thy brow, and proclaim, as thou passest by, THIS IS THE ABANDONED OF GOD AND MAN'-may fearful spectres haunt thee in the night season-may thy dearest friends drop day by day into the grave, and curse thee with their dying breath-may all that is most horrible in human nature, more solemn than language can frame, or lips can utter,-may this, and more than this, be thy eternal portion, shouldst thou violate the oath that thou hast taken!" He ceased:-hardly knowing what she did, the terrified girl acceded to the awful adjuration, and promised eternal fidelity to him who was henceforth to be her lord. 66 Spirits of the damned, I thank thee for thine assistance!" shouted the stranger: "I have wooed my fair bride bravely. She is mine-mine for everAy, body and soul, both mine; mine in life, and mine in death. What! in tears, my sweet one, ere yet the honey-moon is past? Why! indeed thou hast cause for weeping; but when next we meet, we shall meet to sign the nuptial bond." He then imprinted a cold salute on the cheek of his young bride, and softening down the unutterable horrors of his countenance, requested her to meet him at eight o'clock on the ensuing evening, in the chapel adjoining to the castle of Hernswolf. She turned round to him with a burning sigh, as if to implore protection from himself,-but the stranger was gone.

On entering the castle, she was observed to be impressed with a sense of the deepest melancholy. Her relations vainly endeavoured to ascertain the cause of her uneasiness; but the tremendous oath she had sworn completely paralysed her faculties, and she was fearful of betraying herself by even the slightest intonation of her voice, or the least variable expression of her countenance. When the evening was concluded, the family retired to rest; but Clotilda, who was unable to take repose from the restlessness of her disposition, requested permission to remain alone in the library that adjoined her apartment.

All was now deep midnight; every domestic had long since retired to rest, and the only sound that

could be distinguished was the sullen howl of the bandog as he bayed the waning moon. Clotilda remained in the library in an attitude of deep meditation. The lamp that burnt on the table where she sat was dying away, and the lower end of the apartment was already more than half obscured. The clock from the northern angle of the castle tolled out the hour of twelve, and the sound echoed dismally in the solemn stillness of the night. Suddenly the oaken door at the farther end of the room was gently lifted on its latch, and a bloodless figure, apparelled in the habiliments of the grave, advanced slowly up the apartment. No sound heralded its approach, as it moved with noiseless steps to the table where the lady was stationed. She did not at first perceive it, till she felt a death-cold hand fast grasped in her own, and heard a solemn voice whisper in her ear, "Clotilda!" She looked up,—a dark figure was standing beside her; she endeavoured to scream, but her voice was unequal to the exertion. Her eye was fixed, as if by magic, on the form, which slowly removed the garb that concealed its countenance, and disclosed the livid eyes and skeleton shape of her father. It seemed to gaze on her with pity and regret, and mournfully exclaimed-" Clotilda, the dresses and the servants are ready, the church bell has tolled, and the priest is at the altar,-but where is the affianced bride? There is room for her in the grave, and to-morrow shall she be with me.' "To-morrow!" faltered out the distracted girl. "The spirits of hell have registered it, and to-morrow must the bond be cancelled.' The figure ceased-slowly retired, and was soon lost in the obscurity of distance.

The

morning-evening-arrived; and already as the hall clock struck eight, Clotilda was on her road to the chapel. It was a dark, gloomy night; thick masses of dun clouds sailed across the firmament, and the roar of the winter wind echoed awfully through the forest trees. She reached the appointed place: a figure was in waiting for her-it advanced-and discovered the features of the stranger. "Why! this is well, my sweet bride,"

he exclaimed, with a sneer; " and well will I repay thy fondness. Follow me." They proceeded together in silence through the winding avenues of the chapel, until they reached the adjoining cemetery. Here they paused for an instant; and the stranger, in a softened tone, said, "but one hour more, and the struggle will be over. And yet this heart of incarnate malice can feel, when it devotes so young, so pure a spirit to the grave. But it must-it must be," he proceeded, as the memory of her past love rushed on her mind; "for the fiend whom I obey has so willed it. Poor girl, I am leading thee indeed to our nuptials; but the priest will be death, thy parents the mouldering skeletons that rot in heaps around; and the witnesses of our union, the lazy worms that revel on the carious bones of the dead. Come, my young bride, the priest is impatient for his victim." As they proceeded, a dim blue light moved swiftly before them, and displayed at the extremity of the churchyard the portals of a vault. It was open, and they entered it in silence. The hollow wind came rushing through the gloomy abode of the dead; and on every side were piled the mouldering remnants of coffins, which dropped piece by piece upon the damp earth. Every step they took was on a dead body; and the bleached bones rattled horribly beneath their feet. In the centre of the vault rose a heap of unburied skeletons, whereon was seated a figure too awful even for the darkest imagination to conceive. As they approached it, the hollow vault rung with a hellish peal of laughter; and every mouldering corpse seemed endued with unearthly life. The stranger paused, and as he grasped his victim in his hand, one sigh burst from his heartone tear glistened in his eye. It was but for an instant; the figure frowned awfully at his vacillation, and waved his gaunt hand.

The stranger advanced; he made certain mystic. circles in the air, uttered unearthly words, and paused in excess of terror. On a sudden he raised his voice, and wildly exclaimed-" Spouse of the spirit of darkness, a few moments are yet thine, that thou mayest

know to whom thou hast consigned thyself. I am the undying spirit of the wretch who cursed his Saviour on the cross. He looked at me in the closing hour of his existence, and that look hath not yet passed away, for I am cursed above all on earth. I am eternally condemned to hell! and must cater for my master's taste till the world is parched as is a scroll, and the heavens and the earth have passed away. I am he of whom thou mayest have read, and of whose feats thou mayest have heard. A million souls has my master condemned me to ensnare, and then my penance is accomplished, and I may know the repose of the grave. Thou art the thousandth soul that I have damned. I saw thee in thine hour of purity, and I marked thee at once for my own. Thy father did I murder for his temerity, and permitted to warn thee of thy fate; and thyself have I beguiled for thy simplicity. Ha! the spell works bravely, and thou shalt soon see, my sweet one, to whom thou hast linked thine undying fortunes, for as long as the seasons shall move on their course of nature -as long as the lightning shall flash, and the thunders roll, thy penance shall be eternal. Look below! and see to what thou art destined. She looked, -the vault split in a thousand different directions; the earth yawned asunder; and the roar of mighty waters was heard. A living ocean of molten fire glowed in the abyss beneath her, and blending with the shrieks of the damned, and the triumphant shouts of the fiends, rendered horror more horrible than imagination. Ten million of souls were writhing in the fiery flames, and as the boiling billows dashed them against the blackened rocks of adamant, they cursed with the blasphemies of despair; and each curse echoed in thunder across the wave. The stranger rushed towards his victim. For an instant he held her over the burning marl, looked fondly in her face, and wept as he were a child. This was but the impulse of a moment; again he grasped her in his arms, dashed her from him with fury; and as her last parting glance was cast in kindness on his face shouted aloud, "Not mine is the crime, but the religion

that thou professest; for is it not said that there is a fire of eternity prepared for the souls of the wicked; and hast thou not incurred its torments?" She, poor girl, heard not, heeded not the shouts of the blasphemer. Her delicate form bounded from rock to rock, over billow, and over foam as she fell, the ocean lashed itself as it were in triumph to receive her soul, and as she sunk deep in the burning marl, ten thousand voices reverberated from the bottomless abyss, Spirit of evil! here indeed is an eternity of torments prepared for thee; for here the worm never dies, and the fire is never quenched."

66

HISTORY affords not a more singular instance of the powerful influence which a man of spirit, aided with a little natural genius and vivacity, may at once acquire over a multitude, and finally over a whole state, than that of Thomaso Aniello, commonly called Masaniello, a fisherman of Naples, and the leader of an insurrection against the house of Austria, in the year 1647.

The Neapolitans had submitted to the heavy impost of Philip the Fourth without repining, till, by an additional tax laid upon fruit, the chief support of the poorer Italians, their resentments burst into outrage.

Masaniello was a sprightly, active, humorous fellow, with short cropped hair, a mariner's cap generally on his head, and about twenty-four years of age. Living in the market-place, he was every day a witness to the disputes between the fruit sellers and the revenue officers, and by repeated acts of oppression gradually became an enemy to the Spanish government. Throwing up his cap, as was his general custom when any thing provoked him, he swore, "that if only