broadswords to guard them, would no doubt occupy him by way of morning's computation.

"The good old rule

Sufficed him,-the simple plan,

That they should take who have the power,
And those should keep who can."

As we descended half an hour after, a large kite-hawk, or "gled," poising himself on his long wings, and rising in circles to look out for some rabbit or other, appeared seemingly from this very place: possibly he would now and then extend his flight to observe the chickens of our friends, the hill-farmers, or pounce upon the moor-fowl. This we could scarcely avoid considering an amusing instance of that law of compensation, by which nature makes up for blanks, mimicking too the improvements, as well as the faults of man. Hundreds of fat sheep however were grazing about the old outlaw's resort in safety, so that it was a stage in advance, with respect to Uam Var at least.

The top of Uam Var, by the way, is visited like its neighbours by that rare bird the ptarmigan; the white or Alpine hare is there common; and in the higher moors, there rose from before us pairs of the heavy grouse or black-cock, shooting up with the harsh scream which is so musical to the ear of a sportsman. G. C.

"I REMEMBER THE TIME.”

"I remember the time" when the wild wood had pleasures
For me, of more worth than the mine's dazzling wealth!
And among them, not least of its exquisite treasures,
Were innocent joy, and the red cheek of health.
When the song of the lark carolled sweetly above me,
And the meadows were dotted with daisies around,
And the deep-welling heart of a mother to love me,
In the home, the dear home of my childhood, I found!
When sweet May, with her lap full of blossoms, invited
My young, ardent fancy, to pluck where I would,
As I gazed on their opening beauties, delighted,

My choice quite bewildered, so thick they were strewed.
Her own starry blossoms, white, dewy, delicious,

In fragrance and form, would enchain me awhile;
Then, in childhood's abandonment, ever capricious,
Would the violet's beauty my fancy beguile.

And, as deepened the Summer, its warmth and its splendour
Drew the butterfly forth from its chrysalis tomb,
To revel 'mid flowers, on wings, light and slender
As their own lovely petals, and rich as their bloom :
Oh! then, with what joy through the fields did I chase it,
Where the blue corn-flower waved 'mid the bright golden ears;
Now lost it one moment, the next to retrace it,-

Proud manhood, e'en such! are thy hopes and thy fears!
Then came Autumn, rich-glowing, inviting the ramble,
Through the lane, up the wood-path embrowned by the sun,
Where I gathered the berries that hung on the bramble,
Nor heeded the scratches such rovings had won;
And, haply, ere yet I had half filled my basket,

The storm-cloud would gather, and burst o'er my head,
But I pressed it the closer, as though 'twere a casket
Of beautiful jewels, the brightest e'er shed!

Old Winter approaching, the woods for the "ingle"
Deserted, the meadows, all sheeted in snow,
Made us glad by the blaze of the warm hearth to mingle,
And list "Olden Tales" by the log's ruddy glow,
"I remember the time," but, remembrance is anguish,
For Oh! it brings back all the "dream of the past!"
For life's spring-its summer-its autumn we languish,

When its Winter's deep gloom hath the landscape o'ercast!
When no more-oh! no more, the wild wood hath its pleasures,
When the VALUE we've learned of the mine's dazzling wealth!
When no longer we share those lost exquisite treasures,
Youth's innocent joy! and its red cheek of health!
When the song of the lark, heard no longer above us,
Invites to the fields, though with daisies they're crowned,
And the warm-welling heart of a mother to love us,
No more in the home of our childhood is found!

ROBERT E. LAWSON.

BEST ROOMS. BY ELIZA COOK.

AMONG all the follies prevalent in the middle classes, that of sacrificing family comfort and convenience to the absurd desire of having a "best room," is one of the most ridiculous. Let it not be inferred that we consider good furniture, elegant curtains, and handsome carpets as superfluous luxuries for people in plebeian state-far from it. Consistent taste and prudent display are to be as much admired in the house of a commoner as in the saloons of a nobleman; but when a room is set apart in a small domicile as the mere receptacle of company, and all in that room held sacred to frigid ceremony and ostentatious pretensions; when the chairs are cased in Holland jackets, and the carpet puts on its pinafore of the same material for months together, when the apartment is literally "shut up," indicating that family comfort lies dead within it, then may the "best room" be condemned as worse than useless.

For our own part we think there is something perfectly terrifying in being asked into a fine, stately drawingroom-the polished bars shining with unnatural brightness-the fire-irons arranged in stiff angles, evidently never appropriated to their purpose-the tables most geometrically studded with glossy, unread volumes of rubbish, and the besilked and betasselled sofas, looking as if they were intended for anything but sitting on. We give an involuntary shudder as we are left to gaze upon costly chimney-ornaments and japanned screens, while the lady of the house is, most probably, making a rush to execute the metamorphose of dress and cap. We would much rather have been introduced to the common parlour, where we should have beheld some signs of social vitality and thawed ourselves into goodhumoured cheerfulness; but then and there we might have seen a basket of stockings and socks undergoing the process of repair, the youngsters might have been lugging the chairs about, and left a tailless horse and wheelless cart in the foreground. We might have formed suspicions that bloaters had been among the matin condiments, and oh! most dire of all! we might have found the mistress in a somewhat rumpled morning wrapper and a "fright of a cap;" still we should greatly prefer the risks of breaking our neck over Noah's ark, sitting down on a heap of undarned hose, and encountering a fifthrate head-gear, to the petrifying, spirit-damping fifteen minutes we are often sentenced to in a "best room."

Very trying things are these "best rooms," especially where the lady proprietor is " excessively particular," and walks round it with her laced cambric, which she insinuates into every crevice, to ascertain if the unhappy housemaid has done her duty efficiently. Heaven preserve us from a hostess who is devoted to a "best room!"

never think of playing at "Bo-peep" behind the richly

was,

We remember being once put into a "best room," in order that our devotions to Apollo might be undisturbed. It doubtless, a considerate and gracious condescension on the part of our entertainers, but never shall we forget the shudder that came over us as the door closed, and we stood alone amid all the " pomps and vanities of a domestic Iceland. The room was large enough for all needed comfort and agreeable "elbow space," but perfectly apoplectic with upholstered repletion. Every article of furniture was mathematically placed; every chair and ottoman was as prim and proper as a row of young ladies during the first hour of an evening party. The chandeliers and candelabras were "done up" in sombre-looking garments, and the curtains and sweeping draperies assumed the same sullen frigidity. Not a tint of the carpet could be seen, scarce a ray of light was admitted through the closely-blinded windows, and we stood transfixed between a gorgeous "console" in book muslin, and a grand "divan " in a brown Holland "Taglioni," with our inspiration oozing out rapidly. We had conceived a notion of some "Stanzas on the Autumn Sunshine," but as we glanced around on the formal arrangement of disguised splendour, we lost all the elixir of Poetry, and became as hard, worldly, and common-place as a penny-piece on a bar counter; our copy-book (we always indite in a copy-book, gentle reader,) was flung down on the richly inlaid table, with an air of offended pride and wounded sensibility. How could we gather "thoughts that burn," in the vicinity of sofas that looked like sepulchre stones? or find "words that breathe," where everything was close, muffled, and choked? No! our spirit revolted, and we stood in sulky silence, remembering with invidious contrast the snug family apartment we had occupied the day before. That cosey room had its well-worn carpet; its broad, soft, oldfashioned couch; its chintz-covered, really easy-chairs; its cheerful bit of fire, though it was only the end of September; its ancient fender, on which you might put your feet; its friendly-looking woollen table-cover, with a stain or two of ink and wine on it; its quaint old pictures of a venerable grandfather, in a snuff-coloured coat and powder, and a respected grandmother, in ruffled sleeves and "toupee," and had its mantel-piece loaded with china shepherds and shepherdesses; and above all, it had its pleasant little bay-window, where a pet myrtle was supported by a couple of choice geraniums. We had been quite at home in this cosey room, and had managed to get through a very fair "effusion," despite the thousand-and-one interruptions we were liable to. It is true, that a privileged spaniel and pugnacious kitten startled

bowl us out at cricket, had the impertinent audacity to peep over our shoulder and stigmatize certain inspired hieroglyphics as being "very funny." Yet we got on famously, for we were happy and content with social homeliness about us; and were we to undertake an Epic to-morrow, we would prefer attempting the glorious task amid a confusion of household noises in a "family parlour," especially including upstart kittens and impertinent children, to working at the same in a solitary best room," where the warmest strings of our harp must turn into stalactites.

We confess we have a strong natural predilection for the "free and easy" mode of existing; and somehow we find, that people who pride themselves on "exclusively best rooms," generally expect a degree of ceremonious caution and physical restraint to be exercised in these said rooms, which materially interferes with our simple notions of happiness.

We observe that these rooms are generally only in "use" on some specific occasion, when those invited are scarcely as cold and stiff as those who invite; and many a time have we oscillated between a smile and a sigh, to see the "lady of the house," who was really a very amiable being in the "general parlour," grow into something of a strange and fish-like character, as she strained herself into a bearing and tone which she thought adapted to the "best room." How we have pitied her as we have seen her give the last becoming arrangement to her rich satin dress, and with a step of nervous anxiety enter the sacred precinct to see if all were right, previous to the reception of the illustrious Browns and the wealthy Joneses; and let us add, we have mischievously enjoyed the agony expressed in her face, when some thoughtless young man, in his utter listlessness of yawning vacuity, has rested his heavy head, most redolent of "bear's grease," on the splendidly-papered wall. Spirit of Christian Benevolence, forgive our wickedness; but we thought it a just punishment for setting up idols, that could not be approached with confiding worship.

We have seen much to confirm our affection for common sitting-rooms," and have a vulgar propensity to nestle ourselves among every-day chairs and tables, where a litter or a noise may be made at pleasure; and one determination, founded on suffering experience, we mean religiously to abide by, which is, that whenever we indulge in the poetic improbability of having a house of "our own," be it in Portman-square or Pump-alley, there shall be no "best room" in it.

LEGEND OF BERTHA, WITH THE
LONG FOOT.

(THE MOTHER OF CHARLEMAGNE.)

BERTHA, the daughter of Charibert, the noble Count of Laon, was surnamed, "Bertha, with the long foot," because she had one foot longer than the other. And happy was she, and well did it bestead her, that it was so;

as all will know who hear the passages of her history, which those who loved the name of her, who was the glory of France, have chronicled for our children's children.

Bertha, known also as Bertha the good-natured, from being in disposition so sweet, so mild, left Liege, her country, and came about the year of our Lord seven hundred twenty and one, into France, to espouse King Pepin. Her mother, who was named Blanche Fleur, did love her daughter much-yea, doted on her, blessed and graced her, and followed her with tender observance. Sad was she when parting from her, and sorely did she weep, and oft-times call her apart and enjoin her, as much as a mother can command her child, to love and serve God, and never omit the duty of prayer, night and morning; and though heaven would make her a queen, to be courteous and obliging to all persons, kind to the widow and the orphan, and temperate herself, that she might give large bounty to the poor. And then she would quit her, and turn again to commend her, with many and earnest words, to the care of her nurse Margista. Now this Margista had a daughter named Alise, of like age with Bertha, and like unto her in shape also, and port, and fair complexion, and in the colour of her brown hair. This close likeness did stir up foul thoughts in Margistafor covetous was Margista, and much did she desire to be rich and great. Who would think that so great goodness of such noble mistress could not have bound gratefulness, and so high advancement as being near her person, not have sufficed for her aspirings? Margista wickedly designed, and cunningly devised to pass her daughter for the daughter of Blanche Fleur-nor was such device difficult to put in act with such timid young thing as Bertha was. Shutting Bertha up in her room, she presented, under her name, Alise to the king, who espoused her forthwith. The next day she bade Bertha to come with her into the chamber of the king. She obeyed, and so soon as they were within the room, Margista went near unto her daughter, and gave her a little scratch in her arm, then escaped, leaving Bertha alone in the presence of the king and Alise; which latter perceiving that she was wounded, began to cry aloud that she was betrayed, and like to be assassinated. Whereupon the king called out, and his people ran to him, and found only Bertha, with a knife on the ground beside her. Margista, the vile wretch Margista, had run with the others, making semblance to be astonished like the rest, and then makes confession, with well-feigned passion, that she but too plainly sees that her daughter is the guilty one, and she said "Let the guard seize her, for she is guilty, unless the king's grace will give her to me, to be dealt with by a mother to whom she has this day done dishonour and foul disgrace." The false Bertha joined her in intreating the king, and the true Bertha stood confounded and trembling, and wist not if it were all real, or, if it were a dark and troublous dream; and then, before she had bethought her so as to speak one word, she was gagged and torn away by the false woman, who on the instant gave her to four sergeants, with orders to conduct her to the forest of Orleans, there to put her to death, and to bring back her

heart.

to feel in their hearts that Bertha was innocent, and they could not find it in their nature to put to a death so cruel, this gentle and patient creature. They bade her to rise and go whithersoever she liked, only to let it be as far as possible, so as not to render them suspected to the king. Then having killed a pig they took out the heart, and bore it still bleeding to the infamous Margista. Let us now leave for a little time the hapless Bertha, flying with all the haste her strength allowed, and let us go back to King Pepin and to Alise, who shared his throne under the name of Bertha; or rather let us go back to Blanche Fleur, who, wearying of not seeing her dear daughter, set off upon a journey to make her a visit.

As she came into the French territory, Blanche Fleur heard only of all the evil done by the queen; and the poor mother, as they spake of the tyrannous acts of the wife of Pepin, had great marvel what change had passed upon her kind, and lowly, and lovely Bertha. Fresh grief awaited her at Paris, for she had scarcely came into the city, when they came to tell her that her daughter was ill and could not receive her.

"My daughter refuse to see me!" cried Blanche Fleur. "Nay, but it is not true; there is some witchcraft here." And sending for Margista, she closely questioned her on the illness of her daughter. The traitress told her lie upon lie; she said that it was joy, and sweet, but sudden surprise at her dear mother's coming which had made her ill, but that, certes, she would soon have strength enough to bear so dear a sight. But she spake confusedly, one time saying one thing, and one time another; and Blanche Fleur who was not to be imposed upon, and who, moreover, wished to clear up the sad tales she had heard of the daughter she had so tenderly cherished, now sends Margista away, and without giving her any intimation of her purpose, after she had left, gets into her chariot drawn by oxen, repairs to the palace, alights, and goes straightway to the apartment of her daughter.

It was again Margista who presented herself, and, with almost distracted air, would have stopped her further advance, but Blanche Fleur with imperious gesture ordered her to retire, and so passed on, and entered the chamber of the false Bertha. It had been purposely darkened so that the bed was scarcely to be distinguished, in which lay a woman with her face completely hidden in her head-gear, and who now said in a voico, feeble as that of a dying person, "Mother, approach not, I am as yellow as wax."

The heart of the mother told her "This cannot be my child. Never was child to mother so loving as my sweet Bertha, and were she sick or were she dying, when my first foot-fall came upon her car she would have cried,

Now, behold poor Bertha in the forest, delivered over to these rude men! Already had they drawn their huge sabres to execute the orders of the barbarous Margista. The daughter of Blanche Fleur wept sore, and besought them with many tears to give her time to commend her soul unto God, promising them that she would, after that, submit to her dire fate.

long time she was obliged to wander through the woods and fields, begging her bread from village to village, but sorrowing most of all at the unkindness that had all but caused her death-unkindness so strange to her who had known only the tender love of her princely parents, and who had never been approached by rough word or cold look. Long and weary way she wended, till foot-sore, and heart-sick, she came into the province of Maine, where an aged hermit did afford her shelter, and then, won by her sweetness and her piety, he sent her to a poor, but charitable family, who willingly gave her food and lodging, receiving for all recompense such aid as Bertha could render in the household work. Simon, and Constance, his wife, and two young damsels their daughters, Isabeau and Aiglontine, composed this Godfearing family. The daughter of Blanche Fleur simply told them, without either revealing or dissembling aught, that she was an unhappy one, whom sad cruelty had driven from her home. They asked her name, and she said "Bertha ;" and then they said, "that is the name of the Queen;" and Bertha blushed, was silent, and turned to wait upon them in some household office. Soon did she become the child of Simon and Constance, and the heart's sister of Isabeau and Aiglontine; and soon was she the pride of the village. Who could help loving the graceful, gentle, beauteous, and modest Bertha, that could do everything that hands could do, and whose words were so wise and so discreet that they all said, "No clerk could say more wise, nor any half so sweet." And now news had reached them, that the Queen was discovered to be not the true Bertha, and as the villagers gathered about the ingle-nook, there went round words of pity for the innocent one, who had been the victim of her murderous enemies. But there were times when a thought did shoot athwart the minds of Simon and Constance that, perhaps, she has escaped the sergeants and the wolves, less cruel than her foes, and that the true Queen might be the maiden they had housed and now did so fondly cherish; but Bertha, finding herself happy in her quiet retreat, passing her time in sewing and in spinning, suffered not herself to give any colour to these imaginings, and the idea would have wholly passed away, were it not that some look of nobleness, beseeming high-born dame rather than the village-maiden, from time to time revived it.

Days and years passed on, when upon occasion of a great hunt in the province of Maine, King Pepin, having strayed from his company, met a young country maiden, of whom he enquired his way. "I am an officer whose duty it is to wait upon the King," said he, "and I have strayed from the path in trying to keep up with him."

The damsel offered to serve him as a guide, and wellpleasing was such an offer to him. As they went on the way some speech arose between them, and much did Pepin marvel to hear from a country maiden words so full of sense and discretion, and as he looked upon her it seemed to him as if he could perceive the bearing of courtly dame under the peasant's weeds.

The fixed gaze of the pretended officer of the King, and the change from the blunt, careless tone of his first address, to almost the courtesy with which gallant commends himself to fair lady, alarmed her modesty, and, profiting by an opening in the wood, which gave to view the house of Simon, she pointed it out to him, as she bent in salutation, and was soon lost to his sight in the thicket.

Pepin soon reached the house. Eagerly did he inquire of Simon, not his way, but of the damsel he had met; and the simple, artless couple told him all they knew of her and all they suspected. Pepin asked the time of the arrival of Bertha at their house, and he knew that it was the same time when she, who should have been his wife, had been driven forth alone. Might she not, indeed, be his Bertha ? At this instant Aiglontine gave notice

that her adopted sister was coming, and Pepin begged of his host to question her, and he hid himself to hear what she might answer.

Bertha had not recognised the King, so that when she came in, her first words were to ask if a young officer of the Court had been there, and whether any of them had guided him on his way. Constance did not make a straightforward answer; and then, turning her speech to the woes that had driven Bertha from her home, she asked to hear the sad tale of all, and then she told her that sometimes she had a thought that she was the Bertha of King Pepin. "And if it be so," said the good Constance, "the King is now in the province, and seasonable time it would be to make all known." And at the thought if it were so, Bertha must leave their poor cottage, the kind one's tears flowed down her cheeks. "No, no," said Bertha, as for tenderness, she wept too, "I have no other home, I wish to have no other. Were my own dear mother but here I could live and die with such kind friends. In giving me them, God has given me all."

"But he has, moreover, given thee," said Pepin, now appearing, and falling at her feet, "a husband, whose destiny it is to love thee at all times, in all places, and under all disguises, even when he knew thee not, and who has no other desire save that thou wouldest deign to forget the sad cruelty thou hast sustained at his hands."

Sweet messsage of gladness and consolation was sent before the royal pair to Blanche Fleur, but she believed not for joy. Soon, however, did the mother see her sweet Bertha face to face, and the great comfort did put her sorrow out. It was from her abode with Simon and Constance that the Queen brought that most excellent taste for spinning that made her, now that she no longer needed for herself, spend most of her time in spinning garments for the poor; and, therefore, was she named Bertha the Spinster. She was the mother of the noble King Charlemagne.

KENSAL-GREEN CEMETERY.

In these days of desecrated churchyards it requires a visit to Kensal-Green, or some other of the suburban cemeteries, to sweeten our imagination with regard to the resting-places of the dead; how contrasted is their solemn quiet, their placid tombs, the fresh green turf, the shrubby alleys, the perfume, and the flowers, with the crowded, reeking, never-resting graves of city burialplaces. At this season of the year there is something in the aspect of sepulchral places, that harmonizes well with the shade of depression which the falling leaves, the grey sky, and heavy atmosphere of waning autumn insensibly inspire. On a bright summer's morning, when the very sense of motion is delicious, and nature teems with images of life; when the warm buoyant air affects our spirits as if the atmosphere were laughing gas, and we remain as recklessly defiant of death's-heads and cross bones (if any such offensive trophies are to be met with in these flowery regions), as if we had no personal interest in the only hatchment which, independent of the Herald's office, each son of Adam is entitled to set up. In winter, too, one feels no vocation for churchyard visitings; there is nothing comfortable in the hivernal appearance of these narrow houses, with all their imagery wrapped in snow; the stone and green turf seem as melancholy then, as in Ophelia's song, and we would none of them; 'tis only misery, with brain on fire, can realize relief in "cold obstruction." But at this period, when the sign of change stamps itself upon the fading face of nature, when the chestnut and lime trees grow yellow, and the leaves of the sycamore are spotted brown; when the hand of the economical mother turns to account their falling vestures, and wraps the seared leaves round the forest

roots; when vegetation, vague and objectless, dissipates itself in degenerate blossoms, sickly, and out of season; and a rank over-growth, like children's, for the grave; there is something to remind us that we are included in these metamorphoses, and that, whatever path we tread, it is, after all, a branch road to the tomb. The re-action of lassitude upon over-vitality, tells as plainly upon our system as on the general signature of surrounding objects, and we feel a complacency towards the flowery bowers wherein mortality takes its deep rest, that seldom occurs to us (except under peculiar circumstances) at other seasons of the year.

It was with a mind imbued with some such sentiments that we found ourselves sauntering along one of the side paths in Kensal-Green Cemetery a few weeks back; musing, as the light thistle-down (which the winds of autumn had detached from its flowers' disk) floated by us, why man alone should feel such fear and mistrust for the future, which charges itself with the safety of an insignificant seed, and while consigning it to the seemingly accidental guidance of the wandering breeze, provides for its subsequent existence ! It was one of those calm, grey, pensive-looking days in which the subdued feelings we have spoken of, are certain to predominate. The twirling leaves fell like great tears upon the graves they sheltered, and every image round us whispered the refrain of Felicia Hemans' song, Passing Away." The mignonette, the roses, the heliotrope, and clematis, with many others of their lovely sisterhood, bloomed in all their summer brightness, and covered up the loathsomeness of death, under the masque of fragrant flower-beds. Ten years before, we had stood upon that spot, and could then have counted its graves of "mark and likelihood;" now they lie thick about one, and there is difficulty in recalling not only the most striking of the monuments, but the names of the once important personages who tenant them. Then it was but a sepulchral suburb, sprinkled with ornate tombs, the principal of which were Ducrow's mausoleum, with its shattered garlands and broken pillar, beehive, and sphinxes-then only tenanted by his wife; that of St. Jong Long, with its temple-crowned summit, and drooping female figure with the Esculapian serpent round her arm; the Freeling pillar, with its capital commenced; the vault of the Hygeist; the simple grave of the mother of the writer of "Rookwood ;" and a few others of less well-known names. Now, it has become a monumental city; a little knot of aristocracy keep their state in the catacombs, and a prince of the royal blood has his granite palace in the midst; judges, warriors, and merchants, churchmen, and simple citizens, with a few others, whose epitaphs are written in the affections of their fellow men, not only of this generation, but of those that are to come, make up the elements of which this mixed society is composed, and type themselves in marble after death. It is a curious scene, viewed from the steps of the catacombs, (the central and highest portion of the ground,) and one that amidst images of touching solemnity is full of visual pleasure. In this still crowd, there is no disorder. Monuments are set in every possible direction, relieved with trees, and of a hundred forms; and the effect is variety, not confusion. At the sides, and more or less sprinkled over the whole surface, white tombstones and table-graves are shining amidst shrubs and flowers; above which, pinnacles and columns, crosses, urns, and shrouded figures, are seen everywhere; and here and there at intervals rise up minarets and spires, with pointed obelisks of grey and pink granite; those scintillating with glittering particles, and these polished till they look like porphyry; the central compartment resembles an exposition of statuary work in a garden, and the mind can scarcely call back all that the eye takes in. Now the light cupola of a marble mosque gleams through a group of dark green cypress trees; now a gothic cross, ornate with carved work;

anon, the draped form of a female mourner; and at a little distance a broken shaft, with a festoon of flowers spirally enwreathing it. Pillars crowned with military trophies are in abundance, and urns (not always classic in their modelling), attract the eye on every side. From this point we perceive the giant envelope of granite that distinguishes by its size and plainness the vault of the Duke of Sussex, and near it many shattered columns; then come stately mausoleums, and costly cenotaphs, with gothic shrines, flower-hidden slabs, and graceful monuments, in which the love of the survivers has shaped itself into forms of beauty above the dead. Opposite to the upper entrance of the cemetery, Faith lifts her cross above the lofty pedestal that marks the grave of Madame Soyer. One side exhibits a medallion of white marble, with the bust of the fair Artiste in bas-relief, the other inshrines (after the fashion of Père la Chaise,) her pencils and palette; and the whole surrounded by a magnificent railing of bronze, is in itself an elaboration of sentiment. It is not probably, by a merely accidental coincidence, that we find the name of Eude upon a reclining tomb of white marble, with a pure and glistening cross laid on it in the midst of a little rosary hard by; in many instances one perceives a sort of conservation of faith or country, and even of talent, bringing men together in the grave; just as in the same path we find a monument to the memory of Loudon, the family vault of Miles Milleys; and one grave off, between it and the tomb of a Mrs. Daniels, a low turf hillock, without foot or headstone, in which lies all that now remains to us (apart from the undying spirit of his writings,) of the wit-poet, and benignant teacher, Thomas Hood. He whose forceful lines could move all England to philanthropy, and wake commiseration and remorse for the sufferings of the proscribed, the friendless, and the poor; lies in a grave, as humble, and memorialless, as do the paupers he has so pathetically described. Hundreds pass by the spot, and know not, that he who led them in spirit to the "bridge of sighs," and made the hardest and the proudest weep, over the too true portraiture he drew, of its despairing, world-forsaken victim; crumbles unhonoured in this lowly grave, only significant from its complete neglect; not a flower blooms for him who planted germs of immortal ones in human bosoms; a sunburnt sod is all that nature and his country yields, to one who, whether sparkling his pages with wit, or bathing them in exquisite pathos, never forgot the higher purposes of mental gifts; but converted them into healthiest influences. If only in gratitude therefore, society should come forward, and save from oblivion the ashes of a man, who while he lived, helped to brighten and purify the earth.

But all the benefactors of their fellow men are not so slighted. We meet in the monumental rooms, a handsome mural tablet to the memory of George Birkbeck, M.D., founder of Mechanics' Institutes; and in the lower portion of the ground, the tomb of Edward Screven, an engraver, and the originator of the "Artist Fund." The idea occurred to him from witnessing the severe distress of one of his own profession. It was commenced in 1810, and the benevolent institutor survived its establishment thirty-one years, and died in 1841, after seeing the complete success of the work he had undertaken; these are profitable reminiscences, bearing witness to active usefulness in the cause of human good; and are monuments in themselves, more enduring than graven brass or sculptured marble. Apropos of sculpture in connection with cemeteries, it is not too much to imagine, that its general use in them, will exercise considerable influence in bringing forward the germs of genius, not unfrequently buried in the confines of the stone-cutter's yard, or hidden in the ateliers of humble workmen. Some of the monuments at Kensal Green, exhibit in their designs and finish, expressions of good taste and careful handling, in which the majority are lamentably wanting; there is no end of un