sun shines and the breezes blow, and I must be abroad to enjoy them.

One regret I have at breaking off my narrative so soon. I fear that many of my fair readers, in whose good graces I am very desirous to rank favourably, may be inclined to accuse me of fickleness and caprice, in all that relates to la belle passion; and, in order to remove this impression, I should have liked to tell them how at last I fell in love, even unto matrimony." I should have liked, too, to have introduced them to my wifewhom heaven bless, for she deserves its blessing-and I doubt not they would agree with me on the prudence and propriety of my choice; although, indeed, she was not won withoutbut of this another time.

I

And now, kind reader, adieu! have remained at home this morning on purpose to write to you; much against the remonstrance of old Ralph, who declares he never saw the river in "primer order;" and I have now, I think, said all that occurred to me. My friend Herbert has been out for the last hour; and Ralph has just come in to announce that he has already killed two fine salmon. The ladies of our party are to meet us on the river side at three; so I must be off to have a fresh-caught fish ready

for luncheon.

Therefore, kiud reader, fare-theewell. I leave you with regret; and,

as I am perfectly confident that you are a fine, good-natured, lively fellow, I only wish that you formed one of our party on the river to-day. Should you ever chance to be in this neighbourhood, I shall rejoice to see you. You shall have a hearty welcome, with as good cheer as I can provide; and I shall narrate to you viva voce, over a bottle of old Rory and a cigar of the genuine Havannah growth, as many "Scenes" as you have an inclination to listen to.

66

'I ask your honour's pardon, sir," says Ralph, who has just entered the room; "I ask your honour's pardon, sir; but, if you don't make haste, I fear Squire Herbert will beat us! has got the best part of the day, sir!" "Have you put on the fly I selected, Ralph ?"

66

He

Yes, your honour; and a prime one it is, sir! We're sure to kill him to-day "

And so, kind reader, as Ralph is so impatient, to say nothing of myself, once more adieu! In return for your kindness in attending me, I trust without much tear and wear of patience, even to this my last paragraph, I have to wish you all happiness and all success in whatever you may undertake; nor can I conclude better than by quoting the words of our favourite Scott, and wishing

To all and each a fair good night,

With pleasing dreams and slumbers light.

SONNET.

How calm! how silent! vale, and heath-clad steep,
This quiet parsonage, and yon gray church-tower,
Bathed in the glorious hues of sunset sleep.

Sweet fragrance breathed from herb, and shrub, and flower,
Fills all the air. Round every mountain-head
Gather mists, radiant with the hues of Even,
Each over each, in beauteous folds outspread,
Fit canopy for visitants from heaven.

And not of earth, the radiance that now streams
Along the lonely glen and mountain hoary:
Not wholly from this world, the landscape's glory.
From brighter skies escape some transient gleams
And angel forms, and angel voices come
To bear us tidings of our heavenly home.

J. T. B.

WESTMINSTER ABBEY.

1835.

With solemn fall and sweet the noon-day chime,
Through choir and cloister gray, repeats the hour
To the long dead-another hour of time!

'Tis but in scenes like this, that voice hath power To wake the heart, as it flows thrilling past,

Through aisles and dim arched cloisters, wave on wave, With long vibration lessening to the last,

Like busy man's vain fancies, which thus fast,
With transient sweetness, into silence rave,
Chasing each other down into the grave.
For these lone echoes murmur as they go,
The still sad music of that ceaseless tide,
On which the waves of human folly glide
Thro' life's bright sun-glimpse, to the shades below!

This place hath witnessed strange extremes: the cheer
Of triumph hath usurped the mourner's breath:
The courtly throng hath trod rejoicing here—
The path yet beaten by the pomp of Death-
Today the coronation ;-yesterday

That sterner pageant, which the self-same way
Conducted last month's monarch to the tomb ;
His equipage of state-the hearse and plume,

His throne the coffin, kingly robe the shroud; Stript of his smile of influence, and discrownedBy the stern victor Death; his realm the bound

Of that dark vault, where the forgotten proudPlantagenet or Tudor-darkly wait,

In synod grim below-holding divided state.

Oft here the wise have pondered—vainly sage,
To explore the past, or moralize decay,
Brood o'er the tracks of time from age to age,
And learn from bust, and tomb, and pillar grey,
How fleets the glory of this world away.
Without these walls, while silent moving Change

Still seems the Present, and unmoved appears;
Here, in these old world walls, may fancy range
Along the vista of six hundred years,

And call up other days, that saw the light
Amid these aisles. A shifting multitude-
Saxon or Gaul, rude Franklin, Norman knight,
Wearing their ages form, refined or rude,
Waning unseen-insensibly renewed.

These time-trod pavements have thrown back the rays
Of Cressy's sun. The morn of Azincour

Hath poured through yon dim oriel on the gaze
Of cowled and hooded forms, whose day is o'er,
O, glorious were the deeds, and men of
The hearts of proof-the arms of chivalry,
Which fire the breast to muse on; though they be

Sunk to the babble of a useless lore,

yore,

Old rust and fretted scroll-and storied shield;

Vain playthings on which idle eyes may pore;
And in their semblance small memorial read

Of those they clad; in castle, council, field,
In England's hour of glory or of need,

Old Battel abbey's knights-the lords of Runnemede!

Old England! proud and spirit-stirring name—
Linked with all noble thoughts and feelings high,
Thy lion-spirit still hath turned the same

Firm front to popular rage, or tyranny;
While every land beneath the heaven's broad eye
Hath been opprest by many or by one,
Her temple, Freedom still hath found in thee.
If, as some deem, thy high career is run,
And, like Troy's tale, thy glorious day hath been ;*
Here let the sons of thy degenerate age

Revere the memory of the ocean queen,

Nor doubt the records of thy history's page

Tho' sunk the warrior's arm-tho' mute the counsel sage..

When thy stern genius on her sea-beat crag

Shall howl like Tarshish, to the western main

The mournful burthen of her ocean flag,

Sunk on those waters once her glorious reign;

While winds that swelled her sail shall pour in vain

Their desolation on the Atlantic wave,

Still in these venerable walls they sleep

Old England's sons, the unforgotten brave

Who bore her conquering name on land and deep
Where'er broad ocean's furthest billows lave.

Here Nelson rests in honor; here shall come
Great Wellington, when Flattery's voice is dumb
And factious Slander hath forgot to rave:
To glorify the land their valor might not save.

High spirits have been here in glorious Eld
To every breast that beats to honor, dear;
Not by the visioned eye, as now, beheld,

But in the noontide of their famed career.
Gower, Sidney, Spenser, have been looked on here
In honored life-Surrey, whose name to say
Delights the lover's and the poet's ear,

And Chaucer old, the father of the lay.
Here Avon's bard hath stood in England's day
Whose glories no fair age shall see restored,

Till the muse dies, and time itself decay.

Haply some glorious noontide here hath poured Its tinted glory, round blind Milton's head.

What mighty names, alas! are numbered with the dead!

But lo, from shaft to shaft, along the file

Of shadowy columns, through the twilight gray,
A glancing sunbeam breaks with sudden sinile
And tomb and bust are touched with lifelike ray.
O, doth the bright intrusion come, to say
That morn shall dawn upon the lingering sleep
Of mouldering vault beneath, and silent cell
When the last trump shall sound upon the deep,
And this old pile be gathered to the heap

Of common dust; O, comes not it to tell
With dusky brightness, through the sacred gloom
Of that fair beam of life, whose radiance fell
Through the pale realms of death, and, spight of doom,
Reversed the fearful sentence of the tomb.

J. U.U.

Fuit Ilion et ingens gloria Dardanidum.

THE ROMAN CATHOLIC OATH.*

Observations on the Roman Catholic Oath. By a Roman Catholic. Ridgeway. Letters by Æneas M'Donnell, to the Editor of the Times. Churton. London. 1837.