dear children she should often feel very lonely and wretched. Well and what does the husband say? Oh, he has the same affection for 'Clem' as ever. He is not changed. Not he. But why then does he blush when allusion is made to that brief bright time-his early wedded days, those dazzling stars upon the sky of life. Oh, he has no time for such nonsense. Parental responsibilities-social duties-professional avocations, the stern duties of life in fact, engage almost all his attention. The stern duties of life indeed. What are they in nine cases out of ten, but the stern duties of money grubbing. He would not admit it; indeed he scarcely knows it, but it is so. Almost unconsciously, he has acquired a belief that happiness can only be received at the Bank, in a quarterly dividend. Almost unconsciously, his ambition has become bounded by the three and a half per cents.

He is not wrong in practising economy. He is not wrong in respecting the laws of arithmetic; in remembering the old school-boy axiom that three into two won't go? If his income be three hundred a year he will not be justified in spending four. Certainly not. The certain result of such a course must be that in time he would be spared all household expences by living rent free, in one of Her Majesty's gaols or workhouses. But he may err a little on the other side. His thoughts should not always be wrapped up in bank notes, or sparkle only at the sight of gold. He has the very best and most prudent intentions, no doubt, and is a very exemplary fellow. But he should not allow those dreadfully stern duties to absorb so much of his time, he should neglect them now and then, he should let his spirit out for a holiday, and remember that his better part, his wife, requires the holiday even more than himself, and must share it with him. Fine clothes, fine manners, world-looking-on holidays are not enough, there must be others which no ear shall hear of, and which no eye shall see. Else depend upon it she will in time care less for his society, and more for the society of others; preferring garish glitter abroad, to subdued light at home. Or it may be that she will droop under his neglect, until she becomes a mere domestic drudge, a household bondwoman, without a thought above pinafores. Then as years roll on he will begin to wonder why his home seems so chill and dreary. Let him keep the lamp of love constantly lighted, and it will always diffuse cheerful rays throughout that home, aye, even in the dreariest months of the year of life.

THE WONDERFUL OBELISK OF AXUM.

AMONG the many extraordinary towers and obelisks standing in many parts of the world, there is not one more remarkable than the Obelisk of Axum. It is a great curiosity, as it consists of a single block of granite, and is upwards of sixty feet high. It stands near a large Sycamore fig-tree, which for its size and luxuriant foliage, is also a remarkable object. It is not known when this wonderful obelisk was erected; and, like a great many other things in Abyssinia, its origin is lost in the dun past. But there is little doubt thatit has been standing there upwards of two thousand years. It had no longer hieroglyphics upon it like those of Egypt, but is ornamented by a variety of rather rude bas-relieves, which are forcibly delineated in the accompanying picture. It is quarterial, or four sides. One of the sides has a hollow space running up the centre from the base to

H

the summit. The summit does not terminate with a pyramidal point, like the Egyptian obelisk, but is crowned with a kind of patera. At the bottom of the hollow, which runs up the side, there is a representation of a doorway. There were originally in the neighbourhood of Axum, between fifty and sixty obelisks, and four of them, it is said, were as large as the one now described. The remains of these extraordinary productions of art are scattered and broken near the few which still stand.

Much research has been expended by learned antiquarians, in endeavouring to ascertain the origin of obelisks, but with small success. It is, however, probable, that they were erected to commemorate some remarkable event in the history of the nation, or it may be, to perpetuate the memory of some great man. From the earliest ages it was the practice to mark some particular spot, the scene of some victory or historical deed; and nothing more natural would suggest itself for such a purpose than fixing in an upright position a stone of such wonderful dimensions. The Bible makes mention of this practice, and it prevailed not only in the East, and in the primitive ages of the world, but has been resorted to by almost all nations, either in a savage state, or in an early stage of civilization.

Though mechanical science has arrived at such a state of development in this, the nineteenth century, modern mechanicians are baffled in attempting to explain how the mighty obelisks of Egypt and Abyssinia were raised. They are gene.. rally formed out of sandstone or granite; and how such enormous masses of such material could be removed from quarries, and fixed in their position, is inexplicable. Well may travellers look upon them with astonishment, and think that old legends and traditions contain some truth, when they state that the inhabitants of the world in the earlier ages, were giants. We may conjecture, that the Egyptians detached large masses of rock for their obelisks, somewhat in the same way that was adopted by the natives of India on the occasion of raising the great granite obelisk of Seringa patam, in the year 1805. In this instance, a groove, about two inches wide, and deep, was chiselled out by the workmen in the line where it was required to separate the stone; which being done, a fire was kindled upon it from one end to another, and kept up until the stone was sufficiently heated, when the embers were blown off and cold water poured into the groove, whereby a clear fracture was made in the rock without further labour. Pliny, says the Egyptians, after they had separated the mass from the quarry, conveyed it away by a raft on a canal brought up to the very edge of the quarry, either at the time by inundation of the Nile, when the water

would rise to a sufficient level, or by lowering the block down an inclined plane or platform to the raft; or by digging a canal from the river to the site of the block.

Axum, the town near which the obelisk above described is situated, is in Abyssinia. It is a very ancient place. Many centuries since, the inhabitants of Axum, through the port of Adulo, on the Red Sea, maintained a commercial intercourse with Arabia and India, and it was probably for some advantage to be secured to Greek merchants from Egypt in the Indian trade, that the Byzantine Cæsars paid a yearly tax to the Axumate king, until the commencement of the Arab conquest. Axum was probably the first part of Abyssinia into which Christianity was introduced. In the apology of Athanasius, which is addressed to the Empress Constantius, the patriarch gives a copy of a letter sent by the Emperor to Axum, on the subject of Frumentius, who had been appointed bishop of Axum. This must have taken place about the middle of the fourth century. The reader may judge from what has been said about Axum, that the town is as historically interesting, as its great obelisk is remarkable.

THE PLEBEIAN LOVER.

In 1784, before the hand of Republican power had levelled all distinctions in France, in the gay neighbourhood of Versailles, the Marquis d'Embleville owned a sumptuous hotel, where he lived in epicurean luxury and princely splendour.

His only son Lewis, in the prime of youth, had made the tour of Switzerland, and visited every part of those wondrous regions, where nature reigns in all her grandeur, and displays to the enthusiastic mind that sublime and majestic scenery which attracts and gratifies the most unbounded curiosity. So remote from the haunts of courtly pleasure, he felt the impression of that tender passion, beneath whose power mortals of all degrees are indiscriminately doomed to bow. The object of his admiration was a lovely Swiss, fresh from the hand of nature, in all the bloom of youth and beauty; honesty was the only wealth her friends possessed: her charms and virtues were her only portion. With this lovely maid Lewis had sought and cultivated an acquaintance; he weighed her mental graces against the frippery of Parisian belles, and

with pleasure saw them greatly preponderate. The shaft was fixed too deep in his bosom to be eradicated. Although despairing of success he returned to his father, and on his knees besought him to confirm his happiness by an assent to this unequal union. Degrading intimation! Should the honorary tide of princely blood, long flowing down the channel of an illustrious ancestry, be contaminated by mingling with plebeian streams? No! He spurned him from his feet, and with a niggard hand, reluctantly conferring a scanty annuity, bade him retire again to ignominious exile, and see his face no more. Well acquainted with the inflexibility of his father's temper, when once arrived at a certain point, he knew that the moment of expostulation was for ever past. He was forbidden to return to seek a pardon, even by the narrow path of duty; he therefore felt himself not unhappy, as without a direct breach of parental obligation, he could, by the trivial sacrifice of his fortune, obtain the object of his desires. He bade adieu to the scenes of departed affluence, and flew to repose himself on the faithful bosom of domestic affection. The inhabitants of the happy valley celebrated their nuptials with the usual ceremonies, and Lewis soon forgot that he was born to higher expectations.

The storm which had long been gathering over devoted France, at length descended, involving in one general ruin all the pride of prerogative, title, and family. The sanguinary streams that flowed from the throne, swollen by a thousand rills had deluged the nation, and the horrid engine of death still frowned over innumerable victims. Not with less terror than the trembling traveller, when he sees the accumulating avalanche thundering from Alpine precipices--in its progress tearing up towering pines, and crushing into atoms the obstructing cottages-did the Marquis d'Embleville behold the approaching desolation. His lady died of a broken heart from observing the splendour of her family eclipsed; and rescuing a comparative trifle from the wreck of affluence, he hastily left his country in disguise, and fled towards the regions of ancient Helvetic liberty, where, after a long and weary wandering among those eternal mountains, which form the barriers of nations-amid the wildest scenes of nature, he experienced the bitter pangs of reflection, without a beam of distant hope to cheer him in his exile.

In order to divert the cares that wrung his bosom, he had visited the stupendous cataract of the Rhine, he had