The event proved it, and in a few weeks more the young Catholic was his bride. Even on his marriage day his mind misgave him, and confused presentiments of future misfortune pressed heavily on his spirits; but, in the constant society of his beautiful wife, these fears and anxious feelings were quickly forgotten, and he was plunged into an intoxication of happiness. The joys of affluence, even when grasped by previous poverty-the charm of exploring fair, and till then unseen lands-the sweetness of flattery and admiration, all were dreams and shadows in his esteem, to the soul-delighting and undying passion for which alone he now lived.

The mother of his bride resided with them, and for some time a succession of company and gaieties filled up most of the hours. Among his wife's accomplishments was that of music; and their evenings, apart from society, were passed in listening with rapture to the melody of her voice, as she sung to the harp some of the plaintive strains of her own land. For the music of a bride's voice, however tuned, can never fail to fascinate ere the first few cloudless months are fled. To gratify her, Trelile studied every aft. The most splendid ornaments and dresses that money could procure were laid out for her taste and acceptance; and these were gifts she passionately loved. He invited with little discrimination, and spared no expense in the entertainments gave; for he saw that his wife was admired by all, and in every company he heard the praises of her beauty. He deemed this the golden period of his life, and foresaw no cloud on the prospect,—no storm that would blast its tranquillity.

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This union possessed, unfortunately, too many discordant materials. Laura had never sincerely loved him; she admired his person and talents; yet his fortune drew her to the altar, and her heart had no share in the deed. As yet he perceived it not, saw only perfection in his fair partner, and, if any occasional sallies of ill-humour or discontent were indulged in, he passed them over as the effects of caprice or thoughtlessness. He sighed, however, at times, when he saw her steps directed to a place of worship he could not enter, condemning, as he did, her faith as idolatrous; the gold cross also suspended at her neck, and the exquisite picture of the Virgin in her chamber, to which she nightly addressed her supplications before retiring to rest.

Yet these, with the keen ridicule she sometimes cast in company on his faith, as a heresy from the true one, and the few but precious relics treasured in a small casket of the richest workmanship, and on which at times she gazed with more ardour and delight than her looks ever evinced when turned on himself all these were insufficient to break on the dream of passion, that he was happy, ineffably happy, in the possession of one of the fairest and most attached of her sex. It was not probable that a woman of such ardent and susceptible feelings, and exposed to daily homage and flattery, could long guard her heart against tender impressions. The devoted and almost slavish attentions of her husband pleased and gratified at first, and by degrees became habitual, and at last almost indifferent; and often, at the moment that he sat gazing on her countenance with rapture, her fancy wandered to the attractions of one of her admirers.

Among the company that frequented the house was an officer of the garrison, a countryman of her own, who, in spite of his youth, had visited several distant parts of the world, and seen severe service. He conversed with Trelile on the climates and rich scenery of the Indies, and on the various luxuries common there; and to the wife he talked in a strain of lively narrative, varied with many compliments on her beauty, and on the happiness the possession of a hand such as her's must confer. Both were pleased with his society, the wife unfortunately too much so; and when Trelile, as was sometimes the case, passed the evenings in other company, Laura and their military guest found in each other's society that the hours fled too rapidly away. She made some attempts to resist the growing passion, but in vain; her heart had never found its rest in her own home; and after many and repeated persuasions, urged with all the eloquence of passion, she quitted at last the roof of her husband, and fled with her lover.

Trelile returned that night from a gay and numerous party, ignorant of the desolation that awaited him at home. Finding the apartments below empty and silent, he rushed into her chamber, and found that also deserted. Still he could not believe it possible she had gone, except for a visit or excursion without the town, and would return in a short time, for it was late. Hour after hour fled away; and, as every carriage rolled past his door, he started wildly, imagining it would stop and usher in his adored wife. But when morning came, and he was told by those who delight in conveying tidings of misery, and who found the wretched man pale and agitated, and still pacing ceaselessly through his dreary chambers, that she had quitted the city on the preceding night, driven at a rapid pace, and in company of the man who had been his friend and his guest, he sunk insensible on the ground. There were some who said they had foreseen it all; but on him it came as a sudden and fearful surprise; and, when he came to himself, the look he threw around was that of utter despair. There was no hope left: he had embarked all his happiness in that fair vessel of beauty and passion, and had been basely and cruelly deceived. With her, and her alone, he could have borne every ill of poverty, pain, and privation-every frown and neglect of the world;-for her sake he would have met and triumphed over the fiercest miseries. And his riches-what did they avail him now? He cast his eye on his superb apartments, and their useless furniture; the splendid mirrors, that no longer reflected that figure and face of loveliness, the place of whose rest had been to him as a paradise; and the harp, flung against the wall, would never be awakened to melody by that hand again.

Unable to remain any longer in his spacious and desolate abode, which now begun to be as a wilderness to him, he resolved to quit the city and seek a more remote asylum. The last tidings he heard of his wife and her companion were, that they had passed over to the Sister Country, and instantly embarked for America. He disposed eagerly of his house and furniture, dismissed his servants, and, setting out alone, he wandered he knew not whither, and cared not. During the time that had elapsed since his marriage, his property, in consequence of his thoughtless and expensive way of living, had become considerably impaired. He stayed not to take leave of the many acquaintances or friends, as they called themselves, who had made his hospítable house their frequent resort; their attentions or consolations could not avail him now.

Had he practised care or economy, enough remained of his impaired fortune to insure a handsome competency for life. But the seal of ruin was on him; and he seemed to feel it, for little excuse could be pleaded for the way of life in which he henceforward plunged. Having made his way to the other country, he proceeded to London, the place where he thought it most likely he should find the privacy and obscurity he desired. He took lodgings, and spent good part of the day in wandering through the crowded streets, and the evening in some of the various resorts of gaiety and dissipation. There were times, however, when his sickened heart refused to take pleasure in sights or sounds of gaiety, and he passed the evenings alone, in his own apartment. What painting can depict the feelings of that heart, as he sat beside his solitary fire, with his eye fixed intently on the wavering flame, and thought of his own home of bliss, with Laura, beautiful and adored, by his side, who wept as he told her of his past sorrows and wanderings, and on whose bosom he trusted his wounded spirit would find repose for ever. But now, another head was pillowed there; and her voice, like that of an angel, consoled another's cares. Again, when the lights had made his saloon appear like the day, and amidst an admiring party, she struck the harp with an enchantress' fingers, what applauses followed, and then he gazed on her bewitching features. As the fevered recollections bore away his mind, he looked wildly round, as though the scene passed again before him, and then gave way to a passion of grief. But no imprecation on her head, no wish that vengeance or misery should pursue her, ever passed his lips.

There were not wanting associates in the resorts he frequented who seized

on this solitary sufferer as a prey, and tempted him on to vices which he would otherwise have turned from in disgust. But his spirit was yielding fast to the misery that had fallen on it, and his strong and talented mind became often subservient to the purposes of low and baser spirits. The gaminghouse afforded the most vivid excitement; there he often utterly forgot that the hand of Adversity had been on him, and beheld the hoards of gold on the table with a greedy and devouring eye. He was sometimes successful, and seized on his gains with as much joy as if he had never known the taste of riches before, and bore them to his home, or more often was persuaded to dissipate them among his reckless companions. But his mind was in general too much discomposed for him to expect the advantages of an habitual gamester; and he found at last, by repeated and severe losses, that utter ruin would follow such a career, and he rushed from the house to return to it no more. There were some who persuaded him to drown his sorrows in the bottle; but this he in general shrunk from :-the excitement was too strong for his restless imagination; and he refused the repeated glass with fear and aversion, while others were indulging freely around.

A career such as this could not continue long: his property wasted gradually away; for he totally neglected all care of it, and felt not that it was the last friend he had now left on earth, and that with its loss all else would forsake him. And yet this period was rapidly advancing: his altered appearance, as he walked the streets with a hurried pace, denoted the slenderness of his finances. Two or three times faces passed him whom he well recollected to have seen at his house in Dublin; but now their look gave no sign of recognition. But he soon confined himself entirely to his lodgings, for want of ability to appear creditably abroad: his small apartment was his only home, in which he passed the day, and heard the ceaseless roll of carriages pass his door, and the footfall of passengers, day and night; but no foot ever approached his home, or voice inquired for the solitary inmate. His meals were few and coarse; yet, ere the means of subsistence were quite exhausted, and he was left a stranger in, to him, a strange land, he resolved to set out for his native country, and strive to reach the scenes of his youth, where he might yet find some who remembered him, and who would show him kindness. He gathered up his scanty wardrobe, and having paid the mistress of his lodgings, without a sigh or regret he quitted London on foot, at an early hour in a cold winter's morning. Coaches were rare at that time, and his reduced finances would not allow any other mode of travelling.

He soon reached the open country, and proceeded at a quick pace, with spirits animated by the fresh air and prospects to which he had so long been a stranger. But an incessant progress reduced his strength, already weakened by privation and sorrow, and he was yet a great way from the place of his destination. After some days had thus passed, in spite of rigid economy, little was left to support the inevitable expenses of the way. The weather too had become unfavourable, and the roads difficult, yet he was compelled to keep on his way without halting; for he longed to draw near the place of his first prosperity, which was not far out of his route; and recollections, before unheeded, now began to gather on his mind. He had exerted himself all day towards the close of his journey, beyond his strength, and the evening had set in with wind and chilling rain; yet the paths already began to grow familiar to him, where he had formerly passed in the pride of affluence. But now, the wretched man was noticed by few, and pitied by none: with a broken heart and withering frame he sought only to find a last quiet refuge. The love of her who had injured him was still the solace and strength of his spirit; and strange! the hope of the future had nothing so sweet as that remembrance. True, she had made him all he was now: and he gazed on his trembling limbs, his poor garments, and thought of the dishevelled hair, turned grey by sorrow, that fell on his sunken cheek, and the tears streamed from his eyes,-yet he should die blessing her and did she stand once more before him, he would have knelt at her feet, and clasped her to his bosom, till death had parted them for ever.

But it began to grow dark, and the way was wild and solitary; and he looked around anxiously for a shelter against the inclemency of the weather. He approached a cottage not far from the road-side, by the inmates of which he was received with kindness, and some simple and substantial refreshment was set before him. On the morrow he set out with a hurried pace, and in a few hours came in view of the house and lands that he had once called his own. He looked around with intense earnestness as he approached it: the garden was almost the same, and the rows of trees still stood there, and shaded the walks he once loved so much to frequent. The mansion was apparently in the possession of another lord, for he heard cheerful voices proceeding from it; and in a far and embowered corner of the garden, preserved just as when he left it, was the tomb of white marble erected to his first wife and her infant child. The sun shone full on it, and he hastened thither, and sat down beside it, and wept bitterly. For then the memory of that first yet buried love of woman, such as it is seldom proved-of Mary, his devoted wife, who died while pouring forth blessings on his head, whose feet would have flown to his side, like a spirit of a better world-came back on the friendless man.

It was at this time that the venerable Wesley was proceeding through Cornwall on one of his occasional and favourite journeys; received with great and undissembled joy wherever he came, and hailed by his followers as if he had been an apostle of old. He was driving rapidly in his carriage one afternoon along the road, when he heard a lamentable and imploring cry from behind. He stopped the carriage, and, gazing out, beheld a poor and emaciated man, with dishevelled hair and tattered garments, who knelt on the ground, and, with clasped hands and look of wild emotion, uttered these sublime words: "My father, my father! the chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof." He recognised in a moment the face of the youth he had once loved; and, springing from the carriage, threw his arms round his neck, and wept like a child, while in broken accents he expressed his sorrow for the condition in which he beheld him. His silver locks fell on the shoulders of the wretched and sorrow-stricken man, as he knelt before him, over whose pale features hope gleamed again, for he knew that he had found a friend who would never forsake him. Wesley raised him from the ground, and made him enter the carriage, and listened with deep attention to the tale of his wayward fate, and strove to comfort and animate him with the prospect of brighter times.

Trelile returned to his native place: his parents were both dead, yet there were several who remembered and behaved kindly to him. He dwelt again in the same cottage; and till the day of his death received a small income, quite sufficient for his wants, from the hand of his benefactor. He lived several years, and appeared by his manners and conversation to possess a resigned and subdued spirit. He quitted no more this humble and quiet sphere, and often passed many of his hours in the solitude of the wild and magnificent shores he had once used to frequent. Here he would indulge without restraint the memory of his ill-fated but indelible career; of the hour when he was rich, and adinired, and blest with a fair and idolizing wife; and then he turned to his humble abode and desolate state, and strove, though with difficulty, to be resigned. But this could not be when the passionate thoughts of his faithless Laura rushed on his mind: then her image pursued him, and he could not fly from it; and, breaking into vain lamentations, he would fix his look on the vessels that swept before the wind past the shores, and long to be transported to the land whither she had fled, that he might see but once more the beautiful cause of his ruin, although she should scorn him. But these were moments when a fevered imagination got the better of his fortitude and resignation; and his aspect in general showed that early and exquisite sorrow had taught him wisdom, and a better and nobler hope.

But his heart was broken, and a few years afterwards he sunk into a premature grave.

THE CITY OF THE DEAD.

No sound comes on the watching ear-
There is a universal hush,

Broke but by marble founts that gush
Untouch'd, unquaff'd, in waste away,
With fall monotonous and drear,

Save when its jaw some beast of prey
Dips in their crystal, or the beak
Of wild bird may their cool wave break.
On battlement, on tower and town,

A chill hue hovers; on the ground
Objects show strangely, while around
A pale and hazy light gleams down,
If it be light, like that the sun

Flings in eclipse when made obscure
By intervening moons, and dun

And sad appears the portraiture
Of earthly things, as if this hour
Some agency of Hell has power.
In every street is solitude—
In every dwelling is decay-
From painted halls the raven rude

Flaps his black wing and cowers away.
Long grass grows tall and tangled where
The streets with feet were lately bare;

And the wolf prowls in chambers bright,
Where time yet treads with traces light,
And bones lie there he long hath clean'd,
Marrowless, scatter'd wild about
In revel of his hungry rout,
On inlaid floors and carpets wove
Of purple grain with gold inveined;
While aside shines the gilt alcove,
Untarnish'd yet, where late men moved,
Revell'd in luxury, danced, or loved;
And even on the damask'd beds,
Where youth and beauty laid their heads.
Upon the tables holding still

Goblet and bowl, lies many a skull
In mimic antic, grinning ill

Near cups its eyes had joy'd at full,
When those black hollows glanced all rife
With the rich revelry of life!

In the closed chambers couches lie,

Where stretches many an atomy,

And garments clothe its whitening bone,

On down that it expired upon.

And there embroider'd coverings hide
Tall fleshless skeletons below,

That thinly through man's last form show.
And upon brows of fester'd pride
Shrunken and dry, in mockery twine
Headtire and flower that beauty's arm
Had placed to captivate or charm,
In locks that were its soft eye's shrine,
Those locks that shrined the cheek and lip
Where once a monarch loved to sip,