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shrouded in darkness. The cottage, the cliff, and the projecting Beacon, could be seen in profile against the sky; but beneath this outline all was lost in deep shadow. But at length a light flashed from Catalina's window, which was then opened, and the girl stepped out upon the balcony, holding a lamp in her hand. She then descended to the draw-bridge, which she let down and crossed, and began to ascend the rocky and precipitous pathway to the Beacon.

The two British officers immediately saw that it was a case of somnambulism, but hesitated what steps to take. They feared to make the slightest noise, lest the lovely sleeper, waked from her trance, might lose her foothold, and be hurled down to destruction. But the lover, Gomez, was not thus idle and irresolute. With a foot fleet as that of a mountain deer, he climbed the balcony of the cottage, flew across the drawbridge, and, ascending to a secure position on the rocks immediately below Catalina, began to sing, in a low voice, some verses which he had often sung beneath the lattice of his mistress.

"Girls, whose lattice late he haunted,

Merry Gil, no more enchanted,

Laughs, if frown or smile ye ply.

One thing only wins his glances,
In the churches, markets, dances,
Though a queen herself were by.
One bright star hath fixed him yonder
To a lovelier, gentler, fonder.

Must I name it?-Lina's eye!"

No sooner had the voice reached Catalina's ear, than she paused; for she had now reached the Beacon, and was about applying the light to its contents. When the song was done, the lamp fell from her hand; she uttered a scream, and fell over the cliff. Gomez had calculated well. He was immediately beneath her, at the distance of a few feet, and, as she fell, caught her in his arms. Thus the riddle was solved; and Gomez, insisting that it was not safe for Lina to stay any longer at the cottage, to perform feats of somnambulism upon the Beacon Cliff, married her, and took her away the next day.

A FEARFUL PAUSE.

I HAVE heard the cannon's jar
Mingle with the trumpet's sound;
I have heard the voice of war
Swelling o'er the battle-ground;
But there comes a sudden hush,
While the warriors gather breath,
More fearful than the bloody rush
That stains the ghastly field with death

I have heard the tempest send

O'er the hills its thunder-stroke; I have seen the whirlwind rend, With a crash, the forest oak; But the stillness oft that steals

O'er the voices of the storm, To the startled heart reveals

A darker sight of Ruin's form.

There's a thing more fearful yet

Than the battle's sound or hush; There's a thing more full of fate Than the whirlwind's lull or rush; 'Tis that dreadful pause that steals O'er the starched group as a spell When to speak each anxious feels, Yet cannot think of aught to tell!

LINES

ON AN ANCIENT PICTURE OF THE SIBYL.

SIBYL! it was not that thy gifted gaze

Could penetrate the counsels of the skies,
That great Apollo loved thee. 'Twas the blaze
Of earthly beauty beaming in thine eyes,
That won the hero's heart. It was for thee,
A maiden, not a Sibyl, that he wooed;
It was for thine, and not for Jove's decree,

He bent before thee. sought, and sighed, and sued.

And who shall blame, in this degenerate age, -
Now that the gods and heroes all are fled, -
Now that the Sibyl's deep-inspired page

With Lethe's lazy flood is overspread, -
Now that her oracles are dumb, her shrines
Deserted, and her temples lost to fame,—
Say, who shall censure, if the heart inclines
To scan thy beauty and forget thy name?

If, in thy day of power, the very head
Of good society and ton- the Nash
Or Brummel of the classic age — hath said
That thou wert but a woman, is it rash
In us to deem it so? If high Apollo

O'erlooked thy gifts, and to thy beauty knelt, Forgive us, lady, if such lead we follow,

And feel a little as his godship felt.

WHAT CAN THE MATTER BE?

BY J. A. JONES.

I AM strangely afflicted; I am wonderfully troubled; an indescribable feeling has come over me a sensation "an awakening" a fever of some perceptions, a paralysis of others. I cannot name my disease, nor analyze it; nor can I define it. It is not described in Cullen, Sydenham, Boerhaave, Dr. Pangloss, Marshall Hall, nor any other medical writer of the present age. Esculapius saith nothing about it; Galen doth not even mention it; nor did Paracelsus, of later time, dip his goose-quill in ink to the enlightenment of mankind thereupon. Even that very wise Arabian professor of the healing art, Dr. Avicenna, is so silent upon the disease, that I am convinced it was not even known amongst the sons of Ishmael.

It is just about six months since I began to feel the symptoms. I remember, just as well as if it was yesterday, when. and where, and how,

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