tomed to the restrictions of poverty, she would scarcely be conscious of the privation."

Though these were Materialism's warmest feelings of affection, he still found himself involuntarily attracted towards the society of Ellen. He was received at the cottage with the kindest hospitality. When there, the youth affected the most ardent and the most exalted sentiments. He, perhaps, spoke of them the better, because he repeated, with the greatest fluency, all the choicest and most favourite passages which he had either read or heard upon the subject of devoted love; and was not therefore embarrassed by any of that bashfulness and hesitation with which the natural timidity of true affection is seen to blush and tremble, at every effort to escape from its concealment. Materialism talked to Ellen of his passion and his despair, till she believed, and pitied, and, at last, loved him.

The unhappy fate of the widow and her daughter was now aggravated by accessions of unexpected adversity. They became reduced to the last degree of poverty and wretchedness. Half-starving, for her mother's sake Ellen applied to Materialism for relief. With feigned compassion, he proposed his conditional assistance. The conditions were rejected with disdain ; and the assistance was in consequence denied.

The oppression of infirmity and disease was now added to the burthen of the widow's sorrows. She was starving. Without a friend to aid her in supporting the age and distresses of her mother, Ellen's virtue yielded. Materialism bought it, as he would purchase any other sensual gratification, and his love was cured.

In due time Ellen became pregnant; her disgrace was publicly blazoned over the country. It afforded a holiday for the envious, and a triumph for the malignant.

All who had before been bitterly constrained to acknowledge her superiority, now pointed at her the finger of derision and of scorn. Her mother became acquainted with her shame. Age, disease, poverty, her child's dishonour, were more than she could bear, supported as she was, with all the energy of natural fortitude, and with all the grace of religious resignation. The sudden intelligence fell like a thunder-bolt upon her: and where she heard it there she fell; and her noble, and her wounded heart was broken; and she never again awoke to the consciousness of earthly existence. She was buried in a long deal-box, without a pall to cover her, at the parish expense. Ellen followed her to the grave, weeping bitterly, as if nature ineffectually strove, to drown in tears the sense of its affliction. Her garments of rusty black were not sufficient to protect her from the bleak air, of a cold, raw, misty, November morning; and she was hooted and pelted by the mob on her return. Materialism passed at the time; but her distress, perhaps, escaped his observation, as, at the moment, a man was going by with an enormous turtle towards the residence of Mr. Locke.

Ellen had disappeared on the day of her mother's funeral. Two or three months after that event, as they were sitting together tête-à-téte after supper, Mr. Locke asked Materialism if he had heard any intelligence of Ellen?

"Oh! certainly, I know the whole of the affair from beginning to end.

"What then has become of the unfortunate girl?"
"You'll keep the secret?

"Of course, if you require it."

"You promise?"

"I promise."

"I give you fair warning that it's rather a melancholy story, so tell me what's o'clock before I begin ?” "Its nearly the quarter after twelve?"

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Humph! the very witching time of night. You must know then, my dear Mr. Locke," and Materialism began to mix some brandy and water as he spoke: “You must know, my very dear Mr. Locke, that Ellen was unfortunately with child by me."

"By you!-Merciful Heaven! what infamy!"

"Why, yes, indeed, it was a considerable contre-temps; for the poor, agreeable, old lady:—my very dear sir, may I again trouble you for the water,-the cold water, -this brandy of yours is most insuperably spirited. They tell me, that the pregnancy of Ellen was the occasion of her decease. Dead she soon must have been; but Ellen's unfortunate condition was indisputably the immediate occasion of her death."

"Horrible! Horrible!"

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My dear sir! you seem unwell: can I assist you?" "No: no:-proceed: proceed!"

"Well then, after the death of her mother, it occurred to me, that Ellen's existence would be but a dull and troublesome concern; that the child would soon be born; that this might prove, perhaps, an additional inconvenience to her, and to myself a very considerable cause of annoyance and expense; so-the evening after the funeral-I just called on Ellen, who had escaped from the fury of the mob, into Smith's old stable; and, while she hung weeping upon my neck, I took out my razor and cut her throat."

Locke turned pale as death; he grasped the arm of his chair with convulsive eagerness, to prevent his falling from his seat. The presence of an acknowledged murderer chilled and shook him with the violence of an

ague fit. His tongue had no power of utterance. With the sweetest of all possible smiles, Materialism again leant across the philosopher to reach the water-bottle. There was something appallingly unnatural, at this moment, in his adding water to the brandy.

"What art thou?" exclaimed Locke, who appeared recovering from his first horror,-" What art thou, who canst thus leisurely and quietly make confession of crimes that harrowed the very soul to think upon!"

"And why not, my dearest Mr. Locke ?"-Materialism played with his spoon and pressed the knob of sugar against the side of his glass as he spoke-"Why not?the matter is perfectly well contrived. There is not a possibility of punishment, or detection, or even of suspicion."

"But the body?"

"Oh! that I had removed, by Giles, the resurrection man, to my own dissecting room, as a fresh subject for anatomical experiment."

This was the climax of horror. Locke's body appeared to become stiff and cold. At length, with difficulty he began, "Have you no"-conscience he intended to have said; but he suddenly recollected that there was no such thing in his system, and he continued"What does this creature want to make him like other men ?"

The eyes of his companion were instantly illumined by a fiend-like lustre he rose rapidly from his seat, walked with an air of stern malignity towards Locke, grasped his wrist with firmness, and exclaiming, “He wants sympathy, feeling, sentiment, moral principle”— instantly vanished.

Mr. Locke started from his seat, but discovering

that it was all a dream, sat quietly down again, muttering, "Very likely; but I must support my hypothesis."

H. S.

THE OPERA.

We do not envy the man who can view with indifference the first announcement of this delicious amusement who does not look forward with eager expectation to the tardy dawning of this sun of melody, whose absent beams we are doomed to regret through all the autumn, and half the winter. There are a thousand charms peculiar to this temple; its magic circle conjures forth associations which are dormant, or rarely awakened, in other mansions of pleasure. Some of its separate attractions exist almost equally in other theatres, but in no other are so many combined, and heightened by mutual approximation. Here is a noble structure, a splendid and glowing interior; on the stage, the finest music is executed by artists who soar above the mechanical drudgery of mere interpretation, and are often inspired by the enthusiasm of genius; and when the ear is sated with the luxuries of sound, for the eye are still reserved all the graces of form-all that is picturesque in attitude, group, decoration-all the science of motion exhausted on some tale of pathos or romance.

The foreign climate of the place, too, is very fruitful of agreeable associations: the performers are travellers, natives of remote cities, assembled for our gratification from the corners of Europe. The fancy loves to trace them to their far birth-place, to accompany them in their wanderings. They have visited a hundred scenes