THE POET'S DREAM. BY THE HON. D. G. OSBORNE. THE poet sleeps, and o'er his pillow The wand of Fancy flings its spell; As heaves the ocean's restless billow, His bosom heaves with mighty swell. For in that dream Fame stands before him, And wreaths the laurel for his brow; The kneeling sons of earth adore him; And like a god he smileth now. And, sweetest feature of the vision, A girl's blue eyes upon him gaze; Eyes, in whose store of light Elysian Heaven seems to dwell with all its rays. Blue eyes, whose every glance discloses Love, how unutterably strong, To murmur love, like some sweet song. 'Tis past, her spell wild Fancy breaketh, And from Fame's glories downwards hurled, The poet with a sigh awaketh Unto the cold and careless world. Yet, sweetest feature of that vision, The radiant girl is near him still, With eyes of love and light Elysian; And lips whose tones of fondness thrill. Thus, unlike glory soon forsaking, Unlike the fleeting smiles of Fame; Throughout the dream, and at the waking, The love of woman holds the same. TURKISH PAGEANTRY. THE following account of the ancient ceremonies of receiving an ambassador in Constantinople, has few parallels in the records of imperial state; whilst the magnificence of its appointments evince a high state of ingenuity, which, it could be wished, had been lavished upon some worthier occasion than the formal reception of the representative of a sovereign. Happily, Europe is a stranger to such vain-glory in the present day, and the national wealth is diverted into channels more likely to benefit the masses of the people; whilst even the capital wherein this gorgeous scene was enacted, is shorn of its glittering beams, and is fast exchanging its eastern splendour for the more sober and rational ceremonies of European rule. Still, the whole of the following scene is amusing, as a superb folly of past ages, which, in its startling realities, equals many of the creations of eastern romance. "First, before the palace of the Brazen Gate, at Constantinople, were drawn up in line the seamen and Dalmatian troops holding their standards, with lances fixed, and girded swords; within the brass rails stood other Dalmatians, drawn up with standards, and armed with swords, bows, and quivers full of arrows. Before the tables of the royal guards, stood other sailors bearing swords. Near the tribunal, on each side, were ranged the civil authorities, and the learned bodies, the chiefs wearing long robes of office, the rest being clad in white vestments peculiar to their order. After these, ranged in file before the tables of the assistants to the emperor on great occasions, (a kind of body-guard, at whose table the prince, on certain days, dined with the patriarch, the bishops, and the governors,) stood two bodies of marines armed with swords. Without the Brazen Gate, again, and before the tables of the Candidates, as they were called, being men of immense stature, and who also served as a guard to the emperor, stood a band of sailors, with their grand admiral. On the right and left of the royal portico, were the sons of the nobility, including those who served at table or as pages; some dressed in suits open down the middle, like our pelisses, and armed with sabres; others in long robes, and short-sleeved vermillion-coloured dresses. Below the steps of the great table, in the Magunara (or divination) palace, were collected bodies of Greek, English, French, Scythian, and indeed all foreign bands, wearing swords, and holding shields; and on the top row of these steps stood singers, chanting hymns in honour of their sovereign. Here too was collected the crew of the royal barge, the splendid model of the vessel in gold being held up to sight by their chiefs. On descending the saloon of the palace, on each side, right and left, stood bands of swordsmen, in greenish-red open dresses, bearing swords and silver-gilt wands; then appeared the Macedonian troops, with swords, and silver sashes spotted with gold; and bearing axes of brass, double-edged, and adorned with gold. After this band of body-guards, within the two passages or screens which divided the hall of the palace from that of the golden throne, or table, called of Solomon, and all the way to the throne, were those who exercised liberal professions in the city or empire; attired elegantly in various-coloured dresses, and bearing wands set round with precious stones. "This magnificent array extended to the chamber where the royal throne stood; and tapestries of gold and silver cloth were hung all along the walls, golden branches for holding lights suspended from the ceiling, and Persian carpets spread upon the floors: between the pillars where the throne was placed stood a golden organ, and two silver ones, from Venice; where were also drawn up bands of the most famous city militia. On the right and left of the throne, were ranged black eunuchs, bearing the sword, sceptre, crown, and other badges of royalty. When all was ready for the ceremonial, the eunuchs proceeded to the king's private chamber, and announced it. He then, arrayed in his robes, and wearing a crown of laurels, came forth, and seated himself on the throne, amidst the acclamations of the assembly. The ambassador was then sought for by the herald, and, on the word 'seize,' (in Romaic,) being pronounced, the screens were raised between the halls of the golden throne and that of the palace, and the ambassador admitted to the sight of the monarch, to whom he made three inclinations, after tripping his feet twice. The interpreter expounded the mission; the organs, with other music, struck up; whilst golden lions, with singing birds of metal, opened their artificial throats in chorus. During the delivery of the presents sent with the ambassador, silence prevailed; but the merry tune was speedily resumed, and lasted till his departure, which took place after similar obeisances to the first. "The Turks, many centuries after, used nearly the same ceremonies as the Greek Kings, at the reception of ambassadors: they did not, however, employ artificial singing crea tures, but had large sluices and fountains of water discharged, which produced a noise like thunder; besides, their sultan was only seen darkly through a grating, and the envoy, when introduced, was covered from head to foot in a robe of their fashion, in order not to offend the sight of the faithful by a Christian garb. The Persians excelled all, however, in the magnificence displayed at such receptions; for the stranger was received under a golden plane-tree and trellised vines of the same metal; the fruits of which were represented in rubies, pearls, carbuncles, and emeralds; and the emperors of the west, in consequence of frequent combats, victories, and commercial intercourse with this nation, adopted the style of their magnificence." him, "My little man, you are very sick, and must take some medicine. It will taste badly, and make you feel badly for a little while; and then I expect it will make you feel better." The doctor prepared the medicine, and the boy took it like a man, without any resistance; and he would take from his mother anything that the physician had prescribed; but would take nothing else from her. She had so often deceived him and told him "it was good," when she gave medicines, that he would not trust to any thing she said. But he saw at once that Dr. B. was telling him the truth, and he trusted him. He knew when he took the bitter draught just what to expect. This simple incident contains instruction of deep and solemn importance, deserving the careful consideration of every parent. Honesty" "with children as well as with all others, and in all circumstances, "is the best policy." TIME AND CHANGE. TIME and change are great, only with reference to the faculties of the beings which note them. The insect of an hour, which flutters during its transient existence, in an atmosphere of perfume, would attribute unchanging duration to the beautiful flowers of the cistus, whose petals cover the dewy grass but a few hours after it has received the lifeless body of the gnat. These flowers, could they reflect, might contrast their transitory lives with the prolonged existence of their greener neighbours. The leaves themselves, counting their brief span by the lapse of a few moons, might regard as almost indefinitely extended the duration of the common parent of both leaf and flowers. The lives of individual trees are lost in the continued destruction and renovation which take place in forest masses. Forests themselves, starved by the exhaustion of the soil, or consumed by fire, succeed each other in slow gradation. A forest of oaks waves its luxuriant branches over a spot which has been fertilized by the ashes of a forest of pines. These periods again merge into other and still longer cycles, during which the latest of a thousand forests sinks beneath the waves, from the gradual subsidence of its parent earth; or in which extensive inundations, by accumulating the silt of centuries, gradually convert the living trunks into their stony resemblances. Stratum upon stratum subsides in comminuted particles, and is accumulated in the depths of the ocean, whence they again arise, consolidated by pressure or by fire, to form the continents and mountains of a new creation. Such, in endless succession, is the history of the changes of the globe we dwell upon; and human observation, aided by human reason, has as yet discovered few signs of a beginning- no symptoms of an end. Yet, in that more extended view which recognises our planet as one amongst the attendants of a central luminary; that sun itself, the soul as it were of vegetable and animal existence, but an insignificant individual among its congeners of the milky way; when we remember that the clouds of light, gleaming with its myriad systems, is but an isolated nebula amongst a countless host of rivals, which the starry firmament, surrounding us on all sides, presents to us in every varied form; some as uncondensed masses of attenuated light; some as having, in obedience to attractive forces, assumed a spherical figure; others, as if further advanced in the history of their fate, having a denser central nucleus surrounded by a more diluted light, spreading into such vast spaces, that the whole of our own nebula would be lost in itothers there are, in which the apparently unformed and irregular mass of nebulous light is just curdling, as it were, into separate systems; whilst many present a congeries of distinct points of light, each perhaps the separate luminary of a creation more glorious than our own; when the birth, the progress, and the history of the sidereal systems are considered, we require some other unit of time than even that comprehensive one which astronomers have unfolded to our view. Minute and almost infinitesimal as is the time which comprises the history of our race, compared with that which records the history of our system, the space even of this latter period forms too limited a standard wherewith to measure the footmarks of eternity.-Babbage's Ninth Bridgewater Treatise. A TRUTH. THE work of education begins at an early period, and circumstances seemingly too trivial to notice, may exert a powerful effect in fixing our future destiny for good or evil. There are few persons whose patience has not been more or less tried by spoiled children, and who cannot point out examples where the temper of the mature man has been seriously injured by early injudicious indulgence; and many must know cases in which the paroxysms of a naturally bad temper, exasperated by uncontrolled licence and habitual submission, have amounted almost to occasional insanity. Causes closely analogous to those which render one man the dread of his domestic circle, may render another the terror and scourge of half the earth. The same spirit which vents itself in ill-humour for a broken piece of china, or execrations for an ill-cooked dinner, if fostered by power, might correct breaches of etiquette with the knout, and deal out confiscations and death as unsparingly as oaths.-Historical Parallels, vol. i. (1831) p. 121. ORIGIN OF JIM CROW. THE New Orleans Picayune states, that a few years ago, Thomas D. Rice, now the famous negro comedian, was an actor in a Western theatre; and though he did some things cleverly, he was particularly remarkable for nothing but being the best dressed man in the company. An original piece was got up, in which Rice was persuaded to do the character of a negro, much against his will. He consented only under the stipulation that he should have permission to introduce a negro song of his own. Rice was fond of riding, and frequently visited a stable in town, where there was a very droll negro hostler, who used to dance grotesquely, and sing old fragments of a song about one Jim Crow. Very little difficulty was found in transforming the hostler into a tutor, and in half an hour Rice was master of the symphony, melody, and all the steps, words, and drollery, of the far-famed and irresistible Jim Crow! The evening for the debut of the new play came on, and never did Kemble or Talma study more intensely over the effect of costume than did Rice in dressing for his negro part on this occasion. He had easily contrived to throw together a few verses, with witty local allusions, and to heighten the extravagance of the dance to its greatest extent of grotesque absurdity. The play commenced, and Rice went on, dragging heavily and lamely Rice himself failing to stir up the drowsy audience with his clumsily-written negro part until the third act, where the song came in. Utter condemnation was lowering ominously over the place, and the actors had already pronounced it a dead failure, when the hitherto silent and gloomy green-room was startled by a tumultuous round of cheers breaking out suddenly in "front." "What can that be?" said the manager, pricking up his ears. Another verse of the song was sung, with the extravagant dancing accompaniment, and the house shook with still more violent applause. "What is that?" said the manager. "Who's on the stage?" "Rice is singing a negro song," was the reply. "Oh, that's it, eh!" said the manager, who was a stickler for the "legitimate," and concluded that an audience which could applaud such a thing would be just as likely to hiss it the next moment. But the new song continued to call down expressions of pleasure that could not by any means be mistaken, and at its conclusion the manager bounced out of the green-room, and It has been calculated that a velocity of sixty miles an hour may be obtained upon a railway; but, in practice a result of only forty miles an hour has been effected: this difference in theory and practice having been traced to atmospheric resistance, which thus makes an alteration of twenty miles per hour. On the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, a hurricane blowing almost parallel with the line, and at about eighty miles an hour, has been found sufficient to carry an engine along without the smallest assistance from steam, with such speed as completely to neutralize the violence of the hurricane, the effect being generally that of a still calm air. Professor Robinson has stated that the air clings so closely to an astronomical clock pendulum in motion, as to make a difference of ten seconds per day. Mr. Roberts made a common top, which spun forty-two minutes: he then made another top, upon which he put a coat of the finest lacquer, when it would not spin longer than seventeen minutes; he removed the lacquer, and the top then spun thirty-seven minutes from which Mr. Roberts is of opinion that clock pendulums should not be lacquered. GIGANTIC SPECULUM. As an important incident in astronomical science, the casting of the gigantic speculum which has been undertaken by Lord Rosse, is well worthy of attention. A letter from Dublin, of April 16, written by a gentleman who was present on the occasion, says: "Nothing could be more successful than Lord Rosse's operation, nor more beautiful than all his arrangements. The casting was made at nine at night of the 12th inst., and by ten we witnessed the building up of the monster speculum, of six feet diameter, and weighing three tons, in a hot oven, built expressly to contain it; and where it will remain for the next two months, which time will be necessary for the gradual cooling process to which it must be subjected. It is a fine thing to see a man of Lord Rosse's station, instead of applying a strong mechanical genius, as is often the case, to nicnackeries, at once attacking the most important and arduous problems, and forwarding the highest branches of science. During the very delicate and difficult experiment, he was perfectly cool and decisive, and amidst various suggestions from the bystanders, quietly followed his own judgment, which was better than any one of them. His present achievement, should it finally prove quite successful, is of the greater value, since the mere expense is quite beyond the reach of an ordinary professional man. This last operation, after having satisfied himself of the manner and practicability of each part of the proceeding, could not have cost him less than £1000. If the final result prove satisfactory, which there seems no reason to doubt, he will have reached, in the opinion of scientific men, the maximum of effect that is attainable; since the eye, as they affirm, could not make use of a larger speculum than about six feet diameter."-Times, April 21, 1842. PERSIAN SERVANTS. ALTHOUGH the precedence due to rank and office is scrupulously exacted in Persia, the intercourse between all ranks is familiar and unrestrained; and the wandering Dervish will enter without ceremony the tent or chamber of the Vizier, and freely join in the conversation. The attachment displayed by the retainers of the Persian noblemen towards their lord, and the kindness with which they are treated by him, often remind one of the devotion of the Scotish clansmen towards their chief, and speak highly in favour of both parties. Their treatment of their slaves is another proof of the natural kindliness of the Persian disposition. Many of their old servants are regarded quite in the light of friends, and may frequently be seen standing near their lords, with folded arms, listening to all that is said, and often giving their opinion unasked. The following scene occurred at the table of Mr. Ellis, our ambassador in Persia, in 1836. One of the sons of the late Shah was the ambassador's guest, together with several other Persians. During dinner, the Prince handed a goblet of wine to his confidential retainer, who stood behind him; the man refused it, saying, "Who am I, that I should drink in the presence of your highness ?" The prince repeating the offer, answered, "You are my friend." The man still demurred; when the Prince exclaimed, “You are my brother." The man then took the cup, and turning away, quaffed off its contents. This anecdote is related in Captain Wilbraham's Travels, recently published. It should, however, be added, that the Persian servants receive scarcely any wages, being merely clothed and fed. FRAGMENTS OF THE ANTEDILUVIAN DIARY. REFLECTIONS OF METHUSELAH IN HIS YOUTH-IN MIDDLE AGE AND IN OLD AGE. TO-DAY I am an hundred years old. How blissful are the feelings of boyhood! My senses are acute as the tree with the shrinking leaf. My blood bounds through my veins as the river pours through the valley, rejoicing in its strength. Life lies before me like another plain of Shinarand pleasures! In about sixty years it will be time for vast, unoccupied, inviting-I will fill it with achievements me to think of marrying; my kinswoman Zillah will, by that time, have emerged from girlhood; she already gives promise, I hear, of comeliness and discretion. Twenty years hence I will pay a visit to her father, that I may see how she grows; meanwhile I will build a city to receive her when she becomes my wife. Nearly three centuries have passed since my marriage. Can it be? It seems but yesterday since I sported like a young antelope round my father's tent, or, climbing the dark cedars, nestled like a bird among the thick boughsand now I am a man in authority, as well as in the prime of life. I lead out my trained servants to the fight, and sit at the head of the council, beneath the very tree where, as an infant, my mother laid me to sleep. Jazel, my youngest born, a lovely babe of thirty summers, is dead; but I have four goodly sons remaining. And my three daughters are fair as their mother when I first met her in the acacia grove, where now stands one of my city watchtowers. They are the pride of the plain, no less for their acquirements than their beauty. No damsel carries the pitcher from the fountain with the grace of Adah, none can dry the summer fruit like Azubah, and none can fashion a robe of skins with the skill of Milcah. When their cousin Mahalaleel has seen another half century, he shall take the choice of the three. My nine hundredth birthday! And now I feel the approach of age and infirmity. My beard has become white as the blossoms of the almond-tree. I am constrained to use a staff when I journey; the stars look less bright than formerly; the flowers smell less odorous; I have laid Zillah in the tomb of the rock; Milcah has gone to the dwelling of Mahalaleel; my sons take my place at the council and in the field; all is changed. The long future is become the short past. The earth is full of violence; the ancient and the honourable are sinking beneath the young and the vicious. The giants stalk through the length and breadth of the land, where once dwelt a quiet people; all is changed. The beasts of the field and monsters of the deep growl and press on us with unwonted fury; traditions, visions, and threatenings are abroad. What fearful doom hangs over this fair world I know not; it is enough that I am leaving it; yet another five or eight score years and the tale will be complete. But have I, in very deed, trod this earth nearly a thousand years? It is false, I am yet a boy. I have had a dream--a long, long busy dream; of buying and selling; marrying and giving in marriage; of building and planting; feasting and warring; sorrowing and rejoicing; loving and hating; but it is false to call it a life. Go to-it has been a vision of the night, and now I am awake, I will forget it. "Lamech, my son, how long is it since we planted the garden of oaks beside the river? Was it not yesterday?" My father, dost thou sport? Those oaks cast broad shadows when my sister carried me beneath them in her arms, and wove me chaplets of their leaves." "Thou art right, my son; and I am old. Lead me to thy mother's tomb, and there leave me to meditate. What am I the better for my past being? Where will be its records when I am gone? They are yonder-on all sides. Will those massy towers fall? Will those golden plains become desolate? Will the children that call me father forget? The seers that utter dark sayings upon their harps, when they sing of the future, they say our descendants shall be men of dwindling stature; that the years of their lives shall be contracted to the span of our boyhood! But what is that future to me? I have listened to the tales of Paradise, nay, in the blue distance I have seen the dark tops of its cedars. I have heard the solemn maelodies of Jubal when he sat on the sea-shore, and the sound of the waves mingled with his harping. I have seen angels the visitants of men-I have seen an end to all perfection-what is the future to me?-Spirit and Manners of the Age. THE WOODLANDS. BY A SHERWOOD FOREST YOUTH.* COME to the woodlands! Summer bath unfurled His broad green banner to the breathing wind. Come to the woodlands! leave the ungentle world, Where foes are numerous-friends are seldom kind: Where care's dim arrows ever round are hurled, Till unto death the wounded heart hath pined. Come, where wild blossoms shun the sultry heat, And twining boughs in graceful arches meet: Where twilight streams o'er nature's shady face, We'll smile and hearken on through many a sylvan place. Pleasant a woodland ramble, through dim alleys Winding most strangely to some secret glade, Where the clear brook, with murmuring music, sallies From shade to sunlight, and again to shade, Luring our footsteps to sweet quiet valleys, Down slopes of fern, with starry blooms inlaid; From a volume of poems to be published by the author by subscription. Reaching at times the wood-verge, where the light The gnarled boughs with spires and leafy knots, In the close by-paths, where the trees thrust down (Till rugged winds crush Autumn's golden crown.) Hark! the merle's voice, in a melodious breeze, Blends with the woodspite's clamour, as he rives The withering bark; and golden-armoured bees, With murmuring trumpets, sail from woody hives To the blue arch of heaven through yielding trees; The lonely pigeon, cooing from her nest On the dark pine, up-bows her trembling breast, And broadening throat, emblazed with rich-dyed ringsBending her head the while between her fluttering wings. The spotted deer, fray'd at approaching sound, Ceasing to browse the dewy vert, upturn Their antler'd foreheads suddenly around Leap the wild thorns, and 'mongst the towering fern Dash from the sight. Along the nut-strewn ground Sports the brown squirrel, or you now discern The shrill-voiced vagrant leap from bough to bough. And in near meadows, hark! the lowing cow, The sheep's hoarse bleating, its sharp jangling bell, And children's joyous whoops, ringing o'er hill and dell. Soon might the woods seem haunted as of old With half-veil'd nymphs and mystic deitiesSuch spots of awful beauty we behold, Where light and shadow battle in the trees, Whose skyward openings shape noon's streaming gold To wondrous semblance (as the eye may please) Of wreathed staff, and cup, and broad-mouth'd horn, In ancient pageants by wild Sylvans borne, When goat-limb'd Pan, and all his lusty band, Trampled with hornéd heels the echoing forest-land. A sleight of fancy!-in a moment, lo! The back-kneed Fauns their 'wildering dances traceSound the shrill pipe-the trumpet, loudening, blow, Startling the brown deer with a sound of chase. Down the dark aisles the noisy revellers go, By whispering founts, whence peeps the Naiad's face And dædal fires on heaven's grey altar blaze; The steaming dews, when met on mossy lawns, Treading the dark-green rings, till rosy daylight dawns. Beautiful woodland! childhood's sweetest hours, Morning, and noon, to evening's starry time, Have I beguiled amongst its shadowy bowers, Humming my dreamy thoughts in careless rhyme, Blithe as a wild bee booming round the flowers. Silence and twilight haunting its green clime, Shed their soft influence on my boyish heart, Till Care grew weary of his blunted dart : Hope showed me life--a golden summer's day! And Joy sung Time to sleep-then stole his scythe away. JOHN GIBSON. VISIT TO LA TRAPPE. FROM THE JOURNAL OF A FRENCH TOURIST. Of all the reforms introduced into religious establishments up to the time of the Revolution, the severest, without doubt, was that imposed by the Abbé de Rancé on the order of St. Bernard, in the monastery of La Trappe. The rigid discipline which he established there, dates from a period in which public morals began to relax in their severity, and to grow less rigid; yet, notwithstanding, this institution had, all at once, a wonderful success. The eighteenth century undermined all the opinions and ideas upon which monastic institutions rested, and yet, by an unaccountable inconsistency, the Trappists (the most rigid and the least useful order of all) is the only one which the present age has tolerated! A great interest is attached to all these monasteries, especially in France. The gloomy and terrible reform of the order of La Trappe had its origin in a love affair; this effect, so different from its cause, resulted from the tender passion; and if we retrace the history of this order, which has occasioned the shedding of so many pious tears, we shall discover tears of love at the source. Everybody knows that in his youth the Abbé de Rancé, (descended from a high family in Brittany, possessing several livings, a man of wit and talent, a poet, and plunged in the vortex of the gay world at the commencement of the reign of Louis XIV.) was any thing but an anchorite. The most celebrated of his gallantries was his liaison with Madame de Montbazou. Their mutual passion, too ardent to be concealed, was cherished without scruple, but, at the same time, without notoriety; and the world at length looked upon it with the respect which serious sentiments generally inspire. One evening, after four days' absence, M. de Rancé rushed with eager joy to the hotel de Montbazon, in order to have a tête-à-tête with his mistress; he was surprised, on penetrating through a secret passage which led to her apartment, to find a dead silence pervading the house. He walked on in a state of astonishment, and having hit himself several times against the darkened walls, he at length reached the chamber of the Princess, the sanctuary, as it were, of the temple. The bed was overturned, all the furniture was thrown about in disorder, and a solitary lamp was burning upon an armchair, by the light of which De Rancé discerned upon the floor an open coffin, from which a portion of a winding-sheet was seen. Horrible to relate, the body which this coffin contained was headless; the head had been separated from the trunk, and placed at the feet of the deceased, in order that the corpse might be got into the coffin, which was somewhat too small in its dimensions. Now the head had rolled out of the leaden coffin, and it was only upon kicking against it with his foot that the wretched De Rancé became aware of his mistress's fate. She had died suddenly the evening before. No one knows what afterwards took place in the chamber of the deceased, but M. de Rancé was found lying near the coffin in a state of insensibility; his lips, hands, and bosom were stained with blood, and he still pressed to his breast the lifeless head of his adored mistress. # A short time after this event, the Abbé de Rancé dismissed his servants, sold his property, and resigned all his benefices, except La Trappe, whither he retired in the capacity of a regular monk. In 1663 he assumed, at Notre Daine de Perseigne, the habit of the order of Citeaux, and in the same year the monastery of La Trappe was reformed by the labours of this rigid anchorite, who terminated, by a series of works worthy of St. Basil, or of St. John of Alexandria, a literary career which he had commenced by a very excellent translation of Anacreon. After several hours' walking we came to a bridge of five or six planks, situate in a woody defile, and thrown, in a most picturesque attitude, across a foaming torrent called the Lison. This extremely fantastical structure is adorned in the centre with a heavy cross of nutwood. Its appearance is so wild that it forcibly reminds the. spectator of those bridges in the Pyrenees and in Italy, which are drawn by the imagination of poets and painters to serve as the theatre of the adventures of brigands. Above this gorge the road ceases, and the tourist becomes lost amidst a cluster of trees, rocks, and thickets, for the space of a league. The valley here becomes surrounded by very lofty and gray-headed crests, and the traveller is almost at a loss to comprehend how he has managed to penetrate into this solitude, in the midst of which are situate two or three houses of a rustic and at the same time a religious appearance. These are inhabited by the Trappists of Malans. On arriving in sight of these houses, an unexpected spectacle burst upon our view. Along a terrace situate on a slight declivity were scattered a number of monks, who, in white robes and with shorn heads, were digging up the ground with pickaxes. Some, in an attitude of meditation, were looking up at the clouds; others were sitting down and reading, whilst a few more sat with their heads resting on their elbows, the former being covered with an ample cowl. They walked about, and passed and repassed, slowly and silently, like so many ghosts, without exchanging a single word. These persons, with their strange costumes, and in the midst of a gloomy country, called to the mind ideas of another state of being. As we wished to visit the monastery, we accosted a monk dressed in a brown robe, who did not answer a word. We then addressed another, clothed in a white robe, who replied to us in most laconic style, and without looking at us at all. Following the instructions which he gave us, we rang a little bell, rustically suspended between two pieces of wood. Whilst the porter was coming to open the door we had time to examine the structure of the cloister, by the side of which is a mill-wheel, turned by a water-course, and used to grind the corn of the convent. The church is unfinished; in the meadow, which is very irregular, and covered with briars, vegetables, and stones, the monks have built a house of refuge for Christian travellers. It is the nature of human things to appear only beautiful when looked upon in a certain point of view. We discovered the truth of this axiom on a closer examination of that which when looked at from afar, had inspired us with respect. The friar who opened to us the door of the monastery had the lean and placid countenance of the Chartreux of Lesueur. He was habited in a robe of white wool, in front of which a wide band of black cloth depended from his head downwards. His head was newly shaved, and his neck had deeply stained with dirt the cowl which was thrown back over his shoulders. Moreover, we saw reason to believe that the discipline of the monastery prohibits the monks from ever washing their hands. While the "father-porter" was conversing with us in the yard, surrounded by his lay brothers (individuals dressed in brown, the white robe being only worn by the priests, the deacons, and those who have pronounced indissoluble vows), our guide suddenly ceased to speak, and on turning round to find out the cause of his silence, we saw that he had disappeared. The other monks had also vanished, and we were surprised to find them almost beneath our feet, on their knees, or rather upon their four paws, in the attitude of Nebuchadnezzar after his metamorphose. The tinkling of a little bell, which swung in a belfry in the middle of the roof, had caused them thus to fall prostrate. We remained aghast, not daring to stir for fear of trampling on a monk, and surrounded on all sides by the poor anchorites, |