Carried by my vocation to a concert given at Whitehall to the Royal Visitors, I was astonished by the neverto-be-forgotten figure of Adelaide, in all the pride of beauty and decoration; she was inhaling the whispers of a Russian general. With a dexterity that eluded notice, I slipped into her reticule an envelope, which I had always carried since my interview with Philip: it contained the ring, and his fate. She is now in Petersburgh, the mother of princes, or pacing a midnight alley.

I wonder how I can detail so minutely the tragedy of others, when my own is all but concluded. I feel a terrible indifference-all earthly pangs seem extinguished in the blaze of that eternal horizon which is frowning

on me.

I could write on to you for ever, dreaming that I had still years left for repentance, for innocence. My boyish days, the green fields I loved so well, our sweet village, the kind faces that smiled on me so tenderly, my father, my mother,-you,-all, all are rushing before me, and is it possible that I am here? I seem to forget all the life between.

St. Paul's clock is striking five :-how often the clock of Grasmere has roused me to happiness and sun-rise at this hour!-I hear the hammering of the scaffold. Mary

Pray for me-Pray for me.

Oh,

MR. JOHN LOCKE AND YOUNG MATERIALISM;

A METAPHYSICAL ROMANCE.

ONE evening late in November, as Mr. John Locke, the celebrated philosopher, was sitting by his study-fire, biting the end of his pen, and revolving in his mind an argument of very deep metaphysical subtilty, he was

awakened from his trance of thought, by the appearance of a most supernatural phenomenon. His pen dropt from his hand; his foot stiffened upon the fender on which it was supported, and his nightcap was visibly exalted by the rising up of the hair it covered, as the form of a tall, female figure suddenly presented itself to his view, on the dispersion of a cloud of smoke, under the disguise of which she had most mysteriously invaded his apartment. Raising her hand with an air of collegiate majesty, intimidating his inmost soul by a smile of awful encouragement, and appalling him with the studied condescension of her smile, and the supercilious humility of her manner, she silently intimated her desire to the philosopher, that he should retain the seat from which he had in vain attempted to arise. This ceremony accomplished, she flung her ponderous proportions into the close embrace of the opposite arm-chair, while the dust rose in majestic volumes from the oppressed cushion, and the apartment was violently shaken in acknowledgment of the portentous concussion.

Mr. Locke's understanding had by this time recovered from its astonishment. An humbler man might have been agitated by emotions of a more enduring terror, at the presence of so mysterious a visitation; but the mind of the philosopher was regulated on the very best logical and mathematical principles, and its disturbance was light and transient: like the new steam-engine, it possessed the power of righting itself, under the pressure of every accident. Having re-arranged his nightcap-re-adjusted his feet upon the fender-resumed his pen, and recomposed the smooth serenity of his brow, he made an effort towards fulfilling the duties of a host, and bowed and smiled a welcome to the preternatural and unbidden visitor.

"I am," said his companion, "I am, my son, the Genius of Metaphysics."

The philosopher's curiosity was instantly aroused. He turned his inquiring gaze full upon the form before him. She was clothed in the tattered relics of an old academical gown and cassock. On her head was a doctor of divinity's wig, which sat rather awry upon the forehead, and gave to the whole figure an air of easy erudition. Her pen was worn behind her ear, and her ink-bottle was pendant on her left side. Her nose was of the right scholastic proportions; it was tinted with the bloom of brandy, and embrowned with the shadows of rapee: the long, scattered, straggling hairs of her moustache were powdered by the overflowings of her snuff-box: in the right corner of her mouth was a short tobacco-pipe: her eye-brows, in their blackness and their dimensions, were of that kind, which are supposed to be promoted by the study of the law, and which so many of the legal members of the House of Commons, first employ in the ranks of opposition, to frown defiance on Administration; and then exercise, in all the pride of newly acquired place, from the ministerial side, to frown insulting triumph on their deserted associates. Of the eyes, these brows o'ershadowed, one squinted most abominably, from the long acquired habit of attempting to look into the operations of its own brain; the other maintained a hurried, sidelong, and sometimes rotatory motion from a parental and meritorious anxiety to find food for the multitude of systems, which, like very little animals, frisked and battened amid the venerable honours of her wig.

After a pause, which afforded Mr. Locke an opportunity of recording all these circumstances on the tablets of his memory; the reverend lady again slowly

and deliberately repeated, "I am, my son, the genius of Metaphysics; the purpose of my presence here is to deliver to your guardianship and protection, the child of our most favourite hopes, the infant Materialism. His mother is a woman of the very highest fashion and character. His father is Lord A., the swindler, the gambler, and the money-lender. Educate him as your own. He inherits every quality which you can desire a child of yours to be in the possession of; his mind is a sheet of white paper; and he has not an innate principle belonging to him.

Delighted thus to become the guardian of a child without principle, the philosopher began to express his gratitude in a strain of unusual volubility. The Genius of Metaphysics the while, without any regard to the fine speeches, which were thus eloquently emitted to her praise by the most erudite of all her sons, sat in moody silence, amid the fumes of her own tobacco; and letting the tail of her hypothesis draggle across her mind, groped with apparent unconsciousness in the deep recesses of her capacious pockets. After some search and bustle, first in the right, and then in the left, and then in the right again, the infant was produced. It was a prodigiously fine child, the beauty of its extremities was particularly remarkable. It had derived, as a patrimony from its noble parents, that small and delicately proportioned hand and foot, which Lord Byron, who, speaking from personal experience, must be considered as an undeniable witness in the cause, has declared to be the only real, hereditary distinction of high birth. Mr. Locke had no sooner taken the child in his arms, and admired the incipient beauty of its aqueline nose, and the perfection of its limbs, than the Genius of Metaphysics rose from her seat. With an air

of apparent unconsciousness, she walked to the bookcase, and fixed her eyes upon the rows of folios. After remaining a few moments in this quiescent state, she gave herself a violent shake, yawned, rubbed her eyes, and turned herself suddenly about, as if she had awakened from her lethargy of contemplation, to a momentary perception of existence. This lucid interval was but of an instant's duration. She almost immediately relapsed into her habitual absence of mind, and, in a fit of abstraction, vanished up the chimney.

When Mr. Locke discovered that his guest had departed, he proceeded to despatch several messengers for the purpose of collecting his philosophical friends to a grand consultation on the subject of nursing and educating the infant. They did not hesitate to obey the summons. The alacrity of some, indeed, brought them in time for breakfast; others did not arrive till the hour of luncheon; but every one was present at dinner. As soon as the cloth was removed they began their debate on the principles of education. Each of the assembled sages, as it came to his turn to speak, first abdicated his pipe which in those days was considered an indispensable attribute to profundity of thought, and which still remains with Dr. Parr, as a characteristic symbol of the old school of manners, of learning and of intellect ;—and he afterwards replenished his beaker, from a capacious Indian bowl, which was stationed in the centre of the table. We omit the volumes of sagacity and erudition which this conference brought to light; the subject was inexhaustible. It was a luxury, a delight, and an edification to hear these learned personages deliver their respective sentiments; and support them, on the instant, with ready and appropriate quotations from all sorts of books, in all sorts of languages; and defend