laughter; sought for refuge among several old ladies; - found that they were all watching, with delight, the merriment of their children or grandchildren; - sighed deeply, and contrived to get away unobserved; need not say contrived, for few knew that I was in the room, and none missed me when I departed. Eight o'clock. Went by myself to the theatre, which has always been with me a favourite place of amusement; - Lady Howard (formerly the Honourable Miss Aubrey) happened to be in the box into which I went; -was received politely, I may even say cordially, by herself and her husband. Lady Howard must, at one time, have been a decided beauty - she is, even now, a fine, graceful-looking woman. Saw Dick Oliver and Ellen -Mr. and Mrs. Oliver, I mean in an opposite box; - did not think they looked happy; - felt half angry at myself, but could not help pitying Ellen ;- did not like the play — it was "Venice Preserved;"-observed that the ladies never think of shedding tears in a theatre now-a-days. Did not stay to see the after-piece. Ten o'clock. - Felt no inclination to eat supper; -read a few pages of Young's "Night Thoughts;" went to bed, and dreamed that I was wandering alone, at midnight, among the ruins of Rome. THE WRECK OF A WORLD. A DAY-DREAM. "Some say, The veil of life and death? or do I lie In dream, and does the mightier world of sleep SHELLEY. THE impression it left upon my mind will never be effaced, yet I cannot describe it. It was a vision of fearful, but glorious sublimity. I know not whether it was a waking or a sleeping dream; it came upon me for the moment, with all the overwhelming force of reality. There are mysteries in the unfathomable soul of man, over which, either in the calm of noon, or the solitude of night, we may well brood with awe, starting even from ourselves, as if we carried within us a spirit, to whose omnipotence we are forced to bow, and over whose wild and wayward will we in vain attempt to assert an influence. It was Sunday, and I was up by myself among the mountains. Not a human habitation was in sight, not a human sound was floating on the hushed atmosphere. But, through the deep stillness, a low thrilling voice appeared to fill all space, a voice that seemed an inherent part of the creation, for ever ringing on the finer nerves of sense, like the distant and dying hum of bees, or the far-off murmur of the summer ocean. The more you listened to convince yourself of the profound quiet of animated nature, the more you were aware of a certain rushing noise — the whirl, perhaps, of a revolving world, or the audible breathing of every living blade of grass, and humble flower, and majestic tree, and primeval forest. Or might it not be the invisible passing of ten thousand souls, eternally moving on and on, in two uninterrupted currents - the one towards the heaven they have gained, and the other to lighten up for a while, the pure shrine of infantile bosoms? It matters not; it is a sound to be felt; not reasoned on. I threw myself down at random, upon a spot unshadowed by a tree-green and bright, under the immediate eye of Heaven. I lay like a swimmer afloat upon his back, in the blue solitude of his favourite bay. The mighty skies seemed rolling on above me, with their gorgeous cavalcades of clouds, tier after tier, in every great and fantastic shape that imagination coins - palaces with domes of diamond and gold, immeasurable pyramids, thrones radiant with chrysolite, leviathans of the deep, monsters of the air, glorious and colossal forms of bards, and silver-haired prophets, and monarchs on their majestic steeds, careering across the sun. Suddenly a change came over the face of the firmament. Its rainbow lights faded away. Its blue fields seemed to wither in the poisoned air. They grew pale, and yet paler; a filmy veil appeared to have been cast before them; and when I looked again, they had died away into a wan and sickly white. The whole firmament was in rapid and tumultuous motion. The winds were still speechless; the same dead repose pervaded nature; but far above me, the stormy rack was wheeling round and round in its inextricable confusion. The brightness of the sun-lit empyrean had passed away for ever. Darker and darker; every thing was quickly lapsing into gloom. Along the whole horizon my eye rested on the melancholy edge of a rising canopy of black. It spread upwards with a slow, regular, ominous motion; upwards, still upwards, across the whole arch of heaven. The light fled before it, but it pursued, and buried it up in its sullen folds. Not a ray, not a single ray was left; not one luminous particle floated through infinite space. But a change had been wrought upon my sense of sight; I could now distinguish objects in the darkness, as well as I could before in the light. I turned towards the earth, and looked around. I scarcely knew it to be the same as that on which I had lived. I could see for miles,- for leagues, -away through the deep obscurity that overshadowed it; but it was only one vast, unbroken, barren, lifeless waste. Its mountains, its woods, its streams, its cities, its moving and breathing things were gone-gone like a cloud from the surface of a lake. Of all the human race, I only survived. The desolation had been complete-too complete, too terrible for tears. I felt that a curse was upon me the curse of loneliness. And the silence—that dreadful silence-worse, a thousand times worse, than the roar of earthquakes still continued. There was nothing to break it; the air had lost the attribute of motion; the instinct of life had perished; and there was not even the stirring of a growing flower to relieve the ear, though but with the mockery of sound. Whither was I now to flee? Was I doomed to a wretched immortality, wandering over a shipwrecked and deserted world? embodied shape passed by me. All at once a dis For the first time |