The earth is dark, and the sky is scowling,
And the blast thro' the pines is howling and growling,
As if a thousand wolves were prowling

About in the old Black Forest!

Madly, sadly, the Tempest raves

Thro' the narrow gullies and hollow caves,
And bursts on the rocks in windy waves,
Like the billows that roar
On a gusty shore

Mourning over the mariners' graves-
Nay, more like a frantic lamentation
From a howling set

Of demons met

To wake a dead relation.

That, we reckon, Yankee-(weather-)wise, is the genuwine article, raal grit.

Nor be overlooked the same sterling artist's narration of Miss Kilmansegg's last night here on earth-she absorbed, as usual, in golden dreams, while storm-fiends without are up and doing:

And still the golden light of the sun
Thro' her golden dreams appear'd to run
Tho' the night that roar'd without was one
To terrify seamen or gipsies-

While the moon, as if in malicious mirth,
Kept peeping down on the ruffled earth,
As though she enjoy'd the tempest's birth,
In revenge of her old eclipses.†

In prose fiction, too, has Thomas Hood turned out some stingo samples of storm-brewing. For instance, the story of Raby's death, by the hands of the Creole, in "Tylney Hall," where the corpse is met, borne along on a litter of branches, by some of the Hall servants, one of whom remarks, in whispered interchange of misgivings with his mate, "Look up west, lad, at the sun settin', he's like a clot o'blood, be'ant un? and the light's more like hell-fire, as the ranter talks on, than what's natural, there's been summut done to make God Almighty angersome, -mark my words on it." Accordingly we are told, to bear out honest Sam's weather-wisdom in matters ethical, that the western sky had really assumed an awful and ominous appearance: the glowing sun, as if a visible type of the All-seeing Eye, "red with uncommon wrath,"

*Hood's Poem, The Forge.

† Miss Kilmansegg and her Precious Leg: Her Death.

slowly withdrew behind a stupendous range of dense, pitch-black, mountainous clouds, from whose rugged crests ascended jets of blood-red flame, and causing a lurid glow up to the very zenith, whilst enormous breaks and fissures in the dark volcanic mass, served to disclose the intense ardent fires that glowed within, suggesting a comparison with those nameless flames to which the rustic had alluded. "Fantastic clouds of a lighter texture, and portentous colours, in the mean time ascended rapidly from the horizon, and congregated overhead in threatening masses. Peals of distant thunder muttered from all quarters at once, as unintermitting almost as the roar of the ocean. The wind, rushing in fitful gusts through the forest, filled the air with unearthly moans, and sighs, and whisperings; and the dead leaves rose and whirled in rings, as if following the skirts of the weird beings who are said to dance at the approach of tempest and human desolation."* All this while the storm has been brewing only; presently it breaks forth in wasting and withering fury.

Need we remind the readers of "Barnaby Rudge" of the prominence given in that story to elemental strife-of the tone imparted to the whole tale from its opening scene, that stormy night at the old Maypole? Or how the scene is repeated, stormy night expressly included, just five years later, with a keen knowledge of story-book effect? The tempest chapter in "David Copperfield" is perhaps the author's masterpiece in highly-wrought description-to say nothing of the art with which it is inwrought with a personal catastrophe. In "Bleak House," and elsewhere, we have "incidentals" in the way of shower and storm, comparatively faint in their colouring, but aptly timed, and effectively introduced.

Sir Bulwer Lytton is an eminent brewer of storms, in all their varieties of strength. The night that Eugene Aram's accomplice makes his attempt on Lester's premises, while the sisters, as the clock strikes one, are discussing dearest Eugene by the firelight," how loud the winds rave! And how the heavy sleet drives against the window!" Again, on the night of Aram's secret expedition, to confer with Houseman at the cavern, the rain descends in torrents, and the thunder bursts over their very heads, and, with every instant, the lightning, darting through the riven chasm of blackness that seems suspended as in a solid substance above, brightens the whole heaven into one livid and terrific flame, and shows to the two men the faces of each other, rendered deathlike and ghastly by the glare.-At the time of Ernest Maltravers's tête-à-tête with Valerie, the hail comes on fast and heavy, the trees groan, and the thunder roars. When the orphan brothers in "Night and Morning" make their escape, a storm overtakes and obstructs them, dazzling them with forked lightning, confusing them with else utter darkness, and drenching them with pitiless rain.-But Sir Edward's most momentous storm-piece, in the guise of a deus ex machinâ, is probably that which forms the conclusion of "Godolphin," and involves the fate of that ambitious hero.

When Mr. Kingsley's high-and-dry vicar, in "Yeast," returns from his visit to Luke, ill at ease in his orthodoxy, though putting so bold a

Tylney Hall, vol. iii. ch. i.

face on the matter, the author takes care to have the wind sweeping and howling down the lonely streets, and to lash the rain into his face, while grey clouds are rushing past the moon like terrified, ghosts across the awful void of the black heaven. As he staggers and strides along the plashy pavement, the roar and tumult without him, we are told, harmonise strangely with the discord. And therefore, artistically speaking, are that roar and tumult upraised.

With thunder and lightning Mr. Wilkie Collins environs the acquaintance-making of Basil and his evil genius, mysterious Mr. Mannion. It is the pursuit of tea-table-talk and tea-drinking under difficulties, considering that the hail is rattling vehemently against the window, and the thunder seeming to shake the house to its foundations. But Mr. Mannion sips on, and makes no sign-nothing by word, or look, or gesture, to show that the "terrible glory of the night-storm" has either a voice for his heart, or a sound for his ear; and therefore does Basil begin to feel strange, unutterable sensations creeping over him, and the silence in that little chamber becomes sinister and oppressive.

With thunder and lightning does Currer Bell make way for her Professor into the modest lodgings of Frances the lace-mender. "The clouds, severing with loud peal and shattered cataract of lightning, emptied their livid folds in a torrent, heavy, prone, and broad. Come in! Come in!" said Frances, as, after putting her into the house, I paused ere I followed: the word decided me; I stepped across the threshold, shut the door on the rushing, flashing, whitening storm, and followed her up-stairs to her apartment.' It is in a hailstorm that Lucy Snowe loses her way, and her senses, in the narrow streets of Brussels.+ In a storm it is that she leaves Madame Walravens' inhospitable saloon‡-a storm that seems to have burst at the zenith; it rushes down prone; the forked, slant bolts pierce athwart vertical torrents; red zig-zags interlace a descent blanched as white metal; and all breaks from a sky heavily black in its swollen abundance. And it is in a storm§-one that has roared frenzied for seven days, and strewn the Atlantic with wrecks-that M. Emanuel is lost.

AN EASTER-DAY AT ROME, AND ITS CONTRASTS.

I HAVE often thought, and every day's observation confirms the opinion, that if the actual coincidences and contrasts of human life could be well and artistically brought together and grouped, they would furnish tableaux as effective and interesting as those with which the romancist works up to give novelty and excitement to his invented tale. This is but an amplification of the truism that "fact is often stranger than fiction," and to justify my assertion, I answer my worthy editor's request for an article for his forthcoming number, with a reminiscence for which I repudiate the slightest particle of invention or colouring, furnished as it is from a clear recollection, confirmed by the memory and note-book of my compagnon de voyage at the time. It may be a dull reminiscence -I can only say it is a real one-of the adventure as it happened.

We arrived at Rome in the English ante-Easter migration from Naples, in the year 185—, just in time to become spectators of the services of the Settimana Santa. Among the crowds who went up to "wonder after" these spectacles, there could be none who were less drawn by the 'feelings of awe, mystery, and devotedness" by which many have been lured to make shipwreck of their faith amid the witcheries of Rome; to speak plainly, we went up "good Protestants," that is, with no more than travellers' desire to see these often-described wonders of the Roman faith. It may truly be said that the following incidents contributed to send us from Rome at least as thoroughly Protestant as we went thither.

All who have witnessed the "funzioni" at St. Peter's know that on all high days and festivals large temporary galleries are set up on each side of the baldachino, or great bronze shrine which surmounts the high altar of this high church. These galleria are set apart for the use of ladies exclusively, who must, as the book of directions says, "take care that their dress is according to rule."* A gentleman can no more find entrance to these galleries than a female to a freemason lodge. We must conduct our ladies to the entrance, leave them to find their places, and adjust themselves as they best can, and betake ourselves to the great arena of the multitude below.

To one of these galleries on one of the "high days" (Palm Sunday, as I now recollect), I, who had only arrived in Rome a few days previous, and had not a single Roman acquaintance, conducted my two daughters, made free of the galleria by tickets from the "maggior-domo," procured by a relative, and having desired them to take the best places they could obtain, turned away to mix with the multitude in the great nave of St.

By "rule," no lady appears in the presence of his Holiness save in the customary suit of solemn black," in which brunettes do penance and blondes do coquette, all wearing a veil, so-called, because it veils nothing, but streams gracefully from the back of the head, being, in fact, the most becoming set-off of the costume which fashion could prescribe. As everything in Romish ceremonial must have a "rationale" and a "symbolic" value, this rule, which compels ladies to enter the papal presence with a veil, or an apology for one, is apparently to be referred to that mysterious passage in 1 Cor. xi., "Velat caput suum... debet mulier potestatem habere super caput propter angelos."

Peter's. To any one who has seen St. Peter's on such an occasion, it need not be told that its ensemble is not to be taken in at a glance, or looked over or through in a moment. The arrangement for the array of cardinals momentarily arriving, each with his train-bearer acolyte; the Guardia Nobile ranging themselves, every private a prince; the outset of the high altar," simplex munditiis;" the plain propriety of that plain chair in which "Sua Sanctità," embodiment of "the pride that apes humility," presently takes his place, as

centre of the glittering ring;

the variety and contrast of the costumes, wherein men of every name and nation figure, from

The Yorkshire hussar,

To Hungarian boyar,

From the grandee of Spain to the serf of the Czar;

and last, not least, the majesty of the great temple itself, unspoilable by the tawdry flaunting decorations with which on such occasions it is overhung. These and other sights and sounds, new and numberless, are not to be turned from or over hastily; they engrossed me so, that it was half an hour after I had parted with my girls at the gallery turnstile before I took a second observation as to how or where they had disposed themselves.

Meanwhile, the galleries had been filling apace, and in the sameness of the sober costumes it was as hard to distinguish any particular lady as to single out a particular flower in a bed of tulips. The thing is difficult, but may be done; and, after a searching gaze, I was able to fix on one of my daughters (they had not found seats next each other), on the benches which rose tier on tier above us the o Toλλot, in the open nave of St. Peter's below.

My curiosity was not a little excited by perceiving that she was carrying on an animated conversation with the lady beside her, and my curiosity grew into surprise when I perceived that she was endeavouring by word and sign to point me out, and identify me from the great crowd around to her companion.

People talk of feminine curiosity: no curiosity could have been more intense than mine on these several points: first, how acquaintance and conversation could at all have arisen between my daughter and the lady beside her. I knew that out of her aunt's family she had not, could not have, an acquaintance in Rome. The lady was obviously a foreigner, and Anne's stock of French was slender, her Italian niente, and how this sudden intercourse could have arisen, and how their remarks could have led to an identification of me from the crowd, became a very perplexing problem.

No solution was possible until the blessing and wearying procession of the palms was ended. Sometimes, as I occasionally looked up, and saw remarks made and observations passing, I thought that this might be some subtle and accomplished Jésuite of "the short robe" though long petticoat, trying to interest and engage the feelings and enthusiasm of the young English girl in the showy pageart in progress before them. At intervals I blamed myself for having exposed my children, even for an hour, to such" devices," but it must now be borne; to invade the ladies' gallery, and withdraw my children thence, would have been, in the first