occasionally I found myself regarding her with something resembling a

pure affectionate interest. At one time, while indulging myself in these sacred and sincere emotions, and giving up my heart to the influence of its better feelings, I suddenly observed the scorching gaze of Mephistophiles directed towards me with such an intense expression of scorn and derision, that I felt as if all good and holy sentiments within me were utterly annihilated.

Nothing appeared to give Dora so much gratification as our visit to Westminster Abbey. We were met at Poet's Corner by one of the ecclesiastics, with whom Lady Brambleberry was acquainted, and he paid particular and respectful attention to both ladies. He pointed out the monuments, he gave a sketch of the history of the building, and he related some amusing anecdotes of the early abbots. Dora listened with reverence, and regarded every portion of the venerable structure with feelings of profound awe. She gazed on the tombs of the heroic dead with a high and holy enthusiasm. She seemed to step with a prouder carriage as she paced near the imposing memorials of their greatness. But in that home of illustrious dust-that glorious temple of buried intellect-that sanctuary of English glory, so aptly designated POET'S CORNER-she lingered as if among old acquaintances. She gazed upon those statues as on the forms of familiar friends; and read and reread their inscriptions as if they brought her tokens of a better world. And ever honoured be the monuments of those noble spirits who, shut out from the glittering vanities of the ungrateful world, fed their immortal natures with the pure food of heavenly inspiration; and have so enriched mankind with the treasures of philosophy and thought -with the sweet dreams of poetry, and the grand truths of science that the great world itself shall crumble and die into the vast chaos from whence it rose, sooner than the worth which it hath inherited from the accumulating dead shall be dissipated by ignorance, or rendered valueless by

crime!

Mephistophiles and I were together; the others were at some distance.

"And this is immortality!" exclaimed my companion, with a withering sneer, as he pointed to the tombs. "How worthy are the objects upon whom it has been conferred! How illustrious the qualifications which have deserved it!

Here lies a twaddling versifier-there an obscene jester. In one place is found the shrine of a royal debauchée—in another stands the tomb of a popular play-actor. Our eyes are taken off the memorial that speaks of Newton's greatness, to gaze on the monument to the carver in ordinary' of that immaculate monarch Charles the Second. We see a rich profligate, who had the good fortune to be shot one Sunday in his chariot in Pall Mall, made to demand our attention equally with the incapable minister who had the ill luck to be murdered in a similar manner in the lobby of the House of Commons. Then, in the place where we expect to find a tablet to the memory of some good statesman (if there is such a thing) grown gray in the public service, we find one immortalizing a child of a 'gentleman of the royal bedchamber!' Rare immortality! The church has a capital picking from the dead. Six thousand pounds were given by Parliament for the purpose of erecting a monument to the memory of the Earl of Chatham, of which only the small sum of seven hundred pounds was demanded and paid for the permission of the right reverend mightinesses of the abbey, before it was placed in its present situation. But all this marble pageantry-these dusty banners-these lying inscriptions, what are they? the scenery, and decorations, and text of a farce acted by the dead for the benefit of the living. A farce! no, 'tis not sa good as a farce. 'Tis a burlesque upon fame-a wretched libel upon time-a sorry pantomime of grave jokes, solemn tricks, and most lachryinose mummery.”

Here I heard Lady Brambleberry, as she stood near the monument of Fox, exclaim

"Why, I declare, here's a monument to that shocking Whig; and so near that excellent Mr. Pitt, too! Really it's quite a shame! The Whigs, and all such persons, should be buried by themselves. I've no notion of their thrusting themselves here. I'm sure Brambleberry would not like to be buried near Mr. Hume, or any of those low people; nay, I do not think that he would rest in his grave if he found himself in such neighbourhood; therefore I'm cer tain poor dear Mr. Pitt can't feel comfortable."

66

Bigotry would make distinctions in the grave," observed Mephistophiles; "but there are none. The grave

is your true leveller-the worm your only conservative.

6

The one honours no distinction; the other 'does what he likes with his own.' Death makes all men republicans. That dream of the living, universal equality,' is realized in the sleep of the dead. Honour be to the brave earth worm, though he be the representative of rottenness and corruption! Let his deeds be glorified by man's tongues, though he be signalized by his devotion to hole and corner doings. Is he not a rare friend to the church—a most conscientious pluralist? And is not the church a famous caterer for his appetite-the very jackal of his banquet? Then honour be to the brave earth worm, and glory to the levelling grave; and a long life, and a merry one, to holy mother church herself! But what a miserable vanity is all this laborious striving after immortality? The end of monuments, and columns, and pyramids, and cities, is dust. The result of embalmments, and epitaphs, and inscriptions, and history, is oblivion. In the centre of the great desert, where the eye rests upon an interminable waste of arid sand, may be found a crumbling fragment of a shapeless mass of stone. Upon it, in characters almost illegible, may, with considerable difficulty, be traced the following words: -I am Oxymandias the Magnificent. If you would seek traces of my greatness, look around! admire and wonder! This vast city, which hath no equal, I created!' Such is the immortality of man. The grave of the oriental Cæsar, Nadir Shah, is cultivated with turnips. The clay of Alexander the Great has been baked into pots and pans; and the mummy of the illustrious Pharaoh has been ground into paint. The hand that conquered the world may be kicked about on a dunghill; and the flesh of the proud monarch may colour a cart wheel. Ay! such is the boasted immortality of man!"

"But is not this a fine moral lesson for the living?" said I. "Does it not show the mere nothingness of renown, the very poverty of magnificence, and lead men's minds from the contemplation of a perishable greatness to something of a higher and more durable excellence? The truth it conveys may be humiliating, but wiser and better men have always looked upon it as a sure foundation for constructing an ascent that leads to heaven."

"Suppose it does convey a moral lesson," remarked Mephistophiles, with his usual sarcastic manner;

"how

6

profoundly the moral is regarded by those to whom the lesson is given! The conqueror speeds on his murderous career, seeking the bubble reputation.' His bubble is blown in blood. Never matter-it glistens in the sunbeam as brightly, and bursts in time's grasp as speedily as any other. Abuse not these lying inscriptions. Such forged recommendations to posterity are natural. Mankind want to be something better than they are. And when they can.

not persuade themselves of their superiority, they attempt to impose on their successors, and cuddle themselves in the grave with the hope of being of vast importance by-and-by. The humiliating conviction, that from dirt they came, and to dirt they must return, is thrust aside for the more flattering belief, that they are made to crawl about the earth like caterpillars during the period of human life; that they sink into a chrysalis state in the rotten wretchedness of the grave,--from which they are at some indefinite time to arise to a butterfly existence; and then they will be allowed to sport their pretty wings among fadeless flowers and everlasting sunshine, to a blissful eternity, of which they never bebeld the beginning, and are never to see the end. But this shrouding in sepulchral pomp is the passion of all men. That simple republican, or I should say, that glorious hypocrite, Oliver Cromwell, was buried with more than the splendour of kings. The walls of the chapel into which his body was consigned were hung with two hundred and forty escutcheons. The hearse was decorated with twentysix large embossed shields, and twenty-four smaller ones, ornamented with crowns; besides which, it contained sixty badges of his crest, and thirty-six scrolls, containing mottoes expressive of his merits. His effigies were magnificently carved, and arrayed with regal grandeur; and over all was borne a sumptuous pall, made of eighty yards of the richest velvet. A short time after this republican display, his body was dragged from its sacred resting-place, and hanged upon a gallows at Tyburn, amid the rejoicings and execrations of the very people who had made him their idol."

"Monumental honours have their use, nevertheless," said I; "they may sometimes be abused, and often bestowed upon undeserving objects, while merit is left to find a memorial where it may; yet to see the statue over the honoured dust of the truly illustrious, is to have something which com