which this predicted result is to be accomplished. This is a legitimate question, and one which genius often leaves unanswered, or but partially resolved. Statesmen, political economists, philosophers of every name, educationists, white, grey, and black, have each proposed a different instrument and a different theory-all have been more or less tried, and all have more or less failed. The only illustrious exception is the scheme which the enlightened Christian philanthropist, in obedience to the dictates of infallible truth, has fearlessly promulgated. He has declared that the principles of the Bible, the great truths of the New Testament, the sacred doctrines, and the hallowing ethics of the inspired volume, are alone the mighty levers adapted and destined to upheave the institutes of error and ignorance, to hurl the stately systems of superstition into undistinguishable ruin, to overthrow the blood-based thrones of tyrants, and to destroy with irresistible convulsion the last remnants and the lowest strata of established despotism. But these principles, it is maintained, are not merely negative-they are omnipotently positive. Not only have they power to expel all false maxims in religion, morals, and politics, from the world—they have also power to substitute in their stead a code of truths, a system of morals constituting a kingdom of liberty, righteousness, and peace. We left the banks of the stream deeply moved, and with nerves more tensely strung to enter the arena of life. This is one of the many preWe there is not, usurps the imagination, while, on the contrary, under the impulse of the latter, our thoughts naturally roll onwards with the rolling river, and lose themselves in the ocean of eternity. What shall be, but is not, claims the dominion of the soul. Along the banks of that suggestive river, we mused on the fate that might await us in the coming scenes of the great drama of existence, and the developing destiny of the world. At that moment, the crumbling thrones and melting dynasties of the Continent seemed to augur a speedy consummation. The majestic river of life was apparently approaching the termination of its course. A new era appeared about to arise upon the earth. We seemed to have reached the confines of the hour destined to herald the doom and regeneration, the death and the life, of humanity. If that hour has not yet arrived, may we not believe it is swiftly advancing? The convulsions of society, multiplying in number and violence, will not retard it. They are its infallible forerunners, the preparatory movements of that power that shall achieve the complete and final renovation of the world. We look with no sceptical eye upon the threatening aspect of European affairs. Through the darkness of the gathering tempest we discern the harbingers of tranquil skies. We look with the eye of calm, assured hope upon the vessel freighted with the best interests of humanity, tossing, reeling, creaking, and shuddering to her centre under the angry swell of the furious waters; for we behold, sitting at her helm, a skillful pilot who, though invisible to sense, will guide||cious fruits of meditative solitude. her in safety to the haven of rest, where man's drink in those generous thoughts, those lofty aspi brightest hopes shall all be fulfilled, and his ideal || rations, that dilate the soul, swell it with unutof social elevation more than realised. The desolation of the hurricane is the prelude of fertility; the agitations of society, the heralds of a glorious millenium. Rage on, then, ye wrathful waters; rock tempestuously the fragile, shivering ship; howl and shriek, ye baleful blasts, and tear her canvas into shreds; thunder, ye grim clouds, upon her groaning timbers, dart your forked lightnings through her shrouds, and rend her spars of oak into splintered fragments for confusion yet shall hear a voice, and wild uproar stand ruled, and the shattered bark shall ride once more as proudly on the subject waves as when launched at first from her mighty builder's hand, and hailed by the joyful shout of the sons of God and the song of the morning stars. We feel a strange delight even in the prospect of mingling with the clashing elements out of which this glorious event is to spring. Action, action is our watchword. We are here not to dream, but to live -not to idle, but to labour-not to loiter, but to march, to pant, to pray for the hour of man's full stature, for the day of perfected humanity. The period of adolescence is past-we are on the verge of maturity. We have already borne "the banner with the strange device" through wildering snow and falling avalanches; let us grasp it still, with the energy of death, and shout, "Excelsior!" But it may be said, this is all good, delightful, desirable; but instead of bodying forth the future in these shapings which imagination may mould and clothe with a vestment of illusive enchantment, present us with the great engines, the positive principles by terable longings after higher good, and stimulate all the dormant energies of the intellectual and moral being into invincible action in the cause of humanity. The clock struck one as we re-entered the precincts of Keswick. "Night's sepulchre" was full-no breathing thing was to be seen. Silence, that meetest emblem of death, sat in undisturbed sovereignty upon the habitations of men. Sleep is awful! ""Tis as the general pulse of life stood still, But the pulse stands not still-Nature makes no an expanse of molten silver; the groves that fringe the skirts of the mountains appear like sable plumes whitened with the frost of winter; the cliffs, that beetle ruggedly over the shining wave, smile, like quietude and beauty of the land they guard; the islands look like mocha-stones chased in the finest silver. Every bay and headland suggests some pleasing fancy. The whole scene is invested with a mantle of enchantment. When we arrived on its banks, by some fortunate chance a little skiff lay unmoored, as if the goddess of the lake invited us to visit her watery home. In a few minutes we How few can combat successfully the temptation to || studded with the bright circlets of the sky, lies like drink, when the waters of Lethe flow at their feet! The earth surely labours under some mortal malady. Till this curse be removed, till this malady be healed, man shall never rejoice in his existence, he shall never bless the day of his birth. At pre-grim warriors viewing from their watch-towers the sent, his happiness seems chiefly, or wholly, negative. The forgetfulness of what he is, where he is going, and what he is to become, seems to constitute the sum of his blessedness. The steady, fixed effort to resolve these problems, generates, in most cases, melancholy, disappointment, and despair, and serves only to aggravate the mystery in which they naturally stand enveloped. Baffled in the attempt, he retires spiritless, hopeless, bewildered, and un-sped right into the middle, beyond the shadows of done. He yields to the craving of his nature after rest of some kind. He flies to excitement by day, partly to revelry and partly to sleep by night, that now by maddening mental intoxication, and now by deadening insensibility, he may secure an utter oblivion of the past and of the future; and thus, like the fleet ostrich, with its head beneath its wing, he tries to realise his safety, when the rushing hunter dashes remorselessly upon his prey, and strikes it at a blow into the dust of death. Some few strong spirits grapple successfully with these momentous questions. Carrying along with them the torch of revelation, the volume of conscience, and the inscriptions of the outer world, they solve the mystic problem of life, and find "The clue to all the maze of mind." These, and these alone, court not sleep for its oblivion, but for its sweet, restoring influences, that they may feel more intensely that they are. In a Passing through the town from west to east, we diverged to the south, in the direction of the lake. It is of an oblong form, nearly three miles in length, a mile and a half in breadth, and interspersed with five beautiful islands. The water is more transparent than that of any other mountain lake. bright day, when the sun is flashing down through its depths, balls of quartz and pieces of spar may be distinctly seen, nearly twenty feet below the surface. This arises, we understand, from the purity of its tributaries, which flow in channels of slate and granite. It is surrounded on all sides with towering mountains of every shape-pyramidal, conical, semicircular, and nondescript-presenting all the varieties of Alpine scenery. nant very truthfully says:— Pen "The two extremes of the lake afford the most discordant prospects. The southern is a composition of all that is horrible. An immense chasm opens in the midst, whose entrance is divided by a rude conic hill, once topped with a castle, the habitation of the tyrant of the rocks; beyond, a series of broken mountainous crags soar one above the other, overshadowing the dark winding deeps of Borrowdale. But the opposite or northern view is, in all respects, a strong and beautiful contrast. Skiddaw shews its vast base, and, bounding all that part of the vale, rises gently to a height that sinks the neighbouring hills; opens a pleasing front, smooth and verdant, smiling over the country like a generous lord; while the fells of Borrowdale frown over it like a hardened tyrant." No tourist has given a more graphic description than this veteran traveller of the last century. He saw it, however, only by day. In moonlight its features are wonderfully transformed. The lake, the mountains. As we skimmed smoothly along the illumined path, Southey's beautiful epitaph on "Emma" came vividly to recollection. Fancy brought back that fair "beloved and lovely being," as she plied her little skiff on the same lake "Nymph-like, amid that glorious solitude, A heavenly presence, gliding in her joy." We have little sympathy with Southey's greater efforts, such as "Roderick" and "Madoc." The poetry is often poor, and the interest feebly sustained. His "inscriptions," however, are real gems; each contains a beautiful thought arrayed in choicest drapery, and gleaming with the light of true poetic genius. As we sailed along, now glancing at the stars above, and now at the stars below, we remembered the exquisite line, "Ye stars, which are the poetry of heaven," and asked a solution of it. Two reasons appeared to justify the sentiment. Of all objects the stars are the loveliest, and of all objects they are the most mysterious. Of all hues, from the ruby Mars to the sapphire Hesperus, they attract and fill the eye with beauty. Radiant with brightest and purest light, they are nevertheless invested with an impenetrable aliquid ignotum, which furnishes ample materials for the shapings of imagination. Beauty and mystery must always be poetry, and thus "the stars are the poetry of heaWe had often looked enviously upon a light transparent cloud floating smoothly on the bosom of the moonlit air, and wished some power would ærialise us, that we might sail in that white-winged ship to explore the blue depths of the trackless ocean of universal ether. That night our wish seemed realised. Our little boat sailed like a fleecy cloud specking the clearness of the sky. We looked upwards, and beheld the moon navigating her nightly course through the blue serene gemmed with starry islands. We looked downwards, and beheld another moon, sailing in another azure sea among other starry isles. Thus floating between two oceans, as in mid-air, we steered along the radiant axis of the hollow sphere. Infinity opened around, and swallowed up the soul in its limitless amplitude. We now passed the island of ven. St. Herbert, where the venerable priest and confes- "While o'er the lake the cataract of Lowdore Nearing Lowdore Inn, we heard distinctly the roar of the waterfall mingling its wild voice with the softer music of the small cascades. We made for the strand, and, hoisting our boat, sat down on the variegated stones that had been kissed into polished beauty by the enamoured lake. Disentangled from former fancies, the panorama presented its objects in novel and different aspects. With our eye on the moon, that still rolled in beauty through the firmament, though shaded at intervals by patches of heavy clouds, the following lines were suggested, and, aided by her lamp, we pencilled them in our note-book, which the reader will perhaps pardon us for inserting: The moon, that looks serenely from the sky, And humbles in the dust the pride of man! Mirror'd from radiant river, stream, and rill, But the night was wearing, and, after a hasty glance at the cataract, which presented no very remarkable appearance, as the recent drought had considerably lessened its supplies, we began to ascend an almost perpendicular mountain that grimly frowned over the southern extremity of the lake. We were somewhat jaded before leaving the boat, but the invincible energy of will triumphed over the lassitude of nature. In a short time we were seated on a rocky projection, looking out, like a castaway from his raft, upon the billowy sea of Borrowdale. The day still lingered behind the mountains. It was a moment of awful loneliness. Surrounded by such gigantic masses of matter, "the fragments of an earlier world," and far removed from kindred and acquaintance, we felt powerfully our ineffable insignificance, our helpless impotence. Death might here blow us from the tree of life like a leaf of the forest; and who would care to note our fall among the heaps of withered foliage with which the world is strewed! And yet we trust some eye would moisten as it missed us from the spray. None is so lonely as to be utterly alone. And He, without whose permission a sparrow cannot fall, will never withdraw his care from the humblest of his creatures. Sad, sweet thoughts like these were beginning to steal over the soul, when the sudden bleat of a stray member of the flock, which had approached unobserved, startled us like the voice of a spirit. Being much excited by the previous sights and sounds of the night, we were struck with a kind of panic, and sped away across the mountains, till the majestic orb of day, slowly ascending above the wavy horizon, arrested our flying footsteps. It was a glorious sight, and amply repaid us for all our toil. Strangely delighted with everything we had seen, and heard, and felt, we quietly picked our way down the steeps, sprang into our boat, and soon arrived again at Keswick, just as the worthy people were opening their window-shutters to the morning sun. As we have nearly exhausted our space, we must tell the remainder of our story in a few words. After getting a little refreshment, we started, staff in hand, for Carlisle. We took an unusual but romantic route. Skirting Skiddaw on the west, and the eastern shore of Bassenthwaite water, we crossed the Caldbeck Fells, and recruited by a comfortable snooze on Jacob's pillow, in a desolate part of the road, just as eight o'clock sounded from the cathedral, weary, foot-sore, but happy, we entered the ancient city of Carlisle, where we determined to remain a few days to recover from the fatigues of our pedestrian excursions. Between Bowness and Carlisle, we could not have travelled less than seventy miles, certainly no mean distance, when the nature of the route is taken into consideration. A word in fine: we have often been asked whether we would adjudge the palm to the English or the Scottish lakes? The question, though often put, is a very absurd one. We have uniformly replied, both are best. The two tableaux are distinguished by peculiar characteristics, calculated to afford gratification to the same mind in different moods, or to different individuals of dissimilar intellectual type. As both of these regions possess large tracts remarkable alike for sublimity and beauty, though in the one the former and in the other the latter predominates, a chastened taste for quiet loveliness, slightly interspersed with rugged sternness, will conduct us to Windermere and Ullswater; and a high relish for wildered grandeur, sparsely relieved by soft attractions, will suggest a visit to Lochlomond or Loch-awe; while a mind capable of revelling with equal delight among both, will enjoy the Lakes of England and the Lochs of Scotland in the same degree of perfection. AN ADVENTURE IN A CEMETERY; OR, THE RUSSIAN DROSHKI DRIVER. THERE are few persons in the world who cannot recall to their imaginations some moment of their life laden with inexpressible terror, the bare recollection of which agitates them more than did perhaps the very incidents themselves, however terrible they may have been. The shock which the system receives in the hour of great danger sometimes deadens the force of perception. But in taking a calm survey of the past, when we conjure up our feelings over again, when we re-enact the incidents, when we pile up probabilities and possibilities, a cold tremor runs through our veins, and we are appalled at the imaginary termination of the catastrophe we|| are engaged in contemplating. vantages; and my sisters, now deprecating, now chiming in with the more brilliant portions of the plan. I fancy I can see the little flames dancing up and down, now illumining, now leaving the room in darkness, revealing the earnest faces and sombre figures of our mourning-clad family; and I even seem to hear echoes of their voices as they sounded low but clear in the hush of the evening. A few weeks passed by without a prospect of anything, but at length a friend called upon us with the information that he had heard of a situation in a Russian family, residing in the environs of St. Petersburg, which, if I chose to accept, he had no doubt he could procure for me. There were many Six years have passed since the event I am about advantages attending it. Could I refuse? I unto relate took place, and yet I never recall it with- hesitatingly resolved to go and seek my fortune in out a shudder. I try to chase the recollection of it the Russian capital. The journey, of course, was away. I use every expedient to banish the remem- a source of some anxiety to my mother. Necessity, brance, and yet there it stands stamped upon my however, soon reconciled her, and every preparation memory, an ineffaceable blot. Relating it to an- was made for my departure, but not without an other person, perhaps I may be unable to impress internal dread, on my part, of the future. It was a upon him the whole horror of my mind, which re- new and sudden step this leaving home; and once ceived severer shocks during the lapse of a few hours that the excitement of getting ready and the pains than it ever did in the course of my whole life. of farewell-taking were over, I began to contemplate Only one night of terror! but in those protracted the dangers I was likely to encounter, the novelty hours what revulsions of feeling-fear, disgust, of my position, my dwelling amongst strangers, my horror-all rapidly succeeded each other. I am duties, and my fears of being found unequal to what compelled to collect my faculties while I write. The was demanded of me. As long as I felt within the remembrance causes me to tremble even now. I am precincts of my own country my heart was sustained only a woman, however, and men, with their strong by the reflection. When, however, I arrived at powers of mind, may probably smile at the intensity Dantzic, where we halted for an hour, I walked of my fears. Let them, however, only place them-up and down the streets with a feeling of much selves, in imagination, in my position-young, sadness. Quitting that town, I seemed to be about friendless, in a new country-and they will make to break my last link with the home I was leaving many allowances. I must, however, at once plunge for an indefinite period. I looked up through the into my story. solemn gloom of the streets towards the gables of the high, narrow houses, and on the projecting balconies saw little groups of neighbours and friends conversing together, with a feeling of envy. They were at home, but I was wandering away from it, becoming more and more conscious of the isolation of my position the farther I receded from my native Berlin. Little time for reflection was allowed me. We started once more, and at length reached the Russian borders, and, after going through the usual investigation at the Customhouse, continued our journey by night as well as day. Many of the incidents I encountered were so new to me that they impressed themselves strongly upon my memory. I remember seeking them as a relief from my own thoughts, which were of that comfortless, uneasy kind which haunt us in moments when we are, as it were, hovering between two positions-the home we have quitted and the new one we are about to form. There is the regret of farewell still gnawing at our hearts; there is mingled with it the compensating feeling of hope, and also the uneasy dread with which unknown positions assail us. I felt I was so young to be at large in the world. Little glimpses of my journey linger on my recollection. I remember near Britau beholding, as we crossed the bridge, a dense array of masted ships I was born at Berlin, of a large family, and circumstances, which I may not explain, having broken down our fortunes, and shattered the foundation of one of the noblest houses in the city, we were compelled to separate, and earn our own bread. Death overtook my father in the midst of his prosperity, and the suddenness with which it arrived prevented him from settling his affairs. It came, however, and with it misery to our house. But why dwell upon these unhappy scenes? They are too painful to revive, farther than to form the reason of my separation from my family. We were four sisters, and I was the youngest. I had received a good education, and being an especial favourite at home, the necessity of going forth into the world, in search of my own livelihood, was looked upon with sorrow. With tears in my eyes, I begged them to look with cheerfulness on the plan of my assisting to retrieve the falling fortunes of my family. I even felt proud of the prospect of exertion, and when the determination was at last arrived at that I should seek a position as governess in some family, I hailed it with joy. I remember how we discussed these things, sitting round our blazing fire in the twilight. My widowed mother, half tearfully, half smilingly, as it were, consoling herself with the promised ad crammed close together, with their bowsprits pro- to me, it was an everyday occurrence, perhaps, jecting far over the road; on the other side were for a poor German girl to seek her fortunes as a goboats laden with corn, and groups of labourers verness, and to find herself desolate at the end of lying in the open air, fast asleep, though the dew the journey. The tears sprang into my eyes, and, was falling heavily and the cold was intenso. Iwith a choking sensation in my throat, I took up noticed the vegetation in its various stages. On my carpet-bag and bent my way along one of the some parts of our journey the willow was in full large streets with a fine avenue of elms on either bloom, but on the road near Valk it was very back- || hand. ward. Tired as I was of my prolonged journey, the intelligence that we were in reality approaching the Russian capital was exceedingly welcome. My fellow-traveller pointed out to me the country seats, with their extensive gardens and shrubberies, as we passed along; but, notwithstanding all the care and pains which had been bestowed upon them, they seemed to me cold and desolate abodes. Black poplars and birch grew densely about the buildings, which were tasteful and opulent in the extreme. At length the great city appeared in sight, and I forgot everything in the feelings awakened by the picture, which was inexpressibly grand. Large buildings towered one above the other, stretching away in all directions, and a feeling of pride entered my heart when I thought how soon I was to be a dweller, at all events, near this magnificent city. The weather was beautiful, and the sun, streaming down from a cloudless sky, was reflected in numerous broad sheets of water scattered around Nobody looked much at me, or if they did, the only reflection that occurred to them was, "She is just arrived off a journey, any one may see that." And, truly, my close bonnet was, I dare say, somewhat dusty, and my pelisse might have been the same. But I, poor thing, fancied that every one might read my simple story in my face, and that each would sympathise with that incessant yearning of my heart towards those familiar rooms in Berlin where my mother sat, perhaps, even then, fashioning my journey over and over again, creating ima ginary evils, and at heart secretly lamenting even the dispensation of that Providence which separated her from her child. My pride of indepen dence had deserted me. The earning of my own livelihood seemed a more difficult thing than I had contemplated, and in my unfriended position I blamed myself for the eagerness I had felt to take an active part in the world. Suddenly I came upon a view of the Neva, and the scene I beheld for a in various directions. Evidences of wealth and time wholly occupied my thoughts. Beautiful opulence met my view the moment I entered St. gondolas and boats were perpetually gliding to and Petersburg. I seemed stunned, however, by all I fro, all glittering in the sun and filled with happy beheld the throng of people, the large cold build- || faces. Buildings rose high on either side, and ings, the subdued look of some portions of the po- golden cupolas, and towers, and fine windows of pulation. When I had quitted the travelling ve- palaces, were reflected in the water, and in the hicle, with my portable trunk at my feet, and looked midst of the river were scattered islands covered round in some hesitation as to what course to with gardens and habitations, while groups of tall take, a fellow-traveller, hastily pointing to one of trees bending over the stream were shadowed deep the streets diverging before me, bade me go in in its channel. Still, to loiter here was not my busi that direction, and I should be sure to meet withness. I had no right to waste time in contemplatsome droshki or other carriage to convey me to my ing the beauties and novelties which met my view. destination. I thanked him, but should have thank- Nor did I much care to do so. Striking as were ed him a little more had he guided me through the the objects which surrounded me they soon seemed great wilderness spreading before me. The tongue to pall. I was overtaken by the reflection that I in which the people spoke was harsh, and sounded was alone, and the necessity of active exertion would coldly on my ears after my own native language. every moment present itself. I was expected that I saw people hurry by some cast a glance at me evening in the family of the P.'s. Their villa stood, and passed on, wholly intent on their own affairs. I had been told, a little way out of town, and Officers and soldiers went to and fro. Handsome I doubted not they would wish me rigidly to adhere carriages dashed rapidly by, and still I stood there to my promise. The day was already at its decline, hesitating what to do. I felt so helpless and igno- less warmth was perceptible in the rays of the sun, rant. This was the most difficult portion of my and I myself began to feel tired and hungry. No journey. I had travelled all those dreary miles place of refreshment, however, presented itself. I with strangers, but a bond of fellowship had accordingly turned back, and resolved to strike into been established between us from the fact of one of the smaller streets. Just as I came to the our being fellow-travellers, and I was under a kind end of the great avenue in which I had been wanof protection. Now they had all hurried away-dering, a beautiful carriage dashed past me, in they had forgotten the humble German governess; and, perhaps, never again in the whole course of their existence did the recollection of the young girl they left standing with her travelling bag in the midst of the crowded quay ever cross them. But I thought of them, nay, longed for the sound of their voice. I wanted their advice. I had not asked it, it was true. A vague reproach arose in my heart for the want of interest they displayed. I did not recollect that although all this was new which I beheld seated three little girls of extreme beauty, and a young man of elegant figure and manly countenance, who was leaning from the window. I little knew then that those fair faces were those of my pupils, or that their companion would one day interest me more deeply than as the occupant of the handsomest carriage in St. Petersburg. One glance at the children, however, sufficed me, and I turned away, as I thought then, wholly unnoticed. But the slight start with which Count |
