the window-curtain. B. approached the window to take a more distinct view of the fair planet; when, drawing aside the intervening shade, he stood transfixed in shuddering horror, for a cemetery lay before him, where the moon was gleaming white upon graves and tomb-stones, with a brilliancy which rendered every object as clear as if he had beheld it in open day-light! For a few moments he felt completely unnerved; the dream was again before him, and he dwelt upon its strange fulfilment, until his blood seemed curdling in his veins; and he turned from the window unable to endure the ghastly prospect it presented to his view. The loneliness of his situation, the church-yard, all seemed accomplished, all but the dreadful conclusion of the vision.

Attracted by its beauty, Colonel

A moment's reflection had the effect of making him blush for his weakness, and, in the strength of assumed courage, he resolved to betake himself to rest. Before doing so, however, he took some small precaution, locked the door, and prepared his pistols. Overcome by fatigue, Colonel Bsoon fell asleep, but his slumbers were broken and uneasy, aud from these he was at length awakened abruptly by a noise which sounded close to, if not actually within, his chamber. The agitated state of his mind, which all his philosophy had not quite succeeded in calming, rendered every accidental sound a subject of apprehension: he listened attentively, but all was again silent, and he concluded that the disturbance which, in the confusion of his thoughts on awakening, he fancied so near, had, in reality, arisen from the departure of some of the guests. His slumbers appeared to have been of some continuance, for the light was now expiring, and its fitful gleam, as the blue flame rose and fell in the socket, mingled unpleasantly with the broad light of the moon. He was summoning up energy to arise and extinguish it, when he was again startled by the same sound which had awoke him. The lamp had given its last faint struggle, like a troubled soul clinging to the life it is about to leave for ever, when another light mingled VOL. 1. June, 1829.

2 B

with the pale moonshine, and the traveller now perceived that it glimmered through a door which had been so carefully concealed that it had entirely escaped his observation, but which was now opening slowly and cautiously. Doubting if he were not still under the influence of a dream, Colonel B- fixed his eyes upon the aperture, which continued gradually to widen, and he soon became aware that he was no longer the sole inhabitant of the chamber; the light, however, would not permit him to discover the number of his adversaries; and, being ignorant how many he had to cope with, he committed himself to the protection of heaven, and, placing his hand upon one of the pistols, remained perfectly still, awaiting the approach of his murderers with firmness and resolution. They paused, and whispered together for a few moments; and then, with slow and noiseless steps, drew near the bed. There were two men; and the former, as they approached, bidding the other hold up the lanthorn,' the colonel perceived. its dim light gleaming upon a knife which he held in his hand. They were now within a few paces of the bed, and on the event of that moment depended the fate of the colonel; he felt that it did so; and, rousing every energy to his assistance, he raised the pistol with a firm hand, when, in the next instant, his antagonist lay weltering in his blood. The other immediately flew; and Colonel B-, springing from the bed, found that his aim had been surely taken, the bullet having penetrated the heart of the assassin. In this man he recognized the landlord of the inn. Thus the dream was, in every respect, accomplished; and, by attending to the mysterious warning it conveyed, the traveller had escaped a dreadful fate, and had executed a just retribution upon the murderers.

Some years after this, the accomplice, who had escaped, was brought to justice, and hanged, for a murder committed by himself and his master, many years before, in this same house. At his death he made an open confession, not only of the crime for which he suffered, but also of his having assisted his master in his attempt to

assassinate Colonel B-, from the commission of which act they had been so mysteriously and so providentially prevented. The traveller himself reached home in safety, though in a maze of gratitude and wonder; and, from that night, continued, as may be easily supposed, to the end of his days, a devout believer in dreams and visions of all species and descriptions.

C.

STANZAS ON THE CLOSE OF 1828.
AWAY! away! another year hath passed
Into the gulf of time, and left no trace
Of its swift passage but its joys or woes;
Nor these, but as their still uncharged effect
Remains, casting a mingled hue of light and shade,
Brightness, and gloom, across the flitting present;
And as remembrance with recurring glance
Surveys the hours, and weeks, and days, and months,
For ever past, it lingers oft and drops

A tear, the warm heart's purest sacrifice,
On friendship, and affection's hallowed tomb,
And it may be the thought of the glad hours
That sped away on the swift wings of joy
And happy mirth, light up a transient smile
On its sad features; and the still small voice
Of never dying Hope, breathes soothingly
Its melting accents o'er the frozen chain
That binds the spirit's energies, breaks up
The spell despair had wrought, and points to hours
Whose joy and brightness, even as the light
Of the all-glorious sun revives the earth,
Shall gladden and revive us, and around
Our latter years a holy radiance shed,

And smooth our pillow on the couch of death!

C. I. JONES.

THE MISANTHROPE.

My friend, Frank Mildew, some twenty years since, was one of the best natured creatures in the world: he thought no harm, did no wrong, and, like Leibnitz, regarded this as the best of all possible worlds. He did not understand why men should be discontented, and was in the habit of contending that individual misery could arise only from individual error. Believing that all who approached him were sincere, he was never known to disoblige; and, though frequently duped, he would never listen to any report derogatory to the credit of another his good nature readily suggested apologies for dilatory creditors; and he attributed the many disappointments to which his friends subjected him to any thing rather than to their want of principle.

Overflowing thus with the milk of human kindness, it followed of course that, at the University, where I first knew him, he was a general favourite; and his circumstances being somewhat affluent, there were not wanting those who frequently levied contributions upon his good nature. But he appeared to live only for the purpose of promoting human happiness, and such was the then equanimity of his temper, and the calm philosophy of his disposition, that nothing gave him a moment's disquiet; he studied hard, not so much for ulterior objects, as to gratify his passion for knowledge, and the encomiums which his success elicited from the professors seemed to give pain to nobody but himself.

On leaving college, his friends preposterously imagined that his talents admirably fitted him for the law. Frank himself, who had a good opinion of even the legal profession, thought so too, and accordingly he was speedily domiciled in the Temple. Coke and Blackstone soon became familiar to him, and he not unwillingly admitted, with the former authority, that our common law was the very perfection of legal wisdom. His friends anticipated for him nothing less than that easy seat-the woolsack; and I was one of those who fancied that he would be an ornament of a profession, eminent in the production of great men.

The last dinner but one-for the bar is approachedthrough the gates of gastronomy-had been eaten, and orders given to the robe maker for a cap and gown, when Frank's health declined. Purer air was recommended, and, as he did not choose to return to his native fields in Westmorland, he took apartments in the neighbourhood of Hampstead, the Cockney Parnassus. The window of his chamber looked into a well-kept garden, in which he frequently walked, and at the extremity of it stood a high wall which separated it, as he thought, from some gentleman's pleasure grounds. One day, while busily engaged in transplanting, for his own amusement, some exotics, he heard the plaintive notes of a voice singing a very beautiful air. He listened attentively; judging that it proceeded from the adjoining pleasure-ground, he felt some curiosity to see the person of the fair minstrel, for the voice was evidently that of a lady. A tree which stood in the angle of the garden lent him its friendly aid, and by means of its branches he quickly gained the top of the wall. Immediately below him sat a beautiful girl, in mournful abstraction; her dress was simple, but elegant, and while she sang she kept plucking the leaves from off a little rose tree which stood near her. As she raised her head and observed the stranger before her, she smiled and beckoned him to come to her; after a moment's hesitation, and reflection on the consequence, he threw himself over the wall and seated himself beside her. Her mind seemed in a state of perfect simplicity; her disorder appeared to have given her all the playful gentleness of childhood, and, as she fixed her dark expressive eyes on his, she would smile and caress him, and sing over and over the song she was trilling when he had first heard her. Struck with the novelty of such a situation, and the beauty of the innocent and helpless being before him, Frank stayed long enough to avoid detection, and then returned by the same means he had entered the garden, for such it really was, but not till she had induced him to promise to come again and see her.

Frank's sympathy was powerfully excited, and, on