tears. peace!" stood before him revealed in all her beauty, and he comprehended the language of her sweet but silent lips, which seemed to say — „What would the student Hieronymus to-night?",,Peace!" he answered, raising his clasped hands, and smiling through his ,,The student Hieronymus imploreth Then go," said the spirit, „go to the Fountain of Oblivion in the deepest solitude of the Black Forest, and cast this scroll into its waters, and thou shalt be at peace once more. "Hieronymus opened his arms to embrace the divinity, for her countenance assumed the features of Hermione; but she vanished away the music ceased, the gorgeous cloud-land sank and fell asunder, and the student was alone within the four bare walls of his chamber. As he bowed his head downward, his eye fell upon a parchment scroll, which was lying beside the lamp. Upon it was written only the name of Hermione! The next morning Hieronymus put the scroll into his bosom, and went his way in search of the Fountain of Oblivion. A few days brought him to the skirts of the Black Forest. He entered, not without a feeling of dread, that land of shadows; and passed onward under melancholy pines and cedars, whose branches grew abroad and mingled together, and, as they swayed up and down, filled the air with solemn twilight and a sound of sorrow. As he advanced into the forest the waving moss hung, like curtains, from the branches overhead, and more and more shut out the light of heaven, and he knew that the Fountain of Oblivion was not far off. Even then the sound of falling waters was mingled with the roar of the pines overhead; and ere long he came to a river, moving in solemn majesty through the forest, and falling with a dull, leaden sound into a motionless and stagnant lake, above which the branches of the forest met and mingled, forming perpetual night. This was the Fountain of Oblivion. ,,Upon its brink the student paused, and gazed into the dark waters with a steadfast look. They were limpid waters, dark with shadows only. And as he gazed, he beheld, far down in their silent depths, dim, and ill-defined outlines, wavering to and fro, like the folds of a white garment in the twilight. Then more distinct and permanent shapes arose; - shapes familiar to his mind, yet forgotten and remembered again, as the fragments of a dream; till at length, far, far below him he beheld the great city of the Past, with silent marble streets, and moss-grown walls, and spires uprising with a wave-like, flickering motion. And amid the crowd that thronged those streets, he beheld faces once familiar and dear to him; and heard sorrowful, sweet voices singing O, forget us not! O, forget us not! and then the distant mournful sound of funeral bells, that were tolling below, in the city of the Past. But in the gardens of that city there were children playing, and among them one who wore his features as they had been in childhood. He was leading a little girl by the hand, and caressed her often, and adorned her with flowers. Then, like a dream, the scene changed, and the boy had grown older, and stood alone, gazing into the sky; and, as he gazed, his countenance changed again, and Hieronymus beheld him, as if it had been his own image in the clear water; and before him stood a beauteous maiden, whose face was like the face of Hermione, and he feared lest the scroll had fallen into the water, as he bent over it. Starting as from a dream, he put his hand into his bosom and breathed freely again, when he found the scroll still there. He drew it forth and read the blessed name of Hermione, and the city beneath him vanished away, and the air grew fragrant as with the breath of May-flowers, and a light streamed through the shadowy forest and gleamed upon the lake; and the student Hieronymus pressed the dear name to his lips and exclaimed with streaming eyes „O, scorn me as thou wilt, still, still will I love thee; and thy name shall irradiate the gloom of my life, and make the waters of Oblivion smile!" And the name was no longer Hermione, but was changed to Mary; and the student Hieronymus is lying at your feet! arches of an ancient abbey. One is a temple of nature; the other a temple of art. In one, the soft melancholy of the scene is rendered still more touching by the warble of birds and the shade of trees, and the grave receives the gentle visit of the sunshine and the shower: in the other, no sound but the passing footfall breaks the silence of the place; the twilight steals in through high and dusky windows; and the damps of the gloomy vault lie heavy on the heart, and leave their stain upon the mouldering tracery of the tomb. Père la Chaise stands just beyond the Barriere d'Aulney, on a hill-side, looking towards the city. Numerous gravel-walks, winding through shady avenues and between marble monuments, lead up from the principal entrance to a chapel on the summit. There is hardly a grave that has not its little inclosure planted with shrubbery; and a thick mass of foliage half conceals each funeral stone. The sighing of the wind, as the branches rise and fall upon it, the occasional note of a bird among the trees, and the shifting of light and shade upon the tombs beneath, have a soothing effect upon the mind; and I doubt whether any one can enter that inclosure, where repose the dust and ashes of so many great and good men, without feeling the religion of the place steal over him, and seeing something of the dark and gloomy expression pass off from the stern countenance of death. a It was near the close of a bright summer afternoon that I visited this celebrated spot for the first time. The first object that arrested my attention, on entering, was monument in the form of a small Gothic chapel, which stands near the entrance, in the avenue leading to the right hand. On the marble couch within are stretched two figures, carved in stone and dressed in the antique garb of the Middle Ages. It is the tomb of Abelard and Heloise. The history of these unfortunate lovers is too well known to need recapitulation; but perhaps it is not so well known how often their ashes were disturbed in the slumber of the grave. Abelard died in the monastery of Saint Marcel, and was buried in the vaults of the church. His body was afterwards removed to the convent of Paraclet, at the request of Heloise, and at her death her body was deposited in the same tomb. Three centuries they reposed together; after which they were separated to different sides of the church, to calm the delicate scruples of the lady-abbess of the convent. More than a century afterward, they were again united in the same tomb; and when at length the Paraclet was destroyed, their mouldering remains were transported to the church of Nogent-sur-Seine. They were next deposited in an ancient cloister at Paris; and now repose near the gateway of the cemetery of Père la Chaise. What a singular destiny was theirs! that, after a life of such passionate and disasterous love, such sorrows, and tears, and penitence, very dust should not be suffered to rest quietly in the grave! that their death should so much resemble their life in its changes and vicissitudes, its partings and its meetings, its inquietudes and its persecutions! that mistaken zeal should follow them down to the very tomb, as if earthly passion could glimmer, like a funeral lamp, amid the damps of the charnel-house, and even in their ashes burn their wonted fires!" their As I gazed on the sculptured forms before me, and the little chapel, whose Gothic roof seemed to protect their marble sleep, my busy memory swung back the dark portals of the past, and the picture of their sad and eventful lives came up before me in the gloomy distance. What a lesson for those who are endowed with the fatal gift of genius! It would seem, indeed, that He who,,tempers the wind to the shorn lamb" tempers also his chastisements to the errors and infirmities of a weak and simple mind, while the transgressions of him upon whose nature are more strongly marked the intellectual attributes of the Deity, are fol lowed even upon earth by severer tokens of the divine displeasure. He who sins in the darkness of a benighted intellect sees not so clearly, through the shadows that surround him, the countenance of an offended God; but he who sins in the broad noonday of a clear and radiant mind, when at length the delirium of sensual passion has subsided, and the cloud flits away from before the sun, trembles beneath the searching eye of that accusing power which is strong in the strength of a godlike intellect. Thus the mind and the heart are closely linked together, and the errors of genius bear with them their own chastisement, even upon earth. The history of Abelard and Heloise is an illustration of this truth. But at length they sleep well. Their lives are like a tale that is told; their errors are „folded up like a book;" and what mortal hand shall break the seal that death has set upon them? Leaving this interesting tomb behind me, I took a pathway to the left, which conducted me up the hill-side. I soon found myself in the deep shade of heavy foliage, where the branches of the yew and willow mingled, interwoven with the tendrils and blossoms of the honeysuckle. I now stood in the most populous part of this city of tombs. Every step awakened a new train of thrilling recollections; for at every step my eye caught the name of some one whose glory had exalted the character of his native land, and resounded across the waters of the Atlantic. Philosophers, historians, musicians, warriors, and poets slept side by side around me; some beneath the gorgeous monuments, and some beneath the simple headstone. But the political intrigue, the dream of science, the historical research, the ravishing harmony of sound, the tried courage, the inspiration of the lyre, where are they? With the living, and not with the dead! The right hand has lost its cunning in the grave; but the soul, whose high volitions it obeyed, still lives to reproduce itself in ages yet to come. Among these graves of genius I observed here and there a splendid monument, which had been raised by the pride of family over the dust of men who could lay no claim either to the gratitude or remembrance of posterity. Their presence seemed like an intrusion into the sanctuary of genius. What had wealth to do there? Why should it crowd the dust of the great? That was no thoroughfare of business, no mart of gain! There were no costly banquets there; no silken garments, nor gaudy liveries, nor obsequious attendants! „What servants," says Jeremy Taylor, „,shall we have to wait upon us in the grave? what friends to visit us? what officious people to cleanse away the moist and unwholesome cloud reflected upon our faces from the sides of the weeping vaults, which are the longest weepers for our funerals?" Material wealth gives a factitious superiority to the living, but the treasures of intellect give a real superiority to the dead; and the rich man, who would not deign to walk the street with the starving and penniless man of genius, deems it an honour, when death has redeemed the fame of the neglected, to have his own ashes laid beside him, and to claim with him the silent companionship of the grave. I continued my walk through the numerous winding paths, as chance or curiosity directed me. Now I was lost in a little green hollow, overhung with thick-leaved shrubbery, and then came out upon an elevation, from which, through an opening in the trees, the eye caught glimpses of the city, and the little esplanade, at the foot of the hill, where the poor lie buried. There poverty hires its grave, and takes but a short lease of the narrow house. At the end of a few months, or at most of a few years, the tenant is dislodged to give place to another, and he in turn to a third. ,,Who," says Sir Thomas Browne, „knows the fate of his bones, or how often he is to be buried? Who hath the oracle of his ashes, or whither they are to be scattered?“ Yet, even in that neglected corner, the hand of affection had been busy in decorating the hired house. Most of the graves were surrounded with a slight wooden paling, to secure them from the passing footstep; there was hardly one so deserted as not to be marked with its little wooden cross, and decorated with a garland of flowers; and here and there I could perceive a solitary mourner, clothed in black, stooping to plant a shrub on the grave, or sitting in motionless sorrow beside it. - an As I passed on, amid the shadowy avenues of the cemetery, I could not help comparing my own impressions with those which others have felt when walking alone among the dwellings of the dead. Are, then, the sculptured urn and storied monument nothing more than symbols of family pride? Is all I see around me a memorial of the living more than of the dead, empty show of sorrow, which thus vaunts itself in mournful pageant and funeral parade? Is it indeed true, as some have said, that the simple wild-flower, which springs spontaneously upon the grave, and the rose, which the hand of affection plants there, are fitter objects wherewith to adorn the narrow house? No! I feel that it is not so! Let the good and the great be honoured even in the grave. Let the sculptured marble direct our foot-steps to the scene of their long sleep; let the chiselled epitaph repeat their names, and tell us where repose the nobly good and wise! It is not true that all are equal in the grave. There is no equality even there. The mere handful of dust and ashes, the mere distinction of prince and beggar, of a rich winding-sheet and a shroudless burial, of a solitary grave and a family vault, were this all, then, indeed, it would be true that death is a common leveller. Such paltry distinctions as those of wealth and poverty are soon levelled by the spade and mattock; the damp breath of the grave blots them out for ever. But there are other distinctions which even the mace of death cannot level or obliterate. Can it break down the distinction of virtue and vice? Can it confound the good with the bad? the noble with the base? all that is truly great, and pure, and godlike, with all that is scorned, and sinful, and degraded? No! Then death is not a common leveller! Are all alike beloved in death and honoured in their burial? Is that ground holy where the bloody hand of the murderer sleeps from crime? Does every grave awaken the same emotions in our hearts? and do the footsteps of the stranger pause as long beside each funeral-stone? No! Then all are not equal in the grave! And as long as the good and evil deeds of men live after them, so long will there be distinctions even in the grave. The superiority of one over another is in the nobler and better emotions which it excites; in its more fervent admonitions to virtue; in the livelier recollections which it awakens of e good and the great, whose bodies are crum ɔling to dust beneath our feet! If, then, there are distinctions in the grave, surely it is not unwise to designate them by the external marks of honour. These outward appliances and memorials o respect, the mournful urn, the sculptured bust, --- the epitaph eloquent in praise, cannot indeed create these distinctions, but they serve to mark them. It is only when pride or wealth builds them to honour the slave of mammon or the slave of appetite, when the voice from the grave rebukes the false and pompous epitaph, and the dust and ashes of the tomb seem struggl ing to maintain the superiority of mere worldly rank, and to carry into the grave the baubles of earthly vanity, it is then, and then only, that we feel how utterly worthless are all the devices of sculpture, and the empty pomp of monumental brass! JOSEPH C. NEAL. Born 1807. A PRETTY TIME OF NIGHT. We know it to be theoretical in certain schools in the kitchen, for instance, which is the most orthodox and sensible of the schools that, as a general rule, the leading features of character are indicated by the mode in which we pull a bell; and that, to a considerable extent, we may infer the kind of person who is at the door just as we do the kind of fish that bobs the cork - by the species of vibration which is given to the wire. Rash, impetuous, choleric and destructive, what chance has the poor little bell in such hands? But the considerate, modest, lowly and retiring do you ever would take off his boots and go up stairs in his stocking-feet, muttering rebuke to every step that creaked? What a deprecating mildness there is in the deportment of the ,, great locked out!" How gently do they tap, and how softly do they ring; while perchance, in due proportion to their enjoyment in untimely and protracted revel, is the penitential aspect of their return. There is a ,, never-do-so-any-more-ishness" all about them yea even about the bully boys ,,who wouldn't go home till morning till daylight does appear", singing up to the very door; and when they It is intended as a hint merely, and not as a broad annunciation insinuated not proclaimed aloud that somebody who is very sorry who didn't go to help it", and all that is at the threshold, and that if it be the same to you, he would be exceeding glad to come in, with as little of scolding and rebuke as may be thought likely to answer the purpose. There is a hope in it a subdued hope Tinkle!" that perchance a member of the family good-natured as well as insomnolent may be spontaneously awake, and disposed to open the door without clamouring up Malcolm, Donalbain, and the whole house. Why should every one know? But - Even patience itself on a damp, chilly, unwholesome night - patience at the street Goor, all alone by itself and disposed to slumber as patience is apt to be after Fatience has been partaking of potations and of collations even patience itself cannot >e expected to remain tinkling there , pianissimo" - hour after hour, as if there vere nothing else in this world worthy of attention but the ringing of bells. Who can b surprised, that patience at last becomes eckless and desperate, let the consequences rhinoceroses or Hyrcan tigers — assume what shape they may? There is a furious stampede upon the a fierce word or two of scathing marble Saxon, and then excruciating kind, which leads to the conclusion that somebody is worse", and is getting in a rage. That one, let me tell you, was Mr. Dawson Dawdle, in whom wrath had surmounted discretion, and who, as a forlorn hope, had now determined to make good his entrance 66 assault, storm, escalade at any hazard and at any cost. Dawson Dawdle was furious now ,,sevagerous as you have been, probably, when kept at the door till your teeth rattled like castanets and cachuchas. Passion is picturesque in attitude as well as poetic in expression. Dawson Dawdle braced his feet one on each side of the doorpost, as a purchase, and tugged at the bell with both hands, until windows flew up in all directions, and night-capped heads in curious variety were projected into the gloom. Something seemed to be the matter at Dawdle's. that Mrs. Dawson Dawdle was deaf ,,Have music in 't, But Dawdle was allowed to make his obmusic in the street, while his wife durate listened with a smile bordering, we fear, a little upon exultation, at his progressive lessons and rapid improvements in the art of ringing,,triple-bob-majors.“ ,,Let him wait", remarked Mrs. Dawson Dawdle; let him wait 'twill do him good. I'm sure I've been waiting long enough for him." And so she had; but, though there be a doubt whether this process of waiting had ,,done good" in her own case, yet if there be truth or justice in the vengeful practice which would have us act towards others |