for ease, for a little respite. It was all in vain. My friend attended this man, and, though used to scenes of death, this terrified even him. He said that the raving of the sufferer was beyond belief—it was the noise of a great animal, not of man. His eye glared, and he swore perpetually, and said that Satan was in wait for him, and pointed towards a corner of the chamber. When he made an effort, it was like the struggle of the tiger. And then he would listen, and cry that he heard the dull roll of drums, and the stamp of a war-horse, and the sounds of trumpets calling calling; and he answered and shrieked that he was coming.' And he went!

Most of my own friends have died calmly. One wasted away for months and months; and though death came slowly, he came too soon. I was told that Mr. ' wished to live.' On the very day on which he died he tried to battle with the great king, to stand up against the coldness and faintness which seized upon him. But he died, notwithstanding, and though quietly, reluctantly. Another friend (a female) died easily and in old age, surviving her faculties. A third met death smiling. A fourth was buried in Italian earth among flowers and odorous herbs. A fifth, the nearest of all, died gradually, and his children came about him, and were sad; but he was resigned to all fortunes, for he believed in a long hereafter !' And so time

passes. So

'Labuntur anni: nec pietas moram

Rugis et instanti senectæ

Afferet, indomitæque morti.'

There is something inexpressively touching in an

anecdote which I have heard of a foreign artist. He was an American, and had come hither (he and his young wife) to paint for fame and a subsistence. They were strangers in England: they had to fight against prejudice and poverty; but their affection for each other solaced them under every privation, every frown of fortune. They could think, at least, all the way over' the great Atlantic: and their fancy (little cherished here) had leisure to be busy among the friends and scenes which they had left behind. A gentleman, who had not seen them for some time, went one day to the artist's painting-room, and observing him pale and worn, inquired about his health, and afterwards regarding his wife. He answered, only, She has left me;' and proceeded in a hurried way with his work. She was dead! - and he was left alone to toil, and get money, and mourn. The heart in which he had hoarded all his secrets, all his hopes, was cold; and Fame itself was but a shadow.

And so it is, that all we love must wither; that we ourselves must wither and die away. 'Tis a trite saying yet a wholesome moral belongs to it. The thread of our life is spun; it is twisted firmly, and looks as if it would last for ever. All colors are there, the gaudy yellow and the sanguine red, and black dark as death; yet is it cut in twain by the shears of Fate almost before we discern the peril.

All that has been, and is, and is to be, must die, and

the grave will possess all. Already the temple of

Death is stored with enormous treasures; but it shall be filled, till its sides shall crack and moulder, and its gaunt king' Death, the skeleton,' shall wither, like his

prey. Oh! if the dead may speak, by what rich noises is that solemn temple haunted! What a countless throng of shapes is there, - kings and poets, philosophers and soldiers! What a catalogue might not be reckoned, from the founder of the towers of Belus, to the Persian who encamped in the Babylonian squares, to Alexander, and Socrates, and Plato, to Cæsar, to Alfred! Fair names, too, might be strung upon the list, like pearls or glancing diamonds, creatures who were once the grace and beauty of the earth, queens and gentle women, Antigone and Sappho, Corinna and the mother of the Gracchi, — Portia and Agrippine. And the story might be ended with him, who died an exile on his sea-surrounded rock, the first emperor of France, the king and conqueror of Italy, the Corsican soldier, Napoleon.

1822.

THE SPANISH STUDENT.

AN ADVENTURE AT PADUA

FOUNDED ON FACT.

THE grass is now growing in the streets of Padua. Ranges of houses are crumbling into dust. The marble palaces of its princes are silent; and Learning has fled, like a false friend!

Yet, still its University remains: its doctors and professors are still there; and there still is the large clock, which thunders the dull hour into the ears of its straggling disciples. But where is the fame of Padua ? Where is its learned splendor? Where are its eighteen thousand scholars, - Italian and Greek, Persian, Frank, and Arabian? They are gone, loaded with the wealth of science: they cultivate the seeds of learning at home, and the school of Petrarch and Galileo is deserted!

It is now many years ago since a young Spanish student was seen, one sultry afternoon, descending the side of one of the Euganean hills on his return to Padua. He had been at Arqua that morning to visit the tomb of Petrarch, and was going back to the University, in which he had lately been admitted a

scholar. The youth was of a good family, and was a native of Castile, and he had been sent to Padua, in order to acquire a knowledge of languages, as well a some of the latter discoveries in science, which were not then known (or at least not taught) in the colleges of Spain. He was a serious, graceful young man, with a proud mouth and a large black eye that wanted nothing but the illumination of love to make it altogether irresistible. His name was Rodrigo Gomez; and, on the afternoon of which we have spoken, had any lady seen him treading firmly and lightly along (as though all the blood of Castile were in his veins), and looked for a moment at his expressive face, where the constant olive was now mixed and dashed with dark red, like the flush of a ruby brought out by the light, she might have pleaded a beautiful excuse for inconstancy or love. Rodrigo was not aware, however, of these things, but pressed forward with a quick step to Padua. He saw before him rich pastures stretching out into misty distance, and the gay villages of Italy scattered on each side. He passed Cataio, and the gloomy castle of the Obizzi; and keeping onwards by the canal, continued to make the best of his way homewards. Having gone a mile or two further, however, the intense heat of the day oppressed him, and he resolved to rest himself at a small inn (which he had perceived when he had passed that way before), and to complete his journey in the evening.

He was now about five or six miles from Padua, and he entered the village inn. It stood a little out of the road, and was sheltered by some large chestnut-trees from the heat of the sun. He called for refreshments,