The vain wish had crossed like a passing | peeped eagerly in at the half-open door, and cloud the rarely-dimmed serenity of his mind, exclaiming, My bairn! my bairn!" sank and left but a halo behind, when, as Lilly, back insensible on his chair! loaded with the huge remnants of her cake, and assisted by Norman, who was leaving the house to prepare for her juvenile fete, two plainly dressed, but respectable-looking people, opened with something of strange familiarity the garden gate, and asked if Mr. Maxwell was at home.

And the vivid green, as the sunlit grass

Where the pleasant rain hath been;
And the ideal hues, that, thought-like, pass
Through the minds of fanciful men;

we had of muffling was by tying a piece of an old hat, or of cloth (the former was preferred), to one side of the clapper, which deadened every second toll. I complied, and mounting into

They beamed full clear-and that form moved on the belfry, crept as usual into the bell, where

Like one from a burning grave;

And we dared not think it a real thing,

But for the rustling wave.

The sun just linger'd in our view,

From the burning edge of ocean,
When by our bark that bright one pass'd
With a deep, disturbing motion;
The far down waters shrank away,

With a gurgling rush upheaving,
And the lifted waves grew pale and sad,
Their mother's bosom leaving.

Yet, as it passed our bending stern,
In its throne-like glory going,

It crush'd on a hidden rock, and turn'd
Like an empire's overthrowing.
The up-torn waves roll'd hoar,—and, huge,
The far-thrown undulations

Swell'd out in the sun's last, lingering smile,
And fell like battling nations.

J. O. ROCKWELL.

THE MAN IN THE BELL.

In my younger days bell-ringing was much more in fashion among the young men of than it is now. Nobody, I believe, practises it there at present except the servants of the church, and the melody has been much injured in consequence. Some fifty years ago about twenty of us who dwelt in the vicinity of the cathedral formed a club, which used to ring every peal that was called for; and from continual practice and a rivalry which arose between us and a club attached to another steeple, and which tended considerably to sharpen our zeal, we became very Mozarts on our favourite instruments. But my bell-ringing practice was shortened by a singular accident, which not only stopped my performance, but made even the sound of a bell terrible to my, ears.

I began to cut away. The hat had been tied on in some more complicated manner than usual, and I was perhaps three or four minutes in getting it off; during which time my companion below was hastily called away, by a message from his sweetheart, I believe, but that is not material to my story. The person who called him was a brother of the club, who, knowing that the time had come for ringing for service, and not thinking that any one was above, began to pull. At this moment I was just getting out, when I felt the bell moving; I guessed the reason at once-it was a moment of terror; but by a hasty, and almost convulsive effort, I succeeded in jumping down, and throwing myself on the flat of my back under the bell.

The room in which it was was little more than sufficient to contain it, the bottom of the bell coming within a couple of feet of the floor of lath. At that time I certainly was not so bulky as I am now, but as I lay it was within an inch of my face. I had not laid myself down a second when the ringing began.-It was a dreadful situation. Over me swung an immense mass of metal, one touch of which would have crushed me to pieces, the floor under me was principally composed of crazy laths, and if they gave way, I was precipitated to the distance of about fifty feet upon a loft, which would, in all probability, have sunk under the impulse of my fall, and sent me to be dashed to atoms upon the marble floor of the chancel, a hundred feet below. I remembered-for fear is quick in recollection-how a common clock-wright, about a month before, had fallen, and bursting through the floors of the steeple, driven in the ceilings of the porch, and even broken into the marble tombstone of a bishop who slept beneath. This was my first terror, but the ringing had not continued a minute before a more awful and immediate dread came on me. The deafening sound of the bell smote into my ears with a thunder which made me fear their drums would crack.

One Sunday I went with another into the belfry to ring for noon prayers, but the second-There was not a fibre of my body it did not stroke we had pulled showed us that the clapper of the bell we were at was muffled. Some one had been buried that morning, and it had been prepared, of course, to ring a mournful note. We did not know of this, but the remedy was easy. "Jack," said my companion, "step up to the loft, and cut off the hat;" for the way

thrill through! it entered my very soul; thought and reflection were almost utterly banished; I only retained the sensation of agonizing terror. Every moment I saw the bell sweep within an inch of my face; and my eyes-I could not close them, though to look at the object was bitter as death-followed it instinctively in its

oscillating progress until it came back again. It was in vain I said to myself that it could come no nearer at any future swing than it did at first; every time it descended I endeavoured to shrink into the very floor to avoid being buried under the down-sweeping mass; and then reflecting on the danger of pressing too weightily on my frail support, would cower up again as far as I dared.

and tail, and eyes of infernal lustre, made his appearance, and called on me to curse God and worship him, who was powerful to save me. This dread suggestion he uttered with the full-toned clangour of the bell. I had him within an inch of me, and I thought on the fate of the Santon Barsisa. Strenuously and desperately I defied him, and bade him begone. Reason then, for a moment, resumed her sway, but it was only to fill me with fresh terror, just as the lightning dispels the gloom that surrounds the benighted mariner, but to show him that his vessel is driving on a rock, where she must inevitably be dashed to pieces. I found I was becoming delirious, and trembled lest reason should utterly desert me. This is at all times an agonizing thought, but it smote me then with tenfold agony. I feared lest, when utterly deprived of my senses, I should rise, to do which I was every moment tempted by that strange feeling which calls on a man, whose head is dizzy from standing on the battlement of a lofty castle, to precipitate himself from it, and then death would be instant and tremen. dous. When I thought of this I became des

At first my fears were mere matter of fact. I was afraid the pulleys above would give way and let the bell plunge on me. At another time the possibility of the clapper being shot out in some sweep, and dashing through my body, as I had seen a ramrod glide through a door, flitted across my mind. The dread also, as I have already mentioned, of the crazy floor, tormented me; but these soon gave way to fears not more unfounded, but more visionary, and of course more tremendous. The roaring of the bell confused my intellect, and my fancy soon began to teem with all sorts of strange and terrifying ideas. The bell pealing above, and opening its jaws with a hideous clamour, seemed to me at one time a ravening monster, raging to devour me; at another, a whirlpool ready to suck me into its bellow-perate. I caught the floor with a grasp which ing abyss. As I gazed on it, it assumed all drove the blood from my nails; and I yelled shapes; it was a flying eagle, or rather a roc with the cry of despair. I called for help, I of the Arabian story-tellers, clapping its wings prayed, I shouted, but all the efforts of my and screaming over me. As I looked upwards voice were, of course, drowned in the bell. As into it, it would appear sometimes to lengthen it passed over my mouth it occasionally echoed into indefinite extent, or to be twisted at the my cries, which mixed not with its own sound, end into the spiral folds of the tail of a flying- but preserved their distinct character. Perdragon. Nor was the flaming breath, or fiery haps this was but fancy. To me, I know, glance of that fabled animal, wanting to com- they then sounded as if they were the shoutplete the picture. My eyes, inflamed, blood- ing, howling, or laughing of the fiends with shot, and glaring, invested the supposed mon- which my imagination had peopled the gloomy ster with a full proportion of unholy light. cave which swung over me.

It would be endless were I to merely hint at all the fancies that possessed my mind. Every object that was hideous and roaring presented itself to my imagination. I often thought that I was in a hurricane at sea, and that the vessel in which I was embarked tossed under me with the most furious vehemence. The air, set in motion by the swinging of the bell, blew over me, nearly with the violence, and more than the thunder of a tempest; and the floor seemed to reel under me, as under a drunken man. But the most awful of all the ideas that seized on me were drawn from the supernatural. In the vast cavern of the bell hideous faces appeared, and glared down on me with terrifying frowns, or with grinning mockery, still more appalling. At last the devil himself, accoutred, as in the common description of the evil spirit, with hoof, horn,

You may accuse me of exaggerating my feelings; but I am not. Many a scene of dread have I since passed through, but they are nothing to the self-inflicted terrors of this half hour. The ancients have doomed one of the damned in their Tartarus to lie under a rock, which every moment seems to be descending to annihilate him—and an awful punishment it would be. But if to this you add a clamour as loud as if ten thousand furies were howling about you-a deafening uproar banishing reason, and driving you to madness, you must allow that the bitterness of the pang was rendered more terrible. There is no man, firm as his nerves may be, who could retain his courage in this situation.

In twenty minutes the ringing was done. Half of that time passed over me without power of computation-the other half appeared an

They were shocked, as well they might, at the figure before them. The wind of the bell had excoriated my face, and my dim and stupified eyes were fixed with a lack-lustre gaze in my raw eyelids. My hands were torn and bleeding; my hair dishevelled; and my clothes tattered. They spoke to me, but I gave no answer. They shook me, but I remained insensible. They then became alarmed, and hastened to remove me. He who had first gone up with me in the forenoon met them as they carried me through the churchyard, and through him, who was shocked at having, in some measure, occasioned the accident, the cause of my misfortune was discovered. I was put to bed at home, and remained for three days delirious, but gradually recovered my senses. You may be sure the bell formed a prominent topic of my ravings, and if I heard a peal, they were instantly increased to the utmost violence. Even when the delirium abated, my sleep was continually disturbed by imagined ringings, and my dreams were haunted by the fancies which almost maddened me while in the steeple. My friends removed me to a house in the country, which was sufficiently distant from any place of worship to save me from the apprehensions of hearing the church

age. When it ceased, I became gradually more quiet, but a new fear retained me. I knew that five minutes would elapse without ringing, but at the end of that short time the bell would be rung a second time, for five minutes more. I could not calculate time. A minute and an hour were of equal duration. I feared to rise, lest the five minutes should have elapsed, and the ringing be again commenced, in which case I should be crushed, before I could escape, against the walls or framework of the bell. I therefore still continued to lie down, cautiously shifting myself, however, with a careful gliding, so that my eye no longer looked into the hollow. This was of itself a considerable relief. The cessation of the noise had, in a great measure, the effect of stupifying me, for my attention, being no longer occupied by the chimeras I had conjured up, began to flag. All that now distressed me was the constant expectation of the second ringing, for which, however, I settled myself with a kind of stupid resolution. I closed my eyes, and clenched my teeth as firmly as if they were screwed in a vice. At last the dreaded moment came, and the first swing of the bell extorted a groan from me, as they say the most resolute victim screams at the sight of the rack, to which he is for a second time destined. After this, how-going bell; for what Alexander Selkirk, in ever, I lay silent and lethargic, without a thought. Wrapped in the defensive armour of stupidity, I defied the bell and its intonations. When it ceased, I was roused a little by the hope of escape. I did not, however, decide on this step hastily, but, putting up my hand with the utmost caution, I touched the rim. Though the ringing had ceased, it still was tremulous from the sound, and shook under my hand, which instantly recoiled as from an electric jar. A quarter of an hour probably elapsed before I again dared to make the experiment, and then I found it at rest. I determined to lose no time, fearing that I might have delayed already too long, and that the bell for evening service would catch

me.

I

This dread stimulated me, and I slipped out with the utmost rapidity and arose. stood, I suppose, for a minute, looking with silly wonder on the place of my imprisonment, penetrated with joy at escaping, but then rushed down the stony and irregular stair with the velocity of lightning, and arrived in the bell-ringer's room. This was the last act I had power to accomplish. I leaned against the wall, motionless and deprived of thought, in which posture my companions found me, when, in the course of a couple of hours, they returned to their occupation.

Cowper's poem, complained of as a misfortune, was then to me as a blessing. Here I recovered; but, even long after recovery, if a gale wafted the notes of a peal towards me, I started with nervous apprehension. I felt a Mahometan hatred to all the bell tribe, and envied the subjects of the Commander of the Faithful the sonorous voice of their Muezzin. Time cured this, as it does the most of our follies; but, even at the present day, if, by chance, my nerves be unstrung, some particular tones of the cathedral bell have power to surprise me into a momentary start.

Blackwood's Mag.

A VISION OF BEAUTY.

It was a beauty that I saw

So pure, so perfect, as the frame
Of all the universe was lame,
To that one figure could I draw,
Or give least line of it a law!

A skein of silk without a knot!
A fair march made without a halt!
A curious form without a fault!

A printed book without a blot!
All beauty, and without a spot.
BEN JONDON.

BALLAD OF THE SAILOR'S CHILDREN.

Father! why linger on the waves? Our kitchen fire burns bright,
And shines upon your empty chair, a-welcoming the night;
The sun has seen us all day long, listening your step to hear-
Why come you not across the sea-our father, ever dear!

Long time since first you went away! We counted as it passed;
And this was to have been the day you would return at last:
Oh! how our hearts beat as it came, with thinking upon you,
And how we wearied for the dawn-our father, ever true!

We watch'd, and saw the morning sun far in the east appear: "He must be on his way (we said)—he must be very near."

We watch'd, and saw the evening sun decline far in the west: "He'll come before it's night (we said)-our father, ever best!"

Night has brought only clouds and storms. We heard the wild sea-mew,
And in its shrieks we thought it bade us go a-seeking you.

All day we waited at the door, your smile and kiss to find,

But now we stand upon the shore-our father, ever kind!

And wherefore come you not? The waves begin to swell and dash,
And through the black clouds, far away, we see the lightning flash;
The wind is bursting from the sky, and lashing up the flood-
O Heaven protect the ship that holds our father, ever good!

No mother now have we to pray for you at night and morn,
Or dress us in our best array the day you should return;
She is not here to kiss your brow, wet with the salt sea-wave,
If cold and weary-worn wert thou-our father, ever brave!

But come-oh, come! And you will see how bright the fire will blaze;
And we will, as she bade us, be your children good always;

And though that she is dead and gone, we would not have you pine,
Or stay away-for are not we-our father-ever thine!

And when you weary, we will bring, as we did long ago,

Our chairs about your knees, and sing "The Stormy Winds do Blow;"

And we can tell you all again the stories that she told,

How you fought the French upon the main-our father, ever bold!

Oh! ever as the lightning gleams, we think we sec you nigh;

And ever as the wild wind screams, we think we hear you cry;
And ever as the towering tide sends up its hissing spray,

We think upon our mother dead, and father, far away!

But she said we would not be alone, and therefore should not weep,
For He that cares for the shorn-lamb would watch you on the deep,
And in His own time send to us, across the weary wave,

Our father, ever dear, and true, and kind, and good, and brave.

ALEX. WHITELAW.