And if I gazed, as I often did, on the purple boundary of the far horizon, and wantoned in my dreams, I felt that I was happy, -it was a positive sensation-my thoughts were feelings. Years have passed away, my heart has been hardened, I have gained knowledge by suffering, I have passed into other lands, and beheld the children of men engrossed alike in their nefarious projects; but with all the varieties of the species, under every clime, the heart is still the same.

After many years absence I visited the gay town of with its palaces and villas, terraces and gardens, walks and embowered groves a most gorgeous combination of nature and art, a scene so full of life that it might cheat even death himself, in whose bright sky music floated like a native elemental breath. From scene to scene I wandered-associations crowded round my mind-I drew myself aside, and wept. I was alone, a stranger on my native earth!

I fled the refined sensuality of groves and walks, and almost imperceptibly pursued my way towards a spot where at least I might undisturbed indulge my sadness. The day was fading into the purple light of evening-it was a calm delicious hour, hushed and still; the grey-coated Gnats hummed round me as I entered a large field which, though now sadly deformed by improvements, still encompasses one side of Charlton. Where once was only a narrow path across fifty acres of ploughed land, formed by the transit of the villagers, I found a long, white, stony road. Luckily the old stile at the end was in view, or I should have returned, sick with improvements, afraid that not even the hills and their Gorseblossoms were left untouched. Suddenly I remembered a low thatched cottage across the lane beyond the field-it was still there: I fetched breath-there had lived Hannah Dyer! I quickened my pace as I uttered her name is she alive? perhaps married, perhaps poor-miserable. Hannah Dyer!-with that name how many associations of my young life were conjured up! The most eventful period of my existence was a blank, the stirring events which had transpired in the years of manhood were all forgotten as the jarring chaos of a dream; I awoke as from a feverish delirium—I was a boy again.

Hannah Dyer! she was the only child of her mother, and "she was a widow" whose decline of life, with all her sorrows-and they

were sair-was softened down by the silent, changeless love of her child: for though Hannah was then a woman in years, her soft, bland, and soothing affections-her artlessness and innocencemade her still a child to her aged parent. The few wants which, in their retired life, they required, were easily supplied by the industry of Hannah, and even furnished those little luxuries which betray a delicate and sensitive mind. The low thatched cottage, almost concealed beneath the clustering branches of the fruit-trees, the patch of garden, parted tastefully into plots for ornament and utility. As I remember, Hannah's flowers were the most beautiful, the most odorous; few exotics-but filled, like her own heart, with the blossoms of her native land: faint and blushing in their own beauty, no flowers seemed to bloom so richly in their varied hues, as the Roses and fan-leafed Pinks in her garden. She tended them and loved them, and in the icy winter's day she did not forget in the low frost-bitten leaves and roots, the sad remains of those delicious flowers; she covered and protected them with constant watchfulness, for they were a natural image of her own heart, whose first and only brightness had been sullied, and her summer hopes destroyed, by a more withering breath than the wintery North. The tale of her sorrow has, unhappily, too many precedents-she loved and was forgotten. Hannah was not a creature of waywardness and passion, whose love, as the lightning, consumes, or of fickle affections with neither faith nor feeling her love came silently and sweetly upon her heart, without its jealous excesses, it occupied every feeling that might be given to the creature without sin to the Creator-to love once was to love for ever. Af ter the first gloomy prostration of her spirit, collapsed beneath the dead pain of her disappointed hopes, she recovered from the selfishness of her sorrow to make peaceful the last days of her mother, who now was the only tie between her and earth. She never repined-she seldom wept-and if her step was slow and her look sedate, there was in her pale face no reproach; the complexion of her thoughts was peaceful-her hope was in God.

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Such is a slight pourtrayment of her whom, when a boy, I used to visit once or twice every week, with one whose custom it was to and hold sweet converse of heavenly things. I never listened to those low breathings of holiness but I became, for the time, devout; it touched the poetry of my young heart: and as I gazed upon the pallid face of Hannah, her eyes cast down in modesty before the elder, her thin hands modestly folded on each other-to hear her muttered response following the deep Amen of the poor old widow,

as my father, with his face a little raised and his eye up-turned, as if he were looking into the mystery beyond the grave-would dwell on the promises of the Gospel, his deep whispering words flowing on as by a divine inspiration, raising us by our sympathies beyond this world. Then the tears came fast into my eyes-for weeping was then a gladness-as I looked upon his benevolent features, irradiated with the ardour of his devotion.

So sung the sweetest songster that ever lived, so have I often felt when kneeling on the gay cushions with my gold-bound books and bands before my een-one among a throng of insensible worshippers-listening to the “ pompous strain," the bowings and ceremonies, and sacerdotal robes, plucked from Aaron's old wardrobe.— These thoughts rushed through my mind as I walked tardily on towards the stile; the green and briar-choked lane passing beside the cottage was before me. I laid my hand tremblingly on the wicket-a hasty glance at the garden realized my fears-her hand had not bound up the long ponderous-headed flowers-they hung neglected on the earth, soiled and trodden down; weeds choaked the ground, and mingled mockingly with the choice blossoms of the garden. I heard a suppressed talking in the little room wherein we used to meet-there was more than one voice. I listened a moment and then advanced, giving a hasty look through the latticed panes; several persons were in the cottage. I stood a moment before the unopened door-I gazed on the white walls, on the honeysuckle flowering round the casement; softly and fearfully I moved my hand towards the latch, which, however, I dared not raise ; I only laid my finger lightly on it, and, with my eyes rooted on the ground, stood in motionless anxiety; my arm dropped heavily down as, with a sigh, I would have turned away. Some one lifted the latch-my heart leaped up-I felt suffocated. middle of the room, surrounded with six or seven decent young men, was a coffin supported on two chairs. No one questioned me; there was a grief in my look which told them I was a mourner. I bent my head beneath the door, and, standing by the coffin I read on it the name of Hannah Dyer! My heart was swelled with bitter sorrow-my tears fell on the coffin

In the

lid. There lay all that was once so dear to me, with whom I had listened to a voice long since hushed for ever. I stood as one entranced, rapt about with the incense of my own thoughts; a stir among the young men called me to myself. They were decently arrayed in black, the long white silk bands and ribbon bows betokening the chaste character of her who was gone. The heavy tones of the village church bell, which I had so often heard, fell slowly on my ear; the bearers disposed themselves on each side of the coffin -the two last had just gained the door-I started the mourners ! there was none to mourn. I hastily followed-stooping, I plucked a drooping rose; and as I walked at the foot of the coffin with the flower in my hand, the little children of the village, the young maidens, and the aged carle, looked in my face and wondered-for I was the only mourner. Beneath the shadow of the sombrous Yewtree her grave was dug; the young men made way for me to stand by the grave's side as one that loved her, though they knew me not; the earth from the old clerk's hand sounded heavily on the coffin: "Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord." I looked up

through the clear twilight of the starry evening; the tears filled my eyes as I repeated aloud, "Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord;" and the young men wept. I stood alone by the grave until the sand was being rudely thrown in; I returned to the cottage, which had been deserted: I sat down-and there, self-communing in a spot so sacred to goodness-wherein I had not stood for fifteen years-I recalled the long past, the present; I recognized those first impressions which now came upon me gentle and pure as dew on the flowers of Eden. I was startled by a sheeny light striking into the darkening room-the cold rays of the chrystal moon shone upon the lattice panes I looked around, and cast a long and lingering glance upon every object— upon those flowers that would no longer be cherished by her-upon that sweet garden that would know her no more for ever. The moon's beams reached not the grave, but silvered the dark sepulchral branches overshadowing it. There was no voice to startle the silence, no eye to mark me: there I sat long and thoughtfully, until the clock, with its time-telling tongue, awoke my consciousness. I looked upon the withering rose-it was all that remained of her who is dead.

The worn and weary pilgrim may purify his conscience by his toilsome journey to Mecca; or the little less rational christian absolve his soul by bodily penance, or excite his religious ardour by a superstitious devotion: when that my heart is hardened by the

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world, and sin and suffering encompass me, I will visit the grave of her who is in heaven; and as I read on the plain stone the name of Hannah Dyer, I shall be regenerated by impressions which exalt and purify my heart, matured to penitence and peace by the faint stirrings of that better spirit which cannot be quenched.

PROCEEDINGS OF PROVINCIAL SOCIETIES.

W.

MANCHESTER NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY.

WHEN We examine the causes that operate in producing the rise and fall of empires, and the varied agencies that have aided in bringing the world to its present moral and intellectual condition, we pause with feelings of pleasure to reflect for a moment on the origin and progress of our scientific institutions. The statesman wields the truncheon of command, and the warrior leads devoted thousands to an early death: but these in vain attempt to join nations in bonds of friendship: some jealousy discovers a new cause for quarrel, and, for trifling reasons, contending people again meet in all the hateful array of war. What these powerful agents fail to accomplish, is achieved by the humble hand of science. Its votaries, pursuing their peaceful discoveries, form connections and friendships which national quarrels in vain try to interrupt. Their interests and opinions (devoid of prejudice) seem apart from those of the world; and when this happy communion becomes more extend. ed, that national hatred, so injurious in its effects, will disappear from the face of the earth- -we shall no more hear such epithets as the too common one, “natural enemies," but know and feel that our greatest blessing is universal peace and universal friendship.

In producing and strengthening this silken tie between one nation and another, our philosophical institutions stand pre-eminent. Alike formed and supported by a numerous concourse of people, they must in time exhibit effects upon public opinion. Here, individuals of opposite political principles (those banes of private friendship) meet together; they alike communicate and listen to communications of discoveries: the harmless discussions which ensue, strengthen, rather than interrupt the happy feeling, and they separate with the full conviction that this is an arena on which persons of all ranks, all principles, and all nations may meet in friendly and agreeable intercourse.

As in many other instances, comparative trifles first led to the