"Yes."

"And the night-air?"

"Yes-I lay in the open air last night."

"What-in the rain?"

"Did it rain ?—I was not aware of that."

"Were you in liquor-on your word now, Mr. Merrick?"

"On my honour-no! It was the first time I have been really sober for years."

"And where did you lie out in such a night, if I may ask?"

"In Saint Philip's churchyard!" And turning pale, he trembled. The reader, aware of circumstances I did not then know, will here look backward in the tale.

We had him immediately taken into the hospital, and only preserved his life by extensive incisions into the diseased limb. He was delirious for some time, during which he continued to rave vague, unconnected passages from plays and poems; but at length he got so far convalescent as to be able to leave the hospital for a day-a liberty he urgently begged.

He did not return in the evening, but about four days after was brought back by his brother-strollers, raving with the disease denominated delirium tremens. After having been so long kept by the discipline of the hospital from liquor, his craving for the accustomed stimulus had become unendurable, and he had quenched it with one uninterrupted debauch, the result of which was the state he was now in.

The reader is not probably aware that the chief characteristics of this disease are spectral illusions and inability to sleep-the latter, the most important, seeing that as soon as sleep has been induced, the patient's life may in general be considered safe.

We therefore had him bestowed in a small ward that had been built behind one of the large ones into which it opened. This was known by the name of the Back-Ward, and at the time indicated, was untenanted-silent and solitary.

A strait-jacket was laced upon him, a fire kindled to warm the place, and after the administration of certain remedies, he was left, a nurse being appointed to sit by and watch him.

About ten o'clock that night, I entered the outer-ward. Here I found the nurse sitting beside her sister official, chatting by the fire. He was consequently unattended.

Going at once into the Back-Ward, an incident befel me which is one of the very few I have experienced, approaching in a degree to the supernatural.

You have remarked, reader, that on going into a room, especially a half-darkened one where already there is another individual, you have a vague, indefinable impression that there is somebody there-a perception almost of his presence before his figure meets your eye, or the sound of his breathing or movement reaches your ear. A mesmerist I knew, said that this resulted from an equalization of the magnetic fluid between the bodies of yourself and the other individual. Be that as it may, I must confess I have frequently experienced the phenomenon, having an internal feeling of the vicinity of a person to me whom my senses had not yet perceived. I do not say that this presentiment always occurs, but that it sometimes-nay, often happens, though

it is possible that only people of peculiar turns of thought may observe it.

Now on entering this Back-Ward, which was a very extensive, loftyroofed apartment, lighted only by the fire and a single lamp suspended from the centre of the ceiling, I had this unaccountable notion-I felt that there was some third individual there besides Merrick and myself. So strong was the idea, that I had an angry word on my tongue for whomsoever it might be that was thus allowed, by the negligence of the nurse, to intrude upon my patient. But to my surprise, on the instant that I looked rightly around, there was really no being there save him and myself. Thereupon came over me that peculiar feeling for which there is no word in English, but which the Scotch express by the term "eeriness." This, however, was increased to actual terror when the patient said quite calmly and unconcernedly,

"You need not go, Lily,-'tis only my friend, young Doctor D——, an excellent judge of acting, and gifted with a thorough taste for the beauties of our great favourite of old-"

All this while he was staring into the empty air behind me—then turning to me, he said with a wan smile,

Hark!

"Ah, she will go. Poor thing, she was always so shy. her little one's tiny mournful cry as she carries it away through that outer place there, but that will not much trouble her-her heart is fixed so firmly on another object. It's a pity she has left, but I shall see her to-night at the Woodlands."

I confess I trembled with awe and superstitious dread--my hair stood up-I felt cold and weak.

Nevertheless, I proceeded to administer the medicine which had been the occasion of my visit, and which was a preparation of opium applied in a way unintelligible to the general reader. Yet I could not consider myself safe till, emerging hurriedly into the main ward, I saw the patients slumbering around, with the two crones of nurses murmuring by the fire.

But it was not to end thus. About midnight one of these woman rushed into my apartment in the hospital, and informed me that Merrick had burst from his strait-jacket, and having made his way into the main ward, was there play-acting, to the surprise and affright of the other patients. I hastily donned some clothes, and going to the place, found the house-surgeon, who had been called before me, already there.

He was standing regarding, from a safe distance, our patient, who, attired in the dress of the house, and with his strait-jacket fantastically disposed around him in the manner of a theatrical costume, was moving rapidly, but with tottering, about the floor, reciting a medley of disjointed passages from different plays.

All around the large, dimly-lighted hall, the patients in their strangelooking white dresses and cowls, sat up in their beds, which most of them were unable to get away from, on account of broken limbs or other injuries, their pallid faces expressing wonder and dismay at the singular and startling scene that was enacting before them.

Merrick appeared very weak-he staggered every now and then, and his voice faltered, but his eye was brilliant with an unnatural fire, a he went on declaiming

"The wounds that pained-the wounds that murdered me,
Were given before. I was already dead.

This only marks my body for the grave.*

Oh my fair star, I shall be shortly with thee.
What means this deadly dew upon my forehead,
My heart, too, heaves-t

Oh thou, my love, my wife,

Death that hath sucked the honey of thy breath,
Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty.‡

Soft you, a word or two before you go—
When you shall these unlucky deeds relate,
Speak of me as I am-nothing.extenuate,

Nor set down aught in malice-then must you speak
Of one not easily jealous-but whose hand,
Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away

Richer than all his tribe-of one whose subdued eyes,
Albeit unused to the melting mood,

Drop tears as fast as the Arabian trees

Their medicinal gum."§

He fell to the floor.

The rest is silence! ||

"Very well acted, Mr. Merrick," said the house-surgeons as we caught his hands; "having played out your part, you had better go to bed now. Bless me, he is asleep already!"

"Yes," said I, "he sleeps well after life's fitful fever.-He is dead!"

THE BARNABYS IN AMERICA.

BY MRS. TROLLOPE.

CHAP. XXXI.

No sooner were John Williams and his loving wife left to themselves by the departure of Mrs. Allen Barnaby, after one of the longest and most confidential tea-drinkings ever indulged in, than they exchanged looks full of pleasant meaning; and while the gentle woman sat silent from habitual reverence to her husband, the thoughtful man sat silent too for some short space, feeling half afraid of committing a folly by expressing how very greatly he was pleased by the adventure which had befallen them.

At length, however, the smiling silence was broken by his saying, “Tell me, Rachel, without fear or favour, what dost thee think of our new acquaintance?"

Thus encouraged Rachel Williams meekly replied, "I rejoice because I see thee rejoice, John Williams, at finding that one has come among us who takes to heart the cause of the oppressed negro; but the joy of my own heart would be more full, and my confidence in the promised good more firm, if this help and aid came not in so gaudy a clothing. Besides, I think not that it is quite seemly, John Williams, to see a woman of such ripened age with ringlets and love-locks fluttering with every breeze that blows. But if thee dost tell me that this is prejudice, John Williams, it shall go hard with me but I will amend it, and for the future see only the woman's purpose, and not the woman."

"No, Rachel, no," replied the worthy quaker; "I should be loath that thy dutiful submission to thy husband's word should be put to so hard a trial, or that thy faithful love should cost thee thy honest judg-· ment. I like not the aged Englishwoman's love-locks better than thee dost, my good Rachel; but shall we quarrel with the help that the Lord hath sent us, because it comes in a shape that is not comely to our eyes? What need is there that this foreign woman-writer should be as goodly and as gracious in my sight as thee art, Rachel? With her looks we have little to do; but trust me, if she knows how to write, she comes amongst us armed with a power which we who have a battle to fight would do wrong to treat lightly. This power she frankly offers to range on our side, and in my judgment it would be folly to reject it. How it comes to pass I know not, Rachel," continued John Williams, after pausing a minute or two in meditation, "but certain it is, that notwithstanding all the abuse and belittling which the Union from Georgia to Maine pours forth without ceasing against the old country, notwithstanding all this, there is not an English goose-quill that can be wagged about us, right or wrong, witty or dull, powerful in wisdom, or mawkish in folly, but every man Jonathan in the States is rampant as a hungry wolf that seeks his food till he gets hold of it, and straightway it is devoured as if his life depended upon his swallowing

the whole mess, let him find it as nauseous as he may. Such being the case, Rachel, it behoves those who like us have undertaken to fight the good fight in the cause of an oppressed race, to welcome with joy and gladness the aid of every English pen likely to be bold enough to set down the truth in this matter. If the best written treatise that ever was penned were to come forth to-morrow in favour of universal emancipation by John Williams of Philadelphia, thee dost know right well, Rachel, that it would only go to line trunks and wrap candles. But if this curlywigged fat lady, verily and indeed sets to work and prints a volume or two about the enormities she has seen in the Slave States and the Christian good sense she will be able to listen to in the Free ones, we know, at any rate, that the books will be read, and that is something, Rachel."

46

Yes, truly is it," replied his faithful wife, "and woe betide the folly that would stop so godly a work, because its agent came from a foreign land, where old women wear unseemly head-gear. It shall not be thy wife, John Williams, that shall show any such untimely attention to outward apparel."

"Thee speaks even as I expected to hear thee, Rachel, after the first effect of this large lady's finery was passed off; and now, dear wife, we will go on, hand in hand together, in helping and urging forward the good work."

Such being the state in which Mrs. Allen Barnaby had left the minds of her quaker friends, it scarcely need be doubted that with her penetrating powers of observation, she took her leave of them, extremely well satisfied with the result of her first Philadelphian experiment.

It was not, however, without a pretty considerable degree of fatigue that she had reached the point at which she had aimed. It is a wearying, and in truth a very exhausting occupation to go on through a whole evening labouring to appear precisely what you are not, and so perseveringly had Mrs. Allen Barnaby done this during the hours she had passed with the good quakers, that when she reached her own room she could not resist the temptation of going immediately to bed and to sleep, although the major was not yet returned from his search after sporting men and a billiard-table, and although she felt not a little impatient to report progress to him. But nature would have her way, and for that night Major Allen Barnaby heard nothing from the lips of his admirable wife but her snoring.

Less silent and less sleepy were the pair that occupied the chamber on the opposite side of the corridor. It is quite time that the conversation which demonstrated the consequences of their evening at the theatre should now be recorded, as the results which followed upon it came so quickly, that I may otherwise be reduced to the necessity of narrating effects first and their causes after.

"And if you will do just exactly what you have said, my own beautiful darling," exclaimed Madame Tornorino, as soon as the door of their sleeping apartment was closed, "I will love and dote upon you as long as ever I live. And won't we have fun, Don? and won't we make the old ones stare? And, I say, Tornorino, won't we enjoy eating, and drinking, and waking, and sleeping, without being obliged to care a cent for any body, and with money of our very own, own, own,