posed to their assaults, on the great open desert of the busy world. Therefore, I like this proximity so frequently observable in the little hamlets I have described. In one or two instances, indeed, I perceived that attempts had been made to exclude the view of the church and churchyard from the rectory windows, by planting a few clumps of evergreens, that looked as unmeaningly stuck there, as heart could wish. Miserable taste that! "but let it pass," as the Courier said lately of one of your finest poetical articles, Mr North.

I never saw a more perfect picture of beautiful repose, than presented itself to me in one of my evening walks last summer. One of the few evening walks it was possible to enjoy during the nominal reign of that freezing, dripping summer.

I came abruptly (in my evening walk, you know) upon a small church, and burial ground, and rectory, all combined and embowered within a space that the eye could take in at one glance, and a pleasant glance it was!

The east window of the church was lighted up with red and glowing refulgence-not with the gorgeous hues of artificial colouring, but with the bright banners of the setting sun; and strongly defined shadows, and mouldings of golden light, marked out the rude tracery of the low ivied tower and the heavy stone-work of the deep narrow windows, and the projections of the low massy buttresses, irregularly applied in defiance of all architectural proportion, as they had become necessary to the support of the ancient edifice. And here and there on the broken slanting of the buttresses, and on their projecting ledges, might be seen patches of green and yellow moss, so exquisitely bright, that methought the jewellery with which Aladdin enchased the windows of his enchanted palace, was dull and colourless, compared with the ve getable emeralds and topazes, wherewith "Nature's own sweet and cunming hand" had blazoned that old church. And the low head-stones also-some half sunk into the church yard mould-many carved out into cherubims, with their trumpeters' cheeks and expanded wings, or with the awful emblems of death's-heads, cross-bones, and hour-glasses! The

low head-stones, with their rustic scrolls, "that teach us to live and die," those also were edged and tinted with the golden gleam, and it stretched in long floods of amber light athwart the soft green turf, kissing the nameless hillocks; and, on one little grave in particular, (it must have been that of an infant,) methought the departing glory lingered with peculiar brightness. Oh! it was a beautiful churchyard. A stream of running water intersected it almost close to the church wall. It was clear as crystal, running over grey pebbles, with a sound that chimed harmoniously in with the general character of the scene, low, soothing, monotonous, dying away into a liquid whisper, as the rivulet shrank into a shallow and still shallower channel, matted with moss and water plants, and closely overhung by the low underwood of an adjoining coppice, within whose leafy labyrinth it stole at last silently away. It was an unusual and a lovely thing to see the grave-stones, and the green hillocks, with the very wild flowers (daisies and buttercups) growing on them, reflected in the little rill as it wound among them-the reversed objects, and glancing colours, shifting, blending, and trembling, in the broken ripple. That and the voice of the water! It was "Life in Death." One felt that the sleepers below were but gathered for a while into their quiet chambers. Nay, their very sleep was not voiceless. On the edges of the graves-on the moist margin of the stream, grew many tufts of the beautiful "Forget me not." Never, sure, was such appropriate station for that meek eloquent flower!

Such was the churchyard, from which, at about ten yards distance from the church, a slight low railing, with a latch wicket, divided off a patch of the loveliest green sward, (yet but a continuation of the churchyard turf,) backed with tall elm, and luxuriant evergreens, amongst which peeped modestly out the little neat rectory. It was constructed of the same rough grey stone with the church.-Long, low, with far projecting eaves, and casement windows facing that large east window of the church, still flaming with the reflected splendour of the setting sun. His orb was sinking to rest behind the

grove, half embowering the small dwelling, which, therefore, stood in the perfect quietness of its own shadow, the dark green masses of the jasmine clustering round its porch and windows, scarcely revealing (but by their exquisite odour) the pure white blossoms that starred "its lovely gloom." But their fragrance floated on the gentle breath of evening, mingled with the perfume of mignionette, and the long-fingered marvels of Peru, (the pale daughters of twilight,) and innumerable sweet flowers blooming in their beds of rich black mould, close under the lattice windows. These were all flung wide, (for the evening was still and sultry,) and one opening down to the ground, shewed the interior of a very small parlour, plainly and modestly furnished, but panelled all round with well-filled bookcases. A lady's harp stood in one corner, and in another two fine globes and an orrery. Some small flowerbaskets, filled with roses, were dispersed about the room; and at a table near the window sat a gentleman writing, (or rather leaning over a writing desk, with a pen in his hand,) for his eyes were directed towards the gravel walk before the window, where a lady, (an elegant-looking woman, whose plain white robe and dark uncovered hair well became the sweet matronly expression of her face and figure,) was anxiously stretching out her encouraging arms to her little daughter, who came laughing and tottering towards her on the soft green turf, her tiny feet, as they essayed their first independent steps, in the eventful walk of life, twisting and turning with graceful awkwardness, and unsteady pressure, under the disproportionate weight of her fair fat person. It was a sweet, heart-thril ling sound, the joyous, crowing laugh of that little creature, when with one last, bold, mighty effort, she reached the maternal arms, and was caught up to the maternal bosom, and half devoured with kisses, in an ecstacy of unspeakable love. As if provoked to emulous loudness, by that mirthful outcry, and impatient to mingle its clear notes with that young innocent voice, a blackbird, embowered in a tall neighbouring bay-tree, poured out forthwith such a flood of full, rich melody, as stilled the baby's laugh, and for a moment arrested its observant VOL. XV.

ear. But for a moment.-The kindred natures burst out into full chorus;-the baby clapped her hands, and laughed aloud, and, after her fashion, mocked the unseen songstress. The bird redoubled her tuneful efforts-and still the baby laughed, and still the bird rejoined and both together raised such a melodious din, that the echoes of the old church rang again; and never since the contest of the nightingale with her human rival, was heard such an emulous conflict of musical skill. I could have laughed, for company, from my unseen lurk ing-place, within the dark shadow of one of the church-buttresses. It was altogether such a scene as I shall never forget-one from which I could hardly tear myself away.-Nay, I did not. I stood motionless as a statue in my dark, gray niche, till the objects before me became indistinct in twilight-till the last slanting sunbeams had withdrawn from the highest panes of the church-window-till the blackbird's song was hushed, and the baby's voice was still-and the mother and her nursling had retreated into their quiet dwelling-and the evening taper gleamed through the fallen white curtain, and still open window. But yet before that curtain fell, another act of the beautiful pantomime had passed in review before me. The mother, with her infant in her arms, had seated herself in a low chair within the little parlour. She untied the frock-strings-drew off that, and the second upper garments-dexterously, and at intervals, as the restless frolics of the still unwearied babe afforded opportunity; and then it was in its little coat and stay, the fat white shoulders shrugged up in antic merriment, far above the slackened shoulder-straps. Thus, the mother's hand slipped off one soft red shoe, and having done so, her lips were pressed, almost, as it seemed, involuntarily, to the little naked foot she still held. The other, as if in proud love of liberty, had spurned off to a distance the fellow shoe, and now the darling, disarrayed for its innocent slumbers, was hushed and quieted, but not yet to rest; the night dress was still to be put on--and the little crib was not there-not yet to restbut to the mighty duty already required of young Christians. And in a moment it was hushed-and in a moment the small hands were pressed together 3 P

between the mother's hands, and the sweet serious eyes were raised and fixed upon the mother's eyes, (there beamed, as yet, the infant's heaven,) and one saw, that it was lisping out its unconscious prayer-unconscious, not surely unaccepted. A kiss from the maternal lips was the token, of God's approval; and then she rose, and gathering up the scattered garments in the same clasp with the halfnaked babe, she held it smiling to its father, and one saw in the expression of his face, as he upraised it after having imprinted a kiss on that of his child-one saw in it all the holy fervour of a father's blessing.

Then the mother withdrew with her little one-and then the curtain fell, and, still I lingered-for after the interval of a few minutes, sweet sounds arrested my departing footsteps-a few notes of the harp, a low prelude stole sweetly out-a voice still sweeter, mingling its tones with a simple quiet accompaniment, swelled out gradually into a strain of sacred harmony, and the words of the evening hymn came wafted towards the house of prayer. Then all was still in the cottage, and around it, and the perfect silence, and the deepening shadows, brought to my mind more forcibly the lateness of the hour, and warned me to turn my face homewards. So I moved a few steps, and yet again I lingered, lingered still; for the moon was rising, and the

stars were shining out in the clear cloudless Heaven, and the bright re flection of one, danced 'and glittered like a liquid fire-fly, on the ripple of the stream, just when it glided into a darker deeper pool, beneath a little rustic foot-bridge, which led from the churchyard into a shady green lane, communicating with the neighbouring hamlet.

On that bridge I stopt a minute longer, and yet another and another minute, for I listened to the voice of the running water; and methought it was yet more mellifluous, more soothing, more eloquent, at that still shadowy hour, when only that little star looked down upon it, with its tremulous beam, than when it danced and glittered in the warm glow of sunshine. There are hearts like that stream, and they will understand the metaphor.

The unutterable things I felt and heard in that mysterious music!every sense became absorbed in that of hearing; and so spell-bound, I might have staid on that very spot till midnight, nay, till the stars paled before the morning beam, if the deep, solemn sound of the old church-clock had not broken in on my dream of profound abstraction, and startled me away with half incredulous surprise, as its iron tongue proclaimed, stroke after stroke, the tenth hour of the night.

A.

PANORAMAS are among the happiest contrivances for saving time and expense in this age of contrivances. What cost a couple of hundred pounds and half a year half a century ago, now costs a shilling and a quarter of an hour. Throwing out of the old account the innumerable miseries of travel, the insolence of public functionaries, the roguery of innkeepers, the visitations of banditti, charged to the muzzle with sabre, pistol, and scapulary, and the rascality of the customhouse officers, who plunder, passport in hand, the indescribable desagremens of Italian cookery, and the insufferable annoyances of that epitome of abomination, an Italian bed.

Now the affair is settled in a summary manner. The mountain or the the sea, the classic vale or the ancient

city, is transported to us on the wings of the wind. And their location here is curious. We have seen Vesuvius in full roar and torrent, within a hundred yards of a hackney-coach stand, with all its cattle, human and bestial, unmoved by the phenomenon. Constantinople, with its bearded and turbaned multitudes, quietly pitched beside a Christian thoroughfare, and offering neither persecution nor proselytism. Switzerland, with its lakes covered with sunset, and mountains capped and robed in storms; the adored of sentimentalists, and the refuge of miry metaphysics; the Demisolde of all nations, and German geology-stuck in a corner of a corner of London, and forgotten in the tempting vicinage of a cook-shop; and now Pompeii, reposing in its slumber of two thousand

share; the sun was turned into blood and darkness, and the people thought that the destruction of the world was

come.

little temple. Again, the cities slumbered, till, in 1738, a King of Naples, on whom light may the earth rest, commenced digging, and streets, temples, theatres opened out to the sun, to be at rest no more.

So few details of the original catas

All was then at an end with the cities below; the population were burnt, and had no more need of houses. The Roman nobles had no passion for combustion, and kept aloof; the winds and rain, robbers, and the malaria, were the sole tenants of the land; and in this way rolled fifteen hundred years over the bones of the vintners, sailors, and snug citizens of the Vesuvian cities. But their time was to come; and their beds were to be perforated by French and Neapolitan pick-axes, and to be visited by English feet, and sketched and written about, and lithographed, till all the world wished that they had never been disturbed. The first discoveries were accidental, for no Neapolitan ever struck a spade into the ground that he could help, nor harboured a voluntary idea but of macaroni, intrigue, monkery, or the gaming-table. The spade struck upon a key, which, of course, belonged to a door, the door had an inscription, and the names of the buried cities were brought to light, to the boundless perplexity of the learned, the merciless curiosity of the bluestockings of the 17th century, and all others to come, and the thankless, reckless, and ridiculous profit of that whole race of rascality, the guides, cicerones, abbés, and antiquarians.

But Italian vigour is of all things the most easily exhausted, where it has not the lash or the bribe to feed its waste, and the cities slumbered for twenty years more, till, in 1711, a duke, who was digging for marbles to urn into mortar, found a Hercules, and a whole heap of fractured beauties, a row of Greek columns, and a

that we can scarcely estimate the actual human suffering, which is, after all, almost the only thing to be considered as a misfortune. It is probable that the population of, at least, Pompeii had time to make their escape. A pedlar's pack would contain all the valuables left in Pompeii; and the people who had time thus to clear their premises, must have been singularly fond of hazard if they staid lingering within the reach of the eruption. But some melancholy evidences remain that all were not so successful. In one of the last excavations made by the French, four female skeletons were found lying together, with their ornaments, bracelets, and rings, and with their little hoard of coins in gold and silver. They had probably been suffocated by the sulphureous vapour. In a wine-cellar, known by its jars ranged round the wall, a male skeleton, supposed to be that of the master, by his seal-ring, was found as if he had perished in the attempt at forcing the door. In another, a male skeleton was found with an axe in his hand, beside a door which he was breaking open. In a prison, the skeletons of men chained to the wall were found. If it were not like affectation to regret agony that has passed away so long, it might be conceived as a palliation of that agony, that it was probably the work of a moment, that the vapour of the eruption extinguished life at once, and that these unfortunates perished, not because they were left behind in the general flight, but were left behind because they had perished.

A large portion of Pompeii is now uncovered. This was an easy operation, for its covering was ashes, themselves covered by vegetable soil, and that again covered by verdure and vineyards. Herculaneum reserves its developement for another generation; its cover is lava, solid as rock; and that again covered with two villages and a royal palace; and the whole under the protection of a still surer guard, Neapolitan stupidity, poverty, and in