in his ringing ears a voice from the tombs, and he fell down in the midst of them with great violence upon the floor.

Three days and three nights did he sit beside her who so soon was to have been his bride and come or go who would into the room, he saw them not-his sight was fixed on the winding-sheet, eyeing it without a single tear from feet to forehead, and sometimes looking up to heaven. As men forgotten in dungeons have lived miserably long without food, so did he, and so he would have done, on and on to the most far-off funeral day. From that one chair, close to the bedside, he never rose. Night after night, when all the vale was hushed, he never slept. Through one of the midnights there had been a great thunder-storm, the lightning smiting a cliff close to the cottage; but it seemed that he heard it not; and during the floods of next day, to him the roaring vale was silent. On the morning of the funeral, the old people for now they seemed to be old-wept to see him sitting still beside their dead child; for each of the few remaining hours had now its own sad office, and a man had come to nail down the coffin. Three black specks suddenly alighted on the face of the corpse-and then off and onand away-and returning-was heard the buzzing of large flies, attracted by beauty in its corruption.. "Ha-ha!" starting up, he cried, in horror-"What birds of prey are these whom Satan has sent to devour the corpse?" He became stricken with a sort of palsy, and, being led out to the open air, was laid down, seemingly as dead as her within, on the green daisied turf, where, beneath the shadow of the sycamore, they had so often sat, building up beautiful visions of a long blissful life.

The company assembled—but not before his eyes the bier was lifted up and moved away down the silvan slope, and away round the head of the lake, and over the wooden bridge, accompanied here and there as it passed the wayside. houses on the road to Grassmere, by the sound of psalms: but he saw he heard not; when the last sound of the spade rebounded from the smooth arch of the grave, he was not by, but all the while he was lying where they left him, with one or two pitying dalesmen at his head and feet.

When he awoke again and rose up, the cottage of the Fold was as if she had never been born-for she had vanished for ever and aye, and her sixteen years' smiling life was all extinguished in the dust.

Weeks and months passed on, and still there was a vacant wildness in his eyes, and a mortal ghastliness all over his face, inexpressive of a reasonable soul. It scarcely seemed that he knew where he was, or in what part of the earth; yet, when left by himself, he never sought to move beyond the boundaries of the Fold. During the first faint glimmerings of returning reason, he would utter her name, over and over many times, with a mournful voice, but still he knew not that she was dead-then he began to caution them all to tread softly, for that sleep had fallen upon her, and her fever in its blessed balm might abate-then with groans, too affecting to be borne by those who heard them, he would ask why, since she was dead, God had the cruelty to keep him, her husband, in life; and finally and last of all, he imagined himself in Grassmere Church-yard, and clasping a little mound on the green, which it was evident he thought was her grave, he wept over it for hours and hours, and kissed it, and placed a stone at its head, and sometimes all at once broke out into fits of laughter, till the hideous fainting fits returned, and after long convulsions left him lying as if stone dead. As for his bodily frame, when Lucy's father lifted it up in his arms, little heavier was it than a bundle of withered fern. Nobody supposed that one so miserably attenuated and ghost-like could for many days be alive; yet not till the earth had thrice revolved round the sun did that body die, and then it was buried far away from the Fold, the banks of Rydal-water, and the sweet mountains of Westmoreland; for after passing like a shadow through many foreign lands, he ceased his pilgrimage in Palestine, even beneath the shadow of Mount Zion, and was laid, with a lock of hair-which, from the place it held, strangers knew to have belonged to one dearly belovedclose to his heart, on which it had lain so long and with which it was to moulder away in darkness, by Christian hands and in a Christian sepulchre.

SECTION IL-FICTION.

i

[Under this head are classed all those pieces which are taken from works of fiction, even though they have a historical basis, or are largely descriptive ]

I.-STORY OF LE FEVRE.
(STERNE.)

He was a

The Rev. Laurence Sterne was born at Clonmel, Ireland, in 1713. clergyman of the Episcopal Church in England for many years, and died in London in 1768

It was some time in the summer of that year in which Dendermond was taken by the Allies, when my uncle Toby was one evening getting his supper, with Trim sitting behind him at a small side-board.-I say sitting; for, in consideration of the Corporal's lame knee, which sometimes gave him exquisite pain, when my uncle Toby dined or supped alone, he would never suffer the Corporal to stand: and the poor fellow's veneration for his master was such, that, with a proper artillery, my uncle Toby could have taken Dendermond itself with less trouble than he was able to gain this point over him; for many a time, when my uncle Toby supposed the Corporal's leg was at rest, he would look back, and detect him standing behind him with the most dutiful respect. This bred more little squabbles betwixt them than all other causes for five and twenty years together.

He was one evening sitting thus at his supper, when the landlord of a little inn in the village came into the parlour with an empty phial in his hand, to beg a glass or two of sack. ""Tis for a poor gentleman-I think of the army," said the landlord, "who has been taken ill at my house, four days ago, and has never held up his head since, or had a desire to taste anything-till just now that he has a fancy for a glass of sack and a thin toast-'I think,' says he, taking his hand from his forehead, 'it would comfort me.'

"If I could neither beg, borrow, nor buy such a thing," added the landlord, "I would almost steal it for the poor gentleman, he is so ill.-I hope he will still mend," continued he: "we are all of us concerned for him,"

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-"Thou art a good-natured soul, I will answer for thee," cried my uncle Toby; "and thou shalt drink the poor gentleman's health in a glass of sack thyself,—and take a couple of bottles, with my service, and tell him he is heartily welcome to them, and to a dozen more, if they will do him good. 'Though I am persuaded," said my uncle Toby, as the landlord shut the door, "he is a very compassionate fellow, Trim, yet I cannot help entertaining a high opinion of his guest too; there must be something more than common in him, that, in so short a time, should win so much upon the affections of his host"-" And of his whole family," added the Corporal; "for they are all concerned for him.”—“ Step after him," said my uncle Toby-"do, Trim, and ask if he knows his name."

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"I have quite forgot it, truly," said the landlord, coming back into the parlour with the Corporal; "but I can ask his son again.' "Has he a son with him, then?" said my uncle Toby. "A boy," replied the landlord, "of about eleven or twelve years of age; but the poor creature has tasted almost as little as his father-he does nothing but mourn and lament for him night and day-he has not stirred from the bed-side these two days.".

"If I get better, my dear," said he, as he gave his purse to his son to pay the man,-'we can hire horses from hence.' But, alas! the poor gentleman will never get from hence,' said the landlady to me,-"for I heard the deathwatch all night long;, and when he dies, the youth, his son, will certainly die with him; for he is broken-hearted already.'

"I was hearing this account," continued the Corporal "when the youth came into the kitchen to order the thin toast the landlord spoke of. But I will do it for my father myself,' said the youth.-"Pray, let me save you the trouble, young gentleman,' said I, taking up a fork for the purpose, and offering him my chair to sit down upon by the fire whilst I did it. "I believe, sir,' said he, very modestly, "I can please him best myself.'-'I am sure,' said I, 'his honour

will not like the toast the worse for being toasted by an old soldier.' The youth took hold of my hand, and instantly burst into tears !"-" Poor youth !" said my uncle Toby,"he has been bred up from an infant in the army, and the name of a soldier, Trim, sounded in his ears like the name of a friend;-I wish I had him here."

"I never in the longest march," said the Corporal, "had so great a mind to my dinner as I had to cry with him for company:--What could be the matter with me, an't please your honour ?"-" Nothing in the world, Trim," said my uncle Toby, blowing his nose," but that thou art a good-natured fellow."

"When I gave him the toast," continued the Corporal, “I thought it was proper to tell him I was Captain Shandy's servant, and that your honour though a stranger-was extremely concerned for his father :—and that if there was anything in your house or cellar". "And thou mightest have added my purse, too," said my uncle Toby;-" he was heartily welcome to it. He made a very low bow-which was meant to your honour—but no answer—his heart was full-so he went up stairs with the toast. 'I warrant you, my dear,' said I, as I opened the kitchen door, 'your father will be well again.'-Mr. Yorick's curate was smoking a pipe by the kitchen fire-but said not a word, good or bad, to comfort the youth.-I thought it wrong," added the Corporal. -"I think so too," said my uncle Toby.

"When the Lieutenant had taken his glass of sack and toast he felt himself a little revived, and sent down into the kitchen to let me know that in about ten minutes he should be glad if I would step up stairs. 'I believe,' said the landlord, 'he is going to say his prayers-for there was a book laid upon his chair by his bed-side; and, as I shut the door, I saw his son take up his cushion.'

"I thought,' said the curate, 'that you gentlemen of the army, Mr. Trim, never said your prayers at all.'-'I heard the poor gentleman say his prayers last night,' said the landlady, 'very devoutly, and with my own ears, or I could not have believed it.'-' Are you sure of it?' replied the curate. A soldier, an't please your reverence,' said I, 'prays as often-of his own accord as a parson :—and, when he