In this Wilderness I found myself after a ten years' absence. Its stately fir-trees were yet standing, with all their luxuriant company of underwood; the squirrel was there, and the melancholy cooings of the wood-pigeon—all was as I had left it. My heart softened at the sight; it seemed as though my character had been suffering a change since I forsook these shades.

My parents were both dead; I had no counsellor left-no experience of age to direct me—no sweet voice of reproof. The Lord had taken away my friends, and I knew not where he had laid them. I paced round the wilderness, seeking a comforter. I prayed that I might be restored to that state of innocence in which I had wandered in those shades. Methought my request was heard, for it seemed as though the stains of manhood were passing from me, and I were relapsing into the purity and simplicity of childhood. I was content to have been moulded into a perfect child. I stood still, as in a trance; I dreamed that I was enjoying a personal intercourse with my Heavenly Father, and extravagantly put off the shoes from my feet-for the place where I stood, I thought, was holy ground.

This state of mind could not last long; and I returned, with languid feelings, to my inn. I ordered my dinner— green peas and a sweetbread-it had been a favourite dish with me in my childhood-I was allowed to have it on my birthdays. I was impatient to see it come upon the table— but when it came I could scarce eat a mouthful; my tears choked me. I called for wine-I drank a pint and a half of red wine, and not till then had I dared to visit the churchyard, where my parents were interred.

I had been present at my father's burial, and knew the spot again; my mother's funeral I was prevented by illness from attending. A plain stone was placed over the grave,

with their initials carved upon it-for they both occupied one grave.

I prostrated myself before the spot; I kissed the earth that covered them-I contemplated, with gloomy delight, the time when I should mingle my dust with theirs and kneeled, with my arms incumbent on the grave-stone, in a kind of mental prayer for I could not speak.

Having performed these duties, I arose with quieter feelings, and felt leisure to attend to indifferent objects. Still I continued in the churchyard, reading the various inscriptions, and moralising on them with that kind of levity which will not unfrequently spring up in the mind in the midst of deep melancholy.

I read of nothing but careful parents, loving husbands, and dutiful children. I said, jestingly, where be all the bad people buried? Bad parents, bad husbands, bad childrenwhat cemeteries are appointed for these? Do they not sleep in consecrated ground? or is it but a pious fiction, a generous oversight, in the survivors, which thus tricks out men's epitaphs when dead, who in their lifetime discharged the offices of life, perhaps, but lamely? Their failings, with their reproaches, now sleep with them in the grave. Man wars not with the dead. It is a trait of human nature, for which I love it.

[From "Rosamund Gray."]

CHARLES LAMB.

ONE NICHE THE HIGHEST.

The scene opens with a view of the great Natural Bridge in Virginia. There are three or four lads standing in the channel below, looking up with awe to that vast arch of unhewn rocks, which the Almighty bridged over those everlasting butments, "when the morning stars sang together."

The little piece of sky spanning those measureless piers is full of stars, although it is mid-day. It is almost five hundred feet from where they stand, up those perpendicular bulwarks of limestone to the key of that vast arch, which appears to them only of the size of a man's hand. The silence of death is rendered more impressive by the little stream that falls from rock to rock down the channel. The sun is darkened, and the boys have uncovered their heads, as if standing in the presence-chamber of the Majesty of the whole earth. At last this feeling begins to wear away; they look around them; and find that others have been there before them. They see the names of hundreds cut in the limestone butments. A new feeling comes over their young hearts, and their knives are in their hands in an instant. "What man has done, man can do," is their watchword, while they draw themselves up, and carve their name a foot above those of a hundred full-grown men who have been there before them.

They are all satisfied with this feat of physical exertion except one, whose example illustrates perfectly the forgotten truth, that there is "no royal road to learning." This ambitious youth sees a name just above his reach—a name which will be green in the memory of the world when those of Alexander, Cæsar, and Bonaparte will rot in oblivion. It was the name of Washington. Before he marched with Braddock to that fatal field, he had been there and left his name, a foot above any of his predecessors. It was a glorious thought to write his name side by side with that great father of his country. He grasps his knife with a firmer hand, and clinging to a little jutting crag, he cuts again into the limestone, about a foot above where he stands; he then reaches up and cuts another for his hands. 'Tis a dangerous adventure; but as he puts his feet and hands into those gains, and draws himself up carefully to his full length, he finds himself

He clings with a convulsive the rock. An awful abyss He is faint with severe exersudden view of the dreadful

a foot above every name chronicled in that mighty wall. While his companions are regarding him with concern and admiration, he cuts his name in wide capitals, large and deep into that flinty album. His knife is still in his hand, and strength in his sinews, and a new created aspiration in his heart. Again he cuts another niche, and again he carves his name in larger capitals. This is not enough; heedless of the entreaties of his companions, he cuts and climbs again. The gradations of his ascending scale grow wider apart. He measures his length at every gain he cuts. The voices of his friends wax weaker and weaker, till their words are finally lost on his ear. He now for the first time casts a look beneath him. Had that glance lasted a moment, that moment would have been his last. shudder to his little niche in awaits his almost certain fall. tion, and trembling from the destruction to which he is exposed. His knife is worn halfway to the haft. He can hear the voices, but not the words, of his terror-stricken companions below. What a moment! what a meagre chance to escape destruction! there is no retracing his steps. It is impossible to put his hands into the same niche with his feet, and retain his slender hold a moment. His companions instantly perceived this new and fearful dilemma, and await his fall with emotions that "freeze their young blood." He is too high to ask for his father and mother, his brothers and sisters, to come and witness or avert his destruction. But one of his companions anticipates his desire. Swift as the wind, he bounds down the channel, and the situation of the fated boy is told upon his father's hearth-stone. Minutes of almost eternal length roll on, and there are hundreds standing in that rocky channel, and hundreds on the bridge above, all holding their breath, and awaiting the fearful catastrophe. The poor boy

hears the hum of new and numerous voices both above and below. He can just distinguish the tones of his father, who is shouting with all the energy of despair,-" William ! William! don't look down! Your mother, and Henry, and Harriet, are all here praying for you! Don't look down! Keep your eye towards the top!" The boy didn't look down. His eye is fixed like a flint towards heaven, and his young heart on Him who reigns there. He grasps again his knife. He cuts another niche, and another foot is added to the hundreds that remove him from the reach of human help from below. How carefully he uses his wasting blade? How anxiously he selects the softest places in that vast pier! How he avoids every flinty grain! How he economises his physical powers, resting a moment at each gain he cuts. How every motion is watched from below! There stand his father, mother, brother, and sister, on the very spot, where if he falls, he will not fall alone.

The sun is half-way down in the west. The lad has made fifty additional niches in that mighty wall, and now finds himself directly under the middle of that vast arch of rock, earth, and trees. He must cut his way in a new direction, to get from this overhanging mountain. The inspiration of hope is in his bosom; its vital heat is fed by the increasing shouts of hundreds perched upon cliffs, trees, and others who stand with ropes in their hands upon the bridge above, or with ladders below. Fifty more gains must be cut before the longest rope can reach him. His wasting blade strikes again into the limestone. The boy is emerging painfully foot by foot from under that lofty arch. Spliced ropes are in the hands of those who are leaning over the outer edge of the bridge. Two minutes more, and all will be over. That blade is worn to the last half-inch. The boy's head reels; his eyes are starting from their sockets. His last hope is dying in his heart, his life must hang upon the next gain he