ferent directions, staring, frowning, and jutting forth towards all quarters of the compass, and suggesting an idea rather of a number of old buildings joined together, than of a single house. The composition of this edifice was of oak timber, with lath and plaster; the timbers were all painted black and curiously carved; and the large masses of chimneys, which shot up spirally towards the heavens, were decorated at their bases with fancy work in brick, and were now blackened with smoke. This edifice was surrounded with a garden, encircled with a high wall, which entirely excluded the prospect, beautiful as it was, (for the estate was situated in one of the finest valleys of Westmoreland,) from all the lower rooms; but, in exchange for the more distant beauties which were excluded, it formed a protection for the rich abundance of fair and fruitful trees which enriched the parterres of the garden.

Four summer-houses, with pepper-box turrets, adorned the four corners of the wall; and these, together with a lofty cupola at the top of the house, containing a clock, whose bell might be heard at a very considerable distance, were accounted, by my father's old friend, as the most distinguishing ornaments of the house.

It was at the period of life in which the imagination is commonly stronger than the judgment, that I was introduced into this scene, and I was not a little delighted at finding myself suddenly surrounded with objects of a nature so entirely different to all that I had ever seen in the little town in which I had been brought up, and where my father had been considered a man of importance, because his grandfather had built the house in which we lived, and had inclosed the court in its front with handsome iron railings, and placed a stone figure of some magnitude in a niche above the hall door! But how did all ideas of my father's dignity and the antiquity of my family shrink into nothing, as I was led to my sleeping-room, the first night, through a long gallery, where all the possessors of Inglewood Hall (for such was the name of the mansion of which I am speaking) were ranged in long order against the wall on each side; every patriarch, or head of the family, for the time being, accompanied by his help-meet, and, in many cases, by a numerous progeny of sons and daughters, all portrayed with more or less

skill, but in the fashions of the times, and in some instances possessing fine features and noble physiognomies.

Late as it was, and weary as I was with my journey, I could have lingered long in this gallery, had not the lady of the mansion, who would on no account dispense with the form of shewing me to my chamber the first night, requested me to postpone my curiosity for the present, promising to take me over the house the next day, and shew me all that was worthy of regard within it. It was necessary to submit to this decision: I accordingly went on with my dignified companion, and having threaded many mazes, and passed through many wide chambers, I shortly found myself in a comfortable room, hung with tapestry, and containing a small bed in an alcove. Being left in this place, I soon fell asleep, but awoke with the dawn of day, and found my spirits in a state of too much excitement to sleep again.

Having explored my room, and examined the figures on the hangings, which were of the finest Gobelyn, though considerably faded, and which represented ancient halls and castles, knights in armour, ladies and squires, I was proceeding to take a view through the stone-framed window at the end of the chamber, when my attention was arrested by a glimmering light, appearing through a part of the tapestry, where I presently discovered a door, nicely fitted into the wall, and greatly concealed by the general covering.

Here was a new subject for my curiosity: but much as I desired to see what was beyond the door, I might, perhaps, have been better pleased had I met with some difficulty in opening it. However, this was not to be. There was a wooden button on the frame, which I had scarcely touched, before the mysterious door yielded to my hand, and the next moment I found myself in a large light closet, hung also with tapestry, having a fire-place with a massily carved chimney-piece, and containing an old harpsichord, a little book-case, standing on claw feet and inclosing several volumes, a round mahogany table with a ledge, several chairs, and a few old music-books neatly ranged upon the instrument. But what chiefly attracted my attention in this little chamber (which, though not so mysterious a one as I could have wished, I doubted not, had

some peculiar history belonging to it) was a portrait which occupied a great portion of one side of the room. This painting represented a lady dressed in black, and in the fashion which prevailed about the middle of the last century, before the ill-fated Queen of France had introduced those preposterous forms of dress which produced a total revolution in the human form. The figure was a fine one; the face had been remarkably handsome, though the lady I should judge to have been considerably advanced in years before the resemblance was taken.

When I first looked at this picture, I thought I observed considerable sternness in the countenance, but on further examination I rather changed my opinion, and fancied I observed the lines of sorrow traced on the features, together with a degree of tenderness, which seemed, as it were, to contend with natural strength and sternness. The hand which wrought this portrait was, undoubtedly, a skilful

one.

I looked for a while on the picture, and then on every surrounding object. "This lady," I thought, "probably, when alive, occupied this chamber; those were, perhaps, her books; that might have been her musical instrument; she, perhaps, used to sit on that chair, and spread her work on that table;-but where is she' now? Where are those with whom she associated-her neighbours, her friends, her servants? For whom did she wear that black dress? Whom did she love? whom did she regret? What were her thoughts? what were her acts?" There is something very affecting in being brought into close contact with the dead. It is possible to reflect without powerful emotion on the destruction of whole countries by an earthquake-on the sinking of whole fleets at sea-on the dying away of generation after generation-on the depopulation of ancient. cities, and the extinction of the noblest families;-but who could have visited Herculaneum, and entered into the very domicile of the ancient Romans, and contemplated the skeleton of the mother embracing that of the infant, without deep and lasting feelings of sympathy and tenderness?

Having gazed on every thing within the room, I walked to the window and opened the casement; for I felt a faintness which I partly attributed to a confined air which is often found in old buildings, in which the work of decay

must necessarily be going on, however slowly, and partly to the feelings which had been suddenly excited within me; and there, what a wonderful, what a glorious prospect opened to my view over the garden wall and trees!

Between the wall and the bottom of the valley, was a lawn or sheep-walk, scattered over with flocks, and beyond this a clear and beautiful lake, inclosed on the opposite side by a range of hills, the lower parts of which were richly variegated with trees, and studded with little thatched cottages and small farms, and the higher regions of which, though the hills were of inferior magnitude when compared with the height of the Himalayas and the Andes, or even of those lofty Alpine regions where an eternal winter reigns at the distance of eight thousand feet above the level of the sea, nevertheless were, in fact, above the clouds, their blue summits appearing at that time higher than the morning mist which had ascended from the lake at sun-rise, and was becoming condensed as it rolled upwards.

My mind had been previously led to serious reflections by the objects on which I had been meditating, and now the beautiful works of creation which opened before me gave a pious turn to my reflections. The shortness of man's life, even when compared with other works of the Creator, in this sublunary state, particularly impressed me. "No doubt," I thought, "the lady whom I have been looking upon love and admired this scene. That lawn and lake, those woods and hills, were often gazed upon by her. But the eye that beheld these beauties shall see them no more: her place knoweth her no longer. Man cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down; he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not.-As the waters fail from the sea, and the flood decayeth and drieth up; so man lieth down, and riseth not: till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep." (Job xiv. 2, 11, 12.)

And here, if it be not irrelevant, I will pause to make some remarks on the effects which are frequently produced on an enlightened intellect by a contemplation of the beauties of nature. A fine prospect, when first beheld, always conveys the idea of happiness; we cannot imagine that the inhabitants of a picturesque region can be low or miserable: and hence, no doubt, in a great measure, proceeds that peculiar kind of fascination which we often ex

perience in travelling through a beautiful country, with whose inhabitants we are unacquainted. The imagination conceives that what is so outwardly fair must be productive of happiness; and thus it amuses itself in a kind of elysium of its own, till awakened from its dreams by reflection and experience. In our ideas, however, of moral beauty and perfection, we are greatly assisted by our associations with the beauties of nature; and much more frequently, no doubt, should we make use of such aid, were it not that our minds are alienated from the subject by the influence of sin. The things most lovely in creation are used by God as emblems of such perfection, and of the rest and glory of the latter days. We are warranted by Scripture to look into the Book of Nature to find the pictures of the happiness and consolation of the believer in the resurrection. As water to the thirsty lips, so are the promises of God; and blessed is he, who cannot walk forth into the woods, or contemplate the distant mountain, the fertile valley, the dripping rill, the airy sheep-down, or the opening bud, without an enlargement of those views of future glory which are held out to the lowly disciples of Christ. In the sparkling jewels which adorn her birth-day suit, her blazing coronet, and chains of gold, may not the royal and noble lady, if she be a child of God, behold the symbols of those ornaments with which the heavenly Bridegroom will, at some future period, adorn the members of his Church? In the spotless robe she wears, may she not find the type of that robe of righteousness in which the Lamb will array his bride? In the richly-ornamented pleasure-ground, the shadowy grove, the open lawn, and the perfumed garden, which surround her dwelling, may she not see a lively representation of what the earth will be when the banner of the cross shall blaze as a beacon on the heights of Zion, and all nations shall flow unto it; when showers of blessings shall be shed on every valley; when the wilderness shall blossom as the rose, and gushing fountains shall be heard in every dell; when wild beasts shall cease from the land, and the people of the Lord shall dwell quietly in the wilderness, and sleep in the woods?

But perhaps I may be dwelling too long on this subject. I therefore hasten back to my narrative, and shall proceed to say, that while I was still considering the beautiful scene