prelates, with crosiers and mitres; and nobles in robes and coronets, lying as it were in state. In glancing over this scene, so strangely populous, yet where every form is so still and silent, it seems almost as if we were treading a mansion of that fabled city, where every being had been suddenly transmuted into stone. 8. In the opposite transept to Poët's Corner, stands a monument which is one of the most renowned achievements of modern art; but which, to me, appears horrible, rather than sublime. It is the tomb of Mrs. Nightingale, by Roubilliac.' The bottom of the monument is represented as throwing open its marble doors, and a sheeted skeleton is starting forth. The shroud is falling from his fleshless frame as he launches his dart at his victim. She is sinking into her affrighted husband's arms, who strives, with vain and frantic effort, to avert the blow. 9. The whole is executed with terrible truth and spirit. We almost fancy we hear the gibbering yell of triumph, bursting from the distorted jaws of the specter. But why should we thus seek to clothe death with unnecessary terrors, and to spread horrors around the tomb of those we love? The grave should be surrounded by every thing that might inspire tenderness and veneration for the dead, or that might win the living to virtue. It is the place, not of distrust and dismay, but of sorrow and meditation. T 80. WESTMINSTER ABBEY-CONCLUDED. WO small aisles on each side of one of the chapels present a touching instance of the equality of the grave. In one is the sepulcher of the haughty Elizabeth; in the other is that of 1 LOUIS FRANCIS ROUBILLIAC, an eminent French sculptor, born at Lyons, but came to England in the reign of George I., and was employed on many great works, in various parts of the kingdom; among which are, the statue of the Duke of Argyle, in Westminster Abbey; the statue of Handel, at Vauxhall; and that of Sir Isaac Newton, at Trinity College, Cambridge. He stood at the head of his profession, and also had a talent for poetry. Died, 1762.- ELIZABETH, queen of England from 1558 to 1603. her victim, the lovely and unfortunate Mary. Not an hour in the day, but some ejaculation of pity is uttered over the fate of the latter, mingled with indignation at her oppressor. The walls of Elizabeth's sepulcher continually echo with the sighs of sympathy, heaved at the grave of her rival. 2. A peculiar melancholy reigns over the place where Mary lies buried. The light struggles dimly through windōws, darkened by dust. The greater part of the place is in deep shadow, and the walls are stained and tinted by time and weather. A marble figure of Mary is stretched upon the tomb, around which is an iron railing, much corroded, bearing her national emblem, the thistle. I was weary with wandering, and sat down to rest myself by the monument, revolving in my mind the checkered and disastrous story of poor Mary. 3. The sound of casual footsteps had ceased from the Abbey. I could only hear, now and then, the distant voice of the priest, repeating the evening service, and the faint responses of the choir. These paused for a time, and all was hushed. Suddenly, the notes of the deep-laboring organ burst upon the ear, falling with doubled and redoubled intensity, and rolling, as it were, huge billows of sound. How well do their volume and grandeur accord with this mighty building! With what pomp do they swell through its vast vaults, and breathe their awful harmony through these caves of death, and make the silent sepulcher vocal! And now, they rise in triumphant acclamation, heaving higher and higher their accordant notes, and piling sound on sound. 4. And now, they pause, and the soft voices of the choir break out into sweet gushes of melody; they soar aloft and warble along the roof, and seem to play about these lofty vaults like the pure airs of heaven. Again, the pealing organ heaves its thrilling thunders, compressing air into music, and rolling it forth upon the soul. What long-drawn cadences! What solemn, sweeping concords! It grows mor, and more dense and pow 1MARY, queen of Scots, the cousin in the fourth degree of Elizabeth, was born in 1542. After the latter had retained her in captivity for nineteen years, she was beheaded for treason on the 8th of February. erful; it fills the vast pile, and seems to jar the very walls; the ear is stunned; the senses are overwhelmed. And now, it is winding up in full jubilee; it is rising from earth to heaven; the very soul seems rapt away, and floating upward on this swelling note of harmony! 5. I sat for some time lost in that kind of reverie which a strain of music is apt sometimes to inspire. The shadows of evening were gradually thickening around me; the monuments began to cast a deeper and deeper gloom; and the distant clock gave token of the slowly waning day. I rose, and retraced my morning's walk, and as I passed out at the portal of the cloisters, the door closing with a jarring noise behind me, filled the whole building with echoes. 6. I endeavored to form some arrangement in my mind of the objects I had been contem'plating, but found they were already passing into indistinctness and confusion. What, thought I, is this vast assemblage of sepulchers but a treasury of humiliation; a huge pile of reiterated homilies on the emptiness of renown, and the certainty of oblivion? It is, indeed, the empire of Death; his great and shadowy palace; where he sits in state, mocking at the relics of human glory, and spreading dust and forgetfulness on the monuments of princes. 7. How idle a boast, after all, is the immortality of a name! Time is ever silently turning over his pages. We are too much engrossed by the story of the present to think of the character and anecdotes that gave interest to the past; and each age is a volume thrown aside to be speedily forgotten. The idol of today pushes the hero of yesterday out of our recollection; and will, in turn, be supplanted by his successor of to-morrōw. 8. What then is to insure this pile, which now towers above me, from sharing the fate of mightier mausole'ums? The time must come, when its gilded vaults, which now spring so loftily, shall lie in rubbish beneath the feet; when, instead of the sound of melody and praise, the wind shall whistle through the broken arches, and the owl hoot from the shattered tower; when the gairish' sunbeam shall break into these gloomy mansions of death; and the ivy twine around the fallen columns; and the 'Gåir' ish, gaudy; showy; very fine. fox-glove hang its blossoms about the nameless urn, as if i mockery of the dead. Thus man passes away; his name pĕrishes from record and from recollection: his history is a tale that is told, and his very monument becomes a ruin.' WASHINGTON IRVING." 2. 3. 4. 5. 3. 7. 8. THER 81. A GREAT MAN DEPARTED. HERE was a festive hall with mirth resounding; Beauty and wit, and friendliness surrounding; With minstrelsy above, and dancing feet rebounding. And at the height came news, that held suspended The sparkling glass!-till slow the hand descended— And ruddy cheeks grew pale-and all the mirth was ended. Beneath a sunny sky, 'twas heard with wonder,— A flash had cleft a lofty tree tree asunder, Without a previous cloud, and with no rolling thunder. Strong was the stem-its boughs above all 'thralling— And in its roots and sap no cankers gallingProsperity was perfect, while Death's hand was falling. Man's body is less safe than any tree; We build our ship in strong security A Finger, from the dark, points to the trembling sea. Man, like his knowledge, and his soul's endeavor, Is framed for no fix'd altitude; but ever Moves onward: the first pause, returns all to the Giver. Riches and health, fine taste, all means of pleasure; All these were thine,-o'ertopp'd-and overweigh'd the measure. But in recording thus life's night-shade warning, HOUSEHOLD WORDS. 'Ruin (ro' in). See Biographical Sketch, p. 114 82. DANIEL WEBSTER.1 BORN upon the verge of civilization, his father's house the furthest by four miles on the Indian trail to Canada,—Mr. Webster retained to the last his love for that pure fresh nature in which he was cradled. The dashing streams, which conduct the waters of the queen of New Hampshire's lakes to the noble Merrimac; the superb group of mountains (the Switzerland of the United States), among which those waters have their sources; the primeval forest, whose date runs back to the twelfth verse of the first chapter of Genesis, and never since creation yielded to the settler's ax; the gray buttresses of granite which prop the eternal hills; the sacred alternation of the seasons, with its magic play on field and forest and flood; the gleaming surface of lake and stream in summer; the icy pavement with which they are floored in winter; the verdure of spring, the prismatic tints of the autumnal woods, the leafless branches of December, glittering like arches and corridors of silver and crystal in the enchanted palaces of fairy-land-sparkling in the morning sun with winter's jewelry, diamond and amethyst, and ruby and sapphire; the cathedral aisles of pathless woods,-the mournful hemlock, the "cloud-seeking" pine,-hung with drooping creepers, like funeral banners pendant from the roof of chancel or transept over the graves of the old lords of the soil;-these all retained for him to the close of his life an undying charm. 2. But though he ever clung with fondness to the wild mountain scenery amidst which he was born and passed his youth, he loved nature in all her other aspects. The simple beauty to which he had brought his farm at Marshfield, its approaches, its grassy lawns, its well-disposed plantations on the hill-sides, unpretending but tasteful, and forming a pleasing interchange 'Extract from a speech at the Revere House, Boston, January 18th, 1856, in commemoration of the 74th anniversary of Mr. Webster's birth-day. Queen of New Hampshire's lakes, Winnipiscogee.-' Mountains, the White Mountains, of which Mount Washington is the principal summit. And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind. Mårsh' field, a village on Massachusetts Bay. 28 miles S. E. by S. of Boston. 4.6 |