been attempered by it. As the minister passes into the church, the bell holds its iron tongue, and all the low murmur of the congregation dies away. The beadle looks up and down the street, and then at my window curtain, where, through the small peep-hole, I half fancy that he has caught my eye. Now, every loiterer has gone in, and the street lies asleep in the quiet sun, while a feeling of loneliness comes over me, and brings also an uneasy sense of neglected privileges and duties. Oh, I ought to have gone to church! The bustle of the rising congregation reaches my ears. They are standing up to pray. Could I bring my heart into unison with those who are praying in yonder church, and lift it heavenward, with a fervour of supplication, but no distinct request, would not that be the safest kind of prayers? Lord, look down upon me in mercy!" With that sentiment gushing from my soul, might Į not leave all the rest to Him?

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Hark! the hymn. This, at least, is a portion of the service which I can understand better than if I sat within the walls, where the full choir, and the massive melody of the organ, would fall with a weight upon me. At this distance, it thrills through my frame, and plays upon my heart-strings, with a pleasure both of the sense and spirit. I know nothing of music, as a science; and the most elaborate harmonies, if they please me, please as simply as a nurse's lullaby. The strain has ceased, but prolongs itself in my mind, with fanciful echoes, till I start from my reverie, and find that the sermon has commenced. It is my misfortune seldom to fructify, in a regular way, by any but printed sermons. The first strong idea which the preacher utters, gives birth to a train of thought, and leads me onward, step by step, quite out of hearing of the good man's voice, unless he be indeed a son of thunder. At my open window, catching now and then a sentence, I am as well situated as at the foot of the pulpit stairs. The broken and scattered fragments of this one discourse will be the texts of many sermons, preached by those colleague pastors-colleagues, but often disputants-my Mind and Heart. The former pretends to be a scholar, and perplexes me with doctrinal points; the latter takes me on the score of feeling; and both, like several other preachers, spend their strength to very little purpose. I, their sole auditor, cannot always understand them.

Suppose that two hours have passed, and behold me still behind my curtain, just before the close of the service. Around the church door, all is solitude, and an impenetrable obscurity,

beyond the threshold. A commotion is heard. The seats are slammed down, and the pew doors thrown back—a multitude of feet are trampling along the unseen aisles-and the congregation bursts suddenly through the portal. Foremost, scampers a rabble of boys, behind whom moves a dense and dark phalanx of grown men, and lastly, a crowd of females, with young children, and a few scattered husbands. The instantaneous outbreak of life into loneliness is one of the pleasantest scenes of the day. Some of the good people are rubbing their eyes, thereby intimating that they have been wrapt, as it were, in a sort of holy trance, by the fervour of their devotion. There is a young man, a third-rate coxcomb, whose first care is always to flourish a white handkerchief, and brush his knees. But, now, with nods and greetings among friends, each matron takes her husband's arm, and paces gravely homeward, while the girls also flutter away, after arranging sunset walks with their favoured bachelors. The Sabbath eve is the eve of love. At length, the whole congregation is dispersed.

All is solitude again. But, hark!-a broken warbling of voices, and now, attuning its grandeur to their sweetness, a stately peal of the organ. Who are the choristers? Let me dream, that the angels, who came down from Heaven, this blessed morn, to blend themselves with the worship of the truly good, are playing and singing their farewell to the earth. the wings of that rich melody, they were borne upward.

On

This, gentle reader, is merely a flight of poetry. A few of the singing men and singing women had lingered behind their fellows, and raised their voices fitfully, and blew a careless note upon the organ. Yet, it lifted my soul higher than all their former strains. They are gone-the sons and daughters of music-and the sexton is just closing the portal. For six days more, there will be no face of man in the pews, and aisles, and galleries, nor a voice in the pulpit, nor music in the choir. Was it worth while to rear this massive edifice to be a desert in the heart of the town, and populous only for a few hours of each seventh day? Oh! but the church is a symbol of religion. May its site be kept holy for ever, a spot of solitude and peace, amid the trouble and vanity of our week-day world! There is a moral, and a religion too, even in the silent walls. And, may the steeple still point heavenward, and be decked with the hallowed sunshine of the Sabbath morn!

LEONE LEONI.

(Continued from Vol. II., page 387.)

THE day after my arrival at Venice, instead of two guests, there were different parties of four or five at each meal. In less than a week our house was thronged with intimate friends. These constant visitors deprived me of many delightful hours, which I could have wished to have spent alone with Leoni, and which I was obliged to share with them. But Leoni seemed so delighted at meeting and making merry with his friends after his long exile, that I felt happy in seeing him amused. The society of these people, it must be owned, was most delightful. They were all young and elegant, lively, witty, agreeable, and amusing. They were almost all, well educated, and highly accomplished. Music and singing occupied our mornings; airings in our gondolas, the afternoon; after dinner we repaired to the theatre, then came supper and play. As I had no inclination to be present at this last amusement, at which immense sums changed hands every night, Leoni allowed me to retire immediately after supper, an indulgence of which I never failed to avail myself. By degrees the number of our acquaintances was increased to such an extent, as to be tiresome and fatiguing; but I did not express any annoyance. Leoni was still enchanted with this dissipated life. All the young dandies at Venice, from every part of the world, frequented our palace, to enjoy the pleasures of the concert, the bottle, and the gaming table. The best opera singers frequently attended our concerts and joined their rich tones to those of Leoni, which in sweetness and expression were not inferior to their own. In spite of the charms of this society, I every day felt more and more a longing for repose. It is true that we still had some few hours of conversation. The crowd of dandies did not come every day, but the privileged visitors who were always welcome to our table amounted to a full dozen. Leoni's attachment to them was so great, that I felt a friendship for them for his sake. few who gave life and motion to the intellectual supremacy over the rest. remarkably clever men, and seemed so Leoni. There was between them that familiarity, that conformity of language and ideas which had struck me the first day I met them. It was a something intangible, a je ne sais

These were the select entire circle by their They were, in truth, many counterparts of

quoi-a subtility-a refinement-which, even the most distinguished amongst the mere visitors, did not possess. Their looks were more penetrating, their replies more prompt, their self-possession more lordly, and their prodigality in better taste. Each one of them possessed a moral ascendancy over some portion of the other visitors: they became their models and instructors in trifles at first, and soon after in matters of greater concern. Leoni was the soul of this entire body, the supreme arbiter of the fashion, pleasure, and expense of this brilliant coterie.

This species of empire was most acceptable to him, and I am not astonished at it. I had seen him reign more publicly at Brussels, and I had shared in the pride and glory of his triumph; but the cottage life had initiated me in a softer, a purer, and more heartfelt species of happiness. I regretted those sweet and peaceful days, and acknowledged as much to Leoni.

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"So do I regret that delicious time," said he, in reply to me, so superior to all the idle glitter of the world; but Providence has not been pleased to change the order of the seasons for us. There is no eternal happiness, as there is no eternal spring. It is a law of nature from which we cannot free ourselves. Rest assured that everything is for the best in this wicked world. There is no more vitality in the affections than there is constancy in prosperity. We must be submissive, we must be pliant. Those flowers you gaze upon, droop, wither, and revive again every year. Like them the heart of man may be renewed when it is conscious of the principle of life; and if it has not been expanded in the sunshine even to breaking. Six months of unalloyed felicity! it was immense space, my dear Juliet; had it continued, we must either have died of a plethora of happiness, or we must have abused it. Fate commanded us to descend from our ethereal mountain tops, and to breathe the denser atmosphere of cities. Let us accept of this necessity, and believe that it is good for us; when the finer weather comes again we shall return to our mountains, we shall repossess ourselves with eagerness of all the good things which we have resigned for a time. We shall be better able to appreciate the value of our former calm seclusion and close communion of heart; and that season of love and bliss, which the winter of suffering would have chilled and blighted, will return more beautiful to our eyes than in the preceding year."

"Oh! yes," said I, as I threw my arms round his neck, JANUARY, 1840.

D

we shall return to Switzerland. How very kind of you to wish it, and promise it. But, Leoni, why cannot we live more quiet together here? We never see each other now but through the fumes of punch; we never converse but in the midst of singing and laughter. Why have we so many friends? Are we not sufficient for each other?"

"My dear Juliet," replied he, "the angels are children, and you are both one and the other; you don't perceive that the power of love is the employment of the noblest faculties of the soul, and that we should be as careful of the faculties as of the pupil of our eye. My dear, you don't know what sort of a thing that heart of yours is. Good-natured, sensible, and confiding, you think that it is an eternal furnace of love: but the sun itself is not eternal. You don't know that the soul is as susceptible of fatigue as the body, and that it must be taken care of in the same way. Leave it all to me, Juliet; rely upon it I shall keep alive the sacred fire in your bosom. It is my interest to husband your affections, and prevent you from squandering them too fast. All women are like you; they are in such a hurry to love, that on a sudden they cease to love altogether, without knowing why."

"This is not the doctrine you taught me in the evening on the mountain. Did you beg of me not to love you too much? Did you believe I was capable of tiring?"

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"No, my love," replied Leoni, kissing my hands, nor do I think so now; but listen to my experience. External circumstances possess an influence over our most secret sentiments, against which the most energetic minds have struggled in vain. In our valley, surrounded by a pure atmosphere, the perfumes and melodies of nature, we could and we should have been all love, all poetry, all enthusiasm; but recollect with what nicety I regulated that enthusiasm so easily lost, and which once lost, can never be recovered.

"The frequent examination of ourselves or of others, is the most dangerous of all researches. Beware of that selfish feeling which is continually urging us to pry into the hearts of those who love us, like the farmer who exhausts his land by too frequently turning it up. It is necessary to be frivolous and insensible at times,-such "changes are only dangerous in the case of weak and lazy spirits. An ardent soul should fly to them as refuge from exhaustion-it is always rich enough a word—a look, is enough to make it bound amid its tempo rary forgetfulness, and to bring if back more loving, and more affectionate to the sense of i passion. Here, as you may