tumult; as if he considered himself as living for eternity.

When we behold age, standing with one foot in the grave, and with another placed, as it were, upon an ingot of gold;-when we reflect how soon the season of life is over ;—and that no one hour of the past can ever contribute a single moment to the future :-when we behold the young and the beautiful withering in their prime, or feel ourselves the last survivor of many friends, after having seen the best of their wishes vanish in disappointment, and the last of their hopes melt into nothing, what awful views of Nature and of life are presented to the imagination!

When we look around us, and behold the pride, the envy, and the malice, that oppress the general mass of mankind: when we consider how many virtues society nips in the bud; and with what industry it punishes those virtues, it is obliged in decency to commend: when we see with what eagerness the feelings are insulted and the mind starved; and observe the delight, with which some men view the wretchedness of their fellow creatures; there is, assuredly, sufficient justification for the profoundest melancholy. When we pause upon the ruins of a countenance, melancholy and meditative, whose only dower of inheritance was independance of mind; when the captivating bloom of youth has faded into ugliness, penury, and age: when the electrical fibres of the heart freeze before the touches of selfish indifference; and when experience teaches, that wealth and grandeur and glory store up for old age an irritating horror of death, instead of picturing that trans

cendant change, which, as with a magic wand, shall

convert the wrinkles of age

into a blooming face,

On which youth shines celestial;

there is, indeed, "sufficient justification for the profoundest melancholy.-"But in that melancholy there is hope!

VII.

Recollection, enjoyment, and anticipation are the yesterday, the to-day, and the to-morrow of life. To live in the recollection of those, we love, is a felicity of the first order :-In affliction, too, how delightful is it to recal the enjoyments of the past! "Jerusalem remembered in the days of her miseries all those pleasant things, that she had in the days of old; when her people fell into the hands of the enemy." Many of our hopes are richer than realities; and yet there are recollections even richer than our hopes. They give grace to reason.

Gibbon calls hope,-that dear prerogative of youth, the best comfort of our imperfect condition: St. Paul styles it "an earthly immortality:" Thales said, that, of all possessions, it was the one, most universally enjoyed; for they have it, who have nothing else. Indeed so delightful are its impressions, that Dante and Milton, when they would give the most vivid idea of the horrors, that surrounded the fallen Spirits, thought they could do so, in no manner so strongly, as by excluding them totally from the influence of hope.

Are we laid upon a bed of sickness?—Are not our groans, at intervals, interrupted by the anticipation of the enjoyment, we shall experience, when we shall rise with the lark, and imbibe the sweet scent of the fields? Hope! yes

The fairest maid she is, that ever yet

Prison'd her locks within a golden net;

Or let them waving hang with roses round them set.

With what rapture does a Swiss soldier, engaged in a dangerous campaign, anticipate the comforts of his cottage, the joy of his wife, and the smiles of his children! His garden, which he left so neat; his cottage, mantled with woodbine; his friends, who lamented his departure, and who will celebrate his return;-all pass in mental review before him. He enjoys, in perspective, the hour when he shall repose under the vine, which he planted when a boy; he already clasps his children to his breast; while with all the energy of anticipated rapture he beholds his wife, lifting up her eyes to heaven, in gratitude for his preservation, and exhorting him, with all the , eloquence of a tried affection,

To think of nought but rural quiet,

Rural pleasures, rural ploys;

Far from battles, blood and riot,

War, and all its murdering joys.

VIII.

But what hope, for years, animated thy broken spirit, unfortunate GENEVIEVE!-Formed by the finger of Nature in one of her happiest moments, this

elegant and accomplished creature was induced, by a long series of vicissitudes, to bury her emotions in the silent and melancholy cloister.-A convent at Bruges was the theatre of her immolation. When monasteries and nunneries were suppressed by an order of the French legislature, in company with her adopted sisters, she sought a refuge from the fury of the Revolution, in the paternal mansion of the GAGES, at Hengrave, in the county of Suffolk. During the peace, in the year 1801, her order returned to Bruges, and in that city she died. It is probable, my friend, that the history of this unfortunate lady may be one day given to the world. At present, it is sufficient to observe, that she has more than once confessed to a common friend of our own, that, for five and twenty years, she never indulged the passion of hope, in reference to any thing, connected with the world!Secluded from all the natural sympathies of life, and knowing no greater enjoyment, than that of walking in the gardens of her convent, the principal part of her existence was lost in an uninterrupted course of involuntary prayer,-a victim to hopeless misery! Unpitied and unknown to all the world, except the few sisters of her convent, she was debarred from every earthly bliss; and the grave was the only resource, to which she looked for consolation and freedom :-There at length,

Far, far removed from every earthly ill,
Her woes are buried, and her bosom still.

CHAPTER VI.

Scenes, however beautiful, are rendered more so by the association of ruins. In England there are Druidic, Roman, Saxon, Danish, Norman and Gothic remains. In Scotland, Celtic; Roman; Pictish; Danish; and Gothic. In Ireland, Druidic and Scandinavian; with castles denoting the power and skill of Brian Boro, king of Munster. In France, antiquities are found so early as the period of Grecian manners at Marseilles. Others are of Roman origin: some denote the time of Childeric; and others indicate every intermediate age from the Carlovingian to the present. In Switzerland there are a few Roman remains; castles and monasteries; churches of the middle ages; and monuments, commemorating the struggles of liberty. In Germany there are a few Celtic specimens; many Roman vestiges; churches of the age of Charlemagne; and gothic castles in abundance. In Sweden are seen circles of judgment, and erections of unhewn stone: in Denmark and Norway, Runic fragments: in Prussia, tumuli and a few Sclavonic idols. Russia, whether in Europe or Asia, has few antiquities except tumuli, and stone tombs, marked with rude sculptures.

The Netherlands contain erections of the middle ages; and Hungary has military roads with castles, churches and monasteries. In Italy is traced every species of antiquity, from the time of Romulus and the Sabines, up to the present. In Portugal are seen