shines in terrible relief against the background
of blazing curtains and walls of fire, and as
instantly sinks back into the blazing element.
Behind her is another figure, vainly
endeavouring to aid her,—he perishes also; neither
are ever seen again!

This appalling tragedy horrified even the
perpetrator of the crime. He rushed from the
place; and as he heard the crash of the falling
walls, he closed his ears with his hands, and
darted on faster and faster.

The next day some peasants discovered the
body of a man frozen to death, lying on a heap
of snow,—it was that of the wretched
incendiary. Providence, mindful of his long, of his
cruel imprisonment and sufferings, spared him
the anguish of knowing that the mistress of
the palace he had destroyed, and who perished
in the flames, was his own beloved daughter—
the Serf of Pobereze!

A STROLL BY STARLIGHT.

WE left the Village. On the beaten road
Our steps and voices were the only sound.
The lady Moon was not yet come abroad,—
Our coyly-veiled companion. We found
A footway through the corn; upon the ground
The crake among the holms was occupied;
Rapid of movement, from all points around
Came his rough note whose music is supplied
By iteration while all sounds are hushed beside.

The stars were out, the sky was full of them,
Dotted with worlds. The land was all asleep.
And, like its gentle breath, from stem to stem
Through the dry corn a murmur there would creep,
Murmur of music: as when in the deep
Of the sun-pierced Ægean, with turned ear,
The Nereids might have heard its waters leap
And kiss the dimpled islands, thus, less near,
Fainter, more like a thought, did to our hearts appear,

The midnight melody. Our way then led
Where myriad blades of grass were drinking dew;
Thirsty, to God they looked, by God were fed,
Whose cloudless heaven could their life renew.
A copse beside us on the starry blue
Cut its hard outline. Through the leaves a fire
Shone with enlarging brilliance; red of hue
The large moon rose,—did to a throne aspire
Of dizzy height, and paled in winning her desire.

A change of level, and another scene;
Life, light, and noise. The roaring furnace-blast,
Flame-pointed cones and fields of blighted green!
The vivid fires, dreaming they have surpassed
The stars in brightness, furiously cast
Upward their wild strength to possess the sky;
Break into evanescent stars at last,—
Glitter and fall as fountains. Thus men try,
And thus men try in vain, false gods to deify.

The roar and flame diminish. Busy light
Streams from the casting-house. The liquid ore
Through arch and lancet window, dazzling Night,
Flows in rich rills upon the sanded floor.
Steropos, Arges, Brontes, from the shore
Of Acheron returned, seem glowing here;
Such form the phantom of Hephæstus wore,
Illumined by his forge. Each feature clear,
Men glorified by fire seem demon-births of fear.

But the ray reddens, and the light grows dim.
The cooling iron, counterpaned with sand
By those night servitors, no longer grim
In unaccustomed glow, from the green land
And yonder sky, now ceases to command
Our thoughts to wander. As we backward gaze,
Tho blast renews; with aspiration grand
The flames again soar upward: but we raise
Our glances to God's Lamp, which overawes their blaze.

So forward through the stillness we proceed.
Winding around a hill, the white road leaves
Life, light, and noise behind. We, gladly freed
From human interruption, we, mute thieves,
Pass onward through Night's treasure; each receives
From her rich store his bosom full of wealth,
For secret hoarding. Now an oak-wood weaves
A cloister way to sanctify the stealth
Practised in loving guise, and for the spirit's health.

We climb into the moonlight once again.
A broken rail beside the way doth keep
Neglectful guard above the Vale's domain.
The Vale is in the silence laid asleep,
Not far below. Among her beauties peep
The wakeful stars, and from above her bed
The grey night-veil, wherein to rest so deep
She sank, the Moon hath lifted; yet the thread
Of slumber holds, the dream hath from her face not fled.

Yon meadow track leads by the church; it saves
Ten minutes if we follow it. We laugh
To see our saving lost among the graves.
Deciphering a moonlit Epitaph
We linger, laugh and sigh. All mirth is half
Made up of melancholy. There is pure
Humour in woe. Man's grief is oft the staff
On which his happy thoughts can lean secure;
And he who most enjoys, he too can most endure.

We leave the tombstones, death-like, white, and still,
Fixed in the dim light,—awful, unbeheld.
A squalid village, straggling up a hill
We pass. In passing, one among us yelled,
And from no gallinaceous throat expelled
A crow sonorous. From the near church tower,
Through the cold, voiceless air of night there knell'd
The passing bell of a departed hour:
What sign of budding day? How will the morning flower?

CHIPS.

THERE is a saying that a good workman is
known by his chips. Such a prodigious
accumulation of chips takes place in our
Manufactory, that we infer we must have
some first-rate workmen about us.

There is also a figure of speech, concerning
a chip of the old block. The chips with which
our old block (aged fifteen weeks) is
overwhelmed every week, would make some five-
and-twenty blocks of similar dimensions.

There is a popular simile—an awkward
one in this connexion—founded on the