. But the interior of the porch stood impassive in its deep-ribbed gloom, the utmost reach of the moonbeams only disclosing a gleamy robe, or a pallid cheek, as the intermitted light struggled through its narrow and deeply moulded arch. in the northern aisle, one of whom bearing a lamp from the shrine, thus angrily addressed him— "What's here? and how is it, brother, that a set of screaming women are suffered to break in upon our conference; is it thus, mad Priest, that thou keepest tryste ?" The speaker was a man of commanding stature, whose crimson hood attach piercing eye, and locks and beard a sable silvered. The priest did not immediately answer, but the armed figure who had taken the lamp from Sir Oliver, (for it was no other) and had busied himself about the swooning lady, addressed with assumed softness the angry knight. "Speak not so harshly, Sir Oliver, it is some dame of quality; and this lady who bends over her so anxiously, is, doubtless, of consideration! judge for thyself however, since I, a stranger so long to English fashions, may scarcely venture to pronounce on those of high degree, who thus venture on a peasant girl's frolic." The owl was heard from the hill behind; and the lake that rolled for nearly half a mile up to the very walls of the Minster-Close, sent with a roared to a rich robe of sables, disclosed a its windy waves against the barrier, which protected the Chester road, falling in hissing streams (only heard when the wind paused) over the motionless wheel of the adjacent mill. On a sudden a form was seen to enter the church-yard, it paused at the porch, and the light being then deeply obscured, passed into the church. Its entrance was marked by a suppressed scream from one of the watchers, she fell back in a swoon, and the imperious clangor of the clock bell, which, swelling and fleeting away in the blast, tolled with anxious pauses the twelve strokes of midnight, alone recalled the others from attending to their companion. At that moment another maiden, whose fair hair gleamed for a moment from beneath the worn muffler that enfolded it, started up with apparent terror as a second figure passed the porch, habited in armour with his visor up. This maiden's terror made her utter loud cries, which, if they testified less deeply seated grief than her companion, nevertheless, conjured up immediately a third apparition, who was entering the porch when the aroused terrors of the fair watchers arrested his step, and the next moment the deep tones of the Black Priest of Chadstow -issued from the cowl of this last intruder. "Nay, then, an I had known it were to end thus, the silly fowl should have abided their peril at home. Why, what a coil is here!" he continued, "doth not Barbara Somerville know her old friend and tutor, and can she not spare somewhat of her marvellous courage and prudence to her damsel who seems so greatly to lack those virtues ? Thus my wise plans ever serve me. And here is my lady too, sunk down in mortal terror! Thou art but a fool after all Paul Babington, to think that woman's fortitude or discretion might be trusted. And yet bating a few hasty words, all may be right still." As the monk spoke, the two figures advanced from St. Catherine's chapel As he spoke, Sir Oliver had roused the fainting lady in his arms, and with a voice of anger and astonishment, exclaimed "By St. Katherine! 'tis Joscelyne herself! what fiend hath, moved her to embark in such a freak ?" "Freak as it was, good guardian," said the soft accents of the Lady Barbara, half weeping with terror, and half laughing with the excitement her buoyant spirit so dearly loved, “Freak as it was, blame not thy lady; let thy wrath rather fall upon me, whose thoughtless mood induced her to this folly!-Or rather," she said, turning angrily on Paul, "let it alight on thy reverend brother, who encouraged only to terrify and betray us!" Sir Oliver scarce heeded the maiden, for, holding his still senseless lady in his arms, he alternately addressed the fondest language to her, and broken upbraidings to those around him. But, when Lady Babington's kindling colour and unclosing eye relieved his first fears, he was on the eve of resigning her to Barbara's care, and turning away in cold displeasure, when Joscelyne beholding her husband, sprang at once to his neck with a cry of joy. "The saints be praised! it was then no phantom! But, oh my beloved!wherefore didst thou trifle with thy foolish Joscelyne ?" "Ought I not rather," replied the knight gravely, yet tenderly, "ought I not rather to ask Joscelyne why she hath thus trifled with herself? Ought I not to ask whether it becomes the state of the Lady Babington to be seen like some village crone leading young maidens to tamper with unhallowed practices ? And thou, Barbara, of Whichnover! how is it that thou hast thus left my house, thus outraged my hospitable cares, for the purpose of indulging these unmaidenly pranks?As for thine attendant here, she shall know whether I have not the power to punish her impudence." The damsel alluded to, dressed in the coarsest menial attire, drew back in terror at the knight's speech, and muffling her gray cloak more closely around her, seemed about to consult her safety by immediate flight, when Barbara clasping her arm, and drawing herself up with dignity, replied "No one will dare, not even Sir Oliver Babington, will dare to lay hand on my own tire-woman, whose sole offence was her duteous obedience to my commands. He, I repeat, ought to feel thine indignation, who at yesterday's confession imposed upon us a penance our curiosity too readily allowed, to watch one hour in the porch at midnight." "Yes!" interposed Lady Babington, ❝he it was who induced us to come to Chadstow, knowing our foolish notions respecting the Vigil of St. Mark, and stabled near his cell are the steeds that brought us hither." "Saints and fiends," roared the incensed Babington, " what mischief Paul hast thou been brewing?-is thy wild and reckless demeanour the cloak of darker evil than the outrage it offers to thy church? Am I to hold thee an alien from my affections as thou hast too often been a recreant to mine house? Speak ere I forget that our arms have embraced in the same mother's bosom?" The Black Priest with the utmost composure, his folded arms wrapping his vesture close round his noble fi the care of the widow Dyott, where they are looked for at this hour? And," he added significantly, "will Barbara Somerville acquiesce in the wishes of one who never counselled but for her. good, and follow the guidance of Sir Gilbert?" All the party gazed at the Black Priest in unfeigned astonishment, but the last mentioned personage burst forth. "To the Pool House? and why not to their own mansion? why not to Curborough ?" "Alas! Sir Gilbert," replied Father Paul, "had my means of intelligence been more prompt, you would have learned that Curborough Hall is at this moment a most unfitting abode for ladies. A king's messenger is now in the house, his armed followers in the adjacent hamlet! You perceive as well as I, how dangerous the knowledge of this would have been to the excited mind of our friend and brother here." And then while the others stood in blank dismay, the priest took Sir Oliver aside. After a short parley, the knight returned to them and said"Go, my lady! our brother counsels well, to-morrow all will be explained. Vaucler escort them to the Pool House and then return,—we await you in St. Chad's cell." The priest then whistled, and a man in the dress of a lay brother, (the storm having now subsided) brought round the steeds. The Lady Babington and her companions were soon on the road by the lake's side, scarcely in less astonishment than Vaucler; and after having accompanied them to the mansion, whose lighted windows, open door, blazing hearth, and especially the welcome of dame Eleanor Dyott, proclaimed the monk's assertion correct-he retraced his steps to the cell of Chadstow. (To be continued.) THE PARTING.-TO M. H. BY THE AUTHOR OF VECTIS POETICE." gure, and his open features fully illu-rwas more than death to part with thee!" minated by the lamp, slowly and kindly replied Will my brother implicitly trust to one who, however he might appear an alien to his house, hath never given cause that his affection should be doubted, and whose poor judgment hath, ere this, been found serviceable; will he permit Sir Gilbert Vaucler here to escort these ladies to the Pool House, to O'er dying summer's yellow bed As broke the moon's revealing beam I thought my arms no more might twine Deem not those happy moments filed- O, love, that doth with life increase,, THE SEARCHERS. Is it the Undertaker, Betty ? No, ma'am, the Searchers! READER! hast thou ever noticed two little wizen old women, clad in the gone-by fashion of humble life, creeping side by side with stealthy pace and quiet passage? Look at the house in which. they enter with a deathly knock, rarely or never sitting down, or from which they go: the shutters are closed, the blinds are down, death is within-they are the "Searchers." Reader!-knowest thou, these women have an office to perform, by examining every dead body as soon as the breath leaves it for ever, and the spirit returns to "Him that gave it ;" to ascertain the cause of death's visit, and report it in a little book, called the "dead book,"— not for doomsday reference, but to insert the disease and regulate the schedule in the Bills of Mortality; and satisfy their minds that the corpse has not died by violent hands. Whether it arises from their daily intercourse with countenances reflecting the breathless images of sleep, or that the temperate habits which are acquired by years of service, good characters and long residence in the parish, these Searchers wear a placid submissiveness, a shrinking quietude, an ominous shadow of departure to others, themselves remaining as if the highly favoured inquisitors of skeleton power, acknowledged by the King of Terrors as the chosen agents of his will, passing his subjects out of time into his kingdom of worms and corruption; for, wherever death has been, the Searchers, like spectral shadows, follow his visit. The death-bell is sounded, and the Sexton, another agent in all human dissolution and depository, gives them the clue where to find the corpse yet scarcely cold, surrounded by weeping relatives, separated for a season in hope of immortal union when the mortal coil is thrown aside, and incorruption. survives. Many and many a well-known parochial face, that once assisted the Searchers into the situation, and smiled on their regulated conduct appropriately deported, many and many a dissolute, fractious, haughty, learned, honest and various person in the district, the Searchers are called in to see-to sigh farewell! and yield them to the concealment of the coffin lid. Their customary fee for the inspection is a shilling each, or half-a-crown the two.The Searchers are, to appearance and practice too, out of the common reach of those attacks to which their more vivacious and mercurial kindred are liable. The wheezing asthma, like the forge-bellows, or the creaking gate, lasts on; a touch of the dropsy is not a tap sufficient for dissolution, and the chronic affections are faithful to the end. These Searchers have the privilege of longevity and they do not abuse it. They appear to come out of church-yard habiliments they live near it. Their furniture partakes not of the pomp of state, nor are their vestments shrouded with white crimped analogies. Their ways are not 66 Has seized a great Powder-no-Puff Magazine, And the explosions are dreadful in every direction. past searching out," nor do they What his meaning exactly is, nobody knows, "search in vain." Reader! if thou have resolution enough to sit down in their quiet room, and if thou can venture to take a thimbleful of tea and a nostrilful of high-dried, thou wilt hear histories of thousands, mouldering in the dust, and learn more of human character, vanity and vexation, than the house of feasting teaches. The Searchers are experienced in the shifts and subterfuges of" opportunity abusers." They can tell of the rise and fall, they remember the births, christenings, marriages and burials, of some of the best and worst of the parish.Their society, in the way of business, is not courted; they are mortality perambulators, not insensible of the prerogatives of little tattle and grave gossip, windingsheets and "setting the countenance." If they are not associable members in society, so as to rise in the scale of popularity, they are invaluable out of it; and however pride puff up itself, they will have the "last look," till they, in turn, will be looked upon by the successors to their professional sisterhood. P. Alarming Intelligence—Revolution in the Dictionary-one GALT at the head of it.* God preserve us!-there's nothing now safe from assault: Thrones toppling around, churches brought to the hammer; And accounts have just reach'd us that one Mr. Galt Has declared open war against English and Grammar! He had long been suspected of some such design, And the better his wicked intents to arrive at, Had lately 'mong C-Ib-n's troops of the line (The penny-a-tine men) enlisted as private. There school'd, with a rabble of words at com mand, Scotch, English, and slang, in promiscuous alliance, He, at length, against Syntax has taken his stand, And sets all the Nine Parts of Speech at defiance. Next advices, no doubt, further facts will afford; In the mean time the danger most imminent As he talks (in a strain of intense botheration, Of lyrical" ichor." 998 66 gelatinous" prose,+ And a mixture called "amber immortalization " Now he raves of a bard, he once happened to meet, Seated high" among rattlings" and "churm. ing" a sonnet ;) Now talk of a Mystery, wrapp'd in a sheet, With a halo (by way of a night-cap) upon it We shudder in tracing these terrible lines;— Something bad they must mean, though we can't make it out; For, whate'er may be guess'd of Galt's secret designs, That they're all Anti-English no Christiau can doubt. REMARKS OF A READER. For the Olio. Melmoth, by the Rev. R. C. Maturin. natural romance is built, is as remarkThe foundation on which this superable as the tale itself. Maturin, in his preface, states that the hint for Melmoth the Wanderer was suggested by a passage in one of his sermons:-"At this moment, is there one of us present, however we may have departed from the garded his word-is there one of us Lord, disobeyed his will, and disrewho would, at this moment, accept all that man could bestow or earth afford, to resign the hope of his salvation?— No, there is not one,-not such a fool on earth, were the enemy of mankind to traverse it with the offer!"-On this idea our reverend author has produced a work evincing the highest powers of imagination and luxuriancy of language. Being the "creature of fancy," his characters are of his own creation-are beings of another world; but they frequently fail in producing the effect he evidently intends-they want individuality-one language, one sentiment is spoken by all. Boldly he steps within the magic circle; but he has not sufficient bye-play, or tact, in the arrangement of his materials. He is lavish of his powers; he spurns authority and precedents; he always aims at some "That dark diseased ichor which coloured his effusions."-Galt's Life of Byron. "That gelatinous character of their effusions."-id. "The poetical embalment, or rather amber immortalization."--id "Sitting amidst the shrouds and rattlings, churming an inarticulate melody."-id "He was a mystery in a winding sheet, crowned with a halo."-id. thing original, horrific or startling,-an affectation which is not, perhaps, always the characteristic of genius. But a beauteous wildness of thought-a richness of imagery-a felicity of expression, pervade the tale; he has striven, and somewhat successfully, "To give to airy nothing A local habitation and a name !" Some of his scenes are worked up with great dramatic skill; the manner in which the Wanderer "shuffles off this mortal coil" is thrillingly portrayed, though there is an indescribable something wanted to complete the catastrophe. His language is usually too diffuse. Whenever he has an idea that pleases him, he works it almost threadbare the reader is told every thing. This minuteness of detail running through several pages, causes the attention to flag, and generally produces listlessness. The language of a fiction should be like the back-ground of a picture, merely introduced to give general effect to the piece. The Episode of the Spaniard's Tale wants condensation, to render it agreeable. Circumstances are introduced on the tapis in no degree connected with the plot: this extraneous matter would induce many to throw aside the volume with disgust. The other Episodes are beautiful and forcible productions, though there is much clumsiness displayed in their introduction. The character of Isidora demands a brief notice. This fascinating being, guilt less, spotless, and dreaming the world pure and innocent as herself, for she had never experienced "The malice of its frown, the treachery of its smile," is happily conceived in the true spirit of poesy, and proves that our author was intimately acquainted with the bewitching cords of love. She becomes the wife of the Tempter, and thereby seals her doom. How awfully terrific is her marriage described! with breathless attention do we wait for the issue of the event. The death of Father Olavida is also finely managed. In conclusion, it may be remarked, that could Maturin have restrained the exuberance of his genius, and have checked his passion for distorted pictures of human nature, he might rank deservedly among the first fiction writers of our times,few possess a greater range of thought; a greater command of language. II. INCE. THE Norsemen were the more prone to superstitions, because it was a favourite fancy of theirs that, in many instances, the change from life to death altered the temper of the human spirit from benignant to malevolent; or perhaps, that when the soul left the body, its departure was occasionally supplied by a wicked demon, who took the opportunity to enter and occupy its late habitation. Upon such a supposition the wild fiction that follows is probably grounded; which, extravagant as it is, possesses something striking to the imagination. Saxo Grammaticus tells us of the fame of two Norse princes or chiefs, who had formed what was called a brotherhood in arms, implying not only the firmest friendship and constant support during the adventures which they should undertake in life, but binding them by a solemn compact, that after the death of either, the survivor should descend alive into the sepulchre of his brother-in-arms, and consent to be buried along with him. The task of fulfilling this dreadful compact fell upon Asmund, his companion Assueit, having been slain in battle. The tomb was formed after the ancient northern custom in what was called the age of hills, that is, when it was usual to bury persons of distinguished merit or rank on some conspicuous spot, which was crowned with a mound. With this purpose a deep narrow vault was constructed, to be the apartment of the future tomb over which the sepulchral heap was to be piled. Here they deposited arms, trophies, poured forth, perhaps the blood of victims, introduced into the tomb the war-horses of the champions, and when these rites had been duly paid, the body of Assueit was placed in the dark and narrow house, while his faithful brother-in-arms en Family Li, No. XVI. |