able circle of titled aristocrats, not one of whom I had ever seen, the Duke himself a stranger to me, except through the kind letter of introduction lying upon the table.

I was sitting by the fire imagining forms and faces for the dif ferent persons who had been named to me, when there was a knock at the door, and a tall, white-haired gentleman, of noble physiognomy, but singularly cordial address, entered, with the broad red riband of a duke across his breast, and welcomed me most heartily to the castle.

The gong sounded at the next moment, and, in our way down, he named over his other guests, and prepared me in a measure for the introductions which followed. The drawing-room was crowded like a soirée. The Duchess, a very tall and very handsome woman, with a smile of the most winning sweetness, received me at the door, and I was presented successively to every person present. Dinner was announced immediately, and the difficult question of precedence being sooner settled than I had ever seen it before in so large a party, we passed through files of servants to the dining-room.

It was a large and very lofty hall, supported at the ends by marble columns, within which was stationed a band of music, playing delightfully. The walls were lined with full-length family pictures, from old knights in armor to the modern dukes in kilt of the Gordon plaid; and on the sideboards stood services of gold plate, the most gorgeously massive, and the most beautiful in workmanship, I have ever seen. There were, among the vases, several large coursing-cups, won by the duke's hounds, of exquisite shape and ornament.

I fell into my place between a gentleman and a very beautiful woman, of perhaps twenty-two, neither of whose names I remembered, though I had but just been introduced. The duke probably anticipated as much, and as I took my seat he called out to me, from the top of the table, that I had upon my right Lady "the most agreeable woman in Scotland.” It was unnecessary to say that she was the most lovely.

I have been struck everywhere in England with the beauty of the higher classes, and as I looked around me upon the aristocratic company at the table, I thought I never had seen "heaven's image double-stamped as man and noble" so unequivocally clear. There were two young men and four or five young ladies of rank-and five or six people of more decided personal attrac

tions could scarcely be found; the style of form and face at the same time being of that cast of superiority which goes by the expressive name of "thoroughbred."

There is a striking difference in this respect between England and the countries of the Continent-the paysans of France and the contadini of Italy being physically far superior to their degenerate masters; while the gentry and nobility of England differ from the peasantry in limb and feature as the racer differs from the dray-horse, or the greyhound from the cur.

The contrast between the manners of English and French gentlemen is quite as striking. The empressement, the warmth, the shrug and gesture of the Parisian, and the working eyebrow, dilating or contracting eye, and conspirator-like action of the Italian in the most common conversation, are the antipodes of English high breeding. I should say a North American Indian, in his more dignified phase, approached nearer to the manners of an English nobleman than any other person. The calm repose of person and feature, the self-possession under all circumstances, that incapability of surprise or dereglement, and that decision about the slightest circumstance, and the apparent certainty that he is acting absolutely comme il faut, is equally "gentleman-like" and Indian-like.

You cannot astonish an English gentleman. If a man goes into a fit at his side, or a servant drops a dish upon his shoulder, or he hears that the house is on fire, he sets down his wine-glass with the same deliberation. He has made up his mind what to do in all possible cases, and he does it. He is cold at a first introduction, and may bow stiffly (which he always does) in drinking wine with you, but it is his manner; and he would think an Englishman out of his senses who should bow down to his very plate and smile as a Frenchman does on a similar occasion. Rather chilled by this, you are a little astonished when the ladies have left the table, and he closes his chair up to you, to receive an invitation to pass a month with him at his country-house, and to discover that at the very moment he bowed so coldly he was thinking how he could contrive to facilitate your plans for getting to him or seeing the country to advantage on the way.

The band ceased playing when the ladies left the table, the gentlemen closed up, conversation assumed a merrier cast, coffee and chasse-cafe were brought in when the wines began to circulate

more slowly; and at eleven there was a general move to the drawing-room. Cards, tea, and music filled up the time till twelve, and then the ladies took their departure, and the gentlemen sat down to supper. I got to bed somewhere about two o'clock; and thus ended an evening which I had anticipated as stiff and embarrassing, but which is marked in my tablets as one of the most social and kindly I have had the good fortune to record on my travels.

"However full of beauty, and wit, of rich paintings of natural scenery, and delicate and humorous touches of the various phases of social life, Mr. Willis's prose writings are, it is by his poetry, and especially by his sacred poetry, that he will be most known and prized by posterity. There is a tenderness, a pathos, and a richness of description in it which give him a rank among the first of American poets."*

Inasmuch as we presented in our first selection a speci men of his sacred poetry, we here offer, as an example of his more impassioned verse,

THE DYING ALCHYMIST.

THE night wind with a desolate moan swept by;
And the old shutters of the turret swung
Screaming upon their hinges; and the moon,
As the torn edges of the clouds flew past,
Struggled aslant the stain'd and broken panes
So dimly, that the watchful eye of death
Scarcely was conscious when it went and came.

The fire beneath his crucible was low;
Yet still it burn'd; and ever as his thoughts
Grew insupportable, he raised himself
Upon his wasted arm, and stirr'd the coals
With difficult energy, and when the rod
Fell from his nerveless fingers, and his eye
Felt faint within its socket, he shrunk back
Upon his pallet, and with unclosed lips
Mutter'd a curse on death!

* Cleveland's Compendium of American Literature.

The silent room,

From its dim corners, mockingly gave back
His rattling breath; the humming in the fire
Had the distinctness of a knell; and when
Duly the antique horologue beat one,

He drew a phial from beneath his head,
And drank. And instantly his lips compress'd,
And, with a shudder in his skeleton frame,
He rose with supernatural strength, and sat
Upright, and communed with himself:-

I did not think to die

Till I had finished what I had to do;
I thought to pierce the eternal secret through
With this my mortal eye;

I felt O God! it seemeth even now

This cannot be the death-dew on my brow!

And yet it is—I feel,

Of this dull sickness at my heart, afraid!
And in my eyes the death-sparks flash and fade;
And something seems to steal

Over my bosom like a frozen hand-
Binding its pulses with an icy band.

And this is death! But why

Feel I this wild recoil? It cannot be
Th' immortal spirit shuddereth to be free!
Would it not leap to fly

Like a chain'd eaglet at its parent's call?
I fear I fear-that this poor life is all!

Yet thus to pass away!—

To live but for a hope that mocks at last―
To agonize, to strive, to watch, to fast,

To waste the light of day,

Night's better beauty, feeling, fancy, thought,
All that we have and are-for this-for naught!

Grant me another year,

God of my spirit!-but a day-to win
Something to satisfy this thirst within!
I would know something here!

Break for me but one seal that is unbroken!
Speak for me but one word that is unspoken!

Vain-vain!-my brain is turning

With a swift dizziness, and my heart grows sick,
And these hot temple-throbs come fast and thick,
And I am freezing-burning-

Dying! Oh God! If I might only live!
My phial-Ha! it thrills me-I revive!

Ay, were not man to die,

He were too mighty for this narrow sphere! Had he but time to brood on knowledge hereCould he but train his eye

Might he but wait the mystic word and hourOnly his Maker would transcend his power!

Earth has no mineral strange

Th' illimitable air no hidden wings-
Water no quality in covert springs-
And fire no power to change—
Seasons no mystery, and stars no spell,
Which the unwasting soul might not compel.
Oh, but for time to track

The upper stars into the pathless sky—
To see the invisible spirits, eye to eye-
To hurl the lightning back-

To tread unhurt the sea's dim-lighted halls-
To chase Day's chariot to the horizon-walls—

And more, much more-for now

The life-sealed fountains of my nature move-
To nurse and purify this human love-
To clear the godlike brow

Of weakness and mistrust, and bow it down,
Worthy and beautiful, to the much-loved one-

This were indeed to feel

The soul-thirst slaken at the living-stream—
To live-O God! that life is but a dream!
And death-Aha! I reel-

Dim-dim-I faint-darkness comes o'er my eye
Cover me! save me!-God of heaven! I die!