hardly possible for those who have not experienced it, to imagine the change which such an event produces, not only in the feelings, but in the very appearance of those whose dull labours are so tediously protracted through the gloomiest season of the year. Even the old oracular "fourth year men" can afford so far to compromise their dignity, as to be seen in broad day light, maugre all their stateliness at "the Meath," and their grave demonstrations, whirling ever anon down Baggot-street, and whisking the cigar from their lips occasionally, as they civilly entreat jarvey to "drive like " for this was in Anno Domini 1831, when there was no dream of a railway to Kingstown.

To the younger member of the profession, however, to him whose greener years have never till now made acquaintance with much beyond the school-room and the kindnesses of home; after a long term of irksome hammering of his tender brains over "epiphysies" or "apophyses," among strangers and men of the world, where even in the pursuit of necessary knowledge he is frequently shouldered to the wall, and "gagged," until with a heavy heart he almost despairs of ever threading the mazy wilderness of ugly facts and appalling inferences, which even the simplest department of the medical world presents to his view to him it is the hour of sweet deliverance. But if his home happen to be far away-if he be a native of the country, how his heart beats as he claims kindred with every awakening bud, while traversing some cheerful square with a lighter step than ever before he thought possible; and the hum of the city drowses down on his ear to the sough of the woodland, or the voices of the waves.

The reverie from which I was startled by the entrance of my friend as aforesaid, was tinged with that strange melancholy, that farewell feeling which sits so heavily on the young heart, when it begins to awake from the dreams of boyhood, and dimly sees behind the fading glories it must leave, while before it "the wilderness of this world," as good John Bunyan saith, lies cold and barren, farther than it has power to discern. I had been running over in my mind a series of years, few, indeed, but full of change. In my youth and earlier days devotedly attached to external nature-with an affection which, indeed, gave to it so

much of the inward life, as to exalt it to the nature of a passion, involving the idea of reciprocal fondness-I could never think, as others seemed to do, of inanimate nature. The hills afar off, to me as surely lived in sunrise, or in the deep quiet of noon, or in the storm, or when the snow slept on their breasts, as really as aught that lives, or moves, or has its being." The trees spoke, the rivers answered; the wild sea full of omnipotence, that "slumbers not nor sleeps," I could not look on its ever-stirring vastness, and believe that it felt no change! The very grass-blades beneath my feet trembled to influences my heart was bound to recognise by an inward power, silently but deeply evidencing the secret thread of sympathy, woven among all his works by the hand of their Maker.

The transition from this dreamy life, at a very early age, to that of a medical student, pent up in the heart of a large metropolitan city, was strange in the extreme. There is something in the very nature of the peculiar studies and views of human life, which this science presents to the mind, sufficient to produce a great change, even under any circumstances, upon the mind of the least reflective. To me, a mere boy, suddenly left almost alone in the midst of such bewildering scenesbrought day by day in contact with hundreds of men from all parts of the world-placed with a knife in my hand beside the ghastly and hideous inhabitants of the grave, where jests and laughter were ringing around those whose ears were closed for ever, save to the trump of doom-it seemed an unearthly dream; and often have I paused, gazing on the dismembered limbs and mutilated features, to wonder if I were really awake.

These impressions, however strong, gradually wear away, and the mind of the most sensitive soon feels as perfectly at case as that of the soberest citizen on change, amid circumstances which at first sent the life-blood from his cheek. I had now been busily employed for many years, with little or no interval, in the class-room, in the dissecting-room, and in the hospital. Daily bustling among death, and agony, and disease, and loathsome sights and sounds, I had merged, as it were, into a new world, until at length the very idea of green fields, and the free air, and the healthy workings of human hearts, passed from my mind,

as if, in very truth, they had no existence; and there was nothing in, or of the earth, save for the purposes of analysis, or the processes of slow decay.

The breaking up of the winter course, the last I was ever to spend in Dublin-in leaving me all at once free to go "to and fro upon the earth," had opened up the sources of recollection gradually, but fully, and I began to feel most sweetly the fresh flow of feelings that I had thought were either eradicated or totally forgotten. As I sauntered round Merrion-square listlessly, with that consciousness of "nothing to do," which sits so uneasily for a time on him who has been accustomed to incessant labour and anxiety, I became all at once aware of Spring; and with the green boughs waving in the clear air, the chirrup of birds, and the universal cheerfulness of the sky, I seemed to start back into youth, and feel myself not altogether so old as I had imagined. I walked out to the Park, and for the first time during some years knew that the world was healthy and living still. It was after such a stroll one evening, while sitting in my lodgings, on a second story in Nassau-street, as I gazed out over the College wall, where, as it seemed to me, for the first time I perceived that there were trees, that I fell into a kind of solemn day-dream, and in fancy was revisiting all the scenes of past days, living over again many innocent and happy hours, when I was interrupted by the jolly Frank, with his ludicrous abjuration to flee to the north.

"Come, my old coffin-cutter," he proceeded, "creep up out of your earth, and see how the grass grows. Be it known unto thee, O most excellent Theophilus, that you are to-morrow morning to be a passenger on the outside of his Majesty's mail, from the city of Dublin to the good town of Belfast, and that your absurd name even now is booked at the office to that effect. Ask no questions; B-n, Ss, and your humble servitor have done the needful, wherefore, to use a poetical phrase, 'bundle up your traps.'

"What herd of swine has given up its devils now?" said I.

"There be some seven devils," he replied, "of whom you are about the blackest, going that way."

"Well, Frank," I said, "but you know this is impossible; I have made no arrangements; I cannot-”

"A fico for the world, and worldlings vile-I speak of Africa and golden joys," he rattled on. "Why thou intense numskull, put thy contemptible tatters in thy portmanteau. B—n and the rest will be here in no time. We will pay a visit to a few of our old haunts with thee, and, finally, having slept off the "old Cork," we shall drink in my sanctum in South Cumberland-street-to-morrow for fresh fields and pastures new.'"

In the middle of this rhapsody B-n and all the other "devils" entered, roaring as their nature prompted. In spite of all and sundry my remonstrances, for I had never contemplated so sudden an evacuation of the premises, I was obliged, per fas aut nefas, to agree, and huddling a mass of indescribable incompatibles into my trunks, forth we sallied.

I could not resist a feeling of regret at visiting, probably the last time for many years, scenes with which I had grown so familiar. Sackville-street never had seemed so splendid. I never believed my friendship half so strong for the old College walls and trees. College-green and Dame-street, and the many winding purlieus about the Castle, I looked on with sorrow-little did I dream I should never enter the Arcade or the old "SHADES" again; and, after supper in South Cumberlandstreet, we all agreed on a bumper to Dublin, and "more power to it," as if by mutual inclination. I remember after this only "a mass of things, but nothing wherefore," until early next morning, when I found myself jumbled on a jarvey, among trunks and traps of all descriptions, whirling over Carlisle-bridge toward the coach-office; nor was it until stopping at Ashbourne we all contrived to recollect some indispensable article we had left behind. I awoke to new life as we whirled along, with as merry a set of "boys" as ever confounded the wisdom of his Majesty's officers of the highway, or were themselves confounded in return; nor shall I easily forget Frank's laughable visage in Drogheda, when a rosy cheeked young mendicant, with a couple of "childre" on her back, solicited "one poor sixpence, for the love o' the virgin," from the honest soul, under the designation of "the purty young gentleman wid the one elbow in his coat." Amid "gaggery" of this description we rolled on our way through Dundalk, Newry, Banbridge Hillsborough, and Lisburn, until we'

rattled down Donegal-place, and found ourselves in "sweet Belfast."

I slept but little that night. My mind was running too vividly over the life I had just abandoned, and endeavouring to reconcile my present self to what I felt, when a few years before I knew nothing of all that had so utterly changed me. I felt an intense desire to go far out into the country, where the breeze might visit my face a little more roughly than I had of late been accustomed to, and renew my acquaintance with hill and dale. After much rumination, I persuaded some of my fellow-students to accompany me to the neighbourhood of Larne, in order that I might visit a spot near which, from ill health in infancy, I had spent the first years of my life, and to which I still clung in spirit with all the fondness of early remembrance. Accordingly one fine morning we deposited our bodies on Magee's coach, and in a few hours were doing ample justice to the "muscular fibres" of certain fat kine, which had been admirably developed on the soil of that delectable region.

"Now my lads," said I, "you will

contrive what mischief you may for this one day. You may go to Glenarm, and on to the Causeway, through the glens, where I shall probably overtake you; but for this one day, I pray you all and sundry, let me see as little of your company as may be convenient. I am for a stroll over to Isle Magee, where there is nothing worth looking at, to see a few honest old friends of mine, whose gossip would be both uninteresting to you, and, in your presence, too constrained for my purpose; wherefore, an' it please you, my masters, I pray you go about your busi

ness.

66

Oho! I smell a rat," exclaimed Frank, putting his finger to his nose, in what I thought an uncommonly vulgar and disagreeable manner. You must be alone, must you? there is nothing worth looking at, eh? Come, B- -n, I'm for Isle Magee-I don't care for the Causeway-I am extremely fond of gossip."

All this I soon overcame, and, after leaving them to their own inclinations, I departed, and, crossing the ferry, fonnd myself "out of the world, and into Island Magee."

It was, I think, about ten o'clock when my companions rose, and wishing me good night, retired to their own apart ments-a circumstance which, I confess, afforded me great satisfaction, though we had spent an exceedingly pleasant evening together. I had that day, after an interval of many years, been treading the very fields that appeared so green and flowery in my recollection of childhood. I had looked on many varied scenes of loveliness since then, but as I believe is the case with all men, the spot where I had passed the earliest and sweetest hours of life, possessed a beauty beyond them all-a holy calm rests over them, which the heart will seek for in vain clsewhere, save only in heaven.

I had taken about three tumblers with my dinner friends, and being a sincere votary of Nicotiana, I know not how many cigars were sacrificed at her shrine. Out of some dozens which garnished the table at first, I could now discern only three or four scattered about among decanters and

Hamlet.

empty glasses. When I found the room clear, I began to cast my eyes about, and make arrangements for an hour or two of that quiet, inexpressible enjoyment which, at such a time, and in particular states of feeling, the contemplative smoker alone can compre hend. I gathered up the remaining cigars and threw them in the grate, drew in a huge old sofa from the wall, and desired that the table should be cleared. I told the waiter to bring me two glasses of rum, and as he placed it on the table, I saw a curious, inquisitive glance from his eye when I drew from my pouch a handful of rare negro-head, and, from its case, a pipe of some three inches long, of a dusky hue, acquired in the course of time in places where I had few other friends. When the hearth was duly replenished with bog-wood, I desired "Saucepan" to bring me from the apothecary's, a little of the tincture of cardamon seeds, (as I felt some uneasiness from, perhaps, partaking too freely of fish at dinner,) and as Davy