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counting over and over again the days of his affliction, languishes also for his share of it; and had you been of the order of mercy, instead of the order of St. Francis, poor as I am," continued I, pointing at my portmanteau, “full cheerfully should it have been opened to you for the ransom of the unfortunate." The monk made me a bow. "But," resumed I, "the unfortunate of our own country surely have the first right; and I have left thousands in distress upon the English shore." The monk gave a cordial wave with his hand, as much as to say, "No doubt there is misery enough in every corner of the world, as well as within our convent." But we distinguish,” said I, laying my hand upon the sleeve of his tunic, in return for his appeal,—“ we distinguish, my good father, betwixt those who wish only to eat the bread of their own labour, and those who eat the bread of other people's, and have no other plan in life, but to get through it in sloth and ignorance, for the love of God."

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The poor Franciscan made no reply. A hectic of a moment passed across his cheek, but could not tarry. Nature seemed to have done with her resentments in him; he showed none; but letting his staff fall within his arms, he pressed both his hands with resignation upon his breast, and retired.

My heart smote me the moment he shut the door. "Pshaw !” said I, with an air of carelessness, three several times. But it would not do. Every ungracious syllable I had uttered crowded back into my imagination. I reflected I had no right over the poor Franciscan, but to deny him; and that the punishment of that was enough to the disappointed, without the addition of unkind language. I considered his grey hairs-his courteous figure seemed to re-enter, and gently ask me what injury he had done me, and why I could use him thus? I would have given twenty livres for an advocate. "I have behaved very ill," said I within myself, "but I have only just set out on my travels, and shall learn better manners as I get along."

SECTION III.-MISCELLANEOUS.

I. GRIEF FOR THE DEAD.

(WASHINGTON IRVING.)

THE sorrow for the dead is the only sorrow from which we refuse to be divorced. Every other wound we seek to heal — every other affliction to forget; but this wound we consider it a duty to keep open-this affliction we cherish and brood over in solitude. Where is the mother who would willingly forget the infant that perished like a blossom from her arms, though every recollection is a pang? Where is the child that would willingly forget the most tender of parents, though to remember be but to lament? Who, even in the hour of agony, would forget the friend over whom he mourns? Who, even when the tomb is closing upon the remains of her he most loved; when he feels his heart, as it were, crushed in the closing of its portal ;-who would accept of consolation that must be bought by forgetfulness? No, the love which survives the tomb is one of the noblest attributes of the soul. If it has its woes, it has likewise its delights; and when the overwhelming burst of grief is calmed into the gentle tear of recollection; when the sudden anguish and the convulsive agony over the present ruins of all that we most loved, is softened away into pensive meditation on all that it was in the days of its loveliness-who would root out such a sorrow from the heart? Though it may sometimes throw a passing cloud over the bright hour of gaiety, or spread a deeper sadness over the hour of gloom; yet who would exchange it, even for a song of pleasure, or the burst of revelry? No, there is a voice from the tomb sweeter than song. There is a remembrance of the dead, to which we turn even from the charms of the living. Oh, the grave! the grave! It buries every error--covers every defect

GRIEF FOR THE DEAD.

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extinguishes every resentment. From its peaceful bosom spring none but fond regrets and tender recollections. Who can look down upon the grave, even of an enemy, and not feel a compunctious throb that he should ever have warred with the poor handful of earth that lies mouldering before him?

But the grave of those we loved--what a place for meditation! There it is that we call up, in long review, the whole history of virtue and gentleness, and the thousand endearments lavished upon us-almost unheeded-in the daily intercourse of intimacy; there it is that we dwell upon the tenderness-the solemn, awful tenderness-of the parting scene. The bed of death, with all its stifled griefs--its noiseless attendance-its mute, watchful assiduities. The last testimonies of expiring love! The feeble, fluttering, thrilling -oh, how thrilling!-pressure of the hand. The last, fond look of the glazing eye, turning upon us, even from the threshold of existence ! The faint, faltering accents, struggling in death to give one more assurance of affection!

Ay! go to the grave of buried love, and meditate! There settle the account with thy conscience, for every past benefit unrequited-every past endearment unregarded-of that departed being, who can never-never-never return, to be soothed by thy contrition! If thou art a child, and hast ever added a sorrow to the soul, or a furrow to the silvered brow of an affectionate parent,—if thou art a husband, and hast ever caused the fond bosom that ventured its whole happiness in thy arms, to doubt one moment of thy kindness or thy truth,-if thou art a friend, and hast ever wronged, in thought, or word, or deed, the spirit that generously confided in thee, if thou art a lover, and hast ever given one unmerited pang to that true heart which now lies cold and still beneath thy feet;-then be sure that every unkind look, every ungracious word, every ungentle action, will come thronging back upon thy memory, and knocking dolefully at thy soul; then be sure that thou wilt lie down, sorrowing and repentant, on the grave, and utter the unheard groan, and pour the unavailing tear-more deep, more bitter, because unheard and unavailing!

Then weave thy chaplet of flowers, and strew the beauties

of nature about the grave; console thy broken spirit, if thou canst, with these tender, yet futile tributes of regret; but, take warning by the bitterness of this thy contrite affliction over the dead, and henceforth be more faithful and affectionate in the discharge of thy duties to the living.

II.-WESTMINSTER ABBEY.

(ADDISON.)

Born 1672; died

Joseph Addison was the son of a clergyman in Wiltshire.
1719. He wrote a tragedy, "Cato,"-" The Campaign,”—“ Letter from
Italy," and other poems. But his fame rests on his essays in the Tatler,
Spectator, and Guardian, and his other prose works.

WHEN I am in a serious humour, I very often walk by myself in Westminster Abbey, where the gloominess of the place and the use to which it is applied, with the solemnity of the building and the condition of the people who lie in it, are apt to fill the mind with a kind of melancholy, or rather thoughtfulness, that is not disagreeable. I yesterday passed the whole afternoon in the church-yard, the cloisters, and the church, amusing myself with the tomb-stones and inscriptions that I met with in those several regions of the dead. Most of them recorded nothing else of the buried person but that he was born upon one day, and died upon another the whole history of his life being comprehended in those two circumstances that are common to all mankind. I could not but look upon these registers of existence, whether brass or marble, as a kind of satire upon the departed persons, who had left no other memorial of them but that they were born and that they died.

Upon my going into the church, I entertained myself with the digging of a grave; and saw in every shovel-full of it that was thrown up the fragment of a bone or skull, intermixed with a kind of a fresh mouldering earth, that some time or other had a place in the composition of a human body. Upon this, I began to consider with myself what innumerable multitudes of people lay confused together under the pavement of that ancient cathedral,—how men and women, friends and enemies, priests and soldiers, monks and pre

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bendaries, were crumbled amongst one another, and blended together in the same common mass,-how beauty, strength, and youth, with old age, weakness, and deformity, lay undistinguished in the same promiscuous heap of matter!

I know that entertainments of this nature are apt to raise dark and dismal thoughts in timorous minds and gloomy imaginations; but, for my own part, though I am always serious, I do not know what it is to be melancholy, and can therefore take a view of Nature in her deep and solemn scenes, with the same pleasure as in her most gay and delightful ones. By this means I can improve myself with objects which others consider with terror. When I look upon the tombs of the great, every emotion of envy dies in me; when I read the epitaphs of the beautiful, every inordinate desire goes out; when I meet with the grief of parents upon a tomb-stone, my heart melts with compassion; when I see the tomb of the parents themselves, I consider the vanity of grieving for those whom we must quickly follow; when I see kings lying by those who deposed them, when I consider rival wits placed side by side, or the holy men that divided the world with their contest and disputes, I reflect with sorrow and astonishment on the little competitions, factions, and debates of mankind. When I read the several dates of the tombs, of some that died yesterday and some six hundred years ago, I consider that great day when we shall all of us be contemporaries, and make our appearance together!

III THE HAND.

(GEORGE WILSON, M.D.)

Dr. George Wilson was born in Edinburgh, in 1818. His life was devoted to the study and elucidation of the principles and facts of Natural Science. He was appointed to the Chair of Technology in the University of Edinburgh in 1855, and died in November, 1859, universally beloved and regretted.

In many respects the organ of touch, as embodied in the hand, is the most wonderful of the senses. The organs of the other senses are passive: the organ of touch alone is active. The eye, the ear, and the nostril stand simply open:

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