body and endeavoured to raise it, she felt his breath for a moment upon her cheek: a convulsion rather stronger than she had yet seen, accompanied the expiration, and immediately afterwards his countenance settled into the rigid placidity of death.

It was some minutes before his mother could believe he had expired and she continued unconsciously to press her lips upon his, until the falling jaw and glazing eye convinced her that all was over, and she sunk upon the bed in a state of stupefaction. Even the entrance of the girl who waited on her did not arouse her, nor was it until she heard her loss confirmed by the scream of her servant, that she awoke to consciousness, and burst into tears, which, indeed, restored her to herself, but only to enable her to feel her misery.

'The night of her son's death was the first time for several weeks, that Mrs. E- had attempted to take any regular repose, and she never rested worse. The stimulus which had hitherto supported her was removed, and had left behind it a debility and nervous irritation, which almost amounted to insanity. Her sleep, if sleep it could be called, was broken and disturbed. The early part of the night she passed in that horrible state between slumber and consciousness, which frequently accompanies fever, or follows intense excitement, and must be felt to be fully comprehended. All the adventures of her former life passed confusedly before her, accompanied with those physical impossibilities, that union of contradiction, and that strong sense of reality, which is only to be felt in dreams. She conferred with "the changed-the dead :" she visited the scenes of her childhood, and then again underwent, with even aggravated horrors, the sufferings of the last few weeks. At length her misery became too powerful for slumber, and she awoke in a state of de'irium, during which she could not believe that her son was dead-the past appearing like a fearful dream, horrible, yet untrue. At last, nature could endure no more, and she sunk into that sound sleep which sometimes betokens a mind at ease, but as frequently absolute exhaustion,

and awoke the next morning with fresh capabilities of suffering.

Although her relations had neglected her whilst their assistance would have been kind, if not serviceable; yet her loss was no sooner known than they overwhelmed her with offers of friendship. One took upon himself the trouble of the funeral, accompanied with a delicate hint, that he would defray the expense. Some made her an offer of anything their house contained; and others wished her to go home to theirs. To her, however, the place that contained her son's relics was dearer than any other, and, declining the offers that were made her, she remained in the house until the day appointed for the funeral, in a state of mind I shall not attempt to describe.

It was on one of those lowering, cold and misty mornings, which are so frequent in our climate, especially during the autumnal season, and when the dreariness of nature seems to harmonize with grief, that the quiet street in which Mrs. Eresided, was disturbed by the preparations for the funeral. Eight mourners had expressed their wish to follow him to the tomb; and the necessary arrangements for their accommodation created a considerable bustle within the house, whilst the cavalcade without had attracted all the idlers of the neighbourhood to the spot. Upon the wretched mother, however, all internal and external noise was lost. She had sat the whole of the morning by the coffin in a state of abstraction, and even when the assistants entered to remove the body, she remained insensible of their presence. For some time they waited in silence; but at length a lady, who was with her, perceiving that they were unobserved, took her by the arm and gently endeavoured to remove her. The action seemed to recall her to herself, for, throwing a look of unutterable anguish upon the coffin, accompanied with several convulsive shudders, she endeavoured to leave the place; but after advancing a few paces her strength failed her, and she would have fallen had not one of the attendants caught her, and she was conveyed senseless from the room,

Advantage was taken of her situation to remove the body, and it was hoped she would not have regained her senses until the procession had left the house; but she recovered too quickly for herself, and gazing wildly around her, inquired, in a heart-broken voice, if they had taken him away. At that moment the trampling of the horses caught her ear, and before any one suspected her intention, she darted to a window which overlooked the road the funeral was to take, and remained gazing at the procession whilst it continued in sight, with a fixed intenseness of agony, more resembling that of a statue than a human being; and on losing sight of it by a turning in the road, she was seized with another fit, and again conveyed insensible to her chamber.

But I must hasten to a conclusion. Her relations, to do them justice, had acted rather from carelessness than inhumanity; and they now did all they could to repair her loss, but in vain. She yet lives, and, in point of worldly cnmforts, is in a far better situation than before; but the settled melancholy of her countenance and perpetual sadness of manners, show her to be one of those for whom life, in the words of the French moralist, " may have length of days, but can have no future."

A. P. Y.

JEALOUSY.

A GERMAN BALLAD.-BY JOHN BOW RING, LL.D.

There are three stars in heaven,

They pour out in love their light;

Now blessings be with thee, thou beautiful maiden!
I'll tie up my horse to-night.

Lead thy horse by his bridle, and tie

His bridle to yonder fig-tree;

And come, if thou wilt, to thy maiden, for I

Would fain hold some converse with thee.

I seek to repose me in vain,

There is something that robs all my rest;
My heart is abandon'd to passion and pain,
And jealousy rules in my breast.

From his pocket he drew, ah! he drew
A sharpen'd and glittering knife,

And he plunged it the heart of the beautiful through,
And then rush'd out the blood of her life.

And he fled, and his hands they were dyed
With the blood of his maiden, so red:

"O God of high heaven! forgive me," he cried,
Shall misery pursue me till dead?"

66

He drew from her finger a ring,

A ring of pure gold; in the stream

That ring of pure gold did he suddenly fling;
Like a star in the wave did it beam.

"Roll onward, gold ring, to the sea,
To the depths of the ocean glide on,
For jealousy now has departed from me,
Its thoughts and its threatenings are gone.

""Tis a grief when two youths are beloved
By one maiden-what misery it brings!
And we both to our sorrow and sadness have proved
How two bosoms with anguish it wrings."

RULES OF THE EMPRESS CATHERINE.

The following rules for the government of the visitors were posted up by order of the Empress Catherine of Russia, in her private palace, called "The Hermitage:"

Sit down if you like,
and that

Where you please,

Without being desired a hundred times.

Rules to which those who enter here must submit.

1. They will leave their dignity at the door, as also their hats and their swords.

2. They will equally abandon all pretensions to etiquette as well as pride, if they sometimes find themselves troubled with it. In a word, every thing which bears the slightest resemblance to presumption.

3. They will be gay without being boisterous, and will take care not so break or damage any thing, nor to bite any thing, let it be what it may.

4. They will sit or stand according to their pleasure, or walk about, if they take it into their heads, without regard to other people.

5. They will neither speak too much nor too loud, in order that other people's ears may not be annoyed.

6. They will argue without warmth or passion.

7. They will neither sigh nor yawn, for fear of communicating their ennui to the company.

8. If any proposes an innocent amusement, the others will join in it with goodwill.

9. At table every one will eat whatever he pleases, and as much as he pleases, but he will drink moderately, so that he may be able to walk home.

10. In going out, all disputes will be forgotten, and that which has entered by one ear will pass out at the other. If any one is convicted, by the testimony of two witnesses, of having infringed any of the above regulations, the culprit shall be condemned, for each breach to drink a glass of cold water, without even excepting the ladies, and to read a page of Telemachus. He who shall infringe three of the regulations during the same evening, shall be obliged to recite six stanzas of Telemachus.