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EXTERNAL AND INWARD GRIEF.

There exists an erroneous, though too prevalent custom, of estimating the sincerity of sorrow by the violence of its outward demonstrations. He, therefore, who can command a ready supply of tears and sighs, may confidently lay claim to the character of a tender-hearted and affectionate friend: while he who confines his silent anguish within his own unhappy bosom, though he be not stigmatized as hard-hearted and unfeeling, is accounted at best a cold, unsympathising being. Those great philosophers, however, who have made the varying passions of human nature the chief objects of their profound investigations, have universally concurred in the sentiment of Seneca,

Curæ leves loquuntur, ingentes stupent.

'Light sorrows speak, while heart-felt pangs are dumb.'

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Yet let it not be from hence concluded, that sighs and tears are incompatible with real sorrow, far from it: there are many most acutely-feeling brests, which cannot refrain from giving utterance to their griefs. Such sorrow is, however, in general neither lasting nor deep-rooted: it resembles a torrent, at first bursting with impetuous fury from its sources in the mountains, then with unruffled surface gently gliding along the peaceful valley.

When the first passionate bursts of uncontrollable anguish have subsided; when the tears have streamed forth in such plenteous torrents, that their source is nigh exhausted; the heart feels relieved of half its agonizing burthen. To the turbulence of tempestuous grief soon succeeds the calm of mild serenity; and though a passing cloud of sadness may for a moment overshadow the mind, soon will it melt away before the irradiate sunbeam of returning peace. Then springs forth the elated soul, to trace anew the paths of pleasure, and form for itself new enjoyments; or, like the vine, torn from its native supports, it entwines its affections around some beloved surviving object, and forgets its sorrows.

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But deep, inconsolable, heart-rending agony finds no vent for tears and lamentations: it cherishes in secret its bitter sorrows, broods over its ruined hopes and blighted affections, and inly pines away, till it sinks into grave, bowed down beneath the pressure of unutterable woe.

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Such was the unhappy fate of H. Bereft in the space of a few short days of wife and child-the only ties that bound him to life, and sweetened his cup of bitterness-not a tear was seen to bedew his cheek, not one momentary sigh was heard to burst from his bosom. It was generally whispered among his neighbours, that the loss was not to him irreparable, that he would soon lull to rest every painful recollection in the arms of some endearing being. Oh! could they have conceived the anguish that preyed upon his heart; could they have beheld him bending in mute agony over the bed of death; they would have pitied, aye, and have venerated, rather than mocked at his sufferings. But he is now at rest! The oppressive load of agony was too intolerable to be borne ;

VOL. I. 14.

"Sunk in self-consuming anguish,

Can the poor heart always ache?
No!-the tortured nerve must languish,
Or the strings of life will break."
P

The returning spring breathed its balm around him, but he was insensible to the fragrance: Nature shone forth in all her loveliness, but his eye was blind to every beauty: Spring had indeed shed her genial influence on all around him, but the frozen winter of despair still reigned within his bosom. Ere the last violet had faded from the mountains, his aching head peacefully reclined on its mouldering pillow.

Z.

THE HAUNTED PHYSICIANS.

A LOVER, whose mistress was dangerously ill, sought every where for a skilful physician in whom he could place confidence, and to whose care he might confide a life so dear to him. In the course of his search he met with a talisman, by the aid of which spirits might be rendered visible. The young man exchanged, for this talisman, half his possessions, and having secured his treasure, ran with it to the house of a famous physician. Flocking round the door he beheld a crowd of shades, the ghosts of those persons whom this physician had killed. Some old, some young; some the skeletons of fat old men; some gigantic frames of gaunt fellows; some little puling infants and squalling women; all joined in menaces and threats against the house of the physician-the den of their destroyerwho however peacefully marched through them, with his cane to his chin, and a grave and solemn air. The same vision presented itself, more or less, at the house of every physician of eminence. One at length was pointed out to him in a distant quarter of the city, at whose door he only perceived two little ghosts. "Behold," exclaimed he, with a joyful cry, "the good physician of whom I have been so long in search!" The doctor, astonished, asked him how he had been able to discover this. "Pardon me," said the afflicted lover, complacently, "your ability and your reputation are well known to me." My reputation!" said the physician, " why I have been in Paris but eight days, and in that time I have had but Two patients." "Good God!" involuntarily exclaimed the young man," and there they are:

66

SONNET.

I LOVE to gaze upon the Evening Star,

When Nature almost slumbers :-nought is heard
Save distant waterfall, or lonely bird,

Which breathes its wildest, softest strains afar,→
Or sprightly music of the soft guitar;

Which, floating o'er the bosom of a lake,
Bids Echo in her rocky home awake.

But Oh! I love the more to gaze thereon,

Since, Emma, thou didst love thereon to gaze,—

For though my dreams of love have long been gone,
Fond Memory's finger points to those bright days,
And still I hail them-in my humble lays-
Glad star of Eve! Elysium unto me!-
Perchance my Emma dwelleth now with thee.

* George Cruikshank has recently illustrated this story with a humorous plate.

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In a glen, remote from the noise and tumult of the busy and distracting world, Gertrude de Weimar first saw the light. To its tranquil recesses her parents had retired soon after their marriage; and here Margaret de Weimar brought forth her daughter, her only child.

Imagination, wide as oftentimes it wanders into the regions of fiction, would, perhaps, acknowledge it a task of no easy accomplishment, to point to a spot more lovely, or better adapted for the dear enjoyments, and dearer anticipations of conjugal affection, than this lonely and secluded retreat. Wild, yet cultivated, it was at once attractive from the luxuriance of nature, and from those scenes which inspire the feeling, that, though at a distance from their din and discord, we are yet conversant among men: a feeling, softened by the thought that there is still near us, some congenial being

Whom we may whisper, 'Solitude is sweet.'”

Upon its sides, rising gradually, and sloping away until the eye which rested on the summit of the woody ridge that girded it, found its view obstructed only by the expanse of heaven, grew every variety of tree and shrub, which can decorate the landscape, or win the soul to own the beneficent Hand that presented, with a form so inviting, a prospect bespeaking the immediate operation of illimitable power. Deep in the bosom of this peaceful dell flowed a rill, which issued, clear as crystal, from a rock that overhung its higher extremity. From morning to evening, and from evening to morning, it held on its way. Reckless it was indeed of all the sorrows that had attended humanity since first it paid its lucid tribute to the ocean; yet you might have fancied, so gentle was its murmur, that it sympathized with suffering, and was willing to assuage the anguish of the sons and daughters of affliction, should such visit the tranquillity of that scene of retirement whence it derived its transparent wave.

Far before the glen, and in that direction where it unbosomed to the world beyond, towered the majestic summits of the Alps: here, tall and

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