how could he have resisted that caress?—
and then, in a loud husky voice, ordered
the two victims to be enclosed in the central
pillar of the great aisle. They wondered
and murmured,—but they obeyed; and the
shrieks of despair that thrilled at first through
the darkness were soon drowned in the noise
of hammers and chisels and pickaxes. Manoli
looked sternly on until the pale face of his
wife had disappeared; and then he went
apart, and throwing himself on the ground,
spent the night in despair, which no consolation
came to visit.

Shortly afterwards, the church was finished,
and all the country round came to shower
praises on the architect. But some say envy,
and some say injured affection, was on the
watch. The most probable story is that the
father of Uca, a master-workman, silently
excited his comrades against Manoli. One
day he had ascended to the highest tower to
see that all was right, they drew away the
ladder, and called out to him tauntingly to
come down if he could. The unhappy man
shrieked aloud, endeavouring to justify
himself. He had obeyed the orders of Heaven,
given through the anchorite of the cell. They
replied that the anchorite had died the day
before his last visit, and that he had been
deluded by a fiend in human shape. His
despair then became overwhelming. But love
of life is strong. He was a great mechanician,
and endeavoured, they say, to fabricate a pair
of wings, by which he might fly down from that
immense height. He dared not implore the
succour of Heaven, and he leaped with mad
courage. Down he came. The wings, shattered
by the first shock, beat uselessly round him
during that terrible dive. He was seen to
descend like an arrow; and they say that the
earth opened like water to receive him, and
closed again over his head. The legend asserts
that ever since, at the hour of midnight,
a plaintive woman's voice is always heard
murmuring through the church, imploring
Manoli to release her and her child.

The present inhabitant of the ruined Argis
has never heard these words; for he has never
been present at the hour when they are
uttered. But he knows that he can do so
when he will. Meanwhile, he never wakes at
midnight without offering up a prayer for
the soul of poor Uca, and even for that of the
unfortunate Manoli.

               DOUBLE LIFE.

   Man hath two lives; the one of patient toil,
   Of ceaseless travail with the stubborn ground,
   Of battling with the burly sea's turmoil,
   With stubborn metals and the anvil's sound:
   The other is a maze of vision'd things,
   Infinitely fill'd up with shapes ideal;
   Of gentle thoughts or wild imaginings,
   Of shadeless bliss, or terrors grimly real,
   And all the winged spirit may conceive
   Of human happiness or heavenly wonder.
   O, blest is he who best can interweave
   This earthly toil with images sublime;
   And dwell mid common things such glories under!
   Most hapless he who wracks his weary time
   In each apart, and rends these lives asunder.

THE LAND-SHARK.

IN that wild region of mountains in Van
Dieman's Land, called the Western Tier,
which stretches north and south, over a large
portion of that side of the island, and terminates
only on the western coast, in high black
precipices lashed by the booming billows of
the ocean, two young men were travelling in
the month of May, and lamenting that the
fall of the year was about to put an end to
their delightful wanderings. Through the
long, light summer they had lived the life of
nature and of freedom, which is the heaven of
the hunter: and hunters they were, being
naturalists—hunters of plants and of animals, not
for the mere pleasure of destroying or devouring
them, but to widen the realm, and enrich
the life, of science. The spirit of the chace was
their soul and their life's blood. To pursue
their object over sea, and moor, and mountain;
to seek out, discover, and make prize of
something new and curious, was the dream
of their existence. To rush impetuously
upon some unknown thing, as the hunter
rushes upon his noblest game, and to stand
on mountain peak or in forest glen with
waving caps, and exulting "juchhe!" as they
stood before some beautiful object that never
before gladdened the eye of naturalist, which
yet had never found its name or its place in
the books of the learned,—that was their
glory and their reward. Young as they were,
they had traversed many lands, in the frozen
North, in the flowery South, in the vast
and wonder-fraught realms of America:
they had sailed on the Mississippi, the
Amazon, and the Plate, and revelled in the
exhaustless forests of Brazil. But here, at
the antipodes, a Flora and a Fauna existed,
exhibiting singular laws and modes of being,
hitherto unknown to them. They had visited
every quarter of the island, climbed the
mountains, traced its shores, dived into the densest
obscurity of its forests, and stretched themselves,
when wearied, on the green banks of
its streams, counting up and putting in order
their acquisitions.

From day to day they drove their faithful
packhorse before them, burdened with
bundles of their gatherings and their
supplies, or left him in some luxurious nook,
while they ascended hills, or explored woods.
With the lowering sun they lit their fire at
the foot of some tree or crag, raised a screen
of boughs from the night-dew and the wind,
and over their homely supper sung the songs of
the Fatherland—for they were Teutons—and
slept. From time to time, they found warmest
welcome in country-homes, where manly
men and fair women had brought the refined
tastes and intelligence of European life, to
blend them with the peace and freshness of