That sound, those shocks, the sleepers woke;
In trembling consternation, broke
Forth from their dwellings young and old;
-Nothing abroad their eyes behold
But darkness so intensely wrought,
"Twas blindness in themselves they thought.
Anon, aloof, with sudden rays,
Issued so fierce, so broad a blaze,
That darkness started into light,
And every eye restored to sight,

Gazed on the glittering crest of snows,
Whence the bright conflagration rose,
Whose flames condensed at once aspire,
-A pillar of celestial fire,
Alone amidst infernal shade,
In glorious majesty display'd:
Beneath, from rifted caverns, broke
Volumes of suffocating smoke,
That roll'd in surges, like a flood;
By the red radiance turn'd to blood;
Morn look'd aghast upon the scene,
Nor could a sunbeam pierce between
The panoply of vapours, spread
Above, around the mountain's head.

In distant fields, with drought consumed,
Joy swell'd all hearts, all eyes illumed,

When from that peak, through lowering skies,
Thick curling clouds were seen to rise,
And hang o'er all the darken'd plain,
The presage of descending rain.
The exulting cattle bound along;
The tuneless birds attempt a song:
The swain, amidst his sterile lands,
With outstretch'd arms of rapture stands.
But fraught with plague and curses came
The insidious progeny of flame;
Ah! then,-for fertilizing showers,
The pledge of herbage, fruits, and flowers,--
Words cannot paint, how every eye
(Bloodshot and dim with agony)
Was glazed, as by a palsying spell,
When light sulphureous ashes fell,
Dazzling, and eddying to and fro,
Like wildering sleet or feathery snow:
Strewn with gray pumice Nature lies,
At every motion quick to rise,
Tainting with livid fumes the air;
-Then hope lies down in prone despair,
And man and beast, with misery dumb,
Sullenly brood on woes to come.

The mountain now, like living earth,
Pregnant with some stupendous birth,
Heaved, in the anguish of its throes,
Sheer from its crest the incumbent snows;
And where of old they chill'd the sky,
Beneath the sun's meridian eye,
Or, purpling in the golden west,
Appear'd his evening throne of rest,
There, black and bottomless and wide,
A cauldron, rent from side to side,
Simmer'd and hiss'd with huge turmoil;

Earth's disembowell'd minerals boil,
And thence in molten torrents rush:
-Water and fire, like sisters, gush
From the same source; the double stream
Meets, battles, and explodes in steam;
Then fire prevails; and broad and deep
Red lava roars from steep to steep;
While rocks unseated, woods upriven,
Are headlong down the current driven;
Columnar flames are rapp'd aloof,

In whirlwind forms, to heaven's high roof,
And there, amidst transcendent gloom,
Image the wrath beyond the tomb.

The mountaineers, in wild affright,
Too late for safety, urge their flight;
Women, made childless in the fray;
Women, made mothers yesterday;
The sick, the aged, and the blind;
-None but the dead are left behind.
Painful their journey, toilsome, slow,
Beneath their feet quick embers glow,
And hurtle round in dreadful hail;
Their limbs, their hearts, their senses fail,
While many a victim, by the way,
Buried alive in ashes lay,

Or perish'd by the lightning's stroke,
Before the slower thunder broke.
A few the open field explore:

The throng seek refuge on the shore,
Between two burning rivers hemm'd,
Whose rage nor mounds nor hollows stemm'd;
Driven like a herd of deer, they reach
The lonely, dark, and silent beach,
Where, calm as innocence in sleep,
Expanded lies the unconscious deep.
Awhile the fugitives respire,

And watch those cataracts of fire
(That bar escape on either hand)
Rush on the ocean from the strand;
Back from the onset rolls the tide,
But instant clouds the conflict hide;
The lavas plunge to gulfs unknown,
And, as they plunge, collapse to stone.
Meanwhile the mad volcano grew
Tenfold more terrible to view;
And thunders, such as shall be hurl'd
At the death-sentence of the world;
And lightnings, such as shall consume
Creation, and creation's tomb,
Nor leave, amidst the eternal void,
One trembling atom undestroy'd;
Such thunders crash'd, such lightnings glared:
-Another fate those outcasts shared,
When, with one desolating sweep,
An earthquake seem'd to engulf the deep,
Then threw it back, and from its bed
Hung a whole ocean overhead;
The victims shriek'd beneath the wave,
And in a moment found one grave;
Down to the abyss the flood returned-
Alone, unseen, the mountain burn'd.

UNCLE'S WILL.

FROM THE GERMAN.

Mr. Heimal, an old rich miser, and an odd fellow, felt that his hour was come, and therefore wrote to Adolphus, a very poor nephew, whom he always before neglected, to ask him to visit him, promising to make him heir to all his possessions. Adolphus lost no time, but travelled night and day, and reaching the little village, the residence of his uncle, early on the fifth morning, went to the Violet, the only inn of the place, in order to dress himself better, and to make inquiries about his uncle. The landlord answered, shrugging up his shoulders:

"According to all appearances Mr. Heimal was near his end. Since Wednesday he was sensible only for a few hours each day, and is likely, says Mr. Schneidab, the village barber and physician, to depart this evening. Since the peace, instead of the better times we hoped for, a pestilence rages here, which even destroys the child in the mother's womb. My cousin, the smith, who was so strong that he might have been used like a beam to force open the church door, is gone to God yesterday evening; and Schneidab, who is not easily frightened, begins to lose courage. He believes it to be a radical pestilence, intended only for the benefit of the sexton, who, like an enchanted executioner, sees three dead bodies before him instead of one, and cannot heave in and out fast enough."

Adolphus asked more particulars of his uncle. "You will find with your uncle a faithful old housekeeper, and Albertina, an orphan, who lost her left eye by a ball entering the window in a skirmish, but who continues to set both young and old in a flame with the right, as if it were a burning-glass, and this without wishing it, for Tinchen is a perfect example." With a heart beating so that it might be heard, Adolphus entered his uncle's house, and met Albertina. Her noble form, and her remaining burning-glass, made the loss of the other be overlooked. The gentle goodness of her spirit played about her face, and seemed independent of its form, though in truth it was, with the exception of the eye, beautiful. "Mr. Adolphus," repeated Albertina, as he named himself, "I will announce you immediately; you are expected impatiently, and will be heartily welcome."

"Thank Heaven," said the deserving heir to himself. To her he said some flattering

VOL. III.

words as she disappeared, and then prayed that his uncle's heart might be favourably disposed towards him. Albertina opened the door and bid him enter. In a moment he was at the bedside.

Old Heimal was perfectly sensible: he thanked Adolphus in a friendly way; praised his blooming appearance; assured him he had inquired after him, and heard nothing of him but what was good, and therefore had made him his heir. Adolphus stammered forth his earnest thanks.

"Not too soon, not too soon," said the other; "it is with conditions: hear them first. I am to be buried in the churchyard here, and you will receive the interest of eighty thousand thalers if you promise the magistrate to repeat piously the Lord's Prayer once a day over my grave till the end of your life. If you fail once the informer is to receive a fourth part of the inheritance, and the remainder is to go to the hospital, the guardian of which will keep a good look-out that you perform your vow. Nothing but a serious disease, testified by two surgeons, is to excuse you from this duty. The testament lies ready with the magistrate; take time, therefore, to think, for every condition is early or late a clog on the enjoyment of that good with which it is combined. Why did my uncle curse me,' you will say, with this condition? Why did he poison to me the wine he was no longer able to drink himself?' I answer, justice demands that my property should be expended for the benefit of the town in which I gained it—in which I went to school and grew up to manhood. On the boundary of the dominion of death you shall be at least reminded once a day to raise your thoughts to the Giver of all good; and I wish to save the soul of my heir from the rock of worldly perdition. Go, my son; I am weak.”

Albertina had remained in the room by the command of the old man, and now accompanied Adolphus to the door. In the confusion of his feelings he seized her hand and asked what she advised. She blushed, and answered:

"I cannot believe that you will be guided in so important a matter by the advice of an ignorant girl."

"O yes!" answered he; "your situation here makes you a friend, and the good sense of your answer belies your pretended ignorance. The powers of fate announce their decrees with pleasure by the mouth of innocent maidens."

She replied, "Turn to our Father in heaven; prayer brings power and knowledge, and we 67

my uncle is not entombed; and, at the same time, his testament, making me his heir, remains perfectly valid. A process would evidently last longer than your life, and probably not be finished before the day of judgment. Far be it from me, however, to wish to injure this esteemed pleasant town, the cradle of my good fortune. I therefore resign in favour of its hospital a third part of the property left by my uncle. For this, however, you will give me permission to send your good wife some of the newest fashions from the city, where I mean to take up my residence."

Seldom has a treaty been sooner ratified than this was; and the heir got away with difficulty from the gratitude of the magistrate, to seek out Albertina. She struggled against the embraces with which, in his joy, he overwhelmed her: they might be the mode in the city-here they were quite unheard of; but Adolphus spoke with a seducing tongue, and on a subject not usually ungrateful to a maiden's ear. She pretended, indeed, not to believe him, as if she regarded it as impossible, with the failure of her eye, to please a man who was so entirely without fault, and she concealed her wishes with maidenlike excuses. The gay people of the little town, however, were soon afterwards invited to Adolphus' marriage-feast. He placed, without the knowledge of the bride, the casket with the ashes of the now blessed uncle under the marriage-bed, and was thus enabled to offer the promised prayers daily with the greatest conveniency.

THE MINER.

Down 'mid the tangled roots of things
That coil about the central fire,
I seek for that which giveth wings
To stoop, not soar, to my desire.

Sometimes I hear, as 'twere a sigh,

The sea's deep yearning far above, "Thou hast the secret not," I cry, "In deeper deeps is hid my Love."

They think I burrow from the sun,
In darkness, all alone, and weak;
Such loss were gain if He were won,
For 'tis the sun's own Sun I seek.

"The earth," they murmur, "is the tomb
That vainly sought his life to prison;
Why grovel longer in the gloom?
He is not here; he hath arisen."

More life for me where he hath lain Hidden while ye believed him dead, Than in cathedrals cold and vain,

Built on loose sands of It is said.

My search is for the living gold; Him I desire who dwells recluse, And not his image worn and old, Day-servant of our sordid use.

If him I find not, yet I find

The ancient joy of cell and church, The glimpse, the surety undefined, The unquenched ardour of the search.

Happier to chase a flying goal

Than to sit counting laurelled gains, To guess the Soul within the soul Than to be lord of what remains.

Hide still, best Good, in subtile wise,
Beyond my nature's utmost scope;
Be ever absent from mine eyes
To be twice present in my hope!

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.

LOVE'S HUE AND CRY.

In Love's name you are charged hereby
To make a speedy hue and cry,
After a face who, t'other day,
Came and stole my heart away;

For your directions in brief

These are best marks to know the thief:
Her hair a net of beams would prove,

Strong enough to captive Jove,
Playing the eagle; her clear brow
Is a comely field of snow.

A sparkling eye, so pure a gray

As when it shines it needs no day.

Ivory dwelleth on her nose;

Lilies, married to the rose,

Have made her cheek the nuptial bed;

Her lips betray their virgin red,
As they only blushed for this,
That they one another kiss;
But observe, beside the rest,
You shall know this felon best
By her tongue; for if your ear
Shall once a heavenly music hear,
Such as neither gods nor men
But from that voice shall hear again,
That, that is she, oh, take her t'ye,
None can rock heaven asleep but she.

JAMES SHIRLEY (1628).

PERSUASION.

[Jane Austen, born at Steventon, Hampshire, 16th December, 1775; died at Winchester, 24th July, 1817. Her novels still hold their place as the highest models of English domestic fiction. Sense and Sensibility; Pride and Prejudice: Mansfield Park; and Emma, were published during her lifetime, but anonymously; Northanger Abbey and Persuasion did not appear until

the year after her death, although the former is said to have been her earliest work. It was purchased by a publisher, who kept it in manuscript until her other works bad established the author's reputation. Scott said of Miss Austen:-She had a talent for describing the involvements, feelings, and characters of ordinary life, which is to me the most wonderful I ever met with. The big bow wow I can do myself like any one going; but the exquisite touch which renders commonplace things and characters interesting from the truth of the description, and the sentiment, is denied

to me. What a pity so gifted a creature died so early!"

Archbishop Whately, in the Quarterly Review, wrote:— "Miss Austen has the merit (in our judgment most essential) of being evidently a Christian writer: a merit which is much enhanced, both on the score of good taste and of practical utility, by her religion being not at all obtrusive."

Persuasim chiefly relates to the fortunes of Anne Elliot and her lover Captain Wentworth, who have been separated on account of his poverty. Anne is the daughter of Sir Walter Elliot, a proud, vain man, whose extravagant tastes outrun his income. He is obliged to rent his family mansion, Kellynch Hall, to Admiral

Crofts, and to remove to Bath with his eldest daughter Elizabeth, who is of much the same character as her father. Anne goes to visit her younger sister Mary, who is married to the son of Squire Musgrove, and who thinks she has conferred the greatest honour upon that family by the alliance.}

Uppercross was a moderate-sized village, which a few years back had been completely in the old English style, containing only two houses superior in appearance to those of the yeomen and labourers: the mansion of the squire, with its high walls, great gates, and old trees, substantial and unmodernized; and the compact, tight parsonage, inclosed in its own neat garden, with a vine and a pear-tree trained round its casements; but upon the marriage of the young squire it had received the improvement of a farm-house, elevated into a cottage, for his residence, and Uppercross Cottage, with its verandah, French windows, and other prettinesses, was quite as likely to catch the traveller's eye as the more consistent and considerable aspect and premises of the Great House, about a quarter of a mile farther on. Here Anne had often been staying. She knew the ways of Uppercross as well as those of Kellynch. The two families were so con

tinually meeting, so much in the habit of running in and out of each other's house at all hours, that it was rather a surprise to her to find Mary alone; but being alone, her being unwell and out of spirits was almost a matter of course. Though better endowed than the elder sister, Mary had not Anne's understanding nor temper. While well and happy, and properly attended to, she had great good humour and excellent spirits; but any indisposition sunk her completely. She had no resources for solitude; and, inheriting a considerable share of the Elliot self-importance, was very prone to add to every other distress that of fancying herself neglected and ill-used. In person, she was inferior to both sisters, and had, even in her bloom, only reached the dig nity of being "a fine girl." She was now lying on the faded sofa of the pretty little drawing room, the once elegant furniture of which had been gradually growing shabby under the influence of four summers and two children; and, on Anne's appearing, greeted her with

"So you are come at last! I began to think I should never see you. I am so ill I can hardly speak. I have not seen a creature the whole morning!"

"I am sorry to find you unwell," replied Anne. "You sent me such a good account of yourself on Thursday."

"Yes, I made the best of it; I always do but I was very far from well at the time: and I do not think I ever was so ill in my life as I have been all this morning: very unfit to be left alone, I am sure. Suppose I were to be seized of a sudden in some dreadful way, and not able to ring the bell! So Lady Russel would not get out. I do not think she has been in this house three times this summer."

Anne said what was proper, and inquired after her husband. "Oh! Charles is out shooting. I have not seen him since seven o'clock. He would go, though I told him how ill I was He said he should not stay out long; but he has never come back, and now it is almost one. I assure you I have not seen a soul this whole long morning."

"You have had your little boys with you?" "Yes, as long as I could bear their noise: but they are so unmanageable that they do me more harm than good. Little Charles does not mind a word I say, and Walter is growing quite as bad."

"Well, you will soon be better now," replied Anne, cheerfully. You know I always cure you when I come. How are your neighbours at the Great House?”

"I can give you no account of them. I